And here we are…I think you've waited a bit too long for this chapter. School's starting next week on Tuesday, the 23rd, and I really felt the need to post this before I had to go to jump start today because knowing the school the way I do, it'll be hectic today. Thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following, it's very appreciated.

Disclaimer-Nope, not ever. I could never own Naruto.

Chapter Dedicated to Summer screwing up its job…and friends.

"I'm going after Seido Tora, he helped To-Kin Kitsune numb down the curse mark's influence. Don't try to stop me."

Tsunade's eyes darkened, Ichihara's breath catching in his throat while Sakura turned sharply to observe her teammate, stopped at the door with her posture rigged stiff.

"Chunin Uzumaki, you won't be leaving this village-"

"I said don't try to stop me-"

"-without help! You are taking Kakashi and Ichihara with you, that is final!"

Naruko froze, turning sharply to face Tsunade as the golden haired woman narrowed her eyes on the defiant Jinchuuriki. "Ichihara, go."

Ichihara blinked, opening his mouth to comment when a gentle hand pressed into his shoulder. He turned to meet Sakura's emerald gaze, determination leaking from her. "Go Ichihara-San, bring back this guy that can help Sasuke."

Ichihara's throat felt tight as he nodded, shooting toward the door while Naruko nodded at Sakura, Ichihara's hand grasping her shoulder before they vanished.

I~~~~I

Naruko and Ichihara appeared in a swirl of red chakra in the middle of the Namikaze Estate, Naru's balance faltering for a moment as the girl panted lightly.

"K-Kakashi!"

Ichihara turned to the girl in worry as footsteps sounded, a dressed and equipped Hatake rushing over.

"Naruko, how's Sasuke?!"

Naru faced her Sensei, relaxing while her muscles spasmed slightly, before she straightened.

"He's in a coma…the Curse Seal started acting up a while ago. We're going after Tou-San and Hashi-San in order to have them seal it…they just left with Tobi-San to mark down more outposts, Tsunade told me to bring you and Ichihara along."

The red head rushed through the details, Kakashi nodding sharply once she had finished. "Let's get going then, I have my mission supplies already packed so we can use those."

The three traded glances, before they were once again taking hold of Naruko's shoulders, ignoring the slight shiver the girl had as she used her blood style Shuinshin.

I~~~~I

A groan left pale lips as Sakura changed out the rag on her teammate's head once more, staring at the boy in worry as she ran her hand over his body, green chakra surfacing as she checked for anything that needed healed. The cursed seal had grown in the span of two hours, creeping along Sasuke's neck as he whimpered in his sleep, tossing and turning while fighting against his inner demons. Finishing with her checkup, Sakura reached and took a hold of one of Sasuke's hands, sighing deeply as she stared at her comrade.

"Sasuke…It's a little funny how not too long ago I would have been squealing at the thought of taking care of you like this…and now I'm wishing more than anything I wasn't. I wish you were okay…but at this point only Naruko's friend or you can actually stop this. I-I promised her I wouldn't be h-helpless y-you know…I swore n-not to be useless…"

Cupping her hands around Sasuke's own pale hand, Sakura closed her watering green eyes tightly, ignoring the silent tears trailing over her cheeks.

"And here I sit…while she runs off to get help with Sensei and Ichihara…W-What can I do for you…W-What use am I?"

Sakura clenched her hands tightly around Sasuke's, weeping in silence over her inability to change what was happening. She didn't notice the hazel eyes watching her from behind the hospital door, nor the pale blue eyes attached to a blonde haired Kunoichi watching the exchange in shock.

Pushing the door closed, Tsunade sighed and looked down at the fangirl below her. "Yamanaka Ino, correct?"

The blonde jumped slightly, but nodded as she eyed the door, worry filling her eyes.

"H-how could she call herself weak…s-she managed to go all the way, b-becoming a Chunin before even S-Sasuke-Kun…"

Tsunade sighed gently, turning around in order to walk away, pausing only once she was a few feet away to reply to the confused rival. "Because, when you see someone you care about hurt like that…and you are unable to help them it makes you feel like the weakest being in the world."

Ino looked over to the woman, her eyes widening as she caught the changing in Tsunade's tone, the switch that suggested that Tsunade knew the feeling personally.

Honestly, the thought of Sakura and Tsunade being weak only made Ino feel even worse about her own predicament.

I~~~~I

It fell in a gray haze at his feet, the building encirclement of ash that spawned from the fire encroaching on the forest around his body. His green eyes rested ahead of him, the pupils strained in their white-state with the white ring around them growing ever so slightly before a pulse of yellow entered the eye. The affect caused the blurred black mass hurtling toward Ken's position to sharpen, forming a large muscled body with red trails drifting over the back like wings.

A breath left Ken's mouth as he shifted into a fighting stance, his eyes relaxing, the strained coloring shifting the normal olive as he relaxed his muscles and channeled chakra into his gut, summoning thin tendrils of Buronzuchen (Bronze Chains) from the dirt.

The chains drifted around Ken's body in a protective dance, not pausing in their thrum even when the oncoming group of shinobi broke into the fiery clearing.

"Madara-San, I'm surprised that Tsunade-Hime would choose to send you along this mission…One would think any of the men in your group would be too valuable to spend on a lowly defector such as myself."

Ken's green eyes displayed mirth, but his unwavering stance declared defiance. This was a trap, they knew that, he knew that. This whole encounter was truthfully unneeded, but the masked Akatsuki leader loved nothing more than to play with Ken's father.

Temashi had few things that could actually set him on edge or make him do what you wanted. Tobi just happened to know that Ken's life being played with happened to be one such way.

"Quit playing…where is your father Ken?"

From behind Madara the voice spoke up, edged with a parental protectiveness Ken was very accustomed to. Turning his gaze slightly to the side to meet the masked natural-blonde's eyes, Ken offered a tilt of his shoulders and a slight withdraw of his feet, a change in style that was normally too subtle to notice. Ken was facing three Kage-level shinobi however, and could truthfully expect them to notice far more than his slight change in step anytime he switched targets.

Kin Kitsune looked a little miffed at the boy's change, but he did not withdraw his question, even as his eyes trailed the chains dancing around the boy in a fluid manner.

"Tou-San is recovering, that's all you need to know."

Tilting his head to the side, Ken dodged a kunai tossed at him lethally, his lips quirking at the left corner before he reached and caught the tip of the handle, twirling it around to fit the bandaged length into his palm before he sent it toward his opponent, ignoring the silver blur that snatched it right back from the air.

"Why did you start this boy?"

Ken angled his head toward Madara again, clucking his tongue over the roof of his mouth as his chains started to turn inward, tense and ready to lash outward at anyone or anything that came closer. "What do you mean? The fire?"

Ken's smirk widened and his eyes darkened as his chains shrunk into needle-thin strands, seals forming beneath his feet as his palms were drawn together. Madara's eyes met his, sharingan activated and spinning. "I'm not a fan of bonfires, Grim Reaper-San."

Crimson orbs widened a fraction before the seals sharpened to points at Ken's feet, his opponents backing away as his chakra shot into the jutsu he had prepped before the Treasury members had arrived.

"Zero Seals Style, Nova!"

Black light rose upward before it ensnared Ken's shrunken chains, shooting out like lasers toward Gin Okami and Kin Kitsune, separating them from their fellow Treasury while a sharp crystal gray light encircled Ken, rising into a blinding flare that swallowed the burning forested area whole.

I~~~~I

Several Kilometers off, toward the center of fire country, Naruko, Ichihara, and Kakashi all witnessed the blinding nova blaze, they're eyes narrowing on the target as Kakashi's ninja pug Pakkun gulped from his spot at the front of the group, tracking the scent Naru had given him earlier.

"The chakra…"

Naruko spoke allowed, her eyes turning to a darker shade of blue before fading into crimson, three tomo stressfully still as they looked at the fading light.

"Kakashi-Sensei, that chakra is familiar…It's structure and channeling is also a lot like when I use Seals Style."

Beside Naruko Ichihara activated his sharingan, pushing away at the faint block left from the changing of his chakra. "It's different…A lot of Yin chakra actually…"

Naruko's mouth felt dry as she read into the implication of the words. Her gaze sharpened and chakra forced its way into her reserves, a voice breaking through to her mind with a sharp tingle.

'It's very familiar actually…You need to get there quickly, something isn't right with this.'

Kurama's tone was of no nonsense, and despite rarely hearing the fox (or wanting to pre-Kakashi method), Naruko felt no surprise at his words and wasted no time shooting out of her position in the direction of the flare.

From behind the Uzumaki, Kakashi and Ichihara shared looks before nodding in confirmation. Kakashi turned his gaze sharply to one of his loyal Ninken. "You can go now, thanks Pakkun."

The pug saluted them and vanished in a puff of smoke, the males launching after the red headed blur that was quickly disappearing into the trees ahead.

I~~~~I

When the light faded from Madara's eyes, he was met with a dark landscape, covered in black boxes risen to different heights, the air filled with a stiffening smell of death.

He turned around, his sharingan pulsing once as he took in the orange masked man standing off to the side, his arms crossed over his chest.

"We have to talk…Old Man."

Madara's heart dropped in his chest.

I~~~~I

Minato ducked under a swipe from a poisoned blade, red hair falling over dark green eyes as the young looking adversary shifted from his stance beside Doten-Shi, who fired off fire jutsu's at Tobirama's waves.

"Ken, don't hold back. If I need to drag you back I will."

The younger red head's lips twitched slightly, and the boy let out a heavy sigh.

"Sorry for the inconvenience in advance Sasori-Sensei."

Ken's weights were apparently released, as his figure blurred from his position beside Sasori of the Red Sands, the S-Rank criminal rising to his full height as his fingers twitched. Faintly, Minato heard the smashing of something hard against water, droplets of water touching his hair as Tobirama's battle kicked into gear.

"Sensei…So you are Doten-Shi's master. I'm rather surprised…considering you are of Suna relation and really have nothing in common with him or his father."

Sasori stared at Minato's masked face blankly, a scroll unrolled at his feet sparking smoke as several puppets were summoned from the folds.

"I suppose…but that's mere assumption."

Sasori's fingers barely twitched, but even so the move sent Minato upward as he dodged one of the puppets charging toward him, the other two summoned rushing at him from the sides, deadly contraptions at the ready.

"Honestly, it gets tiring when others assume such things about my colleagues. I suppose it's better than asking about relation simply because of my hair color, but it is awfully overdone by now."

Shifting on his feet, Sasori brought his hands closer to his chest, further down as the puppets shot after the elusive Treasury he had pitted himself against.

"Would you stop…it's rather irritating when you only run. I hate to be kept waiting…or leave my apprentice waiting."

Minato grunted in return to the aggravated Suna-Nuke Nin, dropping from his place above, shifting in order to duck under a row of Senbon aimed at his head, twisting his body to the side to avoid the sharpened and rigged blade of a Puppet's configured arm.

This was followed by a toss of his Hirashin Kunai in Sasori's direction, and a swift one-handed cartwheel over a plume of fire sent at his previous position, a grunt leaving the former Kage's lips as part of the fire singed his hair and legs.

Minato landed on stable ground, vanishing in less than a second while Sasori slipped away from his original position, his puppets rearing backward, before sliding right into the path of Minato's blade as it sliced into Sasori's former position. The red head narrowed his eyes before he brought his hands closer together, several kunai that resided in the ground pulling themselves upward, right into Minato's line of sight.

The ANBU vanished in a blur, appearing several meters away at his cartwheel spot, before vanishing once more as the puppets targeted him with more poisoned weapons.

"Temashi owes me for taking this over…even if he pushed it aside for Orochimaru."

Sasori muttered under his breath, shifting once more as one of his puppets was slammed into the ground by a swirling blue sphere of chakra.

Behind the sand nin, a large pillar of air rose upward, a light sigh leaving Sasori's lips as the wind whipped past him, turning into a large controlled vortex. His eyes softened, and he shifted his stance into a more offensive one, his pupils shrinking with concentration as his hand drifted over the pouch gifted to him by Temashi. "Hmm, about time I got serious as well."

I~~~~I

Across the field several seconds before, assaulted by rolling and flowing water jutsu's paired with Wind and Lightning, Ken shifted through several familiar hand signs and breathed outward as his palms met together in front of his chest.

"23 Seals Style, Gale's Gate Jutsu!"

Wind broke outward from his spot in torrents, tearing through the waves that rushed toward Ken as the chakra infused air circled him in a narrow cone. The cyclone formed rose to the heights of the sky, spreading outward and swallowing the jutsu that had previously started to wear on Ken's endurance. His green eyes glowed, staring through his own chakra toward the white soul infused with swirling red rivers, each color balancing it's other half almost perfectly.

'A beautiful soul…it's as balanced, even more so actually, than Tou-San's…'

Shaking his head only slightly to destroy the thought, Ken started to run through more hand signs, wincing when the barrier of wind was slammed into by a water dragon, bruising the surface before the dragon was swept away, the part it had slammed into much weaker than before.

'One shot…Come on hands move-!'

The barrier was pushed apart, a sharp blow of centralized water powered with lightning and a careful burst of wind tunneling right through the weakened surface, a light curse threatening to leave Ken's lips as he continued to flash through hand signs, even in the face of the growing offense. Faintly, he wondered if he should have used 53-Seals Style Earthly Gate, but it was too late now considering that Senju Tobirama was a formidable opponent and had easily broken past Ken's barrier.

(Vaguely it registered that Tobirama really shouldn't have been able to do so without changing the flow of his chakra to match the barrier, but the thought was dismissed readily as Ken continued to focus on his hands.)

Finally, as the water broke and fell to the ground to reveal Ken's enemy, he stopped on his last sign, a single twitch of two fingers and the roaring current of chakra building upward in his system, right toward his right hand the turned on its side as Ken aimed his ring finger at Tobirama, his thumb extended to the side with his other fingers curled toward his palm.

His green eyes darkened to a forest green, the pupils turning a bright white as he called out the name, chakra forming in a bright green swirl around his ring finger's tip, condensing as his words came out in a sharp breath.

"73-Seals Style, Heaven's Gate!"

The chakra built into the small ball shot outward in a blur of chakra and wind, the sphere expanding rapidly as it shot toward Tobirama at near break-neck speeds.

The Nidaime was quick to throw up his defenses, even as seven more chakra orbs extended from Ken's fingers. The orbs circled the former Kage, before they pulsed, now the size of the rasengan and growing, expanding into cross shaped blasts with their centers pointed toward Tobirama.

Taking a rushed breath, and pulling his fingers back into a fist as he extended his other arm to set his middle and index finger on one of his chakra points on his arm, Ken forced his chakra to switch form it's wind fusion to fire, several yellow tendrils fired from his fist, circling his enemy and the glowing crosses.

All too late Tobirama sensed and saw the chains folding into the centers of the crosses, green wind-infused chakra and yellow fire-aided chakra combing, forming arrows out of the cross beams. The tendrils connected, and Tobirama's water shot upward as the barrier glowed, obscuring itself and its creator from view.

I~~~~I

Sasori sighed heavily as he glancing toward the ANBU caught in an array of 88 sealing tags, created thanks to Temashi for this exact situation.

"This won't hold you for long…I didn't infuse it with all my chakra after all. Still, keep this in mind the next time you decide to try and attack an Akatsuki member. You may have infinite chakra and regenerative ability, but we have a sealing specialist."

Turning away from the man stuck in his trap, forced still by the glowing adamantine chains binding him to the ground, Sasori gazed toward the battleground behind him. He had seen the flash and felt the rise in Ken's rather unique chakra before the expected drop, and upon seeing the barrier surrounding the disguised ANBU guard ahead of him, Sasori felt a slight build of pride in his chest.

He turned toward his student, panting heavily from the sidelines as he clutched his arm, the upper part slightly burned in a single pint wear he no doubt overloaded one of his chakra points again.

"Ken…"

The boy turned toward Sasori, offering a tilt of his head as he focused on breathing, his eyes unfocused and still in their released state.

"I didn't want to keep you waiting…"

The boy had the galls to grin, if only slightly, before collapsing forward. Sasori allowed the boy to face plant into the ground as retribution for the earlier act, before he leaped toward the boy.

His arm slipped under the boy's chest, hauling his body over his shoulder gruffly as Sasori's chakra strings fetched his cloak and tossed it over his other shoulder. His feet led him forward, past the glowing sealing array and the binding chains that held his enemy. His gaze focused before him on the orange masked man standing in the tree line waiting for him.

"Sasori-Dono…I hope all went well."

Sasori barely glanced at the man, instead stalking past him with his baggage, earning a gruff chuckle.

"Care for the boy first…Of course."

The masked man followed Sasori forward, both Akatsuki shinobi vanishing in quick bursts of speed as a team dropped into the clearing behind them.

Finally…Finally got this finished. It was so horribly hard to type this up, because anytime I tried I'd get two or three words, and then bam, nothing more. I pushed and got it done this time, but it was rushed and it has holes (mostly intentional, neh) and shorter than intended. It was supposed to get to them returning, but all changed and now I'm stuck with this. Oh well, I'll go over it again and try my best to continue this series till it's end and beyond. Damned mind can't give me a break.