Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Damn Hiraishin is a broken-ass jutsu. That is all.

Chapter 7: Night of the Living Biju


Contrary to how it appeared on the surface, Hatake Kakashi wasn't as absent-minded and aloof as his everyday demeanor would suggest to people. Kakashi was an extremely focused and diligent man, and did everything that he did for a reason, even if he constantly made dealing even the most serious of situations seem like he was just humoring a passing fancy.

It was just that a long time ago, Kakashi stopped seeing the point in walking around all serious, all gloom and doom. It was the way most ninjas were expected to carry themselves, and for a long time it had been how he had as well, but he eventually figured that if being that way wasn't going to keep the copious amounts of enemies you've built over the last twenty years from coming at your throat to do a victory dance over your corpse, what was the point of being dead serious all the time?

He had learned the hard way to stop and smell the roses so to speak; to take joy in some of the simpler things in life.

Things such as enjoying a full-course meal in seconds behind people's backs and make them wonder how you ate with the mask on, things such as watching the two kids under your guardianship try and do their best to inflict a mortal wound on you so that you can taunt and patronize them when they can't, and things such as wondering if ten years is too wide of a number between your age and that of the fifteen going on sixteen year-old daughter of your client to try your luck with.

Yeah, simple things like that.

Still, that did not mean that he didn't know how to get down to business. Kakashi was still one of the most dangerous men on the continent and had earned it the hard way; by pouring hundreds of thousands of hours into his craft, by being diligent and attentive to the world around him, and by killing a whole lot of people that tried to kill him.

This was why he got respect even from serious people like Kintetsu, from powerful people like Hyuuga Hiashi, and why he was the bane of the Uchiha Clan. Well, for that last one, the reason was actually because of what sat in his eye socket, and the blame for that could come from another, but he'd claim it full-bore just to keep from besmirching the memory of the only woman he'd ever come close to falling for.

But to the point, he got respect for the career he'd had, the things that people knew of him doing, and the ability that many were well aware that he possessed, "So to the east you say?" Kakashi said, heading back to the nearby village with Kintetsu before the sun went down, "That's funny. And by funny, I mean annoying."

"I'm certain it is," Kintetsu said to the facemask-clad shinobi as the wandered over the sandy lone road leading to town, "Namikaze-san truly was earnest in his endeavor to try and bring the Sand Nomads together. With our lack of widespread clan hostility he felt it was worth a try, and it's a shame how close it came to having something come of it for all of the work he did."

"Nothing happened?"

"As he tried to bring talks and explain his views on things he had to retrieve more and more travelling parties to listen," Kintetsu explained, "It's nearly impossible to keep our people in one place for too long, and as he tried to bring more and more of us to a town to meet, he took too much time in doing so. Many of us drifted away."

Kintetsu remained until the end along with his children to hear the man out, but when Minato realized that his bid to get an ear to listen to him was a lost cause for now he simply provided the protective jutsu that he'd promised those that would listen and bid them farewell.

He was a remarkable human being, Kintetsu could admit that, and it was for more than his seal that had already been proven to work in other full moon scenarios to ward Shukaku away from certain areas. If Minato hadn't been, there would have been no way for him to amass as many Kaze no Kuni ninjas as he had managed to.

More than two thousand at one time. Personally, Kintetsu had never seen so many Sand Nomads in one place at a time for any reason. For two weeks no one fought, no one died, and it was admittedly pleasant. But eventually everyone had to get back to business as usual and they all wandered off into the desert once more to find where they could be needed. Down by the missed opportunity, Minato soon picked himself up and endeavored to try again later.

Whether he knew it or not, he'd opened up a new business venture for those that he'd given the seal design to. The job of Shukaku-proofing villages for the full moon attacks on random settlements.

"Namikaze-san understands the region well. In order to keep from stepping on anyone's toes he never took missions in the middle of the country. It was always border work. That's why I'm saying that you can find him to the west. His attempt to initiate talks of banding together wasn't that long ago." Kintetsu said.

Well that was good news. If Minato had been living off of his savings while getting things together in the desert he had probably run low enough that he had to do substantial work to build his funds back up. If it really wasn't that long ago they had a legitimate chance to reach him very soon.

Kakashi was thankful to hear of that to say the least, "Then I know where we're heading next. First thing in the morning we'll be going back east. And I'm still very upset that we basically went past where we were supposed to go. That's very annoying to find out."

Kintetsu simply shrugged, not really responding to that remark, but instead bringing up something else, "That boy with you looks just like Namikaze-san I must say. He would be his progeny I assume?"

"Naruto is Minato-sama's only son, yes. Estranged for various reasons, but he's his legitimate son." Kakashi assured his desert-dwelling acquaintance, "It's extremely important that we find him. He may be the only person in the world outside of Naruto's home country that can help him."

"How so?"

"Let's just say that the seal that he gave you to ward away biju is a large reason why I know his mother did the right thing in asking me to bring Naruto to him."

XxX

(With Naruto – Inside of the Village)

After Naruto had let slip that he was Minato's son to Temari and Kankuro when the topic somehow came up, the two young Sand Nomads found themselves somewhat fallen into tow with Naruto and Tenten as they continued to observe the ramen cart during business hours. They were also fed for free for being friends of the two foreigners, but Ayame bid Temari a sharp glare for her earlier treatment of Naruto that she had seen.

Temari simply found it difficult to believe that a person as handsome and amazing as Namikaze Minato was related to someone like Naruto. He was extremely underwhelming to say the least, and from her point of view he held none of his apparent father's magnetism.

And he kept staring at her with a damn smile on his face! He wasn't even trying to hide that he was looking her way!

"Runt," Temari said, making sure that Naruto was paying full attention to her, "What did I say already about staring at me?"

Sitting across from the small setup of rocks that the kids were using as seats, Naruto blinked and frowned before smiling once more, "Oh, I was staring? Sorry." Temari just rolled her eyes as Naruto turned his attention back to the seal he'd been studying for quite some time, "So dad made this? Wow. He really must be good."

He'd heard that the man was powerful, but he couldn't imagine since he'd never seen him.

"These things work like gangbusters," Kankuro commented with a grin, "During the Sand Nomad summit where he met us he actually proved they worked by finding Shukaku's trail and setting them around him to trap him for the whole full moon."

"I didn't think a person could ever move that fast to scrawl out a big, complicated seal like that, while Shukaku was trying to kill him, three times," Temari said with a light blush on her face, "It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. And then he did something else to warp Shukaku away altogether. I think it was the only full moon I've ever heard of where no one died."

Tenten looked over at her blond teammate to see his reaction to hearing about his father from others, but she could see that Naruto was trying not to listen. She observed him closely though, and could tell that he couldn't help but keep his ears open. The wheels turning inside of his head might as well have been on the outside from how easy it was to see that he was thinking about Minato.

Deciding to add her bit to the conversation as well, Tenten spoke up as well, "I never saw any of Minato-sama's bigger jutsu, but he told me about some of them. He was perfect at everything he tried to teach me though. It was so weird, and he said that he wasn't even a specialist with any ninja tools except his weird kunai."

"Well that's cool," Naruto said with a big wide grin, "Everybody here's met my dad… 'cept me."

Kankuro raised an eyebrow at the declaration. There was a bitter undertone to it that wasn't necessarily obvious in the tone of Naruto's usually energetic voice, "Y-You've never met him?" He asked the younger boy, 'Jeez, he looks just like him now that I know about the connection. That's really got to suck.'

Naruto just shook his head and looked down before kicking at the sand. Tenten's thought to try and turn Naruto onto feeling stronger about his father had backfired, thus thoroughly dejecting her. It was just that, she missed her own parents every day, she knew how good of a man Minato was, and she knew that the experience of knowing his parents would be something that would resonate with Naruto greatly.

Still, she was just eleven years old, so her thoughts on how to handle such things weren't as refined as they needed to be for such a sensitive subject.

The party fell into something of a silence until a fifth reached them, letting his presence be known by his distinct, somewhat rasped voice, "Kankuro, Temari."

"Gaara," Temari said in greeting of her youngest brother, "You've been gone all evening. You even missed dinner," She gestured to the empty bowls of ramen that had once been filled with food for the lot of them.

Gaara simply shook his head and chose to stand instead of sit like his siblings, "I ate after I was through training. Where is our father?" Kankuro and Temari just looked at each other, shrugging in unison. They didn't know where the patriarch of their little brood was. They hadn't seen him since they'd broken off to do their part to set the seals, "…He's more than likely still with the man that brought these two here."

"We'll go find him," Kankuro said, getting up and moving past Gaara with Temari. He was about to give him a pat on the shoulder, but noticed Gaara give him a look before he could. He promptly thought better of the physical contact and moved along, "Just relax for a bit."

And they left Gaara alone, with two people that he'd tried to kill a handful of hours ago. This didn't seem to bother him in the slightest, as he took his seat on one of the rocks and simply sat down, shutting his eyes as if he were blocking everything else out.

Naruto and Tenten looked at each other before looking at the odd redhead. He was stronger than they were, this much had already been proven, so if he still had a bone to pick that might have presented a problem, "So…" Naruto ventured to say first, "…Full moon equals a biju attack huh?"

"More or less," Gaara said, "One can never tell where Shukaku will turn up at full moons. But it is almost always assured that people will die when he does. You're lucky that you made it to a town by nightfall. Until the sun rises in the morning, no one is guaranteed to be safe."

Hearing about another biju had Naruto rest his hand on his stomach for a moment, something that went unnoticed by Gaara and Tenten, "So Shukaku just kills people? Why?" Kurama had just been chilling in a ravine when Naruto had found him, and he didn't seem to want to cause any havoc in particular… unless they upset him, or were directly in the path of his next footstep, or he wanted a snack.

Then again, he wasn't familiar with the behavior of a tailed beast. He didn't know anyone that actually was.

"No one knows why," Gaara replied, "This is just the way that it has been for centuries," It wasn't like the history of Sand Nomads was some big secret. It was just common knowledge. General information on them simply made their interactions with others from abroad less painful, so as long as it wasn't something that was meant to be a close secret telling people about them helped them in the long term, "Shukaku is a terror. A force of nature."

"So why live in the desert then?" Tenten asked, kicking her legs off of the rock she had chosen to sit on. She knew that if there was a biju that went on roaming killing sprees monthly that no one could anticipate she wouldn't choose to stay anywhere near that particular threat, "I mean, if that's not too crazy to ask."

It wasn't a crazy question. Gaara himself asked that question, as did his brother and sister, especially after Shukaku… did what he did to break apart their family, "Depending on which family you speak to the story could vary. It has been passed down amongst Sand Nomads for years and years when children would ask that question. It comes all the way from back during the last days of the Rikudou Sennin."

Tenten's eyes lit up when she realized that they were about to get a Sage of Six Paths story. Those tales were so extremely rare for someone like her to hear, she couldn't help but listen. It was a once in a lifetime chance for many ninjas, especially a clanless girl like her, and added onto her love of being privy to select information she was hooked before hearing another word.

The only people that ever heard anything like that about him were those connected to old clans that had ties that went that far back. Clans like the Senju or Uchiha. They treated anything about the Rikudou Sennin and their clans like state secrets, thus no one outside of those clans were privy to the legends that involved him.

She expected Naruto to be just as excited as her, but the dullard look on his face told her otherwise, "Naruto, we're about to hear a Sage story. You aren't excited?"

"Uh… yes?" Luckily for him, Tenten was too eager to listen to Gaara to know that Naruto really didn't care for whatever reason. History had never been his favorite thing. Some guy did something somewhere else a long, long time ago. It was just names he didn't know to faces he couldn't picture, in places that he would (probably) never see.

And most of them were probably untrue to begin with. Seriously, some of the stories he'd heard couldn't possibly be true. People couldn't possibly do everything that he'd heard in some word-of-mouth tales, since no one in ninja society ever really wrote their stories down. Keeping secrets and all that.

It was important to Tenten though, and that meant that as a good friend it should have been important to him because of that, even though it would probably be boring.

With a nod, Gaara resumed speaking, "Years before, he had split the primordial monster known as the Juubi into nine entities that we today recognize as the biju that spread themselves across the Elemental Nations. On his death bed, the Rikudou Sennin reached out to the Sand Nomad people and requested of them one thing. To take care of Shukaku for him, to find a way to handle the threat that Shukaku posed to the people of the desert."

"Wow…" Tenten listened, paying rapt attention with wide brown eyes. That was one of the coolest descended purposes for a culture she had ever heard. Then again, she didn't know exactly why the clans of the world lived the way they did. Few people outside of them were aware of why.

"He knew of his destructive power," Gaara continued to say, "And that was why he requested the ninjas of this land that he'd passed down his teachings, to defend this land against Shukaku, and struggle against him to one day keep Kaze no Kuni safe. I believe what my father tells me that he believes; that I have within me the potential to be the person capable of this. It's the reason why I exist. It's why I believe my mother sacrificed herself to ensure that my siblings and I survived the full moon attack years ago that took her life."

Today, even as young as he had been at the time he'd lost her, Gaara could remember the last words his mother said to him, "Temari, Kankuro, Gaara… don't be afraid. As long as you're alive, just remember, there's nothing I won't protect you from. Ever. I promise."

Loosening a tight fist into a loose hand, Gaara moved it around to bring up sand from all over the area around him. Now that it wasn't being directed at them, Naruto and Tenten actually found it quite amazing that he could control such an abundant resource with his chakra.

With a flick of his fingers he sent it raining down all over the night-cloaked, moonlit village, "The woman that brought me into this world sacrificed her life to ensure my survival, because she believed in me as well. Shukaku is the lord of the desert? Well in that case I will use the power I was gifted with and be the master of the desert's sands. To destroy Shukaku, and if he truly is a force of nature I'll do the same every time he reappears."

Gaining the power needed to properly take on a biju. That was a tall order to demand of one's self.

At that point, a growling yawn emanated from inside of Naruto's head. Kurama, "Yeah, there's some serious holes in that sand boy's story about Shukaku and Old Man Sage you know."

'What?' Naruto mentally asked his massive vulpine tenant. As Gaara continued explaining his version of the Shukaku legend to Tenten who was still listening full-bore, Naruto paid full attention to Kurama, 'You mean you know?'

"Yeah. When the Sage said something about taking care of Shukaku for him, he probably literally meant it as 'take care of Shukaku'. Not to find a way to kill him or anything like that," Naruto could almost see Kurama lying down behind the bars of the cage in his head, tails swishing around, "All of us biju had our own quirks about us, and whereas I was the giant supremely powerful, sexy beast that I am, Shukaku was the runt. The baby of the family. Little One-Tail."

'You're kidding.'

"I never kid about the biju," Kurama asserted. This was his family he spoke of. While they were the most dysfunctional family in the history of existence by his standards, they were still his relatives, "Out of the nine of us, the Sage babied him the most because he was the weakest. He was only really effective when he had enough sand around him to throw his weight around, so naturally this caught him some beatdowns from some of us… *cough* me."

'I'm having trouble picturing you and the other biju being like that,' Naruto just couldn't see a fox the size of several village blocks and whatever else the other biju looked like growing up in such a… conventional manner.

"What? I was an adorable tyke!" Kurama bellowed and cackled in return, "Whereas Shukaku had to keep being told by the Sage that he really was special, as if being a tanuki the size of a four-story building at the time wasn't enough to tell him that. He'd always tell him that the desert was where he really shined. And when the Sage was dying Shukaku took it the worst of all and he ran off straight to this country. Didn't even have it in him to see the old man go. So that was why the Sage said that."

'That still doesn't explain much about why they think they need to fight against Shukaku.'

"Oh. Well it's because plainly put, Shukaku's a bitch."

Well that was certainly blunt, even by Kurama's standards, 'What?'

"Yeah, out of the nine of us, he's clearly the one that doesn't understand that razing desert towns to the ground isn't really anything worth talking about. We can all do that." He could feel the equivalent of Kurama shrugging inside of him, "He always had an inferiority complex, and the asskickings he got when he tried to swell up to the biju like me and Gyuki never helped. When the Sage died he lost his biggest supporter that he was tough, so he went to the desert to throw a temper-tantrum… that's lasted for a few hundred years now. When they first confronted him he probably went to town on them and started this whole thing. Total bully."

'I don't want to hear you call anybody a bully if you bullied Shukaku when you were all little!' Naruto thought aloud, eye twitching at the hypocrisy of the statement, 'That's so messed up!'

"I am not a bully! He kept coming at us trying to prove something!" The affronted Kurama replied, "I have self-respect! Unlike him, I don't massacre weak-ass humans by the townful unless they're asking for it! At least when I choose to take something on it's usually something that's got a chance of putting up a fight!" He then sniffed haughtily, "That's the only way it's any fun. The rest of the time I'm sleeping."

Even so, to hear all of that, that the foundation of the Sand Nomad belief system was based off of a misunderstanding from centuries past, it was pretty heavy stuff. And it wasn't like Kurama was lying. Kurama had yet to lie about anything to Naruto, and even if he had done so before, what would have been the point of lying about this?

How could something like that happen? How many other incidents similar to this were there all over the Elemental Nations? How many other clans and organizations based on some semblance of the Sage of Six Paths began their path through history based on a mistake?

"What else do you expect?" Kurama said, sensing the tone of Naruto's creeping thoughts, "Here's the thing that you human just don't seem to be able to wrap your heads around. For all of the crap about him that you humans keep dishing around, he was still just one of you; a human. He always tried to stress that. He was a human. Not a god given a mortal shell to bestow the gift of ninjutsu unto the world or whatever other crap humans would come up with. He had his share of idiot moments, just like everyone else. His sons for instance, third generation chakra users… real pieces of work."

He was a child that was tired of all of the fear and destruction that the Juubi brought forth, that was tired of the constant warfare between people that lived in his era. He grew up taught to be something of a warrior monk in a troubled time, who just so happened to have gotten a potent genetic mutation that allowed him to discover the hidden energy within all living things.

This energy that allowed him to do anything he wanted as long as he had the chakra, the strength of body, the willpower, and the knowledge of how to do it. He spent the bulk of his teenage and adult life working to do just that, but the power never changed the fact that he was just a man and he could fall prey to the same pitfalls as any other.

By the time he had developed his power enough to face the Juubi, he had become the most powerful man that had ever lived, but for the age he came up in, that really wasn't saying much. At the time, he was the only person that could use chakra, and it remained that way for years until after he'd subdued the primordial monster.

Kurama saw much of this firsthand after being created, even when it was at the tail end of the Sage's life. At the time, mankind was just beginning to learn the first thing about chakra, "Can you just imagine how weak the humans of this world were before they learned of chakra in comparison to today? I don't have to, because I've seen it. They were pathetic, even by common human standards. Far lower than your species are now."

That was a scary thought.

That was an unimaginable thought in the modern scheme of things.

Not only was the Rikudou Sennin the strongest man in existence, he was the strongest man in existence at a time when people had no idea what chakra was, let alone that it was the point of his power or that every human on the planet had the potential to perform similar feats.

"Of course the man was like a god to them. It was because he was just that stupidly powerful and they couldn't even begin to grasp the first step of it," Kurama explained, "He controlled the elements of the environment itself, mastered the five that became the building blocks of your culture, became one with nature itself, and harnessed it as a weapon to trap the ultimate being of power that the world had ever seen."

From that point forward, nothing the Rikudou Sennin could have ever said would have changed the minds of the people that wished to learn of him. Even when he began teaching others of the secrets of chakra that lay untapped within every human body, no one could ever reach him. Even with all of the teaching he could possibly give. It was simply impossible for anyone to learn everything.

When you pass things like fighting techniques down, no one will ever learn anything perfectly. There are things that people are good at and things that people are less than up to par at. It's human nature. Even if someone did learn perfectly, there will always be slight deviations to differentiate one person's version of something from another's, like a signature.

Thus began the dilution of the purest form of the Sage's arts, which slowly gave birth to the multiple focuses and disciplines of the Shinobi Sect that descended into the clans of today after his death. It also gave way to innovation, but nothing was ever as pure as the Sage's method of the ninja arts.

But with all of that power and influence, as the greatest man that had ever lived, his word was bond, and what he said wound up being taken as deeper and more profound than he really meant some of his comments to be. Even something as simple as 'take care of Shukaku' wound up binding an entire culture to the deserts of Kaze no Kuni to live up to the 'request' of Sage of Six Paths.

His actions, his words, his image, all of these things mattered. Like rocks being thrown into a body of water, it resonated, whether it was a random action that could be compared to the smallest pebble, or a comment that was taken as the size of the largest boulder. People argued, disagreed over his intentions and his true meaning behind things. They fought. They died and killed because of what they believed the man to have represented.

That was how powerful he was.

"Whether he had power from birth or not, in a way he was just like you or any other person, only as he got older he got fed up with the world being the way it was and he gained enough strength of person to do something about it," Kurama said, bringing his thought to a close, "He was the only person that did anything about it. And you humans just love to follow the leader."

Give a person enough strength and character or charisma, and they would attract armies of followers. The problems truly didn't start until this leader in particular died. Even when he left an heir to continue his will, that action wound up fracturing everything and bringing the Elemental Nations back into a state of constant combat.

Naruto was ten years old.

This was too much for an adult to take in all at once, to realize that the entire reason that thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, lived their lives fighting, bleeding, killing, and dying believing that they were interpreting the message of the Sage of Six Paths, or that they were the truest example of the man's teachings… it was enough to make you sick.

Imagine being a child and being told all of these things by a creature old enough to know. And he could never tell anyone in the hopes to try and change anything. Not now at least. Not for a long time, because as he was, they would never believe a word he said.

…Because he was ten years old.

Realizing that he'd gone far away from his point, Kurama caught himself and embarrassedly stopped right there, "Ah, Naruto, you should really let me know when I begin to ramble like that… talking about the old times." He seemed to refer to them, and to the Sage of Six Paths, so fondly though, "Anyway, the point I started to try and make is that Shukaku is a dick, and if he ever comes around and realizes that I'm inside of you… well you know how humans will watch a line of ants and then they'll see a big fat one in particular?"

'…Yeah?'

"In the scenario of Shukaku ever coming across you and realizing that you're my jinchuuriki, consider yourself the big fat ant. Squish."

Without another word, Naruto got up and seemed to aimlessly ghost his way away from the sitting area as Gaara continued to regale Tenten with the legends of his people. He needed to-, well he didn't know what he needed to do. He just didn't know.

The little blond soon found his way into the closed down ramen cart, his inner conversation taking long enough that they had put up shop for the night. Ayame sat at the server's counter behind the shut window, doing her schoolwork until she noticed Naruto sit at another stool and set his head down in his arms.

Frowning at the lost look on his face, she shut her textbook and paid him attention, "Naruto-chan, what's wrong? Come on. I'm all ears." She assured him with a lovely smile.

Naruto just shook his head in return, "It's… I don't know. I wouldn't even know where to start or where to begin. Or if it's true… or if anyone would even believe me when I said it."

Why would they? He was just a kid. He knew that much. It was the way things had always been, even back with the Uzumaki Clan. No one listened to him. Because of his father, he held even less sway than he would have as a normal child of the clan. He was less than zero to them. His word meant nothing unless Kushina had backed him due to her reputation, and she wasn't there with him.

She'd always had the answers it seemed. His mother. No matter how big things seemed, nothing ever appeared to be too big for Uzumaki Kushina to handle. She was larger than life to him. She could do anything. She was mom. She was his mother, and she was better than all of yours combined. Believe it.

He wanted to talk to her. To tell her everything he'd heard tonight from Kurama. She would know. She always knew. Only now, Naruto wasn't so sure about that. If it was something that he wasn't sure his mom was enough for, how could he be big enough to have that kind of information. Inside of his body potentially rested all of the secrets of a bygone age, and he was unfit to carry them.

Ayame sighed and stood, gently pulling Naruto off of his seat into her arms before holding him close to her. He stiffened but soon relaxed, allowing her to let them sink down underneath the counter where they remained, "Naruto-chan…" Ayame said, "I know I'm not like you. I'm just the daughter of a traveling chef. You're a ninja, and I know that you're meant to do big things like fight battles and protect people and all of the other things that you lot do. But do you want to know why I treat you and Tenten the way I do?"

Naruto just shook his head from where he was leaning into her chest. He felt so comfortable there. It was so odd.

"It's because someone has to," The teenage girl told him, tapping him on the nose, "You're a kid, and I know that being a kid doesn't matter when you're a ninja, you have to fight regardless, but you are what you are. If no one treats you like a child while you are one… I don't want to think about what you'll turn into."

She saw Kakashi every day, and knew that he'd been subjected to the life, fighting like a grown man since he was less than six years old by his count. What he was today was a shell of a man, and he didn't even try to hide it because even he was aware that there was no way he could. When he introduced himself to Naruto, and subsequently to others later, he gave those vague answers about himself. He answered that way, not to be mysterious, but because he legitimately didn't have an answer for them.

That was what happened to children subjected to this lifestyle. It took from them and took from them until nothing was left but the pure nature of the shinobi. The human weapon. The only thing that mattered to them was simply moving along to the next mission, the next fight. No future, no real goal, just carnage for the sake of it.

To think of Naruto or Tenten becoming that way, it made her sick. Almost as sick as thinking of them dying at their ages on the battlefield.

"No one expects you to be able to solve everyone's problems just because you're a ninja Naruto-chan," Ayame said, setting her cheek on the top of his spiky-haired crown, "There's things that you don't know, that you can't answer, or whatever, the same as any other kid. I won't tell you not to do what you have to as a shinobi, but I just want you to make me one promise. Can you do that for me? Can you make your big sister a promise?"

"Y-Yeah. Anything you want," Naruto said, squirming in her grasp a bit, "What is it?"

"If the day ever comes that you or Tenten can't tell yourselves what you fight for and mean it, I want you to stop."

Because if the day ever came where this occurred, they would be like Kakashi. They would be empty. And that would be the sum of all of her fears for them.

Ayame knew full well that as nothing more than a client, no, the daughter of a client, they wouldn't be around for too much longer. But even if the impact she had on them was small, if it kept them whole mentally somewhere down the line it was worth it.

Somewhere after the little talk, the two of them drifted off, only to be reawakened by a shaking that caused the cart to rumble.

Naruto awakened with a start, rolling from underneath the counter and out of Ayame's arms, motioning for her to stay there. Another rumble and he went back outside of the door to see what was happening.

Ayame knew that it wasn't an earthquake. It wasn't a sustained enough vibration of the ground to be one. It seemed more like… footsteps. Really big footsteps, "What's going on?" She asked as Naruto helped her out of the cart and shut it up.

"I dunno, but I don't think it's in the village," Naruto admitted upon seeing the present Sand Nomads standing on the rooftops looking in a certain direction, letting her lock the cart up before shooing her off, "Go find your dad and hide with him would you?"

Not needing to be told twice, the civilian girl ran off to do just that, figuring that her father had gone to book them a place to stay at an inn instead of inside of the cart while they were in town. Meanwhile Naruto took to the roofs to join the Sand Nomads and find Tenten, who stood with Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro.

Everyone stared out at the vast desert before them and saw the moonlit form of a monstrous sand-colored tanuki stomping their way. Its blue vein-like markings were on prominent display in the well lit night, illustrating that if there had been any doubt before, this was Shukaku.

"That's... not possible," Temari said, shaking her head at the sight, "We set the seals. We locked them all in. All of them. They all glowed when we were done." The seals were idiot-proof. If you did them right you'd know it. If you screwed them up you'd know it. There was no maybe about it.

Kankuro let out a humorless laugh and knocked into Naruto with his elbow, "You guys picked a hell of a time to come here."

With a gulp, Tenten looked between her new acquaintances and realized that the entire Sand Nomad population that had been in the area numbered past two hundred. Someone had to have something that they could do, right? There had to be someone, "What do we do then? Is there something that can stop him?"

No one had any answer for the girl.

"…Run." One of the ninjas said, almost in a whisper as he backed away to the rear end of the building he was standing on, "Run! Shukaku'll kill us all! You all know that!" Without wasting another moment to play the pragmatic voice, he jumped down and took off in the exact opposite direction to try and salvage his existence by fleeing.

Staring down the sight of the incoming biju, remembering everything that Kurama had said earlier, and remembering how much power Naruto had felt from Kurama for the short duration that he had when the masked man had attacked them, Naruto felt his knees shake.

This was too big for him. This was definitely too big for him. He could feel others moving away to follow the lead of the first man, choosing to run away to try and outpace the biju's pending wrath.

Gaara merely scoffed at the inaction and the cowardice however, "Go on and run then," He said, in his low, gravelly way of speaking, "Everyone here knows that from the moment we saw Shukaku, outrunning him was no longer an option. If that's the case, I guess my facing him will have to come early then."

"You're still too eager to do your task Gaara."

In a swirl of golden powder, Kintetsu appeared alongside Kakashi. The stern-faced shinobi look at his redheaded son with a serious countenance. Gaara returned it just as severely, not willing to back down this time against his father. Not when it came to this.

What was he going to do, run? Run again? Run the way his mother told him to back when he was powerless?

"I'm going out there father," Gaara said resolutely, "Even if I have to do so alone." Even if he didn't have a chance of winning or even surviving.

"Arrogant boy," Kintetsu said as he turned to look out at Shukaku, "Whoever said that you would be going out there alone?" That got a surprised widening of the eyes from Gaara, who had always told him that it wasn't time, that he wasn't ready to face Shukaku despite the fact that it was his duty to use his sand control to overcome him, "If I take you with me, you will listen you every order I give you. Is that understood?"

"Yes father."

"Then let's go. Temari, Kankuro, stay safe."

Moving directly next to his father, Gaara disappeared with him in a golden Shunshin before Temari or Kankuro could move to argue or question the course of action being taken. They were about to fight against that monster? How many people had Shukaku killed over the years? What could they do to defeat him?

And yet they both headed off with the kind of sense of duty that could only be seen in the hardest of people. Temari's hands shook at the thought of her father and youngest brother heading off to a battle that they couldn't possibly survive.

Kakashi moved to his young charges and rested hands on their shoulders, bringing him to find that Naruto was shaking, 'Poor kid. He's terrified,' He thought to himself, 'I can't blame him. This isn't the sort of thing that anyone could be prepared to deal with.'

His shaking only increased when he felt more and more people try to drift away, staying out of sight to try and keep others from seeing their fear in the face of a biju's wrath.

"So that's it huh? Everybody's just gonna run away and scatter, and hope that after Shukaku flattens this village he doesn't go after them in the desert before the sun comes up?" Naruto said, loud enough for everybody else to hear quite clearly, "What about everybody else here then? When every ninja here takes off, WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM!?"

Everybody knew what would happen to them. They would die. There was no other fate for the civilians. No one said it, but everyone knew it.

Naruto started pacing around in an angry circle as he kept talking, not caring if he sounded insane or if he offended anyone that heard him, "I am just a kid, and there's lots of stuff I don't know and might not ever know, just like Ayame-neechan said, but I'm a ninja too! I can actually protect myself! Not very much all by myself against that thing, but more than a regular person can! The people here can't do anything! They don't have a chance! Even if they ran away now! Even if we all ran away, Shukaku would kill most of us anyway!"

It was true. With how Shukaku could travel underneath the sand, he could still catch ninja runners by the droves and move on to the rest. The nastiest game of chase ever comprised on the planet. The stories of such events were common in Kaze no Kuni history. Naruto had managed to glean that much from barely listening in.

"If that thing's gonna kill me ANYWAY-!" Naruto shouted, pointing directly at the approaching Shukaku, "-I'm not gonna let it get me with my back turned running away! All of us actually have some power, so why don't we use it for the people that don't?"

The silence that dragged on after the fact just elicited a scowl from Naruto as he jumped down onto the sand and took off running after Gaara and Kintetsu who were long gone by that time. The sound of his footsteps sifting rapidly through the sand faded as he got farther and farther away.

Tenten's eyes moved between Kakashi and the departing Naruto until finally she hopped down as well and went after him, "Naruto! Don't go and do stupid things all by yourself!" As she pursued him, she found that she was flanked on both sides by Temari and Kankuro, "Wait, you guys too?"

"Heh, well I know I usually hate brats like your friend, but I think I'm starting to like that kid. Our family's out there," Kankuro said, rubbing underneath his nose with his index finger with a grin, "We already lost our mom in one of these attacks before. If it happens again, at least this time we'll all be together you know?"

Temari's right hand held tightly to the metal fan strapped to her back as some measure of security, her eyes locked straight ahead on the fate that awaited them once they got far enough away from the village, "I'm not letting my baby brother fight for his life all by himself. Even if he is creepy and intense sometimes, he's still our Gaara."

Kankuro gritted his teeth as he found it hard to close the distance on Naruto, "Damn it! Why is this runt so fast?"

XxX

(Meanwhile – Outside of the Village)

Shukaku's massive footsteps with his comparatively stubby legs vibrated the ground as he hummed to himself. There was plenty of reason to be upbeat. It was a full moon, he was out and about on his turf, and somehow he'd been summoned to surface on that place.

What attracted him to that area in particular, he didn't know, but hey! There was a town there! Fresh targets, all for him! So it worked out.

There was a pep in his step and a lift in his tone as he ambled his way to his awaiting victims.

His progress was inexplicably halted when sand captured one of his legs and held them in place with pressure that would have crushed anything else. But since his body was made of sand, this was just extremely annoying, "What the hell?" Who could possibly control sand itself, other than him of course?

As he looked down and pondered what was going on, a large wave of golden powder erupted from underneath the surface of the sand and blasted off of Shukaku's face and upper body. He'd been hit with something like that before. It wasn't as strong last time, or as abundant if he remembered correctly though. It was quite annoying though, as with his leg trapped it came close to knocking him off balance.

Kintetsu held his hands up, directing his Gold Dust to assault Shukaku to enact his plan to overcome the biju, "Gaara," He called out to his nearby son who was struggling immensely just to keep hold of one of Shukaku's legs for the first leg of the plan, "How are you doing?"

"Sand Binding Coffin… isn't strong enough to even hold his leg." Gaara admitted through his strain, "As it is, Sand Waterfall Funeral won't have enough pressure to do anything to injure his leg."

It was to be expected. Gaara was trying to overpower a chakra-empowered sand monster with his own chakra-empowered sand. He hadn't come into this believing that Gaara was powerful enough to overwhelm Shukaku to any degree. He knew that when it came to the lion's share of the plan, it was up to him to make sure it happened.

With a grunt of effort he directed the full wrath of his Gold Dust at Shukaku's face. He sputtered and spat as copious amounts of the billowing powder went into his mouth and down his throat.

Holding his hands/claws up to block the flow somewhat, Shukaku kicked his free leg at the father and son duo, "Hey, quit it!" The movement of his leg forced a huge tidal wave of sand up in their direction, "Killing only two humans isn't worth the effort when there's a whole village right in front of me!"

It was as if the entire desert tossed and rolled like the ocean in a tropical storm in response to the mere movement of Shukaku's foot. The ground wasn't safe to stand on, thus Kintetsu diverted a significant portion of his Gold Dust to creating a midair platform for himself and Gaara to stand on safely, 'No new tricks since the last time. That's good.'

Things were still more dangerous than anyone could ever understand without actually being there, but as long as he knew what the danger was he could be somewhat ready for it. The sand lifted around them and began to collapse inward, letting Kintetsu know that it was time to move.

"Gaara." He said to make sure his son was prepared for what was to come.

A stiff nod came from Gaara in return, ignoring the sweat beading on his forehead as he released Shukaku's leg and directed his attention to blocking the incoming sand from the demon as best as he could while Kintetsu directed his gold platform out of danger.

As they flew out of harm's way, Gaara constantly moved his hands and directed his chakra to influence Shukaku's sand as much as he could. In the end he was barely able to slow the crashing sand enough for them to escape the deadly tunnel it had created for them.

"Oh now you want to run?" Shukaku cackled as his thudding footsteps signified that he was in full pursuit. He could only move so fast, but with the ground he could cover with every step, it wasn't like he had to be a world-class sprinter in a giant's body to keep up, "It's too late for that! I'm comin' for you cornbread!"

'In a direct battle of strength we don't have a chance,' Kintetsu thought to himself as he focused on keeping himself and his son away from the raging biju as best as he could, dodging upward blasts of sand pillars that spiraled into the air. If they found themselves caught in that they would be torn apart in an instant, 'This has to work, or no one has a prayer tonight.'

Shukaku was actually beginning to find it fun to chase the pair of vermin down, "Usually all I get are screams and people begging God to keep them safe, but you guys are kind of fun! An annoying sort of fun that'll feel therapeutic when I stain the bottom of my foot with your corpses, but still, fun!"

As he continued to chase and attack, an errant step caused Shukaku to plunge into the biggest pit trap ever created. It was an actual crevice, carved into the earth over thousands of years that Gaara had covered with a thin layer of sand over the opening to disguise it and the fact that the terrain became rockier instead of sandy.

Between that and working his mojo to constantly upset Shukaku's own sand control, by this time Gaara was exhausted. Kintetsu knew it as he hurriedly set his platform down and brought forth the full weight of his Gold Dust down onto Shukaku to try and pin him down. Gold weighed more than sand, thus he could possibly keep the biju at bay until he could draw the seal that had been given to him by Minato. That would ensure Shukaku's detainment until sunrise.

"Are you alright Gaara?" He knew the answer to that question no matter what Gaara said. He'd used a lot of chakra and was noticeably breathing hard, "Can you continue?"

Trying to impose his will over that much sand, sand that was already being controlled by a being more powerful than him, took its toll on his reserves. Even so, a ninja of the desert could never afford to show weakness, "Yes."

"Go rest," Kintetsu said, narrowing his eyes when he saw Gaara about to protest, "That's an order. Remember what I said to you before I allowed you to come with me. I have this handled from here. There's nothing more you can do."

"Gaara!"

Hearing Temari and Kankuro's voices, Gaara heeded his father's demand by begrudgingly heading over that way, all the while thinking to himself how weak he was. When it came to making a difference, all he could do was ensure that they had a chance at running away. The trap only worked because Shukaku was too maniacal and eager to spill their blood.

Upon reaching his brother and sister he found that Naruto and Tenten were with them. Strange, but it was of no consequence to him, "Why are you all here?"

"Because I'm not gonna sit back and wait to get killed," Naruto said, tapping his foot on the sand impatiently, "…But the Shukaku thing disappeared. What happened to it?"

"It's handled," Gaara assured everyone, "We can't kill him. He has too much power. But father believes that his Gold Dust and the biju-warding seal can hold Shukaku down until sunrise."

BOOM!

The edge of the cliff where Kintetsu had been standing so that he could smash Shukaku underneath the weight of his Gold Dust blew apart in a massive explosion of wind that rocked the entire area, forcefully blowing sand and chunks of rock even as far away as the kids had been standing.

"…" Tenten cringed at the first thought that came to mind after things began to die down, "He didn't happen to be standing over there… did he?"

"DAD!"

A large claw flew up over the edge of the crevice and smashed down as Shukaku began pulling himself out of what had been meant to be his temporary prison, "Ugh… stupid human with his stupid gold powder crap…" He belligerently muttered to himself, "I couldn't breathe down there! Not that I need to breathe… but I still like having the option!"

This thing was out of its mind.

And they were all alone, watching Shukaku stand back up to his full height and look around for something else to kill. Needless to say, they were the next ones he saw, and he pointed straight at them as if he were calling his shot. In reality he was stirring the sand around them to bring about their violent demise. This had not been the best idea.

"Shakuton: Shoukyaku Eikoudan no Jutsu (Scorch Release: Incinerating Flare Jutsu)!"

A gigantic flaming red orb flew through the air and made contact with Shukaku's arm, exploding and absorbing even the slightest bit of moisture in it, causing it to harden and become a brittle, inflexible limb right up to the shoulder.

From there, dozens of kunai with explosive tags attached hit him at the joint and blew the entire arm off in one move.

"O~kay," Naruto said, not quite sure how to react to that gigantic joint attack that seemed to come from out of nowhere, "Apparently that just happened."

Turning around, Naruto saw Kakashi leading the entire remnants of the Sand Nomads that had remained in the village, "Sorry about taking so long to catch up. I wasn't the only one that wanted to come you see," Standing next to him was a woman with green, yellow tipped hair up in a bun. She wore a sleeveless black dress with lavender leggings, and much like most other Sand Nomads seemed to be completely serious, "The blond boy and the little girl with the buns are mine. Say hi to Pakura kids!"

"Hi." Naruto and Tenten said weakly, both sparing a lame wave her way.

"What the fuck just happened?" Kankuro asked as he watched shinobi after shinobi leap into battle to try and keep Shukaku at bay. It was amazing. He'd never seen so many Sand Nomads fight one enemy together before, "They're… fighting Shukaku?"

"Yeah, apparently getting verbally emasculated by a ten year-old and watching four kids have more bravery than them wasn't really in the cards for them," Kakashi pointed out before turning to Pakura who was preparing another jutsu, "Was that Scorch Release? It's quite a kekkei genkai."

"Hope that you never get hit by it Copy Ninja Kakashi," Pakura said, "It's not really the nicest sort of ninjutsu for the human body to feel. Now let's go." She then leapt off to back up the others and fight off this beast.

Yes, he'd just gotten threatened, but that didn't mean anything to Kakashi. Most ninjas he'd wound up conversing with legitimately threatened him, but most of them weren't as good-looking as Pakura. Most weren't really as dangerous either.

Looking over at the kids, Kakashi saw that they were quite confused on what to do next, at least his were.

"So," Tenten said nervously, "What now?"

"Now? It's not really so complicated. We dust him," Kakashi said matter-of-factly before loudly shouting his widespread order to the rest of the ninjas present, "LIGHT HIM UP!"

Hundreds of prepared kunai with more explosive tags flew through the air as a series of wind jutsu from fan-users on the ground propelled them at Shukaku with more speed and force as explosions chained together off of his titanic frame.

Kankuro got into the act by using a strange six-armed three-eyed puppet to fly around the attack zones, dropping multiple explosives and flammable accelerants to add to the combat effort while Temari blew away enough sand coming their way to keep them as safe as possible.

Gaara was stunned at the sight of his siblings fighting Shukaku almost as fiercely as he had. They didn't have his power, but it didn't matter. The fact that they kept themselves in front of him as he tried to recover his chakra was not lost on him either.

"Are you done with it yet?" Naruto asked Tenten as he kept her shielded with his clones, blowing sand away and sacrificing themselves to ensure that she had time to do… whatever it was she was doing, "We're kind of in the open here and you're taking forever!"

"I'm doing my best here!" Tenten replied, hastily trying to construct something useful on the spot with the supplies she had on her person. She could hear the cries of humanity going on around her and tried her best to block them out as she worked, "Just wait! With what everybody else is doing we might as well be throwing firecrackers at him, so just chill out and let me finish what I'm making!"

He trusted Tenten's little inventor's touch of eccentricity, and knew by now that she had a knack for coming up with absurdly strange yet useful ninja tools, but on the battlefield in the middle of a fight with a biju wasn't really the best place to be improvising.

She had a point though. As pretty as it all looked, they might as well have been hucking spitballs at that thing.

Shukaku grunted in annoyance at the blasts as he tried to cover himself up with his remaining arm. Growling aloud as he saw another large flaming red orb being charged from Pakura, he lowered his hand and swung his arm, sending a wave of sand at the attacking ninjas, "Die!"

"Fall back!"

Those that were unable to provide a defense were buried underneath the sand that rended the lifeblood from them once they were covered. Many were quick enough however to either dodge or provide a method of protection that kept them in the fight, as desperate as it was.

From behind his own series of protective walls he'd raised from the ground to protect himself and the kids, Kakashi peered out at Shukaku, taking in the situation, "Hmm," Looking down at his right hand before looking back up, Kakashi pulled up his headband to reveal his Sharingan eye, "I'll be right back. Pay close attention. All of you."

He had been speaking not only to Naruto and Tenten, but to Kankuro, Temari, and Gaara as well.

Rushing out from behind cover and using the cover of the repeated distance artillery from the Sand Nomads, the facemask-clad ninja decided that it was time to make his presence felt and go for a game-changer.

Kakashi quickly formed a clone at his side that held up its left arm near Kakashi's right arm, a blade of electricity in their hands between them. Spreading out as they ran across the sands, they used the Sharingan to dodge and maneuvered their way over and past Shukaku's desert-bending attacks, stretching a chain of lightning between the two of them wider and wider.

"Raiden (Lightning Transmission)!"

Upon reaching Shukaku's legs, Kakashi ran straight through them, meeting significant resistance. Still though, he managed to cut through them at the ankles like trunks of redwood trees. He could feel Shukaku tilt over before he finished getting out from the biju's shadow.

For all of his size comprised in a solid form, Shukaku was still made of sand. That much was clear from both Pakura's attacks and his own. They could dismember him, so maybe with enough force they could-.

Any further pondering on what they could do to Shukaku to turn things further in their favor had to be put on hold. When Kakashi cut out Shukaku's legs and he began to fall, there was one appendage he had that could stop him from completely losing his balance. It was big, long, and rested behind his body.

Shukaku's tail swung down the moment his balance was compromised in order to keep him upright. Kakashi barely saw it just as it crashed down on the sand right by him.

"Kakashi/Kakashi-sensei!" Per his directions, Naruto and Tenten had been watching as closely as they could, and they saw Shukaku's tail slam down, presumably on Kakashi. There wasn't anything to Kawarimi with out in the middle of the desert, and there was little chance that he had one prepared anyway with the jutsu he had used to attack with.

Waving his one arm around to try and stay upright, Shukaku's tail posted on the ground helped him do so before it melded with the desert and he went still, completely ignoring the attacks of the other ninjas for a few moments. That was all the time he needed to regrow his feet and then his arm.

"Grr… that's better," Shukaku said, glaring hatefully as he lifted his tail up into the air again and waved it back and forth slowly as it began to vibrate, "My prey isn't supposed to fight back! Suna Taihou (Sand Cannon)!"

From his tail, Shukaku began launching large globs of sand, using the side-to-side waving of his tail to space out the multiple projectiles evenly across the battlefield. The chunks of sand whistled ominously as they flew through the air.

"Naruto, you had better get behind that wall and stay there!" Kurama demanded upon seeing the battle unfold through Naruto's eyes.

Every time one of the Sand Cannon shells made contact with anything, they exploded in highly pressurized bursts of volatile air. The shockwave of the air being released had enough power to cover a fifteen-foot circumference. Regarding defensive setups like Kakashi's walls that he'd left, being hit with these directly blew entire pieces of them away. Weaker ones never stood a chance, along with the souls behind them.

Those without any means to take cover were even worse off. There didn't seem to be a limit on the number of these shells that Shukaku could launch, because they simply kept on coming. This was the power of a biju, and it was nearly unlimited.

Shukaku seemed to take delight in his destructive hail of death that he wrought down upon his enemies. Even in his darkened eyes, you could see the mirth in the yellow dots at their centers as he watched the blood stain the sand from the body count he was beginning to pile up at an increasing frequency.

Having heeded Kurama's advice, Naruto turtled up with the rest of the people taking cover, watching Shukaku's relentless attack bombard the desert around him, 'How are we supposed to stop this guy?' Naruto thought to Kurama, 'Hey, you fought him before! How did you do it?'

"Well I never had a real fight with him in the desert! He's actually tough here!"

'Kurama!'

"Alright, let me think! Okay, compared to me he's slower than dirt, so there's that. Oh, and he can regenerate as long as he's in the desert, but you saw that already," In his defense it had been a long time since he'd actually fought Shukaku, "Wow… you know, normally I'd just blow him apart with a Bijudama and leave before he pulled himself together. I'm kind of lost on how to fight him like a weakling."

There had to be something. Nothing was totally unbeatable. Kurama had a point, Shukaku wasn't very mobile, but he wasn't coming their way at all anymore since Pakura had taken his arm out and Kakashi had gotten his legs.

There was something seriously up, because if he was really able to shrug off their best stuff the way he had been, why not keep going their way and trying to crush them? They couldn't stop him.

Was this really all there was to him? Was the best Naruto could do really sit around and make himself a target to eventually take out while everyone else got massacred around him? He'd never been on the battlefield before. He'd never seen this kind of death before. This kind of bloodshed. Even during the Hyuuga/Uchiha battle, he hadn't seen much of it other than the aftermath.

Here, he could see people blow apart after unfortunate folks took direct hits from the Sand Cannon shells. All of the blood, all of the violence. There was a human arm… several feet away from where he was taking cover. A human arm, no longer attached to its body.

He was a long, long way away from home. Away from the safety of his island nation. Away from the beaches and the forests and river ways that he knew like the back of his hand.

Away from his well-respected clan that provided him shelter even if they didn't really accept him. Away from the clan leader, feared as the man with the eyes of the Rikudou Sennin.

Away from his mother, who always made sure that everything was okay.

Talking about being a ninja that his clan could be proud of was different when you were out and actually bearing witness to what could befall a ninja in this world. All of the bravado that he had left in his body just found its way sucked out of him. The heart and soul he felt inside of himself when he was lambasting the Sand Nomads drained its way out of him quicker than he could measure.

"Whether he had power or not, in a way he was just like you or any other person, only as he got older he got fed up with the world being the way it was and he gained enough power to do something about it."

Naruto didn't have the power to do something about everything that was wrong in the world around him. He didn't have the power to save everyone. He didn't have the power to beat Shukaku or turn the beast away. Not yet, if he ever would at all.

He didn't have some genetic mutation that gave him all-powerful potential to change the world, and even with a biju in his body, he didn't have the slightest idea of how that worked or if it even did anything for him outside of giving him someone extra to talk to.

He was however fed up with the way things were, and the way things were going. If this was what the people of Kaze no Kuni had to deal with on a monthly basis, then it definitely had to change. Even if that couldn't happen overnight, he could at least try to assuage the losses now. Hiding wouldn't solve anything.

Getting a tap on his arm, Naruto got a nervous thumbs-up from white-faced Tenten, letting him know that what she'd been preparing all along was ready. Making sure he garnered the attention of Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro, Naruto motioned for them to move closer so they could be in on this. Now the weapon needed a method of delivery to the prime location.

As Shukaku grew tired of things once the killing began to slow, he figured that it was time to move on to that helpless-looking town not too far away. Finding it prudent to bring things to a close before he got too bored or before he wasted more time before the sun came up, Shukaku took a deep breath and inhaled sharply, his stomach beginning to expand as he did so.

"Ryuusa Bakuryuu (Quicksand Waterfall Flow)!"

A massive wave of sand rolled over the desert surface Shukaku's way and crashed into him, pushing the breath out of him until he'd gathered enough to do what he had been aiming to do. Other than that, due to the fact that he was so oppressively large, this did next to nothing to harm him. It was the equivalent of a person wading in the ocean and letting an incoming wave of water crash into their lower body.

Shukaku had stubby legs though, so when the sand hit, his lower belly that hung over them wound up being hit. As the sand wave broke apart, a diminutive figure that Shukaku paid absolutely no mind ran up his massive body as fast as he could.

From the plan that had been worked out behind cover, Gaara had used what he had left of his chakra to move that huge amount of sand into Shukaku, knowing that it wouldn't even make him flinch. That wasn't the point however. Making sure that a safe pocket existed in the wave, he sent Naruto along with it, allowing him to get onto Shukaku and begin his charge straight upward.

Compared to all of the explosive tags that he was being peppered with, Shukaku couldn't be bothered to notice Naruto's presence in the slightest. The Sand Nomad attackers were able to aim in a way that kept Naruto from being hit as he ascended, effectively covering him.

'This is the worst idea ever! I'm gonna die!' Naruto thought to himself with tears of fear in his eyes. In his arms was a massive ball of explosive tags the size of his head. Dozens of them, all rolled together and bound to create a weapon that would create the sum of their individual explosions in one blast, 'What the hell?'

As he ran up Shukaku's body as fast as he could, he could see and feel the sand biju's belly expanding as he took another deep breath to suck in more air.

"Crap!" Kurama warned Naruto again, "That lazy rat still doesn't like the feeling of using a Bijudama, but if he hits this it won't matter if this is weaker or not! It's strong enough! Don't you let him release that breath or everyone down there is dead!"

What!?

"No!" Naruto shouted to himself, gritting his teeth as he began to see everything through a red tint in front of his eyes. The pace of his footsteps inexplicably picked up and increased his speed to something he'd never felt before. He turned a twenty-second sprint into a five-second one with no reason why. He was running up a vertical surface, faster than he had ever moved on the ground, "Yes! Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!"

He'd never felt so aggressive or powerful in his life. It was incredible. He could do it. With this he could help. He could do something.

Inside of Naruto's body, Kurama bit back a growl that was intended for himself. He promised himself when he got locked up that he wasn't going to let that brat have any chakra, but he somewhat liked Naruto more than most humans, and if the boy had to watch Shukaku decimate what was left of the Sand Nomads fighting the battle-.

…Well in the end it didn't matter. Kurama still just felt like he was getting soft on some worthless human boy.

He would give Naruto some of his chakra this time. Only this time. No more freebies, 'Make it count Naruto.' "Get up that wall boy!"

"I'm goin' 'ttebayo!" The moment he reached the top of Shukaku's chest he saw him open his mouth and raise his arm to hit himself in the belly. This was it. Lighting the fuse on the gigantic explosive tag ball, Naruto jumped straight forward and upward, positioning himself right in front of Shukaku's mouth where he hurled the improvised weapon into his gullet as hard as he could, "Rah!"

"Fuuton: Renkuudan (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet)!"

"BANG!"

The moment Shukaku hit himself in the stomach to release the wind of his attack, the explosion of the oversized ordinance met the volatile, tearing air and caused a horrid reaction at the back of Shukaku's throat.

For Sand Nomads, the surreal sight of an explosion big enough to blow off Shukaku's head and the top of his shoulders was the greatest thing any of them had ever seen. To a few of those subjected to the monster's terror for decades, to those that had lost plenty of family and friends to him, to those who had their nightmares dominated by him, it was enough to bring a tear to their eyes.

XxX

"That was…" Kankuro said, stunned into silence. For once, the puppeteer couldn't find the words to say. Temari fought back tears at the sight of Shukaku's head going up like a party popper. She hoped that it hurt. She hoped that he'd felt that all the way to his core, for their mother and for everyone else he killed, "…I really think I like that kid now. A lot."

Temari had to admit, that wasn't even a hundredth as smooth as anything Minato would have done, but as ugly as it was, as foolish as it was, she had to admit it had left an impression, "Not as cool as Minato-sama… but everybody's got to start somewhere I guess."

Gaara's eyes quivered at the sight. His mouth simply wouldn't allow him to close it after what he'd just seen, 'He didn't have nearly enough strength to stand up to Shukaku, and he chose to anyway.'

Anyone else could have gone up there and enacted Naruto's part of the plan, but he had been the one to volunteer. Not only that, but he'd gotten the job done.

Uzumaki Naruto huh? Interesting guy.

"I'm brilliant!" Tenten crowed in victory at the sight of a headless Shukaku falling backwards onto the sands in gigantic segments, "I made that explosive tag ball up on the spot!" And Naruto had been the one to deploy her ordinance to the strike zone. What was with that red aura around him though? From where they were he looked like was an ant covered in a red shroud? "I wonder what kind of jutsu-?"

Oh crap. Nevermind that at the moment.

Naruto had been up there. And it wasn't like there was anything that could break his fall from that high up.

"Naruto!" Running from their cover area, Tenten sprinted out over the sand dunes to try and get to him. It was a futile effort however since there was no way she would reach him before he hit the ground. Even if she did, there wasn't anything she could do to help him, "Oh no, what did we let him volunteer to do?"

XxX

"DAMN IIIIIIIT!" Naruto yelled desperately as he flailed his arms and fell through the air helplessly, "I can't go out like this! I can't even pat myself on the back first? AAAAAHHHHHH!"

"Kamataichi no Jutsu (Sickle Weasel Jutsu)!"

A seemingly stray trail of wind flew through the air and diverted Naruto's fall from a straight downward drop to a significantly more angled one, sending him farther away from the battlefield than before, but ensuring that he wouldn't splat off of the sand.

It really kind of hurt though, like there were tiny blades in the wind current.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Naruto shouted as he could feel his body get nicked up, "Thanks fan people! Ow!"

Even with the diverted positioning of his fall being the flattest diagonal angle that the wind-users could muster, it was still a terrifying trip and it didn't take too much longer for Naruto to begin screaming his head off again all the way down.

"Oh Kami! Clone cushion! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

All of the blond kids bunched together in the air made it easy for Tenten to follow him until he hit the ground, but by then she had gotten close enough to locate him on her own. In a matter of moments she found the trail that his body had dragged through the sand before he was sent headfirst into a sand dune.

His legs clad in orange shorts kicking rapidly were a dead giveaway that it was definitely him.

"Naruto!" Tenten grabbed onto him and pulled him out so that he could actually breathe again.

The two sat in the sand, breathing heavily at their respective ordeals and looking up at the sky before they looked at each other. As their breathing slowed they eventually began giggling at what had just happened. Kids had done something. Something important.

Interlocking their hands for a playful test of strength, they grinned toothily at each other, "Heh," Naruto chuckled, "Say it. You know you want to."

"I'm awesome!"

"No!" That was not exactly what he'd been looking for, "I'm awesome! I did the legwork!"

"Yeah, but it was partly Gaara's plan too that got you there, and I was the one that gave you the explosive tag ball!"

"Okay fine, everybody's awesome. Yay team." Naruto said, standing up and pulling Tenten to her feet as well, "I thought I was gonna die though! Like three times! I can't believe that worked!"

At that, Tenten pouted and put her hands on her hips, "Oh, so you don't believe in my ninja tools? I swore it'd work. That should have been enough by itself," The fact that she came up with the idea and put it together on the spot with every explosive tag the two of them had left between them notwithstanding, "I'm a great inventor."

"Stitching a bunch of explosive tags together is inventing?"

"Well who else did it that you know of?"

Maybe that was because most people didn't need something like that capable of taking out an entire enemy battery when regular explosive tags could be enough to do the job on their own on a lesser scale. Against a biju, there was no such thing as overkill however.

Still, there was more to see to, and they both took off back in the direction of the battlefield to try and lend some sort of hand… if they could. They sort of wasted most of everything they had that would have been useful then and there.

XxX

(Back in the Village)

A single Sand Nomad ninja had the catbird's seat when it came to viewing the battle against the titanic Shukaku. Even at the distance away from the battlefield he was, he could see everything worth paying attention to with his scope.

All of Shukaku's techniques, how wonderfully destructive they were. How he could enforce his will over the sand around him, the brute force behind his approach. He really was a beast.

The ninja's eyes had a yellow glow to them and a sickly intrigued smirk sat on his lips as an overly long tongue dropped from his mouth for a moment.

Orochimaru had to admit that Pakura had an interesting kekkei genkai to do what she did at the start of the battle, but the human opponents hadn't really done anything to impress him until Shukaku's top portion blew away entirely. What a show!

The little red blip that had scaled Shukaku beforehand though… what was that? Orochimaru had to admit, the scientist in him was extremely curious, especially considering what happened to Shukaku's head after it got right by Shukaku's mouth.

Either way, he was getting excited about getting to his laboratories and putting some of this information to work. There were breakthroughs to be had. Always more breakthroughs, as human potential was almost unlimited, "Kukukukukuku… I can't wait." He would have some interested clients after he put some of this into action.

His notes were thorough, his interest was primed. His work here was done.

XxX

(Outside of the Village – On the Battlefield)

Managing to return to the site of the desperate conflict, Naruto and Tenten came to a stop when they saw something rather imposing. Around where Shukaku's body was to have fallen, a towering sandstorm encircled his body. Wind users tried their best to blow it away, but it was a combination byproduct of Shukaku's wind and sand control.

No one could see through it, and anyone foolish enough to try and pass through it found their flesh shredded from their bones in response.

They had seen that firsthand just upon arrival. Not a lovely sight to put it mildly.

"What's this?" Tenten asked, "Another attack?"

She had gone up to Pakura to ask this question. From earlier she'd determined that Pakura was a strong kunoichi and someone for a girl like her to look up to. The fact that she was still alive so far into the battle only solidified that opinion for the young girl.

Regarding Tenten with a momentary side glance, Pakura locked her eyes back onto the sandstorm, "Apparently Shukaku took more damage than he ever wanted to. He can't regenerate it and keep fighting," Naruto and Tenten high-fived in response, but the green-haired woman wasn't done, "So he's put this measure up to keep anyone from reaching him until he's fully healed."

"I forgot what an annoying runt Shukaku could be," Kurama muttered, "The arrogant idiot. Even when he screws up like he did it still doesn't matter. You can't kill him in the desert. You have to get him outside of it, otherwise it's more impossible than it usually is to hurt one of us. He doesn't even feel pain in the desert."

That wasn't good. He was going to fully regenerate and he didn't even feel pain? They blew his head off! Who regenerated that? Who didn't feel that? What did you have to do to put a biju down for the count?

Whatever it was, none of them particularly had anything left to do it with. Pakura still had chakra, but Scorch Release wasn't going to do any good against a sandstorm. The wind users were trying to use their fan-guided ninjutsu to break the storm, but nothing was working.

"Anyone got anymore big plans?" Naruto asked, leaving the question open for answering by anyone in the general vicinity, "The last one probably used up my good luck for the whole month. It kind of filled my good idea quota too."

"Yes. How flexible are you little one?" Pakura asked rhetorically, lips quirking momentarily at a touch of dark humor that came to mind, "Because you might want to limber up and get ready to kiss your ass goodbye."


Shisora (because I'm still not going to put your real name out on the internet: common etiquette), brother you're awesome. You know why. You put me through hell trying to put those eight updates out for that challenge, but the prize is (or will be) grand indeed. Oh yes.

Anyway, I'd already had this written before, probably better than I did this time because something about it feels… I don't know, off to me.

With my computer breaking down though I couldn't get to the original that I wrote, or the notes I had to outline it, so I had to redo this from memory as best as I could. The next one as well, because I had two chambered and at the ready, and then BOOM! B.S.O.D.

I lack the money to do what is needed to remedy this until I get a few bucks to buy the equipment I need, because I literally have nothing. Come on new kickass job don't fail me now. I came this far and got my foot in the door so I'd better have owned that interview. Working in retail is soul-crushing. I'd much rather follow a reporter around and shoot and edit their stuff per the job I interviewed for.

You've probably got chapter 8 of this coming soon, because I want to get it rewritten while I have it in my person to go ahead and get it done while it's on my mind If you're still with me expect that in the next day or so.

Anyway, I hope you guys still enjoyed. Kenchi out.