Chapter 53: Cornered Beast
For almost two whole weeks, Naruto and Tenzo have taken a little bit of a detour in their initial assignment within the Land of Claws. The reveal of the utter abundance of Stone shinobi that littered even the smallest of towns and villages across the country made Tenzo more than a little skittish in trekking further toward the Land of Earth, much less entering the hostile country. Instead, a last minute change in the planning had the pair of clones scouring the country to try and determine the severity of this occurrence. What was found, however, wasn't anything that provided any reassurance to the jounin.
It started as a mere inkling, nothing more than a passing thought after Naruto and he spent the night in a local tavern that had rooms above the main floor. Tenzo didn't wish to jump to the conclusion of the Stone Village taking full occupancy of the lesser country after only a single peek within a restaurant. They traveled eastward, in the direction of the Land of Rain though they were still far removed, and encountered much the same within the neighboring town. There was still an alarming amount of Stone shinobi in the neighboring town and every other subsequent village or town that they wandered through.
Even with the extended travel, the more emphatic searching in a country that they weren't even assigned to, Tenzo was given little and less to discern in the initial investigations. He refused to linger too long in any given stop that they made, giving them only the time to look, identify, and leave once again for the next destination. Despite them shedding their Leaf village gear and Tenzo taking deliberate steps to not be seen as anything other than wayward traveler with his boy, he was still cautious of the boy's safety at his side. Minato Namikaze burned scars generations deep within the people of the Stone Village, be it directly or indirectly, and they would not soon forget the sight of the man that rebuffed their invasion of the Land of Fire. As it was, Naruto looked unmistakably like his father and that only made Tenzo want to have as little conflict with the shinobi that they caught sight of in their travels.
Tsumene was their final stop in this little dance throughout the Land of Claws, or so he would declare for now. For the most part, Tenzo and Naruto haven't yet seen a true city within the country they've traveled across. All that they've wandered into were villages and towns of little grandeur, faceted with only the basic necessities for a small community to last and accommodate those merely passing through. These small communities, however, were not places to get information when they were already occupied. If he were to start asking around in any of the places they've already visited, it would take only hours for his words to reach the ears of the men he was asking about. Words travel fast, much more so when all the ears fit within a squared mile and the words that spread were of any suspicion.
Their next destination wasn't that. Tsumene was the capital of the Land of Claws, and a grand one at that. Though it stood short next to the larger cities in the major Elemental Nations, more so to their capitals, it was a stark change from previous destinations. Stone walls stood high with battlements stretching across them, even from near a mile out, one could see how guarded the walls were with the land's samurai seeing over the cities defenses. Just standing higher than the walls around the city itself were the large buildings and structures of a fully developed city that towered higher than any buildings they've seen since leaving the Sand Village.
Much like most areas of the Land of Claws, Tsumene was surrounded by giant masses of rock that climbed high into the sky, arcing out to gouge themselves into the sky. Anywhere you looked there was sure to be a long-casted shadow of these massive marvels of land, and the city seemed to be stemmed at the heart of it all. Much like the name suggests, the city of Tsumene ws rooted at the center of these claws as they extended outward through the country.
When Tenzo and Naruto arrived at the entrance to the country's capital, they were met with a fairly long line that stretched from the opened gates. Like most true cities, the country's samurai were posted at the entrance to inspect all the visitors to ensure the best safety of the city they were sent to protect. Hours passed, but soon enough, with no small amount of disgruntled sighs from Tenzo's side, the pair of Leaf Shinobi were granted access to the city and into its bustling roads. With it being midday, there was no small amount of traffic on the cobbled paths that tracked through the city, everything from children and small animals to large carriages traveling with haste across Tenzo's vision.
Looking down to his right, it was clear that Naruto had never been witness to such hectic commuting in his time within shinobi villages. Even in the largest festivals of the Great Shinobi Villages, this crowd of people within Tsumene was many times more dense than you would find. So many civilians were many times removed from the shinobi world, some even passing their existence along like some kind of legend or folktale, and it was clear that such people vastly outnumbered the number of shinobi by far. Putting a hand on Naruto's shoulder, Tenzo helped direct the boy through the traffic as he moved to try their luck on the more run-down side of the city. The bawdy show and hospitality of the face of the city wasn't where Tenzo would find his answers. Here is where they would run into more of the same as the rest of the places they've wandered through with Stone shinobi taking their share of the city's hospitality.
So, instead of continuing the quotes of the well kept paths that showed off the popular stores and novelties of the country's capital, Tenzo trailed down the system of side roads that utilized alleyways and less traveled roads that were significantly more dimmed than the main roads. Instead of merchants with kind smiles or store owners welcoming passing customers, they were met with stragglers of the city that welcomed them with gruff voices and watched them with a suspicious eye as they passed. Many people traveled in tighter knit groups instead of allowing one another the freedom of meandering around the less appealing strangers around them, and when they entered a tavern that had a front door that screeched on its hinges, neither Tenzo or Naruto were greeted with anything more than suspicious glances from the other patrons in the shabby establishment.
Tenzo sat Naruto down at a table near the back corner of the tavern's floor space, having him sit in a chair that creaked and groaned as the boy let his weight fall upon it. There was no waiter or server that appeared to take their orders or treat them with drinks, but only a barkeep that stood with a frown as he tugged on his cigarette and cleaned the glass in his hands. Tenzo approached the bar, which was only mounted with one other customer outside of himself, and leaned across the rough countertop as he waved over the barkeep. The man grunted at him first, his bushy brow furrowing at Tenzo before he placed the glass down and slung a hand towel over his broad shoulder. Only when the man propped thick arms onto the countertop, leaning his barreled body upon the bar just in front of Tenzo, did the gruff man speak up.
"What's it you need, stranger? We don't see new faces around here, and the only ones we do bring trouble." The man leaned closer toward Tenzo with his eyes narrowing into a squint. "You're not here to bring trouble, are ya?"
Tenzo shook his head calmly at the man's question, a man that kept shifting his gaze to Naruto every so often. Instead of meeting the suspicion with frustration, Tenzo responded as honestly as he could, hoping it would save him from any undesirable circumstances. "No trouble here, sir. My boy and I," Tenzo nodded his head toward Naruto, "were traveling through the country from the Land of Wind and we ran into a lot of them northern ninja in the taverns we'd enter. Is there something going on?"
Tenzo tried to add something to his voice, something less proper than how he was used to talking. He didn't think that speaking to the man like they were both shinobi or proper would've gotten him far, and so he stayed with the idea that he and Naruto were simple travelers from the desert. The barkeep's thick hand moved to his chin to rub the scruff that covered his face and neck as he thought about Tenzo's words, shooting the jounin more than one glinting eye.
"Coming from the Land of Wind, eh? I suppose the news hasn't made it that far south yet. The Stone up there made some alliance with the Rain to our east and demanded our country to be open to allowing travel of their ninjas that pass through. Our daimyo let them come flowing in so long as they share their business and their money, and now they are crawling everywhere doing this or that. You ask me, I'll tell ya that we're soon to be the southern Land of Earth, but what do I know." The barkeep grumbled to himself about this or that after his explanation, but Tenzo paid no mind to it. His mind was more focused on the idea of the Stone Village having an open path to the Land of Fire through the Land of Rain. His mind was more precisely focused on making sure his concern didn't make it past his thoughts. "Now, are you and your boy going to ask for something?"
The humble bowl of stew that both Naruto and Tenzo partook in was a silent meal. Stagnant air that filled the tavern didn't boast for a meal of hearty discussion by any means, and after the quiet dining, Tenzo was leading Naruto back out of the small building with only a brief farewell to the barkeep as they moved along. However, when they walked out of the tavern, they were met with the hardened gazes of two Stone shinobi that stood alone in a now empty road. Merchants and the various wanderers seemed to have made themselves scarce as now only four filled the immediate outside area.
They were nothing spectacular, only chunnin from what Tenzo could gather in the youth of their faces and the pristine condition of their flak jackets. Triumph filled the young eyes like shinobi hungry for some recognition in one fashion or another. Tenzo didn't say a word, Naruto evidently following his lead in silence as the tension between the two pairs seemed to climb with every second that passed.
"What are you doing here?" Came the first question from one of Stone shinobi, gaze hardening at them as he prepared his accusation. "We saw you both in Tanaka a couple weeks back, but what business would you two have here with packs covered in genjutsu?" Tenzo glanced an eye at Naruto, the boy reaching for a pouch of blades that weren't there. With a sigh, Tenzo realized what he had to do.
There was no two ways about it, they were caught. The genjutsu was only supposed to cover them from civilians and slip past careless eyes, it was likely only luck that they hadn't been caught before hand and a bout of unluckiness that got them seen again so randomly. Without a second of hesitation, Tenzo reached a hand to the boy at his right and projected a sharp spike of wood that immediately popped his student's shadow clone, much to the confusion of the Stone shinobi in front of him. Tenzo had hoped, for a brief second, that they could search to see what reasons the Stone Village could have for delving into the Land of Claws in its pact with Rain. He hoped that he could return back to the Leaf with something more to present to his Hokage, but the shinobi that scrambled for their weapons in front of him told him clearly that it was unlikely to happen. The information he gathered would have to be enough, the Rain's alliance with the Stone and the openings their enemies now had to both the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind would have to serve as is.
Before the Stone Shinobi charged at him, blades unholstered and pointed at the Leaf jounin, Tenzo could only hope that both he and Naruto were out of harm's way. Weeks of information flowing into a mind all at once would be overwhelming, especially for Naruto's first experience at it. With any luck, the mission the Kazekage gave them was one of little issue.
The monstrous beast stood at full height as it glared its yellow eyes burned at him, nostrils widening to blow a huff of air at Naruto. Even in the stillness between the two of them, allowing Naruto time to analyze the monster in front of him, Naruto couldn't quite wrap his mind around what stood in front of him. The beast stood no shorter than 7 feet even without the height of the horns that curled from the top of its head and pointed toward the sky. A thick, grayish hide was splattered with dried blood but unmarred by injuries, the only ripped flesh being that of its hulking form that looked powerful enough to punch through the stoney hills they traversed. Its face reminded Naruto of a bull or an oxen of some sort, but no fur covered it. A strong jaw and a widened, thickened brow merged into a snout with wide and round nostrils that blew big wafts of air. Patches of hair mingled on forearms, legs, and its torso, but the rest of the body was the armor-like hide that looked much too tough to be called skin. Through this hide, at the beast's joints, flared browned spikes that all came to lethal points at the knees, outward from the shoulders, at its elbows, and leaving it with the oddly shaped feet that they found imprinted within the destroyed town.
Over the monstrosity's shoulder, Naruto saw the rest of his team already speeding to meet him and the thing across from him, but something told Naruto that they were lagging. Thick legs tensed as the beast huffed again, hunkering its head down to point the ends of his horns closer to Naruto. Strange, gnarled hands tightened in slackened arms and the chunnin knew immediately that he was in trouble. Before the beast even began its charge, Naruto bit his thumb and slammed his hand to the ground that now rumbled from the beast's heavy footfalls.
"Summoning Jutsu: Mount Myoboku Stone Toad!" He called out and in a puff of smoke a statue of a toad that rivaled the size of the monster stood guard just in front of him. Naruto didn't wait for the collision, especially not after seeing what the beast did to the rock face only minutes ago in its charge out of its cave, instead he threw himself into a roll to his right as a hand dug out a blade from his equipment pouch.
In a darkened streak filled with horrid speed and power, Naruto saw the beast collapse on the toad statue and fly through it like it were merely a nuisance of an obstacle. Sharp horns and disfigured hands punching through the stone as its body exploded the rest in a mass of flying rubble and shrapnel. Naruto let wind chakra flow from his hand and over the blade of the kunai within his grasp, taking advantage of his swift maneuvering to throw the supplemented blade at the beast's unguarded side that showed off the spiked spines that trailed down the beast's back. His throw flew true, flying as if it was guided by a chord, but the accuracy and impossibly sharp wind chakra of the kunai meant little and less to the monster. Like it was protected by the thickest of metal plates, the kunai only scraped across the beast's hide before deflecting off harmlessly to the ground, naught but a thin scratch and a minute trail of blood left as evidence of Naruto's blade.
With a powerful planting of a foot, the massive behemoth stopped its insane charge with the stoney ground folding under its stiff step. Only a shallow grumple came from the beast as it stood still once again as it kept its focus on Naruto. Naruto found his footing from his sideways dive and useless attack, but now he was free to rejoin his team that approached from his back. The footfalls of Tenzo and the two Sand-nin pattered closer and closer to him, though he didn't want to risk being an open target to the savage in front of him. Naruto couldn't even begin to decipher what the fuck it was, but there was no questioning the danger it presented. One wrong move and this thing could end him easily.
Naruto chose to ignore the heat that began to flutter in his stomach, or rather within the ink that shadowed over the top of it.
Blue eyes noticed the cracking that began to expand in the stoney floor between Naruto and the beast, a telltale sign of Tenzo's Wood Release. Trusting his teacher's plan, whatever it may be, Naruto made a cross with his fingers to make a perfect copy of himself appear at his side. Not a word needed to be said to the copied creation of himself as it jumped into the air mightily, giving him the time to sign a few more hand seals.
"Wind Style: Gale Palm!" In a wonder of near-perfect unpracticed timing, the clone's foot fell just in front of his extended palm as a tunnel of air exploded from it. The wind tunnel launched the clone at an impressive speed at the behemoth that was preparing for another charge. Just as the clone passed the cracked ground, a multitude of roots and branches crawled outward and formed a makeshift wall to separate Naruto and the beast to allow him the opening to retreat in a backward leap.
The second his feet left the ground, eyes peaked over the short wall Tenzo constructed to see his clone be ignored without so much as a half-hearted swipe of the beast's mighty arm that knocked the clone away and dissipated it with a feeble burst of smoke. The behemoth tried to follow Naruto, its wild eyes catching his own as they peeked over the wall of lumber, charging into the short obstruction but meeting much more resistance than what the toad statue presented. Horns cut through the wood, but the body was halted. In the time it took the beast to heave its large arms and buck its monstrous legs, Naruto rejoined the other three members of his team.
"What the hell is that thing?" Naruto asked nobody in particular with some controlled exasperation. It was no surprise that he didn't receive an answer right away, his three companions choosing to watch the monster push himself through the wooden wall as thrumming roars choked through the beast's oddly formed face.
"Nothing natural. It can't be." Gaara said, unknowingly agreeing with Naruto's own thoughts. It wasn't possible that such a thing could be found in nature, that it was birthed into the same world as them by the same means. Part bull, part man, and part something else that gave it the spines and spikes across its body.
"It doesn't matter if someone created this demon or if it came from the earth's bosom like everything else. We must find a way to kill it or more towns will be massacred for its twisted whims." Baki pushed away any of the younger boys' speculation to bring them back to the task at hand, however they were supposed to handle it. Naruto noticed that Tenzo had little to add to the conversation, preferring to scowl at the beast that finally was able to turn its attention to them entirely. Mangled, pointed hands jutted into stone to provide leverage for the beast to crawl up toward their position and it was clear that they needed a strategy soon.
"Gaara, you and I will impede its movements and make sure it can't charge at us. It has explosive strength and power, but seems to be slow outside of that and that will make it easier for Baki and Naruto to litter it with strikes as we slow it down." The plan was sound from the get go to Naruto, especially after seeing the beast's movements up close. It surprised him that anyone could think of something so quickly like that but chose to save his questions for a later time. No one argued with Tenzo's words, Baki and Naruto spacing out almost immediately as they were spoken as Tenzo and Gaara waited for the beast's arrival.
Naruto and Baki separated themselves from Tenzo and Gaara several yards as the two obstacles watched the beast finish climbing up to them, arms freeing themselves from their grip in the stone. When the beast stood again, a terrible sound ripped from its throat as it called outward into the sky. It didn't sound like a true roar, but some approximation of one that was ripping up the behemoth's vocal chords. As it calls rung skyward, Tenzo already began snapping wooden tendrils from the ground to anchor the monster's legs. Soon after, Gaara's sand followed suit with the Wood Release, hands of ground stone climbing to grip the monster's legs and blanket over its lower body. With the beast seemingly locked in place by Gaara and Tenzo, Naruto and Baki arced around them from opposing sides, both falling into their own hand seals.
"Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere!"
It was Baki that got off his jutsu first as blades of wind jutted from the sphere that gathered around the hand near his mouth and they all flew savagely toward their target. Naruto's hand again met the ground as he summoned more aid from Mount Myoboku, Gamakichi appearing just ahead of him with a pipe smoking and his hand resting on his sheathed blade.
"Toad oil, Gamakichi." Was all he had to say, earning a grunt in affirmation from his stout friend. No more than a deep inhale did it take for oil to stream violently from Gamakichi's mouth, collapsing onto the beasts still form. Baki's wind blades sliced through the beast, but again the hide of the monster was too thick to gift them with deep streaks of blood or anything more damaging than paper cuts around its body. Soon after the wind blades dissipated, the oil fell over the beast, coating it thoroughly as it was trying to find the strength to remove itself from the bindings Gaara and Tenzo tapped it within. There was nothing it could do to stop the rain of oil or the flash of embers that flew from Gamakichi's pipe to light the mass of oil. A single roar followed the ignition, but not a roar that fell from the beast's mouth. The roar came from the intense flames from the toad oil, thoroughly enveloping the monster in the blaze.
This time, the roar did come from the burning behemoth, the shadow of the monster wildly snapping one way or another as it was consumed by bright flames, its pain audibly heard between all present. The fire only grew as Baki supplied the fuel of large wafts of wind chakra that only incensed the inferno that kicked off enough heat to make sweat accumulate on Naruto's brow. The chunnin dismissed Gamakichi shortly after the fire started and the four shinobi simply watched as the flames slowly died down around their target, grouping up once again to wait for the ashes that would remain. That level of confidence was usually frowned upon in their line of work, dangerous in its surety in a world filled with question marks, but Naruto couldn't imagine anything outside of a Tailed-Beast that could handle that much damage.
True to his suspicions, the flames did die down enough to be nothing but burning embers around a blackened body of the behemoth he was faced with only minutes ago. To his surprise, though, the body was mostly intact still. The thickened hide wasn't scarred or burned away in the heat, but rather just covered in the soot from the burned branches that once covered its lower body and glass pieces from the sand that accompanied it. In truth, Naruto could imagine them only needing to take some water to the body and it would look no different than before. But, state of the body aside, the blonde was sure that little and less could just take being burned like that. It was surely dead.
Baki was the first to approach it, his single eye appraising the ground body in silence as he knelt just over its head. A hand tentatively poked at the flesh of the beast's shoulder and neck as the Sand jounin inspected the downed beast. Tenzo looked as if he was going to join the man in trying to decipher whatever the beast was, but that was stopped swiftly as a sickening yell tore through Baki. Naruto returned his distracted gaze in terror as blew eyes widened at the horn that now skewered through the man's arm, blood flowing freely to the ground. In a single, explosive movement Baki was launched backward behind the beast as it launched to its feet and wildly bucked its head.
As Baki's body landed in a heap, groans falling freely from the jounin's mouth, Tenzo and Gaara were already doing their best to ensnare the beast again. Naruto leaped off to the side, getting to the monster's flank, but was halted at the sight before him. Vile purple energy leaked from the beast as tendrils of wood and sand were shrugged off by strong legs and hard swinging arms, chakra-like power pouring from the behemoth's form as it became more enraged by their attempts to halt it. Naruto's mind was coming up with blanks. He didn't have anything hard hitting enough to bust through the hard hide of the monster in front of him. The Rasengan came to mind quickly, but the best he could do was summon a spinning ball that would shake wildly in his hands and not the all-powerful offensive jutsu.
For the first time he could recall in his life, Naruto was at an utter loss at what to do and completely riddled with indecision. He felt useless in the face of a beast that looked entirely unbeatable. Thoughts cruelly faltered back into the Tsukuyomi, back into the hellscape where he had no control over his body as his foes were free to do as they pleased. But what was he to do? What did he have at his disposal that could land a dent in the thick hide of a ferocious beast crawling with vile power?
As branches and swaths of sand were crawled through without so much as a slight delay in the sluggish movements of trunkish legs that slowly approached Gaara and Tenzo. The two shinobi stood resolute as they focused solely on containing the immediate threat, faces pinches and exertion clear on both of their normally impassive faces. For a brief, cowardly second, blue eyes shifted to the discarded heap that was Baki, slumped as he hugged his arm to his body. A small part of him, from a place that still held the scared orphan boy within him, betrayed a passing thought. The thought that Naruto could simply dash off, away from Tenzo, Gaara, the beast, and firmly out of harm's way all under the guise of aiding a fallen comrade. It was deceptively enticing, fleeing and ignoring the immediate dangers and discarding the admittance of his uselessness, but the interjection of another roar shook those thoughts entirely.
Roaring wasn't echoing around him, it wasn't the interjection of the beast that still slowly gathered its power in sluggish movements, but rather it echoed through his core. His mind's eye was met with the violent red, slitted eyes of his prisoner. Another idea enticed him, but for entirely different reasons. Entirely opposite reasons. All of a sudden, the answer to his uselessness tickled just beneath his skin. An all-powerful being sat just within his gut that would make this beast look like nothing less than an insect crawling within the shadow of something truly powerful. Rumbling vibrations in the Nine-Tails' growl shuddered through his whole body, a thread between them lingering so temptingly within Naruto's head. All it would take was a tug and he would be gifted with the strength to do what he needed.
Jaw muscles clenched so tightly that an ache rushed through his head, hands tightened into a fist so harshly that a cramp was forming in his arms, but neither is what brought his mind back into the ever-so-pressing present. What regathered Naruto's attention was the sudden shift in the air around him.
The beast stopped moving entirely, hunching over and allowing its titanic arms dangle loosely in front of slightly bent legs. Sand swirled over its form, roots exploded out of the ground and tied to themselves as they tried to ensnare around the beast, but Naruto felt his stomach sink at the sight. Whatever the purple energy was that flowed off of the beast, it slowly pulled back into the monster's body, no longer tainting the air around them. Just as the trappings around the beast seemed to fully blanket its body, cocooning it in earth and wood, it all suddenly rippled in a single wave. Then, in a flurry, both blockings singed off the beast's body as its blanket was replaced with a deep coat of purple that swirled and flowed over the beast's body in its entirety, only bright yellow eyes peering through the new sheen.
There were no more roars, no more elements corralling from the ground, and all that was left was unstable silence. Tenzo and Gaara both watched the beast in front of them carefully, the former's hands still clasped together from his usage of the Wood Release as his fatigue showed readily on his face and the latter showed his reservations with the rippling waves of sand that sputtered around his feet, at the ready to protect the boy at any second. Naruto had thought the beast was fast before, its explosive charges being a blur of speed despite its otherwise sluggish movements, but what it was now was blinding speed. In one second, the beast was wholly stagnant as it let its tainted energy cover it, its beastly face betraying nothing, and in the next second it appeared just in front of Tenzo with its head dipped and its sharp horns reared.
Tenzo, as skilled as he was, could only do his best to slip the ferocious attack. His quick usage of the Wood Release at such a volume was taxing and the beast's charge was swift, but the jounin still managed to begin his leap away from the violent approach before he was decorated atop the behemoth's mighty horns as Baki briefly was. Though, that didn't mean he was untouched. In a single, wild motion, the beast bucked its head and savage horns cut across Tenzo's body. Fortunately, Naruto's instructor was mid-leap immediately backward, putting space between him and the deadly horns, but the sharp point of the beast's horns still dug through Tenzo's flak jacket no harder than it would through butter. Whether the horns dug deep enough to bite into flesh was unclear, but Tenzo was thrown away by the snagged fabrics all the same, becoming airborne just as Baki had been only minutes ago.
Naruto's breath caught in his throat, eyes widening at his teacher's flying body before he saw the monster turn to Gaara, his friend. It was then that Naruto's indecision finally left him. Suddenly, it didn't feel like a decision needed to be made. Truly, the only thing he could do was act and hope that he could figure out something. Even though he immediately moved, forcing chakra through his body in an almost desperate flush, the beast already closed the short space that once sat between Gaara and Tenzo as a strong arm lumbered toward Gaara like a pendulum. The arm slapped through the explosion of sand that came from the ground in a makeshift wall between it and Gaara, the wall being no true obstacle, and Naruto watched as the jagged forearm folded Gaara's body around it.
Fingers flexed desperately, not unlike a man grasping something for dear life, an almost habitual spiral of swirled chakra spun into his palm. Naruto couldn't think about the fact that he really didn't know how to finish the jutsu, as there truly wasn't much to think. Naruto flickered just above the beast's shoulders, peaking just over the spines that were drowned in purple energy as he gripped the hand that maneuvered his chakra into the condensed sphere of chakra. He met the same point in the jutsu that he always failed at, the sphere shuddering in his fist that he always tried to rein in with desperate hopes that it wouldn't explode in his face. This time, however, he didn't bother. Instead of trying to control the near-uncontrollable swirl in his hand, he merely pointed the ball downward, directly into the beast's back, and only pushed the chakra further. He flooded his palm with more energy, made the chakra swirl faster, and allowed the power to flow freely in his grasp.
Naruto didn't watch where Gaara's body went, he didn't see his friend's battered body dissolve into sand, and he definitely didn't see the sand that dusted the ground accumulate into the scowling visage of the Sand Jinchuuriki only yards back from his previous position. What he did see, though, was the blue chakra of his palm meet the sickly energy of the creature below him. He saw the two energies clash violently as wafts of purple rushed past either side of him, the hardened spike that lay underneath disintegrate into rubbled bone, thick hide tear into strips of loose flesh, and the deep red, almost black, blood mix with the purple above it.
It was a true Rasengan. A well and true Rasengan carved into the beast like it was nothing more than wet clay being tossed by him.
Pained roars soon followed the detonation of the powerful jutsu, the beast's voice reverberating from the ground it was pinned into. It didn't make sense, but the cavernous crater that now sat within the beast's back wasn't enough to silence the beast or stop its movements. Arms and legs, both still just as powerful, wildly flailed in the beast's pain as its head bucked backwards with horns creeping too close to Naruto to find comfort. After the Rasengan dissipated, revealing its devastating damage to the beast, purple quickly flooded the crater like a trench to be filled. Naruto could only stand on the back of the beast stunned at the sight below him as the monster still clung strongly to its life.
"Move." Gaara's raspy voice cut through Naruto's stunned amazement, a voice that Naruto listened to with a sharp retreat as he danced yards worth of space between him and the grounded monster. Large quantities of sand replaced Naruto's position swiftly, covering the beast in sand that seemed to react to the hand Gaara extended out in front of him. In a mighty heave and an upward jolt of Gaara's arm, the beast was lifted from the ground as sand continued to wrap itself around its wiggling form. Briefly, an arm or a leg would free itself from the sand's cocoon and would quickly be sucked up once again.
Naruto, even though he saw the furrowed concentration from his friend, didn't think that even this thing could escape the grip of Gaara's sand. At least not this grip. He's felt this suffocating coffin, and had he not used the Nine-Tails chakra it would've easily been the last thing he felt. The bundle of sand didn't reach quite as high as Naruto was used to seeing it rise to, but Gaara tightened his hand all the same and watched as the sand imploded on itself to shower both Gaara and Naruto in the remnants of the coffin without so much as a word from the red haired boy.
Like a dead weight, the beast fell to the ground in a thud but it was unclear if their fight was done. Gaara and Naruto waited, exchanging silent glances as they were unsure how to proceed without knowing if the damn thing was still alive. However, any questions were promptly answered by the voice that called from Naruto's back.
"Wood Style: Great Tree Spear!" Before it could be seen if there were any movements from the monster itself, the ground gave way to a mighty spear that pushed through the beast's stomach, out of its back, and blossomed to the sky in the shape of a strong oak that skewered through the behemoth. A wailing roar of pain betrayed the life that the beast still clung to, but that meant little and less now.
Little flesh was left to keep the monster whole, a majority of the beast's torso now taken up by heart wood. Whines and wails flowed still from the beast's mouth, but they were quieting more and more as each second passed. After moments of trepidatious pause the beast finally showed to be stopped, no more fight or eruption of energy to be found within the soon-to-be corpse. No breaths of relief could be wasted in a pause of victory. Time couldn't be wasted as attentions were turned to the down Sand jounin who still bled profusely from a gaping wound that left a hole directly through the man's arm.
Only emergency first aid could be done. The wound was cleaned and wrapped as best as Tenzo could manage, Baki was hoisted onto the back of a Wood Clone, and feet were swiftly chopping through the sands of the Land of Wind toward the Hidden Sand Village. Questions were aplenty in Naruto's mind, giving the beast's skewered body one final glance before their departure, but now wasn't the time to get them. Their first and foremost worry was making sure that their comrade reached help before any complications could be had in his gruesome injury.
With Jiraiya warning him about the Akatsuki rearing their heads, Naruto thought he was aware of all he needed to be worried about. Now, seeing that creature and how ferociously tough it was, he had a feeling that there was a lot more poking around in the world and that unsettled him greatly. How could he keep up with it all if he was so focused on fearing the Akatsuki?
Admittedly, this isn't my favorite chapter but I was kinda cramped in what it could be. Making this too dramatic of a fight would ruin things in the future, but I covered what needed to be covered and things for a little further down the line were touched on. This was the last true chapter that departs the major things going on and we'll converge here through the next couple chapters.