Naruto Shippuden - part 14

Sakura and Kakashi were starting to get a bit disturbed by the huge grin on Naruto's face as they made their way through the trees. They were well aware that he enjoyed a good fight, but it seemed unnatural to be so happy about the prospect of fighting two S-class missing nin.

Contrary to what they thought, S-class missing nin were the last thing on his mind. Naruto's thoughts were entirely focused on the fact that Xanna had apparently fallen in love with him. He'd thought that the whole training trip was a nothing more than a giant waste of time, but apparently it had done some good. A lot of good actually. He'd been pissed off at the fact that Tsunade had agreed with Jiraiya and made him go, but apparently she had done him a huge favor by accident. He'd have to get her some nice booze for that one.

Honestly, he and Jiraiya hadn't been doing anything that they couldn't have done in Konoha. In fact it would have been more productive to stay in Konoha for training, since it would have provided a stable base of operations. Most of his training during those three years was actually all his doing rather than Jiraiya, but that was fine. He'd been researching several things with Fuinjutsu that the toad sage would no doubt be quite disturbed about.

He knew that it was distinctly possible that he would have to become a missing nin thanks to his goal of becoming powerful enough to equal Xanna, but right now that was neither wise nor practical. If it had been he would have told them to shove their training trip where the sun didn't shine.

He hoped it wouldn't come to that though, seeing as Ayame, Hinata, Tenten, Tsunade and hell even Sakura were a part of Konoha. Most of the rest of the village could go up in flames for all he cared, but he would miss them. But he wasn't enough of an optimist to think that staying would be an option if it was ever discovered that Xanna was the Kyuubi.

Idiot humans and their irrational fears.

That last thought was actually more like something that Xanna would say.

Naruto started grinning again at the thought of her. Life was good right now and the two idiot missing nin who thought that taking him away from his lady was a good idea were going to get their asses kicked.

"Hey, isn't that Temari-san?" Sakura asked, spying the distinctive fan, black battle dress and four pony tails in the distance. "We should take her with us, she'll want to know about her brother."

"Relax brah, I got this." Naruto said enthusiastically, still feeling entirely too happy for the situation.

Sakura developed a tick mark at being called 'brah'. "That better not have been a crack about the size of my breasts." She grumbled and Kakashi kept his amusement firmly hidden.

The Suna kunoichi in question was walking slowly on the path back towards Suna, taking advantage of the fact that she wasn't in a hurry in order to enjoy the trip through the forest.

"Temari!" The shout of her name in a deep, but vaguely familiar voice caused her to turn around.

Just in time to see a flash of black and blond before she was tossed over a man's wide shoulder.

"Got her!" The man carrying her called, much to her alarm. Was she being kidnapped?

"Naruto, you can't just grab her like that!" A protesting female voice said and Temari saw the distinctively pink hair of Sakura, who she had spoken with a few times in the past 3 years. It also revealed that apparently she wasn't being kidnapped, but that it was just Naruto being as crazy as Sakura had always claimed he was.

Temari had been sceptical about it before, considering that this was the man that had done so much to help Gaara, but this firmly erased all doubt.

"Naruto, put me down!" She insisted.

"No can do, we've got a Kazekage to rescue and there's no time to waste with explanations." Naruto said back, not stopping.

"What happened to Gaara?" Temari asked in alarm.

"He's been kidnapped by Akatsuki, Hokage-sama sent us to help retrieve him since we have more experience with Akatsuki." Kakashi explained. "But you really should put her down Naruto, you're making us look like kidnappers."

"Garaa's been taken by Akatsuki?" Temari asked in surprise and horror. She knew that every wasted moment meant that her little brother was closer to death if Akatsuki had him.

"Don't worry sugar panties, we'll get your little brother back." Naruto reassured, firmly placed his hand on her ass and gave it a 'comforting' squeeze, completely ignoring what Kakashi said.

Temari yelped and shouted at the blond from where she was draped over his shoulder. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Your ass is firmer than it used to be, have you been working out?" Naruto asked, not answering her question.

"How the hell would you know that?! You've never touched my ass before!" The Suna kunoichi yelled at him, trying unsuccessfully to wiggle out of his grasp.

"I haven't?" Naruto asked in seeming confusion before shrugging and continuing. "Oh well, I've touched a lot of asses, I must have mixed them up."

"Put. Me. Down." Temari ground out.

Naruto listened this time and set her down on her feet. Temari immediately rounded on him and punched him in the gut. She would have hit him in the face, but he was too big to reach comfortably.

Naruto just grinned down at the infuriated woman, not at all phased by her punch. It would take a lot more than that to hurt him.

Sakura could only sigh and shake her head at her blond teammate. Apparently her memory of just how exasperating he could be had dulled a bit while he was gone, but it sure hadn't taken him long to remind her.

"You said that Gaara has been kidnapped by Akatsuki. Do you know anything else?" Temari asked, her worry returning.

"No, but don't worry, we'll save him." Sakura tried to reassure.

Seeing that the Suna kunoichi was still looking worried, Naruto groped her ass again, causing her to chase after him, intent on clubbing him over the head with her fan.

"I can't believe he's doing that even on a mission this important." Sakura groaned.

"Actually, I think that in this case he's doing it to take Temari's mind off her brother for a while. It seems to be working too." Kakashi observed as the kunoichi in question kept chasing after her fellow blond, directly towards Sunagakure.

"You really think he isn't just being a pervert as usual?" The pinkette asked dryly.

Kakashi shrugged. It could be either one if he was honest.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kakashi, Sakura, Naruto and Chiyo were in a tense standoff with the impassive figure of Uchiha Itachi, his black cloaked form preventing any further pursuit of Gaara until he was defeated.

It had taken entirely too long for Naruto's tastes to get to this point. None of the others had anywhere close to his level of stamina and had needed far more rest than him. Temari had eventually stopped attempting to murder him for the groping, though it had taken quite a while. Then when they finally got to Sunagakure, they had to stand around and wait again to even find out in which direction they needed to go. Fortunately Kankuro had provided that, otherwise this would have been a completely useless trip.

Naruto had been impressed with Sakura's progress as a medic-nin. He knew that it usually took years of training to get even halfway profficient in that particular field. Tsunade must be a slave driver as a teacher.

The little incident with the senile old woman attempting to murder Kakashi because she thought he was his father had been pretty funny. Apparently Kakashi's old man had killed her child and in-law, tough break that.

But returning to the matter at hand, Itachi had apparently showed up to delay them because they still hadn't finished extracting the Ichibi from Gaara, which was both good and bad. Good, because they weren't too late and bad, because Itachi was a grade A badass and might be trouble to deal with. Chiyo seemed to think that Akatsuki was intending to create their own Jinchuuriki, but Naruto doubted that. It was possible of course, but it seemed just a bit strange that a group like them would spring up at just about the same time as Xanna had been sealed. Naruto thought that he might be a bit paranoid for thinking that, but considering what his favorite demoness had told him about the origins of the Bijuu, he felt that he was entitled to a bit of paranoia.

"Naruto-san, Kakashi-san, it has been a long time since we've seen each other." Itachi said in his customary monotone.

"That it has, we were seven years old the last time I saw you." Naruto said back.

"I heard that you killed my little brother." Itachi said, again in monotone.

"Not because I wanted to." Naruto answered with a slight grimace. "The idiot just wouldn't stop attacking me until things got out of hand. He actually called me 'Itachi' once during our fight you know."

The Uchiha said nothing, simply staring into Naruto's blue eyes with his own Sharingan ones.

"Are you upset that I killed him, or are you upset that you didn't get to do it yourself?" Naruto asked.

Itachi didn't visibly react, but he felt a stab of guilt and anger in his heart. Had he gone too far that night? Would Sasuke have been alive if he hadn't used the Tsukuyomi on him? Aside from his own self recrimination, he couldn't help being angry at Naruto. Surely the blond could have disabled Sasuke without killing him?

"You will go no further." Itachi said blandly, ignoring Naruto's question.

"It is fortunate that there are four of us." Chiyo began speaking. "Fighting a Sharingan user alone is often a recipe for disaster, but since we outnumber him, we can attack from multiple directions and prevent him from using his Sharingan against more than one of us. Also, if we get caught in any of his Genjutsu, the others can break it." She finished, recalling the strategy that had long ago been developed for fighting against Uchiha.

"Normally, that would work, but Itachi has the Mangenkyo Sharingan. The Genjutsu cast by the Mangenkyo run their full duration in an instant. The victim will feel the full effects of the illusion, as if 3 three days have passed. Don't look him in the eyes." Kakashi added, remembering far too well what it felt like to be stabbed with a sword for what felt like a small eternity.

Naruto completely ignored the advice of his sensei and stared Itachi dead in the eye. He had nothing to fear from Genjutsu any more, his chakra having condensed to the point that he didn't even need to do anything in order to be immune to Genjutsu. The Tsukuyomi might still be a problem, but until Itachi manifested the Mangenkyo Sharingan, he would be fine.

Reaching inside his coat, Naruto pulled out a pair of black gloves and put them on. The gloves didn't look like anything special, aside from the metal studs on the knuckles. Sakura looked curious about the addition, but didn't question her teammate, knowing that this was hardly the time. Though she was curious as to why he would wear gloves now, when he had never bothered wearing any before.

"It's time for you to come with me, Naruto-san." Itachi said and slowly pointed a finger at the blond.

Naruto raised an eyebrow and chuckled at the Uchiha.

"Did you just try to use a Genjutsu on me Itachi?"

Itachi's brow furrowed slightly in confusion. He had expected that Naruto would have charged at a non-existent shadow clone by now.

"I have as much chakra as the Yonbi, but compressed into a much smaller body. You might as well try to use your Genjutsu against a block of iron." Naruto said tauntingly. Xanna had told him that was the approximate amount of chakra that he had, and he was quite pleased. One of the things that he had been doing on his training trip was to use Fuinjutsu to artificially apply pressure to his chakra coils and force them to expand, just like what had happened when he had unsealed Xanna. It had taken a lot of careful experimentation to figure out how to do it without bursting his coils, not to mention how painful it was, but he felt that the end result was worth it.

Everyone gave him incredulous looks at hearing this, though outwardly Itachi looked as impassive as ever. There have been some shinobi who were said to have Bijuu levels of chakra, but at the very most, perhaps as much as the Ichibi. Hoshigaki Kisame was sometimes called 'The Tailed Beast Without a Tail', but he didn't have even close to the amount of chakra that Naruto had just laid claim to.

Of greater interest to them however was his apparent Genjutsu immunity. That was an enormous tactical advantage against someone like Itachi, who was a well known Genjutsu master.

"In that case...Naruto, do you think you can take him from the front, while the rest of us attack his blind spots?" Kakashi asked.

"No problem." The blond responded, an eager grin already pulling at his lips. "Lets kick this pig!"

Upon saying that, Naruto charged towards the Uchiha, who had been content to let them plan. His job was to delay them after all.

Naruto closed into Taijutsu range, intent on keeping Itachi busy so that the others could attack him freely. He rapidly found out what the difference between a Sharingan master and a novice like Sasuke was however, as Itachi saw through his every move and countered easily.

Before either Kakashi, Sakura or Chiyo could take advantage of Itachi's slight preoccupation, Naruto was kicked in the chest hard and sent flying off past Kakashi. He was far too sturdy to be at all injured by a hit like that, but it got him out of the fight while Itachi rapidly placed Sakura in a Genjutsu and maneuvered so that he could keep both her and Kakashi in sight, ignoring Chiyo for the moment as she seemed to be unsure of how to contribute to the fight.

Chiyo moved towards Sakura to release the Genjutsu while Naruto picked himself up and charged towards the Uchiha again.

Easily perceiving the threat, Itachi speedily weaved through hand seals.

"Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu(Fire Release: Phoenix Fire Technique)!"

Kakashi dodged the torrent of fireballs that Itachi spat out and they continued on towards Naruto.

As Kakashi got into a short Taijutsu engagement with Itachi and locked eyes with him, Itachi attempted to place him in a Genjutsu, only to find it ineffectual.

"Hey Itachi, you know that technique just now?...learned it! Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu(Fire Release: Phoenix Fire Technique)! " Naruto said and thrust his left palm outwards, spewing several fireballs towards the two Sharingan wielders, since he had seen his sensei create a shadow clone while Itachi had momentarily taken his attention away from the silver haired Jounin.

In addition to the fireballs, Naruto also used his wind manipulation to blow a powerful wind in the same direction, making the fireballs larger and hotter. He couldn't use a wind ninjutsu to save his life, due to the fact that he couldn't muster the control for it, but his absurd chakra capacity and density did allow him to saturate the air around him and force it to move. He'd probably used up three times as much chakra as Kakashi had to do that, but to him it was a drop in the bucket.

Itachi's eyes widened in a rare display of shock as he saw his own technique thrown back at him with even greater force, forcing him to swiftly evacuate the area or be torched. Unfortunately this also ruined Kakashi's idea of springing from the ground to attack Itachi from below.

Aside from Itachi, everyone else was also gawking at him, but Naruto paid it no mind, manifesting his chains and sending them to hound the Uchiha. Itachi rapidly felt the pressure of multiple relentless chains chasing him around, their spiked tips seeking to impale him. He didn't dare move towards Naruto, knowing that it would leave him surrounded by chains on all sides and he didn't know if Naruto could spawn more of them.

Left with no choice but to use another technique to force the blond to defend instead of attack, Itachi sped through hand seals again, using a different technique this time.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu(Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)!"

The large fireball roared towards Naruto, ripping apart the ground on the way. The blond didn't try to dodge, but instead raised his right palm. As soon as the fireball came close to his hand, it twisted weirdly and shrunk, seemingly absorbed into Naruto's hand. The blond raised his right hand and closed it into a fist, some smoke from the large fireball curling upwards from it.

"Learned it! Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu(Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)!" The blond said with a grin, pointing his right palm towards Itachi again and created another wind to speed up and empower the fireball that had appeared from his palm without the use of any kind of hand seals.

Itachi could only stare in bafflement as a far more powerful version of his own technique came roaring at him. He tried to dodge, only to discover that his short lack of attention due to confusion had been enough to cost him the battle. Chains had come up from the ground and held his legs firmly in place, preventing any escape. The fireball blasted into him and 'killed' him, ejecting his spirit from the body he was occupying and returning him to his real body.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Itachi's hologram opened it's eyes in the cave where the Ichibi was being extracted, seeing that Kisame had also apparently been defeated a short while ago.

Itachi furrowed his brow slightly as he thought of the battle that he had just lost. He had no idea how it was possible for Naruto to just absorb his technique and learn it as if he had a Sharingan. The mystery of the technique being more powerful was easy enough to figure out, since he could see the chakra saturating the air around Naruto with his Sharingan. He couldn't figure out how the blond had used his own Ninjutsu against him though. He suspected some trickery to it, especially since Naruto had apparently fired both techniques from his palms instead of his mouth, but he couldn't figure out what the trick itself was.

Had that been a real battle, he would have been forced to use Susanoo to protect himself or Amaterasu to overpower it, which meant that Naruto had become a very dangerous man to be capable of forcing him to go that far.

"I guess me and Sasori no Danna will be capturing the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki as well as the Ichibi, yeah!" Deidara said, quite happy about getting one up on Itachi, whom he hated.

"Itachi, what can you tell us about the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki." Sasori asked in Hiruko's gravely voice.

Itachi stayed silent, thinking about what he should say and how much he should reveal. He wasn't going to mention Naruto's strange Ninjutsu absorbing ability, since he didn't know how it worked yet. Aside from that, he didn't really want anyone in Akatsuki killing or capturing Naruto.

"Answer him Itachi." Pain commanded in the distorted voice that the hologram gave him.

"He's the big one with the sharp teeth." Itachi said in monotone, revealing nothing of importance and cut the connection to the Magic Lantern Body technique.

If anyone was going to deal with Uzumaki Naruto, then it was going to be him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back in the clearing where Itachi had recently been defeated, the four of them had just finished figuring out that they hadn't killed Itachi after all, since the corpse belonged to a Sunagakure shinobi.

"Naruto, how in the world did you manage to mimic Itachi's techniques as if you had a Sharingan?" Sakura asked in disbelief and bafflement. "I thought that you couldn't use Ninjutsu, did you learn how to do it during your training trip with Jiraiya?"

Kakashi and Chiyo stayed silent, but were looking at Naruto intently, waiting for his answer.

"Nope, I still can't use Ninjutsu, in fact I can use it even less than before, but I did learn what you just saw during my training trip. Though Jiraiya had nothing to do with it, this is all my doing." Naruto said with a grin, enjoying their bafflement.

"But how could you do what you just did then, especially since you aren't fire natured?" Sakura asked again.

"The exact same way that all the best things in life are done, Fuinjutsu!" The blond said with enthusiasm.

"So you found a way to mimic the Sharingan's copying ability with Fuinjutsu?" Kakashi asked in shock. He had never even imagined that to be possible!

"Nope, but that does sound like an interesting project. I'd need to make a seal array that would deconstruct any Ninjutsu that comes into contact with it and render it down into it's component parts and then find a way to reconstruct it at will..." Naruto trailed off, his mind going off on a tangent that had nothing at all to do with the present situation.

"But if that isn't what you did, then what did you do?" Sakura pressed, her curiosity getting to her.

"Oh, well you see my gloves?" Naruto asked, getting a nod from everyone present. "Well, I've got a linked space-time storage matrix inscribed on the palms, connected to a seal array that responds to the will held in my chakra, allowing me to absorb anything that doesn't have a will of it's own and eject it from my customised pocket dimension matrix. The chakra will component is needed because the matrix is actually multiple pocket dimensions that can each hold exactly one item of any size and it's the only way to make sure that I access the right one. Since the dimensions are in permanent temporal stasis, I can store anything in there, even Ninjutsu and throw it out whenever I need to. Even the momentum of anything I absorb is preserved." Naruto explained, getting dumbstruck looks.

"Kakashi-sensei, can you translate that, because I'm not sure if I understood all of it?" Sakura asked.

"If I'm understanding correctly, then Naruto has basically put seals on his gloves that allow him to absorb and throw out anything, essentially allowing him to use the Ninjutsu of his enemies against them." Kakashi said, feeling fairly certain that he was right.

"Pretty much." Naruto shrugged.

"Though it probably wouldn't work if the Ninjutsu affects a too wide area, or if he's attacked from multiple directions so that he can't point his palms at all the attacks properly." The silver haired Jounin continued, guessing at weaknesses of the gloves.

"Yeah and I can only absorb with one glove at a time or else I risk causing a cascading dimensional collapse in the pocket dimensions and erasing myself and everything around me from existence." Naruto confirmed with a carefree shrug.

It was actually far more complex than that, containing failsafes and safety procedures that dictated that only things of a certain minimum size, mass or chakra quantity were to be absorbed. He'd killed about a thousand clones to figure that one out, because the seals kept absorbing the air molecules and filling up all the pocket dimensions, quickly causing the previously mentioned cascading dimensional collapse.

Sakura, Kakashi and Chiyo took several large steps away from the blonde upon hearing this. They had no idea what 'cascading dimensional collapse' was, but 'erased from existence' was all too clear and not in a comforting way.

"Um, but why would it cause this 'cascading dimensional collapse' if you used both hands to absorb something?" Sakura asked, hoping to get some clarity on the subject, because that might as well have been gibberish to her. Sakura knew that she was very smart, but whatever kind of insanity Naruto had been learning during his training trip went completely over her head.

"Because if I do, then there is a considerable danger of placing two items into the same space at the same time, causing an existential paradox and destabilising the pocket dimension where this happens. Since the pocket dimension is linked to all of the others in the matrix, it would cause a chain reaction and collapse the entire matrix, which would in turn cause a vacuum effect to ripple outwards from my gloves and suck in everything in a small radius until reality stabilised itself." Naruto explained in a matter of fact tone, as if this should have been obvious.

"And you learned all of this on your own, without Jiraiya-sama's help at all?" Kakashi asked, quite stunned that his student had progressed that far with Fuinjutsu.

"Bah, Jiraiya is a total pussy when it comes to space-time Fuinjutsu!" Naruto spat derisively. "All it took was one little accident where I nearly sent him into what may or may not have been some kind of hell dimension and he's too scared to even come near me when I'm working on new things."

They all took another step backwards, just in case.

"But if you were just throwing his own techniques at him, then why did you say that you were learning them and even call out the techniques as if you were using Ninjutsu?" Sakura asked in confusion, deciding that any detailed explanations on the mechanics behind those gloves were better left alone.

"To fuck with Itachi's head." The blond answered with a grin.

Chiyo could only shake her head at everything she'd just heard. Clearly this Uzumaki Naruto was a lunatic, or possibly a mad genius, not that she was all that surprised. She was more than old enough to remember the Uzumaki clan, or as the rest of the shinobi world had called them, 'those crazy fuckers'.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chiyo was deep in thought as the four of them kept advancing towards the place where Gaara was being drained of his Bijuu.

Recently, she had been surprised many times and it was causing her to reevaluate long held beliefs.

When Kankuro had been dying of Sasori's poison and none of Suna's healers were good enough to cure it, she had been certain that the young puppeteer was doomed. She had been sure that Tsunade was perhaps the only medic in the world capable of saving him, which meant that there was no hope for Kankuro. Tsunade as Hokage couldn't leave Konoha and even if she could, why would she come all the way to Suna to heal one of theirs, even if they were allies? Though word had been sent that a team was coming to help them retrieve their Kazekage, she had expected it to be nothing more than nameless and expendable foot soldiers.

Instead, Tsunade had sent her own apprentice and one of her best Jounin, as well as Konoha's Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and son of their Yondaime Hokage. Such a high profile team to be sent was a great shock to the aged puppeteer. That's not how things had been done in her day.

Despite her attack on Kakashi, she felt no ill will towards him. She wasn't foolish enough to blame the son for the deeds of the father. His skill as a tracker and his dog summons had also proven invaluable in finding Gaara.

To Sakura she felt grateful for saving Kankuro, as well as being impressed that one so young was so skilled a healer. The young woman had a bright future ahead of her as a medic if she continued to progress as she had so far.

Uzumaki Naruto had been the most confusing of the lot. His brutish appearance had misled her at first, making her think that he was nothing more than a Taijutsu powerhouse. Once Kankuro had been cured however, he had informed her that it had been him who had fixed Gaara's seal so that the demon could no longer torment him, as well as allowing him to freely speak to his mother's soul. That last part had been quite startling to her, as she had no idea that poor Karura had her soul sealed inside of her son.

That a teenager only recently out of the academy had been able to make such a vast improvement on the seal that she herself used to seal the Ichibi and on short notice if Kankuro was to be believed, was unheard of. And this had been over three years ago.

Hearing of the seals that went into his gloves, she knew that the Uzumaki was a seal master of rare ability. There had been very few seal masters capable of space-time manipulation and all of them had been Kage level shinobi. She wasn't sure if Naruto was at such a level quite yet, but she had no doubt that he would be soon enough, if he wasn't already.

She could only hope that they succeeded in rescuing Gaara. Sunagakure couldn't afford to lose another Kazekage. The loss of the Sandaime had led to war and it had taken them far too long to decide to appoint Gaara as Godaime after Orochimaru's assassination of the Yondaime. They didn't really have any other shinobi in Suna that were powerful enough to be Kazekage.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Kakashi my youthful rival! Hokage-sama has sent us to help you rescue the Kazekage!" Gai called out to the silver haired Jounin as soon as the two teams were within hearing distance of each other.

Everyone else also exchanged short greetings, knowing that they couldn't get into a long reunion right now.

"That's nice Gai." Kakashi answered lackadaisically.

"Gah, even on this hot blooded mission you keep up that cool and hip attitude!" Gai griped.

Kakashi shrugged before getting serious. "Alright, enough playing around. The Kazekage is behind this boulder and we need to get through it. Neji can you see what's behind it?"

Neji activated his Byakugan and peered intently into the cave.

"Is Gaara still alive?" Naruto asked.

"It's hard to see through, so I can't say for certain, but it's not looking good." Neji passed on the grim news. He didn't mention the strange giant statue like thing, since he had absolutely no idea how to describe it.

"We need to get through fast then, if we're lucky we might be able to save him." Sakura said, hoping that the Kazekage wasn't beyond aid.

"Not a problem, no boulder will prevent me from completing my mission!" Gai declared, taking a running start at the boulder.

"Dynamic action!"

Gai's highly dramatic punch did absolutely nothing to the boulder blocking their way.

"If you are quite done making an ass of yourself Gai, we need to remove the barrier first." Naruto said dryly.

"That's a Five Seal Barrier, there will be five four other seals somewhere nearby. We need to remove all of them at once to bring the barrier down." Kakashi said with certainty.

"Kakashi, which one of us here is the seal master?" Naruto asked pointedly.

"You are." The Jounin said sheepishly.

"He's right though Naruto-sensei. I can't think of any other way to bring the barrier down either. It was made specifically to be impossible to remove in any other way after all." Tenten said.

"That's because you're thinking inside the box my foolish young apprentice!" The blond chastised.

"You mean you know how to remove in another way?" She asked with interest.

"Of course! All you need to do is think outside the box." Naruto said and paused. "As your Fuinjutsu master, I hereby forbid you from thinking inside the box anymore. From now on, the only contact that you are allowed to have with the box is to wave at it as it passes you by." He declared.

"That's easier said than done Naruto-sensei..."Tenten said with a sweatdrop forming on her head.

"Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I can take the barrier down from here without a problem." Naruto said and unsealed a Fuinjutsu brush and some ink.

The sight of those items in Naruto's hands caused Kakashi, Sakura and Chiyo to become deeply uncomfortable now that they knew what kind of madness he was prone to doing with them. Tenten however looked highly interested.

Ignoring the unease he was generating in his team, Naruto jumped up on the boulder and started painting seals on the seal tag, adding many black squiggles.

"Can you tell me what I'm doing Tenten? Consider it part of your training." Naruto asked.

Peering closely at the new Fuinjutsu script, The bun haired girl said what she figured that her Fuinjutsu teacher was doing.

"It looks like you're setting up an infinite loop of some sort to cause a build up of chakra."

"Indeed I am. The five seal tags holding up the barrier are linked in a circular manner, giving it a lot of strength, but that can also be turned inward. With no way to relieve the tension, the chakra that I'm pushing into my added seal will keep building pressure until the barrier can't sustain it any longer." Naruto said and jumped off, having finished pushing his chakra into it.

"Since the seal tags are the key points of the barrier, the chakra will burst outward from them, destroying them all simultaneously."

Everyone watched closely as the tag on the boulder began to glow brighter and brighter. "We may want to get a bit further away...I have no idea how violent the reaction is going to be." Naruto admitted and moved off, everyone else rapidly running away from the expected blast zone.

Two minutes later, the seal tag on the boulder fizzled out with a small chakra explosion that was completely eclipsed by the rather large mushroom clouds that exploded upwards from four other locations in the vicinity.

"Huh, looks like some clever bastard placed a pretty powerful trap in the other four areas." The blond commented idly.

"Yosh! Your skill with Fuinjutsu is so great that it exploded with youth!" Lee announced with fire bursting from his eyes.

"Uh...sure Lee." Naruto said as an answer to that.

Not wanting to hear any more speeches about youth, Sakura smashed her fist into boulder, causing it to crumble.

"Nice, I'm gonna have to learn that strength technique." Naruto said with a whistle, much impressed with how strong Sakura was now. He might have been able to demolish that rock with brute force himself, but Sakura was a foot and a half shorter than him and well over a hundred pounds lighter. If he could enhance his strength with chakra like that, then he could only imagine how strong he would be.

"If you can't even use Ninjutsu, then there's no way for you to have enough control to learn Tsunade-shishou's super strength technique." Sakura said dryly.

"I'll do it with Fuinjutsu." Naruto replied blithely.

"You can't do everything with Fuinjutsu Naruto." Sakura said with exasperation.

"Blasphemy! Fuinjutsu is the magical solution to all of life's problems." Naruto insisted. "I bet I could even use it to make instant ramen truly instant. All I'd have to do is set up a temporal distortion field where three minutes would pass in three seconds."

"I am deeply disturbed and terrified that you would even consider tampering with the primal forces of the universe just to cook ramen faster." Kakashi drawled, his mind full of resignation. Once, many years ago, he'd thought that Kushina was bad, but now he knew better. Kushina's Fuinjutsu crazy had been quite tame compared to what he had to deal with now.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As soon as the dust from the boulder cleared, the two teams jumped into the cave and spread out, keeping a wary eye on the two unconcerned looking Akatsuki members.

"Looks like they got through the barrier pretty fast Sasori no Danna." Deidara commented idly, sitting on Garaa's body.

"I wonder how they managed that? It looks like all of them are here, but at least four of them should have been at the other four seal tags." Sasori said in answer.

"Tenten, what do we say when the enemy wants to know how or why we did something?" Naruto asked his apprentice.

Tenten looked extremely reluctant. "Do I have to say it Naruto-sensei?"

"If you do, I'll let you play with the Kusanagi." Naruto bribed.

The weapons enthusiast got starry eyed and took a deep breath before turning towards the two Akatsuki members. "Because fuck you! That's how." She was blushing at her own words, but turned expectant eyes towards Naruto.

"Here you go." Naruto said as he unsealed the Kusanagi and threw it at her, making the girl give out a short squeal at being able to use the legendary weapon.

"How unyouthful!" A scandalised Gai and Lee said.

"This Jinchuuriki is a strange one isn't he Sasori no Danna? Itachi described him perfectly though." Deidara said again, referring to the blond's size and the fangs that were clearly visible when he spoke.

"He has a powerful body and chakra. Once we finish extracting the Kyuubi from him, I will turn him into a puppet and make him a piece of eternal art, along with all the others." Sasori said. He wasn't concerned about the numbers arrayed against them. It would only take one hit from any of his weapons to take them down and with this many, they had less space to dodge.

"You want to turn my body into a puppet?" Naruto asked incredulously.

"Sasori is the only puppeteer to have learned how to turn people into puppets and preserve their chakra." Chiyo informed.

Naruto looked contemplative for a second before asking the hunched figure a question. "Tell me something...when you turn people into puppets, do you remove their genitals?"

Everyone looked at Naruto oddly, not understanding how that was important.

"Of course. I remove all the organs to prevent decay." Sasori confirmed.

Naruto snickered. "Well good luck with that, because I've got a high powered explosive note inscribed on my balls, which will explode if it's ever removed from my chakra network."

There were more incredulous stares towards Naruto, since none of the people present had heard of this little detail yet.

"The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki is insane yeah, but he knows that art is an explosion!" Deidara said with enthusiasm.

"You're a fool Deidara, true art is eternal and everlasting." Sasori argued.

"That's so boring, true art is fleeting, like an explosion." Deidara argued back.

"You're both wrong!"

Everyone turned towards the biggest man in the cave, wondering what he was on about. The whole thing was a bit strange to most of the people in the cave. Weren't they supposed to be fighting?

"The only true art is Fuinjutsu! That's why it's called the art of sealing."

The two Akatsuki members stared at him for a moment, contemplating his words before Sasori spoke again. "I'll concede that Fuinjutsu is closer to being art than Deidara's explosions, but it's not true art, because it is not eternal."

"That's a load of crap Sasori no Danna, there's no way that some squiggles on a piece of paper could ever compare to my artistic explosions!" Deidara protested.

"Your explosions are shit and I'll prove it to you by shoving them so far down your throat that they'll come out of your ass!" Naruto told the other blond loudly.

"My art will blow you away before you get close enough to me try that, yeah! For a moment I thought you might have been a fellow artist Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, but you're just a poseur drawing squiggles and claiming that it's art!" Deidara said angrily, pissed off that someone was insulting his art.

Naruto lowered his head so that his eyes were shadowed and let out an utterly evil chuckle.

"Squiggles you say? We'll see if you still think it's just squiggles when I use those squiggles to throw you into a hell dimension filled with horny demons that like fags such as yourself. We'll see if you still think it's not art when they dry fuck every hole you have until it bleeds and then make new holes and fuck them too until you're nothing more than a lump of blood, piss and cum."

"You're a sick man Naruto." Sakura said with a greenish tinge to her face.

Gai was trying to cover the ears of all his students to protect them from the unyouthful words, but was only really succeeding with Lee.

Kakashi looked highly disturbed, but also resigned.

Chiyo didn't look surprised at all. She knew better than to insult Fuinjutsu when there was an Uzumaki present.

"You've gotten even crazier Naruto-sensei." Tenten said and Neji nodded his agreement. The Hyuuga had thought that Naruto would calm down a bit during his training trip and become more normal, but clearly things went in the exact other direction.

"Sanity is for the weak!" Naruto asserted.

The highly disturbed looking Deidara slowly turned towards his partner and spoke. "Sasori no Danna, is that even possible?"

"I don't know Deidara, but I wouldn't rule it out. Fuinjutsu can do all sorts of strange things."

"The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki is actually kind of scary." The missing nin from Iwa admitted.

Any further conversation was prevented by chains bursting from under the two Akatsuki members, which they barely dodged in time. Since his surprise attack failed, Naruto had the chains wrap around Gaara's body and drag it towards him, ripping a deep but narrow trench into the ground.

Naruto had been very slowly tunneling towards Gaara with his chains, making sure to make as little noise as possible and distracting the two art loons with the conversation. Now that Gaara's body was secure, they could turn their attention to battling the two Akatsuki members.

Sakura moved to check on Gaara and quickly realised that they were too late.

"He's gone." She said regretfully with a shake of her head.

Sensing that the situation was going to turn violent at any moment, Chiyo took the time to reveal the most dangerous aspect of Sasori's fighting style.

"Be careful everyone, Sasori puts a powerful poison on all of his weapons. Even a scratch will be fatal, you must dodge or block everything."

"We know that the other one uses explosive sculptures and he won't be able to use anything too powerful here without collapsing the cave." Kakashi added.

"Don't attempt to engage them in Taijutsu yet, it will make it too easy for one of Sasori's weapons to hit you." Chiyo advised.

Everyone gave a short nod, even the over enthusiastic Gai and Lee being aware that charging into melee against two S-ranked shinobi, one of whom was a poison master would swiftly lead to their demise. Keeping this in mind, Gai, Lee, Neji and Sakura hung back for the moment, intending to wait for an opening when they would be able to contribute.

Kakashi, Naruto, Tenten and Chiyo prepared themselves to start the battle. Chiyo made the first move by drawing out several kunai and having them hover in the air in front of her.

"Sōshūjin(Manipulating Attack Blades)." The kunai flew towards Sasori, but were blocked by his scorpion like tail, the appendage clacking woodenly the whole time. As soon as they were blocked however, they changed direction and flew back towards Sasori, ripping his Akatsuki robe, but doing little else.

Tenten observed the attack with interest, already noting how useful it would be if she was able to manipulate her weapons in mid air like that.

"Looks like that tail might be problematic, but I can take it down for certain." Naruto said confidently and manifested a single chakra chain from his chest, extending it slowly towards the puppet master.

"Be wary of hidden senbon launchers, that outer puppet, Hiruko, had them when I last saw it." Chiyo warned.

"Looks like the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki wants to see who has the better tail Sasori no Danna." Deidara commented. The explosives expert was already kneading some clay in his remaining hand, intending to show off his art.

Without further comment, the chain surged forward, intending to smash into the puppet and destroy it, only to be blocked by the tail. Undeterred, Naruto wrapped his chain around the tail and began to pull on the puppet. It immediately became apparent to Sasori that Naruto could exert much greater force with his chain than he could with his tail.

Not wanting to get drawn into close quarters, Sasori ripped the mask from Hiruko's face and began shooting a rain of senbon needles towards the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, counting on the healing factor that all Jinchuuriki had to keep him alive.

Naruto held out his hand and began absorbing the poisoned senbon into his hand. There were a lot of senbon flying at him and he knew that he probably couldn't absorb them all despite the fact that he had room for several hundred items in there.

Naruto didn't believe that less was more. He believed that more was more and less was less.

Sasori, seeing that Naruto had some kind of impenetrable defense, turned Hiruko's head towards the others, intending to take out the blond's backup and make him easier to capture.

Kakashi, Gai and Chiyo were perfectly capable of dodging the senbon and did so.

Tenten unsealed a large metal wall and hid behind it, Lee, Neji and Sakura swiftly jumping behind it as well.

"Time to appreciate my art, yeah!" Came Deidara's voice as he sent his prepared explosive sculptures at the group of fighters hiding behind the metal wall, the angle allowing him to attack them from the side.

Their eyes widened at seeing the pale spider looking things flying at them, knowing how dangerous they were. They couldn't leave the protection of the wall though, seeing as the barrage of senbon was still going on.

"Hakke Kūshō(Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm)!" Neji used the technique to blow the sculptures back at Deidara, who swiftly dodged, causing them to explode against the wall.

Naruto, deciding that he'd played around enough, sent three more chains surging towards Sasori, who couldn't dodge due to the fact that his tail was still being held. Just before the chains smashed into the puppet and destroyed it, a black blur jumped out of it.

"Looks like the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki destroyed your art, yeah." Deidara snickered at his partner.

"I will rebuild Hiruko after this battle." Sasori answered, his voice suddenly much younger than the deep and gravely one that he'd used while he was inside Hiruko.

"How can you still be so young?" Chiyo asked with wide eyes. "You look the same as you did twenty years ago."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes at that, focusing his Sharingan on the now revealed redhead, looking for any tricks.

"He's turned himself into a puppet somehow." The silver haired Jounin said in realisation. "My Sharingan can't detect any muscle movement in his face at all."

"So you've figured it out? Yes, I've turned myself into my art, becoming eternal." Sasori said in response. "Since you've managed to destroy Hiruko, I will show you my favorite puppet."

Upon saying that, Sasori brought out a storage scroll and unsealed a puppet that caused Chiyo's eyes to widen in recognition and shock.

"That's the Sandaime Kazekage! So it was you who killed him!"

"Yes, it was me. He was a difficult opponent, but ultimately, he fell to my art and became part of it." Sasori confirmed.

"Enough of this!" Naruto said in irritation and sent the chains hurtling towards the Kazekage puppet, intending to smash it, moving forwards himself as well.

Sasori manipulated his puppet away from the advancing Jinchuuriki and decided that he couldn't play around with this one. He'd already showed that he was dangerously powerful and skilled. The mouth of the now puppet Kazekage opened and released a cloud of iron particles, forming it into a shield to block the chains. He had already tried to use the puppet's unique magnetism ability on the chains, but as he had expected, it had no effect since the chains were a chakra construct.

Deidara had attempted to help his partner, but found himself under attack by Kakashi, Gai, Lee and Neji, while Sakura moved to back up Naruto.

"Tenten, seal away your weapons! The Sandaime's Magnet Release will turn them against you!" Chiyo shouted at the weapons user urgently.

Realising the danger, she did as she was told and swiftly sealed away everything, including the borrowed Kusanagi and the metal wall she had deployed earlier, leaving no metal on her for Sasori to manipulate. Since her expertise with weapons was negated utterly, she turned towards Fuinjutsu to contribute and unsealed several scrolls.

Deidara was finding himself hard pressed against the assault of the trio of Taijutsu users and the Sharingan wielding Jounin, especially since the Ichibi Jinchuuriki had taken his left arm off during their battle. They'd been right when they said that he couldn't use his best art in this cave, but that didn't mean that he was helpless. Deidara made several of his smaller sculptures to prevent pursuit and then swiftly created a clay bird to carry him upwards, well away from their reach. They could run up the walls of course, but it would leave them open to his art.

Unfortunately for Deidara, he had forgotten about Tenten while he was being pressed by the others, which was why the web of lightning that rushed at him from her position caught him off guard. The attack was far too widespread to dodge with so little warning, especially in the enclosed cave, so Deidara was hit dead on, his clay bird crumbling harmlessly to dust, sending the bomber plummeting to the ground.

Tenten discarded the now spent scroll, never more glad that Naruto had taken her as a student. If not for him then she would probably have been forced to just sit back and do nothing since pretty much all of her weapons were metal.

Before the twitching blond could even fall to the ground, he felt a multitude of senbon piercing his body and turned his head towards the direction they came from. He saw the menacing fanged grin on his fellow blond's face and his palm pointed right at him, causing him to remember how Sasori's senbon had been absorbed somehow into his palm.

The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki used Sasori's senbon to poison me! He attacked Sasori no Danna so that I would turn my back on him and then attacked me while I was vulnerable.

Deidara knew that he didn't have much time now. Sasori's poison was powerful and he had taken a large dose of it. Soon he would be paralyzed and then knocked unconscious.

"Stop! We're taking him alive if possible." Kakashi ordered, making Gai, Lee and Neji stop and keep a wary eye on the downed missing nin.

"Deidara, you fool, the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki has killed you." Sasori said while manipulating the iron sand to defend him against the assault of the overly strong pink haired girl and her Jinchuuriki partner. He was entirely on the defensive, unable to attack for fear of the chains attacking or the girl smashing the Kazekage puppet. The problem with human puppets was that he didn't have anywhere near as good a control of their chakra as his victims had in life, if he did then he could have killed them already in this enclosed space.

He knew that this was a very bad situation for him. Neither he nor Deidara had managed to cause any kind of damage to their enemies yet and now Deidara had been taken out by a very clever sneak attack from the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. He had no idea how the hulking blond had done it, but he guessed that it must be a Fuinjutsu of some kind. They had badly underestimated the enemy and foolishly dismissed their numbers advantage in the belief that it wouldn't matter.

I know that Sasori no Danna. Deidara thought to himself as he considered his options.

They were few and getting fewer by the second as the poison did it's work. He knew that even his partner didn't have an antidote for his poison, having never seen a need to develop one, so his death was certain. He didn't want to die from poison though. If he was going to die, then he was going to go out with an artistic explosion.

Usually he would have said something about how his art would leave a scar on the earth or something, but he was in far too much pain from the poison right now to talk, so he just silently opened his clothes to leave his chest bare, revealing a stitched up mouth over his heart.

He tried to remove the stitches with a shaky hand, but a kunai pierced his palm and pinned it to the ground. His blurry vision revealed the lazy expression of Hatake Kakashi as the man approached and knocked him out.

Another bastard with a Sharingan dismissing my art! Was Deidara's last angry thought, infuriated beyond words that he was prevented from even dying the way he wanted to.

While this had been going on, Sasori's situation had deteriorated further. He had almost managed to kill the pink haired girl with the hidden blades hidden within the Sandaime's right arm, but his grandmother had been keeping watch and used Hiruko's tail to block him. He had needed to risk the Sandaime to try that and it had nearly caused him to lose his favored puppet, only a swiftly made spike of iron sand forcing the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki to dodge instead of attack. Sasori didn't know why he hadn't simply absorbed the spike like he had the senbon, but he was going to make full use of it.

Unknown to Sasori, Naruto would have absorbed it if he could, but that iron sand stuff was not one large item, but countless tiny particles, which meant that they were too small and too numerous to absorb. He wasn't keen on the idea of overloading the capacity of his space-time storage matrix and getting erased.

Deciding on another gamble, Sasori redirected the iron sand into another shape.

"Satetsu Kaihō(Iron Sand World Method)!"

The many spikes made from the iron sand began to form around Naruto, who was having serious trouble avoiding them. For once, his large size was a hindrance in a fight and he found himself first scratched by the randomly forming spikes and then one of them impaled his side, at which point the iron particles stopped trying to skewer him further. He hadn't wanted to make a shield out of hair, since he suspected that the iron sand could pierce it

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted in worry and ran towards the Kazekage puppet, correctly deducing that if she destroyed it, that the iron sand would become inert.

"Be careful Sakura!" Chiyo and Kakashi, who had just finished securing the other Akatsuki member, yelled at the pink haired girl, fearing that her reckless attack would get her killed.

Sakura didn't listen and instead kept charging at the puppet of the Sandaime Kazekage.

Unfortunately for her, this was exactly what Sasori had hoped for. Just as she reached the puppet, a hidden compartment opened and sprayed a cloud of poison right at her.

Sakura was caught off guard and inhaled some of the poison, but ignored it in favor of smashing the puppet to pieces, causing all of the iron spikes to collapse, including the ones skewering him.

Naruto collapsed to the ground with a groan, in considerable pain from the poison burning through his veins, not to mention the wound in his side. Judging by the way that his chakra was evaporating in an effort to heal it, he knew that the poison must be very powerful. If Xanna had still been sealed inside of him, she could have burned the poison out of him, but his own chakra didn't have the same corrosive quality. The whole thing was made worse by the fact that he still had quite a bit of iron sand inside his wound.

Sasori was quite pleased by this. Losing the Kazekage puppet was unfortunate, but he had taken two of his enemies out of commission, one of which was the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki with his ridiculously irritating and dangerous chains. With those out of the picture, he would no longer be forced on the defensive all the time.

Chiyo swiftly used her chakra strings to pull them away to safety near the cave entrance and the healthy members of the rescue mission moved to protect the two downed members of Team 7, with the exception of Tenten, who was worriedly kneeling at Naruto's side.

Kakashi was terribly worried about his downed students, but knew that the best he could do was protect them. He certainly couldn't afford to turn his back on the likes of Sasori of the Red Sand. Despite his worry, he was incredibly proud of them though. Defeating the puppet of the Sandaime Kazekage was no easy feat, and not something the Kakashi was certain if he could do without using his Mangenkyo Sharingan.

Sakura wasted no time injecting herself and Naruto with two of the three antidotes she had prepared before they left Suna, which at least neutralised the poison and prevented it from affecting them for three minutes. Meanwhile, Tenten brought out the metal wall again, in case Sasori tried to attack them in their vulnerable state.

"Sakura." Naruto said through clenched teeth from his position on the ground, catching her attention. "I still have a lot of iron sand in my wound, you have to cut me open and get it out." He was doing all he could to stall his healing and prevent the wound from closing, but this was the first time that he had to do something like that, so his success was marginal at best. He never thought that he'd ever be in a situation where fast healing would be a bad thing.

Both Sakura and Tenten looked stricken, but they understood the necessity of it. Their faces hardened in determination and Tenten handed Sakura a kunai. The pink haired medic took a deep breath and started cutting her teammate open, causing blood to gush out of the wound again, blood which was full of the black grains of iron sand.

The blond groaned in pain behind his clenched teeth when Sakura shoved her hand inside the wound and used her chakra to attract as much of the iron particles as she could. She had to repeat the action several times before she was confident that most if not all of the iron sand was removed.

Naruto sighed in relief when he felt Sakura using a healing technique on the wound instead of shoving her hand into his body again. He directed his own chakra towards the wound to speed the healing, which caused both Sakura and Tenten to gape at it in shock as the wound rapidly began to close until there was nothing left of it except for the bloodstains. He had never been more glad for his insane chakra capacity, healing that wound had taken enough chakra to kill a Kage twice over.

Just as they were about to rejoin the fight, everyone else jumped behind Tenten's wall, clearly taking cover from something. A moment later, the wall started glowing red hot from an assault of intense flames.

"Sasori giving you trouble?" Naruto asked ironically as he got up into a crouch.

"You could say that." Kakashi said with an eye smile, happy to see that his students were alright.

"He has flames, but they are most unyouthful." Lee said, looking vaguely confused by his own statement.

The sound of flames rushing at the wall stopped soon, much to their relief as they were starting to get worried that the puppeteer was actually going to melt it. Their relief was short lived as a jet of highly pressurised water struck the wall with enough force to cause a dangerously deep dent in the softened wall. The steam engulfing their position was also an unwelcome surprise.

They all quickly backed up further when they heard the metal groaning, clearly nearing it's breaking point. The water pressure and the rapid temperature change was clearly a bit too much for the wall to withstand.

Seeing that they were standing on the water that was gathered at the entrance, Naruto pressed his hand to the water and pushed his chakra into it, completely saturating it and then raising a nearly solid wall of water as a shield.

And none too soon, as Sasori's water jet punctured the steel wall and continued onward to smash into Naruto's water wall, where it was harmlessly absorbed. Unlike most water attacks used by shinobi, Sasori's water jet was propelled by clever machinery instead of chakra, so Naruto didn't have any trouble blocking it and negating it's momentum with his chakra infused water wall.

Once Sasori ran out of water, Naruto let his super dense wall of water collapse and the two sides of the conflict stared at each other assessingly.

The Konoha shinobi plus Chiyo knew that they had the upper hand, but weren't foolish enough to assume bringing Sasori down would be simple.

Sasori himself was confused. How was it possible for the two that he had poisoned earlier to be on their feet? The poison should have paralyzed them by now. He decided to just ask.

"How are you able to stand? My poison should have paralyzed you by now."

Sakura opened her mouth to answer, but then closed it and a smirk spread across her face as she remembered something that Naruto said not very long ago. It wasn't something that she would normally say, but considering that Sasori had nearly killed both her and Naruto, she would make an exception.

"Because fuck you, that's how."

It wasn't visible thanks to the puppet body, but Sasori was irritated by the rude response.

Naruto looked towards his teammate in surprise and then he grinned at her.

"Nice one Sakura." He said approvingly and raised an open palm in her direction. "Up high!"

Sakura looked confused for a second before she guessed what he was getting at and slapped his open palm with her own.

"Down low!" The blond said as he lowered his hand, but kept the palm open.

Sakura tried to slap it again, but Naruto moved it away at the last second. "Too slow!"

The pinkette shot an irritated glare at her teammate but couldn't keep it up when he just kept grinning at her. That he was even willing to play around with her like that was infinitely better than being ignored like she had been most of the time before his training trip.

"This bond between teammates...this is youth!" Gai said at high volume, with tears streaming from his eyes. He was moved!

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

The two green beasts went into a hug, the dreary cave suddenly morphing into a beach sunset, causing the Konoha shinobi to roll their eyes and sigh in exasperation.

Chiyo tried to dispel the disturbing Genjutsu, but it wouldn't budge. The sight of two men in tight green spandex hugging in front of a beach sunset with tears streaming from their eyes, was something she could have done without.

Sasori was glad that he had removed his stomach and entrails decades ago, because he was sure that he would have puked at the sight otherwise. What a disturbingly powerful Genjutsu that was, it made him feel sick even though he didn't have the physical capacity to do so.

"To have forced me to go this far...it seems that Akatsuki has given you too much time to grow stronger Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. Akahigi: Hyakki no Sōen(Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets)!"

The cave was suddenly far more crowded as Sasori's one hundred human puppets were unsealed.

The rescue team quickly readied themselves for battle. Kakashi assessed the situation and quickly snapped out orders.

"Tenten, provide long range support. Sakura, you're the only medic we have capable of curing Sasori's poison, so you can't fight any further. Stay with Tenten and keep the last antidote for yourself. Neji, your Juuken is useless against the puppets, stay with Sakura and Tenten and protect them."

"I can sever Sasori's chakra strings." Neji pointed out.

"That would just leave intact puppets lying around for Sasori to use again, we have to smash them all." Kakashi refuted.

Neji nodded in understanding. They might both be of equal rank, but Kakashi was his superior in both experience and years of service, not to mention that the reasoning made sense.

"The rest of us will destroy this puppet army. Watch each other's backs and don't let yourself be separated, all of these puppets are also poisoned no doubt."

All the Konoha shinobi nodded. They had for the most part already come to this conclusion themselves, but it helped to have everything defined clearly.

While Kakashi was handing out orders, Chiyo brought two sealing scrolls from her sleeves and unsealed the Mother and Father puppets.

"Oh? You brought those two puppets granny?" Sasori said, his voice colored with slight amusement.

"I thought it fitting, since Mother and Father were the first two puppets that you ever made." Chiyo answered.

She was glad that she didn't have to bring out the ten Chikamatsu puppets. It was a technique that she didn't like to use, too much blood having been spilled by it already. She didn't want to kill her grandson, but knew that there was no avoiding it. Sasori had long ago become as empty as the puppets he controlled.

"You think that you can survive this technique? I once used it to conquer an entire nation." The Akatsuki puppeteer said ominously.

"Yeah, but you cut your own balls off so that you could turn yourself into a doll. For that I deduct ten thousand man points! From now on, you shall be known as a Lesser Man!" Naruto declared, pointing a finger at Sasori.

"What does that have to do with the battle?" Chiyo asked in confusion.

"Nothing at all, but I'll be damned if I'm defeated by any man that would even consider castrating himself." The blond answered.

Behind them, Sakura and Tenten sighed in exasperated resignation at Naruto's quirks.

What followed was a somewhat frantic battle, though the conclusion became quickly obvious. Despite the great number of Sasori's puppets, they were neither very skilled nor dangerous individually. The only true danger of the technique was being overwhelmed and poisoned.

Kakashi and Gai worked together flawlessly due to their long, if strange, friendship and kept each other safe while destroying the puppets. Gai used his mastery of Taijutsu and strength to break them, while Kakashi had his Raikiri out and swiftly destroyed any puppet that came near him.

Lee was doing the same thing as his sensei, with Naruto using his chains to make sure that any puppet that attempted to get him from behind was swiftly skewered.

Chiyo was using the Mother and Father puppets with much greater skill than any individual puppet that Sasori had and she had nothing to fear from the poison since she was well removed from the battle.

Tenten was throwing weapons and explosives behind the line of puppets, destroying quite a few, with the occasional puppet that managed to get to her being quickly smashed by Neji or Sakura.

Sasori could easily see that he was not going to be winning this. His enemies were too skilled and covered each other too well. Any single one of them he could have overwhelmed, but together they were far too strong. He and Deidara had been fools to wait for them in this cave where they couldn't escape. Had they fought outside, it would have been a simple matter to use one of Deidara's clay birds and fight them from the air. With the advantage of flight, they could have almost certainly won, but being boxed in like this, where Deidara could only use small explosions and couldn't get high enough to escape their attacks, they were doomed. they had handicapped themselves too badly.

Still, perhaps there was a way to get out of this...

The rescue team had finished destroying the puppet army and only Sasori himself remained.

"You are defeated grandson, surrender." Chiyo said with sadness coloring her tone. She didn't expect him to agree to that.

Sasori didn't respond, but instead prepared the poison soaked cable in his stomach and the fan like blades from his back, silently declaring that the fight wasn't over.

It was rather anti-climatic actually, as Naruto's chains tangled up the fan blades and Chiyo's puppets grabbed the cable, allowing Gai to smash his foot into the puppet and shatter it, leaving pieces of it flying everywhere.

Everyone gave a relieved sigh that it was over and turned to walk out of the cave, collecting the body of Gaara and the knocked out Deidara on the way.

Sasori, his only living part hidden in the chest of another random puppet, waited patiently for them to leave the cave, intending to reassemble himself and make his own way in the world again. Joining Akatsuki had turned out to be a mistake and it had cost him more or less all of his best puppets and a large chunk of his general ones. It would take him years to rebuild what he'd lost here.

His thoughts on the future were cut off when he saw the Hyuuga on the team walk towards him again, Byakugan active. If they could, Sasori's eyes would have widened. The Hyuuga was staring right at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion, his Byakugan no doubt clearly able to see the still active chakra in his heart.

In desperation, Sasori lunged at the Hyuuga with a random katana, intending to kill him before he could reveal the secret of his survival. When they smashed him again, he could hopefully play possum again until they left.

The plan would never come to be, as Neji had been on guard as soon as he saw the active chakra. When Sasori lunged at him, Neji easily slapped the katana aside and slammed a Juuken strike into Sasori's heart, cutting off his control of the puppet he was in and fatally damaging the heart itself.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Chiyo was once again deep in thought as the entire group made their way back towards Sunagakure.

Seeing what her grandson had become and then seeing him die had been difficult, but not as difficult as she had expected. Harder to stomach was the fact that he had taken another Kazekage from Suna for whatever selfish purpose.

Despite his youth and difficult life, Gaara had been a good Kazekage. Not yet as powerful as his predecessors, but wise in his decisions and strong in character. He had won the admiration of the sand shinobi in spite of everything that he had suffered and the dislike everyone had held for him due to being the Ichibi Jinchuuriki.

Chiyo had been aware of Gaara's killings and bloodlust even though she and her brother were for the most part removed from the workings of the village. She had expected that one day Gaara would simply snap and his father would have to kill him. Instead, Konoha's Kyuubi Jinchuuriki had defeated him, fixed his seal and made Gaara see that killing to prove his existence was the wrong path.

Now that she had met him, she could somewhat see why. Uzumaki Naruto had a will and strength in him that was rarely seen in the world.

Her entire life was a series of mistakes and bad decisions. Chiyo had been aware of this long before now, but seeing all of these shinobi from another village coming to save the Kazekage of another village as if he was one of their own brought it into sharp focus. So many wars, battles and dirty, underhanded moves against Konoha and the other villages in an effort to grow in strength and it had done them no real good. But this short cooperation had allowed them to retrieve at least the body of their Kazekage and dispose of two dangerous criminals.

"Set Gaara down here." She told the blond softly. She may not have been able to give Sasori at least one of his parents back, but she could do something right and give Suna back it's Kazekage.

Naruto looked over at her and did as she asked, easily able to tell that the old woman had come to a decision of some sort.

The aged puppeteer placed her hands on Gaara's chest and began to use her reincarnation technique, feeling the massive strain on her chakra network as her life force was used to restore Gaara's life.

Her breathing became labored as the seconds passed and Gaara still didn't stir. It was harder than she expected, but she was certain that she could do it, she still had plenty of chakra left after all.

Her focus was only slightly disturbed when a large hand was placed over both of hers.

"Don't bust a hip there granny, if you need some more chakra I've got plenty to spare."

She nodded without answering and drew on the blond's chakra, instantly feeling just how massive it was. She was connected to the Uzumaki's chakra and life force through her reincarnation technique and it was easy to feel the incredible potency of both. It was making it seem almost easy to bring Gaara back to life.

One thing she could not feel however was the presence of any Bijuu chakra in what was supposed to be the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. She was quite familiar with Bijuu chakra, having sensed and fought the Ichibi before, so the Kyuubi should feel far more powerful even sealed and yet there was nothing.

She put it out of her mind for now, focusing on restoring Gaara.

It didn't take long to bring him back and Naruto removed his hand from Chiyo, making the woman suddenly pant for breath as the loss of her life force became apparent. She still wanted to know why she couldn't feel the Kyuubi though.

"You..." Was all she managed to get out before her vision started to blur.

Naruto seemed to understand though and grinned at her with a nod, confirming her suspicions that the Kyuubi was free for some reason. It didn't really matter she supposed, but the blond was clearly up to something if he was still letting people believe that he was a Jinchuuriki.

Naruto stopped grinning when he saw the old woman's breathing stop. He had seen the knowledge in her eyes that she had somehow sensed the distinct lack of Bijuu. At least that's what he figured she sensed. The shocked, almost scared look could hardly be anything else. It had been a bit reckless of him to help her with Gaara's revival, but he honestly hadn't imagined that Xanna's absence could be sensed like that. Apparently he'd have to be more careful about sharing chakra like that. If Chiyo had survived and decided to tell anyone, it could have caused some unpredictable unpleasantness.

Gaara chose that moment to open his eyes and look around, just in time for a multitude of sand shinobi to find them.

The following ten minutes were a mess of happy exclamations for Gaara's rescue and a mixture of sadness and gratitude for Chiyo's sacrifice.

"I'm so glad you're alright Gaara." Temari said happily, making very sure that she didn't start crying. She was a Jounin of Sunagakure and wouldn't break into waterworks now!

"I told you we'd get him back sugar panties." Came the voice of the man that had irritated her by groping her every time she started worrying for her little brother during their trip to Suna.

"Don't call me that Naruto!" She snapped at him, though she had to struggle to muster any anger since she was just too happy that Gaara was safe.

"You know you like it." The blond said in a highly amused tone and gave her ass another squeeze, just to see if she'd blow up at him in front of all these people.

She did...by punching him ineffectually in the gut again.

"Mother says that she wouldn't object to you dating Naruto." Gaara said to his sister in his usual gravely voice, though it was possible to detect some amusement in it.

The fan wielding kunoichi blushed and sputtered incredulously for a moment before she managed to answer.

"I have no interest in dating this oversized pervert!" She asserted.

It was at this point that a humanoid figure made of sand formed from Gaara's gourd. The sand siblings instantly recognised her as their mother, since she looked exactly as she did in the few photos they had of her.

"Gaara, what are you doing?" Temari asked.

"Mother is doing this. Now that Shukaku is gone, she is capable of controlling the sand in his place." The young Kazekage explained.

The sand version of Karura went towards Naruto and gave him a hug.

"Mother is thanking you for everything that you've done for us Naruto." Gaara explained to the slightly puzzled looking Naruto.

Naruto was guessing that Karura had remained inside Gaara's seal since whatever technique Akatsuki had used to extract the Ichibi must have only targeted Bijuu chakra. He would have needed to release her from the seal manually if Gaara hadn't been resurrected.

The sandy mother was now going around hugging all of the weirded out Konoha shinobi, with Gaara speaking for her as she thanked them for saving her son. When she was done, she moved over to her own children, giving them hugs now that she could.

Naruto wondered how Gaara would handle having a girlfriend with his mother being privy to every single detail of his life. That would have been pretty damn funny to see.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The large group of Konoha shinobi were making good time on their return to Konoha, Naruto carrying the unconscious and poisoned body of Deidara.

They had decided that it was simply safer to leave him poisoned, just in case he tried to escape somehow. They could give him the antidote once he was keeping Ibiki company.

Those plans were derailed when they came across a man in an Akatsuki robe, his face covered by a spiral pattern orange mask, with only one dark eye hole. He was standing on a branch right in front of them, clearly aware of where they were going.

"Hello Konoha shinobi!" He said enthusiastically and waved at them.

They all stopped and scrutinised this new arrival, instantly on alert due to his clothing.

"Who are you?" Kakashi asked.

"Tobi!" The masked man said...enthusiastically. "Tobi is a good boy!"

"What do you want?" The silver haired Jounin demanded.

"Leader said that if Tobi can bring back Deidara-senpai, then Tobi can join Akatsuki!" The now named Tobi said, with far too much enthusiasm. "Tobi will do this, because Tobi is a good boy!"

"Hey Tobi, do you know what else good boys do?" Naruto asked.

"Oooh, Tobi wants to know!" The masked individual all but screamed ecstatically.

"If they want something, then they get naked, down on their knees and lick my ass!" For some reason, Naruto felt like a priest when he said that.

Kakashi, Sakura, Tenten and Neji facepalmed while Gai and Lee muttered something about being unyouthful.

"Eh?" Tobi said in confusion, his arms swinging from his shoulders as if he had no control over them. "So many bad words! Tobi thinks that the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki is a bad boy! Tobi was told not to listen to bad boys!"

"Girls like bad boys more than good boys Tobi, you should come to the dark side, we have women! And cookies, we also have cookies." Naruto said with a deliberately creepy old man voice.

"Tobi likes girls, and cookies!" Tobi exclaimed, waving his arms around like a loon, the sleeves of his Akatsuki robe hanging over his hands and flapping comically. "But...but Tobi is a good boy! Leader said that Tobi had to bring back Deidara-senpai and leader is scary! Tobi will stay a good boy and bring Deidara-senpai back to leader!"

"It won't do you any good anyway, Deidara is poisoned and wont be alive much longer." Sakura said.

"Tobi was told to bring Deidara-senpai back, so Tobi will be a good boy and bring back Deidara-senpai!"

"Well then, I'm going to have to spank you like a little bitch Tobi. It's too bad really, if you had joined me, then together we could have ruled the world!" Naruto said with fake sorrow, dumped Deidara's body and lunged at the masked Akatsuki member.

Tobi dodged the first blow, but got hit on the second, flying away towards the ground.

Naruto frowned even as he jumped down on the ground. This Tobi character had flown away as if hit, but Naruto hadn't felt anything but air even as his fist passed through Tobi's chest.

"Owie! I'm going to tell leader that you hit me!" Tobi 'threatened'.

"You can tell your leader that he can kiss my ass." Naruto retorted.

"Ooh, so mean, Tobi thinks that leader won't like you very much!"

The others had by now surrounded Tobi, who didn't look concerned at the slightest. The resulting melee was more or less just Tobi screwing around, popping out of the ground like a jack in the box and whacking people over the head with a stick and giggling. The few times that they did manage to hit him, the masked nutjob just faked pain while their attacks phased right through him as if he was a ghost.

Eventually Tobi seemed to decide that he had enough fun and grabbed Deidara's body, which had been dumped on the ground unceremoniously.

"Deidara-senpai! You lost your arm! Poor Deidara-senpai!" Tobi wailed melodramatically, shaking the out cold Deidara like a rag doll.

A chain speared through Tobi's intangible body, intending to kill Deidara at least if they couldn't bring him back to Konoha for interrogation. He'd be dead from the poison soon anyway, but there was no point taking chances.

To Naruto's surprise, the chain passed through Deidara as well, clearly showing that Tobi could pass his intangibility on to anything he touched.

"Buh bye Konoha shinobi! It was fun playing with you!" Tobi said and waved his hand at them spastically, sinking into the ground right after and vanishing.

As everyone tried to find Tobi again, Naruto narrowed his eyes in thought. The only thing that he could think of that would allow for intangibility was some kind of space-time technique. The ease and practicality with which Tobi had wielded his technique could only mean that it was a Ninjutsu and not a Fuinjutsu, which was something that he hadn't really believed was possible. Space-time manipulation was an enormously difficult thing and doing it with Ninjutsu was just plain ridiculous, and yet this Tobi character had done it.

If Tobi was as idiotic as he portrayed himself as, then I'm the Raikage. Naruto thought to himself. He didn't believe believe that a fool like that could possibly be capable of space-time manipulation on such a level. It was quite probable however that Tobi was insane, because sanity is for the weak.

It was time to research ways to disable the manipulation of space-time...just in case he ever had to fight that nut, because Naruto couldn't really think of any simple way to take someone like that down.