AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit. No characters were permanently harmed in this chapter.

Proofread by: Author

Oh, dear. I nearly messed this chapter up completely. Thankfully, I noticed my errors in time, even if I was a little hard-pressed for time.

This chapter was late due to some time-consuming issues I came across while writing it.

Chapter 85: Karin returns, abrupt interruptions


Gaara was the first one to make a move again. With his breathing back to normal, and his sand armor repaired, Gaara brought his hands up, forming the tiger hand seal. As a result, the sand surrounding him began forming a cocoon around him, presumably to shield him from all directions while he prepared something else out of sight.

Realizing the window of opportunity was about to close, Sasuke rushed forward, trying to get a hit on Gaara before the sand enclosed him completely, only to notice a subtle shift in the sand, making him hesitate. Normally, hesitating would have been a bad thing, but fortunately for Sasuke, it might very well have saved his life, as he managed to jump away from the sand spikes that suddenly thrust out towards him from Gaara's cocoon.

The sand spikes slowly retracted, leaving Sasuke, as well as the audience wondering what Gaara was doing, as well as wondering what Sasuke would do next to overcome the Sunagakure Genin's defenses.

Suddenly, a disturbance above the cocoon caught Sakura's attention, and she could feel that Sasuke had reacted to it as well. Sand seemed to be gathering in the air, forming a small orb, about the size of a golf ball.

"What is that?" Sakura asked out loud, causing Naruto to peer at the object before answering.

"It looks like an eye." He stated, prompting Sakura to focus closer on the object as it finished forming, allowing her to confirm that the object was indeed mostly white and not perfectly spherical.

"I think you're right." Sakura agreed, a little impressed by how well Naruto had managed to spot the details that had first escaped her.

"You think the Kyūbi might be responsible for his eyesight?" Heikō asked curiously, although Sakura wasn't convinced that was the case.

"That's stretching it I think. It doesn't seem to have a lot of impact on his body unless he uses its chakra. I don't think it ends up somehow enhancing his vision passively, he just has great eyes for detail I think." Sakura responded while focusing on reading Gaara's lips, trying to figure out what he was mumbling about inside of his cocoon. However, all she got was that he was verbally reciting the hand seals necessary for the jutsu he was performing while maintaining his sand cocoon using the tiger hand seal. Sakura felt a little confused as the mumbled seals were person, monkey, rat, monkey, bird, dragon, rat, and monkey again, although she supposed being able to perform a jutsu without using the hand seals would likely be easier with something like a verbal component instead.

Sakura felt a little bit betrayed that she hadn't ever been told about, or read about something so potentially useful. It seemed like such a simple thing as well.

"Focus, that's not the important part here. Do you think Naruto's secret new jutsu could get through that cocoon, or better yet, think Sasuke has something as powerful?" Heikō queried, trying to get Sakura's thoughts back on track, even if those thoughts brought them back to what seemed to be a rather tight spot for Sasuke.

"Tiger, monkey, rat, dragon, bird, dog, rat, snake, dog, horse, ox, tiger, bird, dragon, snake, dog, rat, tiger, ox, monkey, ox, dragon snake, ram, monkey, bird, monkey boar, ram, horse, dragon, tiger, tiger, monkey, ox, ram, rat, horse, tiger, ox, rat, tiger, dragon, bird, dragon, snake, ram, monkey, bird, dragon, tiger, ram, monkey, bird, boar, ram, horse, dragon, dragon, dragon, ox, rat, dog, boar, bird, monkey, ram, horse…" Gaara continued while Sasuke had begun attacking, throwing kunai, dodging sand spikes from Gaara's automatic defense any time he got too close. However, both Sakura and Gaara's attention was on Gaara's chant.

"What the hell kind of jutsu requires that many seals?" Sakura asked, not realizing she had done so out loud, gaining some curious looks from her companions on the balcony.

Sasuke, having realized that Gaara was taking his time, smirked and unclasped the leather strip wound around his bandaged arm and retreated to, and then up the wall of the arena, stopping almost at the top by wall climbing using his chakra. Forming the hand seals for monkey, dragon, rat, bird, ox, snake, dog, tiger, monkey, before bracing his left arm with his right as it began to shine with chakra, releasing small bouts of electricity in all directions, releasing the sound of chirping birds as he began running down the wall, tearing it up in the process as he dragged his hand along it.

However, at the same time, while Sakura felt Gaara speak the words and Sasuke charged his own jutsu, Sakura also felt someone approach the balcony from the stairs. It took her a moment to recognize the facial features of the person coming towards them as Karin.

"Woah! That's almost like my Rasengan!" Naruto exclaimed in astonishment, seeing the ease with which Sasuke was destroying the stone, a smirk making itself onto his face as he realized that Sasuke had managed to find something to equal the Rasengan taught to him by Jiraiya. He had hoped to use his new technique to thoroughly trump Sasuke once they ended up fighting, but it seemed he'd be getting a far more even match than he could have imagined, leaving him excited at the thought.

Sakura wanted to ask Naruto about the technique whose name he had let slip in his excitement but decided not to disturb him from the view of the match, and instead focus on the arrival of Karin as she reached the top of the stairs. Turning around, she saw Karin, wearing a violet jacket with long sleeves, black pants that ended below her knees, and a green beanie with a red spiral on the front, as well as new sandals. Able to sense Karin from all directions, Sakura could tell that on her back, the red spiral most of Konohagakure Shinobi wore was present as well. Sticking out from the edges of the jacket's sleeves and the pants legs, Sakura could see mesh armor sticking out, giving away the fact that Karin was apparently ready for battle. Karin's regular glasses were still on her face, and her red hair was sticking out unevenly from beneath her beanie, making Sakura wonder if Karin had cut her hair for some reason, as the bangs were quite a bit shorter than she remembered them being.

"Hey." Karain greeted Sakura with a smile, although her look carried a clear message, "don't ask", and so, Sakura didn't. Although, she couldn't help but chuckle as Naruto failed to notice Karin's return. Not that she could blame him as she returned her own attention fully to the match, while Heikō took the role of observing their surroundings as well.

Sasuke, using his speed dodged past Gaara's automatic defense, struck with his glowing hand, managing to pierce Gaara's sand, allowing his arm to sink into the sphere, and the sand spikes surrounding him froze.

Before anyone else, besides Sasuke, Sakura could tell that Sasuke hadn't actually significantly injured Gaara. Instead, all he had managed was to grab onto Gaara. Although Sakura couldn't help but chuckle at the startled, confused face of Gaara as his jutsu seemed to have been interrupted, at least she hoped it had. No jutsu with that amount of seals could be anything but bad news in her opinion. Heikō agreed.

Suddenly, as Gaara realized that he had been injured, he began screaming loud enough for everyone to hear. "Blood... My blood is…!"

However, even more, startling however was how Sasuke suddenly began to struggle, unable to pull his arm back, forcing him to once again use his technique with a shout, sending some of the surrounding sand flying as the electrical discharge appeared again around his limb.

As Sasuke managed to pull himself free, however, with him came a large arm-like limb of some kind, made out of sand, and with odd blue marking all over it. It was clearly different from the rest of the sand in some way. Sakura could feel it, because inside of that arm, she could feel a great amount of Natural energy, a type she didn't recognize, one that felt terrible and gave her goosebumps all over. A gasp to her right confirmed that Hinata had also seen something disturbing with her Byakugan. Akamaru, Kiba's dog had also begun barking loudly, although he seemed more scared than defiant.

As Sasuke got away from the arm, he clutched his left arm in pain while the monster arm retreated back into the hole he had left in Gaara's defense. Sakura could feel Gaara… no, the thing he had transformed into shifting inside of the cocoon, a suddenly very apt description of the thing holding what Sakura could only describe as a monster.

"W-what's going on, Sakura?" Naruto tried to ask, having realized something was wrong, able to feel something himself, much like most of the spectators.

A sudden roar originating from the cocoon startled Sasuke, and Sakura barely managed to keep herself from calling out for Sasuke to get out of there. She realized that he probably knew better than anyone that something wasn't right, considering the expression she could sense him making at the cocoon.

All of a sudden, that very cocoon began cracking, before suddenly disintegrating back into sand, flowing down on top of Gaara, covering his form for a moment longer, before revealing him again, looking normal, despite what they had just felt and seen.

Gaara was standing there, breathing heavily while clutching his left shoulder. Sakura could tell that he was bleeding, and she was sure many others noticed as well. Sasuke had managed to draw first blood.

Gaara had an expression of utter fury on his face, but what had Sakura more concerned, was the fact that Gaara's gourd was suddenly leaking sand, continuously, and didn't seem to be stopping at all.

"SAKURA!" Heikō suddenly exclaimed, forcing Sakura's attention towards something else, focusing their senses on the Natural energy they could feel where an ANBU had seemingly put one of the spectators to sleep and then formed a tiger seal with his hands. It took Sakura a moment to realize what Heikō was so upset over. Her first assumption had been that it would be normal for the ANBU to potentially stop someone who might otherwise cause trouble, that was why they were posted there after all. However, she soon realized that she had failed to realize that Heikō and her had accidentally peered through the ANBU's uniform, and found out their identity by mistake. It was someone they knew, someone they were certain wasn't actually a member of the ANBU force.

"Kabuto?" Sakura exclaimed in surprise, while she noticed plenty of spectators, mainly civilians becoming drowsy for some reason.

"Genjutsu!" Heikō exclaimed in realization, using Sakura's voice at the same time to warn her fellow Chūnin candidates.

Immediately, everyone but Lee used the Genjutsu dissipation method of their choice. She could feel many of the Shinobi up in the stands doing the same. Tenten took a moment to free Lee from the jutsu as well, while Sakura realized she hadn't been affected, to begin with, as the chakra meant to catch her in a genjutsu had simply failed and dissipated on its own.

"Awesome, we really are immune to Genjutsu!" Heikō celebrated, although Sakura wasn't so sure. Conventional Genjutsu, perhaps, but were always exceptions. One Genjutsu did not constitute a very large or varied selection of examples after all. Reluctantly, Heikō conceded that Sakura had a point, but that was irrelevant, and that they should try and stop Kabuto and whatever it was he was trying to do.

Sakura could sense the remaining, presumably real ANBU members converging towards the Hokage's location, leaving Kabuto free to escape, something Sakura wished to prevent. "I know who did this, follow me!" She exclaimed, before jumping over the railing, using her chakra to land on the side of the wall and run up the side, towards where she sensed Kabuto.

Before any of the Genin could follow her, a cloud of gray smoke suddenly exploded from the location of the two Kage. Almost like a signal, all hell suddenly broke loose.


AN: So… a lot of hand seals that Gaara has to go through to transform into a controllable form of what I can only assume is a controllable version of Shukaku, as the rampaging form only requires Gaara to be asleep (As far as I can remember).

Anyways, writing down and translating the hand seals was a bit of a chore, especially since I couldn't find the full sequence anywhere online when I tried to look for it.

Oddly enough, the first seal mentioned in the entire sequence is 'Jin' which as far as I could tell isn't one of the 12 hand seals, and translates to "person" or "human". I have a suspicion this is the seal considered to be the "clone" seal that is mentioned when looking into certain clone jutsu, but I can't be certain.

There was also another seal in the sequence I couldn't make heads or tails of that was a simple "u". I decided to exclude it from the sequence in the end, but if anyone knows what it is meant to be, please, feel free to enlighten me.

Karin finally returned, but neither she nor anyone else makes a big deal out of it. (Can you blame them, considering the match they're witnessing at that moment?)

As always, I hope you, my readers enjoyed and will continue to read this story and support me on this fanfiction journey.