Well, here it is, the conclusion of the fight with Gaara. I know the last thing any of you want to do is sit here and read a long author's note BEFORE reading the chapter, so I'll save it for the end. Just to warn you this one's longer than usual (the chapter not the notes), not that it's usually bone-breakingly long, but you may want to be prepared. There, end disclaimer. Enjoy the chapter, and if you can, please take a moment when you're done to review and let me know how I'm doing…

:BREAK:

Exodus

Chapter 05

It was a warm day, with the sun shining brightly down upon the almost-completely reconstructed Konoha. Iruka grinned as he watched his students run around the school yard laughing happily with each other. It was small wonder that they were having trouble concentrating on their classes with the weather so nice and the town finally on its way back to normality.

His grin widened as he thought about a similar day a few years back when Naruto was still his student. The town was finally getting over the horror of the betrayal of Uchiha Itachi. A festival was on its way and the children in the class were difficult to control that day, especially Naruto. The blond had sneaked into the classroom early that morning with a large collection of earthworms and subterranean insects and hid them inside the box Iruka kept his chalk in. When he opened the box and reached a hand in without looking, the school teacher gave a shriek of fright and without thinking tossed the box away from himself. He should have realized that something was up; Naruto had been snickering all morning, and was barely able to contain himself as Iruka pulled the box out of his desk…

When Iruka shrieked, Naruto immediately jumped to his feet, pointing and laughing at his teacher. It wasn't until a moment later that he realized where the box of creepy-crawly creatures had landed. Iruka wasn't sure he had ever seen Sasuke so furious; with an overturned box of earthworms on top his head, insects and worms alike crawling down his shirt in an attempt to escape the sunlight. Of course, Iruka had apologized profusely, but the dark-haired boy didn't seem to hear him, focusing all of his anger, instead, on Naruto, who raced around the classroom shrieking in laughter and fear for the both frightening and hilarious picture of Sasuke's rage. It took Iruka a full fifteen minutes to calm the class afterwards, and then he'd forced Naruto to apologize to both himself and Sasuke and then helped Sasuke wash himself behind the school. If her remembered correctly, as additional punishment he'd asked the boy to write an essay on the nature of subterranean insects and their uses in Ninja medicine. Iruka shook his head as he thought about it… He didn't think he ever actually got the essay from Naruto, but with the festival coming up he had decided to let it slide.

Naruto had an unrivaled love of anything like a festival. Iruka suspected it had something to do with the boy's family situation- being around all these happy, laughing families was the closest Naruto ever got to being an actual part of a family; well, until his memories of the Kyuubi were revealed to him. Now, not did he have a full family with three sons and a daughter, but also Sasuke who went chasing after him. Iruka sighed, thinking back to the earthworm incident again. That was the first time since his family had been destroyed that Sasuke had expressed any emotion at all. He should have noticed it then, how easily the dark haired boy allowed the mischievous blond to get under his skin. The two of them were definitely well-suited for each other…

With a sigh, Iruka looked towards the sky, wondering if Sasuke and Shikamaru had actually managed to catch up to Naruto and his family yet. With a shake of his head, he cleared his mind of such thoughts. He needed to focus on the children in front of him. With a clap of his hands, Iruka called, "OK, guys, time to pack it in! Back to lessons!" His words were greeted with resounding groans and the children turned grudgingly back towards the dim school house.

:BREAK:

Naruto raced through the woods in the direction Rin had pointed him in. His sharp ears were already picking up sounds of the fight. His eyes narrowed as he moved closer and a familiar aura began to permeate towards him. It was an aura he recognized, someone that he was… acquainted with long ago. But it wasn't possible that the man his children were fighting and the man Naruto knew were the same person; that man was dead and the world was a better place because of it. He couldn't have somehow come back to life, it was impossible… right?

With a determined howl Naruto allowed his body to move towards partial-transformation; forming elongated arms, claws, teeth and snout. He hoped that this amount of power would be enough to ward off any enemy, even one that all three of his sons were apparently having a hard time fighting. If he had to go into a full-transformation, he wasn't sure that he would be able to conserve enough energy to continue their travels the next day. His speed picked up as he noticed full, large trees crashing to the ground. It appeared that they were not fighting in a clearing, but apparently they were slowly clearing the area themselves.

With a determined growl, he broke onto the scene, quickly and furiously taking note of his children's situations. Uzu was the easiest to spot, still transformed but lying, panting, on a nearby branch. The fact that he was still transformed gave Naruto hope, it meant he was conscious, and his healing was significantly faster in that state, but it also meant that the boy had been pushed to his limit.

Tenmar looked to be in better shape, but only marginally. At first glance, it appeared he was fighting a multitude of opponents; arms, legs, fingers, and two heads could be seen. But a closer look determined that there was really only one opponent and one… puppet? Naruto shook his head, Tenmar was fighting well, and it looked like he had the upper hand. Naruto's guess was that his eldest son's opponent relied heavily on poisoning his victims, a tactic that only worked so long as your opponent didn't have a self healing ability that worked faster than the poison. Naruto just hoped that the man didn't have any faster working poison… otherwise, Tenmar should be fine.

To Naruto's surprise and slight disappointment, it looked like Tenmar had summoned Buren. Buren! He was an alright choice for a brute strength mission, but his personality and intelligence were low and more often than not, he'd ended up being a hindrance rather than a help as he was completely unable to focus on anything other than his personal fight, causing trouble when there were other fights going on around them. Despite this face, it looked like he was sufficiently keeping one of the opponents busy and, to be fair; he didn't seem to be interrupting any other fight at the moment. Naruto sighed as his eyes scanned for Ganten; he would have to have a long talk with Tenmar about each of their fox's personalities and natures, if he'd summoned Buren for-

Naruto's head cleared sharply as his eyes landed on his youngest son's battle, all thoughts of reprimanding Tenmar disappearing. Ganten's opponent was standing on a tree branch, a dark gleam in his blue eyes; beneath him hung Ganten, dangling from what looked like some sand formation clamped around his head. Naruto could see his son kicking and clawing at whatever was wrapped around his head, but to no avail. Without thinking, at a speed faster than most eyes could follow, Naruto hurtled himself at the boy tormenting his son. There was little doubt in his mind what was going on; the sand, the blood, the dark penetrating feeling, somehow the Shukaku had managed to find an outlet in this young boy.

"Get your sand OFF my son, you bastard!" Naruto gritted out between clenched teeth, ramming into the man hard enough to send him flying, sand and all. Having fought the man before, Naruto was more than familiar with the sand shield surrounding the man. It took more brute force than most even had to make the smallest dent in the armor of sand, but it was possible. "Ganten! Ganten, are you alright?" Naruto asked concern thick in his voice as he grabbed his son and carried him away.

Ganten opened a hazy eye slowly and painfully as he felt his father's arms around him. The sand was gone; he let out a small, fragile laugh, he could still FEEL it around him, on him, squeezing, but as his father carried him, the pain began to fade. "I guess I failed. I didn't want you to have to get involved."

Naruto gave his son a small smile, ruffling his hair slightly. "Don't say that, what good am I if I can't protect my boys?" His face turned serious as he placed Ganten down next to Uzu. "I want you to watch over Uzu, only get involved in the fight if Tenmar or Buren need your help, got it?" Standing and turning towards the now recovering Gaara, he said in a low voice, "I'll take care of our little sand-demon."

Ganten almost shivered at the cold look in his father's eyes, but nodded, silently agreeing to his terms. Ganten realized, with amazement, that despite the way that boy had torn through both Uzu and himself, he was confident that his father would have absolutely no problem with him. Ganten wondered briefly when exactly he'd grown to have so much trust in the man, but he had to admit as he watched Naruto stroll up to his opponent in an almost leisurely pace, the blonde's confidence was amazing. Ganten was well aware of the fact that in the fight with Kentaar, Naruto had not been at full power; the effects of the seal that was placed on him twelve years ago were still present, but fading with each day. Despite that fact, his father's confidence left little doubt in Ganten's mind as to the outcome of this fight. "Oi, Uzu, you feeling better?"

Uzu, still not quite back to his senses, gave a low growl in return, standing to his feet shakily.

Ganten grinned, scratching his brother behind his now fox-like ears, something Uzu enjoyed when transformed, but would be annoyed about if he remembered the action later. "Good boy. Just sit back down and relax. Daddy's got it under control."

:BREAK:

Naruto walked slowly towards his opponent, taking in his appearance as he walked. The boy was young, probably about Sasuke's age; it must have been quite a burden to bear, housing a demon within you. From what Naruto could tell, the boy had control of his own body right now, a blessing, but there was no doubt that his power source was Shukaku. The amazing, perhaps painful thing about the boy was his eyes, pale blue with no happiness or compassion, no joy, not even when he had been laughing over Ganten's defeat earlier. Naruto easily recognized the look in the boy's eyes; it was pain, cold anger, emptiness, it was everything he felt in Konoha until Iruka-sensei took him in. This boy was not only raised to be a weapon, but he was left alone and loveless as well. With a sigh, Naruto shook his head. "What's your name, kid?"

Gaara narrowed his eyes in reply, a swirl of sand hovering around him as Naruto moved closer. To his annoyance, the blond seemed to decrease in power as he walked towards him, shrinking down to the form of a young man, rather than the half-beast of moments before. It was clearly obvious that the man was underestimating him. A smile twitched across Gaara's face; an opponent like this… one way or another, his existence would be validated tonight.

"Father! What are you doing?" Ganten screamed as Naruto allowed his transformation to fall.

The blonde turned to smile cheekily at his son before once again turning wary eyes towards the boy he was about to fight. "Don't worry; I know what I'm doing." Muttering unconcernedly under his breath he added, "I'm pretty sure…"

Gaara looked to the white haired boy in annoyance as the blond turned his attention back towards him. They were father and son and helping each other in their time of need? What a joke. Thoughts of Gaara's own father began to swell unbidden to his mind, causing the boy to fall to his knees in distress, hands clutching at his head. Memories of constantly being alone, memories of being discarded, unwanted, memories of the assassins that were sent after him, especially that one… A roar of pain and anger emerged from his lips.

Naruto looked down at his opponent, compassion filling his being as the boy screamed, clawing at his head. Something about his conversation with Ganten had sent the boy off, Naruto was certain of it. Looking at him, Naruto came to a decision. He couldn't just leave the boy alone, he couldn't send him back to whoever or whatever had made him like that in the first place. No, Naruto decided as his opponent stood, a new gleam of anger or hatred filling his young, tired eyes- he would find a way to take the boy with them. He would put his life on the line for this child. "Ah, so you're feeling better, now, hum?"

In reply to Naruto's question Gaara stood, fierce rage flowing through his being. Raising a hand, his sand flew out once more, this time attaching itself to the blond, covering his body entirely. An evil smirk crossed Gaara's face as the man stood where he was, not moving even an inch to defend himself, not that it would have helped. "Desert coffin." He closed his fist, shaking his head. He'd expected at least some amount of fight from the man before he was killed. His son had put up a better fight. The whole situation left a disappointing feel in the pit of his stomach. Anger growing exponentially with each moment, Gaara turned towards the white haired boy. It was time to clean up the tra-

"That's pretty cool." A voice said slowly in Gaara's ear, causing the boy to spin suddenly, coming face to face with an upside down Naruto, who was hanging from the branch above them casually. "But it's not enough." Naruto added, releasing the branch he was hanging onto and flipping himself upright.

"Here's how I figure it." Naruto continued, moving to stand in front of Gaara. "We both have a shit-load of chakra, and we both have enough skills to keep ourselves from dieing until we run out of chakra. So... how about a deal?"

Gaara stared at the man in return, still shocked about the man's survival from his desert coffin. People had run away from it, escaped it, done a body switching jutsu on it, but never before in the farthest reaches of his memory had anyone ever simply withstood it without so much as a crushed bone. Without so much as a scratch… So perhaps it was the surprise that made him reply suspiciously, "What kind of deal?"

Naruto grinned, "I knew you were a smart kid. My proposal is this: whoever runs out of chakra is the loser, and the loser has to do whatever the winner says with no complaint. So if you win, I'll sit still and let you kill me or whatever. Sound good?"

If Gaara had had a normal childhood, at this point he probably would have scoffed at Naruto's 'proposal', which sounded much more like the kind of deal a child makes on the playground at the age of six than a grown man makes during a fight. However, Gaara did not have a normal childhood and he was currently up against an opponent that, at the very least was perplexing. On top of that, Gaara could think of nothing that Naruto would want to do to him other than kill him, having had a sheltered childhood to say the very least. So after a moment of thought, he nodded at his opponent, sealing the deal between them.

Naruto's grin widened. "OK, kid, hold on to your seat, then, 'cause I ain't holdin' back!"

:BREAK:

Shikamaru settled down comfortably as the ship that was going to take them to Port Town finally moved away from dock. They'd gotten to the ship over three hours ago, when they were told it would be leaving, but for one reason or another, the ship wasn't able to leave right away. Sasuke had gone nuts when he'd head the ship's departure would be delayed and Shikamaru had taken that as a sign to excuse himself from his companion's side. He'd found a nice corner below deck to hide in and spent the last three or so hours going over shougi games in his head.

Once he heard the sound of the ship preparing for departure, however, Shikamaru decided to head up deck. The breeze was nice and the sky was crisp and clear. Even though it was bound to be dark soon, for the moment at least, everything was just as he liked it. Lying on his back on a pile of currently unused rope, he watched the clouds lazily pass over the sky.

"THERE you are!" Shikamaru groaned as the captain's booming voice reached his ears, a moment later stepping into view above him. "Listen here, young man, I want you to tell your friend to calm down. He's been a disturbance since he got on this ship and I won't have him disturbing my crew and passengers with his ridiculous antics! If you can't keep an eye on him, I'll let both of you off the ship at the next stop, and I'll warn you that we're the only ship that travels to that island on a weekly basis."

With a sigh, Shikamaru sat up, grumbling as he did so. Why had he decided to move from the concealment of below deck? He should have known better than to assume that Sasuke would calm down simply because the ship left dock. Trudging past the captain, still grumbling, Shikamaru went off to find and sedate Sasuke, forcibly if necessary.

"He's at the bow right now!" The captain called after him.

With another long-suffering sigh, Shikamaru moved towards the bow, where four couples were standing, presumably for the purpose of enjoying the view and having a moment of privacy, however, they obviously hadn't expected to find an anxious Sasuke stomping back and forth across the bow, storming entirely too close to each of them for their own comfort. "Hey, kid!" One of the men said finally, reaching a hand out and grabbing Sasuke's shoulder. "Why don't you do that somewhere el-"

The man's words caught in his throat as Sasuke turned the full force of his glare upon the unsuspecting man, then turning the glare down to the hand. The man released Sasuke as if the boy's eyes were burning holes into this hand, he and his girlfriend quickly moved away from the bow. The other couples seemed eager to follow suit and were gone by the time it took Shikamaru to reach Sasuke. "Man… Didn't I tell you to calm down?"

Sasuke turned his glare to Shikamaru, but the other boy shrugged it off carelessly. After a moment Sasuke gave up glaring and sighed. "Something's wrong."

"Yeah, if you don't stop freaking out, you're gonna get both of us kicked off the ship." Shikamaru replied, still in his bored tone.

Sasuke shook his head, looking out to sea. "With Naruto. I can feel it."

Shikamaru looked out in the direction Sasuke was facing, wondering what the other boy saw to make him so uneasy, but only the water, and in the distance a forested land greeted his eyes. They were far from home, far from everything they knew and now heading even farther away in pursuit of people that God alone knew if they would ever find. Assuming they got lucky and did find them, they still had a good chance of being patted on the head and sent back home. For Sasuke, Shikamaru knew the anxiety was even greater as he had no real home to return to without Naruto and his family… But still, none of this was an excuse to act up the way the boy had been. He was acting like a child. Shikamaru sighed, glancing up at the sky for a moment as he thought about how to calm the other boy down. With a shrug he returned his eyes to Sasuke, "Not much we can do about it right now." He let his words sink into Sasuke's mind for a moment before adding, "Wanna a game of shougi?"

After a long moment of staring at the forest, Sasuke sighed, then nodded. Shikamaru was right. He would just have to trust that blond dobe to survive without him for a while. He wasn't helping anyone with the way he'd been acting. "Fine."

:BREAK:

Ganten stared in wonder at his father's fight. He had never expected his father's opponent to agree to the simple and rather childish proposal. When the boy nodded, Ganten thought his jaw must have hit the ground, so much was his surprise. He wouldn't have thought his surprise could get much bigger, but as he watched his father fighting the boy it grew larger with each passing moment. The two were obviously both far over powered and very skilled. Naruto seemed to be giving far more blows than he received, but each was dampened by the wall of sand that surrounded the boy, not that they weren't effective.

The redhead shrieked in pain as another of Naruto's punches managed to go straight THROUGH the sand barrier to connect with his face. Ganten shook his head once more in amazement, an action he seemed to be doing every few moments during this fight. He hadn't known his father was THIS powerful, no wonder Tenmar always said things like, "When we find Father, then everything will be alright…" To top everything else off, Naruto seemed to have a good battle plan, mostly only attacking with his fists and legs, he only really used chakra to heal whatever wounds he got during the fight. On the other hand, his opponent constantly using chakra to maintain his sand shield and, as he had a far weaker body than Naruto, also to attack, and to top it off he was in some sort of quasi-transformed stage, sand creating a new head, tail and two monstrous arms for the boy. This was really lucky on Naruto's end as he was already lower on chakra than he would normally be since he'd spent a large portion of the day as a giant fox.

A sudden gust of sandy wind almost sent both Ganten and Uzu flying backwards as they watched their father's battle in amazement. Naruto had created enough clones to populate a small city, although it was obvious that each were rather weak, and his opponent had done some crazy sort of sand storm attack, effectively knocking each of the clones out of existence. It looked like the sand storm had cost a large amount of energy, as the boy spent a few moment panting before he rushed venomously towards Naruto, sand-claw lashing out at the blond, even as his tail swished towards him for a surprise attack. Naruto jumped out of the way of the claws, only to get smacked by the tail. With a grin, the head of the Uzumaki family grabbed the tail, using all his strength and none of his chakra to swing the boy around in a circle briefly before slamming him against a tree, an action that perhaps was used less to cause damage to his opponent than allowing himself to keep from being smacked by the tail himself, but it was effective considering the amount of chakra the other boy had been forced to use to avoid being overly damaged.

Turning his head, Ganten went back to watching Tenmar's fight. Tenmar seemed to be slowing down, but then, so did his opponent. On the plus side for Tenmar, he seemed to have managed to smash several parts to the deadly puppet the man wielded. The fact that the fight wasn't over yet was a cause for concern for Ganten, however. Tenmar seemed to have the upper hand, but was unable to make any kind of finishing blow, leaving Ganten to worry if it was not the sheer amount of poison his elder brother had taken in over the course of the fight.

Buren alone seemed to be dominating his fight, and that was probably only due to the fact that he was too heavy and big for many of her wind attacks to affect him much. She had a great wind slicing kind of attack, but Buren was quick footed, even if his wits were slow, and he managed to avoid most of them. Those that hit did seem to be causing a certain amount of pain, and he was definitely bleeding, but his movements were not slowed by any of this as he knocked her once more out of the air with a gigantic paw. It also worked to their advantage that the girl seemed to be distracted by the fight between the redhead and Naruto.

Ganten's head snapped back to Tenmar as he heard his brother cry out in anguish. He turned in time to see several darts sticking into his brother's body, each, presumably covered in poison. Ganten gritted his teeth, standing to his feet despite the pain that he felt. His body had managed to heal itself a decent amount in the time he sat and relaxed, it was time to relieve Tenmar. Next to him, he heard Uzu rise to his feet as well, a growl in his throat. It was time to help out Tenmar.

:BREAK:

Kankurou grimaced as he finally managed to hit his opponent. At the beginning of the fight, the man had been near impossible to get more than a scratch on, he moved overly fast and seemed to be able to anticipate where the next attack was coming from; most likely an advantage from his animal-type transformation- providing him with better hearing and smelling capabilities. It had taken what seemed like forever for him to even come close to slowing down, an amount of time that he'd managed to get a few good hits in on Kankurou himself, although mostly he'd seemed more concerned with breaking Karasu.

But now he was down, probably for a long while, too. It had taken enough poison to kill a whole heard of horses, but the bastard was down. Of course, now his annoying companions, the ones that had been fighting with Gaara earlier, were moving towards him, intent on protecting the blond, but that was fine with him… All Kankurou had to do at this point was-

His eyes widened, fear overwhelming his entire being as he heard an unearthly sound emit from the direction of Gaara's fight. Kankurou's movement stopped cold as he glanced over towards his brother to see that he had fully transformed. "Temari!" Kankurou screamed, for a moment forgetting about the two opponents barreling towards him. "When the hell did THAT happen?"

His sister shook a frightened head, forgetting about her own opponent as she stared wide eyed and terrified in the face of her brother's full power. She heard the sound of Gaara's dark laughter as his upper torso was forced out of the gigantic raccoon like body.

"This gets more and more interesting!" Gaara's voice boomed out, as if on a loud speaker. Every battle stopped as every eye in the vicinity turned to him. "As a reward I'll let you see my TRUE power… FORCED SLEEP JUTSU!"

Temari's eyes widened as the boy slumped over suddenly, eyes closed. "Kankurou, draw back! Get as far away from Gaara as possible!"

"Right!" Kankurou replied, already on the move back.

The Uzumaki family, much more used to being around gigantic animal-creature-people, stood their ground, watching anxiously for signs of their father. Even Buren, normally a very single minded attacker, chose not to follow his prey as he stared at the giant creature before him.

A sudden, shrill laughter emitted from the giant sand-creature as he lifted his hands in a victorious manner. "Finally! I'm FREE!"

"Oi… Shukaku, he's called you out already?" Naruto asked, leaning lazily against a tree as he watched the giant creature shriek like a child that had just been given a toy.

"The fox!" Shukaku shrieked, in a tone that portrayed a great excitement. "Kya haha! Finally! After all these years! Are you ready to taste death at my hand?" Not waiting for a reply he shrieked out something unintelligible and the next thing Naruto's children knew, they were dashing out of the way of a gigantic ball of what looked like raw chakra.

Naruto glanced down, making sure that his children were out of the way before easily jumping away from the ball himself. He chuckled, "You're just wasting chakra like that, you know." Narrowing his eyes he added, "I won't let you do as you please with that boy's body."

"How're you gonna stop me, fox?" Shukaku shrieked, laughing as he did so.

Naruto held his hands together in a seal that his family knew to be very familiar, with a triumphant air he called out, "Kage bunshin no jutsu!" Five Naruto clones appeared, each making a mad dash towards the giant sand creature. Naruto used the moment's confusion to duck out of the fight, moving quickly to the area Tenmar and the others had moved to for shelter. "Tenmar!" He whispered urgently, placing a hand on his eldest son's shoulder.

Tenmar turned large, almost frightened eyes to his father. Never before, in the entirety of his life had such a young boy frightened him quite this much. "Father, what IS that?"

Naruto shook his head, "No time to explain. Tenmar, I need you to take Uzu and Buren and get out of here, take that guy's companions if you can find them, too. I'll keep that bastard busy an' open a window for your escape, so just wait for the right moment and then run. He's fixated on me right now, anyway." Turning to Ganten, Naruto continued, "How you doing?"

Shrugging, Ganten replied in the lightest tone he could muster considering the situation, "I've been better, but I'll live."

Naruto grinned, ruffling the boy's hair for a moment before continuing. "That's good, because I need you to do something for me. I can hold that sand-demon for about ten minutes before he gets too powered up for me to hold him without killing the boy. I need you to find an opening and wake that bastard up. A good smack should just about do it, you understand?"

"Father!" The reproach in Tenmar's voice was clear, "How could you ask Ganten to do something so dangerous? Leave it to me, Ganten, you take care of taking Uzu and the others to safety, and I'll-"

Naruto opened his mouth as if to defend his decision, but Ganten cut in quickly before their time ran out, "No, Tenmar, Father's right. I'm the only one in good enough shape to do this, you're slowed down by the poison, Uzu's not quite himself right now and Buren's too big to approach the creature without being detected." Turning to his father, Ganten said, "I understand. I'll get it done no matter what."

Naruto nodded solemnly, looking over his sons with a confident smile. "OK, then you all know what to do. Tenmar, you take the first moment Shukaku's distracted and get out of here; Ganten will take the next opening and wake that kid up. Remember, it has to done quickly or-"

An echoing popping sound resounded through the forest, warning all that Shukaku had finally finished playing with Naruto's clones, leaving the consequences of not finishing this in a timely fashion unsaid. Nevertheless, both Tenmar and Ganten had a good feeling of exactly how important their individual tasks were. They watched in concerned admiration as their father grinned at them, pulling off his clothing and stepping towards his opponent. Before transforming, he turned quickly towards them, mouth forming words that could not be heard over the sand-beast's howling. It looked like he was saying "Be careful."

:BREAK:

Ganten watched in almost rigid silence as his father transformed into his full fox form, all nine tails twitching as he growled at his opponent. It was enough to make Ganten tremble; Naruto looked even more oppressive and terrifying than he had during the fight against Kentaar. It amazed Ganten that his father could seem so benign in this form only hours earlier as he transported them around the bay.

With a snarl, Naruto dashed towards his opponent, teeth managing to sink deeply into the creature's jugular, only to pull back with a mouthful of sand, but it was enough. Tenmar used that moment to take Uzu and Buren and make a mad dash for it, ducking as quickly as they could under the concealment of branches and dashing away from the fight and in the opposite direction of camp, just in case the creature managed to get by his father. At least Mina would be safe… But Ganten quickly realized that it was useless as the creature once again opened his mouth, sending three balls of chakra in quick unison in the direction of Tenmar's group was running. There was no way they could dodge all three balls. Torn, Ganten prepared to leave his post, at the very least he may be able to block one ball with his body and the others may get lucky-

A low growl erupted from Naruto as he spun quickly towards the balls, using his tails to create a whirlwind that effectively canceled out the balls' movement. "I don't think so." Naruto's fully-transformed voice growled out as the gigantic fox moved again towards his opponent, his prey. "You wanna touch them, you go through ME first."

"Kya ha ha!" Shukaku laughed in seeming delight as he glared at Naruto. "Once I'm through with you, I'll have them begging to join you!"

"Big words for a SEALED man, don'cha think?" Naruto replied, attempting to bait the monster into rage. Anything to get his attention a little more fully on him so that he could provide an opening. "What's it like in that kid's body? It must be annoying that a CHILD is able to hold ya in, isn't it? A real blow to the ego, I'd imagine…"

Naruto's words seemed to be working as the creature shrieked, sending three more balls directly for him. Naruto sprang into the air, spinning gracefully out of their way, but Ganten was not so lucky. Although all three balls impacted the ground around where his father had been standing, the after-effect wind was strong enough to knock him off his feet and send him tumbling towards the forest floor. Acting as quickly as he could, Ganten tore his claws into the tree next to him, sliding painfully down until he managed to stop his fall. Once stopped, it was easy enough for him to jump back towards the branch he'd been resting on before, annoyed at himself for not expecting the repercussions and for missing what was most likely one of the best chances to attack that he would get.

Naruto ignored the fact that his son had missed the chance to attack. He knew it would be hard even for the sharp Ganten to prepare himself perfectly, especially considering how brief the openings would be. He couldn't let Shukaku use his wind-chakra ball attack again. It would be too difficult for Ganten to fight the immense pressure of the wind caused by the ball and even more upsetting to Naruto was the thought that Ganten would get hit by the ball inadvertently. Luckily, Shukaku didn't seem to realize that Ganten was still there; that took away the ability for him to cripple Naruto's movements by targeting the boy.

With a growl, Naruto dashed forward, teeth clamping more firmly on his opponent's neck this time, forcing his head to face upwards. With a growl, he also dug his claws into the creature and allowed his massive tails to snake out and whip against whatever parts of his body they could reach. This was the best he would be able to do for Ganten, managing to effectively hold back Shukaku's breath ball, and pin his arms to at least a certain extent.

Shukaku howled in frustration as he found himself unable to move his head and arms, and then his eyes widened as a white streak dashed from the trees towards him, landing on Naruto's massive body and jumping up towards his head, towards Gaara. "NOOO!" He howled, attempting to shake and claw his opponent into letting go,;if the white headed boy managed to reach Gaara, his fight would be over.

Ganten reached the slumbering redhead with a victorious feeling swelling inside him. Reaching back a clawed hand, Ganten proceeded to swing it full force across the other boy's face; claws tearing deep gashes in the boy's face. "Wake up, bastard! Wake up!" Ganten screamed, pulling back his hand and striking the boy again and then again once more for good measure.

Gaara's head nodded, eyes opening slowly and Shukaku screamed in rage as his control seeped away even as Gaara's returned. "You!" Gaara howled as he glared at Ganten.

Naruto tore his fangs from the sand beast's neck, trails of sand pouring down his mouth as he did so. "Good job, Ganten. Now get out of here, I got the rest under control." Turning his attention to Gaara, he smiled. "I just gotta drain the rest of your chakra and then…"

Gaara's eyes narrowed as he stared at the giant fox that he recognized (somehow) to be the man he'd been fighting. Why was he fighting so hard? Was it because he feared death? But then, if that were true, he wouldn't have fought Gaara at all, no, he was here for another reason. His eyes followed the white haired boy as he dashed into the forest and away from the fight… His son, the man was fighting this seriously for his son and… for his other companions. He returned his attention to the giant fox. It looked like the creature was smiling at him

"How much longer can you keep that form up, now that Shukaku's down?" He was saying, a slight wheeze in his voice. After a moment, Gaara realized he was chuckling. "'Cause I got a lot more chakra where this came from."

Once those words were said, Gaara felt an immense exhaustion fill his being, he could feel his form beginning to slip as his chakra drained quickly from his body. He was running on his last legs. He had to win now or he would die at this man's hands. A shiver ran though him as he realized that as it was now, he didn't even have the energy to put himself into forced sleep and his opponent seemed to still be so strong. With an annoyed growl at his own lack of power Gaara allowed his form to fall, but bringing up his sand barrier again. He closed his eyes as the sand wrapped around him like a cocoon. He would have to buy time until he could regain some of his lost chakra. And then, without warning he felt his shield drop, and his eyes flashed open as he realized that not even his legs could withhold his weight any longer; he was completely drained. Listening intently, he heard his opponent shrink back to his normal size and then shuffle around in some bushes. When the blond man appeared before him, pulling his pants securely around his waist he smiled slightly as he leaned over Gaara.

"Don't forget our promise." Naruto reminded, grabbing the boy's arms and pulling him over his shoulder as he trotted back towards camp. "Your life now belongs to me."

:BREAK:

OK, so NOW, what did you think…?

A few brief notes… I had spring break last week and I went to an aquarium. The only aquarium in the WORLD that has a great white shark in captivity (anyone know which aquarium it is? Guess right and you'll get a mental cookie). Anyway, I normally think sharks are really not cute (bordering on ugly in fact), but THIS shark was adorable, which made me realize that I have an unnatural fixation on deadly creatures, and THAT explains why I had to not only introduce Gaara, but introduce Gaara BEFORE he get smacked good by Naruto… Just thought that was interesting filler, but I could have been wrong (I often am on these issues).

Back to business in general, I got some more questions this week, so I'm gonna answer them now.

Tryster asks: Hey, is Gaara gonna freak out or something when he sees that Naruto is grown up? (wait, Naruto is 'grown up' , right?)

My Response: Welllll… first off, YES, Naruto is all grown up (they get old SO FAST nowadays) But as to Gaara freaking out, well, if you remember correctly I kind of hinted at the chuunin exams in Embrace, but I never really got there so technically Gaara hasn't really met Naruto yet, so he couldn't really be surprised, I think.

QianYun (my beta, yay!) asks: although he (Gaara) was there, there still wasn't that much of a focus on him, was that done on purpose?

My Response: Actually yes, that was for a reason. I'll get into Gaara's head a little later, I think.

Anyway, thanks to all who reviewed, I really appreciate it! Especially to those that replied to my question of who they liked most, as it WILL influence future chapters. It's not too late to add in your opinion, either, so please let me know which character you like best and which you want to know more about/see more of! Either you may review or email me at PsychicKing at gmail dot net (You know the drill, the italicized words should be symbols rather than actually spelled out, it's just ff dot net won't let me enter e-mail addresses or webpage addresses).