"More than one way to skin a Tanooki"


Five years earlier

"This is our new member?" Orochimaru raised an eyebrow and looked down at the child before him. No older than thirteen, with black hair and white eyes. His leaf headband had a long line drawn through it, much resembling the snake's own. "Has it...shrunk? Kisame did you eat half of it?"

The shark-man chuckled. "'Fraid not. This is the guy. I wouldn't underestimate him, slithers, he clearly ain't no pushover."

They were stood in a dark cave, not an unusual location for the Akatsuki to meet. There were a few more twisting passages before they reached the HQ proper, but Orochimaru had wanted to meet their newest member ahead of the others.

"Oh I've heard all about his exploits." The sannin leaned down and grinned at Neji Hyuuga. "Tell me, do you feel an ounce of regret about slaughtering your entire family merely as a method of testing your own power?"

Neji tilted his head. "But of course, I am wracked with guilt. I must have taken a wrong turn; is this not the place where I may repent for my sins?"

"Ooh it has teeth!" Orochimaru clapped his hands together excitedly. "I like this one. Can I keep it?"

"It seems to me you don't need any more children in your service." Neji nodded to the two other boys stood a respectful distance away. "Or are they perhaps Kisame's kids? The one in blue has his eyes."

Oh I'm liking this one more by the second. "These are my subordinates, yes." Orochimaru gestured. "The blue haired one is Kabuto, the white haired one is Kimimaro. I have to wonder: these two have been training under me for years. What makes you more worthy than them to join us?"

"Oh great, already with the tests." Neji rolled his eyes, then looked at the two, both of whom shuffled slightly under his gaze. "Lets see...Kabuto has impressive chakra control, and from the way it's concentrated he's a healer. Kimimaro has a very interesting body transformation bloodline limit mostly related to his bones, excellent structure and density. A member of the Kaguya clan? And here I thought they were extinct." He looked back at Orochimaru. "Should I kill them to prove my worth? It would be a waste."

"No, no, that won't be necessary." Orochimaru laughed. "Those eyes certainly are something...come, let's introduce you to the others."

Orochimaru fell in next to Kisame, leaving Neji to follow behind alongside the other two children. Over his shoulder, he could hear Kabuto whispering to the newcomer. "Thanks. Master Orochimaru gets like that sometimes."

"No problem at all." Neji replied, disinterestedly. "Out of curiosity, how good a healer are you?"

"I'm good." Kankuro replied, confidently. "Of course, there's not much I can do for Kimimaro here. His biology is so weird most traditional treatments just don't work."

"Problematic." Neji admitted. "I know some things about healing myself. If you'd like, as a show of good faith, I could compile a small volume on his biology."

"You can do that?" Kabuto's widened.

"My eyes can see all of his insides, all at once." Neji replied. "You'll have the manuscript within a week."


Present day

Temari paused, span in place, swung her fan, span back around and continued moving.

The gale from it blew back across the forest outside Konoha, and disintegrated the pursuing shadow clones of a very familiar blond menace.

"Why do I have to carry Gaara?" Kankuro gasped out as she caught up to him.

"Because I have to shake off our pursuers." She bit back. "And you're used to carrying your puppets!"

"One puppet! Not a puppet and a half-dead jinchurikki!"

Temari opened her mouth to say something back, but was interrupted by a shout from behind her.

"There they are!"

"We're catching up!"

"Someone tell Naruto Prime!"

"Oh come on!" Temari stopped and swung her fan again, disrupting the next batch of clones. "Kankuro! Stop!"

"Yes please!" He landed on a particularly wide branch and shifted off his charge.

Temari caught up and started looking over her little brother, concern plain on her face. "Gaara? You still with us?"

He didn't look good. He was still losing blood from the shrapnel, though the sand that had caused the damage now seemed to be spreading outwards to plug the holes in his skin.

"Kurama." He rasped. "Where is Kurama?"

Temari cringed. One of his eyes was still black, indicating Shukaku's influence. "We don't know any Kurama, Gaara. Who are you talking about?"

He glared, then shook his head, obviously in distress. "Naruto." He reiterated, in a less demonic voice. "Where is Naruto? I need to fight him, need to win the fight so I can pass the chunin exams..."

"Oh great. He's lost it." Kankuro sighed.

"Gaara, listen to me." Temari leaned down to his eye level. "You need to release Shukaku. Remember the plan?"

"Fuck the plan!"

"Oooooh shit he said it. There it was. I warned you." Kankuro whistled and tried to not look at his technically traitor brother.

"You can still fight them, okay?" Temari reasoned. "Let Shukaku out and you can fight all of them, if you want?"

"It's not the same." Gaara grumbled. "S'not Shukaku's fight it's mine."

Temari sighed. Every time he started losing control, when half his mind was already swamped by the bijuu, he started acting like a child again.

"Gaara, please." She tried. "Do it for me. Remember Uzu?"

"The fox." He nodded.

"The fox." She agreed. "The fox you got me. Do it for me, Gaara. Please?"

He looked at her for a few seconds, mouth open as if to say something. Then he closed it, shoved her away, and jumped off into the forest.

"I cannot believe that just happened." Reiterated Kankuro, for the fiftieth time that month. "Now what's the plan?"

"He needs time to transform." Temari pulled her fan and looked back the way they'd come. More orange jumpsuits were chasing through the trees. "We need to buy him that time."


"Are you sure you're okay carrying me?" Sasuke asked, chagrined. "I'm not really much use-"

"It's fine, I need the morale support." Naruto replied, cheerfully. "The training seal is way heavier than you, and besides, if you're not around I might let the kyuubi loose and destroy Konoha."

"Oh. Right."

They continued tearing through the forest, crossing the treetops as fast as Naruto was able. Then he grinned, seemingly for no reason. "Some more of my advance scouts just popped. We're right on top of them!"

It wasn't another thirty seconds before they reached two out of the three. Kankuro and Temari were waiting for them, and didn't give them a moment to breathe. The second they were in sight a massive gale blasted towards the leaf genin, forcing Naruto to go upside down and propel himself behind a tree for cover.

"What the hell, Temari!" He shouted, when the wind died down.

"I'm sorry!" She shouted back. "But I have my orders!"

Naruto's eyes blazed. "I am sick." He growled. "And tired. Of having to fight nice people because they BLINDLY FOLLOW ORDERS!"

"Eeeasy foxy." Sasuke patted his head. "Drop me off here with a few shadow clones. I'll take care of them, you go after Gaara."

"What?" Naruto tried to crane his neck to look over his shoulder. "Heck no, you can't fight with your leg like that! And Temari shreds my shadow clones, you won't last two minutes!"

"Then you'd better deal with sandy real fast." Sasuke was stonefaced.

Naruto shook his head. "Nuh-uh, plan cancelled. New plan, maybe can we-"

"Left!"

Naruto, in a display of his complete trust in his teammate, immediately went left.

Unfortunately, Sasuke had meant that the attack was coming from the left, and Naruto almost got beheaded by a massive wooden monstrosity.

Kankuro's puppet swung for him, and he ducked, Sasuke kicked it away with his good leg, and Naruto jumped both away.

"Dumbass-"

"You said left! What, was I meant to not go left?"

Kankuro's puppet turned to point it's arm at them, right as Temari started to move her fan again.

That was when a chittering filled the air.

It was not the 'one-thousand birds' technique. It was, however, a fuckton of actual birds.

Black and white paper birds, hundreds of the little things, flew in between the trees, mobbing Kankuro, Temari and the puppet.

"Would you two like some assistance?" A boy in a black outfit jumped up to Naruto and Sasuke and smiled.

"Sai?" Naruto and Sasuke asked simultaneously.

"You should both continue your pursuit of Sand's jinchurikki." Sai continued. "Naruto has shown he can confront him on equal footing, and Sasuke should be useful in surpressing the one-tails. I will deal with these two."

"Didn't you get curb-stomped by Hinata?" Naruto asked, dubiously.

Sai pulled out his scroll and turned to face the recovering sand genin. The smile had fallen from his face, and with it every usual feature of the quiet, quirky member of team Gai. "I assure you." He said, staring down his opponents confidently. "I am much more than what you have seen of me. Go. Now."

Naruto and Sasuke didn't need any further encouragement. Sai began drawing, and Naruto fled after his target.


Itachi was very much concerned. He had tried very hard to stab this Kimimaro, and Kimimaro was not dead. This did not happen very often. The white haired boy (he couldn't be much more than 15) had the same damn curse mark as Sasuke, with no compunctions about using it to completely cover his skin in black marks. Not to mention he was clearly a taijutsu specialist, and whatever his bloodline limit was it let him grow bones out of just about anywhere to deflect the occasional sword strike that slipped through. All in all, he was perfectly equipped to survive thirty seconds of kenjutsu with one of the most powerful ninja of his generation.

Itachi was sorely tempted to Amaterasu the fool and be done with it, but Sarutobi had repeatedly warned him he wasn't much use to the leaf village blind. Not to mention there wasn't room for any large scale ninjutsu in the corridors, with civilians on one side still asleep from the genjutsu. Speaking of which, he had already tried to catch Kimimaro in one, but the bastard would not look up, and none of Itachi's showoff finger point genjutsu were strong enough to get his opponent. Tl;dr, it had been thirty seconds and he was still fighting Kimimaro.

"You're good." He admitted, continuing to swing at basically the speed of lightning. "But we both know you're not good enough. Surrender now, or die in thirty more seconds."

"Not possible. I am following my master's orders, and cannot disobey." Kimimaro replied, evenly.

"Your master has ordered you to die." Itachi pointed out.

"No." Kimimaro replied. "He has ordered me to distract you."

Oh you son of a-

Fuck it.

Itachi made twenty handseals in the time it would take Sasuke to make two. "Fire style! Ultimate burning dragon jutsu!"

Kimimaro managed to look shocked. A massive (as the name implied) fire dragon burst forth from his hands, filling the entire corridor as it rushed towards Kimimaro. The jutsu grabbed the hostile ninja up in its jaws and continued to hurtle through the corridor, blackening the wood and eventually slamming through the window at the walkway's end. It continued to fly through the air above Konoha's skyline and would do so until the chakra Itachi had put in it ran out, but he had already forgotten about it; following it out the window but jumping up to reach the box where he'd last seen his Hokage. His long honed pursuit and tracking skills were quickly rendered unimportant, however. "Gee," Itachi muttered to himself, "do you think perhaps he's in the giant purple box on top of the stadium?"


Hinata was beginning to realise she may have a stubborn streak. She had refused to get out of the hospital bed when she had heard a distant explosion. She had pulled the covers tighter over her head when her Byakugan saw all the doctors and nurses in the complex panicking. She had curled up into a ball when Sound and Sand ninja had entered the complex and began to fight the medic-nin present.

When one of them angrily threw aside the curtain cordoning off her area, she finally (grudgingly) kicked off the covers and slammed some palm strikes across his body, sending him to the floor unconscious. A few moments after that, when she was making her way back into bed, Haku appeared behind her. "Oh good, you're up." The boy had senbon in his hands. "Come help me clear the rest of the hospital." Hinata growled, and complied.

They worked together with brutal efficiency, Hinata wordlessly directing Haku to the remaining attackers in the building. She noticed with some pride that most of them were wearing chunin flak vests, but working together with Haku she was able to put all of them on the floor with little difficulty. She made sure not to kill any of them.

"That was the last one." She eventually said, throwing a ninja's unconscious body to the floor dismissively.

"Great." Haku was in full assassin-apprentice mode. "We need to move. Your teammates should be in or nearby the arena, if we move fast we can get-"

"No. Sorry." Hinata turned, and started to walk back to her room.

"Wait, what?" Haku grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. Hinata looked back at him with dead eyes.

"You can't just go back to sleep!" The boy exclaimed. "We're under attack!"

"I can't trust myself out there." Hinata replied, tonelessly.

"You can't-" Haku winced. "Is this about your talk with Naruto?"

Hinata flinched.

"It is? Oh perfect...look I'm still not okay with you insulting him like that, but we have bigger things to worry about right now than your lovers' quarrel-"

"Hold on." Hinata held up a hand. "I insulted him?"

"Well, yes." Haku blinked. "You called him a monster, he was muttering about it as he left. Apparently he's been in a mood all day-"

"What? No!" Hinata fell back a step. "He's not a...I'm..." She replayed the conversation in her head, and paled. "The Kyuubi."

"That's what he thought, yes." Haku rolled his eyes. "Look, you can apologise to him when we get to him, right now we need to move-"

"No!"

"Oh will you just tell me the root of the issue already!"

Hinata gulped. "I...I almost killed Sasuke. I was going to. Because I couldn't control myself, because of the curse mark, I...how can I trust myself around Naruto?"

"Hinata, the fact that you're scared is evidence enough!" Haku grabbed her by the shoulders. "Listen to me. You're not the only one who cares about Naruto. A lot."

"Are you saying you're-"

"I'm fucked up in the head; I don't even think sexuality comes into it." Haku sighed. "And I know you're worried you'll hurt him. But frankly at this point you'll have to risk it."

"But I-"

"He needs you." Haku stared Hinata dead in the eyes. "You two are a team, right? It's not hard to not kill him, just..don't kill him? Maybe? And besides, if you're not there, someone else might do it for you."

Hinata grimaced, and tried to phrase what she was thinking. "You're telling me exactly what I want to hear." She said, eventually. "It's not that I think you're trying to deceive me, it's just...I want to believe you. So badly."

"Hinata." Haku smiled at her. "You are allowed to be happy."

It was like she had been waiting for that permission for five years.

Hinata stepped backwards. Breathed in, and breathed out. Then nodded. "Follow me." She took off for a nearby stairwell.

"The entrance is the other way!" Haku told her.

"I know!" She shouted back. "We're going to the roof!"


"...Son of a bitch!" Sasuke shouted, randomly.

"Realise something?" Naruto asked distractedly, from underneath him. Most of his attention was on Gaara's scent, not far ahead of them.

"Why Sai said I'd be useful in suppressing Gaara." Sasuke answered. "I mean, I'm offended, it's a thing that's pissed my clan off for years, but he has a point."

"Explain?" Naruto hurried him.

"Right, sorry." Sasuke apologised. "Basically there's three ways we know of to suppress a bijuu. One is with sealing like the Uzumaki clan's good at, which is how the Kyuubi was put in you. Then there's the first Hokage's chakra suppression thingy which is somehow a wood release ability, and then there's the Uchiha. Apparently a fully evolved Sharingan can use genjutsu on the bijuu."

"So you can put Shukaku to sleep?" Naruto cut through the author's exposition with his usual bluntness.

"I mean, probably?" Sasuke winced. "I don't know! We spend so much time denying making the Kyuubi destroy the leaf, nobody bothered to teach me how!"

"You could do the thing you did to Tenten? You put her unconscious." Naruto offered.

"...Maybe?" Sasuke guessed. "But I'm not that good at it yet. To do it you'd have to get my crippled ass within kissing range of..." he gulped, and pointed. "That."

Naruto stopped, and looked at the figure in front of him. The kyuubi's insistent pressure, now feeling like a fox was scratching at the insides of his stomach, increased. "Hey...Gaara?"

Gaara looked up. The sand was all over him. Wisps of the stuff surrounded his entire body, but were concentrated on his left side. His arm was completely covered, and had forked into the same claw Naruto had seen in the arena, only bigger. The sand had also spread partway down his leg and across his midriff, and most frighteningly, his face. He looked at them with a twisted smile, half of which was warped and etched into the sand covering the majority of his head. "Naruto." He growled. "It's good to see you again. Our duel was interrupted; would you like to continue?"

"Shadow clone jutsu." Naruto muttered, and passed Sasuke off to one of his duplicates. "Damn right I want to continue!" He shouted. "But wouldn't it be better to do it without your furry friend?"

"I cannot be stopped-cannot stop it, any longer." Gaara corrected himself. "Perhaps you could, in my place, but it does not matter. I have enough time before he emerges to kill you!"

He threw back his head, and roared. "Come, try to kill me! Give my life meaning!"

"Drama queen." Sasuke remarked.

"I'll try to restrain him." Naruto told his teammate, before jumping into action.

His first move, naturally, was to summon a squad of shadow clones.

Gaara came at them, swinging his bijuu-arm with reckless abandon. Naruto had never seen him as much as run before, but he was fast now, keeping up with the shadow clones and crushing them with relative ease. However, his usual sand manipulation abilities seemed to have left him.

Naruto gleefully began to cast all the jutsu that had previously been ineffective, peppering Gaara with shadow shuriken and, finally, being able to punch him with noticeable effect. None of this seemed to cause any actual pain to the jinchurikki, who just seemed to get angrier. He was able to catch the real Naruto with a swipe and throw him backwards into a nearby tree, crunching in the bark. Naruto, feeling no pain (which he had a sneaking suspicion meant the kyuubi was starting to influence him, great,) got back up and started making the wind blade hand seals, worriedly noting that his chakra levels were actually dipping. Aim for the human part. The sand protects him, but if I can catch him on the uncovered part of his head-

Wait.

Since when the hell could you talk to me?

Naruto grimaced and fired off the blade, and it struck Gaara's claw arm. He shrugged it off and charged again.

Kill the pathetic human. If you kill the host, the bijuu alone is severely weakened-

I don't want him dead! I want him restrained!

Naruto found a sufficiently sturdy looking tree and positioned Gaara between him and it, then summoned a new squad of clones. "Buffeting wind jutsu!" They chorused. Gaara's new form suffered from higher surface area and low grip on the floor, and the combined gust caught him up and forced him against the tree. Instead of using it like a blast, Naruto kept up the pressure, keeping Gaara trapped against the tree's surface and gradually walking closer, as more of the surviving clones joined his endeavour. More sand spread across his body, but Gaara couldn't move.

"Now, Sasuke!" Naruto shouted.

The clone carrying his teammate jumped down from the battle's outskirts and began sprinting towards the trapped jinchurikki, as Sasuke activated his Sharingan.

The sand, having almost completely taken over Gaara's face, moved of its own accord. "Wind bullet!" Shukaku declared, and then launched a blast of compressed air that pummelled right through Naruto's technique and cancelled it out with a sonic boom. Then he jumped off the tree and batted the Uzumaki aside.

"Naruto!" Sasuke shouted.

"No interfering! Die!" Gaara shouted, propelling himself at the Uchiha and the shadow clone carrying him. Said clone had been running full pelt towards Gaara, and was now skidding to a stop as a giant sand claw came swinging for Sasuke's face.

He flinched, closing his eyes-

...

...

And then, when the pain didn't come, opened them again. Gaara, almost fully transformed now, was stood in front of him, straining desperately to claw his face in.

But Gaara was restrained.

Blue-yellow glowing chains wrapped around his arms and midriff, causing all the sand touching them to fall to the floor. Sasuke tracked those chains backwards to their source, where they were tightly held by a red faced, grimacing Naruto.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke shouted.

"I don't know!" Naruto panted back. "Just get him! Now!"

Sasuke acquiesced. He stared right into Gaara's eyes and poured chakra through his own Sharingan. "Alright, asshole. Time to Sabaku-go to sleep!"

Gaara's one human eye struggled to stay open, as his body flailed in place, and he let out a gutteral "no..." but eventually, he collapsed. The sand on his body dropped off him, the chains (whatever the hell they were) disappeared, and he collapsed into a pile of his own sand. Sasuke promptly overbalanced his shadow clone mount and fell onto the floor, groaning.

"Sabaku-go-to-sleep? That was the best you could come up with?" Naruto gasped out.

"Hey, you did it in your fight!" Sasuke flailed an arm at him. "And what the hell were those chains?"

"I...don't know." Naruto looked down at his hands in confusion. "I didn't use hand seals or anything they just...came out."

"Sounds like sealing." Sasuke mused, staring up at the sky. "Or maybe a bloodline limit? Who knows, you might have-" He paused. Blinked. Looked down at Gaara's form. "Uh, Naruto? Am I losing it or is that sand still moving?"

Naruto looked. The sand around Gaara was still shifting. "No, you're not crazy. Uh..." the voice in his head he was getting very suspicious about was growling to him again.

"Uh, Sasuke? You definitely did it properly?"

"I did the sleep thing, yeah." Said Sasuke, limping to his feet. The sand around Gaara was definitely moving now, expanding and swirling about him.

"So Gaara's asleep?" Naruto confirmed.

"Yes, Gaara's asleep." Sasuke began to move away from the sand, that was beginning to take shape. The dark blue markings were appearing on it again.

"Well in that case," Naruto gulped. "Who's keeping Shukaku in check?"

"...fuck."

Black-hold eyes appeared in the mass of sand, as did a gaping mouth. "Well...About God-damn time!" Declared the first of the tailed beasts.


Hooo boy. I hope you didn't think I was forgetting about Naruto, did you? Yes, I'm giving him the Chakra Chains. Unless you subscribe to the theory that only redhead Uzumaki get them (I.E, everyone else). Do you agree with me letting him access them? I wanted him to have a more diverse arsenal than just 'rasengan and shadow clones.'

Sasuke is great, he just has no idea what he's doing, and Hinata has got out of her slump.

Due to some knock on effects of Neji joining the Akatsuki rather than Itachi, Kimimaro is no longer crippled, so he gets to take part in the mission. Obviously he gets cucked by Itachi, they're not nearly on the same level. But for a limited time, he is good enough to slow him down.

Next chapter: big fuckoff sand monster.