Author's Note: This is my first story ever published…please be nice*begs*

Tailed Beast vs Tailless Beast

"Water Style: Water Dragon Missile!" Kisame cried out as a menacing reptilian like form erupted from the make shift pond he had produced earlier on and made its way earnestly towards his opponent."

"Water Style: Twin Water Lions Bullet Retaliation," the blond countered.

"It's pointless, the water here was created from my chakra which means I alone can and will control it," Kisame put on an evil grin as he admonished the young jinchuuriki who stood against him. However the smirk was quickly wiped from his face has two felines formed entirely out of water shot forward from his opponent's palm to perfectly intercept and nullify the water dragon previously sent to incapacitate said opponent.

"Impressive, but you'll need more than a few tricks up your sleeve to beat me," the rogue nin said as he lunged at the boy with a speed that almost caught Naruto off guard and brought down his shark skin sword on the jinchuuriki. Naruto used a quick kawarimi with a log to escape the strike.

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

Seeing the splinters of wood that he had reduced the unfortunate log of wood to and sensing a sizeable amount of chakra -based flames heading his way, he immediately almost immediately swung Samehada behind him to defend himself from the technique. As always, though it was a bit hot for the shark-sword hybrid's liking, it stopped the flames in their tracks albeit by draining the technique of almost all of the chakra behind said attack. "Water Bullet!" Kisame said as he filled up his buccal cavity with water and fired a ball of the fluid at Naruto who did not have enough time to dodge and was hit square on by the technique and disappeared in puff of smoke.

'Shadow Clones?' the blue skinned man questioned in his mind.

"Rasengan!" Naruto cried as he brought a ball of rapidly rotating chakra up from the earth below his foe to slam into him, Kisame, due to years of experience and acquired reflexes was able to block the strike with Samehada thereby absorbing the sphere. He quickly struck back at his attacker with force and left a crater as his hit smashed into the ground and was irritated as his victim once again dispersed in a plume of white smoke. Sensing a few attackers rushing his way from his left he went to parry them, "Water Bullet!" he shouted has he sent a sphere of water in the direction of the shadow clones. The attack had taken out two of the replicas and the others began to take him on, a clone delivered a kick which Kisame dodged easily and struck it from behind destroying it. Two others came from below intending to send the nin upwards with a kick, however he pushed chakra to his feet and leaped into the air and sent a speeding orb of water down to finish them off.

In the air, five clones launched themselves towards him kunai first to attack him from all sides as they had surrounded him. Kisame brought forward his sword and swung it round in a three hundred and sixty degree swipe effectively taking care of the clones. From above, the blue skinned man spied Naruto behind a tree concealing his chakra while coordinating the attacks of his replicas. 'Smart, but not enough,' he smiled evilly as he dove towards that position with blinding speed. However, the smirk on his face was replaced with an expression of shock as he was within striking distance of the boy when said boy turned towards him and grinned while putting his hands into a hand seal the nuke nin knew all too well as he had on many occasions seen Itachi perform the exact same hand signs. "Oh shit," he could not get away from the impending doom due to the momentum he had built up when diving towards there.

"Fire Style: Great Clone Explosion" the resulting blast sent the fish-man hybrid flying rapidly backwards through the air 'damn that was even stronger than the ones I've seen Itachi do' were Kisame's thoughts as he was blown away. Fortunately for him, Samehada had taken most of the blast although the sword was in bad shape. He then regained his balance and fed his chakra to his pet/weapon in order to heal its injuries which surprised him as he felt that the sword should have been able to absorb the blast.

Naruto on the other hand was well concealed high up in a nearby tree as he examined the success of his plan. He had sent a few shadow clones to face him head on driving his foe upward to evade them and 'hiding' another clone in a way that would have been highly conspicuous to anyone of jounin level and higher thus baiting him due to the fact that the ex-Kiri nin would underestimate the abilities of the Shadow Clone technique. The plan had been executed and had worked perfectly as the unsuspecting rogue ninja went for the shadow clone he had laced with exploding tags in order to amplify the explosive power and for another purpose which would be greatly to his benefit in the battle.

FLASHBACK

He was reading a bingo book owned by Zabuza in order to update his knowledge on the Akatsuki when he came across an interesting entry.

Name: Hoshigaki Kisame

Rank: S-class missing nin, Ex-ANBU member of the mist, member of the Seven Legendary Swordsmen of the Mist.

Abilities: Skilled in Kenjutsu(Proficient wielder of the Great Shark Skin sword), exceptional in Water Style Ninjutsu, Jounin level Taijutsu, Genjutsu ?, Near Tailed Beast Level Chakra Reserves.

Instructions: Do not engage alone, Kill on sight.

Aliases: The Tail-lessTailed Beast, Monster of Kiri.

On seeing that Kisame was a member of the legendary Seven Swordsmen of the Mist and possessed a powerful sword much like Zabuza, he resolved to ask him about his ex-colleague.

"Hey Zabuza,"

"What?" the man replied

"Can you tell me anything about a Kisame Hoshi…gaki?" Naruto asked.

Zabuza's face darkened for a second then he replied "sure, what do you want to know?"

"Anything that could help me in a fight against him… fighting style, weaknesses, affinities…anything helpful."

"Very well," Zabuza began "Kisame has an exceptionally high affinity for water style ninjutsu, in other words, he can literally create a small lake from his chakra alone. Also he has a lot of chakra even more than most kages and enough to match a jinchuuriki, his weapon of choice is the great shark skin blade called Samehada. The sword is a shark type hybrid which possesses the unique ability to absorb and translocate most chakra types basically; it sucks your chakra and feeds it to Kisame. Also it has a certain bond with the wielder so you can't pick it up and use it."

"Thanks Zabuza."

"Anytime kid" replied the demon of the mist.

END FLASHBACK

He heard a twig snap "shit," he cursed as he turned and saw a water dragon heading his way fast. He leapt from the tree just in time to avoid the fluid serpent which smashed said tree to splinters. He had underestimated his opponent's ability as he had not counted on him finding him easily.

"Water Bullet!" he heard from about six places at once, there was no time to dodge and a substitution was out of the question as he was already surrounded. He had to use that technique, "Water Style: Typhoon Vortex Defense!" he cried out and water gushed from the seals on his palms and formed into a swirling wall of water which was able to defend him while putting him out of view long enough to perform a body flicker technique.

After landing on another tree branch, he activated his sensory seals to their mid range-500 meters-almost immediately he perceived five no, six chakra signatures heading towards his way. He unsealed a claymore from a seal tattoo on his arm and created twelve clones to surround him and transformed six of them to spiders to cover the others. "Above," he said as he sensed one of the attackers bring down his sword down on them. They scattered just in time as the large blade came
down on the branch and….Watch out for the next chapter!

Author's note: Okay? Good? Great...Terrible?...Review!