I don't own Naruto
A/N: As a first note I'm going to say that all of Gaara's various sand attacks will be referred to by the generalization 'sand weapons'. I'm not too sure about this chapter, I'm trying to reach a goal of seven chapters in seven days so I'll look over it later.
Just as quickly as he had been sucked up into the sand-style Shunshin Naruto was released from it. Whereas he had been in the confines of an underground corridor before, he now found himself in a location with very different scenery than what the former locale could boast. The terminally off-guard boy was bewildered to find himself on top of a very tall spire off to one side of the villages center somewhere. He almost didn't have enough secure footing space, it took all he had not to jump in surprise at his new fortune, lest he fall like a wet bag of ramen noodles. Knowing that the danger he was in to be quite real Naruto's instincts almost instantly kicked in. He couldn't sense any chakra being molded nor could he see any sand weapons forming. The only thing he apparently had to contend with was the rather strong wind that kept a constant stream of cool air battering his small frame. It would be quite the experience if it wasn't for the constant threat of bodily harm.
"Gaara, you know to take it easy right?" the blond boy called out into the air currents, hands cupped around his mouth. "Gaara?"
Like some kind of creeping predator the approaching sand tendrils were felt more by a tuned sense of violent intent rather than the chakra that propelled them. Naruto's legs had just enough time to bunch his remarkably strong leg muscles and fire himself off the top of the spire before three thick snake-like sand weapons reached their shared conclusion. Where he had been standing only fractions of a second ago was now an erupting cloud of sand and rock as the tendril's end signified a massive kinetic force of sand and raw power ripping apart a fair portion of the spire's top.
Luckily for him the worst of the aftermath only constituted a grazing by a fist-sized sandstone chunk, and even that did not deter him from the cross-fingered seal he was already performing. Before any other major event could transpire a loud yell of "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" rung out, followed by a massive explosion of thick smoke, filling the airspace of Sunagakure. Dozens upon dozens of perfectly replicated clones facing in every direction replaced the dissipated cloud of smoke in an instant. Before he can strike again I have to find where he's hiding.
"Come out, come out wherever you are!" one of the clones called out from near the cloud's bottom. Before the words had even finished leaving the mouth a brown blur whizzed up from one of the building's roofs and destroyed the clone. A furious whine accompanied the projectile as it nearly achieved Mach 1. It's screaming path took one more clone in a violent instant before it disappeared into the sky. Damn! That's way too fast. The real Naruto was actually near the very top of the cloud, yet still felt no more secure.
The laws of gravity took that moment to make their decision to take the lives of every Naruto in it's hands. To the curious observer it would seem that there was no effort wasted in any real attempt to save themselves from certain destruction. The original was putting all his hopes in what he expected to happen next, now was the time to start making the first move, but he needed to fool Gaara one more time before he felt he would get his chance.
"Sabaku Kyuu!" rung out from somewhere among the canyon-like rooftops as Gaara's next attack had already begun.
Too Naruto it seemed that every grain of sand in Sunagakure was now allied against him as hundred's of tendrils far bigger than the previous ones homed in on him and his clones. It took a great deal of control not to panic as the gap was very quickly filled between him and the sand weapons. Right now! Just as the sand tendrils lanced through the first round of clonesthree of the Narutos began moving. The tendrils were everywhere so it wasn't hard to choose one to attach themselves to. Those few instants saw the multitude of clones gone with little resistance, but the three had gotten their opening. Concentrating the necessary chakra in their feet all three of the Naruto's took off running down the length of the sand column of their choice.
The tendrils were slow in responding to the unexpected maneuver and that gave the Narutos the edge they needed. Through shear luck each Naruto had managed to pick a tendril that led to a distant part of the 'battle field' giving him the greatest opportunity to find their master. Other tendrils immediately began smashing into the ones the Narutos were on, themselves curling down to try and constrict their prey. Each Naruto escaped destruction more than once under these conditions as they sped down the lengths of sand. Finally, as if the tendrils were frustrated, two of the three dissolved from underneath the clones feet and reformed just as quickly around their legs, ensuring their capture. They wasted no time in squeezing the two Narutos, but it was as if they were simply attempting to hold them instead of delivering a crushing death. If either one of the Narutos had been the original than they would be thankful for this kindness, as it stood neither one was real and the pressure caused both clones to burst into small puffs of smoke.
Naruto had finally spotted where Gaara had been hiding thus didn't see the need to keep the clones alive anyways. 'Spotted' was a relative term as Gaara was actually quite invisible to the naked eye, but Naruto knew what to look for. Roughly one-hundred yards further out he spotted, with great difficulty, a small white eye made of sand floating in the air above a particularly wide roofed building. He didn't need his own 'third eye' to tell that all of Gaara's sand weapons were bearing down on him, ensuring his defeat if he didn't do something soon. When he felt his own footpath start to dissolve Naruto did the first thing that came to mind.
Leaping off the tendril in the eye's general direction Naruto crossed his fingers for the second time "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" He didn't need to conceal his position this time so there was no burst of smoke following the cry, instead a line of Naruto clones silently shifted into existence in a relatively straight line to the eye. He was pretty much on top of roofs at this point but there was a huge gap between the building he was over and the large building Gaara had to be on. Still in the apex of his leap he allowed his momentum to carry him into the first clone. Naruto's feet hit the clone's shoulders so hard he was afraid it would dispel from under him.
Thank god for small miracles. He leapt off the clone's shoulders on a course for the next mid-air clone, leaving the old one to it's horrible fate. Almost colliding straight into the clone Naruto reacted by grabbing at it's head. He gave momentum enough time to roll them forward enough that he could push off with his hands and sail towards the next clone. Orienting himself better this time Naruto landed with one foot on the newest clone's back before kicking of again. Apparently the clone had a good view of what was behind him because Naruto heard it scream "Aaaaaah, it's a wall of sand!" just before he reached the last clone. Being of a curious sort Naruto thought he had enough time to get a quick look back to see what the clone was talking about before he reached his destination. He did see that there was now a unified front of sand crashing toward him in a good mockup of a wave. He did wonder to himself why he couldn't find it funny that was a wave of sand hundreds of feet above the ground. He did not have enough time to get his bearing back before he crashed into the last clone. The two sailed into the wall, the clone taking the brunt of the damage in place of the original. The clones had been given orders to specifically protect the life of the original this time, and Naruto could thank the flexibility of the command-type Jutsu rather than his own near mastery of it. The last clone, sand from the wall already constricting around it, had the presence of mind to brace the original's feet with it's own hands and springboard Naruto upward. If Naruto had in fact hit the wall than he probably wouldn't have enough of his wits left to perform the final part in his plan.
As the wall of sand crashed into the side of the building it immediately began moving upward in an attempt to catch up to the pursued boy. Naruto almost didn't make it to the top of the wall, throwing out his hand to catch the lip and help the remaining momentum he had to carry him up and over onto the roof. His one hand still being preoccupied with steadying himself after his landing he whipped his remaining hand at the oval shaped sand shield in the center of the roof. Three kunai sped towards the shield, Naruto's last resort. Actually seeing that he had managed to find Gaara Naruto hastily revised his plan. In the instant that the kunai had left his hand he was already getting to his feet and beginning to perform another Kage Bunshin.
Gaara could see the incoming kunai as plain as day with his sand eye, but couldn't come up with a reason his sparring partner would use such a weak attack. By simply focusing his thoughts into mental commands his sand shield morphed into a perfect likeness of himself, swatting away the offending weapons into lazy spins through the air. I've fallen prey to his unpredictable nature before… Gaara was not convinced that this particular thought could be this straightforward.
Naruto was already at a run and performing the Bunshin seal when he saw the kunai ejected from their perfect flight paths. "Hah! You fell for it" he exulted, his plan coming together better than he could have hoped. Naruto was not the best when it came to mental concentration, so summoning his newest host of shadow clones and releasing the Henge at the same time was a strain on him. As two clones appeared on either side of him, keeping pace, the three kunai he had thrown suddenly transformed into three more clones. Unlike his previously summoned help these clones had weapons of their own to use. Gripped in each hand was an exploding-tag kunai of the same design he had used in their previous battle. The tags were already lit, very close to the point of explosion.
To compound the Gaara's worsening situation the clones that were taking up flanking positions on his sides started thrusting their palms at Naruto's outstretched hands. He couldn't tell what it was that was forming in both of the leaf Gennin's hands but the sand Gennin had more pressing problems, the tags. Thankfully he still had his gourd at the ready. Bringing an arm in front of him in a guarding stance his gourd complied by breaking up into three new shields, taking up positions between him and each of the threatening clones. The gap between him and the real Naruto was now greatly shortened, that was the extent of the attention that he was able to pay, he might have noticed the very dangerous orbs of chakra now fully formed in the boy's hands. The difficult decision of where exactly to direct his attention was taken away from when the explosive tag kunai were finally brought against him. Each kunai directly impacted the centers of all three of his erected shields. The explosions were so great that his shields disintegrated upon impact, the area of the roof directly beneath the shield cracked under the pressure of the blast. His three shields lost and his balance disturbed Gaara could take only small consolation in the fact that the clone's proximity to their own explosions brought about their own downfall. His unbalanced forced him a few steps back, and was probably what saved him from the next attack, as his control on his Suna Bunshin had already begun slipping.
Naruto reached Gaara's position just as the explosions caused by his clones were dissipating. He stopped just short of the clone, bracing himself with both feet for his next attack. He brought his right arm up first, cocking it back before savagely thrusting it into the clone accompanied by "Rasengan!". He knew the power of his ultimate Jutsu well, but he was also familiar with the strength of Gaara's sand techniques, so the ease in which his Rasengan punctured and ripped apart the clone threw him off balance. He tried to bring the second Rasengan to bear but Gaara had managed to get enough control back over the scattered patches of sand around them to throw up bubble of sand around Naruto's proffered arm. Before he could disengage the spiraling chakra the sand around his hand crushed against the Jutsu immediately causing it to detonate prematurely.
Gaara had done the first thing that came to mind when he saw that second sphere of destruction, that Rasengan, too close for comfort. His clone had been annihilated in every sense of the word, if he had let that hit him there were no guarantees that he would have been able to survive. Naruto doesn't know that my sand armor is gone. Unfortunately he had been too preoccupied with his own safety to consider his newest friend's. The sand he had hastily thrown up in defense had unfortunately wrapped tightly around Naruto's arm. The strange Jutsu exploded inside it's confine of sand.
Naruto was flung violently backward from his assault. His shoulders hit the ground first, he hit some kind of obstruction as he skidded along the roof and flipped over onto his knees. He managed to stop his mad skid just short of what used to be the wave-turned-wall of sand. The pain in his arm kept him from any kind of bemused wonderings as to why there wasn't a descending wave of sand all around him. Despite the pain of his shattered arm he could already feel the Kyuubi's influence in his body numb the pain. He had gotten so used to it by now that he wondered if his arm would even bear a scratch within the hour.
Naruto stood, teeth gritting at the pain despite whatever the demon fox was doing for him. Unfortunately for the boy he was not so self-aware to realize what was happening. Under normal circumstances he would never consider using this tactic in something as small as a training match, but he couldn't even rationally distinguish the situation he was in. Kyuubi… lend me your strength, just a little bit. There was no response from what ever part of him housed the monstrous chakra beast so he redoubled his efforts. As the last of his reason left him he held a brief thought as to why he no longer had the 'audiences' with the demon fox anymore, as if something had changed, but even that thought was swept away. Damnable fox answer me! Give me your power right now! Almost immediately he felt the dangerous chakra start leaking out from the curse seal on his stomach. He was about to yell at the fox again when very suddenly the orange chakra surged forward, enveloping his entire body in an instant. The whiskers on his face expanded like some kind of spreading disease, and his formerly crystal-blue eyes collapsed into swirling pools of red bisected by a horizontal slit more comfortable on a predatory beast than boy, the lucidity of rational thought no longer present in these eyes.
Gaara could both feel and see what was going on. In the intervening months since the last time Shukaku had managed to take control of him Gaara had put forth every effort to quell the beast within. He had assumed that Naruto was making the same efforts to keep his own beast shut away, but he was very wrong. For the first time in his life Gaara raised his voice. "Naruto! Stop what you're doing before it's too late!" his voice sounded strange to him in this fashion but it was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.
In fact it was too late, with out a word Naruto's fist came up, and than crashing back down into the ground. At first Gaara thought Naruto was trying to destroy the entire roof, but he saw that the impact hole was no smaller than the boy's fist. Gaara's perplexed expression quickly became replaced by something between shock and fear as he realized all too late what was happening. Before his sand could even start to stir in an effort to defend him a hand of pure, bubbling red chakra rocketed out of the ground directly in front of his feet. The clawed hand crushed against his throat in a horrible vice-like grip quicker than it took him to blink. Fast!
Naruto's shape shifting chakra arm yanked Gaara towards him at the same time ripping up the ground as more and more of the contracting chakra returned to him. At the speed in which the demon-tranced boy reeled in his prey Gaara's sand could barely keep up. The distance that had been separating the two was not great to begin with, yet Gaara tried to coax a little more speed out of his sand to stop the next attack. The sand that was following Gaara sped just ahead of it's master to intercept Naruto's free arm, already clenched in a tight fist. Not willing to repeat his last mistake Naruto drew his arm out of reach of the grabbing sand, changing the momentum of Gaara in the process. Gaara's neck was released just in time to send him hurtling past Naruto and at his wall of sand. He just barely managed to twist his body into aligning feet first as he plowed through the sand wall, and popped out the other end of the wall on a thick, circular disk of sand, his own Sabaku Fuyu, that hovered mid-air. His hand came up to his bruised neck in a rushed attempt to check for any permanent damage. Keeping his hand in a reassuring position around his neck his free one came up as he focused all his remaining power into the wall of sand between him and the tranced Naruto. Luckily for him Naruto had not moved an inch since the initial attack. With grim determination he set himself to the task.
Naruto, why is all this necessary. Why must these demons keep rearing their heads and destroying our precious lives. "This is my fault Naruto" he rubbed his neck involuntarily, pain coming every time he breathed "I'm sorry, but I must stop you now".
Shakily, his hand came away from his neck and he extended it out to match the other. "Desert Cannon!" with that cry of finality Gaara concentrated everything he had into the sand wall. A circular area of sand directly in front of Naruto began to undulate wildly before it erupted forth in a cylindrical stream. Sensing the attack, Naruto's demonic chakra attempted to intercept it, but the shear power of the steady stream of sand knocked aside the pressure wave and continued it's course unfazed. The only thing that saved Naruto from having his skin sandblasted off his body was the remarkably resilient chakra that served as his personal armor. The entire wall of sand was quickly funneling into the cannon's stream, at the rate it was going even it's massive size would disappear in under a minute.
Naruto was enduring the assault by some means that Gaara couldn't fathom. He had expected the power of his newest Jutsu to be enough to know out the Kyuubi, yet he was being proven wrong every second that Naruto-Kyuubi managed to withstand the withering assault. The only thing he could see that he had going for him was that at the very least his Desert Cannon was forcing Naruto back. Gaara kept pressing his advantage until he realized that the remaining sand in the wall was not going to put Naruto down. As he saw it there were only two more options left. One of them was unthinkable, the entire village could be destroyed if both demons came out at once. His second option was not much better insofar that it would be incredibly hard not to kill Naruto. I have… no choice…forgive me.
Gaara mentally queued the last of the sand into the cannon, freeing his hands for his final attempt at ending this with minimal damage. He brought his right hand up to his mouth, pausing only momentarily hoping something else would come to him or Naruto might regain his senses, he waited, and finally continued. He bit down on his thumb, drawing enough blood to perform his Kichiyose Jutsu. The seals came quickly to him and upon finishing the Jutsu stretched out his right hand again.
"Kichiyose no Jutsu" he solemnly intoned, and a large gourd was summoned into existence. Having been painstakingly collected from sources as ancient as the planet itself each grain was a marvel of geological beauty. Four different pure strains made up this special gourd, the colors ranged from an obsidian black, to chocolate, to a lustrous tan, and finally to snow white.
Hopefully he had bought himself enough time with the remainder of the Desert Cannon to shape his new gourd's sands. Being of ancient and incredibly dense constructing he had to take a noticeably longer time in shaping this sand than he would his usual fare. Knowing that time was almost up he compromised by commanding his Sabaku Fuyu into a direct course towards Naruto. His gourd was still forming as he closed the gap, and unfortunately the cannon's last bit of sand was all used up. In an attempt to buy himself a little more time he jumped clear of his platform, in effect turning it into a battering ram. Just as Naruto shook off the last of the sand stream the platform collided with his midsection.
Gaara hit the ground in a skid, concentrating some chakra into his feet to stabilize himself as his momentum kept him closing in on Naruto. Gaara's makeshift ram only served him a total of a few seconds it turned out, Naruto-Kyuubi's arms encircled the platform, squeezed, and popped it like a soap bubble. As the platform dissolved the sand ninja could see that his last Jutsu had indeed had some effect. Naruto was completely shirtless, his entire upper body completely bare save for a curious necklace. Whatever damage the Desert Cannon had done to Naruto's body must have been healed in an instant, a truly terrifying thought.
Gaara could feel the finalization of the transformation process take shape, he twisted his back trying to gain as much swinging room as possible for what would be, either way, the final attack.
Naruto's arm snapped up in a last desperate attempt to forestall this meeting. The chakra in his arm seemed to peel off in numerous blood-red shards as they flew towards Gaara.
As Gaara's arms cocked back as far as they would go his weapon finished it's metamorphosis into a massive headed hammer. The four separate types of rock grain in the gourd had swirled together, enhancing their strength exponentially with the union, and now resembled a long handled hammer with a head nearly as tall as a man and twice as wide. The chakra shurikens raked across various spots on his body, creating an alarming amount of superficial cuts, he was if nothing else surprised to find that there was no pain that usually signaled a critical hit. Undaunted, he swung the massive hammer square at Naruto. There was no last minute trick or miraculous save that got in the way of Gaara's attack as it connected squarely with the mass of evil chakra mid-swing.
Lee sat cross-legged on top of his hospital bed, deep in thought at a card game one of the nurses had been kind enough to teach him, Scorpion was what she had called it. Chiyo had been in just a short while ago to check on his progress. Having declared that he would be hale and hearty by tomorrow she had left, albeit mumbling about some kind of slow poison for 'snoring gorillas'. After she had left Lee went back to his solitary game, for once deciding it was a good idea not to go out somewhere for some impromptu training. As far as he could tell he had either missed one of the rules or it was just simply his destiny to never win a game. At least those weird vibrations that rattled the room periodically had stopped.
Card games were fine, but you could only here an old man snore for so long before you wondered if your sanity was slipping. Maybe that had been what all those vibrations were, insanity. For about the two-hundredth time he wished Naruto or Gaara would finally come visit him. I'm so lonely oh so lonely-
As if there was a sadistic author in his life that had a thing for morbid irony the southern wall of his hospital room chose that moment to explode. The sound of disintegrating stone and shattering glass was so loud that even Lee's thoughts were silenced . Very suddenly many things were happening at once. Jiraiya shot out of his fast enough to put lightning to shame, Lee's cards when flying, a figure crashed into the north wall with a splintering crack, and the room suddenly had a much bigger window.
Jiraiya, accustomed to a life of danger, was able to assess the situation he found himself in rather quickly. Something had destroyed the one wall in the room that shouldn't have been so easily accessible, Lee was in a guarding position, and a chakra-inscrolled form was tightly wedged into the opposite wall.
For a brief moment the unfortunate person was wrapped in a red colored aura, but quickly disappeared like smoke in the wind. Lee might have been able to chalk it whatever it was up to being a trick being played on his eyes. Jiraiya however, knew exactly what he had seen. In an instant he was at the unconscious Naruto's side. Whatever had happened had left ugly bruises all over the boy's face and chest, and most likely, his legs as well. Bruises, probably a broken rib or two, maybe his collarbone… it looks like an entire mountain hit him. Convinced that there was no immediate danger to Naruto Jiraiya left his side and dashed to the extra large window. Just as he reached the gapping whole to check for signs of an enemy a strange looking boy with red hair dropped out of the sky onto the 'window sill', a hand shooting out to catch himself with a steadying hand on the 'frame'.
Jiraiya's hand jerked towards a kunai out of reflex before he could stop himself. Whoever this boy was he didn't seem to be a threat. The worried expression plastered on his face and complete lack of any hostile intent informed Jiraiya's instincts they could relax. Putting hand to head the old man let out a heavy sigh.
I'm getting too old. If that had really been an Akatsuki attack I wouldn't have been able to do anything. Instead of dwelling on his shortcomings Jiraiya turned away from Gaara and walked out into the hall. Just as he peeked his head out into the hallway a pretty nurse almost collided with him. One part of him wanted to ogle, but thankfully two parts wanted to help Naruto, democracy in action. "Ah yes Nurse, could you get Chiyo-san for me. Just tell her that one of the Konoha Gennin needs her help. Thank you". He retreated back into the room without waiting for the reply. Lee, despite his recovering injury had already picked up Naruto from his snug position in the wall and was beginning to lay him on the bed when Jiraiya looked back. Deciding that Lee had that well in hand Jiraiya decided to approach the mysterious boy. "Just tell me what happened before we have an army of Suna officials breathing down our backs".
As Jiraiya listened to what the soft spoken sand-nin had to say his mind drifted to the real problem with all this. By the time the boy wakes up he'll probably only have a mild concussion, all thanks to the Kyuubi. I can pretend to be carefree about this but the fact remains that for whatever reason Naruto released the Kyuubi. Jiraiya spared a glance at the unconscious boy. Lee had at least managed to make Naruto look as if he was just sleeping, so if Naruto could pull off looking that relaxed after what had just happened he really didn't need to worry. What could possibly have happened to have caused this.
A/N: Please don't bother pointing out this is the second time Naruto's relied on the Kyuubi(three if you count Sasuke...no four, it was sort of there during the Kimimaro fight if I remember right), I know what I'm doing so let's leave it at that . I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you don't always have to say the name of the Jutsu to complete it, that's why when Naruto was on the roof he didn't say 'Kage Bunshin no Jutsu'. The sand gourd Gaara summons is something along the lines of what he used against Kimimaro, but stronger. I feel this was too rushed, and I really wanted to change the hospital part.