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Chapter 21: "Art"
(Year: X784)
Black sand poured down on Naruto's location forcing him to flip out of the way. While he was very knowledgeable about how to fight against sand users, the black sand was different. The blonde noticed it immediately. The grain and feel of the different sand particles felt more metallic. From deep in his memory, Naruto remembered that the Sandaime Kazekage's bloodline ability was Iron Sand, which explained a lot.
Of course, it raised a lot of questions too. Was that really the…puppetized body of the Sandaime Kazekage? Did Sasori just manage to recreate the bloodline and the image of the village leader? Did the puppet user have other puppets based on or made from real people?
There were too many unknowns in this fight. Naruto hated fighting blind, but at the very least, Sasori didn't know his abilities as well. They were both fighting without knowing the full extent of each other's abilities. Despite the danger, Naruto couldn't fight the grin he gained at the prospect of such a battle.
"Sky God's Swords!" Twin drills of darkened wind flared to life around Naruto's arms. The wind easily blocked the sand as it was sent crashing towards him. His experience with training with Gaara made blocking and dodging easy.
Using one drill to block an attack from the front, Naruto used his other Sky God Sword to sweep across the ground. Dust and gravel immediately flung into the air hiding his from Sasori's vision. The puppet master tried to fix this by using black sand spikes to stab down at the blonde's last location. By the time the spikes entered the dust cloud, though, the blonde had already moved.
With instincts gained from a life of fighting shinobi, Sasori used his puppet's sand to block an attack to the side. This proved to save the puppeteer as Naruto used the dust to rush around and try to sneak a hit to try to take at least the puppet down. His drill of wind cut deeply into the shield of iron sand, sending the blackened metal flying. To Naruto's disappointment, though, the shield held, and he was quickly forced to retreat.
Deciding to test the water with a larger technique, Naruto let his wind drills fall and brought his hands together, "Sky God's Clap!"
As soon as Naruto's hands smacked together, a small wave of his patented wind burst out towards his enemy. Said wave of wind was met with an equal wave of sand. The two attacks clashed for a brief moment in time before quickly canceling each other out. Once again, the iron sand spread out through the air, and Naruto was forced to move as the sand chased after him once more.
Okay, so a medium attack wouldn't work. Close range would be difficult to pull off too. The Iron Sand was too durable for either of those. He would need to use a bigger spell or switch to chakra. Once he switched, though, there was no going back. Well, there was, but it was dangerous. He had to be careful about that, so the first choice was to use some of his bigger spells.
This definitely didn't call for the ace up his sleeve yet. It would also be unwise to break out Sky God's Rasengan. He would save those for later in case Sasori had even more dangerous tricks. Okay, so time to break out Sky God's Shower…
…Wait…What was that smell?
With his Sky God's Swords once again activated, Naruto looked down at the Iron Sand he had been just blocking. It smelled different now. Before, it was just metallic. Now, though, it was more rancid. Almost like it was coated in…poison. Ah, so that's what Sasori's main fighting style was. Naruto did remember that Suna's puppet masters did like their poisons. Interesting. He could use that.
"AH!" Naruto cried out in pain as some of the iron sand slipped past his swords. It flicked forward like a whip and cut deeply into his leg. Naruto ignore his now bleeding leg and continued to move. Like before, he used his swords to block the sand that he couldn't dodge. Then, as he made his way closer to the puppeteer, he allowed the drills of wind to drop to prepare for his next attack, "Sky God's…Ugh…"
Clutching his sweating brow in pain, Naruto collapsed to one knee. He tried to get up but immediately stumbled back down. The blonde's eyes became unfocused as he moved around as if he were dizzy, "What…What's going on…"
"Not even jinchūriki are immune to poison," Sasori noted as he recalled the sand covered in poison, "I didn't intend to use it originally because I didn't know how badly it would affect you. With the uncertainty of your abilities, though, I felt it best to take a risk."
"Poison," Naruto groaned as he collapsed to his side, "That…won't kill me…Kurama will…destroy it…"
"True. Best case scenario for you, the demon takes care of the poison in a day or two, but by then, it will be too late," Sasori used his puppet to pick up the jinchūriki, "We'll start the extraction with you."
"I…won't let you…take Kurama…"
"Sorry, but the demon's wasted with you here," Sasori watched as Naruto's eyes fluttered into unconsciousness, "We'll make much better use of it. Don't worry."
"You…teme…" With that, Naruto's eyes closed and his body went limp.
Nodding, Sasori turned away from the blonde jinchūriki. Based on the explosions in the distance, Deidara was still fighting the Ichibi. With Sasori's help, that fight would be done in mere minutes. Then, they could take both jinchūriki back for the extraction. Before that process, though, he would have to have a word with the so called Water God Slayer. Why did she leave out that the Kyūbi jinchūriki was a God Slayer as well? Didn't she think that all God Slayers were connected or some stupid crap like that? What was her—
The sound of wood and metal shattering caused Sasori to whirl around to face his captive only to see his favorite puppet's smashed body falling to the ground. With a cry of Sky God's Strike, the apparently still conscious jinchūriki rushed forward and shoved a wind coated fist right through Sasori's stomach.
Gaara stood on a sand platform high above the air. The sand had morphed around his foot to prevent him from flying off as the platform flew through the air chasing an airborne Deidara. The Iwa missing ninja's clay dragon managed to prove that it was very agile by dodging the sand that Gaara commanded to chase after him. All the while, dozens of bombs exploded all around him. None of that bothered Gaara though. He just calmly looked ahead as his sand stopped the flames from marring his skin.
Pausing in his flight, Gaara looked to a large pile of his sand floating around him. Surprised by his enemy's sudden stopped, Deidara flew around and began to circle the jinchūriki, "What's wrong? If you don't want to play along, I'll just go help Sasori-sama—"
To Deidara's shock, a giant wall of sand popped up between him and the direction in which Sasori and the blonde jinchūriki were fighting, "Well never mind. I guess I still have your attention, yeah?"
The sand Gaara had been looking at shifted into hands holding clay bugs. The hands then crushed the bugs before they could explode, "Nice try. My girlfriend uses that trick."
"Girlfriend?" Deidara's eyebrows shot up, "A jinchūriki has a girlfriend?"
"Yep. And I can guarantee that I have more sex in one week than you have in your entire life."
"Excuse me?" Oddly enough, Deidara felt angry by that sentence.
"Yep. From the ten minutes that I've known you, I got the impression that you're a guy that gets off to explosions and only explosions," Gaara's expression and voice were completely serious.
"That's…that's…" Deidara paused in his flight.
"Your expression proves that I'm right."
"Shut it, ugh!" Deidara's face was red with anger, "I'll have you know that…Wait. Why am I dwelling on this? You're probably just lying."
"I'm not. Fu…She's really affectionate. But that's not why I brought it up. Nothing's more distracting than sex," Gaara noted, "I noticed that a long time ago. Even Naruto takes notice when Fu glomps me. So I thought I could distract you with long enough to push you into a corner."
Deidara's eyes widened when sand flashed in his peripheral vision. His clay dragon was forced to dive downward to avoid the sand trying to crush him. He quickly realized that this was a mistake. As he went down, all the sand around him went up. It reached far up into the sky, stopping the light from entering the area, and covering the entire battlefield in a large dome.
Hissing curses under his breath, Deidara threw bombs all around the area. The clay bombs blew up allowing light to flood the darkened area. The new light allowed him to see that the dome around him was quickly shrinking. A quick glance showed that a smaller dome protecting the red head jinchūriki.
As Deidara saw it, he had to choose between two options. He could try to escape and not get a chance to attack, or he could attack and risk getting trapped. For him, it was an easy choice. The only real option was the one where the downside didn't involve a slow and boring death. Swerving his clay dragon upwards, Deidara rushed past the sand and flew right up to the top of the dome.
As he moved, the sand that still remained in the air changed into hands once more and began to chase him. Adding onto that, spikes from the top of the dome shot down to meet him halfway. The Iwa missing ninja let out another string of curses. Deidara flipped and whirled around to dodge the dozens of sand attacks while continuing to push up to the top of the dome. As he moved up, Deidara pulled out clay from his bag, formed a few simple bombs, and threw them to the top. The explosions that followed tore through the sand and allowed Deidara to slip through the dome.
Unfortunately for the Akatsuki agent, the sand managed to catch the clay dragon. With one last growl, Deidara jumped up and left the bird behind him. As he flew into the air, Deidara looked back and saw his clay bird getting crushed by the sand. Not wanted his art to be wasted, Deidara activated the bomb allowing the explosion that followed to carry him up even further and gain some good distance from the sand.
With wide eyes, Naruto immediately pulled his fist out of Sasori's stomach to reveal that it was made of wood and metal. Instead of intestine falling to the floor, a cable wire did so instead. Not a single drop of blood was in sight. Frowning, Naruto flipped back to avoid Sasori's counter strike. As soon as he landed, Naruto rushed forward again with his legs coated in black wind. To Sasori's amazement, the wound at Naruto's leg immediately began to knit itself back together.
"Sky God's Whip!"
Sasori ducked under the roundhouse kick to the head. Naruto used the momentum of the kick to spin around once more.
"Sky God's Cannon!"
Naruto sent a powerful spinning back kick to Sasori's head that would surely shatter the puppeteer's entire body if it made contact. As such, Sasori was forced to lung back to avoid complete destruction. Seeing this, Naruto stopped his kick. Without putting the foot down, he brought it forward in a kick to bring himself into the air. He then flipped backward towards Sasori for one final attack.
"Sky God's Guillotine!"
Naruto's flip turned into a dropping axe kick. Still recovering, Sasori could only lung himself back desperately. The blonde's wind covered leg was brought down like a blade. It managed to graze one of Sasori's arms, leaving a deep gash in his arm and completely destroying the ground below them by leaving a deep gash in the earth. With the rush of attacks finally finished, both combatants quickly moved back to gain some distance. Both of them perplexed by what just occurred.
"The poison didn't work. You were faking on purpose," Sasori realized, "And…you can use the wind to heal yourself and make your attacks fast."
"And you…" Naruto stared at the hole in Sasori's stomach, "Apparently, you made yourself into a puppet."
Nodding, Sasori reached up to his cloak and pulled it off to reveal the mechanical body that had been hidden underneath. The mass massive whole in his stomach and gash on his arm didn't seem to bother him in the least. Naruto watched in fascination as the bolts that held together Sasori's body shifted with each movement. What really caught Naruto's attention was the strange cylinder sticking out of his chest.
"Kami…" Naruto shook his head, "How could you do that to yourself?"
"Art is eternal. In order for me to make and maintain my art forever, I had to become eternal," Sasori gestured at his body, "This is my way of living forever."
"No, I didn't mean it like that," Naruto let out a deep whistle, "You tore your body apart. No internal organs. No flesh. Just a puppet. Damn. That had to hurt like all nine layers of hell."
"Indeed, it did," Sasori nodded, "But it was worth it."
"Oh, I doubt you'll be thinking that when I kill you. All that work to die anyway," Naruto gave a demonic smile, "You'll be the laughing stock of hell."
"No, that will be you. A weapon that thought it could run away from its fate," Sasori mocked as he reached behind him to pull out a scroll from his back holster, "How pathetic. Granted, you did get a few years in, but Akatsuki will drag you and all of the jinchūriki back, extract your demons, and leave you all to rot in a ditch where you belong."
"Not gonna happen, puppet freak," Naruto took a deep stance and channeled his magic, "Vernier X Arms X Armor!"
Sasori threw the scroll into the air. With a giant puff of smoke, a blur of puppets covered in red robes burst out to surround the puppeteer. In the space of a few seconds, Sasori was surrounded by an army of puppets at his command, "Secret Red Move: Performance of a Hundred Puppets."
In near unison, Naruto rushed forward as Sasori ordered his puppets to rush forward and attack. The first puppet Naruto met was obliterated into dust with a punch. As did the second and third. By the time Naruto turned to the fourth puppet, though, he was surrounded by close to a dozen puppets. They all moved in on him to stab him with different blades, knives, and poisoned needles.
By the time the puppets made it to the blonde's location, Naruto had jumped up to avoid getting hit. While in the air, Naruto crossed his arms. With a cry of Sky God's Shower, Naruto slashed his arms out and sent a rain of wind arcs down at the puppets, tearing them to pieces.
Before Naruto could recover, Naruto was smashed in the side by a puppet. Grunting as he quickly pulled the blade out of his side that had been stabbed there by the puppet. He then used it to cut the puppet to pieces. Then, as he landed, the blonde flicked the blade away and to stab another puppet to the ground.
As he pumped sky magic into his wound to close the injury, Naruto was forced to move more slowly. This was a pain as with every puppet that was destroyed, the others gained speed. It seemed as though Sasori's focus was divided among the puppets. The fewer there were, the more focus they got. That meant that he would be making the situation more dangerous with every puppet defeated.
That was fine, though. He still had a few tricks ups his sleeves. Rushing backward, Naruto took a deep breath to fill up his lungs. Then, he released it, "Sky God's Bellow!"
Spinning gusts of wind blasted from Naruto's mouth across the entire area. Several of the puppets got caught up in the concentrated tornado breath. Many of them managed to dodge. A few of them even threw themselves in front of their master to protect him. With a mental smile, Naruto continued this as long as he could. Then, he stopped the wind allowing his ace to move.
With the tornado finally stopped, Sasori went to move his puppets again. His instincts were screaming at him, though, that something was wrong. Moving some of his puppets around, Sasori managed to stop a few dozen clones of the blonde from getting to him. Sasori instantly recognized the solid clones. Kage Bunshins. When did the boy make those…Oh.
Back at the town. The jinchūriki weren't just aware of them at the clearing. They knew they were being followed the entire time. The Kyūbi must have made those clones earlier in the house when he was hidden and had them trail behind in case things didn't go as planned. Cunning little brat got one over on him again. Unfortunately for the blonde, Sasori's puppets easily tore through the clones. In fact, it was almost too easy.
Turning back to his enemy beyond the puppets protecting their master, Naruto stood by a clone. They were both focusing their energy into a single ball of swirling energy. Sasori knew that technique. The Rasengan. Dozens of questions ran through his mind in that moment. How could he even know that technique?
Having no time to think about the answer to that question, Sasori sent all of his free puppets to stop the attack. It was too late, though. The attack was ready. Naruto and his clone rushed forward with the giant orb of destruction bursting with energy and magic. Sasori knew that he had to move. The puppets in front of him would get torn to shreds by that attack.
Unfortunately, that wasn't possible. The clones behind him had upped their own attacks to destroy the puppets that Sasori had left behind to stop them. Despite being at to far a distance to get a meaningful hit in on the puppeteer, they did manage to slow him down by throwing weapons lined with wire to tie him up. With his body the way it was, Sasori could have gotten out of that in a single second. That was a second that he didn't have though.
"Sky God's Rasengan!"
The entire area was lit up with the flaring mixed energy of chakra and magic. All of Sasori's puppets were borderline disintegrated. The ground below Sasori was torn to shreds along with every other tree and bolder in the area. Luckily, the clones holding him disappeared into nonexistence allowing him to curl up and try to defend his core from the raging storm around him.
As the attack died down, smoke rose up in the air from the crater that lie in what once was their battlefield. Naruto's last clone disappeared, leaving him alone with his enemy. To the blonde's complete amazement, the puppeteer got back up. His entire body was torn to shreds. Half of his face was missing along with both of the missing ninja's arms. The remained parts of his body was covered in deep gashes that made the puppet body look like something from a horror story.
"Wow," Naruto stated honestly as he clenched and unclenched his injured right arm. He never managed to prevent his own arm from getting injured by the Sky God's Rasengan, but he had worked it enough so that his arm wouldn't die out on him, "You're tough as hell. I literally just threw almost everything I had at you, and you survived. You really earned that S-rank classification, huh?"
Sasori was silent.
"Alright," Naruto stood into a deep stance. His arms were pointed in two different directions as he let out a large smile. The remaining magic in his system shifted as the wind began to blow around him, "I'll show you my best move as a reward. Sky God Secret Technique…"
Naruto paused when Sasori fell back into a heap. He slowly slid out of his stance and looked at his downed enemy, "Well damn. I was hoping to try that."
Gaara allowed the giant dome of sand to collapse. He couldn't waste the chakra controlling that much sand anymore. As the sand fell, he saw that Deidara had created another bird made of clay to keep him high above the sand. Based on the Akatsuki's agent use of the clay, he probably had more than enough to keep fighting with.
'Baka! You know that using such big moves would drain you!' Shukaku shouted in his mind.
'I didn't think that he would escape the giant sand wave or the dome,' Gaara argued, 'He's a lot better than I thought he would be.'
'Well, you better make the most of the rest you got. One more big move like that, and you're out of chakra. Just let me take control, and I'll beat him down.' Skukaku gave a laugh.
'No, not yet,' Gaara glared up to the blonde Iwa shinobi, 'These people are specifically hunting jinchūriki. They might have ways to counteract your chakra. Before we resort to that, I want to try one last strategy.'
Keeping only his sand platform and the sand his gourd with him, Gaara rocketed up towards Deidara's. Said blonde only smirked down at his target for capture. He opened the hands of his mouth and allowed different giant bug bombs out to combat his enemy. All five of the clay creatures immediately moved down to combat the jinchūriki.
Gaara had to roll his eyes at the iron of fighting literal bug bombs. Still he did not halt his charge upward. Even as the bugs shot out stingers from their rears towards the red head, he did not flinch. His sand stopped the explosive stingers without slowing him down in the least. The only time he even looked away from his target was when one of the bugs lunged at him.
Of course, his sand immediately stopped it from getting to him. The bug seemed suicidal, though, and burrowed its way through the wall of sand. As soon as it burrowed as far as possible into the sand, the bug burst in a combination of flames and useless clay. This actually caused Gaara to be sent flying off course from the force of the blast. The wall of sand had been blown apart, and the sand armor covering his skin was now cracked and breaking. Luckily, the platform below him held together.
Before Gaara could get back on track to fly up towards Deidara, he was stopped. One of the four remaining bug bombs latched itself to his back. Gaara only got a single shocked look back to the bug before it lit up and exploded just like its sibling. Once again, the red head was sent flipping away. His armor was now missing several pieces leaving him exposed, but he was not injured yet.
Knowing that the remaining three bugs would continue to get in his way, Gaara decided to deal with them first. The sand from the previously destroyed wall had recollected and formed into a single spear, "Sand Spear!"
The spear of sent was sent flying through the air towards the nearest bug that was charging towards the jinchūriki. Before it could even react, the bug was impaled by the sand weapon. It twitched a bit and tried to escape, but the damage was done. Too injured to fly, the bomb fell from the sky like a failed firework. By Deidara's design, though, none of the bombs would fail to go off even if it wouldn't hit the target. To Gaara's satisfaction, he never even felt the heat of that explosion.
Seeing that their sibling had been dealt with, the final two bug bombs charged forward at once to destroy their targets. Gaara had expected that, though. With his feet secured tightly to the sand platform, he rushed up to meet the bombs halfway. Just as he was about make contact, though, Gaara did a roll and moved out of the direction of the bombs. As he spun around, Gaara knelt closer to the platform and looked to the enemy clay creatures.
Just when his platform was about to be directed towards the clay creatures again, Gaara called out his technique, "Sand Bullets!"
Concentrated bullets of sand immediately burst from the bottom of the platform. They popped out in a continuous wave to allow the highest chance possible to hit their targets. Several of the bullets missed their mark, but the bugs were still hit by more than enough bullets to make them look like Swiss cheese. Like their sibling before them, the bombs detonated without injuring their target.
With those bombs taken care of, Gaara turned his attention back to the person that created them. The jinchūriki felt his stomach twist as he saw the grinning Deidara hold a large clay owl. Great, he had to deal with more. That was bad considering the sand from his spear was still too spread out and his platform was now only just big enough for him to stand on top of it.
"Really impressive, ugh," Deidara stroked the bomb in his hand lovingly. The psychotic look on the blonde's face worried Gaara. The thrill of the fight and the explosions had gotten to him. It looked like the Akatsuki agent had forgotten that he wanted to capture the jinchūriki alive, "Let's see you deal with this one, though."
Deidara dropped the bomb. As soon as he did so, the owl expanded until it was several times its original size. The now giant bomb quickly fell downward towards its target. Gaara could only grimace as the bomb covered him in the shade. This was not going to be pretty.
Taking a deep breath, he used the remaining bit of his chakra to condense the sand on his platform and sand armor as much as possible. When they became as hardened and dense as he could possibly make them, Gaara ordered the platform to carry him upward at full speed. He rocketed towards the bomb, never once flinching as the bomb drew closer and closer to his person.
Just as the bomb was about to make contact, Deidara let out a small whisper, "Katsu."
The explosion that resulted was massive in size. It covered Deidara's view of a significant portion of the area below him. The force of the bomb caused the sand on the ground to scatter and run almost like the fluid earth was fleeing in terror from the explosion. This caused Deidara's smirk to grow into a near insane grin. Nothing could survive that blast head on like that.
"Hahahahahaha! Art is a bang, yeah!?" Deidara reached down to grasp his stomach with his right hand, "And what beautiful art is was!? That's what you get for not looking on in awe and fear, you dumbass! Nothing can—"
Deidara's taunts were silenced when something burst from the smoke below and cut through his clay bird as though it was nothing. With a gasp of pain and a spit out of blood, Deidara was sent flying up even further into the air. A look down to what had hit him showed that a now metallic skinned Gaara had not only survived the blast but also forced his way through it, destroyed his bird, and hit Deidara in both the stomach and the arm clutching said stomach.
Gritting his teeth at the pain, Deidara looked down to see his arm shattered. There was no way he was going to be able to use that. His other arm would have to—
Crack!
"Son of a bitch!" Deidara screamed in pain.
Because he kept contact with the blonde, Gaara had been able to grab onto his enemy's other arm. A quick pull in the right direction easily dislocated the arm from its shoulder socket leaving it a lump of useless muscles and bones. With no arms to create clay creatures, Deidara was completely defeated.
Not having any chakra or sand left from condensing his sand platform and armor to allow him to jump through the explosion, Gaara had no means of slowing their descent. Even if he could, though, he had already switched to his armor magic to protect himself when his armor had inevitably been torn away. That meant another switch would make it so that magic wouldn't be accessible no matter what. As such, he decided just to go with what he had at the moment.
Grabbing onto Deidara, Gaara just accepted gravity as it pulled them down. He angled his back so that he would take the brunt of the fall. With his Armor magic and the sand below catching him almost lovingly, it wasn't that bad of a landing overall. Not that he would get any points for style.
"You…" Sasori's one still working eye peered up at Naruto as the blonde stood over the downed missing ninja, "You were the worst possible enemy for me. The healing. The immunity to poison. The massive amounts of clones. The sheer power you wield…It all counteracted my own abilities."
"Yeah," Naruto nodded, "Sometimes, it works out like that."
"If any other team came after you, then they might have won. But us…we were the exact wrong people to do this," Sasori's frowned, "That bitch set us up…"
"What?" Naruto raised an eyebrow.
"It was planned out from the beginning…Damn it. I knew that trusting her was a bad idea," Sasori sighed.
"What are you talking about?" Naruto knelt down by the downed shinobi, "Your contact? Which goddess opened the portal for you? Which element?"
Sasori's stared right into Naruto's eyes, "Before I tell you, I want something in return. You see the core in my chest?"
Naruto eyed the now cut open cylinder that seemed to be oozing blood, "Yeah."
"That's the only real part of me that was alive…and you destroyed it," Sasori noted, "That's fine. Such is the risk of battle. But my puppets…my art…They must live on. The scrolls in my back. Take them and make sure they are appreciated. Agree to do that…And I'll tell you everything."
Naruto nodded, "Alright. I'll take care of them."
The remaining part of Sasori's face looked almost disappointed, "I see…You won't do it, will you? You'll destroy them no matter what."
"Of course not."
"Don't bullshit a bullshitter, brat. I've been at this long enough to be able to read when people are lying," Sasori's eye closed, "Even if you're a hard book to read."
"Well, what do you expect? You're the enemy. I can't use those puppets, so why would I even want them? Trophies are meant to stroke egos, and egos get people killed," Naruto noted, "Better to destroy them so they will never be used against me again."
"Tsk…Such a shinobi thing to say…" Sasori noted, "Well then…I'm glad that if anyone killed me…it was someone like you…But you won't get anything out of me…If my art dies…my info goes with it…"
"That's fine," Naruto pulled out a kunai. In a blur of motion, he stabbed it into Sasori's core causing life giving blood to spread everywhere. Removing the weapon, Naruto spoke to what was now Sasori's corpse, "I have a spar source of information just waiting to have his teeth pulled out."
Tossing Deidara into a pile of sand, Gaara stood up and popped his back, "Kami…That was annoying."
The metallic tone to his skin faded to allow him to regain his normal appearance. Unfortunately, his clothes were now torn and burned away for the most part. His skin was also a bit raw from the explosion, but it wasn't painful. In all, he came out of the fight without any real injury. For once, he felt like he seriously lived up to the name Unbreakable Shield.
"Damn…" Deidara hissed as he lie uselessly on the ground, "You just ran into a blaze of inferno like it was nothing. You either got really big balls or you don't think a lot of bombs."
"No, I'm just used to it," Gaara plopped down next to the blonde in fatigue. Shukaku was telling him that according to Kurama, Naruto already ended his own fight and would be back soon enough, "That girlfriend of mine uses bombs too. Hanging around her has given me a respect for the whole explosive finish thing. But I've been around it enough to not be afraid of it."
"I see," Deidara let out a chuckle, "You're a weird one, yeah? Not what I thought a jinchūriki would be like. I met the two from my village back in the day. I got the feeling that they hated everything and everyone."
"No, we just hate our situations. That's why we left so willingly," Gaara mentioned.
Deidara started up at Gaara, "You left the Elemental Nations a living hell, ugh. You know that?"
"I figured."
"Do you care?"
"No."
"Tsk…" Deidara looked away, "Teme…I guess I don't blame you, but you do realize that you're the villain in this story, right? Good guys don't start world wars that ends in the death of millions of people."
"Maybe I'm not a good person in your eyes, but morality is subjective. Everyone's the hero of their own story," Gaara shrugged, "Even you."
"You won't be giving me a hero's death, though, yeah?" Deidara closed his eyes, "You're going to torture me until I give every bit of info I have and then kill me. And I'm guessing that Sasori-sama is defeated, and you somehow know it. Otherwise, you'd be rushing to help your jinchūriki friend."
Gaara nodded, "Sasori of the Red Sand is dead."
"Well, damn…I'm really glad that I planned for this."
A sudden spark in chakra caused Gaara to jump to his feet. The mouth on Deidara's chest tore through his cloak revealing a large chunk of clay in its mouth. It quickly swallowed the clay causing black lines to appear all over the blonde's body.
"What did you do!?" Gaara roared out in panic as an outrageous amount of chakra rolled off of Deidara's form.
"This my ultimate art! If I have to die, I'm doing it my way!" Deidara shouted, "I made myself into a living bomb! This explosion will be the biggest one I've ever made! There's no way to escape or block it! I'm taking you and that whiskered brat with me to hell!"
Gaara began to loudly curse. From the look of the bomb, killing Deidara wouldn't stop it. So that option was out, and based on the amount of chakra he felt from the human bomb, Deidara wasn't lying about him not being able to escape. If only he could use his sand fully…
Deidara's entire form was completely black now. His body seemed to be receding into his chest as the final preparation for the bomb. Before his head faded, Deidara gave Gaara an insane grin and shouted, "Remember, yeah! ART IS AN EXPLOSION!"
'Gaara, you don't have any choice! You and me together now!'
Gaara nodded. Shukaku was right. It was time for the total disaster plan. Taking a deep stance, Gaara activated his armor magic. His skin once more took a metallic shine to it. At the same time, Shukaku began to pump chakra through Gaara's body, controlling the sand so that it covered Gaara in a layer of sand armor. He then manipulated the sand to create as many dome shields as possible in the time they had.
While this was happening, Gaara trembled in pain. Neither he, Naruto, nor Fu had managed to figure out this trick the same way that Han did. Having the Biju manipulate the chakra while the human focused the magic hurt like hell. It was like his insides were being torn apart, but this was his only chance.
Once he was as covered as much as possible, Gaara braced himself as the explosion burst to life. He knew nothing else after that.
Naruto stood looking in the distance. He had been preparing to destroy the puppets when he felt it. The amount of chakra in the distance was so large that even non sensor shinobi would be able to sense it. Hell, mages with no knowledge of chakra could probably sense it.
'Kit! The other Akatsuki member is doing a kamikaze attack! You have to run!'
Naruto did just that. He ran right towards the bomb's location.
'BAKA! I meant away from the bomb! That thing will kill you!'
'Gaara's still in there!' Naruto argued.
'He wouldn't want you to die too! Run away now! Before it's too—"
It was too late. Naruto didn't even have time to react as the explosion went off. His mind faded to black immediately. By the time he regained consciousness, all he knew was pain. Groaning as his sky magic healed his wounds, Naruto looked around at the destruction. Looks like he had been at the edge of the blast. All the puppets and trees were completely destroyed to ash. Well, at the very least through all this, killing Sasori in the end wouldn't have mattered in the long run. Deidara's blast would have finished the Suna missing ninja off and destroyed the puppets.
Turning back towards the direction of where the explosion wen off, Naruto saw a large cloud of sand hanging in the air to block his view. Not caring about being able to see, Naruto rushed towards where Gaara had been. None of his senses let know that Gaara was okay, but he ran to where the residue chakra was heaviest.
When he finally reached ground zero, Naruto looked around desperately, "Gaara! GAARA! Answer me!"
For ten straight minutes, the blonde searched the ground zero area. Finally, after a bit of digging, he managed to find the unconscious body of Gaara.
"Oh thank Kami," Naruto whispered as he knelt over Gaara. The red head was covered in burns from the explosion. A lot of them looked really bad, but his chest was still rising and falling. That was something at the very least.
'I sense Skukaku's chakra was used along with Gaara's magic,' Kurama explained, 'That saved him, but that blast was something else entirely. It's a miracle he's alive. Both of them seem to be in a shock induced hibernation. With Skukaku asleep, Gaara's going heal like a normal person.'
'I can deal with the physical injuries,' Naruto noted as he placed glowing hands over Gaara's body.
'That may be, but you can't do anything about fatigue. He's going to be out for a long time. And need I remind you about that little guild war you were heading to? There's no way Gaara will be able to fight in that.'
Naruto frowned. Kurama was right. Gaara was definitely out of commission, and Phantom Lorde would be attacking soon enough. Damn it. He could try to get Gaara to Wendy, but that would take too much time to travel to Cait Shelter and then back to Fairy Tail. The war would be over by then, and he would lose his chance to confront Arashi.
"I don't have a choice," Naruto notes, "Sorry, Gaara, but I'm going to have to drag you to Porlyusica. She might not have Wendy's abilities, but maybe she can help you."
Marissa smiled as the image of Naruto faded from her pool. Off to the side, Roshi frowned from what he witnessed, "They could have died, you know."
"I suppose they could have, but I had faith that they would pull through," Marissa smiled over to the older man, "And now they know of the threat of Akatsuki. The first thing they will want to do when Gaara recovers is warn the jinchūriki and come up with a plan of how to deal with the new threat. They will come straight to me as I'm the only one that can gather them all quickly."
"You're assuming that Number 9 will beat the Nature God," Roshi lifted a bottle of sake to his lips and took a sip, "And I can tell you, with my expert opinion as a veteran shinobi, the fight between Arashi and Naruto will be like the fight between Naruto and Sasori. Arashi is Naruto's worst possible enemy."
"I know."
"Then why are you allowing this?" Roshi questioned, "You need Number 9 alive out of everyone, right? The Nature God is replaceable. It may take a few years, but a new one will pop up. Just kill the brat and let Naruto take some of his blood for the book."
Marissa shook her head, "We God Slayers have rules, Roshi. If I could, I would have revealed everything to Naruto the day I met him, but I can't do that. He must find the answers to the secrets of the God Slayers himself. If someone who knew the truth revealed it to him without the consent of the gods…Things might be reset."
"I see," Roshi did not look pleased by that, "So this is a necessary bump in the plans? It's rare for you to allow that."
"It's not the only one," Marissa turned her attention back to the pool. The water shifted to show the form of Itachi. The Uchiha had been researching Zeref in all the time that Marissa had allowed him access to the church's library. At first, it was done out of hatred. Now, though, it was being done by an obsessive need to fix things.
Marissa's eyes narrowed as she watched Itachi stare at a single page in a book that would be considered illegal by the Magic Council's standards. The legality didn't matter to Marissa, though. No, she really only cared about why the shinobi was looking at the page.
"You fool," She whispered, "The Tower of Heaven has never brought anyone happiness."
Thank you all for reading and please remember to...
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