Chapter 9

Kurotsuchi shook her head to get rid of the fuzzies and turned around to glare at the individual still standing tall and proud in front of her. There was a dribble of blood coming down from the corner of her forehead. The scratch was superficial, but it was bleeding a lot. Her worst injury was the disorientation from having just been exploded in front of. If she were a foot closer to the puppet when it detonated, her injuries would have been a lot worse.

Spitting the bile that had accumulated in her mouth out, Kurotsuchi braced herself and held her katana in front of her body as straight as she could. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see civilians fleeing the scene, holding themselves up and dusting each other off as they fled. It made her feel good that she was of some help, but up against exploding automatons… well, that wasn't exactly something she had braced herself before when training her skills. There wasn't much she could do to incapacitate a walking bomb.

Not unless she got real crafty.

Its mouth clacked open and she was immediately assaulted with poisoned needles. Faster than her brain could think, Kurotsuchi's hands were on the ground with chakra flowing through them. A wall of earth came up just in time to stop the first needles from hitting her. With not even time to let go of the breath she had been holding, a hand grabbed the edge of her wall and flung the rest of its body around, other arm outreached with a wicked dagger in its hand. Kurotsuchi grabbed her sword from the ground and brought it up to parry away the dagger.

Again and again, it came at her with a suicidal glee that was gone from most other opponents. She could only barely avoid the dagger that came at her, the poisoned needles that launched from various points on its body, and the wood reinforced punches and kicks that came from it like a tidal wave. She could barely get an attack out and eventually felt herself being backed up against the wall to a residence.

There were a few things she had gleaned from her dance with the first puppet. The first being that they didn't take environmental factors into mind when attacking.

Kurotsuchi ducked underneath a jab and before it could react, grabbed the handle of the door she was pressed next to, and turned it down. When the puppet wound up to stab her, she flung the door open and clocked it in the side. Despite its mechanical nature, whenever it was presented with new information it would stall out for a fraction of a second. Kurotsuchi used this short period of time to whip her sword around, cutting both of its arms off at the elbow, and kicked it in the chest. It flew back to the ground and kicked up a cloud of dust, completely unable to right itself.

The second thing she gleaned was that the puppets tended towards the nuclear option when threatened.

She slapped both her palms to the ground as quick as she could and turned the earth underneath both dismembered arms into a quicksand-like substance, then solidified the earth as soon as they were submerged. The arms exploded, but at least the impact was directed upwards instead of outwards this time, sparing Kurotsuchi more consternation.

When she turned around to face the hobbling remainder of the puppet, she re-steadied her form. This time, her arms weren't shaking as her chest swelled with newfound confidence. She was ready for battle. She was ready to bury that fucking puppet.

What she wasn't ready for was for it to cock its head to the side and for its mouth to clack shut. Its eyes went from unfocused and dull to almost humanlike. "Hmm…" it droned out mechanically. "You're one of the girls aren't you?"

Her eyes widened from surprise. "How…" she said slowly, very wary of every movement it made. "No, what do you know?"

There was a sick mechanical crunching whir as its chest shuddered. It took Kurotsuchi a second to realize it was laughing. "About as much as the layman. Enough to know that you're… special."

Kurotsuchi's skin bristled as it spoke.

"I believe you know my partner… a rather loud fellow with an unstable appreciation of art."

Her blood went cold. Not Deidara. It couldn't be.

The puppet's wooden, segmented chest clacked away and fell off showing a viscous white underbelly attached to the entire skeleton. It was Deidara's special clay explosive, all but confirming her fears.

"What are you doing here?" she growled out. "Who paid for this?"

The puppet chuckled again, making her want to tear out her ears. "I think I've spoken enough."

Kurotsuchi redoubled the grip on her sword. "To fighting then?"

The puppet shook its head. "I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to stall you. Honestly, with everything in disarray, we agreed that it would be best to complete our mission and nothing more. Overstepping might do more harm than good, after all. And we just completed our mission. There's nothing more you can do. He's dead now."

Kurotsuchi gulped. "Who?"

Just as she asked that question, a wave of intense, nauseating fear and hatred assaulted every sense she knew. It was similar to the one she felt when Naruto and Yugito went haywire a couple days ago, but so much worse. Like an already caustic force turned downright insidious. Looking up, she saw a slight red haze over a certain part of the city.

The feeling was so bad that even the puppet took notice. "This… was unexpected. But then again, we're not the ones who need to clean this mess up. You're th-"

The puppet was unable to finish its sentence due to the hyper pressurized stream of water that crashed into its chest and obliterated it down to dust, not even letting the clay the time to explode.

Mei landed next to Kurotsuchi and stared at the trench in the earth that her jutsu caused. She put a hand on Kurotsuchi's shoulder and gently asked "Can you move on?"

Kurotsuchi shook her head, gulped down the bile and nodded. "What… what is this? Do you know what's happening?"

Mei shook her head. "If only. However, I've an uncanny feeling that a mutual acquaintance of ours is in need of our help."

Kurotsuchi sheathed her sword and looked up at the red haze. Mei was completely serious now. Rather than making her feel safe, it just compounded the utter wrongness of the whole situation.

"Whoever's responsible," Mei said. "This isn't good."

Kurotsuchi shook her head. "Nothing ever is."

00000000

Temari scooted away as Naruto flickered his way into the street. Her insides were churning over themselves, screaming at her to get away from that eldritch horror, but her muscles were locked in fright. How could something like that even exist? How could something of that magnitude of complete and utter corruption be alive?

How could it be Naruto?

The debris in front of the store he emerged from shifted around and a charred and dusted Fu stumbled out, holding her stomach with one arm and holding onto a pole with the other. The arm around her stomach was stained red with blood. "Naruto…" she gasped, barely audible.

He paid her no mind and instead set his sights to the dusty ground. Like a jackhammer cranked to its highest setting, his arms blurred as they impacted the ground over and over again. Rocks and dirt flew away from him at such high velocities that they might have been considered bullets.

Seeing Fu injured was enough of an impetus on her body to move. Temari scrambled up and away from the cloud of dust that Naruto was becoming and rushed her way over the tanned girl. Temari hooked Fu's free arm over her shoulder and carried her over to a standing wall, setting her down as gingerly as she could.

"Where are you hurt?" Temari asked worriedly. She didn't have any first aid kits on her. Hell, the only thing she had was her war fan and a couple of kunai. How could she have known and prepared for an invasion?

Fu shoved Temari off with a surprising amount of force behind it. "I'm… fine," she gasped out. "You have… to stop him."

Temari looked behind her. Where Naruto had been, there was now only a hole in the ground that spat out dirt and chunks of rock and metal. Her experience with her youngest brother's rampages had taught her that staying the hell away from him when he went mental was the best idea possible. Trying to stop him was tantamount to suicide at that point.

Shaking her head, Temari said "No. Right now, you're the priority. Move your arm."

Fu's nose curled up from frustration. "I told you… I'm fine. If we don't stop him…" She trailed off, but even as she spoke, her arm fell away from her stomach, showing a ragged cut going cleanly across it. It wasn't deep enough to cause internal trouble, but it definitely wasn't superficial.

Temari cursed under her breath and starting ripping off stretches of her kimono to act as bandages. Although the cut didn't look good, it shouldn't have been enough to make Fu nearly unable to move. Had she also hit her head?

"He…" Fu started. "He took some of Chomei's chakra."

"Who's Chomei?" Temari asked, laying the strips of cloth over the bleeding wound somewhat haphazardly.

"The… Seven tailed beetle. Kurama's… er, the nine tailed fox's special ability is that it can share its chakra and detect malice. Something… must have gone wrong. When Chomei tried to share her chakra, something took a hold of it and ripped some away. He went past stage two and is already at a partial transformation."

Temari's head swam with the new information. "So what do we do? Just wait for it go away on its own?"

Fu slowly shook her head. "I think… I'm too weak. I acted as a medium for the chakra and I got overloaded. And the… the chakra doesn't go away on its own. He's going to be like that until the chakra gets expelled somehow."

"And how do we do that?" The bandages were in place and tied up. They were quickly getting logged with blood, but not at the rate that Temari would have thought. The Jinchuuriki might heal quicker than normal humans, but they still needed rest. Fu was out of the fight for now.

"I don't know. He's not of the right mind right now. The only thing he reacts to is hatred right now. You have to fight him. You have to make him use his strength so that he can grow weaker."

"I have to fight him? Listen, I'm not a pushover, but Jinchuuriki are on a different level for me. They are for everyone. That's why they were made."

Fu practically growled out of frustration. "If left to his own devices… you don't know how much havoc a Jinchuuriki can wreak on a population."

Oh, but she did. She knew all too well.

Temari gulped and took a hold of her war fan. Turning around to face the hole that was now quiet, she felt fear enter her limbs. Her father wasn't there anymore to soothe Gaara and save her and the village. If the people of the hidden leaf were to have any chance, she was going to have to risk her life down there to fight her husband. And she still didn't know where her brother was.

There were two subsequent thumps to her side. Turning, Temari saw the stoic face of Mei and the ashen one of Kurotsuchi. "What's the situation?" Mei asked in her leader voice.

Temari's spine straightened out of reflex. "Naruto took some of Fu's chakra and is now in a… partial transformation into her tailed beast, I think. He's crazy and dug a hole. If we don't stop him, he could go on a rampage on the civilians."

"Any information on the people perpetrating the invasion?"

Temari looked at a stray puppet appendage. "…These puppets are definitely sand make, but we didn't do this. It has to be an outside source."

"Are there any missing ninja who have the capabilities to pull this off?"

Temari shook her head and looked down. "I… I don't know. There are a few missing ninja puppeteers, but none who could do this."

"And also," Kurotsuchi interrupted. "There's also Deidara, so this is officially an attack from the akatsuki."

"Who's Deidara?" Temari asked.

"A terrorist psychopath who can blow shit up by using his hands to eat clay," Kurotsuchi said with little emotion in her voice. "He's also the guy who nearly killed me when I was a kid when he escaped the village. A few of my friends weren't as lucky as I was."

"And if he's here…" Mei started, staring at the hole dug by Naruto.

"Then we're in deep shit," Kurotsuchi finished.

Mei clapped her hands and began walking to the hole. "No time like the present. Let's go."

Kurotsuchi looked from the hole to her a few times in confusion. "Excuse me, what's the plan?"

"Naruto made that hole," Temari said. "We're going after him."

"And if he's in monster mode right now, then we're dead."

"Not necessarily," Fu wheezed out.

Everyone looked at the pained girl expectantly. "He was... he was after something, or someone. I think he might have a bead on Deidara or whoever. He can sense hate, after all."

Kurotsuchi and Temari shared a look. "I'm pretty sure more than just the baddies are feeling hate right about now."

Fu shook her head. "It's not… like that. Just… go. He could be in grave danger."

Kurotsuchi could still feel the lingering sense of overwhelming hatred. If she got close to whatever was making it, she couldn't be sure she would be able to even move, much less fight. But even so, she felt compelled to go after him anyway. She walked up to the hole and peered in. After a few feet, all light vanished and was consumed by a pitch black. Going down there would be a leap of faith.

Did she have faith in him?

While she was mentally contemplating this, Mei had already lowered herself halfway down the hole. Mei acted like it was such a natural occurrence that Kurotsuchi was taken by surprise. "What are you doing?" she asked.

Mei paused and sighed. "Are you going to help, or not? Either way, I'm saving him. You do whatever you want. It's not like I'm your commanding officer."

"But why are you helping him?" Kurotsuchi asked.

Mei's face went stone cold and she stared Kurotsuchi straight in the eyes. "Have you ever been to war?" Not waiting for an answer, Mei looked away and started descending again. "I have. Sooner or later, you stop caring about lines or allegiances. You just want people to stop suffering. I don't care if his dad killed your mom or whatever. If he can be saved, you can be damn well sure I'll be saving him."

And with that, her amber hair vanished into the dark. Temari stepped up next and peered distastefully downwards. She sighed ruefully and started climbing down as well.

"You too?" Kurotsuchi asked. "You don't have any reason to save him."

"He's my brother's best friend," Temari answered quickly. "He's the one who saved him. He might not be the smartest or most mature, but he doesn't give up on people. What would I be if did any less?"

"Completely justified?"

Temari gave her a half-lidded look. "If you're scared, feel free to stay behind and help in other ways. Honestly, I'm not too sure how much help I'm going to be down here and trying might just be me being foolish. But sometimes, people have the right to act foolishly."

Her sandy head vanished into the darkness next. Kurotsuchi could still feel the animosity in the air. How were they able to move so surely?

Kurotsuchi turned around to look at Fu. Her eyelids were flickering from the exhaustion, but she had no doubt in her mind that that girl would also jump in that hole without a moment's notice either. They couldn't be selfless, could they? They were ninja. They weren't supposed to trust each other.

That being said, Naruto had something about him that made her feel a certain gravitation towards him. Maybe it was the 'never giving up' when it came to people. Such a simple sounding ideal, yet something also so rare in the world.

Would he jump after her if the scenario were switched?

Absolutely.

Would she do the same for him?

Kurotsuchi grumbled a little bit unhappily to herself as she lowered herself down into the hole.

00000000

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH-ACK!"

Kurotsuchi painfully got up and rubbed her sore ass, which had just fallen about six feet downwards. Luckily, the fall had missed her tailbone, but a sore ass was never a pleasant feeling. As soon as she tried to get breath, her nose was clogged with the overwhelming stench of feces. It was so bad that she had to cover the entire lower half of her face with her hands, not that it did much.

She was poked twice on either side of the bridge of her nose and suddenly all scent was gone. Her eyes blinked open and she slowly released her face from her own hold. There was a floating, ephemeral light holding in place, casting a blue glow on Mei and Temari.

"So you decided to come down?" Temari asked.

"Where are we?" Kurotsuchi asked, ignoring the question entirely.

"Sewers, probably," Mei said. "Poor visibility, poor footing, tight hallways, sharp corners… I won't lie, this very well could be a death trap. We're just lucky that Konoha has good sewers, else we'd be knee deep. Literally."

Kurotsuchi looked at the ground she was on. It was stained, paved stone next to a river of village waste. It was set up in such a way that they could perform maintenance whenever they pleased without opening up the streets. A good sewage system was practically a must for any metropolitan area, but Kurotsuchi had never even heard of such sophisticated development. Her village was reliant on there being a slope under the city to carry away the sewage using gravity. And if there was ever a clog…

She shook her head. This wasn't the time for inane thoughts. "Well, what are we waiting for?" Kurotsuchi asked.

"A sign," Temari offered. "We have to find him first."

"Can't we just… follow the hatred? It's like… really bad."

Mei shook her head. "No, first-"

"AAAAARRRRRRRRRREEEEEECH"

The three winced at the echoing screech and following bombardment. The ground vibrated underneath their feet and their inner ears were confused. After a few seconds, the vibrations died down and left Kurotsuchi with a very unsettled feeling in her gut. Perhaps this wasn't the most well-thought out of plans.

Mei seemed to think otherwise. Narrowing her eyes, Mei nodded and turned to a sudden direction. "We're going this way. Look at all your surroundings. You don't know where enemies could be hiding."

"And," Kurotsuchi added. "Give white clay a wide berth. That's the shit that explodes."

Temari unwound her war fan as Kurotsuchi readied her katana in her hands. Despite their trepidation, their hearts were held strong.

They were going to save him

They were going to save everybody.

Kurotsuchi and Temari set after Mei's brisk pace with both their weapons in front of them. As they walked, they heard the sounds of wood clacking against stone echo from far away from them, reverberating across the tunnels. Every now and then, there'd be a screech that could only come from a wailing tailed beast and they had to stop for a while to clear the disorientation. But despite all that, they ran into no obvious opposition. They either hadn't anticipated anyone would follow through the sewers, or they didn't know that they were being followed by people other than Naruto. In either case, all three were thankful for the unimpeded walk.

"Why the blue light?" Kurotsuchi said, wincing a little bit when she realized her voice was loud enough to echo. "Hurts my eyes," she said quieter.

"We're in a tunnel with a high amount of methane," Temari whispered back. "If we use fire, we run the risk of starting an explosion."

"Can we at least change the-"

"Wait," Mei said suddenly, holding her hand up.

Before they could ask why, the blue light illuminated the cobblestone, showcasing a human-like puppet impaled to the wall through the heart with its own arm. Its other jointed appendages were ripped out as well and its jaw hung loosely with only one joint attached. Despite the fact that it wasn't a human, it brought forward the notion of a grisly scene. One that made Temari's and Kurotsuchi's stomachs turn.

Kurotsuchi bit the inside of her lip. That wasn't just violence. That was hatred. Hatred in its most pure, unadulterated form.

Looking around more, there were signs of a more substantive battle. Puppet parts littered the scene along with scorched remains and huge rends in the rock. Fecal matter had been splashed up and over the sewage river in more than one place.

"These exploded, right?" Kurotsuchi asked.

"Yes," Mei answered back, eyes narrowed.

"So why didn't the whole sewer explode with it?"

"I can't image they're a sure thing with every spark," Temari said, trying to twist logic in her favor. "There would be explosions every day if that were the case."

"Or," Mei said. "We can assume something else having to do with his nature right now." She shook her head. "We move on. Don't let your guard down."

As they walked on, the sounds started sounding more… real, for lack of a better term. The echoing had dulled the sounds and made them seem too far off to be real. Now that there were real clanks and real rattles, their hearts started to turn to stone and their nerves combusted. They were getting ready for battle.

All at once, Mei's eyes widened and her mouth filled to the brim of some sort of liquid. A jet of viscous sludge hit the wall in front of them and traveled to the nearest corner, solidifying almost instantly and sectioning off a section of the sewers.

There was an impact against the newly made barrier that made dust fall from the ceiling and the surrounding walls crack and fall apart. A grunt of pain and a frustration soon followed. A few moments of silence endured before a roaring boom slammed into Mei's barrier and destroyed it, sending debris and chunks of rock outwards.

"Shit," Mei ground out, putting her hands out in front of her and at the ready to perform jutsu as they may be required. Temari and Kurotsuchi followed suit, brandishing their own weapons as they waited for what would happen next.

The thing that Naruto was transformed into clambered out of his new hole and onto the floor, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. His exoskeleton had come up to cover his arms and lower face and his wings were more fully formed. His eyes, though compound they may be, were set in a righteous look of hatred.

The two lesser experienced shinobi felt their hearts quake at the intimidating aura he put out. It was like they might be washed away by the mightiness of his emotions, like sand would to a wave. It made them want to either attack it, or flee from it. It was limiting their cognitive thought down to the most simple choices they could make.

Kurotsuchi took a half step forward, warcry right behind her lips, but was smacked back in the chest by Mei, who was still staring at Naruto with an intensity almost impossible for a normal human. Kurotsuchi wanted to question her, but her proclamation died on her lips. It was because Naruto had only looked their way for half a second before shambling forward into a run right past them.

"He's dangerous," Mei said, letting a breath out. "But he's not focused on us. For now, we follow him and see what his objective is."

Kurotsuchi couldn't even speak. She could only nod. She wiped her forehead on her sleeve, drenching it with sweat. She looked down at herself and realized most of her upper body was drenched with it. And it wasn't because she was in a stifling sewer, no, it was because of the fear. That feeling made her want to hurl. It made her want to go home and forget everything she saw.

But then Mei ran after Naruto and Temari started pursuit soon after, so she didn't really have much of a choice in the matter.

00000000

Yugito was confused.

As blue flames licked at her skin and her body started to become more and more catlike, she could more and more feel the presence of Naruto, but she couldn't figure out where he was. That malicious sense of hatred was like a blanket on the village and pinpointing the source was nigh on impossible, especially considering her lack of experience in sensing chakra. The only thing she could figure out was that he was always moving, but any more than that was beyond her.

She shook her head and reconcentrated her efforts. Perhaps only Fu or her would be able to stop him the way he was like now and all the other sensors she had approached to help her always got overwhelmed by the hatred.

But it was strange. If he was always moving, she should have heard at least small tales of where he was by all the shinobi rushing around.

How could he move and not be seen? If he wasn't on the ground or above it, what did that leave?

Yugito opened her eyes in realization.

00000000

Tobi bled from the wall near the ten fingered monument. He'd been tracking the artful duo and knew that they were being followed by a desperate Jinchuuriki who would do everything he could to meddle in his plans. They weren't going to get the prerequisite three days to drain the one tail from the kazekage. They'd only been at it for about thirty minutes.

The fact that there was an unprecedented nationwide alliance between all superpowers was bad enough. They were all getting along with each other was the bad part.

Their plans were going to have to get kicked up a notch. Surely, Madara would not mind if he borrowed a little bit of power to make the transferal slightly more expedient. And even if he did, well, it's no skin off his back.

00000000

The three trepid followers took after Naruto's trail of destruction as carefully as they could as quickly as they could. As he progressed further and further into the sewers, it became clear that although his mind had become savaged by the chakra, that he still had a sort of tactical sense to his movements and actions. He could think several moves ahead of the puppets and use his exoskeleton to cover the explosions, rendering them inert. They didn't even have to do anything as he dismantled the traps and took care of the attackers all while maintaining a consistent fast speed.

The cobblestone walls soon became more and more rugged and pipes stopped showing up. It became clear to Mei that the sewers had first started out from a natural formation, meaning that as they progressed, they got further and further away from the village proper and more and more into unknown, unpredictable territory.

"How long has it been?" Temari asked, breaking the verbal silence.

Mei didn't answer. She didn't know. It could have been five minutes or five hours for all she knew. Despite the fact that she was putting up a calm façade, that's all it was in the end, a façade. Most of her mental faculties were focused on following Naruto without coming within a certain range of him.

As they continued on, he became not only more angry, if that were even possible, but also more… desperate. He slipped up every now and then, letting puppets near him and even let a few cuts on his body. They healed up right away, but it was the fact that they even got there in the first place that was the worrying part.

Any stragglers that were left behind were swiftly destroyed by the three, letting loose some much needed stress and affirming their abilities to themselves, if not anyone else.

And then they stopped.

It was a rock unlike others blocking the path forward, with a seal of great complexity inscribed on the surface. Naruto stopped there, not even trying to break it open. His chest was heaving and there was steam coming off his body. The exoskeleton had come up even further on his body, covering his chest and abdomen. He was going to be a bug soon enough. Mei just hoped she was enough of a challenge to wear him down when worse came to worse.

He looked at his hand the way an ape would look at a rock and wonder what could be done with it. He stared and stared and finally, it began to morph. The fingers converged all into one and the wrist became detached. The purpose for this became clear enough when the entire hand started spinning around like a drill so fast that it was causing a disturbance in the air that even Mei could feel, standing a fair bit off.

Without warning, he ran forward and thrust his hand at the hard surface, lighting up the sealing array that encircled the entire rock. His purple hand soon gained a yellow orange glow from all the heat he generated. Mei guessed that it was hot enough to melt the nerves off the skin of her hand if she dared touch it.

"It's not enough," Temari said.

"He just needs a little bit of purchase," Kurotsuchi quickly added. "Once he's in even a little, he's in."

"You're not worried about the right things," Mei said. "What we really need to worry about is what's behind the door."

The two girls stared at the monolith as realization came to them. "The puppet masters,"
Temari muttered.

"Well," Kurotsuchi said, huffing out a few puffs of laughter. "At least we have a Jinchuuriki on our side."

"Yes, but what are they still doing here? What was their objective? Why is this happening?"

A crack emanated from the wall Naruto was drilling into. The seals cracked apart and unraveled, leaving a completely normal rock to the mercy of Naruto's drilling hand.

"We're going to find out soon," Temari said, unfolding her fan. "Look sharp."

Mei smiled. "I always do."

Naruto drilled forward until the entire rock cracked in half down the middle. Shoving them to the side, he rushed forward into the room, followed quickly by the other three.

It was a large, spacious room, capable of filling up a small village worth of people. In the middle was a giant humanoid statue with two hands thrust up through the ground. On the two thumbs were a couple of hooded figures sitting down in a relaxed position.

But Temari didn't see any of that and neither did Naruto. The two of them just saw the corpse laying a pile on the ground right in front of the statue.

It was Gaara.

He was dead.

Nothing happened for a long time, then Naruto split the room with a roar of pain and suffering and sadness.