Chapter-10

-On the cliff across the Akatsuki Hideout.

"Ugh, how long do we have to wait for them?" An irritated Kitsune asked.

"Dobe, chill. They'll be here." Neko said calmly.

They had been waiting for about five minutes for the other team and Kakashi to arrive. Before leaving they wrote a letter to Kakashi giving him a piece of Kitsune's clothing and asking him to get rid of his useless team and follow the trio. Kitsune and Neko trusted Kakashi to a certain extent and wanted him to be their backup in case they ran into too much trouble. And Neko had also sent out one of his cats to lead the team from Konoha to them. They were waiting for at least one of the two to arrive as they knew that dealing with the akatsuki was not going to be simple.

"Well, I hope I am not late." A smiling Kakashi appeared behind them.

"Kakashi you are always late." Pakun deadpanned."Well, I have done my job of locating them so I'll be off. See you later!" Pakun said before disappearing in a poof.

"Alright, now let's go kick some Akatsuki butt and save Gaara!"Kitsune said, clearly excited.

"Stop acting so childish Anija, the Konoha team is approaching; I thought you were a sensor." Suzume deadpanned. She still couldn't understand how her brother could act like a wise leader one second and an immature child the other. After a while team 10 appeared with Neko's cat Kaito

"Team 10 reporting. What is the plan? Kakashi, where's your team?" Asuma asked. Team ten, except Choji who was wearing his clan armour as it could expand with him, were wearing the standard Leaf Shinobi uniforms with the jonin and Chunin flak jackets.

"Left them in Suna, they're not skilled enough to handle this." Kakashi replied with a bored expression.

"The cave on the opposite side of this cliff is one of the Akatsuki's hideout. It has a seal at the entrance. To break the seal, I will need to make another seal which I will place on top of it. After that, Ino-chan, Neko, Suzume, Kakashi-san and I will enter the hideout. I am sensing some ninjas nearby, so Asuma-san, Choji and Shikamaru it would be best if you took care of them, should they interfere with our mission. That's the plan" Kitsune said.

Everyone took their positions and those who did not know much about Kitsune, were impressed by his ability to formulate a perfect plan within seconds. The five rushed to the cave with a boulder blocking its entrance and a big seal placed on it. It had the word 'Forbidden' written on it in Kanji.

"Five Seal Barrier, a level 8 barrier." Kitsune said, pulling out a paper and a brush and making a seal. About ten seconds later he made a similar seal with the word 'Permitted' written on it in Kanji."Five Seal Barrier: Pass!" he said placing his seal tag on top of the Akatsuki's seal tag. He then made another small seal and placed it on the boulder blocking the entrance to the Akatsuki Hideout. Within seconds the boulder broke down into smaller stones allowing all of the ninjas to enter the hideout.

"Ninja Art: Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Suzume said throwing a shuriken and multiplying it into a thousand at the two akatsuki and the rest of the Akatsuki holograms. The colourful holograms disappeared as soon as they came in contact with Shuriken and the two defended themselves from the barrage of shuriken.

"You have some nerve disturbing us like that, un. We had almost broken the seal!" Deidara cried out loud.

"Deidara let's finish this quickly, I don't like to keep people waiting and especially not Leader-sama." Sasori said taking off his cloak revealing a puppet of a man on all fours with a scorpion tail.

"I don't fight well in closed spaces." Deidara put his hands into his clay pouches and started moulding clay. "Well I guess I'm going to get out of here." he said moulding his clay into a bird. He then sat on it and flew away.

"Kit, Gaara's seal is weakening. You need to fix it before Shukaku is released or he'll die." Kurama said.

"Neko, Kakashi-san, go after Deidara. Lightning is his weakness. Suzume, Ino-chan, handle this Scorpion-man looking thing till I fix Gaara's seal." Kitsune said before taking off over to where Gaara was laying unconscious. He quickly put up his barrier, in case the tailed beast got loose.

-Inside the barrier

"Kit, this is bad, that stupid raccoon is trying to free itself. You have to use that technique to suppress its chakra." Kurama said slightly worried.

"Okay Kurama." he said while giving the fox a nod. "Hokage Style Elder Jutsu: Tenth Edict on Enlightenment!" He said as the Kanji for sit appeared on the palm of his hand. Then ten spiked pillars surrounded the unconscious jinchuriki. He had recently found out that he had wood style when he had shown Aiko how to use the chakra paper to find out her chakra nature. He had seen a plant grow out of the paper last time, but did not know what nature it was. While showing Aiko how to use the chakra paper, Sasuke pointed out that he had the Wood style."Damn I need to fix his seal while suppressing the tailed beast chakra. Wood Style: Wood Clone Jutsu! "He made a wood clone which held up the jutsu, while the original Naruto began working on fixing Gaara's seal." This is such a basic storage seal, no wonder Gaara couldn't sleep." He then decided to reseal Shukaku using the improved version of the Eight Trigrams Seal that was placed on him by Minato. The seal was originally used by the Uzumaki clan to completely seal a tailed beast. Later on Minato improved it by adding a crack in the seal, granting the Jinchuriki access to the tailed beast's chakra, but it had one flaw. With time, the seal would weaken which would let the tailed beast free. Naruto had improved it by making it so that it would have four stages of weakening, which were all controlled by the Jinchuriki or the sealer not time. He summoned the Uzumaki ceremonial throne and placed Gaara on it. He then started working on the seal.

-Outside the Barrier (Ino and Aiko vs. Sasori.)

"Ino, be careful. That is a puppet. Sasori was originally a puppet master of the sand; he was then resented by the sand village because he turned humans into puppets and later became a missing ninja. He managed to even take down the Third Kazekage." Suzume said keeping her guard up.

"Well someone has done their homework. Don't worry once I'm done with you, I'll turn you into my puppets too. This is my art." Sasori said.

"Listen Suzume, if we are going to take down Sasori, we need to work together. As far as I know, the armour of that puppet is very strong. One of us needs to break it." Ino whispered to Suzume so that Sasori couldn't hear them.

"And yeah, stay away from his tail. That tail is very poisonous. Alongside being a puppet master, Sasori is also a poison expert, so look out for any of his weapons. If the poison enters your body then it's game over for us." Suzume whispered back.

"Enough talking. I will finish you quickly. I do not like to be kept waiting." Sasori said removing the cloth covering the lower portion of his mouth. The mouth hung open and began spraying a lot of poisonous needles.

"Earth Style: Mud Wall!" Ino quickly erected a mud wall to protect Suzume and herself.

"Ino, I have a plan." Suzume then whispered the plan into Ino's ear and Ino nodded in agreement. The two went running towards Sasori, avoiding and deflecting all of his needles. As soon as they were in range, Sasori swung his tail and stabbed both of them. The tail went straight through them. A second later, Ino crumbled into stone, while Suzume poofed away. Sasori's eves widened. Before he could comprehend what had happened, he heard two voices at the same time. "Fire Style: Fire Palm!" Suzume yelled ramming her blazing palms onto Sasori's back. "Earth Style: Stone Fist Jutsu!" Ino yelled at the same time punching into Sasori's armour with a giant rock fist, completely destroying it. Then a cloaked figure jumped from inside the puppet. The figure lifted his hood up revealing a young man with red hair and brown eyes.

"How is it possible, he looks just like he used to look twenty years ago." Suzume was confused.

"Suzume, he is a human puppet, he turned himself into a puppet just to stay immortal." Ino replied.

"Well aren't you a smart one? Now let's end this, I need your bodies to make an even more dangerous puppet, now that Hiroku is destroyed." Sasori was really pissed off at the kunoichis for breaking his puppet."Secret Red Move: Performance of a Hundred Puppets!" Sasori said summoning and controlling a hundred puppets using his chakra threads. "Let's see. Two against a hundred. Looks like the odds are against you."

"Well looks like I have to use Anija's jutsu. It's a good thing I have huge chakra reserves." Suzume murmured. "Multi Shadow clone jutsu!" Suzume shouted making fifty shadow clones.

"Looks like we are going to need more clones" Ino slightly smirked. "Earth Style: Stone Clone Jutsu" She formed a total of thirty clones. She then placed her hands on the ground. "Earth Style: Earth Dragon!" Ino yelled forming a giant stone dragon in front of all the clones.

"Looks like the odds are pretty even now, don't you think?" Suzume said. "Let's see who wins."

-Meanwhile with Sasuke and Kakashi.

Sasuke and Kakashi were chasing down Deidara, who was flying away on his explosive bird. Kakashi had lifted up his headband revealing his Sharingan. Neko had also activated his Sharingan. The two were jumping on the horizontally placed logs between two cliffs. Meanwhile Deidara was trying to separate them and finish them one by one. Deidara sent a bunch of explosive clay birds at them, but Neko and Kakashi easily took them out using their shuriken. Deidara was getting slightly irritated, so he began moulding his clay into detonating spiders, which he threw down on the two. The two also managed to avoid the spiders; this made Deidara even angrier. As soon as there was some distance in between the two he threw a hundred detonating crickets between the two. Kakashi tried to catch up with Neko, but the crickets were too damn fast. They had blocked his way by sitting on the next three longs and stuck to the enemy's body before detonating. 'So this is a test of speed, huh.' Kakashi thought to himself. He then whizzed past the crickets, the crickets followed him but some detonated on the way. As soon as he saw a huge log in front of him, he ricocheted off of the log, going under the logs and coming back up again. A lot of the crickets were destroyed. As soon as Kakashi came out from underneath the log, the rest of the crickets stuck to him and exploded. As soon as the spoke from the explosion was cleared, Kakashi could be seen heading towards Neko. Kakashi actually switched himself with a shadow clone while going up, so the crickets actually blew up the shadow clone instead of Kakashi.

"It's almost ready." Kakashi said closing both of his eyes. He opened his left eye revealing his Mangekyo Sharingan, keeping his right eye closed."The power of The Mangekyo. Kamui!" He said focusing on Deidara. He managed to send Deidara's arm to another dimension, but couldn't fully send Deidara as he started falling down into the forest.

'This is it, I don't have my arms. This is the only other option I have.' Deidara said, he was already exhausted due to his fight with Gaara and he had lost both of his arms. He managed to get off his cloak and pulled the stitches over his heart open with his mouth. Neko and Kakashi landed in front of him. "If I can't make art, then I shall become art itself. This will leave a huge mark on the earth." He said somehow feeding the mouth on his chest clay. Cracks began appearing on his body as he prepared himself to blow up.

"Chidori: Spear!" Neko yelled stabbing the part of the chest where the mouth was present. "Kakashi now!"

"Raikiri!" Kakashi yelled running towards Deidara with a ball of lightning in his hand. He pierced Deidara's heart, instantly killing him.

Neko retracted his Chidori: Spear. "Chidori: Senbon!" He said sending a thousand needles made up of lightning chakra piercing Deidara's whole body. He wanted to make sure he deactivated all of the clay in his body by sending lightning chakra through it.

"You really improved my Chidori; looks like you have really improved... Sasuke." Kakashi said narrowing his eyes at Neko.

Neko's eyes widened."How do you-" But before he could continue, Kakashi cut him off.

"Easy, you used the Chidori and you have the Sharingan, at first I wasn't sure, but you just confirmed my suspicions right now. Care to explain what's going on Sasuke?"

Neko scowled and mentally cursed himself for falling into Kakashi's trap."Just have a bit of patience. I'll tell you everything after we meet up with Kitsune."

Kakashi was slightly impatient, but had no other choice. He could not force them to tell him so he had no other option than to wait."Hm okay."

"And another thing, could you not tell anyone about this?"

"Don't worry Neko; your secret is safe with me." Kakashi eye smiled at his student.

"Okay thanks, now let's go check up on Kitsune" Neko said before taking off. Kakashi sighed and followed him.

- With Ino and Suzume.

The two had just finished defeating the Third Kazekage's puppet. Sasori was easily the toughest opponent that the two had faced. Aiko had delivered the final blow and burnt the puppet to bits. Both, Ino and Suzume were covered in sweat and their bodies had cuts and bruises from fighting the Fourth Kazekage.

"I haven't had to do this since I joined the Akatsuki." Sasori says taking off his cloak. A metal blade fan stuck out from behind the puppet on each side and a retractable poisonous harpoon rope was present where his abdomen should be. He pointed his arms towards the two and blazing hot fire came out of his palms.

"Earth Style: Mud Wall!" Ino yelled erecting a mud wall to protect Suzume and herself. Suzume jumped up on the wall. "Water Style: Water Bomb Jutsu!" Suzume yelled spitting a huge amount of water from her mouth towards Sasori as soon as the attack was over she jumped back behind the wall next to Ino. Sasori then started shooting water at a high speed at the two. The water managed to cut through Ino's wall which led to the two running in opposite directions. As soon as Sasori saw that the two had separate, he shot his poisonous harpoon towards Suzume and used the fans to fly towards Ino. He was inches away from Ino, when he realized that he couldn't move. Suzume had caught the rope of his harpoon and pulled it. The poison had no affect on her as she had already taken the antidote to it.

"Ino now!" Suzume shouted. Ino nodded."Earth Style: Stone Fist Jutsu!" She shouted, punching Sasori in the stomach. Sasori flew backwards towards Suzume, falling apart. Sasori landed about ten feet behind Suzume. As soon as his body hit the ground, it turned into a bunch of pieces. Suzume turned to Ino, but as soon as she did that, Sasori's puppet rebuilt itself and flew really fast towards Suzume with a blade in hand. Ino appeared between the two to protect Suzume and the sword pierced her stomach. Instantly, Suzume's eyes widened at this and as if on instinct, she plunged her kunai through Sasori's heart. Sasori fell down, he couldn't control himself. His heart had been destroyed. He died there peacefully. A few seconds later, Ino fell down, the sword was still stuck inside of her, blood was coming out of her mouth.

Naruto had just finished fixing Gaara's seal. He took down the barrier and his wood clone was carrying the unconscious Kazekage. The first thing that he saw was that the whole cave was destroyed. He spotted Suzume and ran towards her as soon as he got near, he saw Ino lying down on her side while Suzume was checking her. He approached them and saw the sword piercing Ino. He ran to her side.

"Suzume, what is her condition!" He shouted looking at the unconscious Yamanaka. He was trying to calm himself but couldn't contain himself. He could never forgive himself if anything happened to his flower girl. He mentally cursed himself for taking so long to fix the seal. He thought that maybe if he was fast, she would not have gotten hurt.

"Her condition is stable, Anija. Neko can heal her as soon as he arrives. She has just fainted due to chakra exhaustion. Calm down." As soon as he heard that she was going to be fine, all of his worries faded. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He gently caressed the unconscious girl's cheek before getting up. As if on cue Neko and Kakashi arrived.

"Holy shit, what happened here?" Neko asked, looking at the great destruction caused by the battle.

"Neko we don't have time for that, could you heal her quickly?" Suzume asked Neko. She knew that this girl meant a lot to her brother. Her brother had told her a lot about Ino and his past life.

"Yeah." Neko said rushing over to Ino and healing her injuries. After a while he fully healed Ino.

"Dobe, she will be unconscious for a while due to chakra exhaustion. While I check Gaara, tell Kakashi, he knows." Neko said, walking over to Gaara.

"What does he know?" Kitsune asked.

"He knows it's us and don't worry, he'll not tell anyone. I don't want to explain such a long story so just tell him everything that happed after our battle at The Valley of The End." He said while checking Gaara's vitals.

"Kakashi-sensei now is not the time, but I do promise that I'll explain everything to you and Baa-chan later." Kitsune said.

"Fine." Kakashi knew he could not argue with him so he gave up.

Gaara had finally woken up and Naruto was carrying Ino piggy back style. They were just exiting the Akatsuki hideout and were going to meet up with team Asuma. After a while they met up with Asuma who said that he had taken out some Ame ninjas that attacked them. Team Asuma offered to carry Ino, but Kitsune was adamant on carrying her. They had been travelling for about two hours, and suddenly Kitsune felt Ino move a bit.

"Mhm, you are way comfier than my pillow, Whiskers." She murmured sleepily before wrapping her hands tightly around him and snuggling into his neck.

"Sleep well, Ino-chan." He whispered back and smiled from underneath his mask. They were going to reach Suna in a few hours and He wanted her to rest peacefully till they reached Suna. He looked at her face and couldn't help but smile at his cute girlfriend sleeping. _

A/N:

Another chapter down. The chapter turned out to be longer than expected, so let me know if it was too long. I know that Naruto didn't fight in this chapter, but sealing a tailed beast is a very hard job to do. The next two chapters will be about invading Orochimaru's lair. How were the Akatsuki fight scenes? Please review.

Special thanks to the people reviewing and answering my questions as it gives me a better idea on what y'all like to read and I make the next chapter according to the answers and comments.

Before I forget, I have to answer the Guest reader who left a review: You are right that the village cannot banish their jinchuriki, but they can put him behind bars and torture him, it was done with Shukaku's previous jinchuriki. Another thing is that the council cannot override the Hokage but they can and have gone behind his/her back.

Now the main questions:

1) What should I do with Orochimaru? Should I kill him or let him live?

2) Should Jiraya be present in the Leaf when Naruto reveals to Tsunade that he's alive?

3) Who should accompany Team Uzu when they are going to meet up with Sasori's spy?

Peace!