A/N - As the others say Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto. The only Naruto stuff I own at this time is several of the Manga books and the first two uncut DVD box sets.

The end of this chapter was the original end of this story. This is what the title was based on. You guys ought to see the sketch I did for this chapter. I'm not 100 sure about that Maelstrom intrepetation but I liked it and it fit the story. Since I started this it kind of got away from me. I was just having a lot of fun writing this and now I've got almost another 12,000 words already written after the end of this chapter. Those 12k words currently go up to chapter 12, although at least two of those upcoming chapters are very incomplete, of course chapter 5 is one of the two that needs a lot of work. I'm hoping to have that one done late tomorrow night with a bit of luck. Now without further delay...

Ch. 4

Time seemed to stand still. The ground no longer seemed to shake. The approaching ninja seemed frozen.

'Lee my friend, I thank you and I'm sorry I have to use what you showed me.'

The strangely calm Naruto thought to himself as he slowly eased Hinata to the ground, closed his eyes and stood up.

'KAIMON RELEASE.'

He hadn't been able to open any more than the first gate before. Even though Lee only showed and explained the process to him that one time, Naruto had tried every chance he could sneak off. He was sure that with enough time he would have mastered this but time was one thing he had been incredibly short on lately. Those few times he had been able to get away from his friends and teachers, no matter how many clones he made, he always got stuck after the first gate. This time was different.

'KYUMON RELEASE.'

'SEIMON RELEASE.'

'SHOMON RELEASE.'

'TOMON RELEASE.'

'KEIMON RELEASE.'

'KYOMON RELEASE.'

They all opened with ease this time.

'I'm sorry too Hinata. I should have realized sooner. I really am the Leaf villages Knucklehead Ninja.' He thought as he opened his eyes and looked at her for what he truly believed was going to be the last time as the ground around them shook even more violently with his power, he closed his eyes again.

'SHIMON RELEASE.'

The world seemed to explode. Naruto was bathed in a blinding aura of blue chakra fire. Once again he stood before the massive gate that held the nine tailed fox.

"What. Are you back already? Are you that weak?" The demon snarled and then glared at him. "How's your girlfriend." The dark beast chuckled.

Narutos fury lashed out at the monster and for the first time it pulled back ever so slightly. Never before had it encountered a rage that came close to matching its own.

"I'M NOT ASKING THIS TIME FOX!" He screamed as he reached out and somehow tore the nine tailed foxes chakra from the demon.

He opened his eyes and looked around at the multitudes of foes that had hesitated while approaching him. The demon foxes aura suddenly poured out beyond the blue fire of Narutos own chakra. Somehow the massive outflow of his own chakra was shielding him from the insane amounts of red chakra of the demon fox. The blue and red mixed as Naruto began to take the form of the nine tailed fox demon and started growing. This Naruto-fox though was a nearly glowing white with highlights of blue and red chakra fire.

The huge Naruto beast-monster raised its head and howled as it's nine tails flailed about decimating dozens of ninja, sending body parts and blood flying in all directions.

Off in the distance Sakura found herself shaken awake by the monsters rage. It could only have been seconds earlier when she had used her insane strength to hollow out a small section of one of the boulders that had almost crushed her and Jiraiya. Gathering her strength she yelled out and while focusing her chakra slightly differently than when she created the hallow, she hit the rock above them a few times causing it to fracture and crack into several pieces. With a groan she managed to push one of the pieces of the massive rock off of herself and Jiraiya freeing them from the enclosed space that had trapped them. It was almost too much for her despite her massive inhuman strength. Her eyes grew wide as she saw the monstrous and growing white fox form in the distance. Using her medical jutsu she quickly revived Jiraiya.

"Whoa, that was worse than a night trying to out drink Tsunade." The Toad sage muttered, his ears still ringing from both the sonic attack and the multiple head strikes he had taken when Sakura carved out that little 'safe spot'. His own eyes suddenly grew wide at the sight of the huge white monster fox. As he counted nine tails his mouth fell open and he visibly paled.

"Naruto." He whispered.

The white monster reared up on its hind legs and intense balls of chakra began to form at not only both of its front paws/hands but also one at the tip of each one of its tails that had all stopped flailing and had spread out.

Far off in the distance they heard what was obviously Narutos voice although it was heavily distorted.

"RASENGAN".

"Oh no. Sakura we have to leave." The Toad sage anxiously looked at the eleven Rasengans, each slowly growing to nearly a full meter across. He gathered a tremendous amount of chakra, bit his thumb, began to form seals and called out while slamming his palm to the ground. "KUCHIYOSE NO JUTSU!"

Gama Bunta appeared and immediately spied the white monster.

"Jiraiya, what is that?" The huge toad demanded while scowling, eyeing the Naruto-fox in the distance. "I hope you don't expect me to fight whatever that thing is."

"That thing is Naruto and right now we need to immediately get out of here, he's about to live up to his name sake."

"His name sake?" Sakura asked.

"Yes. The Maelstrom."

Again Narutos odd voice was heard. "RASEN-SHURIKEN"

Jiraiyas eyes widened in fear as the eleven huge balls of rapidly rotating chakra began to seemingly swirl developing an edge as the Naruto-fox began to mold all of the Rasengan spheres, infusing them with elemental wind energy.

Naruto spoke again. "RASEN-SHURIKEN-KYUUBI-NARUTO"

The eleven rasen-shurikens continued to grow and slowly began to spin around in a massive circle, each one jumping between Narutos hands and tails. They began to circle overhead even faster and slowly began to merge together. Despite spinning rapidly individually, they slowly began to form a massive spinning torus. As they watched it began to expand into a larger and larger ring of energy. The sky began to darken and rain began to fall.

"How did he pull that off?" Jiraiya muttered as he watched the now dark sky begin to swirl around Naruto. Somehow Naruto had pulled elemental water energy into the mix. Suddenly the white monster stood within a circle of sunlight as the center of the spinning clouds above began to open. In a short time it was looking all the world like the white monster was standing within the eye of a natural hurricane.

"Jiraiya can you see who that is on the ground under Naruto? I think it might be Hinata but I can't make them out." Sakura asked.

"It looks like a dark haired young woman with a leaf head protector around her neck. She has a spear of some sort sticking out of her chest." The Chief Toad spoke.

"Well I guess we now know what drove Naruto over the edge. Unfortunately we can't stay here. Once he releases that thing it'll destroy everything for kilometers. I'd say that if Hinata is still alive she's probably the only one that that even has a chance of surviving this. He's pouring truly ridiculous amounts of not only the fox's chakra into that thing but his own as well. In fact it looks like far more of Narutos chakra is mixed in than I would have ever imagined possible. Looks like Naruto picked up how to open the eight inner gates used for the Lotus sequence somewhere along the line. It also looks like he's pulling off the perfect destructive mixture of air and water elements." Jiraiya said.

"The Lotus?" Sakura paled as she remembered what that jutsu had done to her friend Lee. "Master Jiraiya, can you tell how many gates Naruto has opened?" The pink haired young woman nearly whispered as she hung her head.

Jiraiya scowled but knew he couldn't lie now. "I'd say all of them. Seriously though, if we don't want to die we have to leave immediately. Naruto almost killed me with four tails I don't think I really need to see first hand what would happen now that he's got all nine. Especially since it looks like the Fox isn't controlling this, it looks like a combination of Narutos grief and fury. So that Naruto-fox thing will have all of Narutos skills, techniques and determination backed up by the full power of the Nine Tailed Fox, couple all of that with what is probably some bizarre synthesis of Narutos and the foxs fury feeding each other."

With that he grabbed Sakura and leaped to the Chief Toads back. As the giant toad leaped away at astonishing speed, Jiraiya looked back and was struck by the scene of imminent destruction they were fleeing. It was oddly beautiful with blue and red chakra flames pouring off of the white fox form while it stood in the center of the ring of energy that spun over its head. The sky had grown completely dark with swirling clouds covering everything in darkness, except for that shaft of sunlight streaming down that oddly centered on Hinata.

They must have traveled dozens of kilometers when they felt the earth itself shake and Gama Bunta was actually knocked flat as a wave of energy passed over them. Jiraiya and Sakura were struck from the toads back but managed to land on their feet. The whole world seemed to vibrate as the blast wave dissipated into the distance.

Silently they leaped back to the humongous toads back and without a word Gama Bunta turned and began to hop back the way they had fled from. It wasn't many hops at all when they came to a seemingly endless expanse of water soaked and flattened trees. The drenched landscape of shattered timber seemed to go on for kilometers before turning into another seemingly endless expanse, this time the trees were gone, leaving nothing but shattered earth and rock. As they got closer and closer to the center the shattered rocks were becoming smaller and smaller to finally become a finely ground sand that was turning to mud as the light rain fell. It became obvious that they were within an unbelievable hole that was starting to fill with water. A shaft of rock appeared in the distance, through the mist of the light rain. It looked like it was in the middle of the newly formed lake that Gama Bunta continued to hop across. As they got close to the pillar they could see two figures lying together on the untouched grass that covered the top of the newly formed pillar.

"Naruto, Hinata." Sakura whispered as she leaped across from Gama Buntas back to the edge of the pillar. She timidly took a step forward as she gazed at her two friends together. Hinata was lying in Narutos arms while Naruto was slumped over her on his knees. Sakura was frozen in place, they were both so still, tears formed in her eyes. She heard a soft groan and her eyes grew wide as she realized that at least one of them had survived that incredible event and was alive.

"NARUTO, HINATA!" She yelled as she broke into a run, quickly closing the distance between her and her friends. Hinata was paler than usual. Sakura gasped as she realized that Naruto was kneeling in a pool of Hinatas blood. Sakura saw the javelin in Hinatas chest move slightly as the young woman continued to breath shallowly. Naruto seemed completely still and Sakura feared the worst. He had one hand on Hinatas chest between her breasts directly over her heart. Running up she gathered her own chakra and began to treat Hinata with her medical jutsu. She was stunned that she didn't need to steady the young woman's pulse as she slowly pulled the steel javelin out. There was surprisingly little blood. Sakura worried that most of her friends blood was already gone, absorbed into the ground

Sakura pulled back in shock as she felt through her medical soft blue tendrils of chakra pull the wound closed. The tendrils started to fade but before they vanished she was stunned to sense that they traveled through Hinata and seemed to emanate from Narutos hand. Seeing that there wasn't much more she could do for Hinata she focused on Naruto. Outwardly he seemed surprisingly unhurt, all things considered but he was still a mass of cuts and bruises. As she began her medical jutsu Sakura could sense at least a dozen minor fractures throughout his body. Much like the time they fought Orochimaru, when she saw his four tails form, Narutos wounds were healing much slower than usual for him. If he was even healing at all this time, she worried. In fact somehow Naruto was enabling Hinata to heal faster than he himself usually healed.

As Sakura probed deeper she realized that Naruto had virtually no detectable chakra left. Apparently he had picked up the ability to transfer his chakra to another. 'He probably somehow taught himself that after he had given his chakra to Gaara through Chiyo-sama when she revived Gaara.' Sakura thought.

It wasn't Chiyo-sama jutsu thankfully and Sakura didn't recognize it from anything she had learned from Tsunade. She sighed and began to transfer some of her own chakra to Naruto. She was stunned when she felt her chakra immediately flow out of Naruto through his hand and into Hinata.

"That won't do." She muttered. She pulled Narutos hand away from Hinata and once again began to transfer chakra. Somehow a small trickle still flowed to Hinata but as Sakura began to let out a sigh of relief she sensed the chakra in Naruto shift and again it began to flow into Hinata only this time it was going through his other hand and into her through her shoulder. Sakura sighed again in frustration as Jiraiya walked up.

"We have to get them back to the hospital in Konoha as soon as possible I can't do any more for them here. They really need Tsunade but I think they're going to be fine.

"Naruto-chan." They turned to the sound of Hinatas ragged whisper even though the young woman didn't wake up.

"H…" Naruto muttered something that wasn't really audible in his own ragged whisper, also without waking up.

Jiraiya, Sakura and Gama Bunta looked at the two in wry amusement as they noticed that somehow Naruto and Hinata wound up holding hands. Sakura decided that they shouldn't separate them when they put the two on Gama Buntas back and they stayed that way for the entire journey back to Konoha. It caused a bit of a stir when the hospital staff wasn't willing to separate the two and they had to have adjoining beds as the two held onto each others hand while they stayed unconscious.