A/N: Gosh its been a long time since my last update, and I'm really sorry!
Previously:
"He must be very dangerous, do you think we can take him?"
"I don't think we have a choice," Jiraiya argued as the man disappeared, before reappearing ready to strike. The battle had begun.
Chapter 9: Fight for the Kazekage.
With lightning fast speed Gaara's sand covered them both to block the man's attack. As the man hit the sand he flipped back and landed close to where he landed before and once again stood deathly still. Even though they could not see his eyes they could still feel his watchful eyes staring right at them.
Jiraiya was the first to go forward.
"That was no where near his full strength. I'll go first to find out his weaknesses," he said. "SUMMONING JUTSU!" And in a large plume of smoke a human sized toad appeared in front of the Sannin and Kazekage.
"What's up Jiraiya?" the toad asked.
"Protect the Kazekage at all costs!" he pointed to the man standing across from them. "The Akatsuki are here." Upon hearing the word 'Akatsuki' the toad nodded in understanding and set off towards the man that was calmly standing across from them. Without moving a single muscle there was a large poof of smoke and out came two foxes that were the size of large dogs. They were pitch black so their eyes shone out. Both had miss-matching eyes 1 blue and 1 green and they were different on both foxes, so it was looking at a mirror image. Immediately the 2 foxes went to attack the toad, stopping it from going any further.
"Fox summoning," Jiraiya growled. "One of the things those bastards took from him." He had heard the rumors that the Kyuubi was in possession of the summoning scrolls. Although he did not know how they managed to persuade the Akatsuki to give the scroll to them he didn't want to under estimate them. He watched as the two foxes took down the toad with ease. This was why the fox summoning was one of the most sought after summons.
"It looks like I'm going to have to leave you to that guy." And without another word the toad sage was gone, on his way to fight the fox summons. Gaara was left on this own and he once again turned to the cloaked figure in front of him. He had still not moved a muscle.
"So, it looks like its just us then," the man still stayed silent. 'He's worse than I was before I met Naruto.' Gaara thought.
Preparing to attack the man Gaara heard his brother shouting, sounding rather winded,
"GAARA!" Kankuro and Temari landed beside him. "Don't underestimate this guy. He just took down 50 men in less than 30 seconds. He used a strange technique mixing chakra strings with elemental chakra."
Gaara nodded, acknowledging what Kankuro said.
"Right," Temari said. "Lets take this guy down!"
BANG!
There was a load explosion that separated Gaara from his siblings. The man above was grinning madly.
"Ah ah ah, can't have you lot ruining the Kazekage's fight," Deidara said from his clay bird. "Your fight is with me." And once again Gaara was on his own.
Gaara reached out his sand to attack the man. However before the sand could reach him he pulled out his two swords and instantaneously swiped down, causing Gaara's sand to dissipate.
Gaara took some time to calculate what to do next, Kankuro was right he was very fast! The cloaked man began to run towards the Kazekage so Gaara did the same. They began to fight hand and hand. The man as using a very effective taijutsu technique that Gaara had not seen used before, and Gaara was using a style that he and Jiraiya had developed using his Sand with his taijutsu. It seemed to be keeping the man at bay, but it wasn't long before the Akatsuki man began to overpower him. Gaara was forced to get out a kunai and go on the defense as the man's katana began to go through his sand.
The man was getting faster and the sound of metal hitting metal hit louder and louder. Suddenly the frequency changed once again as the cloaked figure put wind elemental chakra into his blades. With each swipe he managed to cut Gaara no matter what the Kazekage did to try and defend himself. It wasn't long before he was bleeding quite sufficiently. Gaara tried his best to try and suppress the Biju within him that was getting more and more enraged.
Sensing the weakness the man went to finish the Kazekage off. With another puff of smoke what seemed like a normal red fox leaped towards his neck. However he noticed that the fox was much larger than the foxes that he had previously summoned and it's white eyes made it look like it was blind. It pinned him down on by the neck and the man slowly walked his way towards him. Gaara struggled but the fox's teeth clamped down harder on his neck and crumbled his armor. If it bit down any more it would surely hit his jugular. He tried to use his sand to injure the man who was walking towards him but he just used his swords to cut through the sand.
Gaara was getting desperate now so he grabbed hold if the fox's jaw and tried to pry it open. The fox screeched and clamped down its jaw with his fingers inside its mouth and heard a sickening crunch as his fingers snapped under the pressure. His sand armor on his hand completely crumbled.
"Shit!" he thought and he pulled his mangled fingers from the animal's mouth. He heard his sister call his name as she saw him pinned on the floor bit there was nothing she could do while she was still in her own battle. He could now feel the shukaku forcing it's way through his consciousness but Gaara managed to use the rest of his energy to keep it at bay which meant that he could do nothing but wait for the man to put him out of his misery.
The cloaked figure was now towering above him with one of his swords back in their holsters. The other sword was raised above the man's head but before he could deal the final blow a bolt of lightning hit him from afar.
A man in navy blue was stood on the roof of a nearby building staring down at the two men below. He had a large sword on his back and a red and white fan symbol on the back of his jacket. Sasuke jumped and knocked the man and the fox away from Gaara and helped him up. The fox disappeared in a puff of smoke and the man slowly pulled himself off the floor.
"Looks like we as here just in time," he said as he kept an eye on the man.
"Thanks," said Gaara. "But I though it took thee days to get here."
"We were on our way back from a mission nearby when we got a messenger hawk to come straight here. Suigetsu and Juugo are at the gate fighting the puppet man. What's with this guy?"
"We don't know, but he is extremely powerful and he has the fox summoning scroll."
"I see, " said Sasuke. "Don't worry Kazekage I'll see if I can sort him out."
Sasuke turned in his sharingan and went to attack the Akatsuki man. He blew a great big fireball towards the man who dodged it so fast that Sasuke could barely even keep up, even with his sharingan. But what Sasuke did not expect of for barrage of shadow cloned kunai to be heading towards him. He tried to dodge them but he couldn't see any of the chakra residues from the jutsu. He couldn't even see him use the jutsu. Then the man used a very large wind jutsu and blew him over 100 metres away.
"What the hell. He's not using any chakra! I can't see what jutsus he's going to use," Sasuke said as he pulled the kunai out of his arm and torso before picking himself off the ground. Gaara appeared next to him.
"Jiraiya mentioned about summoners becoming sages by gathering natural energy. It's much more powerful than chakra."
"Great, so he's not using chakra and his movements are very hard to keep up with."
"Now you can see why I said he was VERY strong," Gaara said sarcastically causing Sasuke to scowl.
"I guess we do this the old fashioned way then," said the Uchiha as he drew his sword.
Meanwhile while Jiraiya was fighting off the foxes he felt something that rattled him. He looked to the expense where the Kazekage was fighting and watched as Sasuke was brought down. He was shocked that the Sharingan hadn't seen through the man's moves. There was no way that the man wasn't using chakra, unless. His train of thought stopped and he gaped at the twp black foxes in front of him.
"Natural Energy," he whispered to himself.
"That's right old man," one of the foxes scowled at him. "Its not only toads that can harness the natural energy."
"But how?" Jiraiya stuttered. "How did he master it so quickly? It took me years to master the toads sage abilities."
"Well that's what makes foxes better than toads then!" the second fox grinned as they both powered up a powerful elemental jutsu. So far he had worked out that they both had different elemental affinities. One had Earth and one had Water. This had made it difficult because his toads were also water element so he found it very difficult to counter.
But this he didn't expect. The two foxes were stood side by side showing the symmetry in their eyes. He noticed them gather up chakra and before he knew what was happening a huge tree shot up out of the ground. Jiraiya was shocked considering that the only people that he knew could do this were the first Hokage and Yamato. The ability to combine the two elements was a bloodline limit. However Jiraiya did not let this faze him. His toad slashed away at the trees as he charged up a rasengan. He ran towards them, with his summons clearing the way only to be countered by another rasengan forming at the tail of one of the foxes.
"What? How do you know the rasengan?" He asked the foxes.
"Our master taught it to us," the replied looking rather smug.
"Your master… You mean," Jiraiya looked at the man fighting Gaara and was shocked at what he saw.
Moments before
Sasuke was now growing impatient. He couldn't get barley any hits on the man and if he did he would just heal up instantly.
"It would be so much easier if I could see his movements. That damn cloak and hat are stopping me from predicting his moves. You distract him," he said to the Kazekage.
Gaara nodded and used his sand to try and incapacitate the man, who easily dodged. The Uchiha summoned as many snakes as possible and sent them to the man. Although they couldn't get a good hold on him they managed to rip his cloak and arms to shreds. His bloodied arms closed up within seconds and the snakes were destroyed one by one as the man brought his sword down on them but Sasuke could already read his move much easier. He brought on another wave of snakes from his sleeves, which shredded more of his cloak and his hat. The remnants of the straw hat fell to the floor revealing a head of golden blonde hair. Both Sasuke and Gaara stood frozen in shock as the man raised his head to show the completely blank face of their old friend staring back.
A/N: Thats all for now, if you want to see how some of the konoha nis look in this story there are links on my profile page.
Once again I'm sorry it took so long but I finished my exams today, I've had my hardrive completely fail and lots of essays and dissertation work to do so please don't complain.