Naruto: Rise of The Namikaze.
Chapter 25: Kazekage Rescue. (Edited 7/3/18)
Note: To all my readers, I apologize for this late update, but I've been really busy lately and was unable to write anything but things are slowing down, so I should be able to continue soon.
Let's get going!
After reconnecting with his friends and family, Naruto returned to active ninja duty alongside his sensei Kakashi, his old friend Sakura and his girlfriend Hinata.
In Sunagakure, the Akatsuki duo of Deidara and Sasori made their way to the village in search of Gaara, Deidara went off to fight Gaara while Sasori guarded the entrance.
During the battle, Gaara intercepted Deidara and managed to crush one of his arms using the Sand Binding Coffin, but despite his improved abilities, Gaara's new found desire to protect Sunagakure proved to be his downfall.
When Deidara attempted to blow up the village with his explosive clay, Gaara absorbed the blast by levitating the sand below but a direct attack from Deidara forced Gaara to recall the sand that was crushing Deidara's arm which contained a small portion of explosive clay within which the exploded and left Gaara incapacitated.
As Deidara departed with Gaara, Kankuro attempted to stop the Akatsuki members on his own, but his puppets were easily fought off and destroyed by Sasori who was revealed to be the maker of Kankuro's puppets, he also poisoned Kankuro in the process, leaving him to die.
The Akatsuki duo took Gaara back to their lair where their leader summoned a giant statue to extract and seal Gaara's demon, a sealing ritual that would take at least 3 days.
Timeskip-2 days...
After learning that Gaara had been abducted, Team Kakashi made their way to Sunagakure, along the way they met up with and were joined by Temari who was on her way back after being Suna's representative during the chunin exams back in Konoha.
On their way, Naruto informed both Sakura and Temari that the Akatsuki were after him and Gaara because both of them were Jinchuriki and that Naruto was the host of the Nine-tails.
After learning this, Sakura and Hinata vowed to do everything in their power to prevent Naruto from becoming a victim of the Akatsuki, on top of that Temari was thankful that there was someone who could understand Gaara and was grateful to Naruto for changing Gaara and attempting to rescue him.
Arriving at Sunagakure, Team Kakashi learned of the attack on Kankuro, despite the failed attempts of the medics on-hand, Sakura cured Kankuro thus demonstrating her skill with medical techniques, she also developed several portable antidotes rather quickly.
Using a piece of clothing from Sasori found on one of Kankuro's destroyed puppets, Team Kakashi was able to track him down thus leading them to Gaara, Temari offered to assist them, but Chiyo, another puppeteer as well as Sasori's grandmother went in her place.
Back in Konoha, Tsunade, not wanting to take any chances, decided to send Team Guy as backup for Team Kakashi.
While Team Kakashi tracked Sasori with the piece of clothing, the Akatsuki leader sent Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki to deal with Team Kakashi and the approaching Team Guy respectively.
In the forest, Naruto and Kakashi were able to defeat Itachi after some effort using one of Kakashi's clones and Naruto's new Big Ball Rasengan, whereas Team Guy was largely disabled by Kisame leaving Guy to fight Kisame alone, Guy emerged victorious by opening 6 of the 8 chakra gates to perform his Morning Peacock Technique which allowed him to pummel Kisame to death.
However, both Akatsuki members were actually entirely different people in disguise, they were made into weaker copies of those they were impersonating through the leader's Shape shifting Technique.
Despite their victories, the 2 teams realized that their battles were merely distractions set up by the Akatsuki to allow them time to extract Shukaku from Gaara which would kill him if completed.
At the Akatsuki hideout, a barrier was blocking the entrance, directed by Kakashi, Team Guy removed the four seals maintaining the barrier but a fail safe created clones of them as a further distraction.
Ultimately, the many delaying tactics used by the Akatsuki proved successful when Kakashi, Naruto, Hinata, Sakura, and Chiyo found Deidara and Sasori guarding Gaara's lifeless body, this lead to Naruto entering tailed-beast rage state upon seeing Deidara sitting on the Kazekage's corpse, while Chiyo, Sakura, and Hinata fought Sasori, Deidara flew off on a clay bird with Gaara's body, with that, Naruto and Kakashi pursued.
At first, Hinata was worried, but Naruto assured her that he would be okay, so she stayed behind to help the others.
Although Sasori 'wore' his puppet and controlled it from the inside, this style of puppeteer fighting proved to be futile against Chiyo and the others.
By controlling Sakura like a puppet, Chiyo was able to use her as a distraction buying Hinata enough time to close in and demolish the puppet with one blow from her dagger.
With his first puppet destroyed, Sasori is revealed looking just as young as he did the day he left the village, he summoned another puppet to continue the fight: the Third Kazekage.
It is here that Sasori revealed that he not only killed the Third Kazekage, but actually made his body into a puppet as he had done to 297 others and planned on doing the same to Sakura and the others after his victory.
With it's unique Iron Sand ability mixed with Sasori's poison, the Kazekage puppet proved to be extremely dangerous, so Chiyo summoned 2 more puppets to fight it, these puppets were puppet versions of Sasori's parents which reminded him of them after they were killed by Sakumo Hatake early in his childhood, the puppets were left in the village when Sasori deserted it.
Using the iron sand and poison, the Kazekage puppet proved to be a tough enemy for them, but the antidotes Sakura had developed before departing from Sunagakure allowed them to continue the fight.
Sakura, having been trained by Tsunade to pick up the enemy's attack patterns, and Hinata, having mastered the full power of her Byakugan, were both able to easily dodge Sasori's subsequent attacks and demolish the Kazekage puppet.
With another puppet lost, Sasori revealed he had made himself into a puppet as the secret of his youth.
In response, Chiyo used White Secret Technique: The Chikamatsu Collection of Ten Puppets, to summon Monzaemon Chikamatsu's ten masterpiece puppets.
To mock the display, Sasori used his Red Secret Technique: Performance of A Hundred Puppets to summon 100 of his human puppets.
During the fight between these puppets, Sakura used a chakra sealing orb on Sasori, although it seemed successful at first, Sasori revealed another ability he had, as a puppet, not only did Sasori have numerous weapons to fight with, but he also could reassemble himself when destroyed which made him seem impossible to defeat.
However, it was revealed that the only part of him that remained alive, thus allowing him to use chakra, was his heart which contained a talisman labeled Sasori.
When trapped in a seal performed by four of Chikamatsu's puppets, Chiyo used the mother and father puppets to stab Sasori through his heart.
Despite the victory, Chiyo believed that Sasori allowed himself to be killed - he saw the attack coming but didn't react and died in a similar way to how his parents used to embrace him.
In the end, although Hinata escaped with only minor cuts and bruises, Chiyo, Sasori, and Sakura were seriously wounded, but Chiyo used a technique originally developed for Sasori to save Sakura's life, the technique uses the user's own life energy making it fatal to use in reanimating a puppet or the deceased, but Chiyo survived since Sakura was still alive.
Sasori's last words were that he had a spy in Orochimaru's ranks, whom he was supposed to meet in Kusagakure ten days later.
Meanwhile with Deidara...
While Sasori was preoccupied, Naruto and Kakashi were chasing after Deidara.
Kakashi activated his own version of the Mangekyo Sharingan and aimed to use it to take Deidara's head, however, it was difficult to aim.
All Kakashi managed to take was Deidara's arm.
Deidara tried to retreat, but Naruto destroyed his clay bird with Benihime and retrieved Gaara's body.
Enraged and powered by the Nine-Tails, Naruto seemed to be defeating Deidara with Rasengan, but it turned out to be a clay clone.
Still enraged, Naruto, despite Kurama's warning, started to appear more feral as he transformed into his two-tailed form.
Kakashi recognized this as a bad sign and used a seal tag he had received from Jiraiya to stop the transformation from going any further, as a result, Naruto subsequently reverted back to his normal self.
As the others caught up with Naruto and Kakashi, Deidara found himself unable to escape so he swallowed some clay turning himself into a human bomb.
Neji saw this and warned everyone to take cover as Deidara swelled up and then exploded.
As the dust settled, Kakashi collapsed from exhaustion explaining that he used his Mangekyo Sharingan to send the explosion to another dimension.
With Naruto carrying Gaara's body, the two teams headed back to Sunagakure.
Stopping at a grassy field, Sakura checked on Gaara and pronounced him dead making Naruto very upset.
Chiyo moved towards Gaara and tried to use her reincarnation technique, but didn't have enough life force energy to bring him back to life, so Naruto gladly lent his own chakra and Chiyo was able to revive Gaara at the cost of her own life while the shinobi of Suna watched.
Back at the battlefield, Deidara emerged from the ground revealing that it was his clone that destroyed itself, then he went off looking for the right arm he lost.
After finding it, he encountered Tobi and Zetsu, a mysterious individual wishing to take Sasori's place in the Akatsuki.
Tobi's carefree attitude about Deidara's condition angered him, he then attempted to strangle Tobi in a comical fashion with his feet after one-too-many callous remarks.
After paying their respects to Chiyo and bidding Gaara and his siblings farewell, the Konoha shinobi headed for home.
Naruto stated that these situations were always a bit awkward right before Gaara extended his hand to him in gratitude.
Not sure how to react, a trail of sand wrapped itself around Naruto's hand and brought it to Gaara's.
As the group prepared to leave, Kakashi was still exhausted from overusing his Mangekyo Sharingan and had to be carried back by Guy who did so piggyback style as he found it easier to carry him for an extended period of time disturbing everyone present except Lee who remarked that Guy was training.
Lee then proceeded to offer to carry Neji who bluntly shouted, "Forget it!" while Naruto and Hinata laughed and shared a kiss.
Neji noticed and asked, "Naruto, what exactly are you doing to my cousin Hinata?"
Naruto bluntly answered, "What does it look like I'm doing Neji? I'm kissing my girlfriend."
Neji's eyes went wide before he said, "Really? When did this happen?"
Naruto answered, "A few weeks ago. And don't worry Neji, I already spoke to Lord Hiashi about this. He gave me his blessing and full permission to date her."
Neji was a little taken aback by this, then he asked, "Hinata, is this true?"
She nodded with a smile.
Neji reproached, "Naruto, even though I approve of this, if you harm my cousin, I'll make sure you regret it."
Naruto retorted, "Give me a break Neji! I could never do that! I love her too damn much." and just to prove it, he pulled Hinata close and gave her a passionate kiss that lasted for at least 20 seconds before they separated.
While Neji was smiling that Hinata finally found a man to love her for the woman she was, Sakura was rather a bit envious wishing she had a man to that with.
Then they made their way back to Konoha congratulating the new couple.
End of Chapter 25.
Note: I know this chapter might be short, but the next one will be a lot more better so stay tuned.
See ya later!