A/N: I'm glad to hear that the majority of you don't feel that I've rushed Satsuki's emotional attachment. My plans for the trajectory of NaruSatsuki as a pairing aren't linear to begin with (in the sense that it won't be joyous for a decent chunk of what remains), so I'm glad the current state of things feels organic.

ALSO: Satsuki vs Gaara, this chapter's basis, will be the longest fight in the fic, as it'll be overlapping with a bunch of other stuff that'll be happening simultaneously. It will also have lasting implications for Satsuki's development.

Time for Chapter 47

Enjoy!


Satsuki had long come to understand Naruto's utter aversion to Gaara, or so she had thought. The mere knowledge of the Suna boy's disturbing hobbies had been enough to make him off putting. And yet, as she approached him from across the arena, a new, more potent empathy for Naruto's extreme response took root in her. Every step she took in his direction was in direct opposition to her body's natural instinct. Her gut was telling her to turn tail and run. Her deepest intuition had labeled him a threat. A predator.

It was his eyes, more than anything else. Though he wore a derisive smile, it fell short of his irises. Pale blue and lacking pupils, there was something disturbingly vacant about them. A missing piece that kept his gaze from feeling human. No doubt, Naruto had sensed the same thing, and it had shaken him. In Satsuki's case, she had no room to be unsettled. She would be overcoming her apprehension the old fashioned way. Cracking her neck as she finally reached the proctor and Jinchuuriki, she maintained a steely glare as Gaara looked on in amusement.

The crowd was deafening. Apparently, they had been saving their enthusiasm for this moment in particular. It made some degree of sense. It was the best of one village against the best of another. Tensions were bound to be high. Shutting out the noise as best she could, Satsuki awaited formal instructions, which they soon received.

"I won't bother with explaining the rules to either of you. Instead, I'll just make a request." the proctor began, eyeing both genin, namely Gaara, intently.

"Keep things contained. Play as rough as you want, but don't endanger the crowd." he said. Though he said nothing, the Jinchuuriki let an ominous chuckle slip out. Having said his piece, Genma gestured for the pair to take their respective positions several meters back. As they did so, Satsuki never broke eye contact with Gaara. One lengthy pause later, the proctor gave the signal.

"You may begin!" he yelled out to the overwhelming approval of the crowd. Wasting no time, the Uchiha's dojutsu flared to life. During her preparation, she had gained a second tomoe in her left eye, giving her a matching pair. Folding her right arm behind her back and extending her left hand out with an upturned palm, Satsuki assumed a stance that clearly struck a chord of familiarity in Gaara.

"You do realize that I left Rock Lee in a broken heap, don't you? Allusion won't do you any favors." he said humorously. The leaf genin widened the placement of her feet slightly.

"I'm my own woman, but…" she said, cutting herself off halfway through by vanishing from view. When she reappeared, she was mere feet from Gaara on his left side. Before the redhead could even turn to face her, Satsuki slammed her fist into the side of his jaw and sent him crashing to the ground a fair distance away.

"...I'll stick with what works." she finished, her tone deadly serious. The redhead slowly rose up to his feet. Her punch had done no visible damage. Chances were, she had caught him off guard, and nothing more. Sand then erupted from his guard, swirling around him in a rhythmic dance. A tendril shot out from the cloud, heading directly for the Uchiha. Satsuki easily evaded it with a vertical jump, launching several shuriken mid-motion.

As expected, Gaara's sand caught and crushed the projectiles, but his defenses were unable to shield him from the forceful knee that the leaf genin drove into his kidney from behind. Of the numerous benefits afforded by the sharingan, the art of perfect mimicry was perhaps its most useful. It had granted her, albeit with countless hours of practice, a level of speed completely eclipsing what she had previously been capable of. Stumbling forward from the impact, Gaara growled slightly as Satsuki struck him again, this time with a short hooking punch as he turned around again.

Choosing to be cautious, Satsuki decided against attempting to hit him for a third time and quickly retreated. Her choice had been a sharp one, as Gaara's always-active wall of sand crashed down on her previous position less than a second after her departure. The first several engagements had been telling. First and foremost, she was fast enough to get in and get out safely. Second, that gap in speed likely granted her defensive leeway. Finally, and more concerningly, her strikes did not appear to be doing much more than irritating the Jinchuuriki. His face was still unmarked despite the pair of clean punches she had landed on it.

Circling around to a different angle, the raven-haired girl blitzed in once again. Her initial approach was linear, and she sold it as such just long enough to draw Gaara's sand in front of him. Mere inches before making contact with the volatile barrier, Satsuki altered her course and flickered left. The change of trajectory managed to get her by the redhead's first line of defense, but when she attempted to strike him, Gaara surprised her by catching her fist just before it could touch him.

Reacting within the miniscule window she had, Satsuki injected a dose of her own streamlined chakra into him through their hands, causing the Jinchuuriki to jolt and release her. The Uchiha then leapt up and kicked off his chest to return to a safe distance. As she flew back, a thin arm of sand whipped her on the cheek, opening a small cut. Flinching slightly, Satsuki made a successful landing and rebounded backward off the ground. Every grain of Gaara's sand was sharp and serrated.

She was given little time to rest, as a wave of sand soon came crashing toward her at a far higher speed than before. Dashing left, Satsuki was forced to focus purely on her positioning and proximity to the wall. Should she allow herself to be trapped, she would likely be badly injured, if not killed outright. The sand altered its course to chase after her, pursuing her relentlessly across the wide space of the arena. Gaara himself was standing inert, not a hint of effort in his posture.

'He isn't even using chakra to move the sand. What is he?' Satsuki pondered as she outmaneuvered the predatory wave. Finally finding a clear path unobstructed by sand, the Uchiha girl pushed hard off of her back leg and crossed the distance between herself and Gaara in the blink of an eye. Suddenly face to face, Satsuki struck first with a spiteful punch to the pit of the Jinchuuriki's stomach that doubled him over. Seizing every inch of real estate at hand, the Uchiha pulled his head down into the point of her knee. Finally, Gaara showed visible effects from the punishment, as his knees dipped ever so slightly.

Risking her safety, Satsuki waited a half-beat for the redhead to fix his posture before snapping his head back with a punch that caught him between the eyes. Forced back a step, Gaara scowled and clamped one of his hands into a fist. Every ounce of his sand then came crashing in from all directions. Realizing just a touch too late that she had miscalculated in terms of timing, Satsuki was forced to improvise in order to avoid being crushed.

As the sand poured in and smashed the ground where she had once stood, the leaf genin swapped herself out for a nearby log, switching places with it at the last possible moment. Breathing deep to calm her pounding heart, Satsuki stepped out from the shadow of the tree she now found herself beneath.

'Learning it sucked, but substitution comes in handy sometimes.' she silently mused, offering a wry smirk to Gaara as he located her again with a turn of his head. At long last, a remnant of the work she had done showed on the redhead's face in the form of a bloody nose. She had made her mark, but even so, it was becoming clear that hand-to-hand engagement could only act as a supplementary tactic. It would take far longer than her stamina enabled to significantly damage him with taijutsu.

Thankfully, Gaara had yet to pressure her outside of a single short burst, and even then, she was more than quick enough to avoid the worst of what his sand could offer. Altering her plans slightly, Satsuki threw together a short sequence of hand seals and extended her right palm toward Gaara. Her body flared to life with crackling blue electricity. She had yet to use the jutsu in live combat, but now was a better time than any to change that fact.

"Lightning Style: Depth Charge." she uttered calmly. A split second later, a volatile bolt of concentrated lightning flew forth from her body, aimed right at Gaara's chest. In half the time it took a person to blink, the blast crossed the arena and caused a small-scale explosion that enveloped the area containing the Jinchuuriki. A shockwave of wind sent Satsuki's hair whipping back.

As the dirt and dust cleared away from the blast, an odd sight came into view. Rather than a body or a puddle of blood, there was a dome of sand. Much of the outer surface of the new structure had been melted into a molten glass, and the ground around it was blackened. Pushing down the pride she felt in the force she had generated, Satsuki observed cautiously as the shell crumbled away into its prior form, revealing Gaara within its walls. Somehow, despite the near-instantaneous speed of her jutsu, the Jinchuuriki's sand had shielded him.

Though he was not wounded, slight twitches were visible in Gaara's frame periodically. The blast had not hit him, but its residual effects were paying dividends. Depth Charge, alongside one other jutsu, was easily the most potent technique Kakashi had imparted upon Satsuki during the month-long gap between rounds. Damaging, fast-acting, and relatively low-cost for its power, it was an excellent pressuring tool from a distance.

"You're not what I'm here for, but I'll give you the same treatment." Gaara said darkly, folding his arms across his chest. He looked unbothered, even after having been so narrowly saved by his sand, which had resumed floating around him. Giving no response of her own, Satsuki's form flickered amid the rapid beeline she made to weave around behind him. When she attempted to punch him in the back of the head, however, her wrist was caught by a tendril of sand.

"You may have Lee's speed, but unlike him, you're predictable." Gaara sneered, not bothering to turn and face her. Unable to free herself in time, Satsuki was lifted high into the air and whipped in several circles before being slammed onto her back in the dirt. Coughing painfully as a small sum of blood flew from her mouth, the Uchiha made a frantic scramble to free herself from the grip of Gaara's sand. She managed to succeed in doing so, but not before feeling a bone in her forearm crack. Clenching her jaw and backpedaling, Satsuki managed to avoid a swipe from the same arm of sand.

Her arm was in fairly significant pain, but flexing the hand, she found that the injury was minor enough for the limb to still be usable with some caution. Settling in at a comfortably long distance, she took a moment to regroup.

'I need to mix up my entries. He'll splatter me if he gets hold of me one or two more times.' she thought to herself. Naruto had been right to consider the redhead dangerous. Even now, several minutes into a serious fight, it was obvious that he was hardly worried. Simple blitzkrieg would not be enough. She would need to strike decisively. Blowing a strand of hair out of her face, the Uchiha girl took on Lee's taijutsu stance again.

'I'll show you just how 'unpredictable' I can be, you freak.'


Kakashi kept his hands tightly clasped in his lap as he watched Satsuki walk an incredibly fine line. The tactics they had devised were working well, but the margins were nerve-breakingly thin. She was flirting with intense danger each and every time she stepped in to strike Gaara, and while she was largely succeeding in threading that needle, there had been several close calls, and she had nearly lost an arm already.

"Not sure if I've ever told you this, but you're a hell of a teacher. You turned both her and Naruto into monsters." Shikamaru said with a whistle as Satsuki kicked Gaara's legs out from under him and let him fall onto a harsh knee to the chest. Though he would have liked to show a smile, the Jonin was far too focused on the battle below.

"You didn't do too bad yourself. She hasn't won yet, though. This is a long way from guaranteed." he said. Shikamaru nodded in agreement.

"She's tagging him whenever she commits to it, but it doesn't seem like she's hurting him much." he commented in tandem with Satsuki planting her shin across the right side of Gaara's ribs and cracking him with a sharp hook on the opposite side. Kakashi stroked his masked chin.

"He's like a fly trap. Unresponsive until you get too close, and then he lashes out. You'd think a style like his would be easy to take apart, but he's so potent in those moments that his opponents inevitably have to slow their own pace down unless they want to get a leg ripped off." he said analytically. Satsuki then narrowly avoided a swinging tendril of sand that crashed into the far wall, splitting the stone like glass.

"She's only tried out that huge thunder cannon so far. Well, that and Phoenix Flower a minute ago. I get why she's being conservative, but she'll wear herself out beating on him at this rate." Shikamaru said. It was a fair point, one that had already crossed Kakashi's mind, but there was little that could be done about it. Satsuki still possessed several weapons that she had yet to flash, but only one of them was worth the energy it would cost.

"Depth Charge is worth some investment, but she needs to land it clean. Slamming it into his sand isn't going to do her any favors." he replied. Shikamaru eyed his teacher intently.

"You know way more jutsu than any sane person should, you know." he said, seemingly in response to learning the name of the technique Satsuki had utilized. Kakashi laughed a bit.

"They don't call me the Copy Ninja for nothing, kid. I've been around for a while." he said with a shake of his head. The crowd then broke out into cheers, prompting the student and teacher to focus on the match once again. Satsuki had managed to drive a kunai into one of Gaara's shoulders, and had electrocuted him with the steel blade as a conductor.

"You'd think all the shock therapy would be taking a toll by now." Shikamaru said as his teammate skillfully maneuvered her way to safety in the face of the redhead's retaliation. Kakashi narrowed his eyes slightly as Gaara shook off the electrical caning he had endured. He was fully recovered within seconds. His durability and recuperation were unnatural. Surviving Rock Lee's brutal assault had been the first indicator that the boy was far from normal, but that day's events had only hammered that point home further.

"I've had my concerns since the preliminary round, but I'm sure of it now." he said, earning a look of puzzlement from the Nara at his side.

"Sounds like you've got a theory." he pressed. The Jonin nodded and focused his sharingan. Only possessing a single eye out of the ocular pair somewhat impaired his ability to accurately judge the follow of chakra, but it could reveal abnormalities rather easily. As he stared deep into Gaara's well of chakra in detail for the first time, he was struck by two things. Firstly, his reserves were absolutely enormous. Easily as vast as Naruto's. Secondly, his chakra did not appear as the consistent blue shade it should have.

While a fair amount of it was azure in color, it was interspersed nearly evenly with a bloody orange mixture that was nearly identical to Naruto's invocation of his inner demon. His suspicions had been correct, if his eye was telling the truth.

"He's a Jinchuuriki. Just like Naruto." he said. Shikamaru's eyes widened slightly. His expression was certainly one of surprise, but there was no disbelief to be found in his visage.

"How sure are you?" he asked after a few moments of hesitation. Kakashi leaned back in his seat and wiped the sweat from his palms.

"I'm not sure how much you know about international politics, but Tailed Beasts are treated as something of a bargaining chip. Even the weakest of them are terrifying weapons. Before our time, arrangements were made for each Hidden Village to have at least one under their control at a time. That's what the Jinchuuriki are for." he began, taking a deep breath between thoughts.

"To cut a long, complicated story short, it stands to reason that Suna would seal their beast into somebody, and that boy's chakra looks a whole lot like Naruto's. It's too convenient to be a coincidence." he concluded. Shikamaru did not respond immediately. When he did, he posed a simple, yet painful question.

"Why do you know all of this?" he inquired. A rush of unpleasant memories flooded across Kakashi's psyche for the briefest of moments before he forcefully repressed them.

"I've done some unsavory work." he said shortly. Clearly realizing that he would not receive any more information on the topic, Shikamaru shifted the topic.

"So, they ruined Naruto's life for the sake of power brokering?" he asked. Kakashi sighed and chewed his lower lip absently.

"There's more to it in his case. It's not a story you need to know." he said. The Nara stared down into the arena, his face unreadable.

"Naruto deserves to know anything you do." he shot back. The Jonin exhaled through his nose. He wasn't wrong. Not in the slightest.

"I'd have sat him down and answered his questions by now if it were that easy. I have obligations outside of you three." he said vaguely, squinting and turning his head away a bit as Satsuki unleashed a fireball to intercept a torrent of Gaara's sand. Surprisingly, Shikamaru said nothing. He kept his comments to himself, and glued his eyes to the match. Joining him in silence, Kakashi returned his gaze to Satsuki.

'Always calling my bluff. Never change, Shikamaru.'


A wave of crushing sediment smashed into the ground in hot pursuit of Satsuki as the girl performed a roundoff to maintain the precious space between her and the sand. She had managed to economically avoid being maimed or killed for an upwards of fifteen minutes, and for as internally proud of herself as she was, her reflexes and instincts had yet to dull for even a moment. She was in grave danger each and every second.

Rebounding from her landing in the opposite direction, Satsuki made a hand seal. Several identical copies of her formed at her sides. Scrambling the line to conceal herself, the Uchiha girl grinned as her basic diversion paid dividends. Three of her four illusory clones were picked off by the Jinchuuriki's sand immediately, and by the time the fourth had been destroyed, she was far too deep behind enemy lines for Gaara to correct the trajectory of his attacks.

Planting her feet directly in front of him, Satsuki showed him a half-hearted punch from her right side. Reacting as many novice close-quarters combatants did, Gaara made an exaggerated duck to his left, and when he did, Satsuki met his dipping head with a whipping kick that caught him clean on the temple. The strike turned out to be far and away the most significant of the fight up to that point, as Gaara was forced to drop down to one knee for a second or two.

Satsuki was afforded no time at all to follow up on her greatest success, as her foe's sand came barreling in with great speed to defend its owner before she could land another blow. Launching herself backwards, the Uchiha felt frustration bubbling up within her as Gaara stood up straight again and rubbed the side of his head. He had fully recovered mere seconds after having been genuinely staggered.

'Every time I get something going, I have to move before I can do anything.' she thought in irritation. Worse yet, she knew all too well that Gaara would be exceptionally difficult to finish off regardless. He had survived far worse than anything she had inflicted upon him. Her success was consistent, but it was beginning to feel pointless. Damage was worthless if it did nothing to increase her chances of victory.

'I could try Depth Charge again, but unless I line it up from a blind spot that he probably doesn't have, he'll just block it. All I've got left is…' she thought to herself, taking inventory of her limited options. Her final choice was certainly her most likely to be truly effective, but it was incredibly draining. It was a double-edged sword, to say the least. The longer she considered it, the more she came to realize that it was less of a question of 'if', and more of 'when' she would need to resort to her trump card.

Her hair had become damp with sweat from the effort of maintaining the blistering pace required to keep the Jinchuuriki neutralized. She was beginning to tire, if only slightly. Slicking back the dark bangs that framed her face, Satsuki glanced up at the high-reaching wall of the arena. There was little chance that Gaara would allow her to gather the chakra needed. He was far too opportunistic. Distance and distraction were her clearest routes to success. Reaching down into her kunai pouch, the leaf genin rummaged through her dwindling supplies.

Within seconds, she found what she was looking for. A flash bomb. It had been an extremely expensive buy, having cost her well over half of her average paycheck, but as it were, the small explosive was the lynch pin to the tactic she had in mind. Gripping the spherical bomb in her left hand, Satsuki squeezed down until she heard a slight popping sound, and then tossed it up into the air. Immediately turning in the opposite direction, the Uchiha sprinted into a jump that carried her up into the center of the wall.

The flash went off as she was sailing through the air, and lasted for several seconds. Using her chakra to stick herself to the vertical slab, Satsuki whipped through a short series of hand signs, dropping to one knee and gripping her left wrist. Now facing toward Gaara again, she saw that her tactic had been successful, as the redhead was gripping his eyes with bared teeth. He would regain his sight soon, and timing was of the essence. Intense blue and white electricity crackled in Satsuki's palm, spreading outward and encasing her entire hand within seconds.

Once it was in full swing, the mass of raw chakra began emitting a high-pitched scream that was reminiscent of an enormous flock of chirping birds. Rearing her supercharged right arm behind her, Satsuki blasted down the wall at a speed she could hardly control. Had it not been for the heightened perception granted to her by her dojutsu, she would have been flying completely blind. Hitting the ground in a fraction of a second, the Uchiha tore across the arena with Gaara in her sights.

Despite regaining his vision before the impact came, it was far too late for the Jinchuuriki to react, as the girl was already upon him.

"Chidori!" she bellowed, her voice drowned out to all but Gaara by the wail of her devastating jutsu.

In one brutal motion, Satsuki drove her arm straight through Gaara's left shoulder.


A/N: Alright, so a good chunk of you said that you preferred morning updates, so I will be implementing that rule starting on Tuesday. This chapter is a night update simply because I wanted to ensure that you all get three updates this week :)

So, yeah. Satsuki vs Gaara will be very long. Things have only just begun. I hope I managed to capture some of the tension. I promise there will be more dialogue between them next chapter.

(Also, Lightning Style: Depth Charge is from a filler episode of the anime from the war arc. Thought it was cool, so I gave it to Satsuki in this fic)

Once again, I really appreciate feedback on fight scenes, because it helps me know if I'm invoking the right atmosphere and choreography.

Leave me a review if you're able. As I always say, I read them all, and they make me happy :)

See you Tuesday morning!

I love you all

Read and Review!