Naruto Shippuden - part 16

Unknown location.

The remaining members of Akatsuki were once again gathered together to discuss their future goals. Pain had deemed it necessary call a full meeting once more, due to a few slight objective changes.

"With Deidara and Sasori dead, along with other developments, we need to make some adjustments to the plan." Pain spoke, bringing everyone's attention to him.

Though 'Tobi' had retrieved Deidara, the explosives expert had still been poisoned and none of them were skilled enough with medical Ninjutsu to cure him of it, not to mention that the poisoning had been in an advanced stage already.

Deidara's death wasn't actually that great a loss. Aside from his ability to fly, which allowed him to cover vast distances with great speed, he was more or less just a grunt...in other words, dumb muscle.

The retrieval had been more about the Akatsuki ring than Deidara's life in all honesty.

Sasori's loss had been a much more severe blow. Aside from being very skilled and intelligent, the puppeteer had also established a wide ranging spy network across the elemental nations. Zetsu was the uncontested best spy in existence, but the amount of information gained by having agents planted everywhere was considerable.

"Hidan and Kakuzu will go after the Nibi in Kumo."

"Nii Yugito has a high bounty on her, I'll collect on it after we seal the Nibi." Kakuzu said in approval, mostly to himself.

"Fucking heathen, the only thing you care about is money." Hidan scoffed in disdain.

"It's better than your religion, money is at least useful." Kakuzu retorted with equal disdain.

"Enough." Pain declared. The command in his distorted voice was clear and nobody dared disobey. Hidan had only needed one demonstration of soul removal to convince him that his immortality could be worked around and Kakuzu had quickly seen that his many destructive Ninjutsu were worse than useless against the Preta Path. Both were pretty much press ganged into the service of Akatsuki, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

They didn't really mind too much, since one got to collect high bounties and the other got to sacrifice people to Jashin on a regular basis.

"We have lost track of the Sanbi, so Zetsu will search the coastlines of Water Country where it was last seen, Tobi will help him."

"Ooh, Tobi gets to help mister Zetsu on his mission! Tobi is so excited!" Tobi exclaimed, but was for the most part ignored completely, only Kisame giving a small, amused smirk at the masked man-child.

"Itachi and Kisame will remain inactive for now. We will gather again once the Nibi is due for extraction."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Xanna lay awake on Naruto's chest, her tails out and swishing through the air lazily. She enjoyed having her tails out like this, it somehow felt much better than keeping them hidden, but often there was no other choice. They were quite simply, in a damn inconvenient spot if she wanted to sit down, or lie on her back for that matter. In a fox body it wouldn't have been an issue, but a human body was structured a bit differently. She had been rather amused by the human habit of using their butts for sitting down at first, until she decided to make a human form body one day and discovered that it really was the only way to get comfortable without lying down. It had been an even stranger experience to get used to lying on her back.

She observed her sleeping lover and mused that it still felt strange to think of him as such. Naruto had truly surprised her with his endless persistence. She had never expected him to actually succeed at getting her to love him, hadn't truly believed herself capable of it the emotion to be honest and yet this stupidly stubborn man had drawn it out of her.

The demoness was well aware that there was something not quite right with the blond. Humans simply didn't work that way, they weren't supposed to be so single minded. It was no longer quite so obvious, but in his younger years, Naruto had been so obsessive that he didn't even care if he drove himself into the grave trying win her over. Once she had been freed from the seal, he had slowly gotten better until he could almost pass for normal, only his overpowering drive to get stronger, fearlessness and eccentric behavior hinted at the fact that he was not quite sane by human reckoning. Though she supposed that having her in his head for fifteen years, whispering into his mind since before he even knew she was there would have left him somewhat unhinged no matter what.

Well no matter, she prefered him this way over 'normal' anyway. Normal was boring.

It wasn't that she had done anything particularly malicious, considering that he had been just an innocent boy and a rather cute one at that, but having a demon acting as an 'inner voice' was guaranteed to leave you a bit different from other humans, though Naruto had been affected more than most due to his harsh early years.

Still, it had worked out in a way that she was certainly not complaining about. Having someone to love and be loved by was a new experience for the ancient demoness, one that left her feeling far more mellow that she had ever been. She had never imagined that just watching him sleep and wanting him to be happy would be enough to evoke a feeling of such contentment in her.

Naruto muttered something unintelligible in his sleep and the fingers on his left hand twitched slightly on her hip, making her grin at him in fond amusement. He looked kind of ridiculous with his mouth slightly open and his hair flattened to the side of his head.

She looked down at his flaccid manhood and slowly slid down towards it, until her face was right next to it. Oral sex was something that she hadn't performed before, finding the act far too submissive, but she had seen it done. The demoness found herself wanting to try it now as a way to wake up her blond lover. She was quite sure that he would enjoy it.

She hadn't been able to figure out how Naruto could so easily get on his knees and use his mouth to pleasure her before, unable to understand how he could so easily discard his pride to do so. She could understand now that it wasn't about submission but a desire to give pleasure to your lover, which was what she was feeling now.

She gripped his manhood gently in her hand and lifted it, running her tongue slowly along his testicles, lips twitching in amusement at the thought of the explosive seal on them. That one always tickled her morbid sense of humor.

Naruto tossed his head slightly and muttered something again, but didn't wake up yet.

Trailing her tongue up his shaft, she could feel it getting larger as the blood flowed into it even while Naruto was asleep. Placing her lips on the head, the demoness slowly opened her mouth and took him inside, being mindful of her sharp teeth.

The sleeping blond was getting more animated now, clearly being brought out of whatever dream he was having by the sensations that his body was experiencing.

Her mouth slid the rest of the way down his shaft until her nose was pressed into the blond curls at the base, where she inhaled the musky scent of him. The feeling of him slowly getting more and more engorged in her mouth and pushing down into her throat was a bit odd but not unpleasant.

Not needing to eat meant that she had no gag reflex to work against this. Indeed, she could even stop breathing without any ill effect.

Her first few attempts at pretending to be human(mostly because she'd been bored at the time, there was only so much you could do as a gigantic nine tailed fox after all), had ended in failure because she'd forgotten to breathe like a human at inappropriate times. It was instinctual now, but at the beginning, she had been used to taking breaths more suited to the body of a giant demonic fox and sometimes she had stopped breathing altogether. It had been a bit funny when some dorky looking girl had asked if she was a vampire and if she could turn her, but not very conductive for fitting in.

Naruto woke up to the feeling of something incredibly pleasant happening to his nether regions and turned to look.

Finding the woman he loved with her mouth wrapped around his shaft, her beautiful slitted red eyes looking up at him, rear end raised in the air, all nine tails waving around, had to be just about the most arousing and erotic sight he had ever seen.

He let out a groan as he became fully erect and felt the walls of her throat squeezing him as she took him all the way into her mouth without the slightest bit of trouble. He put one hand on the top of her head, but she grabbed it and set it down on the bed and patted it, clearly telling him not to move them.

Getting the hint, Naruto kept his hands at his sides, though not without clenching the sheets tightly as she slowly worked his shaft all the way down before moving upwards again until only the head was left in her mouth. Seeing her throat bulging every time that she took him into her mouth was another sight that caused him to rapidly feel an increase in pressure that signified his approaching orgasm.

His breathing deepened and he tried to warn her, but had his voice stolen by a groan when she took him all the way down again and swallowed the excess saliva that had been generated by her actions thus far, causing her throat to constrict and pull on his shaft in an incredibly pleasant way.

Xanna paused in her actions for a moment, gave him a speculative look and then swallowed again, ripping another groan out of him and bringing him to the very edge of control.

A gleam entered her eyes as she realised that she had just done something that he found extremely enjoyable.

"I'm going to-" He managed to hiss through his teeth, but was cut off as she repeated her swallowing motion, bringing him past the point of no return. His teeth were tightly clenched as he did his best to hold back as long as possible in case she didn't want him releasing down her throat.

Another swallowing motion and he began spurting thickly down her esophagus, his control completely shattered, as he groaned loudly and his hips bucked upwards. She continued to swallow as his orgasm continued, causing him to fill up her stomach with his seed.

When he was done, her tongue flicked out and licked over his testicles again, before she began moving upwards again very slowly, keeping her mouth clenched tightly on him. When she reached the head, her tongue moved over it, licking off the last few drops of his release, finding the taste oddly pleasant. From what she had heard it was supposed to taste very bitter or salty, but apparently her blond lover was better than other men in this as well.

She removed her mouth from him completely and looked at him with a smile.

"Good morning."

Naruto couldn't help but give her a breathless grin in return. "Yeah, it really is."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Shikamaru, Chouji and Ino were sitting on a bench just outside the emergency room in Konoha's hospital, deeply worried about their sensei.

Shikamaru had been the only one of the three who had taken part in the battle against Akatsuki members Hidan and Kakuzu that had ended with a severely injured Asuma, Chouji and Ino's team having arrived just a bit too late. If it hadn't been for the new healing seal tags that were now mandatory for all Konoha shinobi to carry, he would have been dead already.

As it was, he still had some burns from his own technique and a severe heart injury from Hidan's bizzare blood binding technique. The healing tags had kept Asuma's heart operational, despite the injury to it and repaired a minimal amount of damage to it.

They had rushed the downed Jounin back to Konoha as fast as possible, constantly keeping seal tags plastered to his chest and someone channeling chakra into them to keep him alive.

All three of them had gained a whole new appreciation and respect for Naruto's mastery of seals, knowing that it was the only thing that had given them even this small hope of having their sensei survive.

Tsunade had been called to take over the treatment as soon as they had barged into the hospital, the other medical ninja there quickly realising that it was beyond their ability to help.

That had been hours ago and they still hadn't heard anything one way or another. That in and of itself was slightly comforting, since they would have been informed already if their sensei had died. A courier had rushed into the room not long after Tsunade had arrived, carrying a box, but that had been the only time the door had opened.

When the Hokage finally stepped out of the room, wiping blood off her hands, all three of them jumped to their feet and stared at her with tense expectation, desperately hoping for good news.

"His heart was too badly damaged to save," She said, causing their hopes to plummet until she continued. "but fortunately we had a heart with the proper blood type available for transplant, so he's going to survive, though he's going to be out of commission for a while."

Shikamaru and Chouji slumped with relief let out a breath they hadn't realised they were holding, while an over enthusiastic Ino ambushed the chesty Hokage with a hug, thanking her fervently.

Asuma-sensei might have irritated her with his slacker attitude, doing nothing but play shogi with Shikamaru or lie on the grass with him all day, but he was still her sensei and she would have been devastated to lose him.

"Now that Asuma is out of danger, I want a report on what happened." Tsunade demanded, bringing them to attention as Shikamaru outlined their battle with Akatsuki.

"I see, so they were too much for your team to handle."

Tsunade had expected as much. Asuma was a powerful Jounin, but S-rank he was not. Shikamaru, Kotetsu and Izumo, who had been on his team were considerably weaker than him. They weren't even supposed to have been fighting the two Akatsuki members, but it had been just their bad luck that one of the two Akatsuki members was a bounty hunter and had gone after a friend of Asuma. It was even further bad luck that the two of them had apparently been in no hurry, which had allowed Asuma's team to catch up to them instead of just investigating as they were supposed to.

"Hokage-sama, are you going to send anyone after them?" Shikamaru asked.

Tsunade gave a slow nod and answered. "Naruto has requested that he be sent after any Akatsuki members that we catch wind of, so I'm going to send him, as well as a team to back him up."

"I request to be part of the team, I've seen them fight and I believe I can offer some insight in the battle." Shikamaru asked firmly. The wait and a meal had replenished most of his chakra already and he wanted another crack at the two who had nearly killed his sensei.

"We'd like to join as well." Chouji and Ino added after looking at each other.

Tsunade looked them over critically, clearly seeing that their main reason for this had nothing to do with having experience or being able to offer insight about the enemy. Still, these three had years of experience working together and they were motivated, even if the motivation was a bit ill conceived. Ino didn't have a whole lot of combat ability, so Tsunade was loathe to send her into battle against two S-rank shinobi, but she did have medical training, so she could play the support role.

She was still unsure if sending Naruto against them was wise, but if he had enough backup, then it should work out fine, just like it had worked out against Sasori and Deidara. Additionally, Shikamaru did in fact have some experience and insight into this Hidan and Kakuzu and his shadow techniques were a powerful area denial and capture ability.

"Fine." Tsunade agreed and gave out orders. "Shikamaru, find Sakura, she's somewhere in the hospital right now. Chouji, go get Kakashi, you'll need his ability as a tracker, he's probably at the memorial stone. Ino, call Naruto, he's at home. And hurry it up, we don't want them escaping."

Tsunade figured that should be plenty enough people to take down the two Akatsuki members. It might even be overkill depending on how strong Naruto was, but overkill was better than overestimating his power and having him captured.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ino rushed up to Naruto's door and started banging on it rapidly. She wanted to take down those guys that had nearly killed Asuma-sensei just as much as her teammates and hours had already passed since the battle. She knew that Kakashi was a good tracker and would be able to find them, provided that it didn't rain or something, but she was still anxious to get started as soon as possible.

When he didn't answer immediately, she just opened the door and barged in impatiently, rushing into the next room.

"Hey Naruto! Tsunade-sama sent...me...to..." She trailed off.

The reason for this was because she came upon the sight of Naruto's naked back and ass, with the dusky skinned legs of what she assumed was his girlfriend, the much talked about Xanna, wrapped around him.

The blond currently had the redheaded woman pressed into the wall and was thrusting into her forcefully, the woman letting out short, cut off moans with every thrust.

Naruto was either ignoring her or hadn't noticed her yet, but the crimson eyed beauty clearly had and was currently smirking at a stunned and redfaced Ino. Before the newly arrived girl could say something and make herself known, Xanna sank her teeth into Naruto's shoulder and claws into his back as the male blond thrust into her a final time and groaned, making her cry out in pleasure as well. A seal faded into visibility on Naruto's back for an instant before vanishing again, the wounds healed by the time it was gone, leaving only a few blood trails.

"We have company beloved." The redhead purred into Naruto's ear once he was done ejaculating, causing her lover let her down and turn his head around.

Ino rapidly averted her eyes as soon as Naruto began turning to face her, not wanting to get another eyeful. She was just a bit too late though, which didn't lessen her embarrassment in the slightest.

"Is there something you wanted Ino?" Naruto asked impatiently. It had been an extremely good morning so far and he wasn't in the mood to have it interrupted.

"Two Akatsuki members have been spotted and Tsunade-sama sent me to get you!" She squeaked out nervously, her eyes flitting over to him from time to time, only to be immediately turned away again in embarrassment.

"Those bastards have really bad timing." Naruto said with a scowl. He might have been eager for a fight with them, but damn it, couldn't they have done this a little bit later?

"Go on Naruto, a fight will get you nice and worked up and we can continue when you get back." Xanna said suggestively, putting her usual yukata back on without bothering to retie it, causing it to hang over her breasts, but leaving her crotch exposed shamelessly.

Naruto developed an excited grin at the prospect and moved towards the bathroom for an extremely fast shower, as well as to get dressed.

Ino was left alone with Xanna, who was even now looking her over.

"So, you are the last of those girls that graduated the academy with Naruto." The redhead spoke casually, slowly walking closer.

"Ah, yes...Yamanaka Ino, nice to meet you Xanna-san." Ino introduced herself with as much composture as she was capable of mustering. Politeness dictated that she look at the person she was speaking to, which let her see Naruto's sperm leaking from the redhead's vaginal opening and trickling down her legs.

Ino quickly turned her head away again, her face burning hotter than a Fire Release technique. She had never imagined that a situation this awkward or embarrassing could possibly exist. It had sounded so funny when Sakura was telling her about this kind of thing happening to her. It wasn't so funny now.

"You've interrupted a very nice morning Ino." Xanna said as she approached the blond teenager, not returning the sentiment about it being nice to meet her and disdaining honorifics. The situation had been nicer before she met the girl.

"Um...sorry?" Ino asked/said uncertainly, inwardly wondering if there was even anything she could possibly say in this situation.

The demoness had reached her by then and pressed her against the wall, grabbing both of Ino's hands with her right and holding them above her head when the blond tried to push her off.

"If you want to apologise, then perhaps you should use that pretty mouth to clean me off instead of forming useless words." The demoness purred, deliberately exposing her fangs.

"What?!" Ino squawked indignantly as she tried to wiggle out of the taller woman's grasp, but found it unbreakable.

"Words are meaningless, if you are truly sorry, then you will act." The redhead answered calmly and used her left hand to grope Ino's right breast, giving the nipple a light pinch.

"I'm not going to...to...do that!" The blond managed to sputter out, trying to squirm away from the groping hand as well as press her legs as far back against the wall as possible, to prevent any of Naruto's sperm from dripping on them.

Xanna noticed Ino taking a look towards her crotch and deliberately misunderstood the meaning.

"Does it interest you?" She asked and wiped a bit of her lover's seed from her leg and held it up to Ino's face. "I found it to be rather pleasing."

The blond quickly shook her head in denial and somehow tried to press herself even further into the wall to get away from the perverted woman molesting her.

"Really?" Xanna asked doubtfully and licked her finger clean. "Let me check to see if you're lying."

Her hand drifted downwards, going under her skirt and was just about to slide over Ino's virgin maidenhood when Naruto's voice interrupted the event.

"Love, what are you doing?" To Ino's immense dismay, he sounded amused more than anything.

"I was just about to see if this one is interested in discovering the taste of your sperm and learning how to perform cunnilingus properly." She replied and let Ino go, the girl immediately jumping away.

Naruto, now fully dressed, looked a bit bemused and asked another question. "What for?"

"She said that she was sorry for interrupting us, so I told her how she could truly apologise."

The big blond nodded as if that made perfect sense to him and then replied. "Ino was only sorry that she had to be the one to interrupt us, she didn't actually care that she did."

"Oh, well I suppose that I molested her for no reason then." Xanna said unrepentantly. She was fully aware of all of this already, but it had been amusing to mess with the girl. She had interrupted an extraordinarily good morning and there had to be some consequences for that.

"Yes, molesting the messenger is usually quite pointless." Naruto agreed with an amused grin. It was probably better than killing the messenger though.

Ino stared at them with her jaw hanging in shock. If she was understanding this correctly, then she'd just been molested because she'd apologised. What kind of messed up logic was that?! She quickly closed her mouth before any further perverted comments could be said because of it.

Xanna scraped her claws over Naruto's chest, almost but not quite hard enough to break the skin. The blond might not be aware of it, but his skin had become a great deal tougher over the years. His harsh training and the dense chakra in his coils enhancing his durability beyond human norm. If she had pressed her claws this hard against a normal human, they would be seriously injured.

"Naruto, when you find them and when you kill them, I want you to do it in the most painful way possible. They deserve it for causing this interruption." The demoness said to Naruto in a loving tone, which severely disturbed Ino. How could you say something like that in a loving tone?

"Of course my love, I'll make them feel all kinds of pain, a whole spectrum of pain...like a rainbow of pain!" Naruto agreed easily. He too, wasn't pleased with the interruption.

Ino was starting to see just how completely bizzare this relationship was. They were talking about painfully killing people in lovey dovey tones. Seriously, what the hell?!

It now made sense why Shikamaru and Chouji had described Xanna as 'a bit of a bitch'. That was honestly far too mild to properly describe the redhead.

"Good." Xanna said and gave him a deep kiss. "But stay away from poetry, you're really bad at it." She said once the kiss was over.

The blond snorted in amusement and shook his head as he turned towards the deeply disturbed and uncomfortable looking Ino.

"Well come on, lets go kill us some Akatsuki."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Danzo was lurking in one of the hidden Root bases hidden in the tunnels under Konoha, waiting for the opportune time to enact his plan to bring the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki under control. That time was close now. Soon the rebellious blond would leave the village on his hunt for the two Akatsuki members that had been sighted nearby.

The Uzumaki was powerful, far too powerful to be threatened into obedience, so another method had to be devised. He cared nothing for rank, status or money, so he could not be bribed. In the end emotions had proven to be his weakness, just as Danzo had always known they were.

Uzumaki Naruto had created bonds to people, and those bonds would now be exploited for the greater good of Konoha.

He was close to several people, any one of which could be used to force the Jinchuuriki's obedience. He would abduct one of them and threaten their life if the Uzumaki did not obey.

His sibling bond to Hyuuga Hinata could not be used because she was a prominent member of a powerful clan. Attempting to use her like that would be backfire horribly.

His teammate Haruno Sakura was Tsunade's apprentice, so he could not approach her either. The weak hearted Tsunade would notice immediately and send out hordes of ANBU, as well as searching personally. It would get him executed to attempt such a thing.

Ichiraku Ayame, the ramen waitress would have been ideal, but she had married into the Inuzuka clan. Her absence, especially since she was pregnant, would be noticed even faster than Haruno's and the Inuzuka would track his agents by scent and then storm his compound in force. It would be a bloodbath.

Tenten was another option, since she was an orphan, but it was still too risky, too high profile. She was a member of one of Konoha's most successful teams. Not to mention that she wouldn't come quietly, which was what he needed for this.

That was the problem with abducting shinobi or kunoichi...they always cause so much noise that someone was bound to notice.

Danzo had nearly lost hope that this method could work when word had reached him that the Uzumaki had formed a lasting relationship with a woman instead of the short flings he had indulged in before.

The bandaged warmonger would have usually been suspicious of the woman's origins as a daughter of Kumogakure shinobi, but apparently she had been here for twenty one years already. If she had intended to do anything, then she would have. The Uzumaki's explanation of her origins had not been deemed secret, so it had spread around, though few were even particularly interested. It vexed Danzo that he had no information on either her or her parents, but it was not surprising. The Yondaime had been extraoridinarily distrustful of the council and the Kyuubi's rampage had caused enough chaos that a great deal had slipped by unnoticed. Indeed, Danzo had been rooting out spies for years after the attack.

This Xanna that was with Uzumaki was perfect for his purposes. The Jinchuuriki had formed a strong bond with her, she was supposed to have only minimal kunoichi training, so she would not be hard to subdue and she was largely unknown to everyone, so her absence would not be noted by anyone of importance before it was too late.

Danzo would send his Root to capture her and when the Jinchuuriki returned from his mission against the two Akatsuki members, he would receive a message that his woman was in Danzo's keeping and that he would follow orders if he wanted her to stay alive.

Once this was done, the Jinchuuriki would be subjected to long term brainwashing of the type that Danzo had perfected long ago. He would slowly be given images of his woman, each one slightly altered until his memory of her would be different than reality.

While this was being done, Danzo intended to find a woman of at least vaguely similar appearance and then surgically alter her to fit Uzumaki's new mental image of Xanna. This woman would eventually be similarly threatened, bribed, coerced or brainwashed into going on an assassination mission to kill Uzumaki Naruto, who would have to kill her in self defense. This along with whatever dehumanizing training he could put the Jinchuuriki through would make certain that Konoha's Kyuubi Jinchuuriki would be an emotionless weapon of unstoppable power to be pointed at the rest of the Elemental Nations. Uzumaki Naruto would become the sword that would cut down Konoha's enemies and make them kneel as the Leaf became an empire. And he, Shimura Danzo, would do this, as soon he disposed of the useless Godaime Hokage and installed himself as Rokudaime.

His spies had informed him that the woman had a bloodline. Not a very strong one, but it was something. She would be used to breed a new clan and her children would become the next generation of tools to make the Roots of Konoha strong.

Danzo knew that he was old and may not have time to accomplish all of this. Senju Hashirama's cells would allow him to live longer than he would otherwise, but he was running out of time. He had hoped to train Sai as his successor, but now that was no longer an option. He would either find a new successor, or one of her children would be used for the purpose.

"Fū, gather a team of three shinobi and go to the residence of Uzumaki Naruto. You are bring the woman called Xanna to me. All the relevant mission information is in the mission scroll. Use your Mind Body Switch to take over her body and have her come to the base if she refuses to cooperate." Danzo said to one of his most trusted subordinates.

"Understood Danzo-sama." Fū replied emotionlessly from his kneeling position. He would execute his orders to the letter.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Xanna was lounging on the very comfortable couch in Naruto's living room. All the windows were open, letting a lovely breeze blow through the apartment constantly. She had her legs sprawled in a most unladylike fashion, particularly liking it when the occasional errant gust of wind blew between them.

Additionally she was indulging in something that had caused Naruto a great deal of amusement when he'd learned that she enjoyed it.

Ice cream.

The ancient demoness was convinced that it was one of the few things that humans had ever done right. The chilled treat came in many flavors and it felt great when it slid down her throat, leaving a cold trail on her insides.

Once, long ago when she had been pretending to be human during one of her bored periods, she had made certain to eat completely ridiculous amounts of ice cream. This was done mostly in front of women who were dieting to stay thin. It had been remarkably funny seeing them fume in jealousy as she ate entire tubs of ice cream day after day, with no change to her perfect figure, while they had to keep careful watch over what they ate.

Naruto made sure to keep plenty of ice cream of various flavors stocked in his freezer at all times. This pleased the redhead. He was such a considerate man.

She brought another large spoonful of delicious, chocolate flavored coldness to her mouth, intending to experience that delightful sensation that humans called 'brain freeze'.

As soon as the feeling abated, four shadows jumped in through the window and surrounded the lounging demoness. She looked them over but didn't bother getting up, instead taking another spoonful of ice cream.

"Xanna-san, Danzo-sama has requested your presence." Fū stated politely, his voice completely empty of emotion.

The demoness looked over at the apparent team leader for a moment before dismissively turning her attention back to the ice cream. "How nice for him."

"Will you cooperate?"

Which should she eat next? The tub of ice cream was divided into sections of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. She liked chocolate the most and strawberry the least, but she didn't want to eat all the chocolate at once. If she did that, then there wouldn't be any left for mixing flavors.

"With what?"

Fū was confused. Didn't he just tell her that? Nonetheless, she hadn't refused, nor was she showing any hostility and there was no harm in telling her again.

"With Danzo-sama's request."

Maybe she could just melt it all into a puddle of ice cream goo and then freeze it again?

"What request would that be?"

Fū was starting to think that this was one of those 'trophy women' that he had heard about on an infiltration mission. He had even been issued one once, when he had been impersonating a rich playboy. That woman had acted similarly.

"The request to go to him."

No, she couldn't melt it like that...there was too much strawberry left. It would overpower the other two flavors.

"The request to go to who?"

"Danzo-sama."

Fū deduced that the woman was of low intelligence. This was good, as it would make getting her to Danzo-sama easier. If she turned out to be hostile, it was better to have an enemy of low intelligence. A smart enemy was a dangerous enemy.

"That depends..." Xanna said to the auburn haired man, finally focusing on him.

"On what?" Fū asked, hoping that they could finally get this mission completed. Danzo-sama hadn't said that it was particularly time sensitive, but sooner was better than later.

"Does he have any chocolate flavored ice cream?" She asked as she stood up and adjusted her clothing.

Fū's eyebrows crinkled in concentration as he tried to remember whether Danzo-sama had any chocolate flavored ice cream or not. It would appear that the woman would come willingly if he did, which would be ideal, so this was in fact a very important question. Unfortunately, he had never seen Danzo-sama with any kind of ice cream.

"I do not believe so."

Xanna sighed in disappointment. "Well in that case, die!"

Before any of them could react, nine fluffy tails had manifested from Xanna's tailbone and speared through the other three Root shinobi in a way that tails weren't supposed to be capable of doing.

Fū found himself looking into the burning crimson eyes of an irritated demoness, his blood suddenly feeling frozen with terror, an emotion that he hadn't felt in decades. He was a chakra sensor and what had slammed into his senses right now was the same as what he had sensed the night of the Kyuubi attack, not to mention that the tails were a bit of a give away. He had no idea how the demon was free or how it had stayed hidden from his senses, but he knew that he would never get the chance to tell anyone about it.

A cruel smirk formed on Xanna's face as she dug her claws slowly into Fū's chest, the man finding his arms and legs immobilised by the very tails that had slain his comrades moments ago.

When her claws had penetrated deep enough that she could curl her hand around his frantically beating heart, the man was already coughing up blood from having his lungs punctured. A sudden feeling of searing heat erupted in his chest and would have made him scream with agony if not for the fact that he could summon no air to do it.

"Agni Schiwatas(Breath of the Fire God)!"

Xanna dropped the corpse of the shinobi who had just had his heart and everything around it incinerated. She really liked that technique. It couldn't even be called a Fire Release Ninjutsu since it operated on a completely different principle. All she really did was compress the chakra in her hand to a degree that even Naruto would find ridiculous and then rapidly grinded two layers of it together. The friction between the two layers would generate an immense heat that would melt pretty much anything she touched. It helped that her chakra was naturally volatile and prone to acting like liquid fire.

"Idiots." She muttered to herself and sat back down in her previous spot. Without emotions these fools weren't even capable of judging when someone was mocking them, much less whether they're dangerous or not unless it was a combat situation. Emotions could get in the way sometimes, but not having them was an even worse handicap, as they were crucial in the decision making process.

It was too bad that Naruto's apartment was littered with so much trash, but he would clean it up when he got home. She certainly wasn't going to do it.

She was a demon, not a housewife. Hear her fucking roar.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Hidan, Kakuzu, why have you disengaged from the sealing?" Pain's distorted voice asked the holograms of the two Akatsuki members in question.

"We've been tracked by Konoha shinobi. I think the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki is one of them." Kakuzu answered.

"Very well, you are to take him alive." Pain reminded to make certain that Hidan wouldn't go overboard. "Kill the others."

"Aw fuck yeah! I'm gonna sacrifice them all to Jashin-sama!" Hidan exclaimed enthusiastically. As far as he was concerned those Konoha shinobi were doing him a serious favor. Fighting and killing them was going to be way more interesting than sitting still for three days until the Nibi was sealed. Fuck, it would probably be even longer now that they were a man down.

"Hidan-san, Kakuzu-san." Itachi spoke quietly, making everyone looked over at him. "Be wary, Uzumaki Naruto is very powerful."

"Of course, he hosts the Kyuubi." Kakuzu nodded in understanding. It made sense that the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki would be the most powerful of the nine.

"Nobody has ever seen him use his Bijuu's chakra. Do not expect him to fight like a Jinchuuriki." Itachi warned and closed his eyes, clearly intending to say no more on the subject.

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes in thought while Hidan just scoffed. The white haired Jashinist was fully confident that his immortality would be enough to overcome anything that could be thrown at him. All he needed was one drop of blood and he could inflict crippling injuries on the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. No amount of power would help him then.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kakuzu and Hidan stood and waited for the Konoha shinobi to approach them. They could have attempted to escape, but neither one was really speed oriented, so they were unlikely to succeed.

Not that they would have either way. Hidan was eager to sacrifice people to Jashin and Kakuzu was certain that at least one high bounty was going to be among the pursuing team. He was actually still upset about the fact that he hadn't been able to collect the bounty on Sarutobi Asuma.

When their pursuers came into view, Kakuzu quickly dismissed the four teenagers as rookies being unworthy of his time. They were clearly still wet behind the ears brats without even a bounty on their heads. Hatake Kakashi, the Copy Ninja, was another story however. His bounty was considerably higher than even the one on Sarutobi.

The towering form of the strangely dressed Kyuubi Jinchuuriki was another object of interest, though this one due to the goals of Akatsuki. Iwa had actually posted a bounty on him as well, though at the moment it was not particularly large. Kakuzu would have preferred to let him work up a larger bounty first before he killed him, but he'd take what he could get.

"So many sacrifices for Jashin-sama, this is going to be fucking great!" Hidan exclaimed, happy that there were so many.

"Shut your mouth freak and listen up while I explain how we're going to do this." Naruto inserted himself into the conversation, pointing a finger at the silver haired Jashinist.

Hidan looked vaguely affronted and very much pissed off. Everyone else just looked at the blond, wondering what the hell he was up to.

"My minions are going to stand off to the side and observe while I kick both of your asses, offering commentary on how amazing I am when appropriate." Naruto declared.

A gust of wind blew through the absolute silence that was left after that declaration.

"Ah...Naruto, we're supposed to back you up against them, not to mention that I'm the one in charge here, being a Jounin and all." Kakashi said, starting off a bit uncertainly and finishing with a slight sarcastic tone.

"Silence minion! Naruto-sama is not accepting any complaints at this point in time." Naruto shot back, making everyone sweatdrop, including the two Akatsuki members.

"Is this guy for real?" Kakuzu asked the Konoha shinobi, masking the incredulity in his tone. It suddenly became clear why they hadn't tried an ambush. This insane Jinchuuriki had no doubt insisted on just flat out walking up to them and challenging them to a fight. He'd taken Itachi's words seriously and hadn't expected the Uzumaki to fight like your average Jinchuuriki, but he was obviously not your average shinobi either. He hesitated to even call him a shinobi.

Sakura and Kakashi gave resigned sighs and nodded.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, telling us how things are going to go? I'm gonna sacrifice all of your little buddies to Jashin-sama while Kakuzu takes you down, that's how things are gonna go." Hidan said to the blond, still pissed off about being called a freak.

"I'm the guy who got interrupted during his morning sexathon BECAUSE OF YOU CRISPY FRIED IMBECILES." The blond roared at the zealot.

"I don't fucking care what I interrupted, you're gonna be dead soon anyway, but I'll kill those other guys first."

"Jashin is the faggot god of piss and fail!" Naruto said back to him with an infuriating grin on his face.

"YOU FUCKING HEATHEN, I'LL KILL YOU!" Hidan roared at the blond and rushed at him, swinging his triple bladed scythe madly.

Kakuzu could only shake his head at how quickly the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki had learned to push Hidan's buttons. He wasn't even slightly worried about Hidan actually making good on that threat, Itachi's warning about the Jinchuuriki being very powerful was more than enough to tell him that Hidan wouldn't be kiling him. The enigmatic Uchiha would never have deigned to warn them unless the blond was seriously dangerous.

Naruto kept grinning as the scythe swinging zealot rushed at him. At first glance you'd think that a scythe is a clumsy weapon that wouldn't be much use in a fight, but it was also deceptively dangerous. The forward facing blades were nearly impossible to block without getting injured, which Naruto guessed was the point since Hidan apparently only needed one drop of blood to enact his ritual.

Unfortunately for Hidan, a scythe, a triple bladed one in particular, had one other characteristic. It was terribly easy to get it tangled up in something like say...a chain.

Which is exactly what happened when Naruto dodged to the side and his chains shot out, wrapping around the shaft and the blades. Hidan tried to pull it back, but Naruto grabbed the chains with his hands and yanked the scythe out of his hands easily, the cable that was tied to Hidan unrolling rapidly.

"GIVE THAT BACK YOU FILTHY HEATHEN! THAT SCYTHE IS A HOLY ARTIFACT OF JASHIN-SAMA!" Hidan howled, utterly pissed off and tried to pull his scythe back unsuccessfully, having far less physical strength than the blond.

"Really?" Naruto asked, intrigued. "I don't think Tenten has one of these yet, maybe she'd like it as a birthday present? Or maybe I could use it as a coat hanger?"

Hidan was practically frothing at the mouth at the sacrilege of it all and rushed towards the blond, intending to pummel him with his bare hands. His attack was just as uncoordinated as his scythe swings, nothing more than reckless aggression, so it was beyond easy for Naruto to bury his fist in Hidan's gut, driving all the breath out of him and causing the silver haired fanatic to stumble back.

Before he could recover, Naruto pulled on the cable that was tied to Hidan, pulling the Jashinist towards him and smashed a kick into him, sending him flying back again. The cable unraveled, preventing a repeat of that stunt.

Kakuzu did nothing but watch, rather amused by how badly Hidan was getting his ass handed to him. This was in fact a fairly common theme. Every single damn time that the two of them ran into a strong shinobi or more often, a group of them, Hidan would mouth off about sacrificing them to Jashin before invariably getting the crap kicked out of him and forcing Kakuzu to step in. The only reason that Hidan ever had the upper hand in a fight was because he could afford to focus all his attention on offense and rely on his immortality to get him through any hits he took.

That wasn't to say that Hidan wasn't dangerous, because he was. But he was definitely a cocky idiot who relied on his immortality too much. Quite honestly, if it wasn't for the inability to die and his blood binding ritual, Hidan wouldn't rate any higher than high B-rank as far as danger went, maybe even lower if his buttons were pushed and he went berserk.

"Who let a loser like you join Akatsuki? You're even more of a moron than Deidara and that guy thought that art was an explosion." Naruto mocked.

Hidan got back to his feet, glaring murderously at the blond before turning towards his partner. "Don't just stand there Kakuzu, help me out here!"

"Hold it!" Naruto said before Kakuzu could do anything. "I'll make a deal with you freak. I won't use my chains and if you can manage to land a hit on me, I'll give you the scythe back."

"Deal!" Hidan agreed eagerly, rushing at the blond, bringing out one of his telescopic pikes.

Naruto dumped the scythe behind a nearby boulder and prepared himself for the madman's approach.

As Naruto had suspected, the attack was just as random as before, though it was actually more dangerous than the scythe, but only because the pike could be swung faster. Well, Naruto supposed that the scythe would be more dangerous to just about anyone but him, since he could easily tangle it in his chains at any time. The big weakness on the pike however, was the fact that the only really dangerous part of it was the tip, so Naruto just grabbed it when he got the hang of Hidan's swing patterns, smashed a fist into his nose and then drove the pike into his gut.

While this was happening, Kakuzu was considering the situation. Hidan was obviously too much of a moron to figure out that his opponent was completely out of his league, which meant that he was going to have to do all the heavy lifting as it were. The other Konoha shinobi could prove quite troublesome if left alone. The bounty hunter was fairly sure that he could bring the Jinchuuriki down by blasting Ninjutsu at him, but those Konoha shinobi had to go.

"Katon: Zukkoku(Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work)!"

The powerful fireball exploded close to the spot where the other Konoha shinobi had been standing not long ago. They had fortunately been keeping an eye on Kakuzu in case he decided to join the fight. They had all rapidly run away when they saw the fire technique coming, though it had still knocked them to the ground.

Naruto's head snapped towards the explosion, seeing that Kakuzu had gotten impatient or greedy or whatever and decided to attack the ones that he had designated as being observers only.

"This pissant seems to like the cheap tricks!" The blond yelled at the masked Akatsuki member, who had by now removed his robe. "Let me show you a cheap trick of my own!"

Hidan, who had by now extracted the pike from his gut, was once again rushing at the blond, but Naruto was done playing around. He grabbed the Jashinist's wrist and spun him around, a chain extending from his abdomen, spearing the fanatic through the back and emerging from his chest chest before being lifted into the air, the newly impaled man screaming the whole time.

"Raiton: Gian(Lightning Release: False Darkness)!" Kakuzu fired the spear of lightning towards the blond, intending to take him down quickly. The lightning technique would be painful and debilitating to a powerful enemy, but not fatal.

"Ninpō: Ningen no Tate(Ninja Art: Human Shield)!" Hidan was moved into the path of the lightning bolt and electrocuted rather badly.

"Holy shit that's brutal." Shikamaru muttered to himself, getting nods from those around him. This might be the man that had nearly killed his sensei, but getting impaled and then used as a meat shield had to be just about the most brutal thing he had ever seen done in a fight.

"ARGH! Watch where you're aiming those Kakuzu! AND GET ME OFF THIS CHAIN!" Hidan yelled at his partner.

"You'll be fine." Kakuzu said back casually with a complete lack of concern. "Fuuton: Atsugai (Wind Release: Pressure Damage)!"

Hidan was once more placed into the path of the technique, but this one affected a far too wide area to be blocked with a human meat shield. Still, aside from some seriously powerful wind, the technique itself wasn't particularly damaging.

The other Konoha shinobi were also blown away, but left entirely undamaged.

"Alright, that is it! I am done playing around with you!" Naruto said in irritation and took off his coat and tossed it towards his newly arrived teammate, who had just made it back after being blown away. "Sakura, catch!"

The pink haired medic caught the black coat out of reflex, but scowled at being used as a coat hanger while her teammate did all the fighting.

"Hey, Sakura..." The blond called out again, focusing her attention on himself once more. "You remember when you said that I couldn't copy Tsunade's strength technique with Fuinjutsu?"

Sakura's eyes widened at the implication, which made Naruto grin.

"Tsuyo no Fuin: Hatsudou(Seal of Power: Activate)!"

An intricate webwork of Fuinjutsu script appeared on Naruto's arms, shoulders, spine and legs, though the last was hidden by his pants.

"What's that?" Kakuzu asked in curiousity.

"Fuinjutsu strength enhancement," Naruto said with relish before picking up a nearby boulder af it it was nothing. "HAVE SOME!" He hurled the boulder at immense speed, Kakuzu only barely able to dodge, leaving the improvised projectile to smash a tree behind him into splinters.

Before the masked Akatsuki member could say anything more, a different masked man impaled him from behind with a blade of lightning. Kakashi had stayed hidden after being blown away by the wind and used the distraction provided by Naruto to launch a sneak attack.

"Damnit Kakashi! Didn't I tell you not to get involved?!" Naruto said with a scowl. "I didn't even get to test out my new seal properly."

The masked Jounin eye smiled at his student. "Well, we can't get what we want every time."

"HA! You fuckers think that you've won?!" Hidan ranted, blood still steadily flowing from where he was impaled.

In that instant Kakashi was kicked away by a very much alive Kakuzu, who dusted himself off as if the hole in his chest didn't bother him at all.

"He's still alive?!" Naruto exclaimed in shock before grinning again. "This is great!"

Kakuzu removed his ruined shirt to expose his stitched up chest and the four masks on his back. The masks separated from him, forming bodies out of thick black threads. One of the masks broke immediately, it's newly formed body collapsing.

"It's been a long time since someone managed to destroy one of my hearts." Kakuzu commented idly.

"Hold on a second." Naruto said with a raised finger, making Kakuzu raise an eyebrow.

The blond went to pick up Hidan's scythe, which had somehow managed to get itself lodged between some random debris instead of being blown away by Kakuzu's wind Ninjutsu.

Naruto retracted the chain impaling Hidan, making the Jashinist fall to the ground on his stomach. Before he could get up, Naruto used his much enhanced strength to slam the scythe into him, blades first. The triple bladed weapon was buried so deep into the ground beneath Hidan that the blades weren't even visible.

Leaving the screaming Jashinist pinned to the ground, Naruto turned towards other Akatsuki member, expecting to get a good fight out of this.

"Now we can get on with it. And stay out of it this time Kakashi!"

Kakashi gave an exasperated grunt at the blond's stubbornness, echoed by the other leaf shinobi.

"KAKUZU HELP ME UP DAMN YOU! FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

Kakuzu and Naruto just stared at each other for a moment longer, both ignoring the Jashinist.

"You really think you can take me on?" Kakuzu asked his blond adversary. "I've fought against the Shodai Hokage and you're not anywhere near his level."

Naruto simply grinned back at the man. He didn't care that this guy was apparently older than dirt, all he cared about was the fact that there really was no way for him to lose this fight. Kakuzu couldn't get too rough and he could heal from anything that wasn't fatal.

"It doesn't matter who you've fought before, because this is going to be your last battle."

Naruto rushed towards the masked Akatsuki member, fully intent on getting into a fist fight with him.

"Raiton: Gian(Lightning Release: False Darkness)!"

The lightning spear blasted towards Naruto from the mouth of the lightning mask, but the blond didn't bother dodging, instead just pointing his open palm in the direction of the technique and absorbing it into the seal on his gloves.

Kakuzu's eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he was given no time to think about that the hell just happened as his opponent reached him and swung his fist.

Kakuzu was an old shinobi with decades of experience though and was able to react, using his earth heart to harden his skin. The punch still sent him flying, but he only suffered minor damage. That was alarming in and of itself though, since the composition of his body and the protective abilities of his earth heart meant that he was supposed to be immune to physical attacks. Either way it was time to stop playing around.

The wind mask opened it's mouth and started spewing compressed balls of air at a rapid rate. Naruto took several direct hits and got blasted backwards from the force of it.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted in worry, making towards her teammate.

Before she could take more than a few steps though, the blond in question got up, looking entirely undamaged aside from from a small trail of blood coming out the side of his mouth. There were a few seals on his chest, giving off a green light as bruises rapidly faded out of existence and then the seals vanished as well.

"That almost hurt." He said to the masked Akatsuki member with a vicious grin.

Kakuzu frowned slightly. This was not going at all the way that he'd expected it to. Those compressed air blasts were strong enough to shatter stone and yet the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki had gotten up as if they were nothing. And the rapid healing ability that he had displayed was worrying. Combine this with the fact that he still didn't know what exactly had happened to his lightning technique and it was painting a very troubling picture. Apparently the only reason that he hadn't used those chains against him so far had been because he wanted to test out his strength enhancing seal.

The bounty hunter might like to say that he had fought against Senju Hashirama, but quite honestly that fight had been almost entirely one sided. The overpowered goofball of a Hokage had easily overwhelmed him with his powerful Mokuton techniques and even taken it easy on him. For Kakuzu, it had been a bitter struggle. For the Shodai, it had been light exercise. The one and only injury that he had managed to inflict on the Senju clan head had healed over so rapidly that it was ridiculous. He'd been forced to flee after that, as the Shodai had gotten slightly serious.

He was smart enough to easily deduce that with the Jinchuuriki's healing ability, he truly would be unable to win, not to mention the fact that he was outnumbered, though they seemed to be keeping their distance for now.

He couldn't risk fighting alone anymore. Hidan might be an irritating idiot, but if nothing else, he could be useful as a distraction. Now he just needed to get the overzealous nutcase free. Aside from that, they would probably need to cut the Jinchuuriki's legs off to stop him.

"Katon: Zukkoku(Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work)!"

The fire heart blasted the fireball in the general direction of the blond, but his real target was a bit further behind, the pinned down form of Hidan.

Naruto dodged the fireball and the wide eyed Jashinist could do nothing except stare at the approaching fireball helplessly.

While a screaming Hidan was sent flying, Naruto charged at the bounty hunter again, but this time his chains were advancing towards him as well, forcing the money obsessed man to keep on the move to avoid getting tangled up.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The remaining Konoha shinobi that Tsunade had sent with the intention of backing Naruto up were observing some distance away, feeling just a bit superfluous.

"Shouldn't we help him?" Ino asked uncertainly as Naruto took another air blast to the chest, but kept plowing right through it.

"He seems to have things handled." Kakashi said with a shrug. "He knows that they aren't allowed to kill him and he's taking advantage of it, if we get involved, we're liable to get caught in the crossfire. Just keep an eye out for any sneak attacks."

The others looked dubious, but nodded anyway.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto kept flailing his chains around the battlefield, dodging as many of the compressed bursts of air as he could and even absorbing a few. So far he hadn't thrown any of Kakuzu's Ninjutsu back at him, so the bounty hunter didn't know he could do it.

The blond knew that the fire mask was the greatest danger here. The wind mask didn't seem capable of creating sharp wind Ninjutsu, which meant that it couldn't really hurt him all that badly, his natural durability and healing ability making it more of a minor nuisance. The lightning mask was potentially more dangerous, but so far it had only used only one technique and that one was simple enough to absorb, he'd done it three times so far.

Only a couple of fireballs had been thrown at him by the fire mask so far and both of them had quite clearly not been meant as direct hits. Probably some kind of misguided idea to wear him down by repeateadly injuring him. The small burns had healed near instantly and he still had a great deal of chakra left, so there was no danger of that happening.

Passing by a fallen tree, Naruto sensed an opportunity to finally end this stalemate. He picked up the tree and hurled it towards Kakuzu and then immediately charged towards the fire mask. It was a considerable distance away, so Kakuzu was able to dodge the tree and focus his attention back on the blond long before he reached the mask.

Naruto had predicted this however and sent a rapid stream of the previously absorbed wind blasts at the bounty hunter, shocking him badly enough that he got hit by one and knocked to the ground. That proved to be plenty of time to close the distance with the fire mask and blast one of Kakuzu's lightning spears into it, destroying it.

Kakuzu was now in full retreat, backpedaling rapidly. If he was still capable of it, he would have been sweating. In spite of Itachi's warning he had underestimated the Jinchuuriki. The blond was completely relentless and seemingly tireless. He ignored the injuries inflicted on him as if they were nothing and just kept charging. Kakuzu had been banking on his ability to escape the chains and attack from multiple direction to keep the Uzumaki busy until Hidan showed up. And where the hell was Hidan anyway? If this kept up for much longer, he would lose another heart. Being reduced to three, one of which was purely defensive was really bad, especially because of the fact that the blond had been clever enough to take out the only mask that had been giving him any real trouble.

What he needed was some distance, the Jinchuuriki was simply too dangerous in close quarters.

"Fuuton: Atsugai (Wind Release: Pressure Damage)!"

The ferocious wind blew the relentless blond away, much to Kakuzu's relief. In some ways, this was worse than fighting the Shodai. That man had been much more powerful, but he had also been a happy go lucky goof that never killed if he could avoid it. The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki was going right for the jugular from the very start. The ruthless way that he had torn Hidan down and then used him as a shield underlined this quite well.

The much abused area was rendered even more abused by the powerful wind, along with kicking up a lot of dust.

Kakuzu spotted Hidan stealthily taking cover behind a fallen tree, using the dust cloud to remain unnoticed. He looked decidedly like the crispy fried imbecile that the Jinchuuriki had called them before the start of the battle. Still, at least it seemed that the fanatical Jashinist had finally learned that head on attacks just might not work on everyone.

As expected, the blond juggernaut came barreling through the dust cloud again, directly towards Kakuzu. As he rushed past Hidan's hiding spot, the Jashinist swiped his telescopic pike along the blond's side, creating a shallow wound that healed over instantly, but it had been enough for Hidan to get the drop of blood that he needed.

Naruto's rush was stopped by a stabbing pain in his leg, making him crash to one knee because of the sudden feeling. The wound healed over speedily, only to be repeated on his other leg.

Looking behind him, he saw Hidan standing in his ritual circle, looking markedly different with the white markings that looked almost like he had a skeleton painted on his skin.

Then a lightning bolt smacked into his back, giving him a painful electric shock.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Shit, come on, we've gotta help him." Kakashi ordered, berating himself for getting complacent. Hidan had been absent from the fight for so long that they had all but forgotten about him, not to mention just how useless he'd been so far.

Naruto had been pressing both of them much harder than Kakashi had ever expected him to. He should have known better than to think Naruto would be able to handle everything himself though. These two were S-rank criminals for a reason.

Muttering to himself about overconfident students, Kakashi charged to help Naruto, along with Sakura and Team 10.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Naruto grunted as another hole was dug into his stomach, the Mystical Palm seal flaring brightly into life as it boosted his healing and helped seal the wound shut within seconds.

Kakuzu had fortunately been occupied by the others, so he wasn't throwing any more Ninjutsu at him.

Naruto had to admit to himself that he had seriously gotten carried away in this fight. Hidan had been such a wimp that he had all but forgotten about him and it had cost him dearly. He still had aces up his metaphorical sleeves that would have gotten him out of this tight spot(such as his ability to open the gates), but it was damn embarrassing to get caught in that religious idiot's technique like that. He'd just been having so much fun hounding Kakuzu and his freaky mask creatures that he hadn't payed attention to Hidan after the man had gotten hit by that fireball.

Still, now that he wasn't getting electrocuted on a regular basis, Hidan wasn't all that hard to deal with, even with the curse technique connecting them.

"How do you like that huh? You fucking heretic!" Hidan cackled out madly as he stabbed himself in the gut again, an identical wound opening on Naruto's stomach.

"I think I'd like it better if I could take a piss on one of Jashin's altars." Naruto shot back and sent two chains hurtling towards the zealot.

The enraged cultist went to stab himself with his pike again, but got grabbed by the chains and dragged out of his ritual circle before he could.

Now with Hidan safely wrapped up in the chains, with utterly no hope of getting out, Naruto removed the scythe from his back again, much to Hidan's fury.

"DONT TOUCH MY SCYTHE YOU PIECE OF SHIT! A HEATHEN LIKE YOU DOESN'T DESERVE TO HOLD IT!"

Naruto socked him hard in the jaw, breaking it, along with his neck and effectively ending the rant.

Kakuzu, upon seeing that Hidan had apparently been as useless as ever at containing the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, jumped back to give himself some room. His short skirmish with the Konoha shinobi had told him that the only ones who were truly dangerous were Kakashi and the brat with the spiky ponytail who could immobilise him with his shadow, no doubt a Nara.

The blond girl was utterly useless and didn't even have anything strong enough to damage his masks and the lumbering fat kid was easily kept at bay with his Ninjutsu.

The pink haired girl was dangerously strong and had considerable skill at evasion, but could similarly be kept at bay with a liberal application of wide area Ninjutsu.

He lamented the loss of his fire heart though. If he had that, then he could have torched them all with a combination Ninjutsu.

But a new and rather unfamiliar danger was starting to rear it's head. He was starting to run out of chakra, something that hadn't happened in decades. By stealing the hearts of other shinobi, he also stole their chakra capacity, which is what allowed him to keep up the assault of high powered Ninjutsu, but this battle had forced him to use far more than he'd ever needed.

"The Shodai Hokage once said..." Naruto began to speak in solemn tones bringing everyone's attention to himself."...if a man hits you on the right cheek..." He made the chains holding Hidan longer so that they pooled on the floor and then grabbed the Jashinist by his wrist.

"...GIVE HIM A PILE DRIVER ON THE LEFT!" The blond bellowed at the top of his lungs and slammed his captive into the ground harshly, cracking it and leaving a Hidan-shaped imprint. Without pausing, he yanked the cultist out of the ground and hurled him into the distance, his screams getting ever more distant until they faded. With the insane religious nutcase disposed off, Naruto retracted his chains, which had released Hidan so that he didn't get pulled along for the ride.

"The Shodai never said that..." Kakashi said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, wondering just what the hell had turned Naruto so crazy.

"And that wasn't a pile driver either..." Chouji added with a massive sweatdrop.

Sakura simply palmed her face.

Kakuzu analysed his situation and came to the grim conclusion that this was extremely unlikely to end in his favor. The Jinchuuriki alone had been bad enough, but now that all of them were ganging up on him, he was quite simply, screwed.

Ino was staying far away from the battle where she wouldn't get in the way, feeling utterly useless. It hadn't taken long for her to deduce that she was nothing more than a liability. The only technique she had that might do anything was her Mind Body Switch and that would be insane to use against these destructo zombies. If she got injured possessing one of their bodies, they'd just shrug it off and she would die.

Naruto created several shadow clones, who immediately started saturating the air around the lightning mask with chakra and began to twist it around with ever greater speed until it was actually lifted into the air. Lightning being weak to wind meant that the mask being caught in this makeshift miniature tornado prevented it from getting off any of those lightning spears.

Meanwhile, the original had sent a multitude of chains to chase Kakuzu, with Shikamaru's shadow tendrils coming in from the other direction, making it increasingly harder to to avoid both.

The wind mask had fired off a few swift attacks, forcing Kakashi, Sakura and Chouji to duck for cover behind a quickly raised earth wall, courtesy of the masked Jounin. As soon as the wall went up, it turned it's attention towards Shikamaru, forcing the Nara to stop trying to capture Kakuzu and duck for cover as well.

Kakuzu himself jumped into the air to avoid a particularly insidious chain that came at him from the ground.

Naruto grinned viciously as he pointed his palm as the airborne and helpless bounty hunter and blasted him with one of his own lighting techniques, easily piercing through the hardened skin granted by the earth heart.

Kakashi took one look at the captured lightning mask and used a fireball technique on the miniature tornado, making it go off in a massive conflagration that instantly destroyed the lightning mask. The cyclopean Jounin remembered clearly how he had stabbed Kakuzu through the heart only for the man to get up again. By now he had deduced that they needed to get rid of all of these creature to finish him.

The shadow clones popped, as soon as they weren't needed anymore, except for one at the very back that was out of sight of everyone. That one vanished without the signature smoke of a shadow clone dispelling, but it went unnoticed due to everything else going on.

The wind mask flew towards it's owner's downed body, but was intercepted by a chakra enhanced punch from Sakura, who had charged towards it while her two teammates took care of the others.

They all waited a moment to see if Kakuzu was going to get up again and relaxed when he didn't.

"Well, I think that went fairly well." Naruto commented to himself and deactivated the strength seal. He'd actually wasted a lot of chakra in this fight, more than he ever had in fact. Probably more than the Ichibi had available. All that healing and the shadow clone tornado trick had taken enough out of him that he felt a significant dip in his reserves.

Everyone looked at him with irritated expressions, unable to believe that he would call that screw up as going fairly well. True, they were all alive and uninjured, but they were all of the opinion that the blond shouldn't have been so damn insistent on fighting them solo. They had managed to take down Kakuzu fairly easily when they worked together and probably could have finished things a lot sooner if Naruto hadn't tried to do everything himself.

"What?"

Everyone just sighed and turned to leave without answering.

"Hey, where's my coat?"

Sakura pointed in the general direction of where she'd left it, though it was entirely possible that one wind technique or another had blown it away. She was honestly kind of pissed at her blond teammate right now, so she almost hoped that it had gotten damaged or lost.

Once he'd collected his coat, Naruto took another look at Kakuzu's carcass and took note of the ring on his finger. A ring that looked incredibly similar to the ones he recalled seeing on Deidara and Sasori now that he thought about it. A ring that had been very prominently displayed on Itachi's finger when the man had tried to cast a Genjutsu on him.

In a fit of whimsy and a suspicion that they might be important, Naruto took the ring from the dead man's hand before he sealed up the body. Tsunade had given standing orders to bring any bodies from Akatsuki members back to Konoha if at all possible.

That done, he hurried to catch up to the others.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Somewhere very far away from the battle, with many of his bones broken, Hidan was lying in a small crater in the ground. He was waiting for his Jashin given healing factor to kick in so that he could get up and hopefully kill that fucking heathen that had done this to him.

A slight ripple in the air and the heathen in question appeared right in front of him and grabbed him by the arm. The two of them vanished a moment later.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The shadow clone of Naruto that hadn't dispelled, but instead made use of the Hiraishin seal placed on Hidan to teleport to the mad immortal, deposited it's cargo on a metal slab. Before the disoriented Jashinist could so much as speak a word, he was bound with Fuinjutsu restraints, along with more pedestrian methods such as regular chains and rope, to make utterly sure that there would be no escape. There was also a gag in Hidan's mouth to keep him quiet, since his insane ranting was really quite annoying.

Naruto had recreated the Hiraishin long before the training trip had ended, but had chosen not to tell anyone about it. He had no idea how his father had managed to use the damn technique in combat. To him it was terribly disorienting and he had serious trouble distinguishing which beacon was where, which is why he had elected to keep his knowledge of the technique secret.

That particular decision had paid off in unexpected ways. He hadn't expected to run across an immortal of all things, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He had marked the man with a Hiraishin seal just before sending him flying, with every intention of collecting him. It was obvious that the man was a rampantly insane serial killer, so Naruto had no moral scruples about taking him apart piece by piece if he had to in order to discover the secrets of his immortality.

Hidan felt the first stirrings of unease at the hungry look being sent his way by the heathen that had abducted him.