Naruko created a thousand shadow clones. They leapt on top of each other, creating a chain tower of clones so tall that they could almost reach the monster. The top Narukos used the Power Pole Technique, and threw their Dragon Ball Jutsus at Gaara of the Desert, trying to knock him off his throne. But none of her ninjutsu could touch him.

"You're like me," Gaara said. There was a hunger in his voice, a yearning for connection that Naruko recognized. She ignored it. Did he seriously think they could be friends after he'd broken Lee's legs and clipped Sasuke's wings? "You're stronger than all these weaklings. I didn't understand at first, because you let them push you around and insult you. Let me give you some advice, if you want them to treat you with love and respect you have to earn it. Kill a few and they'll fall in line."

She couldn't reach him up there. He was up too high. So she used a few shadow clones, and formed a good ole' fashioned rasengan and walked to the base of his tower. Then she shoved her rasengan through the stupid sand tentacle, and it didn't do much good. Luckily she had twenty other clones do the same thing, snapping his damn throne in half, sending him plummeting back down to earth.

He tried to soften his fall with another sand tentacle, but her shadow clones intercepted his fall and rammed a dozen rasengans down his fuckin' throat. His ugly demon ass dented the arena wall on impact. Naruko's shadow clones followed after him. That was what she'd learned from tossing around those pathetically weak Leaf genins, once you went on the attack, never stop, never give the enemy a chance to recover. Be relentless, be brutal, crush 'em until they can't get back up.

A giant wall of clay fell from the ground, into the sky, and ripped a couple hundred shadow clones apart. That stupid evil fuck wasn't dead? Good, Naruko was gonna enjoy grinding apart his limbs with her chakra, repaying him for what he'd done to Sasuke. She and her clones reached into their pockets, took one of her dragon balls, and formed a rasengan around it. They fired heaters at Gaara's sand shield, they'd smoke that soulless little redhead outta hiding!

Smoke and dust filled the arena, and she heard Gaara cackle from within the darkness. And as the smoke cleared, she saw that he was smiling, and all her attacks, all her effort… None of it had done shit.

Her legs trembled. What was this feeling? Her heart hammered, her vision was wavering, she could barely even lift her arms,she couldn't catch her breath, and her chakra reserves, they were pretty much empty. Gaara, he was stronger than her. Gaara, he was gonna kill Sakura, he was gonna kill Sasuke. And Gaara, he was gonna kill her too.

She squeezed her fists. There wasn't a damn thing she could do about-

Jiraiya's words danced in her head. She was no ordinary shinobi. Inside of her was the Nine-Tailed Fox. All she needed to do to tap into its power was feel a little rage.

Well right now, right now her rage was exploding. And she felt something evil, swirling deep within her belly, a malevolent, burning chakra, livid with a thousand years of festered hatred. The arena faded, and suddenly she was in a dungeon, sewer water on her feet, the acrid smell of putrid decay all around her. There was no light, only darkness, but she could still see one thing… One giant orange thing, behind thick steel bars.

The Fox.

"Give me your chakra!"

The Fox howled.

Naruko felt nothing. And she was in the arena again. Gaara was transforming, growing even stronger as Naruko felt weaker than before. Weaker than she'd ever felt.

Gaara was the size of her apartment, now fully in the shape of a demon. But he had not lost his mind. He was still human, still rational, still not a beast even if he was a monster. After all, he was talking, and Naruko couldn't ignore him any longer. "You'll see. You'll see, you'll see, you'll see! You're a monster too! I can feel it within you! You have a Mother as well! Nobody will ever love you! Not unless you force them to respect you! Not unless you force them to love you!"

It wasn't true! It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't!

"You," Naruko tripped on a rock, fell on her butt, and crawled away from him. Her terror overwhelmed her hatred and determination, and her clones dispersed one after another. "You're wrong! I can… If I just… I can have a family… I have one… Team Seven?" But she couldn't quite believe the words coming out of her mouth. She'd saved their lives, she'd proven herself the strongest genin in the chunin exams, she'd defeated a jounin and fought off the Grass Shinobi who could fight Old Man Hokage! And what had been her reward? She'd been booed off the stage after beating one of Konoha's golden boys, Kakashi still treated her like a stupid kid, and Sakura looked down her nose at her. And Sasuke, she'd saved his life, all she'd ever done was be kind to him, and he still treated her like she was worth less than the dirt beneath his shoe. He would never love her, no matter how well she treated him, no matter how strong she got, nothing…

She felt a rage burning inside her. A powerful chakra, just out of reach. A maelstrom that would allow her to destroy Gaara, to burn everything to ash.

She was back in the sewers. Staring up at the Fox's giant fanged glower.

"Fox! Give me your power!"

The Fox howled and howled. Mockingly. It found her struggle funny?

"You're in my body! Your chakra is mine! I'll take it!"

But Naruko's anger was still impotent. No red chakra. And she was back in the arena, facing off against a Gaara more powerful and more monstrous than any of his previous forms. But he still hadn't attacked her, still hadn't killed her. Why? Why did he just keep yapping? Why wouldn't he just shut the hell up and fight?

"Uncle hated me!" Gaara yelled, his voice muffled and scratchy. "Until I accidentally killed a kid! Now he treats me with love and care! The villagers all played with me after they realized that if they didn't I'd kill them! I spent so many years, Naruko, trying to prove I wasn't dangerous! I was a fool! We're shinobi! We're all monsters, we're all killers! That pretty pink-haired girl, that boy with a bowl cut, and especially that dark-haired pretty boy! We've all killed before, what are we doing right now? Me and you, we're just the biggest and baddest! Why should we be ashamed? I've got everything I could ever ask for, friends, and even a loving family, all because I embrace that I'm the strongest!"

"What you're talking about is worthless," Naruko screamed. "You've just scared people into making fake connections!"

"My bonds are not worthless," Gaara cried, as if his life depended on it. He had finally finished growing. He was the size of Ramen Ichiraku, and he looked like some kind of twisted tanuki, demonic and made out of sand. "I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'LL KILL YOU! I AM THE STRONGEST!"

Gaara roared, and now Naruko could tell he was crying, she could hear his agony beneath the sand, hear the human underneath the monster. "I WILL NOT LOSE EVERYTHING!"

She was glad he was in pain. She tapped into all the chakra she had left, and forced her hands into position. She could barely stand, she was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open. But she wouldn't let him win, couldn't let him win. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Hundreds of shadow clones burst into existence. The Sand Monster Gaara leapt from his disintegrating throne, and The Orange Army of Narukos charged to meet him. The Narukos threw their Dragon Balls at him, but they couldn't pearce his sand barriers. So in groups of threes they flew, suicide bombing him with rasengans.

The sand was sloshing off the demon, Gaara was growing weaker, and Naruko doubted it was from the rasengans. With a wild swing of a disintegrating arm, he popped what was left of her shadow clones. The red head glared at her from the opposite side of the stadium, the last bits of sand dripping off him. He'd run out of chakra at last.

So had she.

They ran at each other, fists extended. Neither were any good at taijutsu, academy genin could have slapped around either jinchuuriki, as neither had ever had a sensei to teach them the technical aspects of martial arts. Gaara had several inches of reach and at least forty pounds of muscle on her. But Naruko was winning, Naruko was dominating. Each of her blows came hard and fast, with all her weight behind her. Gaara's were soft and hesitant, and lacked any conviction at all.

She slammed her ring and pinky knuckles into his chin, breaking her hand but knocking him over. She straddled him, and rained down blows on his face. Each strike hurt, Iruka had never so much as taught her how to form a basic fist. But that was fine, she would rather have an honest, distant relationship with her sensei than one of Gaara's fake abominations. And maybe her taijutsu was pathetic and self-taught, but Gaara's was worse, his had been sabotaged by his so-called friends.

"You kill people," Naruko screamed, breaking her other fist on his face. She didn't care. What mattered was hurting Gaara as much as possible. "You break real bonds to make your fake ones. You, Gaara, are a monster. Believe it."

"No! No, no, no, no! It can't have all been for nothing! Mother! Help me Mother! This girl terrifies me!"

Gaara's eyes closed, and he stopped fighting back. She'd knocked him out. But Naruko wasn't ready for this to be over. She needed Gaara dead. She kept hitting.

Something funny happened. She felt something brush against her toes. Sand. Lots and lots of sand. All collecting around- No!

She tried to form a shadow clone for a rasengan, but she couldn't move her hands, and she had no chakra left anyways. Fine! She'd just gut him like a fish! She reached for a kunai, but she couldn't grip it. The sand propped Gaara up, but he still hadn't opened his eyes, still hadn't stirred at all.

"Ehehehe! Thank you girl, you've awakened my esteemed self," Gaara said, although there was something off about his voice. And he kept growing and growing, far larger than any of his previous forms. He was the size of a mountain, and the Konoha Arena couldn't contain him. The walls of the battle arena shattered, and parts of the stadium began to break. Civilians broke free from the genjutsu, and tried to flee. Gaara slaughtered dozens of them with a single swing of his titanic arms. "Now. I am going to give you ten seconds to call on the stupid Fox. If he's too scared to come out and play, I'll just kill you both!"

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Sorry for the short chapter, the next one will be out sooner than the usual two weeks and will conclude the fight. Now onto the reviews!

TheBeauty - Many people saw the fight, as it is happening in the middle of the arena. There was the genjutsu that put a lot of people asleep, but more and more people are waking up. With Shukaku's awakening everyone is watching. Everyone has their eyes on Naruko. It's a good question as to why people didn't interfere… It will at least partially be answered at the conclusion of the arc. Thanks for the review!

Amaterasu53 - Well Naruko destroyed Gaara in both combat and in philosophy. Unfortunately that's left his body open for Shukaku, a far more dangerous opponent. And in this story Shukaku has been training for a match against Kurama and is the true reason I wrote that Naruko can't defeat Gaara. Glad you liked the last chapter and thanks for the review!

Before you go, I've got a question to ask you guys about the future of the story. Should I genderswap Obito's gender? So far I've planned to write Obito as a guy, but I think that making Obito a girl could make a lot of character dynamics very, very interesting. It would lead to some plot holes in Kakashi's early actions, but I'm planning to make Obito one of the main antagonists of the story so he will necessarily have to change from cannon to more effectively challenge Naruko anyways. Let me know your thoughts.