Author's Note: Unfortunately, my betareader is unavailable for the time being, so I had to proofread the chapter myself. So sorry if the reader experience feels a bit worse. Still, hope you enjoy the chapter:


Chapter 55

The Wind Blows Again

or

The Akatsuki Mean Business

The group of four watched in horror the creature in front of them, half a puppet, half human, while at the same time being neither, blurring the line between human and machine. Sasori, however, continued to smirk.

"You have no words for my greatest piece of art?" Sasori asked, his voice showing some conceit. "I guess it's natural. Not every day one gets to see something like this."

"Greatest piece of art!? You perverted the noble art of puppetry, Sasori," Kankuro seethed, as he moved Tamotsu into an attacking position. "You've been Suna's greatest shame for too long. Today, we will get rid Suna of that shame!"

Sasori chuckled condescendingly. "Of course, those who want to break the mold and take art to new limits are branded as criminals. Good thing I stopped caring about that village you like so much long ago."

With a clicking noise, Sasori brought his arms forward, pointing their palms towards the Konoha and Suna ninjas. A pipe emerged from each palm. The uppermost scroll on his back briefly glowed with a blue light. Everybody adopted a defensive stance, ready to react to whetever Sasori was about to throw at them.

"Now...BECOME ASHES!"

Two streams of red hot fire shot from Sasori's palm cannons. Kankuro and Hinata moved to block the attacks.

"Mechanical Light Shield Block!"

"Vacuum Palm!"

Tamotsu raised its shield, creating a barrier of blue chakra that intercepted one of the fire streams. Hinata's vacuum shell also clashed against the second, but it managed to overpower it, and continue unimpeded. The Hyuga yelped as she jumped sideways in an attempt to avoid the red streams of fiery death.

Maki motioned her hands forward, shooting multiple cloth whips from her hands at Sasori. But predictably, they were burned to ashes.

"Hinata, let's surround him! He won't be able to attack all of us that way!" Kurenai suggested.

The Hyuga nodded, and the two women started to run towards Sasori, avoiding his streams of fire as good as possible. Once they were close enough they leaped above him, landing at opposite sides. Now the four of them were around him.

"Now you can only attack one of us at a time!" Maki taunted.

Sasori let out abone-chilling cackle in return.

"And what makes you think that!?" Sasori replied.

The human puppet stopped his fire assault, and spread his arms to the side. Then, his whole upper body minus the head started to spin at a fast pace. It was truly a disturbing image to watch. However, it wasn't as disturbing as the implication of what this new ability entailed.

"BURN ALREADY!"

"Fall back!" a panicked Kurenai ordered.

Sasori ignited his palm flamethrowers again, releasing waves of flames in every direction. As he increased the spinning speed, the flames started to take the shape of a giant fiery tornado that slowly expanded outwards. The heat produced was so intense, the shallow water started to boil and evaporate, covering the area in steam.

The tornado of fire ceased. However, the steam covering the area made it impossible to anybody but Hinata to see what was going on. Hinata then started to notice a faint pulse of chakra coming from Sasori. She didn't have time to ponder what was it when she saw him raise his hand at Maki's position.

"Maki-san, watch out!" Hinata cried.

Maki jumped backwards, leaping into the air as she narrowly avoided a stream of fire. Another chakra pulse, and this time, the stream of fire was aimed at Hinata, who managed to dodge it.

"Wait a second...that chakra pulse...that's how he's locating us in the steam!" Hinata thought in realization. "I'm the only one who can see him, so it falls on me to end this!"

Another realization dawned upon the Hyuga. She saw that the ground was now completely dry. The heat produced by Sasori's attack had evaporated all the water in the zone. That means that there was no danger of harming her allies if she used a lightning jutsu. Something she was planning to do, since this situation called for a powerful ranged attack. Her hands flew through hand seals.

"Lightning Release: Thunder Fang!"

Thursting both palms forward, Hinata released a mass of electricity that took the shape of a lion head. It let out a roar as it flew towards Sasori.

"Huh?"

Being so focused on offense, that attack caught Sasori completely off guard. On top of that, since nobody had used lightning jutsu so far, and the attack blasted him full.

"AAARRGH!" Sasori yelled, clutching the only organic side of his body. "Oh...it's been so long since the last time I felt pain...I don't like it."

"Well, prepare for more then, since there's more from where that came from!" Hinata defiantly stated, as she got ready for a second attack.

The steam started to dispel, allowing everybody without a Byakugan to clearly see Sasori. They noticed the uppermost scroll on his back was no longer there. The four Konoha and Suna ninjas allowed themselves a brief sigh of relief upon realizing that this means no more flamethrowers. Said relief, however, was short lived as the second scroll briefly glowed blue.

"I'm no stranger to lightning release either," Sasori said, as he pointed one hand at Hinata, and the other at Kurenai. "Now DIE!"

Two lightning bolts fired from each palm of his hands. Kurenai dodged the one aimred at her, while Hinata channeled lightning chakra into her hands, and swiped the blast away.

Kankuro decided he had been on the defensive for enough time, and moved Tamotsu to attack. Sasori noticed this, and fired an electric blast at the puppet. With a click, the puppet moved its shield forward, dispersing the electrcic blast. With another click, several slots opened from the shield, and fired a volley of shuriken at the Akatsuki.

"Useless!" Sasori yelled, as he fired two lightning bolts to the ground, and used the resulting blast to launch himself into the air, above the puppet. He then fired his ventral cable at Kankuro. The puppeteer managed to dodge it, but still made a scratch on his torso, before it stabbed into the ground.

Kankuro fell on one knee, already feeling the weakening effects of the poison.

"This time I won't make the same mistake I did before!" Sasori hollered, as he retracted his cable, propelling himself towards Kankuro. His side blades started to spin like a buzzsaw, as the deranged rogue puppeteer dived at the loyal poisoned one. "DIE!"

However, when Sasori was about to tear Kankuro to shreds, something violently stopped him. Turning his head 180º, he could see that Maki had attached several cloth wips around the poles that held the spinning blades. Maki then, helped by Kurenai, pulled Sasori backwards, and the two women tossed the human puppet in the opposite direction, sending him flying.

With Sasori momentarily out of commission, Hinata rushed towards Kankuro, as she fished another antidote capsule from her ninja tool pouch. Wasting no time, she rolled Kankuro's right sleeve, and nailed the capsule into it.

"There. Now the poison shouldn't be any concern for the next three minutes," Hinata explained, before taking a better look at the puppeteer's wounds. "Let me heal that as well."

"Heh, thanks. This is the second time you save my life," Kankuro chuckled, as he watched Hinata healing him.

"Think nothing of it," Hinata said, smiling a little. "It's what we medics do."

"How many of those antidotes you have?" the puppeteer asked, midly concerned.

"Just one. If more than one of us is poisoned...well, unless we can find the neccesary ingredients to make more..."

Suddenly, there was a massive explosion in the sky, producing such intense light, it almost blinded everybody there for a split second.

"What...what was that?" Hinata asked in shock.

"Dammit, that other Akatsuki and his explosions!" Kankuro snarled. "If something happened to Temari...!"

"It seems that my idiot partner just blew himself up," Sasori replied, as he returned to the fight. "I knew this would happen sooner or later. Deidara never reacts well to being cornered. That means that now I'm all alone against both you and however survived the explosion from the other group."

"But something tells me you're not going to surrender, aren't you?" Maki asked.

Sasori's smirk was all the answer she needed.

"Haha, no. I killed a Kazekage, I know very well what will happen to me if I surrender," Sasori then used a chakra thread to get one of the two remaining scrolls on his back. "That means I'll have to end this fight right now. You should feel proud of yourselves, very few people have actually saw me using this. You can say it's my ultimate jutsu."

Sasori unfurled the scroll, and dozens upon dozens of puppets poured from it. Their number was so big, they almost blocked the sun. Lastly Sasori opened a compartment on the left side of his chest, and one hundred chakra threads shot from it, attaching to one puppet each. Needless to say, the four Konoha and Suna ninjas were taken aback by the magnitude of such display.

The puppets were more or less the same size, all of them human-like in shape and form, with a surprising amount of detail to their faces, sporting multiple facial feautres, hairstyles and even accessories, like nose rings. All of them were wearing long plain maroon cloaks, and were carrying at least some sort of long bladed weapon. Poisoned, no doubt about it.

"These puppets are my strongest weapon, which I used once to conquer a whole country," Sasori said, with that ever present smirk. "You ragtag foursome don't stand a chance against me now."

"This...this is unreal..." Kankuro stammered. "Monzaemon Chikamatsu was considered the best puppeteer who ever lived, and his limit was still ten puppets..."

"Don't falter. There's no way he can micromanage so many puppets at once. He'll send them in small numbers," Kurenai guessed.

"I'd like to know what you do define as 'small'," Sasori replied, his grin widening even further, looking even more psychotic. "Red Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets!"

Everybody braced as the puppets descended upon them. And while Kurenai was right in that Sasori was unable to command all one hundred puppets at once, Sasori was still able to control quite a lot of them at once, between ten and sixteen.

"Scatter! He won't be able to focus on all four at once if we're not together!" Kurenai suggested. Her suggestion wasn't contested by Sasori this time around.

Contrary to the skill and minute precision Sasori had displayed when using the Third Kazekage, here it seemed that he wanted to use overwhelming force and numbers to crush the Konoha and Suna ninjas. The puppets attacked in an unrefined manner, blindly charging towards them while trying to skewer their enemies with their bladed weapons. A far cry from Sasori's previous puppets. But for those massive numbers, he had to sacrifice complexity, or else they'd be too hard to manage.

Kurenai mostly relied on Earth and some Wind Release based jutsu to deal with any puppet that got close to her. Maki wrapped her cloth whips around them, and slamming them against each other. Kankuro fought defensively, cornering himself agianst a wall of stone so the puppets couldn't surround him, while letting his own puppet take the brunt of their attack.

Hinata, meanwhile, fought her way towards the redhedaded Akatsuki,.

"There's no way we can win against so many enemies," Hinata reasoned. "This seems to be Sasori's last resort. If I can get close to him, the fight will be over."

Hinata pushed every thought out of her head other than fighting the puppets and pushing forward. While the puppets lacked organs or chakra network, the Byakugan allowed her to easily spot their weak spots, such as their joints or fragile internal machanisms. She also saw several puppets dashing at her from different sides. Her whole body started to crackle with electricity.

"Lightning Release: Heavenly Thunderstorm!"

Hinata started to spin, becoming a tornado of lightning bolts that blasted the incoming puppets away, shattering most of them to pieces.

Sasori watched that display in awe.

"So, the Byakugan allows her to see any attack regardless of where it comes from. So ambushes will be useless," Sasori reasoned. "Still, one has to wonder how long can she last until her human body gives up."

Hinata continued to fight the incoming puppets as if there was no tomorrow. She was careful spending what chakra she still had, meaning that no more powerful attacks like the one she had used just a moment ago. Of course, such line of thought went down the drain the moment she saw a rain of swords falling upon her.

"Heavenly Spin!"

Hinata succesfully deflected the incoming blades, scattering them around the area, with the added benefit of destroying a bunch of puppets near her. But the moment her spinning slowed down, more puppets swarmed her. The Hyuga heiress was pushed back as she deflected the incoming blows, careful they wouldn't cut her skin.

Hinata allowed herself a second to see how the others were doing. Kurenai and Maki were keeping their ground reasonably well. And Kankuro even managed to commandeer a couple of Sasori's puppets to form a better defense. In fact, it seemed that Sasori was only doing the bare minimum to keep them at bay, while focusing all his efforts in bringing her down.

"Listen everyone! I'm Sasori's main target! Try to push forward and end him already!" Hinata called.

"I don't think so!" Sasori replied.

As if on cue, more puppets joined the fight, attacking Kankuro, Kurenai and Maki with even more intensity than before, as if Sasori was trying to prove her wrong out of spite.

"Sasori has lost a lot of puppets already. But the less he has, the more he can sharpen his focus and control all of them in a more efficient manner," Hinata reasoned, while dealing with a trio of puppets. "If this continues, we won't be able to-"

"Great Sickle Weasel Jutsu!"

A gust of wind blew away a group of puppets that were coming towards Hinata from above, which she had seen but wasn't focused on. She also noticed the group of six people that had joined the fray, among them her two remaining teammates.

"Naruto-kun! Haku-kun!" Hinata called them in joy.

"Hi there. It seems that we came here just in time!" Naruto said.

"That other Akatsuki exhausted us a little, but I believe there's still enough fight in us to at least assist you," Haku added.

Hinata nodded. "We can't just waste more time an energy on these puppets. We need to get to Sasori and end this already!"

Naruto and Haku nodded, before the former said: "Leave that to us! We'll keep those puppets at bay, and open a way to him. Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Naruto created a multitude of clones, which charged forward upon coming into existence, drawing Sasori's attention. A mass of puppets went to greet them. While the puppets were far more durable than the clones, the latter ones did their job at keeping them busy.

"Ice Release: Multiple Piercing Icicle Shot!"

Haku created several ice spears that floated above him, and launched them whenever a puppet came close to either him or Hinata, impaling them to the ground or a wall of stone. The trio of Konoha ninjas were succesfully getting closer to the Akatsuki, which was starting to grow desperate.

"Inconceivable. Me, Suna's greatest ninja, who managed to kill the Third Kazekage...cornered by these children? No, I won't allow it! This is not my end! My art is eternal, and so I am!"

Sasori extended both hands. His left hand fell off, and a long, sharp blade appeared in its place. He also shot a chakra thread from his right hand to pull an axe from one of his already destroyed puppets. He then fired his ventral cable forward, prompting Hinata and Haku to jump sideways, while killing some Naruto clones, before stabbing itself into the ground. Retracting the cable, he launched himself forward towards Hinata.

"DIE!"

Hinata didn't to dodge this time. Displaying her agility and elasticity, the Hyuga Heiress nimbly avoided Sasori's poisoned blows, before taking a step forward, and softly poking Sasori's heart with her index finger.

That's all what she needed. The burst of chakra she sent through her fingertip made Sasori's last remnant of his human body to burst into chunky salsa, bringing his sordid life to an end. The chakra threads he was using to keep the puppet army disappeared, and the remaining puppets fell to the ground, motionless.

Nobody said anything. Everybody took a moment to to regain their breath, and make sure nobody was seriously hurt.

"Whoa! You guys did it! You killed Sasori!" Kankuro cheered, happy to see that the man who kidnapped his brother and brought both him and his sister to near death had finally ceased to be.

Hinata fell on her butt, and started panting heavily, as she felt all the accumulated stress and exhaustion washing over her body. Naruto wordlessly sat besies her, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. The Hyuga also saw Kurenai walking towards her.

"Congratulations, Hinata," despite her naturally happy attitude, the fight had also pushed the Genjutsu Mistress to her very limit. "You have the honor of being the first person to ever kill an Akatsuki."

"Yes! One down, nine more to go!" Naruto cheered, shaking Hinata a little.

"This will send a powerful message out there. Akatsuki isn't invincible," Haku agreed.

"Even then, underestimating them would be foolish. Just look how much damage just one of them can do," Temari said, looking around the battlefield. She then looked at her younger brother. "So, you are planning to scavenge these puppets, right?" Temari asked.

"You can bet on it," Kankuro replied, as he walked towards the deceased Sasori, and liften his body. "Starting with this guy!"

"Are you planning to use Sasori's corpse as a puppet? That's morbid," Maki added, a bit disgusted, no longer wearing the Cloth Armor.

"It's not really his corpse. Plus it would be a waste," Kankuro replied, as he sealed Sasori's body inside an storage scroll.

"By the way, Naruto," Temari said, as she walked towards the blond. "Now that we took care about the Akatsuki...what about Gaara?"

"Oh right! I left him hidden between a bunch of trees and bushes not far away from here. I left a couple clones watching over him," Naruto made a hand seal. The others couldn't see it, but he was dispelling one of those clones in order to gain his memories. "Yup! Gaara's still there!"

"Go fetch him then. I want to take him home," Temari asked. Naruto nodded.

Gaara slowly opened his eyes. He blinked a few times when the sunlight proved to be too intense for his weary eyes. He found himself staring at several blurry figures that towered over him. As his eyes got used to the light, said figures became clearer, and the former jinchuriki could now see they were his siblings, Naruto and his teammates, and Maki and her students.

"Huh...?" Gaara mubled, still sleepy. "What-?"

Gaara was interrupted when both Temari and Kankuro pretty much latched at him in a tight embrace. He could hear the two of them crying.

"Gaara..." Temari sobbed, almost in a whisper. "You have no idea how happy I am to see that you're okay!"

"Yeah man, you gave us quite the scare!" Kankuro said, as his tears ruined his face paint.

"What...what happened?" Gaara weakly asked. "I don't remember anything...after we fought those Akatsuki..."

"It doesn't matter, little bro. All that matter is that you're alive," Kankuro replied.

Gaara gently pushed his siblings back, and with their help, he stood back on his feet.

"Even then, I wish to know," Gaara's eyes then rested on Naruto. "Given all the people gathered here."

Maki took a step forward, and cleared her throat. "Long story short, the Akatsuki got you, and extracted the Tailed Beast from you. These Konoha ninja helped us rescue you and drive the Akatsuki away. We even managed to kill one of them, the infamous Sasori of the Red Sands."

Gaara processed the Jonin's words with a thoughtful expression. However, there was something that didn't make any sense.

"Wait," Gaara replied. "If that was true, I should be dead."

"You almost were," Kankuro added. "We managed to stop the extraction ritual when it was about to end. Naruto and Hinata managed to heal you and stabilize what little Tailed Beast chakra remained inside you so you wouldn't die."

"You weren't the only ones they did save," Temari added. "If it wasn't for Konoha, Kankuro and I would have suffered a long and painful death due Sasori's poison."

Once again, Gaara paused to absorb this new information. So, the One Tail was no longer within his body. That would explain why he felt so...different. On one side, he didn't miss having a murderous beast sealed inside, but on the other hand, he felt an unexplainable sensation of emptiness, as if a part of him had been destroyed.

"I see," Gaara replied, as he walked closer to the Konoha ninja. "Thanks to all of you for your help. Suna will never forget what you did here."

"Hey, we did help too, you know!" Yukata protested.

"Yukata!" Maki chided her.

Gaara's lips formed a small smile, something rare to see in the stoic redhead. "No. It would be unfair to deny them their contribution in this endeavor. You also have my thanks, and I'll make sure that you're properly rewarded."

"Yay!" Yukata cheered.

Matsuri then walked closer to Gaara, a smile on her face as she tried to hold back her tears.

"It's okay, Gaara-sama. Seeing you alive and well is all the reward I need," Matsuri earnestly said.

"Now, if all it's said and done, and if it's not much to ask...I'd like to return home," Gaara weakly said.

Everybody nodded, and headed towards Sunagakure at a pace slow enough for Gaara to be comfortable.

A few hours later, long after the Konoha and Suna ninjas left the Land of the Rivers, two Akatsuki appeared in the site of the battle, easily identifiable since most of the puppets Sasori had used were still there.

"I'm sorry, boss," the black half of Zetsu said, as he and his other half checked the puppets. "But it seems that they took the body away. We won't be able to get the replacement."

Obito, however, smirked as he noticed something. He walked towards something that caught his attention: a single, disembodied hand. Picking the puppet hand up, he noticed it had a ring on its thumb.

"Not all the body, it would seem," Obito said, taking the ring, and tossing the hand away. "Sasori was gracious enough to make sure we'd be able to replace him once he saw his end was close."

"Those are good news, indeed," the white half of Zetsu replied. "So, shall we proceed to induct the new member?"

"Do you really need to ask?" Obito asked, as he placed the ring inside a pocket under his cloak.

"Of course. I'll make sure the Moon Portal is ready as soon as possible," Black Zetsu said, as both he and Obito vanished.

Sunagakure, Next Morning

To say that the previous day had been one of the Hidden Sand Village's most distressful days would have been an understatement. The news of the Akatsuki attacking the Kazekage's children and Gaara's abduction had been like a hammerblow to the collective spirit of the villagers. Fear and worry spread among the population as wildfire, as they wondered if this was nothing but the first part of an attack on the village as a whole.

The general panic made the Kazekage and his councilors to send most of his available ninjas to secure and watch over all the strategic zones, just in case a larger attack would fall upon the village, leaving only a small team to assist Temari, Kankuro and the Konoha ninja with Gaara's rescue. And, indeed, one of those fears appeared to be true when one of the village watchers spotted somebody in the horizon.

"Somebody is coming!" the Suna ninja said, seeing shadowy figures coming from the East.

"Are they enemies? How many of them?" his partner asked.

"I'll tell you right now," the first ninja said, as he pulled out a spyglass, taking a better look of the newcomers. "It's a small group. Ten, I think. They don't appear to be enemies. In fact they're from our own...no way!"

"What? What did you see?" the second ninja impatiently asked.

"It's Gaara-sama! They brought him back!"

The second watcher immediately understood his partner's reaction and sudden excitement.

"I'll spread the good news! Gaara-sama is alive and back with us!"

As the group of seven Suna and four Konoha ninjas slowly approached the village, Kurenai started to notice something odd.

"Look like a large gathering of Suna ninjas is forming at the entrance of the village," Kurenai pointed out.

Hinata activated her Byakugan, confirming her sensei's words.

"Indeed. Are they here to greet us?" Hinata wondered.

And yes, Hinata's guess proved to be true. Once they were close enough, the Suna ninjas started to loudly cheer, both for Gaara, seeing him return, and for all the ten ninjas that had made his return possible. Gaara reacted to this by showing as little emotion as he usually does, but on the inside, his heart was flooded by a warm feeling.

"Look at that, brother," Temari pointed out. "The very same people who used to fear and hate you are cheering for your return and safety."

Gaara smiled. He was about to say something, when the cheering abruptly ceased, much to the group's confusion. The mass of Suna ninjas then moved aside, forming a passageway, revealing the reason the mood had been killed so fast.

Sporting an unreadable expression stood Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage, and Gaara, Kankuro and Temari's father.

Wordlessly the Kazekage walked forward, his eyes fixed on Gaara, as the rest of the Suna ninja silently watched their supreme commander, his stone cold face unchanged. The seconds he took to bridge the gap and met Gaara's group felt like an eternity.

"Father," Gaara simply said.

Then, the unthinkable happened. To everybody's utter shock and surprise, Rasa suddenly wrapped his arms around his youngest son, and started sobbing loudly, in an undignified manner befitting a Kage, which indeed caught off guard everybody who already knew the stern and unpleasant man.

"I'm sorry, Gaara," Rasa cried. "I'm sorry for all of this...it was me who made you this, who made you carry this burden..."

"Father," Gaara replied, seemingly not acknowledging his father's state. "I no longer possess the One Tail within me. The Akatsuki took it away."

Regaining some of his composure, Rasa wiped the tears from his eyes as he broke them embrace and stood up.

"It's okay, Gaara," Rasa replied, his lip quivering a little. "When I heard the news about your abduction, I didn't think about Shukaku until much later. It was your life that worried me the most. And seeing you here, alive and well, fills my heart with a joy unlike no other.

"Gaara...I've realized far too late what an awful father I've been to you," his eyes darted to Kankuro and Temari. "To all of you. I won't ask for your forgiveness, I'll earn it by becoming both a better father and better Kazekage altogether."

While they still harbored some resentment towards their father, Kankuro and Temari smiled a little at their father's change of heart.

"By the way," Temari replied, taking a step forward, and handing her a scroll. "The new alliance treaty with Konoha."

"Good job, Temari, Kankuro," Rasa said, taking the scroll. He then looked at the foursome of Konoha ninjas. "But I think that a mere paper is now irrelevant in the light of what has transpired these days. Ninjas of Konoha, in my and Suna's name, thank you for saving my children. Suna will always be a friend of Konoha as long as I'm the Kazekage."

"Good to hear that," Kurenai said, smiling a little.

"Also, you're invited to spend the day in the village. Tonight, we will have a feast to celebrate Gaara's return," the Kazekage said.

Everybody cheered, and they headed back to the village. Temari and Kankuro then noticed somebody, an old woman, walking towards them, sporting a dejected expression. They recognized her as Chiyo, one of Sunagakure's elders.

"Kankuro, Temari. I'm glad to see that both you and your brother are alright," Chiyo said. After a heavy sigh, she added. "Was my grandson...responsible for this?"

Temari and Kankuro nodded. "I'm afraid yes, Chiyo-baasama," Temari replied.

"It was as I feared. What has been of him?" Chiyo asked. The two Suna Jonin took too long to answer, but their silence was all she needed to hear to know. "I see. Deep down, I believe it was my fault my grandson took such a path."

"Don't blame yourself. We're all responsible for our own actions, and Sasori chose his path on his own free will," Kankuro firmly replied. "I know it must hurt to learn the fate of a family member, but don't think for a second what he did was your fault."

"I know. I wish it was as easy," Chiyo lamented. "Oh well, I'll try to see the positives. How we got both you and your brother back...and that my grandson won't be able to hurt anybody else anymore..."

Several Hours Later, Kazekage's State

As expected, the party in Gaara's honor ended up being entertaining, memorable, and above all things, really fun. There was lots of food, drink, music and dancing. After finding out that Hinata was dating the son of a Kage, Matsuri asked the Hyuga to share advice on how she could approach Gaara, whom he had a crush on but saw him out of her league. The Hyuga Heiress was way too happy to oblige.

Despite having a good time in the celebration –and having more than enough reasons to celebrate–, there was a couple things lingering on Naruto's mind that stopped from fully enjoying the festive mood. And he was going to deal with one of those issues right now.

Exiting the party lobby, Naruto found a terrace where the sound of said party was barely audible. A deceptively cold night breeze brushed against his face as he entered the terrace, and the blond saw a spectacular view of all of Sunagakure. Yes, this place would be a perfect spot for what he wanted to do. He closed his eyes.

The faint noises of the party in the other room, as well as the city above vanished, a deafening silence taking their place. Naruto opened his eyes, and he was no longer in the Kazekage's state, but in a place where nobody but him could reach.

"Hey, Kyubi!" Naruto called.

Naruto heard a loud rumble, followed by an annoyed groan, as the mighty beast lazily stretched, and looked at him with unfriendly eyes.

"Ugh, again so soon? What do you want now?" the Kyubi asked in a massively annoyed tone.

"I wanted to thank you again for helping me save Gaara's life. What you did means a lot to me," Naruto earnestly said, giving the best the best of his smiles.

The Nine Tails, however, was far from amused. "I DIDN'T DO IT TO EARN YOUR GRATITUDE!" the Nine Tails angrily roared. "It was the only way to stop you from handing me to the Akatsuki!"

Far from being intimidated, Naruto chuckled, his smile becoming wider, as he rubbed the back of his head. "Haha, yeah, I can't believe you fell for my bluff," Naruto laughed.

The Nine Tails was taken aback. "...what did you say?"

"I was really desperate to save Gaara, and I had nothing to bargain with you, and threatening you with that was the only thing I could come up with," Naruto happily confessed. "I mean, I know I'm not the brightest mind around, but even I know that letting Akatsuki getting their hands on you would lead to nothing but trouble. Heh, now that I think about it, I shouldn't have said that. Next time you know I'll be bluffing."

"What would have you done had not I bought your bluff?" the Kyubi asked, sounding sincerely curious, rather than anger for being duped.

"Truth be told, I have no idea," Naruto admitted again. "Though I don't like to think about that. I managed to save Gaara after all."

"Is there anything else you want? Or you came to disturb my rest just to show me your pointless gratitude?" the Fox asked.

"Actually, yeah, there's something I want to talk about," Naruto replied. A loud groan came from the Fox, which Naruto promptly ignored. "That creepy statue used to extract and seal Tailed Beasts...I remember the way you reacted when I saw it for the first time. You know what is it, right?"

The Nine Tails remained oddly silent.

"I'll take your silence as a yes," Naruto continued. "Why don't you tell me what is that thing?"

"Such knowledge won't do you any good," the Nine Tails replied.

"It will, at least if you want me to prevent you being sealed there. Why do you fear so much being sealed inside that statue? Is any worse then being sealed inside me?" Naruto asked.

The Fox grumbled. "To put it into terms your feeble human mind can understand, imagine if somebody tried to shove you back into your mother's womb."

"EWWWWW, GROSS!" Naruto whined, as his face formed a grimace. "No wonder you don't want to be sealed there! Hey, wait a second...is that statue your mother or something like that?"

"In a way, yes. But it's much more complicated than that," was the Fox's answer.

"Then tell me," Naruto said, earning a cold stare from his tenant. He crossed his arms, and stared back at him as he put the best serious face he could. "I'm not going to leave until you do. You should already know how stubborn I can be."

Naruto earned another annoyed groan from the Fox.

"I'd take ages to explain you all the details, so I'll give you an abridged version," The Nine Tails conceded. "Long time ago, before my kind existed, there was a being called the Ten Tails. It was a beast of infinite power that ravaged the land, causing mysery and destruction. Until one day, a very powerful man managed to defeat that beast by draining it of its chakra. He then split the chakra into nine entities and gave them form and a mind of their own. That's how my siblings and I were born.

"He then proceeded to seal away the body of the beast, now a lifeless husk, since if the chakra of the Ten Tails was returned to its body, that monster would be reborn again, and would cause the end of the world."

The Fox's tale finished, Naruto took a moment to think about what he just learned. If what he said was true, then it was a discovery of epic proportions, since nobody really knew where Tailed Beasts came from. It also painted the Akatsuki under an even darker shade, since at first, Naruto thought that they merely wanted the Tailed Beasts to use their power for their own means. But if they were trying to revive such an apocalyptic beast...

"Whoa, that was...amazing," Naruto admitted. "So in that way that statue IS your mother. But I also have several questions! If that powerful man managed to seal the statue, how the Akatsuki obtained it then? And who was that man to begin with?"

"To answer your first question, in order to unseal the statue, one must possess the same Bloodline Limit as the man who sealed it: the Rinnegan, the most powerful of all Bloodlines," the Kyubi explained. "As for the man himself, you humans know him as the Sage of the Six Paths."

Naruto's amazement vanished, being replaced by sour skepticism. He raised an eyebrow, as he crossed his arms again. "Yeah. The Sage of the Six Paths. Really?"

Unsurprisingly, the Fox took offense to Naruto's reaction. "You don't believe me? Hmph, fine then! But don't go asking me questions if you don't like the answers!"

"It's not that I don't want to believe you but...the Sage of the Six Paths? Everybody knows thats just a myth of ancient times," Naruto replied, trying not to sound disrespectful.

"And what do YOU know about ancient times, human child?" The Fox snapped back. "Now, if I sated your inane curiosity, go bother somebody else."

Deciding that it was better not to press the Kyubi any further and take what this conversation had revealed, Naruto exited the mindscape where the Tailed Beast was sealed. When he opened his eyes again, he was back in Suna. Albeit truth be told, he never left that place to begin with. At least, his body didn't.

"Naruto-kun? What are you doing here by yourself?" Hinata's voice asked from behind. "Didn't you enjoy the party?"

Naruto turned around, and smiled at his girlfriend. "Oh, no, none of that. The party was fine."

"But there's something that bothers you, right?" Hinata guessed, holding her hands above her chest.

Naruto chuckled. "You know me so well."

The Hyuga heiress took a step forward, and put on her most sincere smile. "If there's something that bothers you, you can always talk with me, you know that?"

"I know," Naruto nodded. "Remember the barrier seal Akatsuki used to protect their hideout?"

"It was Uzumaki fuinjutsu, right?" Hinata asked, recalling the events from the previous day. "Are you worried about how much Uzumaki knowledge Akatsuki has in their power?"

"At first yes, but then I realized of something. Something far worse," Naruto replied, sounding omnious. "Keeping that barrier seal active consumes immense amounts of chakra. Even a Kage would have a hard time keeping it active for more than an hour or so. Only a member of my clan would have enough chakra capacity to keep it active for so long."

"Naruto-kun, are you implying...?"

"Yes. I believe one of the Akatsuki is an Uzumaki."

Amegakure

From the top of a tall skyscrapper, two figures contemplated the city below them, as rain constantly poured. A tall man with spiky orange hair, rippled purple eyes, and face covered in facial piercings, and a woman with blue hair styled in a bun, with two bangs framing her face, and light brown eyes. The two of them were wearing Akatsuki cloaks.

"Three of the Tailed Beasts have been succesfully captured. One third of our job is now complete," the man said in a deep voice. "The path to true peace lies even closer."

"Yes, but things will get more difficult from now onwards, Pain," the woman told her partner. "Konoha and Suna will do their best to hinder our mission. They wouldn't be above warning other villages against us."

"You worry too much, Konan," Pain replied. "The power the Great Villages currently have pales in comparison to Akatsuki."

"While true, it would be wise not to grow confident. Remember that Konoha and Suna did manage to interrupt the sealing ritual. It was luck that we were almost finished," Konan reminded him. "Not to mention Sasori's loss. Pain, no Akatsuki member ever fell in battle before."

"Do not worry. I'll take mesures such thing won't happen again," Pain assured her. "As for Sasori, Obito and Zetsu are in the way of recruiting an even more powerful replacement."

"More powerful than Sasori? I'm already curious to meet this person," Konan admitted.

"While they do that, we need to continue with our plan, and decide which jinchuriki should we target next," Pain said.

"Kakuzu requested he and Hidan to go and capture the jinchuriki of the Seven Tails, currently resiiding in Taki," Konan informed him. "He has a plan that will take time, but it will not only ensure the jinchuriki, but will also notably increase Akatsuki's resources."

"And unsurprising claim, coming from kakuzu. Wanting to go after his old village, while at the same time finding a way to make profit. Tell him he has my permission to proceed as he sees fit. But also tell him not to take much time with preparations," Pain decided.

"It will be done," Konan replied, before she crumbled into a mass of papers, which bend themselves into origami butterflies, and flew away.

Somewhere in the Moon

When Obito and Zetsu emerged from the former's spiraling portal, they found themselves and a large, spacious room, tastefully decorated with all manner of expensive looking ornaments and pieces of art. It looked like the place of residence of a particularly wealthy or powerful Feudal Lord.

Suddenly, the two Akatsuki were surrounded by masked guards wearing dark robes. Spheres of golden chakra appeared in the hands of those guards, no doubt ninjutsu attacks ready to be fired.

"I don't know who you are, nor how you managed to get here," a soft, but firm, young sounding voice said, as a white haired man wearing a long, white robe walked towards them. "Choose your words carefully, for they may be your last."

Obito smirked, his confidence not wavering one bit. "Hello. My name is Obito Uchiha. This is my associate, Zetsu. And you're Toneri Otsutsuki, am I right?"

"You seem to know an awful lot about me. Tell me a reason as for why I shouldn't kill you two right here, and right now," Toneri replied.

"Let's say I made here to make a deal," Obito said, with a wide smirk. "One you won't be able to say 'no' to." His left Sharingan, the one it used to belong to Shisui, changed its shape into a four bladed shuriken. "Literally."

...

Undisclosed Location

A woman with long black hair and green eyes, who was wearing a long white robe, alongside other religious-looking apparels, contemplated the night sky. More specifically, the full moon.

"You sensed it, right, Nori?" a voice said behind her back.

The woman named Mori turned around, and saw a broad-shouldered man in his late fifties, with short brown hair and a thick beard of the same color. He was also wearing a smiliar religious garment as her.

"Yes, father. The moment we've been preparing for all our lives is about to come," Nori replied.

"You know what you have to do, then," the man said, his tone denoting urgency.

"Yes. I need to go to Konoha...and bring the Byakugan Princess here."


Author's Note: And thus, one of my least liked sagas from Shippuden comes to an end. I did try my best to make it better, and I like to think that I managed to dtheo it to some extent. I mean, a lot of reviews told me how they liked that I had Kankuro and Temari more involved in the arc, so there's that at the very least. And even if the ending is the same (Gaara surivives, the Akatsuki gets Shukaku) I like to think the different execution mattered.

And here we had another talk with the Kyubi, which I love to write. On this ocassion, Naruto learns quite a few things, such as one of the Akatsuki being an Uzumaki, the origins of the Kyubi, the Demonic Statue, the Rinnegan and the Sage of the Six Paths. Such information will surely come in handy in the future.

I'm pretty sure that the last few scenes, which set up the next two arcs, left you yearning for more. And since Sasuke didn't defect to Orochimaru this time aroind, the Sasuke and Sai arc won't happen (and good riddance, since in my opinion, it's easily the worst arc of not just Shippuden, but I'd say the entire series. Albeit the Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 game made an admirable effort trying to fix it), so I had to come up with something to fill that void. And while my original arcs tend to have worse reception than straight adaptations, I'm very confident all of you will enjoy the Byakugan Princess Arc ;)

In the meantime, tell me what you think about this chapter, the arc that it capped off, and your expectations for the next one in a review! Reviews make me really, really, really happy!