Chapter 7;
'The total amount of his chakra is about Kakashi-sensei's level, that isn't right; you don't become an s-class missing Nin with that amount of chakra, so this can't be the real Itachi,' Naruto thought to himself. Itachi slowly raised his arm and pointed towards Naruto, "the Akatsuki will have the kyuubi." He said in his eerie monotonous voice, it was then that Naruto detected a genjutsu cast on him, 'how? I made sure not to look into his eyes, how did he do thi… the ring, when he pointed at me that must be it, I have to break out of this. Kyuubi, don't do anything, he may detect that we are stronger than what im going to show, even if he's just a clone.' 'FINE BRAT,' kyuubi replied.
The world started to shift before his eyes, 'damn I gotta get out of here, guess I will have to do this the old fashioned way.' Just as Itachi was beginning to materialize inside the genjutsu, Naruto cut his chakra flow, connected it, cut it and connected it again. This took a fraction of a second and the genjutsu wavered till it he couldn't detect a genjutsu anymore. He was still in the same place as before and one look at his comrades told him that they were all ready for battle, 'that was fast.'
Itachi looked to Naruto who had broken out of his genjutsu before it was fully ready to root itself in his sub-consciousness, 'he has gotten stronger.' His lips curved slightly upwards at that prospect, 'maybe he will be able to help Sasuke.' With that, he looked to Kakashi who was pulling out a kunai to battle him, Kakashi threw the kunai and Itachi leant backwards while performing three signature hand signs to the Uchiha, as the kunai sailed past his head, he bent forwards and blew out, "Katon, Gokakyuu no jutsu." The massive fireball headed for Kakashi and it was moving too fast for Kakashi to jump out of the way.
Naruto, Sakura and Chiyo jumped out of the way and took to the trees to conceal their locations from Itachi. The smoke was just clearing from the area where Kakashi once stood revealing a hole going underground, the three ninja in the trees looked to Itachi waiting to see Kakashi's game plan. Kakashi burst from the ground in front of Itachi trying to give him an uppercut but Itachi was faster. Itachi tilted his head backwards to let Kakashi sail past him, reached out and grabbed a hold of Kakashi's outstretched arm, pulled him back to the ground and using his other arm, tried to punch Kakashi. Using his sharingan, Kakashi predicted this move so he tilted his head to the side but it didn't matter since Itachi's outstretched arm grabbed the back of his head and forced Kakashi to look into his eyes, hence casting a genjutsu on Kakashi.
Within the genjutsu;
Kakashi looked at his body only to find that it was paper-like, his body started to burn from the feet going upwards. It was then that Itachi sighed, "You are a skilled ninjutsu user, you concealed yourself with that doton and I didn't notice until it was too late." "I wouldn't expect you to be affected by this genjutsu, you are a kage buunshin."
Back to the real world;
"Naruto, take him out with my kage buunshin." Kakashi ordered as he came out of the hole he was hiding in. "Got it." Naruto began charging towards the two figures while simultaneously forming an odama rasengan in his hand.
The ground behind Itachi crumbled under the pressure caused by hitting Itachi with the odama rasengan and the resulting tremor moved for kilometers away from their location, birds flew away from the affected area and Itachi had a small grin grace his features as he thought about Sasuke's best friend.
Sakura, Chiyo and Kakashi were all astonished as they saw the destruction caused by this jutsu, it was then that they heard a gasp coming from said caster of the jutsu only to find him looking at what was supposed to be Itachi's dead body only to find a Suna nin called Yura, who was in charge of defense in Suna at the time of the Akatsuki attack. Chiyo was a little put off by the fact that there were spies in Suna but there were more important things to discuss with her new team.
"This was obviously a delay tactic by the Akatsuki, they must have already begun extracting the Shukaku and this was just to buy enough time for them to finish uninterrupted. I fear that they may want to create another jinchuriki, one that they can control." Chiyo said to them. 'That certainly seems plausible but I doubt it, it just doesn't seem big enough, I need to find the root for all this.' Naruto thought to himself. "Jinchuriki, what is that?" Sakura asked. "It's the name given to people that have had Bijuu sealed within them, they were very advantageous during war, the power of a bijuu controlled by a person." Chiyo answered. Sakura seemed to be having an internal conflict for a while until she finally spoke in a low voice, "H…how do you even remove a bijuu from a person?" This caught Naruto's interest, "If for an instant, a sealing jutsu which releases the exact amount of power to match up with the bijuu's is used," Chiyo answered, "that takes up a considerable amount of time, but if that were to be done, the jinchuriki would…"
"Die," Naruto completed for her, "we have no time to lose, let's go save Gaara." With that, Naruto jumped into the trees and headed for Gaara's location. Sakura stayed in position a while longer with her vision being obscured with the formation of tears, just realizing the danger that Naruto is in, she would think about this later, she had a mission to complete and so she too jumped into the trees and followed the rest of the team.
With the real Itachi;
"It seems yours is finished," Kisame said to his partner, "Yeah, the chakra's been cut off," Itachi replied, "But delaying them was enough."
"I am about to engage the second team right now, so at least the kyuubi jinchuriki will be delayed farther by the seals, there is nothing to worry about."
"The chakra we gave to the sacrifices was about 30 percent, wasn't it?" Kisame spoke after a while, "even though it's a convenient jutsu that produces the same bodies as our own, the amount of chakra taken and passed over isn't that significant. So, in proportion, our strength and jutsu we can use are limited." With that, Itachi faced away from Kisame and shut his eyes, 'but it seems like we weren't the only ones not fighting at full strength, the speed with which Naruto broke free from my genjutsu is bothersome.'
Back with Naruto;
The team and Chiyo had just landed in front of the large boulder that blocked the entrance to the cave in which Gaara's bijuu, Shukaku, was being extracted.
"Team Gai should be here soon, it is not advisable to enter there without backup." Kakashi ordered, "I am afraid that that is impossible, Kakashi-sensei" Naruto replied. "Explain." Kakashi stated, leaving no room for games.
"Team Gai has encountered resistance just like we did a few moments ago; I know this because I can detect multiple large chakra outputs that are fluctuating, indicating that there is a fight going on, at the edge of my sensory range which is about 250 meters." This left the rest of the team at a complete loss of speech, temporarily of course.
'Damn, my current range is only at 100 meters and I was an ANBU CAPTAIN…' Kakashi thought, 'wow, it was like we are talking to a whole different person, the way he replied Kakashi-sensei, it's like we are strangers to him just accompanying him on this mission, that was too creepy.' Sakura thought to herself.
"Well then, waiting here is ill advised, the Kazekage is running out of time, first we will have to find a way to remove the seal on the boulder and if I am correct, that is a five point seal, that means that there are four others like this in the surrounding area, we will have to find them quickly." Kakashi gave out the new orders as soon as he regained his voice. "I agree with Kakashi, but how do we find the other seals?" Chiyo asked. 'Neji's byakugan would be tremendously useful right about now, hmm maybe the person who created them left a scent trail and I can track them like that.' Kakashi thought to himself.
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Naruto exclaimed as he summoned a toad, "Gamakichi, I need you to locate a team about 240 meters in that direction, tell them that their opponent is an advanced henge, and step to it." Naruto then straightened up as the toad leapt off then channeled chakra to his feet and climbed the boulder to get a better look at the seal. All was silent for a few seconds as the rest of his team was wondering what he was up to, Naruto looked back to his team and spoke, "I can tell from the way this seal is designed that the others will be absolutely anywhere and we may even spend a day looking for them, but I have a solution to our problems so give me a minute."
Naruto created a kage buunshin and pulled out a scroll from his pockets, he unsealed a pot of ink and two brushes, handed one to the clone and got to work. Down below, Sakura had her bottom jaw at her feet while Kakashi's only visible eye widened as they watched Naruto the dead last from the academy drawing seals for something this complex.
Two minutes later Naruto back flipped off the boulder and landed next to Kakashi, "the seals, no matter where they are, are connected by chakra strings and the seal that I have just drawn will pull on these chakra strings hence tearing them all off at the same time, we have to destroy that boulder as soon as my clone activates the seal." Naruto stated ignoring the obvious shock on Sakura's face and the famous eye smile on Kakashi.
"I didn't know that you were a seal master, but why didn't you say something?" Kakashi asked, "Simple, you never asked," replied Naruto, "and this is the first opportunity that it was needed, now let us get back to the mission." "Hai, Hai. Sakura, you are in charge of destroying the boulder once Naruto activates the seal, remember the timing has to be just right so we are going to give you a running start and Naruto activates his seal as soon as you connect with the boulder now go." Kakashi ordered.
Sakura ran back while the Naruto clone prepared himself, the rest of the team stationed themselves at the side of the entrance to be ready once the boulder gave way. Kakashi raised his hand to Sakura and gave her the command to go.
"SHANARO!" was Sakura's war cry just before she decimated the large rock. The team jumped inside the cave to find the Akatsuki still in the process of extracting Shukaku from Gaara. Most members of the Akatsuki were shocked, if their wide eyes were anything to go by, that they were able to enter the cave so quickly.
The team was shocked to be able to witness what the extraction process looked like; there was a giant humanoid entity out of the ground with only its upper torso and shackled arms visible and its back a number of spike-like protrusions. Nine dragon-like effigies came out of its mouth that connected to Gaara's body that was levitating in the air. Gaara looked to be in absolute agony, opening his mouth in a silent scream while the members of the Akatsuki watched silently standing on each of the statue's fingers.
Naruto narrowed his eyes on Gaara's body as he noticed that the trail of Shukaku's chakra, going into the mouth of the statue, was getting thinner and thinner indicating that the Akatsuki were almost finished.
"Fuck that shit that ends now." Naruto said suddenly, breaking the rest of his team from their stupors, it was then that everyone noticed a Naruto kage buunshin charging for the only open eye of the statue armed with a rasengan, "Deidara, Sasori, stop him now." One of the projections, with ringed eyes as his most notable feature, ordered the only two members of Akatsuki that were actually in the cave.
Deidara launched a small clay bird at Naruto who in an impressive show of acrobatic skills twisted his body so that the bird would bypass him but unfortunately, the bird exploded. The buunshin had to alter course by using the wall as a stepping stone to get to the statue faster and avoid damage from the flying explosive.
The buunshin hit the statue's forehead causing a minor tremor in the caves which in turn caused a large low hanging cone shaped rock to fall through the dragon effigies, disrupting the extraction process.
"Sasori, Deidara, take care of them and take the kyuubi hostage," ordered the same projection, "we will complete the extraction process after this nuisance has been taken care of." With that, the remaining projections faded from view leaving only the two members that kidnapped the kazekage.
Deidara formed a large clay owl that scooped the unconscious Gaara in its mouth and sat on its head before speaking, "well I guess you there," pointing at Naruto, "are the kyuubi jinchuriki right?"
"Well looks like you did your homework, what, you want a cookie?" Naruto shot back, "Hmm, you have jokes huh, well let's see who will laugh once I introduce you to my art, hmm."
'hmm, that is sharingan no Kakashi, the son of Konoha's white fang, I want to face him.' "Deidara, I will take sharingan no Kakashi and elder Chiyo, you take the kyuubi jinchuriki and the girl."
Deidara's face breaks out into a grin, "Perfect, you will now witness true art, hmm."
-END-
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