It took some doing, but Naruto was able to stabilize Itachi. His chakra shock had and still did make things much more complicated than they should be. She would not be able to really start on a real treatment for the underlying illness until she had some time. She reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a special patient stasis seal scroll and sealed Sasuke's brother into it. She slipped the scroll into another pocket.

"That bad, huh?" Sasuke asked.

She sighed. "He's in the terminal stages of a fatal disease and he has chakra shock on top of that from overextending his chakra to keep his body going. I can't even begin to treat the underlying cause until he's past the chakra shock. I need time to really help him and this isn't the place to do it. To be honest, I didn't even take the time to really examine what's causing his body to shut down."

"How do you know he's stable then?" Sasuke asked tenuously.

"I've managed to implement a temporary solution to his symptoms," she responded. "In combination with the stasis seal, he'll last until Baachan, Shizune-neechan, or I can look at him more thoroughly."

"Are we done here then?" asked Hinata.

Both Sasuke and Naruto agreed and they set off at a jog to return to Haku and Karin. Ten minutes into their return trip, Naruto felt one of her clone scouts pop. Her new memories told her why.

"Karin-chan and Haku-chan are coming toward us at high speed," she told her teammates.

"Should we wait for them to arrive or speed up to meet them sooner?" Sasuke asked.

"Speed up," Naruto indicated. "Either they're in trouble and need help or they have something important to tell us."

With both sets of shinobi running at high speed, it did not take them long to meet.

"What happened?" Naruto asked.

"There's a fight about to happen about 25 kilometers north of here," Karin said. "Asuma-san, Shikamaru-san, and the two chuunin that are always at the gate versus someone with S-rank chakra and someone with A-rank chakra that feels more disgusting than Orochimaru. The S-rank chakra threat is weird in that it seems to be made up of one A-rank source connected to four subordinate B-rank sources. We started coming towards you once I noticed the two strange sources coming into our general area. They stopped 15 minutes ago and were meeting with a B-rank chakra source. Asuma-san and the others are zeroing in on their location."

Naruto glanced at her teammates. The last she knew of Asuma was that he had been sent to check out an attack on the Fire Temple, but she could not discuss the Hokage's mission assignments—especially not in the earshot of two reservists.

"Unknown A and S-rank chakra sources in Hi no Kuni can only be trouble," Sasuke said.

"It's unlikely that another village would send their high-ranking shinobi into Hi no Kuni without notifying Konoha," Hinata added.

Naruto agreed—especially if this were related to the attack on the Fire Temple. No other village would dare attack the Temple—seeing as that would be a declaration of war over something with little strategic value.

"Which leaves Akatsuki," Naruto said out loud. "I don't see Orochimaru directly employing any other S-rank shinobi. He'd be too worried about being supplanted.

"While chakra strength doesn't correlate directly to skill," she continued. "We can't leave Asuma-san to fight an S and A-rank pair with only three chuunin as backups." While Shikamaru could punch above his weight-class due to his intelligence, she didn't want to rely on that to save them. Besides, Akatsuki were their job and she did not want to waste the opportunity. "Can you give me an exact bearing, Karin-chan?"

They weren't that far outside her own Byakugan range. She should be able to pinpoint them once they got going.

Karin pointed her a direction just east of true north. Naruto opened her Rinne-Sharingan eye and summoned her giant crow.

"Head back to Konoha, Karin-chan, Haku-chan," she told the two young women. "You can tell the Hokage that we accomplished our mission and that we've gone to aid Asuma-san against suspected Akatsuki."

Haku and Karin nodded and took off toward Konoha at a jog. After quickly removing the bird's harness from a storage seal and having clones attack it to the summons, Naruto and her teammates boarded the bird. A couple of minutes after taking off, she caught sight of the fight with her Byakugan. She briefed her teammates on the fight, with Hinata joining in once they got within her range.

Both of the enemy shinobi were wearing standard Akatsuki black robes with read clouds on them. The A-rank chakra threat wielded a triple bladed scythe and wore a slashed badge from Yu, which was notable because the village no longer fielded shinobi. The scythe had a long cord attached to it that ended in a short spear. The S-rank threat wore a slashed badge from Taki and his body was covered in crude stitches. He had four masks attached to his back which seemed to be the subordinate chakra sources.

Asuma and the presumed A-rank threat were facing off against each other, while the presumed S-rank threat and the three chuunin watched warily. It looked like they were still in the posturing phase of the fight. The presumed B-rank threat was hiding in the building. Unfortunately, it did not appear that they would arrive before the fight started. She only hoped that the S-rank threat would stay out of the fight until they arrived.

Asuma engaged the Yu missing nin in a close range scuffle that lasted several minutes. The fight broke temporarily as the missing nin grazing Asuma with his triple-bladed scythe. The Akatsuki jumped back and licked the bloody blade of the scythe and began to draw a seal on the ground just as Asuma launched a Fire technique at him. Naruto frowned as the enemy shinobi emerged from the conflagration unscathed, but with his face looking skull-like. Asuma clutched his arm in pain. The Akatsuki had some sort of damage transference technique, probably triggered by the ritual.

Shikamaru took the opportunity to intervene using the Shadow Bind Technique. After a few moments, Shikamaru used the Shadow Sewing Technique to force the Akatsuki out of his seal. The skull effect faded and Asuma used his Flying Swallow Technique to cut off his head. Surprisingly, the decapitated head continued to talk—or at least its lips moved—and its body continued to move independently. From what Naruto could lip read, the disembodied head was mainly uttering profanities. She wondered if he could actually speak without air moving through his voice box.

The headless monkey appears to be a Jashin cultist, Kurama said.

Jashin? Naruto asked.

A demon that kills its worshippers and binds their souls to their corpses, the Kyuubi responded. Since they're not really alive, they can't be conventionally killed. The process invokes a kind of stasis on the bodies so they don't decay like a typical zombie would.

How do you get rid of them? Naruto asked.

The easiest way is to utterly destroy their bodies, Kurama said. It shouldn't be too difficult for you, Overkill-chan.

Naruto groaned internally. Not you too. She could feel the Fox smirking at her.

The Kyuubi added, Undead like the Jashin cultists always have a weakness. The Jashinists' weakness is that they must continually perform their ritual sacrifices. If they are unable to do so, the force maintaining their bodies dissipates and they perish. The timescale is approximately a sacrifice every two weeks, but they can build up "credit" by doing them more frequently or by sacrificing victims with strong active chakra. Unfortunately for your comrades, this is difficult to exploit in battle. I don't see you having a hard time with him, however.

The other Akatsuki appears to be using the Jiongu forbidden technique, Kurama continued, but I don't know much about it other than that it was a secret technique that creates an artificial, non-inheritable ability that functions much like a bloodline ability and that it was used occasionally by high-level shinobi from Takigakure no Sato.

Earth Grudge Fear? Naruto mused. What kind of technique name is that? Why was it forbidden?

The Kyuubi sent feelings of amused contempt. Who knows with you monkeys?

The Taki missing nin grabbed the disembodied head as Shikamaru collapsed from exhaustion. The Akatsuki approached the headless body and threads detached from his arms to sew the head back on. Kotetsu and Izumo moved to attack, but the S-rank Akatsuki's arms extended unnaturally to grab them both by the throat.

Asuma moved to intervene, but the newly restored Yu missing nin took the opportunity to jump back onto his seal and stab himself in the gut with a short spear attached to a cord at the end of his scythe. Asuma collapsed.

Naruto scowled. The wound was fatal without the right type of intervention, but was intended to give the victim a relatively slow death over the course of about five to ten minutes. Luckily, they would be arriving in less than one.

The Taki missing nin threw the two chuunin to the ground and moved to finish them, when he stopped and pulled out a piece of metal with a seal etched on it. An image of a head appeared above the seal, but the image was too insubstantial for Naruto to read its lips from the wrong side.

The S-rank threat scowled and told his partner that they were leaving immediately, which caused the A-rank threat to immediately start complaining.

The confrontation was now within sight for normal eyes.

"Sasuke-kun, Hinata-chan, you take the Taki missing nin," Naruto told her teammates. "I'll have clones heal Asuma-san, debrief Shikamaru-kun and the other chuunin, and capture the guy hiding in the building. I'll take the missing nin from Yu with the scythe and then help you with the Taki one if you need it."

The two Akatsuki had already started to withdraw as Naruto's crow summon swooped low.

Sasuke jumped off with Hinata following him. "I didn't say you could leave!" he yelled.

Naruto formed three clones. All four of her leaped off of the summon. Her Animal Path Shadow Clone ran toward the building to find the B-rank threat. Her Human Path and Preta Path Shadow Clones dropped down next to the beleaguered Konoha shinobi.

"I didn't say you could die, Asuma-san," her Human Path clone said. She knelt down next to him and began to seal up his wound.

Her Asura Path clone began to ask Shikamaru and the other chuunin for details on their mission and how they came to fight the Akatsuki.

Naruto herself faced off against the scythe-wielding Akatsuki.

The scythe-wielder began laughing maniacally. "I didn't think you would be so stupid as to seek us out, Kyuubi."

"It's not like I have anything to fear from you, Aktatsuki." Naruto returned.

"Jashin has made me immortal," the Akatsuki boasted. "You can't stop me, Kyubbi. Jashin will reward me for killing you once we rip the bijuu out of you."

"How can a dead thing like you be considered immortal?" Naruto asked. "You're just a meat puppet animated by a third-rate demon."

"Blasphemy!" shouted the cultist as he charged her.

Naruto sent three locks of her hair at the Akatsuki. He dodged two locks and swung his scythe at the third. She sent chakra along her hair to reinforce it. The scythe rebounded from the hair. The cultist almost stopped in shock. Swearing foully, he collected himself barely in time to dodge another swipe from her hair. Getting more of the reanimated cultist's measure, she advanced on him, continuing to thrust at him with her hair. The once-man's style was almost exclusively based upon unrelenting attack and he was poorly suited towards dodging, but she left him no choice. She managed to grab his scythe, yanking him toward her. Foolishly, the Akatsuki did not let go. Coating a lock of her hair in Wind chakra, like she had seen Asuma do with his trench knives, she sliced through his arm at the elbow. The once-man staggered, cursing foully. Follow-up attacks with Wind-coated locks of hair removed his other arm and his head. The head continued to curse her.

"How are you talking without a body?" she asked him.

"The great god Jashin has blessed me to be immortal," he boasted. "Removing my head won't stop me!"

"No," Naruto corrected him. "I know why your mouth is moving. Where does the air come from to make the speech? Your lungs and diaphragm are over there!" She pointed to his body.

He stared at her blankly. Clearly he did not know.

Sighing, she took out three storage scrolls. She sealed his scythe into one of them, using her hair to position it. There was no way she wanted to touch him or his foul tools with her skin. She sealed his arms and body into a second scroll. The third scroll was a prisoner-transport scroll, just in case a standard storage scroll interfered with the chakra that animated him.

"What are you doing!?" he screeched. "Jashin curse you! You won't get away with this!"

She snorted. "I already have." She used a hair lock to bat his head onto the scroll and activated the storage seal. She used her chakra to mark the scrolls so that she could tell them apart and stowed them in her vest.

While she had been finishing up with the Yu missing nin, her clones had healed Asuma and gotten a report from Shikamaru and the other two chuunin. Evidently, the two Akatsuki had attacked the Fire Temple and killed one of the monks, a friend of Asuma's. Their team had tracked them here. The B-rank shinobi was evidently the proprietor of an illegal bounty station. The rest of the report matched what she had seen with her Byakugan. Her Animal Path clone had easily captured said proprietor. She returned with him bound in her hair. The original Naruto pulled out another prisoner scroll and sealed him into it.

The Taki missing nin had tried several times to rescue his comrade using ninjutsu fired from constructs made from his threads and masks. Hinata had engaged the man himself in taijutsu while Sasuke had destroyed one of his masks. Each of the masks seemed to specialize in one of the elemental chakra releases. Judging by the techniques the others were using, Sasuke had destroyed the Water mask. The missing nin was now trying to disengage, but Hinata was pressing him too fiercely for him to retreat. The remaining three masks were swooping at her back side, but Sasuke was countering their ninjutsu with his own.

Naruto was somewhat surprised that the missing nin was managing to survive against Hinata in close quarters, but he was selectively using an Earth Release technique to harden his skin and protect himself from her Gentle Fist techniques. On the other hand, Hinata was able to deflect his strikes with her chakra-coated palms. His attempts to snare or skewer her with his threads were likewise deflected or sliced off. Hinata's chakra control was good enough that she was able to make it finely-edged—almost as if she were using Wind chakra.

Sasuke shattered a second mask, the Fire one, that had gotten too close to him using Kakashi's Thousand Birds Technique. The threads supporting the construct fell apart once he pierced the heart behind the mask. She could see that the other two mask constructs also contained hearts which were the chakra nodes in each mask.

Leaving her Human Path clone to make sure the now-protesting Asuma stayed out of the fight and recovered fully, she approached Sasuke while sending her Preta and Animal Paths after the Wind-chakra mask.

"I'll take care of the remaining masks," Naruto told him. "Since we got the Yu missing nin, we don't need to take chances trying to capture this one. You get into position behind him. Once I take out his masks, use your Lightning Release technique on him. Aim for his heart. That's what seems to be keeping his constructs going. I bet it's the same for the man himself."

Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement.

Naruto's clones converged on the Wind mask in a pincer. The mask fell to a Rasengan at the end of her Preta Path's hair while trying to launch a ball of compressed Wind chakra at her Animal Path.

At that point, the Lighting mask tried to flee from her, only to receive the same Rasengan-tipped-hair-lock treatment to its back. Five seconds later the man himself fell to Sasuke's Thousand Birds through his chest while desperately trying to escape Hinata.

Naruto pulled out two more storage scrolls. She placed the shattered remains of the masks in one and the body of the Taki missing nin in the other. The threads that had animated the masks had all evaporated, having been made of chakra.

"Asuma's team needs to rest before we make the trip back to Konoha," she told her team, "but I'm uncomfortable remaining in this exact spot. We'll travel ten kilometers and then stop for the night. I'm afraid we'll need to carry Shikamaru-kun and Asuma-san."

"Why doesn't it surprise me that we need to carry the lazy bum?" grumbled Sasuke.

Naruto smirked. It was in character.

"I'll send a slug summon to Baa-shishou to update her on what's happened," she said as they returned to the other Konoha shinobi.


Author's Note: I was leaning toward letting Asuma die, but looking at descriptions of the fight and its aftermath in canon revealed that Asuma had time to smoke a cigarette after Kakuzu and Hidan left before finally dying. Any fight our heroes got to in time to stop the Akatsuki from leaving would give Tsunade-trained Naruto time to save him. There was no point in altering things to let him die other than to let him die. To me, it seems out of character for either Kakuzu or Hidan to just leave him (surely Pain wouldn't know if they took a half a minute to finish off the Konoha shinobi with only two chuunin left to fight them), but I guess Kishimoto wanted to give Asuma and Shikamaru a chance to have their moment.