There we go, chapter 3, just like I promised. There's less gore than the first two chapters, but it's forgivable as this one's basically the wrap up of the fight and the setup for the next big happening.

Disclaimer:...

Chapter 3

Mission's end, Plan's start

Recap:

He snickered and licked his lips sensuously as he watched Naruto fight his turned one through a crystal ball that he stole from the Hokage tower. He was not wearing pants and his hands were preoccupied with something in between his legs as he talked to himself, "Ooh, Naruto. I didn't know you could do that! Naruto, you're –ah- so strong, and –ah- so hot, and –aaahh- and so mine! Fufufufufu…the preparations are ready, and as soon as you come back to me, you will have you're present…"

He stroked the crystal ball with hands covered in white liquid, laughing all the while.

End Recap:

The ninja were tiring, and they knew it.

They've been trying different attack strategies for about an hour now, however, nothing worked and the situation hasn't changed. They were still in deep shit, and they were still at square one, well, negative one, actually. They weren't fresh anymore. It didn't help that the floor was covered in blood, making it hard for the ninja to get traction without the constant use of chakra.

Kisuke lunged at Naruto again making divots in the pavement where his feet pushed off. Naruto was caught off guard, luckily, he was saved from the blow that would have taken his head clean off when he slipped in a particularly deep pool of blood, staining his orange clothes crimson red.

Kisuke quickly changed course and he leered down at a helpless, grounded Naruto. He wrapped his hands around Naruto's upper arm and head, nearly breaking both body parts in his stupendous grip.

Just when Kisuke was about to bite into Naruto's jugular, three shuriken slammed into Kisuke's abdomen, releasing Naruto. Sadly, this seemed to have no apparent affect on the victim, as the crazed man/beast simply pulled the shuriken out, blood clotting the instant those metal instruments of death left his wounds.

Sasuke gnashed his teeth, "Tch. His blood clots immediately, meaning he can't be subdued by blood loss. Adding to the fact that we haven't been able to inflict anything more than small flesh wounds for all this time. We can't even try a rasengan or chidori because he's too fast. This would be a good time for one of your plans, dumbass."

"Shut up! I can't just pull these things out of my ass, you know." Naruto replied, trying to keep his eyes on the crazed madman while talking. He sighed, "Still, it doesn't seem like we'll be able to do anything at all unless if we sacrifice something to distract him with."

Sasuke paused for a bit. Luckily, the enemy did not capitalize on his fatal mistake, "What do you mean?"

"Well," Naruto explained, "as I see it, we both have jutsu that can kill him in one hit. However, he has no openings to take advantage of and he's just too fast for us to just charge in there and fire one off. So, the only logical course of action is to sacrifice something, right?"

Sasuke nodded, not liking where this was going. Naruto continued, his face scrunching up in dislike as he explained, "However, he doesn't seem to respond to anything other than us, as we are the only living beings in the area. So, that means one of us has rush in and be the sacrifice so that the other can follow up and kill him."

Sasuke nodded in agreement, not seeing any other way, "The question is: who will be the sacrifice?"

"At this point, it is the person who will take the least damage from his grip." Naruto's face was grim, watching as Sakura tried to distract the thing that was once Kisuke.

The two joined the fight, knowing instinctually that when the chance came, one of them would sacrifice themselves anyway.

Kisuke's speed seemed to hinder him as much as it helped him, as he was usually going so fast that it was hard to turn and maneuver effectively. However, even so, the ninja had trouble trying to avoid him, due to their reluctance to step on, and possibly crush, the bodies of the once living loitered the streets like the cobblestones themselves.

And so the two enemies continued their dance of generous life and gruesome death, each attacking and avoiding endlessly. It was unnoticeable at first, but it seemed that the monster that was once named Kisuke seemed to grow more…irritated after each pass, as if missing its would be meal was angering it, making it hungrier and more aggressive.

Every time the crazed man lunged, its prey would jump to the side just in time, and throw unidentifiable (to him) but sharp objects into his person. Soon enough, he was covered in numerous minor clotted wounds and was NOT happy about it.

And so, he did the only thing that his tiny, possessed brain could think of, he bulked up his muscles once more, increasing his muscle output to 80 percent before lunging again, this time teeth first.

However, the added speed also lowered his ability to stop, and this time he rammed straight into a building wall, biting a hole in the wall as his head rammed through. Suddenly, to the ninja's surprise, the man-monster howled in pain as even though his muscle strength had increased exponentially, his nerve's toughness as well as the durability of his teeth had not.

It pulled its head out of the hole to reveal that half his teeth were shattered into unusable little stumps. This is our chance! Naruto and Sasuke thought at the same time. They both charged at their target, preparing to attack. They were sensed, though and so before Naruto could charge up a Rasengan, Kisuke has latched onto his wrist, shattering it instantly and causing him to howl in pain. "Hold on, Naruto!" yelled Sasuke as he charged up a Raikiri.

By the time Sasuke was done with his seals and had the ball of lightning ready in his hands, the Kisuke monster had bitten into Naruto's shoulder (the same one with the crushed wrist), and though unable to bite it off due to his damaged teeth, he did manage to tear a gash through the shoulder, cleaving halfway through it and showing his bone structure to the world. Naruto yelled out in pain once again as his eyes rolled to the back of his head and blood rolled off his shoulder in veritable rivers. With the last of his willpower, Naruto managed to pivot the undamaged half of his body to the side, exposing a large portion of their enemy's torso. "Sasuke…now…" Naruto said weakly, the power draining from his voice even as he spoke.

Sasuke roared in anger, and taking Naruto's directive, rammed his Raikiri straight into the crazed man's chest, forcing him to let go of Naruto and giving him a grievous wound in the process.

Sasuke leapt away quickly with Naruto in his arms, allowing the Kisuke monster to stumble around in shock, trying to cover up his wound, which not surprisingly, was not bleeding much at all, as the sheer heat from the Raikiri mostly cauterized the wound upon impact.

As always, its blood rushed to clot the rest of the wound, however, at the same time, this glow started to appear, seeming as if it was trying to regenerate and heal the wound caused by Sasuke. Team 7 could only guess this happened with all the other wounds they gave him as well.

As the glow enveloped the large hole that obliterated his lungs, something strange happened. It was as if the glow realized that this was too much to heal, and so it tried to increase its healing power, as the glow seemed to envelop the rest of his body too, as evidenced by it shining through the crazed man's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

It was when the glow started expand, extracting and retracting sporadically, that Sasuke realized what was going on. "It's gonna explode!" he yelled.

His warning came just in time, as just when the threw themselves to the ground, it exploded, the glow flashing momentarily before Kisuke's upper torso exploded, spreading muscle fragments, innards, and brain matter everywhere alongside copious amounts of bone shrapnel.

Sasuke was the only one injured, having been showered with the slicing fragments of bone as he tried to protect a wounded and unconscious Naruto. Bleeding profusely (though not nearly as much as Naruto), he and Sakura surveyed the scene before them.

The streets looked relatively unchanged after their target's explosion, as all the blood and gore had just mixed with the overloading amount of blood and gore already on the street, but that only made it all the more sad. The entire town square actually looked relatively unchanged, save for a few more broken tables and chairs from the outside diner, as well as that large hole in the flower shop's wall. Sasuke sighed, "Okay, Sakura, go bandage up Naruto while I figure out what we can bring as proof back to our employer."

Sakura hesitated, "O…kay, but what about you, Sasuke-kun?"

"I'm fine" Sasuke scowled, before flinching in pain, "On second thought, bandage me up after Naruto."

Sakura nodded and headed off to quickly field dress Naruto so she could get to work on her love interest. And even possibly get to see him topless! Oh my, what naughty thoughts!

Sasuke got tired of thinking halfway through, and just decided that Kisuke's lower body would have to do. So, after Naruto's wound was hastily cleaned and put in a sling, and Sasuke had the bone shards taken out and his wounds bandaged, they were off to the outskirts of Tashiba.

------Tashiba outskirts, Shiriyoku refugee's camp, Mayor's tent------

The three chuunin walked into the mayor's tent (Naruto woke up 3/4 of the way to Tashiba). Too tired and bone weary to even think about courtesy, they ignored the sentries when they walked through and just dumped what was left of Kisuke at the mayor's feet.

The mayor raised a questioning eyebrow at the shinobi, decidedly ignoring their rudeness in light of their obvious fatigue. Naruto explained, "That's what's left of Kisuke. Sorry, we couldn't get anything more decisive on the account of the fact that he kinda blew up on us."

The mayor chuckled lightly at the disbelieving faces of his sentries, who had followed the konoha ninja in. Well, I trust you've done your job and it's safe to move back into Shiriyoku to start repairs. After all, it seems you have the wounds to prove it." He reached for a medium-sized leather pouch on his right and tossed it to the chuunin shinobi, "Here's your pay, you can leave. After all you've done, I think you would want to hurry on home, no?"

Team 7 nodded gratefully and promptly exited, itching to get home. The sentries stayed behind, looking at their leader concernedly. The one on the right spoke, his partner nodding in agreement, "With all due respect, we trust in your judgment and all, but are you sure it was wise to let them go? Their wounds looked pretty serious, and we do have some good doctors with us."

The mayor shook his head, "No, it would be much better to receive treatment in konoha, their medics are much better."

The two stiffened in indignation, after all, their own mayor was practically insulting their townsmen (in their perspective, at least). They couldn't be blamed, however, was it so wrong to have pride in their hometown?

Their leader chuckled heartily once more, "Have you heard of the one called…Tsunade?"

------Team 7------

Days later, the three chuunin were mere hours from konoha. Their resolve was tiring, however. Naruto was still bleeding rivers, and Sasuke's back had started to ache uncontrollably. They both had to change dressings multiple times already and were losing blood, the paleness starting to show in their faces.

That was why Sakura decided to strike up conversation to distract them from their pain, "So…why do you think that man, what was his name, Kisuke? Ah, yes, Kisuke, went crazy like that?" She flinched, she could tell as the words left her mouth, that that was a bad subject for both of her teammates.

"I don't know and I don't care." Naruto said coldly, "I just want to get back to konoha and spend the rest of the day in bed." Sasuke nodded in agreement. All hopes of conversation effectively killed for the moment, team 7 spent the rest of their journey to konoha in silence.

------Konoha, Tsunade's office------

The search for the Sandaime's ball had gone on for days, and Tsunade had just given up, hoping that it would just show up one of these days. She had just settled down to try and relieve that buildup of paperwork that had accrued on her desk not one hour ago and was already itching to get out.

Luckily for her, it was just that moment that her assistant, Shizune stepped in. Tsunade was planning to con her into doing her paperwork instead, when Shizune spoke, offering a much better alternative, "Tsunade-sama, it seems Naruto has come back."

Now, Tsunade always had time for the blonde boy that had grown so close to her over the years. Adding to the fact that she was looking to get out of her office for a while and she was gone in a flash.

Down at the South gate, the large doors opened to her, revealing…a severely wounded team 7.

Tsunade gasped in shock, "Naruto! What happened to you!"

Naruto just chuckled weakly, "Yo, Baa-chan, I'm home, and a little ti-" Naruto never got to finish the sentence as he fell to the dusty road, clearly unconscious.

Tsunade, Shizune, and the rest of Team 7 gasped once more, "NARUTO!"

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