Rise of Ryujin

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any other media this Fan Fiction contains traces of.

Okay now…I think it's safe to say that this is the longest I made you wait yet. Hopefully you're not too annoyed because of it.

I don't have any real justification. However, for the first time, I can wholeheartedly and with absolute certainty promise that between this update and the next one will most likely only be an interval of a few days. The chapter is already done, and ready to be published as soon as Serious Sam, my beta, is done with it. So if you want to, you can ignore this update and wait a few days to read two chapters in a row.

Though be warned: Both of them are true monsters once again. I tried making them shorter, I really did…But it appears I still lack practice in the art of how to best end a chapter at a more spontaneous point (bows his head in a display of humility)…So I'd really advise to save the read of them for a bigger period of free time.

On to the credit…One enormous thank-you goes once again to Serious Sam for beta-reading my story and offering some pointers and changes to make it better. And another to all the readers who left a review, encouraging me to push on – I know this doesn't appear to mean much in the face of the delay, but I had some light cases of writer's block along the way, and truly think I couldn't have snapped out of it as well as I did without re-reading some comments.

As for the replies to reviews…

Ryuujin96: Thank you for the review. I'm really glad you like the wisdom of the dragons. Also, about what you asked in the PM…it made me think about the growth of the person it was about – and hit on a good idea which I think wouldn't have occurred to me without the food for thought. As soon as I bring it in, you'll get the well-deserved credit.

Jboy44: …Sure hope it does! (Teasing grin)

Serious Sam: Glad you like it! Though considering the three near-future-ex-ANBU…it's still going to take a while before they get their well-deserved dessert. But I promise that when they do, it'll be satisfying and well written (though I guess you'll make sure of that anyway).

Dantegrey: Yeah, I get where you are coming from. The explanations are indeed a bit long…but I just want to make sure that all the basics are understood before I start picking up the pace of the plot to avoid confusion later. However, you can rest assured: I'm planning to wrap up all the basics with the update after this double chapter. And from then on, I'll do my best to incorporate remaining explanations into the plot and idle and short conversations. I'm glad you like mine, by the way! As far as the OOC thing goes…you're probably right about that as well. However…please keep in mind that Naruto just recently actually died. Though only temporarily, I still think that it's a live changing experience to not only know that you are mortal, but to actually feel it. And also, I already touched the subject that being a dragon affects your mentality. Stay tuned for the update after this one (the second chapter after this one, I mean) – there, how and why exactly will be explained…assuming I don't lose control over something else in my story that writes itself into something bigger than I had originally intended again… (Laughs in spite of himself)

Chayner: Thank you. Your reviews are truly spirit lifting and encouraging for me. I'll do my best to keep on paying attention to the small and important things just as much as the big important ones. As for the picture of Naruto in dragon form…I actually already have a good friend of mine paint one for me, and are planning to make it this story's cover art. Please be patient for a little longer…

Firestorm2004: It's really that unique? Hearing that makes me really happy. I hope you like what comes next.

DasChinButton: Thank you for being understanding. I'll try to not be too hard on myself, but I always was pretty harsh on me when it came to things that are truly important to me – one of these many traits that can be a gift just as much as a curse. The two new chapters contain a significant amount of scenes involving my dragons – and there's this one scene breached at the end of the second one that I think you'll like…

Kage Bijuu/mmendoza688: That's good to hear. I'm actually a bit proud of that particular scene. Logic is a great thing, I believe so myself…but I simply can't stand it when people assume that it's all one needs and that emotions and feelings are a hindrance, no matter the situation, and wanted to bring out logical arguments against this particular 'logic'. Glad to see that I apparently succeeded.

To anyone who's reading this and is not listed above…I'm really sorry that I'm not addressing you personally. Please know that it's not because I consider your support to be any less helpful, but simply a time thing. I'm grateful to anyone who leaves a review or hits that small "favourite/follow" button…or anyone who takes some of his/her time to even read what I write, for that matter. Always keep that in mind.

Now…sit back and enjoy!

Chapter 3: Of insanity…

It was a completely normal hospital room. Two beds. The sheets were white and soft, and each one had a small table for meals or get-well cards. A single, medium-sized window welcomed bright sunlight into the room.

But the beds might as well have been made out of chocolate with rough leather sheets – with armed pumpkins instead of the tables. And there could've been an ogre wearing a pink ballerina skirt reading nursery rhymes in the middle of the room.

None of it would've caught the attention of the boy lying in one of the beds, because all of his focus was on the window. More specifically, his reflection – and the spot on his forehead.

For the umpteenth time, Neji raised his right hand and watched it stroke over the bare skin of his skull. No matter how many times he did it, it seemed as if his mind simply couldn't comprehend the fact that the seal, which had been a constant reminder of his place in the world was gone.

It was understandable, though. In addition to the bafflement at being freed from the physical constrictions of the branch family, the future – which even if it was a dark one, had always been a clear path – was now a chaotic swirl of possibilities and uncertainty. His first thought was, how would the clan react to this?

Thankfully, they couldn't just seal him again. Aside from the traditional set date of the third birthday of the heir, all branch family members were given the seal at some point before their fifth birthday. Because from that point onward, the brain cells of a human reached a growth barrier after which they'd reject the procedure of the sealing. Giving a person over five the caged bird seal would result in heavy lasting brain damage – which would make the clan the target of heavy public criticism. That's why it was forbidden, although Neji highly doubted they'd simply accept this situation either.

And then, there was the much bigger uncertainty of what he was supposed to do with this unexpected freedom. Should he start a fight against the ways of the clan, just like Naruto had said? Was it really possible to come out of this fight victorious? And if the answer was yes…could Neji achieve it with his power alone?

His gaze drifted to his hitai-ate on the table. The burnished metal seemed to whisper, repeating the words Naruto had told Neji when he'd given it back to him. All you have to do…is ask for it.

With that, his thoughts travelled to all the people in his life who'd shown him kindness and even tried to support him – even if he didn't want them to. Gai-sensei. Lee. Tenten. Naruto. And…Hinata-sama.

If he asked them for help, would they really be willing to provide it after all he'd done? And did he even have the right to ask for it anymore? Closing his eyes, he shook his head slowly – a beyond futile attempt to clear his thoughts. It simply was too much to absorb within such a short period of time.

And it wasn't over yet.

The door suddenly opened, causing his eyes to snap open and his head to snap up. A doctor stood in the doorway.

"Please forgive the intrusion." He began. "A couple minutes ago, someone came to visit you." His face distorted a little. Apparently, he was a bit angry about something. "Initially, we decided to not let you have visitors until an hour or so had passed, but he was quite…adamant about it. In the end, he demanded that we let you decide." With a rueful expression, he stepped aside and gave Neji a look at the man behind.

He immediately understood the man's aggravation. For the visitor was no one else but Hiashi Hyuuga. From the words the doctor had just said as well as his own experiences with the Hyuuga clan head, he could easily picture how the talk between Hiashi and the hospital staff had went.

The doctor regarded Neji with a look of supporting determination. "I cannot stress enough that the decision is yours. If you're not feeling well enough yet…"

"No." Neji was grateful for the man's attempt to help and admired his courage to openly refuse the head of one of Konoha's most influential clans. But he'd known that the clan would take countermeasures. So he might as well get this over with now. He acquiesced in the fact that the clan obviously hadn't decided to have him disposed of. Otherwise, they wouldn't have come through the front door like this. "It's okay. Let him in."

The doctor's lips thinned, but he nodded. He let Hiashi step inside and turned to leave. "With all due respect, Hiashi-sama, I must ask you to keep it as short as possible. The patient needs his rest."

"I understand. Thank you." With that, the door was closed, and the two Hyuuga were left alone. Neji sat up with some difficulty and looked into Hiashi's eyes. "What do you want?"

He noticed a slight difference in the face of the Hyuuga's clan head. An expression that slightly reminded him of discomfort, or perhaps even regret.

"I want to tell you…what really happened on that night."

"…" Neji blinked. He'd expected a great many things when he'd agreed to talk with Hiashi-sama. From downright threats to subtle manipulations, and appeals to what was for the 'good of the clan'. But words like those hadn't been on the list. "What…really happened?"

"Yes." Hiashi Hyuuga – a man who was known for his dignified demeanour even among the Hyuuga – cast down his eyes and made an uncomfortable pause. Then he looked at Neji again. "Back then…I was the one who wanted to die."

.

*Stadium - Chunin Exam*

.

Back in the stadium, the rookie nine and the rest of team Gai were watching the carpenters put the finishing touch on the makeshift repairs in the arena wall. Guessing there was still enough time for one more question, one member of the group spoke up once more.

"Say, Naruto…" Tenten said, causing Naruto to turn and stare at her. "That attack with the blue energy you used against Neji's Kaiten – what did you call it again? 'Soul flare', was it? Would you tell us a bit more about that? It's the only thing that happened during the fight which I still can't quite comprehend."

…Aside from the fact that you knew about Neji's past when no one else did, she added silently, but decided that if anyone was to ask about that particular bit, it should be Neji himself.

Naruto blinked. "Oh, that…" All of a sudden, he froze with his gaze turning inwardly. "Wait…Soul flare…did I…" A look of realization and absolute horror entered his eyes, and he hit his dragon-forehead. "Oh crap!"

Everyone flinched at the sudden outburst. "Naruto? What's wrong?"

"I-I did it again! I yelled out the name before I launched the attack!" Naruto brought his other hand up and gripped the sides of his head, quivering with fear. "Holy shit, Kyaria-sensei is gonna skin me for this!"

Kakashi blinked in bafflement. Not that he was the only one. "Umm, would you mind elaborating on that a bit?"

Naruto looked at his Sensei, grimacing. "Well…"

***Flashback***

"Repeat."

Naruto raised his head from the position he was in with a sour look on his face. "Again? I've been doing this for like, the last half day!"

"And you'll do it for the rest of the day. And if it's not good enough by then, the next whole day. Until you have performed to my satisfaction."

In all honesty, the mere fact that Naruto complained to Kyaria was a testament of his bravery. Or his foolishness, depending how you looked at it.

Kyaria wasn't as beautiful as Chitoku, but he was just as big – if not even larger. And what he lacked in aesthetic grandeur, he more than made up for in terms of formidable impressiveness.

Kyaria's ethereal body was coloured a dark red. A really dark red. At the points where his skin thinned out to give way for his claws and horns it gradually turned even darker – and those were so dark that they could almost be mistaken for black – the shine they radiated actually was. Together with the deep-red light the rest of his body emitted, his aura would give even the barest wasteland an intense feeling of foreboding…of menace, even.

His body itself was the epitome of a western dragon. Four legs, two wings and a long tail. The scales were aligned in smooth order, but longer than they would need to be to cover the area they grew out of – the result of which made the dragon's guise quite edgy. He didn't have a mane or crest of solid skin extensions like many other dragons had, but instead three long, red-black horns at the back of his head which slightly twisted towards the same imaginary point behind his skull. His eyes were red as well, but several shades lighter – like the colour of the sky at sunset.

Finally, the cracks were the finishing touch to the intimidating creature that was Kyaria.

All over his torso as well as his neck were thin, but still fairly noticeable cracks that glowed in a dark rich blue which gradually disappeared as they ran down his limbs. The only parts of his body that didn't bear these marks were atop his skull, his horns, wings, lower arms, legs and most of his tail. They were pulsing in a rhythm that brought to mind a heartbeat in one moment and breathing in the next, thus strengthening the sensation of something extremely powerful and taut, about ready to explode – like a volcano shortly before an eruption.

In short, he was a being that you clearly didn't want to mess with – even more so since his voice and entire demeanour practically screamed 'brusque!'

But Naruto just couldn't stand it anymore.

Naruto's training was divided in two 'classes'. While Chitoku was the one who schooled him in the mentality of the dragon's way of fighting, the abilities and limits his new body possessed – and basically everything else he should know by heart, Kyaria was his instructor in applying those abilities in actual combat – which Naruto was dying to learn, despite the situation. However, the training Kyaria had actually made him do as soon as Chitoku had wrapped up teaching the basics of the dragon-mentality had been a major turn-off, to say the least… he made him do press-ups and genuflections!

Though unlike the regular ones, the focus wasn't on the number of times you could push yourself up, but rather how many press-ups or genuflexions he could do within the time limit of five seconds – without losing contact with the ground at all. Considering the now enormous gap between his physical strength and his body-weight, it was an excruciatingly frustrating task – especially since Kyaria had made it clear that they wouldn't be doing anything else until Naruto had mastered this exercise.

"Why are you not moving? Don't tell me you've suddenly gotten deaf!"

His competiveness awoken anew by the semi-insult and with a considerable amount of self-restraint, Naruto grumbled and got down in the press-up position again.

"Ready, set…begin!"

Naruto's body became a blur as he started doing press-ups quickly, yet carefully. In the first few seconds, his hands almost separated from the ground one, two times – but he managed to stop at the last moment.

It was a significant improvement compared to when Naruto had begun. Back then, he'd flung himself about ten metres up in the air every time he tried it. Thankfully, these extreme failures had stopped about three hours after the start of the training. But it had only been an hour ago that he'd managed to not lose touch with the ground at all…And still, this stupid Kyaria-sensei wasn't satisfied!

"Stop!" Kyaria cried out, signalling the end of the five seconds. Naruto slowed to a stop and looked at him expectantly.

"That was 45 press-ups." He gave a slightly congratulatory nod. "Not bad. But you'll need to do better, still."

All right, that's IT! Regrettably, Naruto's new 'additional tools' appeared to be on vacation in this very moment. He stood up and snapped at his new Sensei: "What the HELL? How do you figure this is still not sufficient? I think I've improved more than enough!"

"A true master can do 200 press-ups in five seconds without so much as a hair being able to get between his hands and the ground." Kyaria replied. Though his voice was placid, his slightly narrowed eyes spelled trouble. "A decent hatchling can do 100. Regrettably, we lack the time to bring you to this level AND beat some fighting techniques in you. But unless you desire to punch an opening through your opponent's gullet, you must at least be able to do 50."

All Kyaria wanted was to help Naruto to perform well and avoid troublesome incidents (like the removal of one of his opponent's limbs) in the chunin exam finals. Deep inside Naruto knew that. But his frustration and still rash personality were simply shitty advisors.

"You're bickering because of five fucking press-ups? Oh come on, what's wrong with you? Are you afraid I'm going to wipe the floor with your ass when we spar?"

Bravery or foolishness, indeed.

"You know…" Kyaria's voice was calm and he spoke eerily slow. "When she handed you over to me, Chitoku made me promise that I wouldn't be too hard on you right off the bat. But seeing as you're asking for it, I don't think she'll mind." He raised his impressive body from the crouching position he'd been in. "All right, brat – since apparently you've got a fire lit under yourself, I'll give you one real fighting lesson in advance." His tail whipped around from his behind to his front and made a 'come hither' gesture with the four circular arranged, sharp spikes at its end. "So come on…let's see if you can actually wipe the floor with my scaly ass!"

By now, even the still peeved Naruto began to realise he'd just made a huge mistake. But sad to say, he was nowhere nearly mature and refined enough to know when it was better to admit a mistake and ask for forgiveness, than continue on the same stubborn path.

"S-sure! Just you watch, Kyaria-sensei!" After all, he had a trump card over the giant dragon – and everyone else. Bringing his fingers in the familiar cross-sign, he jumped into the air and yelled, "Behold my ultimate ninjutsu: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" In a series of white clouds, several hundred Naruto's appeared – each one ready to teach their new Sensei a lesson.

However, said Sensei had bared his enormous, red-black teeth even before Naruto had finished his exclamation. And then…he snorted.

At least, that's what it sounded like. Along with the clang, several hundred man-sized fireballs escaped from between his teeth. With perfect precision each one found one of the clones, vaporizing each and every single one of them instantly. It happened so quickly that there wasn't even time for the usual white smoke that normally indicated the destruction of a clone.

In a display of beyond scary control and sureness, a ball of tightly compressed hot air was sent flying along with the fireballs – and hit the real Naruto dead-on. It swept him away like a feather, and before he even could comprehend what happened, the force behind the blow sent him through countless branches and a tree, before the second one finally stopped his flight.

For a couple of seconds, he could see nothing but stars. Then he regained his sight – only to wish that he hadn't.

For there, not even two metres in front of him hovered his Sensei's massive snout. The enormous jaws emitting smoke still.

"First lesson…" Kyaria said, his voice dangerously low. "If you have to squeal out the name of the technique you're using like that, then only do so while – or best after you used it, so you're not giving your opponent unnecessary hints!" His flews lifted to form a grin. "For example…"

Naruto felt like his whole existence was flattened and shaken until everything was scattered. His vision and all his other senses gave him nothing but chaos as information. And then his brain hit a wall, his thoughts stopped completely without any warning.

After an infinite moment, the absolute darkness and silence lifted slowly, and Naruto began to realize just what kind of position he was in.

On the edge of the forest, there was a mountain. Inside that mountain, there was a big dent. And inside that dent, there was a woozy, flabbergasted dragon-Jinchuuriki. He was lodged in so deep that despite the force of his flight having worn off completely by now, he didn't fall out of it. Blood spilled from his mouth in rivulets, and he could clearly feel that the majority of his ribs was broken.

Somehow, even in his clouded state of mind he understood that the only reason he was still breathing was that the one he was facing had no desire to see him dead.

As he lifted his painfully throbbing skull, he saw a long swathe of destruction in the forest: countless branches and many trees had been destroyed by the bullet that was him. And at the other end of that swathe was the big grin of his Sensei.

"Dragon nose-butt!" he bellowed cheerfully. The grin was clearly sadistic.

***Present***

"…Oh my." Ino said in a deadpan voice. And Kiba commented, "Whew…sounds a bit like that female examiner in dragon form. I feel for you, man."

Naruto – who'd calmed down somewhat – replied, "Well…he's actually not that bad at all. And I really wouldn't compare him to that crazy death-forest lady. Save for a few times in between, he's all serious and business-like and not at all ostentatious like she is. Though he doesn't make any effort to sweet talk anything or temper his opinions either. He's kind of like an epitome of 'rough-and-ready'."

Supressing a shudder he continued, "And it's not like he's always this brutal. Only if you disrespect him or do something…well, really stupid."

"…How on earth did you survive until now, then?" asked Sasuke.

Naruto's head snapped around, and he opened his mouth to protest…but he found himself to be short on responses. He closed and opened his mouth a few more times, but still no sound came out.

In the end he sighed, slumping a little dejected. "I guess I was kinda asking for that one, huh?"

At that, everyone laughed – even Hinata giggled a little bit at his reply to the playful taunt.

Naruto turned to Tenten again. "Well, to answer your question: 'Soul flare' is one of the five 'general abilities'. Those are techniques…or powers, I'm not sure what to call them – which every dragon can possibly learn, no matter what kind." He lifted his right hand and turned the palm towards himself. "Without going into it too much, well…I sorta take some of the energy that makes up my second self, and gather it into a bullet. The results speak for themselves, as you've seen." He grinned in a very proud way.

Kakashi nodded slightly, then spoke up. "How many of those can you do during one battle?"

Naruto answered, "Kyaria-sensei once made me do those until I fell unconscious from the drain. Back then, I managed five."

"AHEM!"

A loud harrumph sounded, silencing the question and answer session along with all the talking in the stadium. The repairs had been finished, and Hayate Gekko was once again standing in the middle of the arena. "I once again apologize for the delay and inconvenience. Now that the repairs are finished, we'll continue. Will Kankuro Sabaku and Shino Aburame please come into the arena?"

The group looked over to the Suna team. The summoned boy with war paint seemed to have an internal battle of some sort for a moment. Then he raised his voice and said, "I give up!"

Several shouts of disbelief reverberated through the stadium.

"What the hell?" Kiba exclaimed.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "Funny…I don't like that guy, but he didn't really struck me as a coward either…" After a few seconds of un-Naruto-like contemplation, he shook it off. "Oh well. Luck for Shino, I guess." That sentence made him notice something though. Looking around he said, "Hey…where IS Shino anyway?"

"…I am right here."

Naruto spun around and stumbled backwards, emitting a surprised scream. Most of his friends did so too. Shino stood right there at the back of the group. "W-Wha…when did you get there, Shino?"

"I have been here from the very beginning." Although his voice would've betrayed nothing to an outsider, to his teammates as well as a dragon-amplified sense of hearing it was obvious that he was very irritated.

His face contorted in abashment, Naruto defended himself. "Hey…! Okay, I'm sorry I didn't notice you, but what do you expect sneaking up on us like that? Even I didn't notice you, who do you think could have?"

Kakashi and Kurenai had noticed him both, but even they forgot about him during the following conversations. And they knew that anyone beneath the level of a weak jōnin or powerful chunin would've had trouble doing so, so both decided not to mention it.

To some people's silent relief, Hayate Gekko interrupted the talk – although the finishing glance Shino sent his teammates told them that this discussion was far from over.

"Understood." The examiner hid his confusion quite well. "Seeing as Kankuro surrendered, Shino Aburame automatically moves on to the next round." Hesitant applause followed. "Now the next contestants are Temari Sabaku and Shikamaru Nara."

At this, Temari climbed the fence. She bore an extremely frustrated expression on her face. And as she glided down into the arena on her giant fan she landed with a slight shockwave of air, signalling great tension. Shikamaru grimaced. Looks like she's really eager to fight…how troublesome.

Ino noticed his expression and was just about to give him a proper 'incentive' in case he thought about backing out of the fight, however she stopped short as she saw Naruto moving. Or more specifically, his left wing. The aerofoils were flattened against the main segments again, and the big claw had moved behind Shikamaru's back, the middle finger and thumb forming a circle.

Shikamaru continued thinking, This won't do. I'll give up as w-

"Make me PROUD, Shikamaru!" Naruto flicked the back of the young Nara, sending him over the fence and falling down into the arena.

Ino grinned. "Hey…well done!" Naruto's flews lifted in a predacious lop-sided grin in return.

Lying on the ground, the dazed Nara quickly regained his bearings. Damn you, Naruto… Pushing himself up, he met the impatient gaze of the hot-blooded and troublesome woman from Suna. When his companions began cheering him on, he knew that he had to abandon the notion of giving up right away. Sighing deeply, he looked up at the sky. Man…I really envy clouds…they're so free. They have no needs and no expectations to fulfil…

Yet another sigh. …But I guess it can't be helped…life's so troublesome… Finally he stood up and walked up to the examiner, assuming a ready position.

Looking both contestants over one last time Hayate spoke up, "All right. The rules were already explained at the beginning of the first match *cough*. I hope you remember them still, because if you don't that's your bad." He raised his hand once again. "Get ready, and…FIGHT!"

Temari immediately snapped open her fan and assaulted her opponent with a strong gale.

.

*Hospital*

.

Neji stared at the Hyuuga clan head, eyes wide and completely overwhelmed by what he'd just heard.

Hiashi Hyuuga had claimed to have been prepared to die if it meant saving the village from yet another war. He'd told him that his brother Hizashi had volunteered to take his place – and insisted on it to such an extent that he'd struck down the clan head in front of the entire Hyuuga council and the Hokage himself when he kept objecting. Not only that, but he'd told Neji that the only reason he'd never told him the truth until now had been that he feared he wouldn't understand it with the mind-set he had at the time.

After a moment, Neji grit his teeth. "You're lying!" He spat out. "Do you honestly think I'm stupid enough to fall for something like this? Obviously, you're afraid of what an uncontrolled member of the branch family might do and try to placate me now! Though in all honesty, I didn't expect you to come up with something this easy to see through!"

Hiashi wordlessly let Neji's verbal assault wash over him, staring blankly into his eyes – which had instinctively activated again. When Neji had finished, gasping for breath and nearly overflowing with anger, he spoke up again.

"With the eyes of our clan, it should be easy for you to discern whether I am lying or not." He closed his own. "Neji, what I just told you were not words of Hiashi Hyuuga, your clan head – but words from Hiashi, your uncle and the brother of Hizashi."

Neji froze.

Hiashi had dropped to a very low bow, his forehead touching the ground. "Please believe me."

The surrealism of the situation – the head of the clan was bowing and pleading to a branch family member, which in and of itself was nearly enough to convince Neji of the sincerity of his words. And any doubts that might have remained were erased when his activated Byakugan didn't detect even the slightest trace of a lie.

For a long while, it was silent in the hospital room. When Neji finally roused himself to speak, he needed four tries before he managed to press out the phrase, "Please…stand up."

This was all simply too much to take in.

Hiashi rose up to his feet again. Upon looking into Neji's eyes he realized two things: that he'd succeeded in convincing his nephew of his sincerity, and that Neji really and truly needed to rest and reflect on what had happened now. "Very well Neji…I shall leave you to recover now." Turning around, he walked to the door and opened it. Then he stopped and turned to Neji one last time. "There will soon be a meeting to decide what will be done in regards to your situation. I cannot promise that all will be fine, but you have my word that I will not let them get away with anything drastic, and do everything within my power to support your case." With that, he was gone.

Neji collapsed into the bed sheets, his thoughts spinning around him in an overwhelming vortex. He'd been wrong all this time. He'd treated those who loved him like dirt. He'd needed someone he barely even knew to make him realize that. He wasn't alone like he'd always assumed he was. And the very event he'd based his belief, anger and desperation on had been but a fabrication to cover up what really happened.

In the face of all this, his brain finally and officially decided that this was too much for a sane mind to take in right now and – for the sake of processing received information as well as for physical recovery – took him out of commission for the time being.

.

*Chunin exam stadium*

.

Temari was pissed. Scratch that, she was fuming!

Stupid Kankuro! Damn you, Konoha-nin!

With her little brother being as unstable as he was, there was no telling when he might explode. And while Kankuro managed to shorten the time until Gaara's turn (which meant a chance for Gaara to let off some steam) by giving up, people would've gotten overly suspicious if she simply gave up as well. So she'd been forced to fight. Normally she would've enjoyed it, but right now every moment was of the essence! Seriously, couldn't her brother have been a gentleman for once and fight so she could skip her turn? And just when she'd begun to hope that the Nara would give up himself, the blonde genin who was the cause of all this mess in the first place had made him join her in the arena!

And one poor Nara was left to bear the brunt of her wrath.

Even in her enraged state of mind, she'd been mindful enough to approach her opponent with care. But when she thought back on it later, she blamed her rashness as the cause for her slip.

Deciding to finally end this fight, she blocked her opponent's view with her fan and made the hand signs for a bunshin…when she suddenly froze. No, she didn't freeze…something froze her.

"Finally…Kagemane no Jutsu: success." Came Shikamaru's tired voice.

What the…!

"How…how did you…?" Temari asked, bewildered. Not answering right away, Shikamaru turned his head down and to the left, making Temari look in the same direction and forcing her to see the tiny black line of shadow that was connected to her left foot. But her bewilderment grew even more when she saw that the tendril was seemingly cut off by the light of the sun.

It was only a moment later that she realized it actually disappeared inside a practically invisible crack inside the ground.

"When Naruto struck the ground two times during the first battle," Shikamaru explained, "there were many tiny cracks sent spreading out from the actual indentations. And as you can see…" He made her look along the tiny rift from one indentation to the other, which lay inside the shadow of the arena wall in which the boy was crouching, "…one of them went all the way to the other hole. This gave me an almost immediate way to connect my shadow to yours. I only just realized it myself about a minute ago."

Dammit… In a way, Temari was glad the fight was coming to a close now – but still, she hated being defeated. Especially by such a lazy ass like this one! So even as the Nara came out of the shadow and made her help closing the distance between them, she continued to struggle against his control vainly. Even when he stood right in front of her and…

"I give up!"

She blinked. Unmoving, even as his control slipped from her – her anger completely erased by her bewilderment. "Huh?"

Shikamaru sighed. "This went on for too long. As it is, I probably couldn't hold up Kagemane no Jutsu for another seven seconds. So there isn't any sense in continuing." It was obviously a lie. She had seen chakra exhaustion before, and he was far from being there. Her anger returned as she saw him turn around and walk away from her – and realized he simply was too lazy to finish her off, not even showing the slightest need to win. This guy…!

She was stopped short when she saw something move out of the corner of her eye and remembered the pending danger. She quickly leaped to her fan, grabbed it and catapulted herself back up in the stand.

Oddly enough, she felt the urge to call out a warning to the lazy ass for a second.

.


.

Thank goodness it's finally over… Shikamaru thought as he began heading for the exit. But he didn't even get four steps before something luminescent suddenly landed next to him. "Naruto, I'd really like to go up…" He didn't get any further as Naruto jumped up again, turning himself sideways and extending his wings. One of them found Shikamaru's collar while the other one just barely managed to grab the edge of the stand. Before the Nara fully realised what was going on, he was lifted off his feet and swung upwards, where Asuma-sensei caught him and nonchalantly put him on his feet beside him. A moment later, Naruto jerked himself upwards, grabbed the railing with his actual hands and swung himself over it. It looked a bit clumsy, and the jōnin noticed him stumble a bit as he landed.

"…by myself." Shikamaru finished, traces of real irritation audible in his usual bored voice.

Asuma looked at him. "You do realize that he might just have saved your life, yes?"

Now this sentence was confusing to the young genius. "What do you…?" But it wasn't until he saw down into the arena that he actually understood.

Standing there was Gaara. He was bent over, vaguely resembling an animal, his eyes glinting with madness and bloodlust. A large amount of sand from his gourd was swirling all around him, lashing out uncontrollably every few moments. Even the gourd itself was starting to dissolve into sand already. His gaze was fixed on the Konoha twelve, and Shikamaru could see a hint of something like disfigured pouting in his eyes. It appeared his sensei might be right with his statement. Even the examiner had taken a few steps back in the face of Gaara's killing intent.

Sasuke straightened himself. "I guess that's my cue."

Kakashi looked at him gravely for a few moments. Then he nodded. "Remember the training – and don't slip up by any means!"

Sasuke gave a nod back in affirmation and was just starting to move – when Naruto suddenly grabbed his shoulder. He looked Sasuke in the eyes for about two seconds and then said but two words.

"Show him."

Then he let go of his shoulder. Sasuke stared back at him for a moment. Then he grunted and looked away, with a not entirely unfriendly smirk on his face. "You're making it sound as if I was planning to let him win."

With that, he jumped over the railing into the arena, as it seemed to become a habit of the participants.

.


.

Hayate regarded the Genin from Suna with a look full of nervousness, bordering on fear. That boy…the bloodlust he emitted was unlike anything he'd ever seen before. This was bad – really bad. The natural worry for another human's life aside, if Konoha were to lose the last (loyal) Uchiha in this fight, it'd be a devastating blow to the village's image.

He gulped quietly and voiced a warning. "Remember the rules." But truth be told, he doubted he'd be able to stop Gaara if he decided to ignore him and keep fighting. Knowing that there was little more he could do, he raised his hand. "Get ready, and…FIGHT!"

Sasuke immediately leapt to the side, narrowly dodging the huge torrent of sand sweeping at him.

.


.

The Konoha twelve were watching the match with bated breath – just like the rest of the audience. Every time a wave of swirling and bloodthirsty sand came a bit too close for comfort, Naruto could hear Sakura's breath and the one of several other occupants of the stadium hitch. Not that he himself was at all relaxed.

But pretty soon Sasuke recovered from the shock of the sudden onslaught and fell into his combat mind-set. His movements grew quicker, more controlled and stable. He was beginning to completely outrun the hunting sand, and counterattacked – Gaara's sand only catching the blows by an extremely narrow margin.

"Hey…" Tenten whispered. "Wait a second – isn't that…?"

In that moment, one of Sasuke's strikes connected and Gaara's head was flung to the side.

"Correct." Kakashi replied. "Sasuke copied that way to move from Lee." Feeling some fleeting glances, the Copy-nin elaborated, "While it's true that the Sharingan is most effective copying ninjutsu, imitating taijutsu is also possible. It's just very difficult since unlike the moulding of chakra, many taijutsu moves and techniques rely on physical refinement and reflexes that you don't necessarily need as a shinobi. That's why over the last month, Sasuke and I have worked on him attaining the attributes he needs to use Lee's style."

Lee took the words in as he kept looking at the fighting pair. Noticed by but a few, his hands tightened a little on the railing and crutch.

Gai nodded, impressed. "I see." He glanced at his eternal rival worriedly. "But you do realise that even Lee's taijutsu in combination with the Ura-Renge wasn't enough to take down Gaara, don't you? With this alone, he won't…"

"H-Hey! What's that guy doing NOW?" Ino's voice interrupted the green beast.

Down in the arena, Gaara had begun to cackle madly. "Hahahaha…Interesting, really interesting!" And then, the sand improved in quantity and gathered around him. Before long, it had compressed into a big, solid sphere around him.

After a moment of stunned silence, Sasuke grunted and rushed in, kicking the sphere. The dull thump almost quite literally spread the feeling of a bruised shin – and then sharp spikes of sand erupted from the sphere and forced the Konoha genin to retreat.

Landing on his feet a few metres away, Sasuke ignored his throbbing leg and eyed the sphere with a critical and calculating expression.

A few seconds later, the dragon-like genin up in the stands furrowed his brow, donning a troubled and slightly nauseating expression. "Okaaay…That's really disturbing, buddy…"

"Disturbing?" A bunch of confused looks followed the statement. "What are you talking about?"

Naruto grimaced in response. "Well, Gaara…he's talking to himself inside that sphere. Some really nasty things."

Kakashi looked to the sphere and then back at Naruto, surprised. "And you can hear him from here?" His pupil nodded. "What exactly is he saying?"

Naruto's grimace grew even more uncomfortable. "Things like: 'Yes…I'm gonna behead him. I'll crush his skull between the very tips of my fingers…Rip out his intestines, and wring them dry! There's so much blood that's gonna come out. We'll bathe in it, suck it up! Yes, yes…mother…I'll do it. Kill him, crush him, turn him to paste…I'm a good son…'"

A mixture of white and green faces answered him.

Kiba shook himself. "Okay…that guy's a real nut-job!"

Naruto looked at the brown sphere that encased Gaara, an uncertain expression gracing his features.

***Flashback ***

An exhausted Naruto landed inside the forest near the chamber of ascension. Taking a few breaths to compose himself, he activated his 'insight' again – and immediately came face to face with a concerned Chitoku and Kyaria.

"Are you all right?" Chitoku asked, looking him over worriedly.

"He's standing, isn't he? And he has enough energy left to thrive at your fretting, if I might add." Kyaria butted in nonchalantly.

Naruto flushed a little, being caught red-handed. "Hey! Who said I was thriving at it? Don't make me out to be a nestling!" He defended his pride nonetheless.

"Then stop acting like one." Kyaria brought his right eye before Naruto. "All joking aside, mind telling me what nonsense in your head drove you to keep up the amplifying mist for five seconds straight?"

The amplifying mist was another one of the five general abilities: A technique that allowed a dragon to dramatically increase his natural healing process – and he could even transfer them to another person if he or she so wished. To top it all off, it came so naturally that just a scant two hours of training had been enough to master it (at Naruto's firm insistence, Chitoku and Kyaria had forsaken the real training regime and taught him this technique first so he could heal Lee and Hinata).

However, this technique was also extraordinarily draining. Even more experienced hatchlings could barely keep it up for five seconds while applying it to themselves before being nearly completely drained. For some obscure reason, applying it to another person required just about half of the energy. But even so – although it was possible for Naruto to use it after the two hours, he hadn't mastered it by any means. Keeping it up for as long as he did while tending to Lee had been very hard on him.

"I wanted to help a comrade! Is that so…"

"After the first two seconds applying it to Lee, you already healed everything you could. While you are a foolish one, there's no way you couldn't have realised that!"

"Kyaria." Chitoku spoke up. "Just let it go already! He meant well…"

"We don't have the luxury of time to baby him. It would've been disastrous if he would've been caught by one of the guards because he was too drained. Just good will alone doesn't make a good deed. Stop acting as if you don't know that!"

Chitoku regarded Kyaria with an irritated scowl. But it was an exasperated one. The expression of someone who knew the other was right, but wasn't too happy about the way things were.

Finally letting out a wistful sigh, she turned to Naruto again. "Though I dislike saying this highly…Kyaria is right." She shot the red dragon a glare that said, 'Don't you dare say anything smug now!'

It might've been Naruto's imagination, but he thought he saw the corners of the dragon's flews twitch the tiniest bit. Not that he paid much mind to things like that now.

Looking into both his Sensei's eyes one after the other, he sighed dejectedly. "I…I know that. I know that, okay?" His voice was tinged with frustration and irritation. "I just…I wanted to…When I felt that he wasn't healing anymore, I…I thought if I put in more…"

"Do you think us fools who cannot comprehend that?" There was no trace of even the slightest mocking in Kyaria's voice, not even of annoyance – which was quite impressive considering the choice of words.

Nonetheless, it was a sober and 100% decisive tone. "The dragon's way is being true to yourself. So…throwing a fit, stomping the ground, screaming to the heavens in denial and even crying like a baby would've been reactions fitting of our kind – although I still wouldn't have been happy in the case of you being caught because you couldn't wait until after you left Lee's hospital room to do these things, I'd neither be angry nor too displeased with you, since it would've still done honour to our brethren."

The huge dragon's eyes narrowed, accomplishing the near impossible feat of only looking stern, and neither intimidating nor mean at the same time. "But what you actually did was denying yourself. You couldn't admit to yourself that you weren't able to heal your friend, instead telling yourself that all would be fine if you tried harder. And in doing so, you risked more than detection. If you would've charged the energy wrong in the heat of the moment, you might have hurt Lee instead of healing him!"

Naruto's eyes widened in horror. That possibility hadn't occurred to him until this very moment.

"It doesn't matter how hard you try something – if you don't have any idea how to do it and not give it any thought, you could try a hundred years and still not manage. That's something even a fresh academy student can figure out. So I think it's only fair to expect the same from a genin."

There was still no accusation in the slightly rumbling voice. And in some way, that was even worse than being bellowed at might have been. In that case, Naruto would at least have had the option of lashing out unreasonably.

As it was, he could only see what he'd seen shortly after he'd met Kyaria for the first time. That the powerful and wise being that was in front of him – while not exactly considerate – only wanted to help him grow and mature. Which left him with no choice but to accept his words as the truth and admit that he'd made a mistake.

"I…I…All right, I…I get it." His head dropped.

Kyaria's voice turned imperceptibly softer as he continued, "That's good." He drew his head back slightly, bringing his snout up and so close to Naruto that he could feel his warm breath on his body. "It's not like I can't understand your actions a bit. After all, I saw your memories in the ceremony of ascension, as everyone did. After a life like that, letting go of old habits is extraordinary difficult and slip-ups to be expected, I guess. So, I want you to know…for you to understand as quickly as this makes me look forward to our lessons with renewed hope."

If Naruto wasn't still feeling down, he would've gaped and felt pride surging through his veins for sure. But as it was, he merely smiled weakly, grateful for his new Sensei's unexpected attempt to cheer him up.

For a moment, Chitoku regarded Kyaria with an indecipherable expression. Only a master of the Byakugan would've been able to discover approval in their depths. Maybe even veneration.

Whatever it was, she quickly ceased it and looked at Naruto again, sympathy and support now plainly visible in her eyes. "And also…" She smiled encouragingly, "You do not have to fear for your comrade that much yet. After all…just because your power was not sufficient does not mean another one will not prevail."

Naruto looked up. Hope was welling up in his chest as an idea struck him. "Could you…?"

Almost instantly, the looks on the reptilian faces turned solemn. "Lad…" Kyaria spoke with a hint of real indisposition and regret in his voice for the first time. "We already told you why we can't initiate such things anymore."

The disenchantment threatened to crush the young genin on the spot. Upon beholding his dejected look, Chitoku quickly continued what she'd been saying earlier. "However…what I wanted to say was that I have knowledge of someone in your world who might be able to cure your friend."

And just like that, his hope was right back. "Really? Really and truly?" Chitoku nodded. "Who is-"

"Hold on." Kyaria interrupted. "I'm fairly certain Chitoku won't mind sacrificing some of her training time to explain that in detail. So before that, I'll take my leave." Both Naruto and Kyaria looked at him in disbelief.

"And what exactly do you plan to do that cannot wait even one moment more?"

The giant dragon shrugged. "Meditating I guess. Heaven knows I'll need all the patience I can get to show this little fool the ropes. Besides…" His left flew lifted a little to form a lopsided smirk. "If I stay here, it's only a matter of time before you accuse me of being insensitive. So I think I prefer you nagging at me for that later."

Finally, as he turned to leave, he murmured so quietly that not even the ear of a hatchling could hear him, "That being said…you know as well as I do that I'm no good for him right now." And with that, he left.

Chitoku shook her sparkling head. "I swear, that guy…!"

That guy… In combination with the topic, Naruto was reminded of a certain other guy…who also happened to have red on his body. Anger surged from within him. And as Chitoku turned to him she immediately realized the change in his mood.

"Little hatchling…please listen to me." She started. "Kyaria is not easy to handle or perceive. That is a fact no one knows better than I." Her eyes turned softer and a bit imploring. "But please do believe me when I say that even if he acts like this sometimes, it does not mean he…"

"Hm? Oh no, that's not it at all!" Naruto quickly interrupted as it became clear to him what kind of misunderstanding had occurred. "Don't worry. I really don't think Kyaria-sensei a bad person at all." He lowered his gaze. "I was…I was thinking about the guy who did that to Bushy-brow just now." His fists clenched so hard the knuckles popped at the memory. That guy…just what the hell was he thinking? What the hell is he thinking? He'd already won, and yet…!

Chitoku watched him quietly.

"Naruto…" She spoke up. When she was certain she had his attention she continued, "What do you know about Gaara?"

Naruto blinked. He couldn't make sense of this change of topic at all. "…Well…" he replied nonetheless, "I know that he's from Suna. I know that he controls sand and that he's a nutcase from the looks of it. And I know…" Speaking through gritted teeth he went on. "I know…what he did." His voice trembled with fury.

Chitoku continued to stare at him. Her eyes changed from imploring to sympathy, but also with resolve of some kind. "There is something else…that I think you should know about him. Before you decide how you are going to confront him the next time you meet in strife."

Naruto was the epitome of confusion in that very moment. "Something else? What do you mean? What else is there to know?"

"Little one…" She took a deep breath and chose her next words with extreme care. "Gaara...in a certain sense he is…" She took a moment before she grasped the nettle. "He can be compared to you in a way."

For a long moment, everything was silent. Naruto stared at his Sensei with a completely blank face.

"What…" If it weren't for his new additional tools, if Chitoku-sensei had proven just a tiny bit less kindness and politeness during the short time Naruto had known her…he would've outright attacked her – overpowering him in every way or not would've mattered little. "What exactly do you mean by that, Sensei?"

Chitoku nearly flinched a little at the neutral tone Naruto used on her now. But she knew that him not lashing out at her both physically and psychologically was an impressive feat in and on itself.

So she continued to speak, throwing Naruto in a state of shock and utter consternation with her next five words. "He is a Jinchuuriki also."

***Present***

It had taken a while for him to come to grips with that.

But after some time, and with the advice from Chitoku – as well as Kyaria's to an extent – he now understood. Understood the reason why Gaara was like this now…and just how small the deciding difference in their history actually was.

Looking at Gaara was like looking into a mirror. He saw what he himself might've become if things would've been just a little different…if Jiji had been a different man…if Iruka-sensei hadn't reached out to him…the 'what ifs' scared him to no end.

Gaara had never gotten the salvation Naruto had acquired. Instead, he'd continued to wander around inside that terrible darkness that was loneliness – he even had to see the one person he'd called precious betray him. After it all, he was completely consumed by hatred – and the only way he could even feel a little bit like his existence mattered, the only way he felt was left in his world – was to kill other people. Because if you can destroy something that exists, that means you yourself also must exist…right?

Naruto was still fuming mad at Gaara – but after knowing the whole story, he simply couldn't help but feel sympathy for him as well – and a strong sense of kinship.

"W-what?" An outburst jolted Naruto out of his contemplations. Chastising himself a bit, he focused back on the match. What he saw was enough to make his dragon eyes go impossibly wide.

Sasuke was crouching on the arena wall, his right hand lowered to the height of his knees palm facing down. His left hand held onto his right forearm just below the elbow. And blue lightning was crackling all around him, originating from his right hand and completely covering it.

"Kakashi!" Kurenai blurted out. The look she sent his way was not pleased at all. "You-You taught a technique like that to a genin?" Accusation was clearly evident in her voice.

Kakashi met her gaze with a more or less steady of his own. "Gai said it himself. Taijutsu alone isn't enough to stand up to this guy." He looked back at Sasuke. "And this is the only technique I could think of that gives my pupil a chance to win. Also, seeing as what Gai did, I don't really feel bad about it."

Sakura averted her eyes from Sasuke for a second and glanced at Kakashi. "What do you mean by that, Sensei? What's Sasuke-kun doing?"

But it was Gai who answered her. "My youthful eternal rival is known as the 'Copy-nin' for a good reason, as I'm sure you know. However, what you're seeing down there…That is his one, sole original jutsu." He paused for a moment as the lightning around Sasuke grew in intensity and he crouched even deeper. A strange chirping sound began to well up. "The lightning you're seeing just now…it forms a thick and sharp layer around its user's hand, in effect turning the hand into a blade. My eternal rival himself mostly uses an even stronger version of this called 'Raikiri'. This name stems from the fact that Kakashi has proven capable of cutting through thunderbolts with it." At this point, both Naruto and Sakura gave their Sensei a look of awe. "However, even if this is the basic version, it's still of tremendous power." With her interest aroused, Tenten spoke up. "You said 'Raikiri' is only the name of the upgraded version, right? So what's the name of this one?" "Well, this one got its name from its particular sound. It's-" Sasuke suddenly shot down the arena wall and over the ground with blinding speed. "-called-" With the help of his special eyes, Sasuke evaded the spikes of sand that grew from the sphere at the last instant…and rammed his lightning covered hand deep inside it.

"Chidori!"

Disbelieving silence ensured. Well, for anyone but Naruto. He could hear Gaara start talking to himself again after a moment. "…Mother? What is that…? It feels strange…and wet, and warm…is…that…"

Then an inhuman cry echoed through the stadium. "IT'S BLOOD! IT'S MY BLOOD!" Apparently feeling something he didn't expect, Sasuke suddenly started trying to pull his hand from the sphere frantically. After a few seconds, he succeeded and quickly leapt back.

For a strange, beast-like arm came bursting out of the sphere, grabbing the empty space where his opponent had been just a moment ago. An outcry rose inside the stadium. And then, the sphere of sand and the arm dissolved, revealing Gaara – who was holding his wounded right shoulder.

.


.

The masked Kabuto watched the events unfold with genuine, scientific interest. A part of him was anticipating dissecting the self-proclaimed 'dragon' after Konoha had fallen. These unnatural physical abilities would truly be useful if he found out how they worked. However, when he saw the arm bursting forth from the sphere, he quickly cast a look at his disguised master. This kid from Suna might ruin his plans if they didn't set them in motion now!

Of course, Orochimaru saw this as well – and gave his subordinate the signal to start the invasion. Kabuto nodded mentally to himself, and swiftly activated the chakra transmitter he held, giving a signal to the receivers of the army from Suna and Oto, telling them to go about their separate tasks. And then he raised his hands to execute the 'Temple of Nirvana'.

Something strange happened just then. A strong sense of…wrongness overcame Kabuto. If he wouldn't have spent the recent years of his life doing things which surpassed the nightmares and cruelty of most people, he certainly would've mistaken it for guilt, doubt and hesitation. As things were, he saw it for what it truly was: an instinctual warning. He could almost hear a voice whispering inside his head.

Don't. It said. Don't do it.

It was unbelievably eerie. However, feeling the gaze of his master on him, he didn't dwell on this strange fluctuation of his mind. Forming the 'tiger' sign, he channelled Chakra into the technique…

And flinched, nearly screaming out in surprise and pain as anguish flared throughout his body. It was as if very hot wax had been poured over his skin. The mental tremor of its caster was more than enough to disrupt the delicate technique. All what happened was a slight ripple of distorted chakra that pulsed from Kabuto.

And if that wasn't enough to get the attention of every ANBU and Shinobi in the vicinity, the bright blue flash that originated from every part of his body that wasn't covered certainly was.

.


.

Noticing his Chakra receiver changing colour from green to dark red, the Oto-nin nodded to himself. Finally the time has come!

He placed the scroll he'd gotten from Kabuto-sama on the ground, executed some hand seals and poured chakra into it. With a big cloud of smoke, one of the great snake summons appeared, its three heads hissing aggressively. The Oto-nin and his peers watched in awe and anticipation as the snake turned to the wall of Konohagakure…

And stopped dead in its tracks.

After a moment of silence, one of the three heads turned to the ones who had summoned him. "…That is the place we're supposed to attack?" All of the Oto-nin were completely dumbstruck at this. The leader of the group gave an uncertain nod nonetheless. The snake stared back at him blankly.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

And without another word, it disappeared just as quickly.

.


.

The man in the shadows grabbed his Kunai more tightly as he readied himself. The Konoha guard in front of him was just finishing another beat. Soon, the moment when he'd turn his back to his hiding place again…soon…

Now!

He stealthily yet quickly left his hide and closed in on his target. He raised his Kunai, and…screamed at the top of his lungs as pain unlike anything he'd ever felt before surged through him. It felt as if liquid metal was washing over his skin, flowing into his pores, through his veins…

He stumbled and the Kunai he'd held cluttered to the ground without hitting its target. The Konoha-nin he'd been about to assassinate spun around, quickly drawing a Kunai as well.

In a last ditch attempt, the would-be-assassin drew another Kunai and thrust it at his targets' midsection. But in that instant the pain welled up again, just as unbearable as before, and the thrust grew shaky and unsteady – making it easy for the guard to sidestep it and use the blunt end of his own Kunai to knock his attacker out.

*Back at the stadium*

The group watched in shock as several ANBU closed in on the figure that had been the source of the ripple of chakra. The person wore an ANBU mask themselves, and was almost completely covered by a black cloak.

And it moved through the incoming ANBU with ease.

It flinched and withdrew when it tried to strike one of them, only for a certain blue light to flash up once more. Visible on the hands of the figure was part of a strange blue mark, which was the origin of the light.

No one noticed Naruto going completely still, and the atmosphere beginning to change around him – because suddenly, screams of both fright and pain as well as the sound of clanging weapons and battle noises echoed throughout the stadium. Spinning around, Kakashi and the other jōnin saw that the remaining ANBU as well as every other Shinobi present inside the arena were fighting off a fair number of hostile Shinobi bearing the insignia of Oto and Suna.

Even though the defenders were quite outmatched in terms of numbers, they were easily holding their ground – for every time one of the invaders made a move to attack them, the mysterious mark would light up anew, and interrupt or hinder them. Only the more experienced and resolute of them were even capable of actually fighting – and that only on a mediocre level.

"W-What the hell? What's going on here?" Ino asked in bewilderment.

In that moment, everyone finally noticed it. That change in the atmosphere. That strong, pressuring feeling…As a sudden, ominous sound made them all spin around.

Naruto stood there with one foot on the railing. His left wing-arm was grabbing at the railing a bit farther left, the aerofoils already halfway outstretched. The fingers of his right hand had curled up, the ethereal new claws being clearly poised to strike. His left hand was hidden behind his aerofoil, but it was almost safe to say that it was clawed up too. And…he was growling.

Now, humans 'growling' were often described in many stories, often as a sign of great anger, sometimes for comical relief. But…those supposed growls were in actuality nothing but a human articulation that bore a resemblance to the real thing – and a passing one at that.

Hearing an actual growl – this deep, reverberating, animalistic and primal sound – coming out of a human throat was more unnatural than anything else…and frightening.

And then Naruto sent a growl-laced bellow into the arena, a challenge to each and every single perpetrator.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW FOOLISH IT IS TO WREAK HAVOC INSIDE A DRAGON'S SHELTER?"

.


.

Inside the city, there were numerous scenes like the one inside the arena. And at one of those scenes a woman with black/purple hair wearing a skin-tight mesh body-suit that came down to just slightly above her knees as well as a tan overcoat was engaging a group of the invaders in combat.

Though the woman herself and any decent shinobi would hardly consider it 'combat'. Every time one of her opponents swung at her, they would cringe and more often than not squeal in pain as a blue mark appeared on their skin – even though the attacks would've been ridiculously easy to dodge, block or counter. Thus, it was child's play to subdue them – she didn't even have to kill a single one until now, it was that easy.

This is absurd! The Kunoichi thought to herself. This can barely be called a scuffle! And then, she summoned a few snakes, had them wrap around the last one and smashed his head into a wall, knocking him out cold. For a few seconds she just stood there, unable to believe it was over already. Then she shook her head, confused and even slightly annoyed at not having gotten a better fight out of this. She walked over to the downed enemy and kneeled down beside him. Just as she was beginning to reach out for his face, she heard the familiar sound of incoming Shinobi. She relaxed though, as she turned around and saw several other Konoha-nin and two ANBU converging on her.

"Are you all right, Mitarashi?" They asked. The woman named Anko scoffed. "All right? I'm downright insulted! It's a stain to my name that I'm forced to fight shinobi as pitiful as this!" Reaching down, she turned the unconscious man's head sideways to take a closer look at the glowing mark that donned his skin. She sighed in frustration. "Seriously, just what the fuck's up with this seal? Forget about its purpose, I don't recognise the pattern at all!"

"I'd be highly surprised if you did." One of the ANBU spoke up. "After all, our best sealing experts have tried to find out more about this mark for four days now – and we still are none the wiser."

All eyes turned to the speaker with questioning looks. The other ANBU was looking at his partner in shock. "S-Senpai?"

"It's okay. After all of this, keeping it classified any longer is out of the question anyway." He then addressed everyone else. "This mark has appeared twenty times over the last five days, with the only similarity being that in every case a form of violence was involved. Because there was so much time between the incidents and virtually no connection between the victims, it was believed to be the work of a single culprit with indiscernible motives."

"Now however…" He shook his head. "We all saw the work of these marks en masse today. Also, I just received a message from the other ANBU throughout the city. It's not just here – it's happening all over the village. So…this can't be the work of a singular individual."

Anko blinked, even more irritated than before. "So like I just said, what the f-"

She suddenly stopped, eyes wide and fixated on something. And when the others whirled around and looked in the same direction, the same happened to them.

There, a few kilometres before them was the chūnin exam stadium. And like a colourful cloud, there were over a hundred yellow shining objects spreading out from it through the air, diving down into the village at random points.


Naruto lowered his hands and separated them, watching his clones take flight and dispersing throughout the village. They'd show those bastards just what kind of shit they'd stepped in just now!

It wasn't enough however. Naruto himself needed to let out steam, too. So he finished jumping over the railing and beat his wings, ignoring one or two surprised outcries on the way - and catapulted himself to a one-on-one fight between the examiner and an Oto-nin. The enemy was fairing incredibly well against Hayate, especially considering the mark that had to hurt terribly. But it came to an end as Naruto landed behind him and – in a sort of deja-vu – grabbed the opponent and hurled him away. This time, he didn't use all of his power…but it was still more than enough to make the man crash straight through the makeshift fix in the gallery and imbed him in the wall behind.

Not slacking off, Naruto looked around, searching for the next one. He found him when a Suna-nin on the stand noticed the dragon-boy. Naruto jumped straight at him, and the enemy threw a handful of Shuriken at him, thinking that it'd be a safe hit. He'd made the grave mistake of forgetting that this opponent could freely move in three dimensions.

Just as the Shuriken were about to make contact, Naruto's wings flapped backwards, moving him in the direction of the ground and making the sharp stars pass over his head. Another wing-beat brought him to the railing, which he grabbed with both his original hands, and swung himself around it. His feet made contact with his attacker's shoulders and he put the entire force of the flight on them. The poor fellow was brought down to the ground shoulder blades first, and the force of the flight – aided by his wing-arms that anchored themselves to the ground – all but crushed his shoulders, effectively taking him out of the fight. He was too stunned to even scream in pain.

Barely paying the downed man the barest of glances to make sure he really was no danger anymore, Naruto's eyes darted around in a frenzy, searching for the next prey. Then they got stuck on another Oto-nin who was coming from his left, and his flews formed into a snarl in a response to the man's raised kunai.

Said man had watched his ally fall and just prepared to launch at the boy when his gaze hit him, and he froze. For he had the unfortunate honour of being the first human in over three millennia to behold this certain look.

Besides being the most pure, unadulterated wrath he'd ever seen, there was also something else. Something that shouldn't be there. Something scarier than even the most justified anger.

There within the boy's bright ethereal eyes and the widened blue irises of his actual ones boiled the true, genuine bloodlust of an alpha predator.

By the time the man unfroze himself; the dragon boy had already stepped off of his ally and crouched down, prepared to pounce. Pushing his fear aside by imagining the only set of even more scary eyes he'd ever seen – Orochimaru's – and bracing for the pain he knew would come, he prepared to slice.

He never got the chance.

This certain Oto-nin was anything but a rookie, and no weakling either. He'd taken into consideration how fast this boy could move before attempting to intercept his leap. Going by his calculations, he would've been able to do it. But there was one thing that hadn't occurred to him.

His opponent's feet were clawed. And apparently sharp enough to pierce stone. They'd dug into the ground as he crouched, gaining him a great amount of additional leverage. The resulting boost in speed was just as big as it would've been if Naruto had used chakra – without the alerting chakra spike.

And so, the blur that was Konoha's most unpredictable shinobi went straight under the incoming swipe, and lashed out at his opponents' flank.

Though now, his lack of experience showed again. He'd misjudged his inertia and wasn't able to stop himself from toppling over when he landed. Rolling over the ground, he quickly recovered by rotating on his own axis and sinking his claws into the ground. For a second, stone splinters were sent flying around his field of vision, and then Naruto finally stopped. He rose up just in time to see the result of his actions.

His enemy collapsed; a look of disbelief on his face as a fountain of blood gushed out of his side. Or more specifically, from the four parallel deep cuts running through it.

Mankind had created many tools to survive in the world. And some of them were truly magnificent.

However, if nature really 'put its mind' to something…then this masterpiece of it was as close to perfection as something could get.

No man's weapon, no matter how masterfully crafted, would ever be able to stand up against something that nature had created solely for the exact same purpose. That was the simple truth.

And a dragon's claws were one such masterpiece.

The man's chunin jacket had offered practically no resistance against them. And the cuts they'd made were finer than even the ones inflicted by a scalpel of the highest quality would've been…and thus bleeding like mad. If the man knew what was good for him, then he'd better lie there still, until a kind soul gave him first aid.

Naruto meanwhile gave a satisfied grunt and looked around for the next opponent…but then, he froze as a chilling, terrible sense of wrongness overcame him.

Naruto jumped on the stadium's roof. A kunai hit his temple and bounced off harmlessly. He paid it no mind.

There, near one of the houses adjacent to the stadium stood a tall woman, donning a Suna hitai-ate. She looked worse for wear and was cringing a little in the effect of the mark. The white smoke of a clone's destruction was still wafting around the sword she held.

In front of Naruto's eyes, the colour of her mark changed from bright blue to a bright, alarming red.

She'd destroyed. She'd killed. Even if it was just a clone, she'd 'killed' it. She'd killed. She had killed.

She had killed inside of his shelter.

Murderer! Wrong! Wrong! WRONG!

He stepped off the roof and let himself fall to the ground, before slowly walking up to the woman. It was all he could do not to shake uncontrollably with fury and destructiveness all along the way.

Panting in exhaustion and pain, the woman's head snapped around to the incoming enemy, suppressing a fearful hitch in her breath. I destroyed this clone. I can destroy another one. She tried to convince herself. Even though the fight against the first really did a number on her.

There was virtually no difference in appearance between a shadow clone and it's original. However, one made a horrible mistake if he assumed fighting such a clone was comparable to fighting the real thing.

Aside from the fact that a clone could disappear even upon receiving as much as a scratch (depending on the user's skill), it didn't possess the chakra capacity of the original. Which was only logical; otherwise creating even a single clone would severely exhaust the user, no matter how great his or her power.

And just the same, it also wasn't as fast or strong as the creator. At best, it was about one tenth as skilled.

Naruto easily sidestepped the downward slash, his right side now facing her front. She barely saw how his bloodthirsty gaze fixed on her right lower arm, the one which held the blade…before his head jabbed out not unlike a snake and his fangs sank deep into it.

.


.

Kakashi got up to the roof just in time to witness this.

The glowing teeth cut through muscles, tendons and veins like butter before hitting the bone with a wet, meaty and sickening crunch.

For a moment, the woman just stared at her hand, which had gone limp as the tendons attached to it had been severed. Then, her mouth opened to emit a scream of utter terror. Which was short lived however as Naruto's head, still biting strongly on the limb between its jaws was jerked back, pulling her off her feet. Naruto whirled her around himself two times in a horrifying display of animalistic savageness and wildness before finally letting go; hurling her into a food stand. It was blown over completely, and the Kunoichi from Suna kept skidding over the ground before finally coming to a stop against the wall of a building – which in turn cracked from the impact.

As she slumped to the ground, one could make out a small red trickle running from the back of her head to the ground. Though the gaping wound on her arm was, of course much more captivating.

To a skilled jōnin like Kakashi, it was obvious that the bones in her lower arm were severely damaged. If he'd bitten just a tiny bit harder, Kakashi realised in horror, he would have torn off her arm!

She seemed to be alive, at least. A single-minded move of the remaining enemies around the stadium got his attention.

There was an old saying that said 'kill one man to intimidate a hundred'. In this case it'd be more fitting to say 'almost bite off one enemy's arm, and all the others will scramble away from you as if it'd have been their genitals'. If that had been intentional, he had to congratulate Naruto.

Said genin just spit out a mouthful of flesh and blood, making one man who'd dared to look back run even faster. He looked about ready to give chase when…

"Naruto!"

He spun around, coming face to face with his Sensei. For a moment, Kakashi got a glimpse of what Naruto's opponents had seen…then it receded and Naruto blinked a few times, as if just snapping out of some kind of frenzy. Kakashi resolved himself to talk to the Hokage specifically about this.

"As much fun as it is to watch you getting your first taste of a lady…" The sarcastic remark elicited a light blush and a mixed look of embarrassment and prudency from his pupil. "I've got a mission for you."

"A…mission?" Naruto replied in a still slightly dazed tone. Then his eyes widened suddenly "Wait! What about Sasuke-tengu and Sakura-chan? And Hinata and everyone else? Are they…"

"Don't freak out on me now. Asuma, Gai and Kurenai are taking care of them – or leading them into battle, depending on the case. Except Sasuke, that's the thing…"

*About ten minutes later*

Sasuke collapsed, his accidently activated curse mark subsiding again. Damn…I missed!

Immediately after the weird chakra spike, the two remaining sand siblings had jumped into the arena and grabbed their wounded brother, escaping with him. Still in the haze of battle and annoyed at his opponent being dragged away before the match was decided, Sasuke had given chase without a second thought.

By the time he'd finally caught up with them they'd been deep inside the forest already. Sasuke was expecting to have to fight all three at once…but as soon as he became aware of Sasuke's approach, Gaara had violently pushed his siblings aside…and begun to transform.

Even after seeing that eye inside the sphere, Sasuke had thought he was prepared for this. The competitive side of him yelling to prove himself better than the baka.

But even after using his second chidori, his enemy was not slowed down in the least. And it soon became pretty clear that none of his other attacks had any kind of effect. So he'd ignored Kakashi's warning and attempted to use the chidori a third time. He'd just barely managed, but the hit he'd been able to land on his opponent was not a lethal one. The arm that he'd severed from the monstrosity that Gaara had become reformed already, and before he could dwell on his failure any further, Gaara was upon him again.

"DIE!" The deformed face of his opponent screeched, and a massive claw lifted for a fatal strike. Sasuke was just about to decide to ignore yet another of his Sensei's orders and purposely activate his curse mark.

But then a brightly shining object came seemingly out of nowhere and crashed into Gaara, knocking him off of the branch he and Sasuke were standing on. The object had blonde hair and ethereal wings.

"Naruto?"

"Hey!" The recently turned dragon replied as he straightened up. His eyes never left Gaara as the Jinchuuriki of Shukaku quickly caught himself and landed on another branch.

"What…What are you doing here?"

"You're welcome. It was nothing." Naruto said a bit darkly. But then he shrugged it off. "Well, Kakashi-sensei watched you give chase, and so he ordered me to give you chase. Sakura wanted to come too, but right now every helping hand is needed, and he argued that I could search much better and faster. Walking on air, see?" His wings twitched, showing off. "Sorry for the delay by the way. You guys were almost impossible to find with all this chaos going on, and I met a group of Oto-nin who insisted on getting their asses kicked." He shrugged and his lips twitched the tiniest bit. "Just their luck that poisoned throwing weapons don't work on me."

A loud roaring noise interrupted them, and Naruto quickly took Sasuke and leapt aside to dodge the massive gust of wind that had been about to eliminate them.

"…I guess this is not exactly the time to talk, huh?" Naruto remarked bashfully. Sasuke silently agreed.

"YOU!" Gaara screamed, his body now a miniature version of Shukaku. Despite the glow of the mark visible on the bare parts of his feet, there was no pain in his eyes. It was completely drowned out by a mad kind of glee, satisfaction and anticipation. "I'VE WANTED TO KILL YOU…FOR SO LONG NOW!"

Naruto's eyes held the tiniest bit of uncertainty and a good bit of reluctance. "You did, now?" He replied nonetheless, setting down Sasuke and slipping into his battle stance. "Sorry, but I'm not planning to die again right away. Once is enough for a long time. So if you insist, we'll have to battle this out."

"Don't be foolish!" Sasuke broke in as he sat up with difficulty, his voice desperate and angry. "Listen, I don't know how much you grew in the last few days…but there's no way you can defeat him!" After all, even I couldn't. "He's a monster!" At this particular word, both Naruto and Gaara froze for a split second.

Monster. Both of them had many memories in relation to this word. None of them pleasant.

Before any of them could dwell on that matter further though, Sasuke – who looked about ready to topple over any second – shocked them both by stepping in front of Naruto, shielding him from Gaara's gaze.

"…Sasuke?"

"…Just go." He slowly said. "I'll hold him off as long as I can. But you have to run." Sasuke glanced at his teammate. He was annoying. Loud-mouthed. And so enviable blissfully unaware of just how cruel the world they lived in truly was.

But nevertheless, Sasuke couldn't deny that he was one of the few remaining people in his life that meant anything to him. So he spoke from his heart for the first time since the mission to wave. "I don't want to see any more of those dear to me die."

Gaara watched it all. He began to shake, and then grabbed his head in pain. Why…why does…he care…?

Sasuke looked back at Gaara, forcing his battered body to get ready to fight. He couldn't make sense of what Gaara was doing in that moment, but he had to be prepared for whatever…

His musings were interrupted by a hand falling on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw Naruto had moved beside him. Just as he was about to rebuke him and tell him to leave again, his gaze locked with his.

It held sympathy, but also a steely resolve.

"Neither do I." he said, remembering the time in wave country. The instant he'd thought Sasuke had died. The message he sent Sasuke was clear. I'm not going anywhere.

Sasuke inhaled sharply in both exasperation and annoyance. "Just this once, can't you listen to what someone has to say? You can't defeat him!"

"Oh, but mister super-Uchiha can? Here's a news flash – you aren't almighty either! Aside from the fact that no matter what I do I'll either disobey you or Kakashi-sensei, there's no way I'm gonna let you fight this alone!"

"Stupid reckless Baka!"

"Lofty stubborn Tengu!"

"FOOLS!"

Naruto and Sasuke started as Gaara screamed, his beast-like face still cradled in his massive paws.

This was going all wrong! They were supposed to fight him, desperate for their own lives. They should struggle in vain, and he was supposed to feel his own existence as he killed them. But now…now his two prey were arguing in the middle of battle – arguing about who got first dibs to sacrifice himself! They barely even acknowledged him, only being concerned for the others' safety!

It hurt…Why did it hurt so much looking at this?

"FOOLS! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? WHY WOULD YOU POSSIBLY EVEN THINK OF GOING THIS FAR FOR ANYONE BUT YOURSELF? WHY?" He let go of his face, eyes crazed, twitching and full of pain. Then he lashed out, sending four sand shuriken at the two Konoha-nin.

Reacting quickly, Naruto turned his wings into 'arm-mode' again and, striking with all four appendages at once, batted the deadly projectiles aside.

"WHY?" Six shuriken this time, but sloppier than those from before. Naruto opted to dodge them after making sure Sasuke could also manage.

"WHY?" Gaara jumped high in the air and came down, his right paw swinging at them. Naruto pushed Sasuke out of the way and then crouched down, readying his right arm and bracing the muscles – and at the last possible moment, he jumped up to meet Gaara. Narrowly dodging the incoming claw, he struck at the shoulder of the genin, slicing the sand appendage off cleanly.

Out of control from the sudden shift of body weight, Gaara crashed straight through the branch and into the ground. Naruto stopped his ascent with a wing-beat and landed on a low branch – just about five metres over the ground.

As Gaara stood up and the dust began to clear, the sand limb began to reform…and Naruto answered Gaara.

"Because we want to live."

"…" Gaara stood still. For almost a full minute. Want to…live? Risking your own life…for someone else…? Want to…live?

"You…" Gaara said trembling, his head hurting. He didn't understand. Didn't understand at all. Why would you willingly put yourself in life threatening situations if you wanted to live? How on earth could that make sense at all?

"You…You're INSANE!"

If this wouldn't have been so serious, Kankuro, who stood beside his sister in a tree not too close and heard every word that was said, would have burst out laughing at the irony.

As for Naruto…he just smiled slightly. "Maybe I am." He brought his hands up into a familiar seal. "Maybe we're all insane." All of a sudden, a massive spike of chakra surged through Naruto, along with everyone else's senses.

"MAYBE THERE ISN'T A SINGLE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WHO IS OF SOUND MIND!"

In a giant poof of white smoke, the entire forest seemed to be filled with Naruto's. Some were crouching or standing on branches, others were floating in mid-air, the beating of their luminescent wings echoing through the forest.

The original Naruto lowered his hands, his face solemn, sympathetic and understanding as he looked at the boy who knew the same pain as him. He continued, finishing the statement (or answer) Kyaria-sensei had given him when he'd questioned his sanity during an exceptionally gruelling training regimen. "But what does it matter? We're all here anyway. And somehow, we gotta cope with that."

.


.

Sasuke took in his surroundings. Everywhere he looked, he could only see clones. Yellow, orange and dots of blue. He couldn't even begin to make out how many of them were there. Naruto…you… he thought, utterly speechless.

.


.

"How…how many…are there?" Gaara said, looking around. But what made him refrain from attacking straight away was not the number of threats – it was the look each of those eyes held. There was no hate. No disgust. Not even the fear he enjoyed seeing in his opponent's eyes so much. Only…a look like understanding…and other emotions he couldn't identify. Emotions that made him uneasy…but also filled him with a sense of longing.

Holding eye contact with the genin from Suna, Naruto began to speak once more. "We don't have to do this, Gaara!" His eyes getting slightly desperate, he reached out to him with one glowing hand. "I don't want to hurt you. Damn it, I really don't."

"…!" Gaara stumbled back a step. Or two. He doesn't want…to hurt me…? For this action and words, he could see even less reason. He was trying to kill this boy right now! Why on earth would he say he didn't want to hurt him? No sense! Nothing he did made any sense!

Or did it?

Gaara remembered words he had almost forgotten. This medicine…only another person can give it to you…love…wanting you to exist.

This boy said he didn't want to hurt him. Was that tantamount to saying he wanted him to exist? Did this Konoha-nin…care for him? From the few things he had ever heard about it, this didn't make any sense either. Why would you care about someone who was a threat to your existence? But…as it was evident, Gaara didn't know much about those things called feelings. So it was entirely possible that what he believed to know, that he believed to be proof that this boy couldn't possibly care for him were false as well. So…did he…?

Gaara's right sand-paw shook lightly, and raised just a tiny fraction, as if wanting to meet the hand Naruto had stretched out to him. Hope that he'd thought to be long since dead and buried stirring up once more. Does he…does he have the medicine I need? Can…can he…make the pain go away…?

Just as he was about to consciously raise his transformed arm even more, the final memories of the person who had told him all those things came rushing back to him.

In the end, apparently I hated you all along…your name was given to you to show my sisters' hate towards the village…she never loved you…no one could ever love you…Now please die.

Gaara froze completely for a second. Then he started shaking all over, but for a whole different reason than before.

"LIAR!"

He bellowed, accusing both the boy in front of him and cursing the man he'd thought had cared about him. Lashing out with both his arms and jabbing his maw forwards, he send both a wave of Shuriken and a wall of wind against his prey. Yes, prey!

.


.

A few Kage Bunshin got caught up in the surprising onslaught and vanished. But the vast majority of them and Naruto got away.

Naruto landed heavily on a tree branch, stifling a sigh. For a moment, he'd really thought he'd gotten through to Gaara. He'd really hoped…

He could almost hear Kyaria-sensei mocking him again. …What's the matter? How did you think you'd become Hokage? Or even chunin, for that matter? By some miracle, just because you wished for it so much? Or proclaimed it loudly so many times? This world isn't a charitable bakery! There's no such thing as being able to eat a cake without baking it first! Or paying for it!

Naruto thought for a second that even though Kyaria-sensei's lessons weren't even half as enjoyable as Chitoku-sensei's, the rough dragon's wisdom might even exceed Chitoku's in some aspects.

Giving up this one fight, Naruto sighed loudly in frustration. Damn…guess there's no helping it after all. It's the Neji treatment all over again. He shared a look with his clones in the vicinity. "Okay…let's do it." They gave him a nod as response.

"LIAR!" Naruto's head snapped around and he beheld Gaara landing onto a branch near him. With his enhanced view it was easy to make out the tiny changes on one of his arms. Another six at the ready huh? He debated dodging them, but the distance was a bit too close for that. With a rueful pang he realized that it was time to bring out yet another side of dragons. Damn…though this stuff is cool, Kyaria-sensei is not going to be happy about this. Fixing his feet-claws to the branch, he took in a deep breath. Inside his lungs he could feel the now familiar sensation.

"DIE!" Gaara send the projectiles flying at him. But just as they were about to hit…

Naruto exhaled and his jaws snapped wide open with a roar. A flurry of air burst forth from his maw and the sand Shuriken were knocked to the side. Continuing his travel without delay the gust hit Gaara dead-on, sweeping him off his feet and sending him crashing into another tree.

As Gaara fell to the ground, many more of the clones took flight, and all of them gathered to form a big dome around the point where Gaara would meet the ground. The moment he did, they all inhaled once more. But it was different this time. There was a faint crackling sound audible. "Naruto Ninpou…"

Gaara sprang to his feet and was about to throw another threat or attack…

Countless torrents of fire came forth with the exhaling. They all met Gaara at the same time – resulting in a giant explosion of fire. And since the torrents fuelling it didn't stop, it continued to blaze strongly.

"…Fireflies' Convergence!"

.


.

Sasuke covered his face with his arm, his hair flapping in the hot wind that originated from the whirlwind of yellow-red. "What…What the…!" Spotting an unoccupied clone near him, he called out "Since…Since when can you do that?"

The clone lifted an eyebrow. "Never heard of those tales of dragons being able to breathe fire?"

"Point taken."

.


.

Inside the inferno Gaara was screaming in pain. Sasuke's Goukakyuu no Jutsu had been unable to hurt him, but this was different. The fire was hotter and engulfed him constantly. More and more of his sand body had turned to molten glass and crumbled off – and his uncovered feet revealed heavy burn marks already. The fact that this was actual fire instead of chakra generated fire wasn't exactly helping. He flailed around in panic and even shot a Renkudan inside the deadly dome…but it only made the fire burn even stronger. In the end – since most of his outer skeleton was burnt away already – he let out a desperate howl and jumped in a random direction with all his might.

That was exactly what Naruto and his Bunshin had been waiting for.

Before Gaara's eyes could even recover from the fire's blinding glow, one of the clones came at him already, delivering a vicious uppercut that sent the partially transformed Jinchuuriki flying high into the sky (the assailant did shake his right hand after this though). When he was nearing the zenith of his flight another one swept past him, gashing four slits in the sand covering his chest and drawing blood. He screamed in pain and surprise. Then another one grabbed his leg and hurled him even higher into the sky. With a bestial roar, Gaara managed to grab the next one closing in and crushed him between his paws. But he immediately had to pay for this temporary victory in the form of a leg swipe in the side, which brought him within range of the next dragon clone, claws poised to strike.

.


.

The other two of the three siblings of Suna watched the events unfold like in a trance, with a strange mix of horror and astonishment. Nearly all of their life, their younger brother had appeared undefeatable to them. Dangerous, but also undefeatable. Until this day.

First, the Uchiha had wounded the invincible Gaara three times, two of those in his partially transformed form – and now Gaara was being hurled to and fro in mid-air like a ragdoll. Every time one clone struck another one was already nearing. There was no pause in the relentless assault; shattered pieces of the sand armour covering Gaara were falling down onto the forest like rain.

When one attacking Bunshin sank his teeth into Gaara's transformed left shoulder and ripped it off with a tremendous effort, the next one passed by over the resulting gap and dug his claws deep into the now unprotected flesh, causing the boy to scream in pain.

This finally succeeded in pulling Temari out of her stupor. "Gaara!" Kankuro's hand on her shoulder stopped her as she was about to whip out her fan. "Temari, don't!" She stared at her brother incredulously.

Gaara might be unstable and sometimes a downright threat to them, but even so…even so, he was family!

"Listen, I don't like this either…" Kankuro began explaining. "But just looking at this, you need to realize that we can't do anything." His gaze wandered to the still going strong brutal display of efficiency and power. "I've never seen someone push Gaara this far before…this guy is a monster. If we try to interfere, there's very little chance for us to make any difference – or not to be killed by Gaara in the spur of the moment once he recovers, for that matter."

Temari grit her teeth. "I…I know that, okay? I know that damn well good enough!" But still…

"Besides…" Kankuro continued, his voice turning slightly solemn. "I really don't think there's a need for us to barge in. After all…"

A blood curling roar drowned out everything else. Sand exploded from Gaara's form in the sky, the sharp spikes destroying most of the Kage Bunshin as they grew outwards. Just as the giant mass of brown finally took shape it landed on the ground, causing a minor earthquake and covering the surroundings in at hick cloud of dust.

"After all…" Kankuro's voice sounded eerie in the darkened forest. "…Gaara is the bigger monster."

.


.

Naruto staggered through the air. It took him several seconds to right himself and stabilise his flight. He looked through the slowly calming dust with baited breath. Due to his sense of vision, he saw it before he saw him.

A giant Tanuki, over two times as high as the wall that surrounded Konoha. Its light brown skin was covered with symbols not unlike Sasuke's curse mark, and the huge tail weaving behind seeming to consist of hundreds and hundreds smaller ones. The eyeballs were pitch black, with star-like pupils and yellow irises. Shukaku in all its glory stood before him.

"…So he decided to bring out the big guns, huh…?" Naruto murmured to himself. …He's not quite as big as Kurama, though. The recently turned dragon finished in his mind mostly because it was true, and partly because he was hoping that a little bit of flattery would help mellowing his own stubborn tenant a bit over time.

Then he saw those star-like pupils fixating on him…and knew that the real battle was about to begin now.

"DON'T YOU DARE GO UNDERESTIMATING ME!" Gaara screeched, his voice having gotten a certain vibration now that the transformation was complete. A paw thicker than the biggest tree in the forest lifted, towering up in the sky. "AND DIE FINALLY!" For a being of this size, Shukaku's body moved with an impressive speed – so fast that Naruto could only scarcely dodge it.

The shockwave and flying tree splinters that resulted from the impact blew the orange-clad genin a good bit further than he'd originally intended to fly – bringing him on the same level as Shukaku's maw.

Never one to dismiss such an opportunity, Gaara/Shukaku drew in a deep breath and then hit his own belly. "FUUTON: RENKUDAN!"

Reacting quickly, Naruto formed the famous seal with his hands while simultaneously raising his wings for a mighty beat. Two Bunshin with spread wings appeared above his shoulders, and the claws atop his wings grabbed them – throwing them down to the ground with all their might as they flapped. The added momentum this bestowed upon him was enough to get him out of the path of destruction in time, though he still tumbled a little from the disturbance in the air.

Okay…it's really high time for Kyaria-sensei's master-plan!

He gave one of the few remaining clones a nod. "After me!" He received a confirming gesture, and the two winged boys dove towards the Tanuki's face in unison. A disfigured grin formed on his face, and he swept out at them without any hesitation. Naruto made them dodge by creating another few clones to be used as springboard both for his co-attacker and himself. The Bunshin breathed in and let out a storm breath in the opposite direction of their opponent – in effect catapulting himself towards him. He turned around his own axis, almost instantly coming face to face with the left eye of Shukaku. And then he plunged his right arm straight into it, up to the shoulder.

***Flashback***

"…And if push comes to shove, go for the eyes!"

***Present***

The giant Bijuu howled in agony, his second paw coming crashing down on his face and dispelling the clone. The real Naruto used this distraction and lifted his arm. Blue particles gathered and compressed, and with a shockwave a Soul flare was sent into the other eye. The howl increased in volume as the blue explosion blew away a good part of the Tanuki's face along with the eye.

All right – and now… Naruto summoned another batch of Kage Bunshin, and they dove towards their opponents' exposed armpits. He moved his left claw in front of his right, and both of them in front of his right shoulder.

The dragon's art of fighting was focused on the state of mind during a battle more than anything else and thus included only a few actual techniques – this was one of the few existing definite moves. The idea was simple: In a situation where one claw isn't enough, just use two. However, because of the ungainly footing such a strike resulted in, it was too much of a risk to do something like that normally.

The dragons had found a way to decrease said risk to such an extent that it was negligible…though it only worked in mid-flight.

With an outcry, Naruto dug his claws into the Bijuu's flesh. The impact shook him to his very core and he could almost feel his dragon bones rattling in protest. But he kept going strong, slicing as deep as he could until his claws broke through the last layer he could possibly reach on his journey. Then he did a taxing and complicated spin to offset the momentum the move had gained while bringing himself out of the zone of imminent danger with a strong wing-beat. Once having covered a sufficient distance he quickly spun around and surveyed the results of the assault.

It was sobering. Even as the last of his clones had done their share of slicing – two or three having been destroyed by the flailing arms of Shukaku – the arms of the huge beast were just about one fifth cut through. Naruto glanced at his claws – claws that had cut through stone with relative ease – and saw that just this one turn had left tiny fractures in them. Sheesh…just what the hell is with this sand? It's really something else.

But Naruto knew he had no alternative. So both his Bunshin and him dove for another round, despite the uneasy feeling in their guts. For several minutes the frantic trashing of the blinded Tanuki as well as a dull thunk of cutting and ripping echoed through the forest.

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Naruto felt worse for wear. Actually, that was an understatement.

His arms had gone numb from the strain. He could feel every single tendon in his shoulders. The fractures on his blue gleaming claws were plainly visible now. And the pads of his fingers that had come into contact with the material he was busy cutting apart were lacerated almost all the way to the bones. Yet still he forced his body to continue. One more, he thought. Just…one more. His opponents' arms were attached to his body only by a very slim piece of sand flesh by now. About half of the Kage Bunshin had been destroyed – but if all of them concentrated on one arm then maybe…

The one-man gang descended once more in a straight line, narrowly dodging a flailing paw on the way. Naruto, who flew at the end of the line this time, watched as his clones cut into the remaining tendon of the right arm and its accompanying shoulder once more, sending brown pieces flying all around…and realized in horror that at this rate, the arm would survive this attack as well. Get off…get OFF dammit!

And he struck with all his might, forcing his hands deeper than he'd ever dared to before. His whole body shook, and his teeth clattered as he pushed on, centimetre for centimetre…

And then, at the end of the agonizing task, the last layer broke. Along with – for the first time outside of his sparring with Kyaria-sensei – his claws, shattered from overuse. It hurt terribly, adding to the growing list of minor injuries.

But none of them mattered in the face of the victory Naruto felt at witnessing the giant arm finally crumble off the shoulder. Yes! I DID it! But as with many victories in life, this wouldn't last long either. As Naruto finished his sloppy balancing spin, he felt a chill. That familiar chill of someone watching you with ill intent.

The source was almost on the spot revealed to be Shukaku's no longer damaged left eye.

As the remaining paw lifted for a devastating blow Naruto's wings flapped frantically, trying to get him to safety. He didn't make it in time – the swipe still caught him with a glancing blow. Just barely – yet that was enough.

If a mountain had decided to take a walk and jostled against him just very slightly, the feeling wouldn't have been that much different. Or the effects. Naruto was sent flying through several branches and other things, painfully reminding him of his 'fight' with Kyaria-sensei. Shukaku roared in triumph. But it intermingled with the furious bellow of Naruto's Bunshin, who upon seeing their leader get swatted away, had decided to start a suicide attack and threw themselves at the left shoulder – the wing-claws first, in effect turning themselves into living spears. In the face of this last ditch assault and with a loud crashing sound, Shukaku lost his second arm.

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"Ouch…!"

Naruto wheezed as he climbed to his feet. Thankfully Shukaku's glancing blow, while heavy, didn't quite reach the severity Kyaria's playful nose butt had – so it hadn't taken a rock to stop him this time. A thicker than usual tree had been sufficient.

Keeping one wing-arm on the trunk to keep himself steady, he surveyed his broken fingertips. The claws had been torn off completely, and the ache in his muscles made him numb and slow. He could already feel the burning, yet pleasant sensation of his muscles mending themselves back together, and looking really closely he could see his claws beginning to grow back. But still…going by past experiences, it would take almost a minute until he'd be able to move passably once more, and five minutes for his claws to be ready for more action. Not to mention that while his body did heal, his exhaustion wouldn't go away that easy.

As for Gaara…

Naruto's opponent tumbled around, groaning in pain and disorientation. It seemed like even though both eyes had regenerated, he couldn't spot his prey that easily in the dense forest. Lucky me, thought Naruto. As long as I stay still like this, I can catch my second wind before the next round…

Regrettably, fate (and a certain Suna-nin) had other plans.

The wailing rumbling suddenly gave rise to a high-pitched constant roar – and the Tanuki straightened up, throwing his head to the heavens. A storm flared up, blowing most of the trees in the imminent vicinity of Shukaku's body flat. In that instance, Naruto saw the black eyes stop moving as they found him. Whirlwinds of sand appeared out of nowhere – ones so thick, they almost shrouded the enormous creature from sight. And before Naruto's horrified eyes, new sand-flesh began to spread forth from the stumps that were the remains of the arms he'd just cut off. In barely more than fifteen seconds they had completely reformed.

The sandstorm subsided, and Shukaku fell heavy on his forepaws. The act had clearly exhausted the enormous reserves Gaara had access to.

Shit! Holy shit! This was NOT good.

Those were Naruto's thoughts as his opponent crawled towards him – slowly, but steadily. He rotated his shoulder, testing the muscles. Better than before, but still not good enough to enable the adroitly quick movements Naruto would need. Watching his nemesis closing in with baited breath, the blonde ninja counted down frantically inside his head. About twenty seconds left. 18. 15. 13 – Oh come on time, pass by quicker! 9. 8…

A shadow fell on him and a big arm raised itself. Zero!

Naruto jumped up in the air just in time to avoid being flattened. Phew…that was too close!

A sudden movement on the Bijuu's forehead interrupted Naruto's musings on how to best turn the tables once more. The sand-like surface quivered and shifted…and then a thatch of auburn hair emerged, followed by the upper body of the boy whose regular appearance had nearly been forgotten by the other humans present by that time.

Gaara held himself stiffly, his wounded shoulders hanging limply. Also, there was a painfully pulsating bright red mark visible on his skin – though it didn't cause Naruto to nearly drown in wrath like before, he still felt a twinge of righteous anger before he reminded himself who and what this boy actually was…and what had caused him to become like this.

But despite all this, there was no pain in his eyes. Only a look of mixed bloodlust and twisted joy. And then he laughed.

"Hahahaha! Interesting…Really interesting, Naruto Uzumaki!" His crazed eyes twitched. "I honestly…didn't expect you to cause me so much excitement and fun…!"

Slowly he brought his hands up into a seal. "As a reward…I'll show you something really special!"

Oh! Naruto started, eyes widening a fraction. He's gonna use that!

***Flashback***

"…So basically, he's gonna let his roommate run wild and do as he pleases?"

"That's about the gist of it, yes." His teacher's giant head gave a nod. "Usually that makes quite a troublesome predicament for every poor fellow who faces the boy. Unlike him, Shukaku has access to all chakra reserves inside of him – and much better control as well. Also, his usual mind set is to be hell-bent on destroying everything even remotely related to humans. So it spells serious trouble if he uses that jutsu…Normally. But in your case…"

A mischievous smile tugged at the corners of the red dragon's mouth. Naruto mirrored it. "…it might actually be helpful."

***Present***

"Tanuki Neiri no Jutsu!"

Almost the very same instant the incantation was finished, the insomniac-plagued boy's body slumped on top of his tenant's head. The once hollow-looking star pupils in the big eyes turned pitch black, and the conscience of Shukaku himself flooded the area.

Naruto tensed a little. After all, he didn't know if what his Sensei believed was actually true…but he relaxed instantly upon seeing the look in Shukaku's eyes.

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"…Oh shit…He did it…He really went ahead and did it…" Kankuro mumbled, taking a step back and glancing towards his sister. "Quick! We have to get the hell away from here!"

He turned around and was on the next branch already before he noticed Temari didn't follow him. Instead, she simply stood still, seemingly without a care in the world – as if there was no bloodthirsty Bijuu standing scarcely a few hundred meters away from her.

His care for his family overpowering his sense of self-preservation, he turned around and leapt to her side. "Temari!" He yelled, trying to snap her out of whatever trance she appeared to be in. "Are you out of your mind? You know as well as I do what it means when he does that! We have to-"

His words died and rotted away right in his throat when he saw his sister's eyes. Blank. Unresponsive. And stunned. All the usual spirit in her eyes was buried under a layer of complete disbelief.

Slowly, fearing and wondering what he would find, his eyes followed the gaze of his sister to its object of focus.

The giant Ichibi stood.

Just stood.

It didn't laugh maniacally. It didn't scream out its desire to kill. It didn't lash out at everything close.

Even more…it had abandoned its guarded position and…simply stood there. Completely calm. Serene even.

The Konoha-nin who called himself a dragon slowly drew closer to the unleashed monster until he hovered directly in front of its face. And it still didn't make any aggressive move.

It was a good thing that there was no wind at the moment. It would've blown the two statues from Suna right over.

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"You're…Naruto Uzumaki, right?"

"Yup! The one and only!" Naruto puffed himself up. Then he remembered something suddenly, deflating. "Um…" he hemmed and hewed, feeling a bit guilty. "Sorry about…well, that." He pointed to the beast's shoulders and eyes.

His counterpart scoffed. "Just who do you think you're talking to? I've had much worse." Shukaku regarded the boy in front of him with keen eyes. Curious. But also apprehensive. "You must've…met him?"

"The old sage?" Naruto questioned, inclining his head a little. His answer was a nod. "Yeah, I met him. Though we haven't talked that much yet." He shrugged. "The majority of what we did share was a pretty one-sided three-way talk between him, Kurama and me."

The expression on the Bijuu's face shifted. He looked uneasy. A little envious. And afraid at the same time.

Somewhat understanding, Naruto gave an encouraging smile and said, "If you want to, I can arrange a meeting as soon as I learn how to do so. Though the exact time also depends a little on how all this mess plays out."

The feared monster of Suna nodded in gratitude. "I…would be grateful. Thank you."

Naruto's smile widened a little – before it vanished and his gaze travelled to the unconscious figure sticking out of the sand skull. "Okay. Now, I feel a bit bad about asking…but could you please wake this guy up again? We kinda have a fight to finish and all."

Shukaku sighed, but answered immediately still. "Unfortunately, that damn seal I'm in doesn't work in that direction. I can torture that brat in his sleep if I want, but waking him up is something that I can't do." This caused Naruto to sigh in return. "Oh well! Guess we have to do it the old fashioned way then." He floated closer to Shukaku's head, lifting his feet slightly. "May I?"

Unresisting, the Bijuu straightened his head a little and lowered it, creating a more even ground for Naruto to land on. The orange-clad boy made contact with Shukaku's forehead, folding his wings for the first time in a while as he came to a stop in front of the slumbering Gaara.

Naruto's eyebrow twitched at the sight of his opponent sleeping during their battle, of all things! His upper body turned slightly to the right.

"WAKE UP, DAMMIT!" Gaara's head flew to the side as Naruto gave him a light slap - though 'light' to Naruto would still have given most normal people a skull fracture.

But since Gaara was anything but normal, he got away with an extremely unpleasant awakening.

While the black irises below them became hollow again, Gaara's fluttered open. As they saw straight into Naruto's, consternation and blankness was written inside them… beneath the usual mad and faintly powerless anger.

"Y…You…" He started to tremble. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? WHY DID MOTHER LET YOU LIVE?"

Waves of sand came sweeping at Naruto. With an irritated grumble he flapped his wings outwards, creating a gust of wind strong enough to blow it away. "I would like to tell you…if you'd finally stop trying to kill me!"

Regrettably, it didn't appear like Gaara would do so. Naruto snarled in anger. Geez! Not even I have a one-track mind like that!

Keeping the gust going Naruto reached out quickly, grabbing the red haired boy underneath his armpits. He saw a twinge of pain flashing over the boy's face, but he ignored it completely this time. He knew that he had to end it now.

Getting into a stable stand, he began pulling Gaara upwards with all his might.

A slight bulb formed as the sand that clung to Gaara was lifted along with him, and a couple cracks appeared. His eyes widened in horror when it finally dawned upon him what his prey attempted to do.

The sand that was trying to reach Naruto doubled its vigour, and material from all across the Tanuki's forehead began to flow to Gaara, trying to strengthen the fusion point between the sand body and the human one. In return, Naruto's wings began beating stronger to fend off the sand-coffin vestiges, and he dug his halfway regrown claws inside his opponent's body. A few grains of sand ground against ethereal scales. The back of the Jinchuuriki from Suna popped audibly.

In the course of their struggle for the upper hand, their faces came close to each other, only a few centimetres separating their eyes. Bright gleaming blue against fierce pale green. Fury and hatred. Madness and determination. Everything about the two boys appeared different at first glance. But being as close to each other as they were, they could easily see it.

The deep scars of indescribable terror that lay beyond.

The two of them had lived in the same hell from the very beginning. Only…Gaara still suffered alone inside it, while Naruto had escaped. It was so easy to imagine himself turning out like Gaara had…

It was Chitoku-sensei's words that snapped Naruto out of it this time. Their words from back then, when he'd felt bad because of relaxing.

does you not relaxing make them worry any less?

This message could also be worded differently…

'Does how you feel about it make any difference in what it is?'

Naruto closed his eyes for a brief moment. Gaara was possibly one out of just a handful of people who could truly understand the pain he'd experienced. He felt for him. But even so…

Even so, he was a threat to his precious people.

His eyes snapped back open.

When he'd seen his opponent's eyes close, Gaara had thought for a second that he was starting to overpower him. A grin had started to form on his face. But it dropped like a dog on slippery ice when they opened back up. That was because his opponent wasn't simply determined anymore. He was absolutely certain.

Or maybe it was because he'd seen the neck muscles bulging and realized what was about to happen a fraction of time before it happened.

The reptilian head bolted forward, delivering a devastating head-butt. The cyan oval on the uncovered forehead bore itself into Gaara's and his head was flung back.

"Gah!"

With the concentration of its master gone, the sand stopped trying to wrap itself around Naruto. He quickly turned his now unoccupied wings back into business mode and buried the three-fingered claws into the big head they were standing on, thus increasing the pull he put on his opponent more than twofold. The sound of straining sand could be heard as Gaara was pulled up further, over Naruto's head.

In the dazed eyes of his fellow Jinchuuriki, Naruto could – for the first time since the start of the battle – see real fear.

And then, with a loud ripping noise and a roar of slight regret and triumph, Gaara was separated from the huge body of sand he'd created.

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The Suna siblings watched as the two fighting Genin where hurled high into the air from the sudden lack of resistance.

"…Impossible…"

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Naruto pulled a little on his still steady hold, bringing himself on eye-level with Gaara. He took in his shocked face as the wind from their journey tousled their hair and clothes.

"This…can't be…!"

A sad smile came into being. But it was accompanied with the knowledge that everything might still work out in the end.

At the zenith of the flight, His claws finally let go of Gaara – in such a way that his body turned to the side, with his front facing the sky. And then – quickly, with only a moment of hesitation – Naruto spun around, with his wings as the axis this time, bringing both his heels down on Gaara's mid-section. A gush of blood spluttered from his mouth before he was launched back down to the ground, landing hard on a thick branch.

Just then, the giant body of sand collapsed into itself beneath him.

With that, Naruto knew, the battle was finally decided.

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#Translations#

Raikiri: "Lightning cutter". In japanese mythology, it's also the name of the sword that killed the god of lightning.

Chidori: "Thousand birds".

Tanuki Neiri no Jutsu: Feigning sleep technique.