A/N: At the start of this chapter, Orochimaru is duking it out with the Third Hokage.

Chapter 24: Sunaarashi, Part 2

Sasuke watched Eiji scan their surroundings with both his Byakugan and Sharingan active. He was clearly very determined to catch these three. No surprise there, they had assisted in the invasion of Konoha, and Sasuke was of the opinion that that was reason enough to put them to the sword.

Sasuke looked around with his Sharingan, noticing multiple sets of footprints. "I think one of 'em is using clones, trying to send us the wrong way."

Eiji spotted a footprint that seemed to match up with Kankuro's sandals, and another one nearly twenty feet away, leading a different direction. Sasuke noticed that the closer footprint seemed to contain traces of Kankuro's almost geometric pale purple chakra, while the more distant one contained traces of Gaara's intense, angry red chakra.

"Looks like it's Kankuro. I think Gaara's using sand clones of him to create those other prints over there." Eiji observed, pointing to the more distant prints.

Eiji knelt down, tapping on the footprint directly in front of him. "This print contains Kankuro's chakra and it's slightly deeper than the one over there, meaning-"
Sasuke continued his thought. "-that Gaara's probably trying to spread out as many as he can."

Eiji closed one eye and zoomed in on the more distant footprint with both his Sharingan and Byakugan active. "I'm seeing grains of sand in that print. Yeah, he's using sand clones to create the prints."

Sasuke approached Eiji from the side, Sharingan scanning the real prints. "Based on the angle of the real prints, I'd say we won't have to put in much effort to move faster than they are. Temari's probably flying on her fan; we can set fire to that, sever Kankuro's chakra threads-"

Eiji continued his idea. "-I'll just take out the tenketsu in his arms so he can't use his puppets or form hand seals, and after that-"

Sasuke finished the idea. "Gaara will be our only problem."

Eiji rose to his feet. "Right. I'll go for Kankuro, you take out Temari-"

Eiji stopped speaking and held up a hand. "Wait. We're being followed."

Sasuke frowned. "Elaborate."

"I'm picking up Naruto, Sakura, and one of Kakashi's Ninken a mile or so behind us, but they're catching up fast." Eiji explained.

Sasuke nodded in agreement. "Right. Let's go."

Eiji leapt forward first, but in his haste to catch the Sand Siblings, he failed to notice the tripwire bombs directly in front of him.

Sasuke felt his heart skip a beat as he leapt forward and caught his nephew with chakra-enhanced strength, spinning the both of them mid-air to dodge another tripwire bomb and landing on the side of the tree, absently wondering how much extra muscle-mass Eiji had put on since they had begun training for finals.

He inhaled slowly before exhaling and setting Eiji down on the branch below him. "Man, how much extra muscle did you put on over the past month?"

"Thanks." Eiji mumbled, ignoring the question with a fair amount of embarrassment in his voice.

Sasuke tossed a few paper tags at the remaining tripwire bombs in his Sharingan-enhanced vision, detonating them and clearing the two boys' path.

Sasuke then turned to Eiji, who was clearing shreds of wood and dirt off of his hooded coat. "Eiji, you gotta be careful. I'd expect stupid crap like that from Naruto, but not from you. Got it? You getting splattered all over one of these trees would only make Mayumi happy-"

Eiji's eyes widened as he pointed to a small clearing of tree branches. "There they are!" He whispered.

Sasuke whipped his head in the direction Eiji was pointing, Sharingan swirling back to life. His eyes were telling him that Kankuro and Temari's respective musculatures were both relaxing a bit. Gaara looked borderline comatose; barely awake.

Sasuke rubbed his chin, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. "Looks like they're resting for a bit. Wanna try a pincer attack?"

Eiji nodded. "Sure. You get their attention from the front and I'll hide behind them and take out the first one to move."

"I'm guessing that's gonna be Temari." Sasuke whispered, thinking out loud.

"I'd probably be better for dealing with Kankuro, and I never got to finish my fight with Gaara. Let's swap."

Sasuke thought it was strange to hear such talk from his normally gentle and soft-spoken nephew, but they didn't have the time to discuss this. "Fine. Just be careful if we get separated. Your mom said Gaara's got some tricks up his sleeve. Keep an eye on what his chakra's doing."

Eiji nodded before tossing a few kunai into the tree trunk to Temari's left and positioning himself on the tree branch across from the three Suna Genin.

Sasuke positioned himself behind a nearby tree as he watched Eiji grin mockingly at the three older Genin. "Why did you think sand clones were going to work?"

In spite of the situation, Sasuke couldn't help but focus more on Eiji's difference in disposition than the actual task at hand. What had caused this?

"Ah jeez, it's that Hyuuga kid with the weird eyes." Kankuro mumbled.

Sasuke trained his Sharingan on Eiji and saw that there was quite a bit of chakra flowing from his Cursed Seal to the rest of his body.

Well, that explained at least some of it, probably most of it. Sasuke had struggled controlling his own during his first few attempts at performing the chidori, even with the seal around it.

Kankuro readjusted Gaara, who was currently slung over his shoulder. "Well, what're you gonna do? There're three of us and one of you."

Temari leapt into the air, unfolding her fan. "Go, Kankuro! Take Gaara and get out of-"

This was Sasuke's chance. He performed the shunshin and appeared right in front of Temari, moving at the same velocity as her.

Sasuke grinned, not about to miss out on a chance to gloat. "Surprise."

Kankuro seemed to put two and two together and flew off through the trees without another word, Eiji in hot pursuit.

Temari realized what was happening much more quickly than Sasuke expected her to and blasted him away with a gust of wind from her fan, propelling both combatants back into nearby trees.

Sasuke maintained his grin as he caught a thick branch and returned to his feet, panting and pushing more chakra to his Sharingan.

Temari looked remarkably unsettled, and her chakra reserves were nearly gone.

Oh, this would be a piece of cake.

All it took for Eiji to catch up with Kankuro and Gaara was Sasuke cutting him off after perhaps two minutes of relatively leisurely pursuit. In truth, Eiji had dragged it out to give Sasuke time to deal with Temari and shake off Naruto, Sakura, and Pakkun. He cared about at least Naruto and Sakura a great deal, and didn't want someone as fragile as Sakura or as stupid as Naruto to become collateral damage. Gaara was clearly a jinchuuriki, meaning that their fight would result in significant amounts of collateral damage. There was a very high chance that anyone nearby that couldn't handle themselves would get turned into a fine red paste.

Sasuke, still smiling, panted heavily as he kept his eyes trained on Kankuro and Gaara. "Done running?"

Kankuro was also panting heavily. "Who said I was running? I'll take you on, no problem! You and that stupid Hyuuga kid!"

Eiji suppressed his instinct (that was likely coming from the mark on his manubrium) to shatter Kankuro's skull then and there. He needed to wait for the right time.

Temari dropped down from the canopy above. "Wait!"

Kankuro's eyes widened. "Temari! When Uchiha showed up and you didn't, I thought he must've finished you."

Temari kept her eyes trained on Sasuke. "He could've, and why he didn't, I don't know. Guess I didn't delay him for very long, did I?"

Eiji performed the shunshin and appeared next to Sasuke. "About three minutes."

Eiji examined her with his Byakugan. She had several bruised ribs, a sprained ankle, and numerous abrasions covering her back. She was using chakra to numb the pain. Sasuke had probably just knocked her out of the air with enough force to send her flying, then left to catch up with Eiji, Kankuro, and Gaara.

Eiji then pointed at Temari. "Good try if all those injuries are to be believed, though."

Kankuro did his best to ignore him, although both were probably only now starting to realize that Eiji had been able to see them in the nude this whole time. "It's okay. Every second gave Gaara more time to recover, and the more chakra these two are forced to use up, the better for us."

Eiji scanned his surroundings with his Byakugan, noticing that Naruto, Sakura, and Pakkun were closing in fast. Shino Aburame as well, though Eiji didn't know how he'd found them.

Eiji lightly elbowed his uncle. "Sasuke, we've got Naruto, Sakura, and one of Kakashi's Ninken comin' in hot. Shino Aburame, too."

Sasuke did not respond, only furrowing his eyebrows.

Temari looked to her brother, expression desperate. "Kankuro, go on, get Gaara out of her, I got th-"

Kankuro cut off his sister by passing Gaara off to her as he leapt forward to a branch nearer to Eiji and Sasuke, beginning to unbind his puppet. "You take Gaara and go on ahead, I'll hold these two off as long as I can."

Temari began to protest, but Kankuro cut her off. "Look at yourself, Temari, you're all worn out. Let me do what I can here, you just work on getting as far away as possible."

Temari looked like she was going to protest again, but decided against it as she scooped up Gaara and used the last of her chakra reserves (excluding those that kept her alive) to perform the shunshin, moving them both almost two miles away.

Eiji looked over at Sasuke. "Get after her."

"On it." Sasuke agreed before zipping off in Temari's direction.

Kankuro grinned. "Alright, time to pick on someone your own size, Hyuuga."

Eiji remained silent, sliding into a typical Gentle Fist fighting stance. This would be over before it had even really started.

"Hold it! I've got first dibs on him, Eiji."

Eiji recognized that voice. Didn't even need to reactivate his Byakugan to know who it was, though he still did.

"Out of curiosity, how'd you find us, Shino?" The Hyuuga boy inquired, genuinely curious. Eiji liked Shino, even though he knew very little about the Aburame.

Shino pointed at Eiji. "Planted a beetle on you as you left the arena. A female; gives off a faint scent. Too faint for any of us, but more than enough for her mate. He has a very strong sense of smell, and he'd follow her just about anywhere."

Eiji looked down at his hoodie and spotted two beetles on his shoulder. He very gently picked them up and placed them on the tree branch he was standing on.
Sasuke had been right earlier. Eiji needed to pay closer attention. Those beetles contained traces of Shino's chakra; Eiji could have noticed them much earlier.

Shino continued monologuing. "You're really after Gaara, aren't you Eiji? Your match against him was never finished. Well, I have similar unfinished business with Kankuro. We never got to our match. It never even started."

Eiji thought for a moment. "On one condition."

"Name it." Shino said flatly.

"After this whole thing is over, I wanna know more about the Aburame. Your clan seems interesting." Eiji proposed. There wasn't a lot of text about them in the Konoha library. They were a very secretive clan, and all Eiji really know about them was that they were fond of bugs and that his mother disliked them with a passion.

Shino nodded. "Deal. He's mine. Go after Gaara."

Eiji nodded wordlessly before leaping off towards Sasuke's chakra signature.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, Eiji didn't need his Byakugan to find Sasuke's general location anymore, because Gaara was screaming and trees were coming down. Eiji picked up the pace as much as he was able, eventually starting to make out coherent speech from Gaara.

"...t's wrong, Sasuke Uchiha, are you really so afraid of me?! Has all your hatred and sense of purpose dwindled down to this?! Abject fear?! Is this the existence you live now, that of a coward?! Come out and fight me! Show me that I'm wrong!" Shouted the creature that could have probably at one point been called "Gaara of the Desert."

In truth, Eiji wasn't particularly intimidated by this beast that Gaara had become. He recognized the risks involved with fighting a jinchuuriki, of course, but he wasn't feeling like Temari, who was near throwing up down on the forest floor, hiding behind a tree. Instead, he simply hid about fifty feet away, behind a tree trunk, looking through it with his Byakugan as he formulated a plan of attack and observed the situation.

Eiji refocused his eyes on Sasuke. The boy's face was a mask.

Then he wove a series of hand seals as his Sharingan reactivated.

Electrical chakra crackled to life around Sasuke's left hand.

Uh oh. Gaara's mocking had gotten to him, wounded his pride.

Eiji knew from personal experience that that was the best way to make Sasuke do something positively stupid that he wouldn't even attempt in any other situation.

Gaara and Sasuke leapt towards each other, and the screams of agony Gaara produced when Sasuke's chidori ripped through his arm would best be described as "unholy."

A moment passed of Gaara screaming after both he and Sasuke landed on opposing branches.

Gaara monologued for a few moments, Eiji not really paying much attention to what he was saying, before producing a single tail made from sand and leaping at Sasuke. A brief examination with the Byakugan told Eiji it was Tailed Beast chakra holding all of that sand together, meaning that not only was it incredibly unsafe for Eiji to try absorbing it, but it also explained why Gaara was able to move faster than what Sasuke's two-tomoe Sharingan was able to predict.

Sasuke having just been knocked back into a tree trunk, Eiji decided that now it was time to come up with a proper plan of attack while Gaara was monologuing again about the "value of Sasuke's existence" or something similarly batshit.

Before Eiji was able to formulate anything of substance, however, Gaara and Sasuke leapt at each other once more, and what Eiji saw happening within Sasuke's chakra pathway system made his heart skip a beat.

Sasuke was only being kept alive by the power of Orochimaru's chakra. If not for that, Sasuke would have just dropped dead. That was more than enough for Eiji to discard anything resembling a plan and simply dive in headfirst, as Naruto likely would have ten minutes ago.

As Gaara leapt for a now incapacitated Sasuke, Eiji ejected himself from his hiding position, only to inadvertently perform a pincer attack on Gaara, with the other half of said pincer attack being Naruto. Gaara was sent flying back through several trees as Sakura made a mess of herself over Sasuke's limp form.

Naruto looked over at Eiji and smiled, panting heavily from the branch he was positioned on. He remained silent, electing instead to wave tiredly at his adoptive brother.

Eiji returned the gesture. "You ready for this?"

Naruto nodded. "I mean, sure, but who the hell is he?"

"Naruto, you fucking idiot, use your eyes! That's Gaara!" Sasuke choked out from between clenched teeth.

Naruto looked at Eiji, then Sasuke, then back at Gaara in utter confusion.

"It's true. He's just being possessed by his Tailed Beast. I remember reading that Tailed Beast Possession doesn't normally look like this, but I guess it's different in Shukaku's case." Eiji explained.

Sasuke screamed in pain several branches behind them, expending all of his effort to adequately suppress Orochimaru's monstrously powerful chakra.

Naruto clenched his fist, making the same face he always did when he was angry at everything because he was failing to understand something important. "The hell is a Shukaku?"

"Naruto, you-" Eiji growled in frustration.

"DIE, SASUKE UCHIHA!" Gaara shouted, leaping forward at incredible speed, aiming his transformed arm at Sasuke.

Eiji watched Sakura's muscles twitch as she was about to make to move in front of Sasuke, and Eiji was reminded of something that his mother had told him about love: Eiji, if you love someone, you prioritize them above yourself.

Eiji performed the shunshin and "teleported" in front of Sasuke, shoving Sakura out of the way and using chakra-enhanced strength to hold Gaara back. Eiji felt his weakest fingers, his pinky and his ring fingers, break. He stifled a yelp of pain. Right now, Eiji had a few options, and none of them looked particularly viable.

Eiji grit his teeth as sand dug into his hands, drawing blood. Gaara growled ferociously, pushing Eiji back with greater force. Eiji felt Gaara attempting to absorb his hands, but Eiji countered that attempt by expelling just enough chakra from his palms to keep Gaara's sand in place.

Eiji turned to Sakura. "Sakura, grab Sasuke and get him to Kakashi, now!" He barked.

She blinked, still stuck in a stunned silence.

Eiji's eyes grew almost wild. "Now, Sakura! Keep him safe!"

That knocked her from her stupor. Sakura placed Sasuke's arm over her shoulder and jumped off through the forest, back towards the village.

Gaara watched this happen, and when he moved to pursue them, Naruto kicked him back.

Naruto cracked his knuckles. "Gotta get through us first, jerk."

For some reason, that seemed to set something off in Gaara. He screeched in agony, clutching at the right side of his forehead, calling out to someone called "Yashamaru," before eventually calming himself down. Eiji took the brief pause in the skirmish to heal his fingers and the cuts on his hands.

Gaara looked between Eiji and Naruto, confused fury apparent on his deformed face.
"You two and Sasuke, who are you three to each other?!" He growled, eyelid twitching.

Before Eiji could come up with the exact legal terminology, Naruto spoke. "Who are they to me? They're my goddamn brothers! If you even think about laying so much as another finger on either one of them, I WILL PULVERIZE YOU!"

Eiji simply moved his head in Naruto's direction. "Not brothers by blood, but you get the idea. What he said."

Naruto, for some unfathomable reason, decided that now was a good idea to attack Gaara. He jumped forward and was immediately slapped back into a tree trunk by Gaara's tail made of sand.

Eiji leapt forward without thinking, blasting Gaara with a vacuum palm and knocking him from the tree branch. Eiji caught the branch with one arm, repositioned himself, and ejected himself straight at Gaara, performing a palm rotation midair, maintaining it for precisely two seconds, then ejecting both himself and Gaara from it, sending Gaara down to the forest floor and Eiji back up to the branch Gaara had been standing on.

Eiji looked down at Gaara, who appeared to be trying to figure out what exactly had just happened to him. "We warned you!" Eiji shouted down at him.

A second or so later, the branch exploded underneath Eiji's feet as Gaara's arm tore through it, grabbed Eiji, and extended forward, pinning him against a nearby tree trunk. Eiji felt pressure closing in on him from every direction, and his entire body felt as if it was going to explode. He tried expelling chakra from all of his tenketsu, but Gaara's Tailed Beast chakra was just infinitely stronger, and he couldn't focus through all the pain.

Eiji let out a scream of pain. The world was turning red with all the pain.

"Why don't you attack?! What's the matter?! Don't you care about what happens to your precious 'brother'?!" Gaara spat, practically frothing at the mouth.

Gaara tightened his grip on Eiji. The pain was growing so intense that he needed to close his eyes. He could only hear what happened beyond that, but it sounded like Naruto had just attempted and to perform the summoning jutsu.

As the sand grew harder and harder and the pressure grew and grew, Eiji eventually blacked out, and found himself in a black void.

It was completely silent, except for the occasional dripping of water.

Minutes passed. Eiji was immobile, seemingly incorporeal. He couldn't move, because there was nothing for him to move, and nowhere for him to move to.

Then, a voice. Smooth, androgynous, enticing.

Orochimaru.

"Oh, child, you disappoint me. Surely that's not all you have up your sleeve. You've turned sand to glass once, you can do it again."

Eiji had an idea.

"And there it is. Remember, Eiji, that should you ever require more power, draw from my mark." Eiji could practically hear the smile in Orochimaru's voice.

And then he was promptly yanked straight back to reality, and greeted by the sight of no less than two-thousand Narutos.

He didn't have time to dwell on that, the pressure he was feeling was incredible, and if he didn't at least attempt this jutsu now, he'd die.

Eiji blasted all of the sand off of himself with a roar and placed his hands together, voicing the name of the jutsu he'd just created. "FIRE STYLE: CLOAK OF FLAMES!"

With that, every last drop of chakra in his system was moulded into fire chakra. His hair felt almost weightless, most of his clothes burned off, and he felt cleaner than he had in months, strangely enough. Eiji looked down at his hands as Gaara was pummeled by a torrent of thousands of Narutos (Sasuke more than likely had nightmares like this before). The flames were bright white closer to his skin, just like his chakra, and became more grey as it grew more distanced from his skin. He examined his hair with his Byakugan, and saw that it appeared as weightless as it felt; the chakra was holding much of it aloft, as if gravity was no longer affecting it.
Then, Eiji's focus returned to the problem at hand as a gigantic tanuki made of sand appeared in the same clearing Gaara had just been blasted back into moments ago.

Well, that must be Shukaku.

Eiji spotted Naruto and decided to try something. He jumped high up in the air, so as to distance himself from the trees he would set ablaze if he expelled his chakra in the forest canopy, and then blasted himself skyward with fire chakra, quickly learning how his new jutsu worked as something even stranger occurred: a gigantic toad wearing a dark pale blue happi vest and smoking a pipe appeared directly across from Shukaku, with Naruto standing on top of its head.

So Naruto had made a contract with the toads of Mount Myoboku at some point over the past month. Eiji hadn't spoken to Naruto much over that time period, being very busy training with either Ryuji or shadow clones of Itachi Uchiha, but it would appear that Naruto had met up with Jiraiya of the Sannin at some point, the only human he knew of that maintained contact with the toads of Mt. Myoboku.

Eiji propelled himself forward towards the giant toad's head with an explosion of flaming white chakra, learning quickly that it worked easily five times more effectively than unmoulded chakra as a propellant, before landing on his target's head with a dull smack. Eiji was careful to deactivate his flaming chakra cloak before hitting the massive toad's head.

Fortunately for Eiji, the giant creature that was probably Lord Gamabunta didn't seem to perceive the impact as painful. Eiji decided that this was probably Gamabunta on account of all of the toad's facial scarring and its general appearance lining up with what he'd read about the toads of Mt. Myoboku.

"What the hell," it rumbled in an earthshaking, scratchy, and distinctly male voice as its eyes focused in on Naruto and Eiji, "you again, and you've got another squirt with you? What the hell is this, huh?"

The mountainous toad looked across from him. "Well would you lookit that, Shukaku the Sand Spirit..."

"Oh, THAT'S a Shukaku..." Naruto mumbled absently, scratching his head.

"Technically a Tailed Beast, and there's only one of them..." Eiji mumbled, quietly correcting both Naruto and the giant toad.

Once again, fortunately for Eiji, the toad did not appear to notice.

Naruto looked down at the toad they were both standing on. "Well, whaddya say, will ya fight alongside us?"

The massive toad took a long drag from his pipe before exhaling a cloud of smoke out of the side of his mouth. "Take a hike, boys."

"WHAT?!" Naruto shouted.

"Why would I go outta my way to pick a fight with a guy like him? You think I'm as dumb as you?" The toad rumbled dryly.

Naruto's face was as red as a tomato. He looked like he was about to explode. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! YOU ALREADY TOLD ME YOU'D MAKE ME YOUR HENCHMAN, DIDN'T YOU?! BOSSES ARE S'POSED TO HELP OUT THEIR HENCHMEN!"

This must have been related to a conversation Eiji hadn't been present for.

The giant toad sighed again, closing his eyes. "We didn't even seal the deal yet, kid."

"AH, C'MON, I'M NOT OLD ENOUGH TO MAKE ANY KINDA DEAL YET, WE JUST NEED YOUR HELP!" Naruto screeched, sounding more than a little panicked.

An orange toad about the size of your average lapdog hopped atop Naruto's head from seemingly nowhere. "Ah, c'mon, pops, at least hear the kid out." It requested in a much younger male voice, addressing the giant toad.

Eiji narrowed his eyes. Yep, this was Gamabunta, the Chief Toad. Naruto had somehow managed to summon one of the largest beings in their world and his chakra reserves hadn't even dropped below 95%.

Was this the power of the Nine-Tails, or just Naruto? If it was just Naruto, Eiji was incredibly thankful that the boy was on his side.

Eiji knelt down, bowing his head. Diplomacy and etiquette were the solutions to this problem. "Chief Toad, apologies for the intrusion, but we need your help in this fight. If we can't defeat him, he'll destroy Konohagakure and kill everyone we hold dear to us."

The toad on Naruto's head pointed at Shukaku. "Yeah, and he was pickin' on me before!"

Gamabunta looked up at the small toad on Naruto's head. "Come again, Gamakichi?"

"Ah yeah, real nasty fella, but when he did, these two came to my rescue! They went head to head and toe to toe with that monster! I'm tellin' ya, pops, they may be small, but there's a lot more to 'em than you might think." Gamakichi elaborated.

In truth, Eiji hadn't even noticed Gamakichi's presence, but he still felt honored that the son of Gamabunta was speaking about both he and Naruto in such a way. He dipped his head to Gamakichi. "Thank you, Master Gamakichi. We've both been working very hard."

Naruto failed to notice Eiji's politeness and etiquette entirely. "What?! You two are father and son?!"

Gamabunta refocused on Shukaku. "Yeah, we are, and I don't particularly care for anyone that pushes my little boy around."

Gamabunta slowly drew his colossal tanto. "Okay, kid, you're hereby accepted as my henchman, and the both of you are welcome on Mt. Myoboku whenever Jiraiya says you're ready."

The Chief Toad then squinted his eyes, tightening his grip on his blade. "Alright, boys, sit tight fer now, we got a sand spirit to take out."

Naruto, for once, kept a straight, serious face. Eiji appreciated that.

Eiji recognized the position Gamabunta assumed. He was preparing for a quickdraw with his knife.

Uh oh.

Eiji gripped Gamabunta's head with as much force as he could muster as Gamabunta charged forward. "HANG ON TIGHT, SMALL FRY!" Gamabunta shouted over the sounds of a forest being leveled.

Naruto just screamed in response, flailing around and barely keeping hold of Gamakichi.

With no warning, Gamabunta leapt into the air and brought his tanto down on Shukaku, lopping off the massive creature's arm.

"HOW D'YA LIKE THAT, HUH?!" Gamabunta roared.

Shukaku shook him off with minimal effort, sending the blade and Gamabunta flying. Both landed at around the same time, generating a brief earthquake that would be measured at around a 6.5 on the Richter Scale.

Eiji tapped on Gamabunta's head. "Chief Toad, we need to lure him over here, to us. There are still people over there that we don't want to hurt." He said, pointing back to where Shino and Pakkun were.

Before anyone could follow that statement up, Gaara slowly rose out of Shukaku's forehead. There were no pupils in his eyes, and after forming the ram hand seal, he went completely limp.

As Gamabunta explained the current situation to a clueless Naruto, Eiji zoomed in on Gaara with his Byakugan, and the results of his short scan were less than favorable.

After Gamabunta completed his explanation of the mechanics of Shukaku, Naruto just looked more confused.

Eiji frowned. "Gaara is transferring control over to Shukaku because Shukaku can make better use of his own abilities than Gaara can."

Comprehension appeared in Naruto's eyes. "Oh."

Gamabunta smirked as much as a toad could. "Heh, thanks fer the translation, squirt."

A beat.

Another beat.

The massive sand tanuki threw its head back and laughed maniacally. "HA HA! I'M FINALLY FREE! HERE I COME, BABY!"

"Man, that is one funky demon." Gamakichi observed.

Eiji cocked his head to the side. He certainly hadn't expected these kinds of speech patterns from a titanic being of eldritch power. "I expected something more dignified."

Shukaku grinned like a madman and pointed at Gamabunta. "YEE-HAW, HERE WE GO! HOPE YOU'RE READY TO DIE! NARUTO UZUMAKI, EIJI HYUUGA, GAMABUNTA, LET'S FUCKIN' DO THIS!"

Eiji suspected he/it knew Eiji's name because it could read Gaara's mind.

"I'm gonna jump." Gamabunta warned his passengers.

"Wha-" was all Eiji and Naruto managed to spit out.

"WIND STYLE: AIR BULLETS!" Shukaku shouted, squeezing its stomach and blasting a projectile of compressed air at Gamabunta, who leapt out of the way, directly upwards, and countered with several water bullets.

When they all landed, Eiji looked over at Naruto. He needed to spit this out quickly. "Okay, Naruto, first thing we gotta do is wake Gaara up."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Naruto shouted back.

"The next time Chief Toad jumps up, have some of your clones throw me at Gaara. I'll take it from there."

Gamabunta held up a hand. "Hold up, boys, I'm gonna need Naruto to transform the two of us into somethin' that'll be able to get a good grip on Shukaku first; somethin' with fangs 'n claws. Transformations aren't my specialty."

Naruto created a single shadow clone before forming the sheep hand seal. "Here goes nothin'..." He trailed off as Gamabunta charged forward.

"TRANSFORM!" Gamabunta and Naruto shouted simultaneously, exploding in a gigantic puff of smoke.

Gamabunta's slimy toad skin was replaced by red-orange fur, which he immediately gripped as tightly as he possibly could.

Eiji rotated his head to the left (his Byakugan did the rest of the work) and saw nine tails whipping around in various directions.

Well, this was an experience that was unlikely to ever occur again.

Eiji was riding what he suspected to be a perfect replica of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, and he suspected Naruto's Tailed Beast chakra was more than likely responsible for this form.

Shukaku shot another Air Bullet at them, but Gamabunta shot into the air at incredible speed, launching himself forward, high into the air, and then right into Shukaku's massive tail. The impact destroyed Naruto's clone and almost sent Gamakichi flying. Gamabunta growled at Shukaku as he returned to standing position, immediately charging straight at Shukaku and making a few swipes for his face. Shukaku dodged each one and delivered a hook to the right side of Gamabunta's growled as he dodged out of the way of another punch. "Alright, squirt, looks like it's up to you. You get as high in the air as you can while I get a good grip on him, then you come down hard on that Gaara runt. Got it?"

Eiji nodded, letting go of Gamabunta and preparing to jump.

Gamabunta bucked with a loud grunt, sending Eiji flying into the sky as the former chomped down on Shukaku and dug his newly-formed fangs into the sand spirit's hide, holding him in place as he/it screamed in pain and desperately tried to wriggle himself free with only one arm.

Eiji, meanwhile, was shooting skyward at about 5G, or about 49 miles-per-second squared, shielding himself with a coating of chakra. In order to prevent himself from flying into orbit, Eiji cloaked himself in fire chakra once more and expelled chakra from his back, reducing his velocity to nothing.

For just a moment, Eiji felt weightless. It was a novel feeling, quite pleasant, actually, but it couldn't last.

Not with what he had planned.

Increasing his velocity once more to more than twice his ascending velocity with his flaming chakra cloak, Eiji shot straight down at Gaara like a human missile.

Then, another idea.

At the last possible moment, Eiji remoulded the flaming chakra into Earthen chakra by forming the snake hand seal and coated himself with it, effectively imitating Shigeri's Steel kekkei genkai in terms of durability. Unfortunately, changing his chakra cloak from the relatively weightless fire to the much heavier earth had the unintended side-effect of throwing Eiji's trajectory off by just enough to make him miss Gaara. He landed on Shukaku's forehead, resulting in a loud crunching noise, and a great deal of screaming from Shukaku. Eiji was fine, but that had drained Eiji's reserves much more than he'd expected it to, and as a result, he felt an incredible pain on his manubrium as Orochimaru's chakra began to supplement his own. His chakra, normally a pure white, was beginning to darken into a sickly grey, and black geometric lines were beginning to spread down his body and up onto his face.

Gamabunta and Naruto assumed their normal forms again in another massive puff of smoke.

Naruto was beaming. "HOLY SHIT THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN YOU-"

"Kid, the squirt needs help." Gamabunta grumbled, struggling against Shukaku's writhing form.

Naruto refocused himself on the task at hand. "Oh yeah."

Naruto created a shadow clone that tossed him straight at Gaara. Naruto aimed a punch at his fellow jinchuuriki's head. "RISE AND SHINE!" He bellowed, fist impacting Gaara's skull with incredible force.

Shukaku shouted something in protest after that, but Eiji couldn't understand it through all the pain in his everywhere. Eiji's sense of time was no longer coherent with how much everything hurt. In spite of all of it, though, Eiji had another idea. He wasn't going to be able to stop the onset of Orochimaru's chakra, but he could at least direct the inevitable violent urges at the correct people.

Eiji, beaten, bruised, and generally looking like he'd just crawled out of hell itself, looked over at Gamabunta. "Chief Toad, I need you to throw me back to Konoha. Don't ask any questions, just please do it." He requested politely through grit teeth.

Ignoring Naruto's protestations, Gamabunta wrapped Eiji up in his tongue and whipped him at Konoha, Eiji forming the snake hand seal using the last of his own reserves to soften his rather explosive landing by forming a shell of earthen chakra around his body.

As luck would have it, Gamabunta had thrown him straight at the barrier constructed by the Sound Four, just as they were about to release it.

Orochimaru was having a bad day. His invasion of Konoha had failed, and it had failed hard.

The dead Yakuza he'd brought back to demolish the Jounin?

Sealed away, with one blasted into orbit by the second-strongest nintaijutsu user in the world.

The Sand and Sound shinobi, along with the jinchuuriki of Shukaku and his two siblings?

All captured, actively deserting, or dead, having been mowed down in minutes by what amounted to inexperienced children, their more experienced parents, retirees, and one intensely angry single mother, albeit an extremely powerful one. The one exception was Kabuto, who was busy using the chaos to gather more intelligence on the village's best shinobi and kunoichi.

On top of all that, his arms had just been sealed away, and switching bodies wouldn't fix this problem, at least not completely. Every ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu that required the use of his arms was now quite literally out of his reach. Unless he switched bodies in the next few days, he was at serious risk of being assassinated, likely by Himawari or Kakashi. If it had to happen, he hoped it would be the latter; the former would be significantly more painful and much more likely to destroy Oto while she was at it.

Sure, the Third Hokage was dead, and that was incredibly satisfying, but at what cost? If Orochimaru didn't have another body quite literally waiting for him back in Otogakure, none of this would have been even close to worth it.

"Sakon! Ukon! Our mission has changed. The invasion has failed. Release the barrier, we must retreat." Orochimaru barked in Sakon and Ukon's general direction.

All four (five, if one counted Sakon and Ukon as two people) nodded. "Right. Release!" They shouted in unison, releasing the barrier before surrounding their leader.

Seconds later, something happened that not even a perfectly-evolved Sharingan could predict.

Eiji Hyuuga, wrapped in earthen chakra, crashed through the trees and landed directly behind Hiruzen Sarutobi's corpse. When the earthen chakra receded, Orochimaru saw that his clothes were torn to shreds and bloodied in many places, scorched everywhere else, and his cursed seal was rapidly spreading across his body.

Orochimaru blinked in surprise. He certainly hadn't expected this. At this point, he'd take any body with functioning arms, even a pre-pubescent one like this.

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes. "Change of plans. The boy comes with-"

Orochimaru didn't get a chance to complete his thought. Before he could, Eiji Hyuuga was standing up, cursed seal having spread completely across his body, and both of his eyes were active. He was surrounded by an intense grey chakra with a very slight purple tinge. Eiji looked down at the Third Hokage's corpse, then back up at Orochimaru.

Orochimaru recognized the look in his eyes.

Eiji Hyuuga was no longer present.

In his place was every violent urge the boy had ever once felt, and it was all concentrated on Orochimaru. He had been immune to the effects of killing intent for years, but he could still feel it, and this was the kind of killing intent that only one of Orochimaru's cursed seals could produce.

Now, if Orochimaru's arms were functional, he'd be able to use Eijij's cursed seal to control the boy like a human puppet, but right now, that wouldn't work. Before Orochimaru or any of the Sound Four could react in any substantive manner, Eiji leapt forward onto Orochimaru, ripped his left arm off, and began to beat him with it, roaring as ferociously as a ten-year-old boy was able to. Orochimaru doubted that the Sound Four had ever been faced with a situation this bizarre before, which was why he was willing to give them something of a pass for just standing there dumbly while this child was assaulting him.

Orochimaru didn't feel a lot of pain in general on account of his nerves being dulled after countless experiments and modifications, but that didn't mean he was enjoying his current situation. Being beaten with his own arm did have some comedic value to it, which he would have appreciated more if not for everything else wrong with what was happening right now.

Fortunately, Orochimaru retained full use of his legs, and used them to push Eiji off of him and back about a hundred feet, into a wall of trees, knocking the wind from his lungs, but only for a moment. Mere seconds after impact, the boy was already rising to his feet. He'd clearly taken to the Cursed Seal of Earth like a fish to water. Orochimaru would have to look into this more, but his first instinct was to think that perhaps Eiji's chakra signature was quite similar to his own.

As much as Orochimaru was loathe to admit this, now was not a good time to try kidnapping Eiji. He needed his personal guard, and Eiji in his current state looked like he could probably take out at least two of them, even in their Version 2 forms.

Orochimaru's head snapped in Tayuya's direction. "Tayuya, use your Doki to distract him while we escape! Now!"

Tayuya nodded wordlessly, performed the summoning jutsu, pulled her Demon Flute from a pouch on her hip, played a brief but complex melody, placed it back in her pouch, and nodded once more at her leader. "They'll target him now, but they should leave him alive and disappear if they actually defeat him."

"Good. Even if Kimimaro is my next host, the Hyuuga boy may still prove of use to me." Orochimaru explained, referring primarily to the boy's eyes.

Tayuya's Doki appeared in three large puffs of smoke. The long-haired one with the club attacked Eiji first. Orochimaru dearly hoped that Tayuya had played the correct melody, and that her Doki would not kill the boy that had the potential to be the most powerful shinobi in history.

Eiji dodged the Doki's gigantic studded club, jumped up onto it and sprinted up the club before finally kicking the Doki in the face and grabbing onto the creature's hair, slamming it down onto the ground, cracking the roof's tiling. The boy immediately leapt towards the next nearby Doki and plowed into its face with a Palm Rotation, sending it flying back into a series of tree trunks.

Orochimaru grinned as the world turned into a blur while Eiji engaged the third Doki by picking up the studded club, channeling fire chakra into it, and charging at the third Doki, hefting the club with incredible chakra-enhanced strength.
Who was he kidding? He had nothing to worry about.

A/N: It always bugged me that there wasn't a fire equivalent of the lightning chakra cloak used by the Raikage. Well, now there is. If you're curious about how specifically it works and you can't wait for Eiji to use it more, just shoot me a P.M.
Speaking of which, if I get enough asking for me to add Eiji's fight with the Doki on to the end of this chapter, I'll do it, but it doesn't really add anything substantial to the story. He just kills them and then passes out from exhaustion.

And yeah, Eiji did just perform the Orbital Drop from inFamous: Second Son.

Expect the next chapter or two to be mostly dialogue. Action sequences are great, but I think dialogue and characters interacting with each other has the potential to be more interesting, especially in writing.
Remember who the antagonists of the next arc are.

~Essence of Clotheslining