Check out this review.

Anon: "This story is readable and is not about mindless plotless yaoi. That being said it has the worst plot i have read in a while, I sincerely hope something horrible happens to you and your family for putting this garbage up for the world to see.

Please stop writing and kill yourself."

Aww, isn't he so cuuuute? I just wanna take him home, dress him up, and call him Anon-y. I don't know about you guys, but I think he wants to get his fuck on with me. But wait, this is an anonymous review! What, is he scared of little ol' me? But I just wanna be his frrrriieennd! No, don't try and comfort me everyone; it's his problem. He's too much of a big, fat pussy to tell me how he feels to my face. But, he can't hide his feelings forever!

Okay, enough of that. On with the chapter!

Chapter 10: Ichibi

The battlefield was silent, despite the presence of two massive chakra beasts. There were no humans for miles around, and the battle between the Reibi and the Ichibi had been halted in its place. The Jinchuuriki that was perched at the top activated this strange jutsu, and Naruto was left on-guard when he was finished. Shukaku, the real Shukaku would coming out of his prison inside the Jinchuuriki any second. That meant he didn't have to use the special technique he wasn't finished developing yet.

Yet the fight was about to get a lot harder with a real Bijuu behind the reins.

The giant raccoon's eyes that looked dead just a little earlier suddenly took on a yellow, glowing hue. The eyes became filled with life and emotion, and already Naruto could tell that it was more than just the dead husk that he had been fighting earlier. Those eyes had the mind of a Bijuu behind them, and it would be a lot more difficult to fight now than a dead husk.

The giant lizard winced as Shukaku let loose a glee-ridden scream to the heaven, yelling something about how he was finally free. The weakest Bijuu after him seemed to be quite the insane character, and that could've spelled nothing but pain for him in this fight. The Ichibi whooped almost drunkenly, his head pointed to the sky. He lowered it, and pointed flamboyantly at Naruto.

"Yo, Reibi! We can finally cut loose completely, so I hope you're ready to DIE! 'Cuz I'm gonna kill ya and add your power to my own!" The Shukaku shouted. Naruto sneered at him, and Shukaku sneered back. They were two completely wild animals, staring each other down, each one thinking the other was their food. And at the end of the day, one of them would be.

"Your vessel didn't impress me, Shukaku... in fact, if that was all your capability while sealed up, then I guess this is going to be easier than I realized..." Naruto taunted.

"Oh, you delusional fucker! You don't think you can actually beat me, do you?" Shukaku asked mockingly. "You don't even have a single tail, so that makes you weaker than me!"

"Do you want to try me, and see if I'm really weaker than you?" Naruto asked. A wide grin came onto Shukaku's crooked, jagged mouth, and he placed a hand on his stomach.

"Fuuton: Renkuudan!" Shukaku cried. A highly pressurized blast of wind jetted at Naruto at an incredible speed. It uprooted trees and rocks as it sped across the landscape, but Naruto wasn't perturbed.

He moved to the side at a speed which was surprising for his bulky frame. The attack was powerful, but was the pattern was far too simplistic to ever catch him off guard. In the hands of a ninja, it was a C-rank jutsu. In the claws of a Bijuu, it was a devastating attack magnified to a scale unprecedented.

Shukaku fired more of the air bullets, creating more and more devastation on the landscape. It was going to change very fast if Naruto didn't finish up his battle.

Naruto flipped into the air with a display of agility, spinning on his axis as he whirled down on Shukaku. With the crest of spikes and his claws, he was like a whirring chainsaw about to come down on the other Bijuu.

Shukaku held a sandy arm out, catching the spinning Naruto with one hand. Naruto grunted in his ball position, and twirled faster, fast enough that a whirring noise emanated from his body.

A little bit of chakra poured forth from Naruto, before he began to cut into the sand of Shukaku's arm. Shukaku cried out in pain, before he summoned one final burst of strength, and threw Naruto off before he had the opportunity to do any more damage. The Bijuu flew back a little bit, but was otherwise unphased by Shukaku's counterattack, and was ready to fight again.

Naruto flipped into the air again, and a few of the spikes on his neck began to rumble. A pop later, and they burst out of his neck and were levitating in mid-air, before they began to glow with Naruto's golden Bijuu chakra.

He thrust his claw forward, sending the spikes towards Shukaku. Shukaku was hardly fast enough to move out of the way in time, so the spikes impacted various points on his body. However, Shukaku's defense held true, and the spikes were mostly absorbed by the defensive Bijuu.

The bony spikes disappeared into Shukaku's body, almost like they were sinking in quicksand. Shukaku's jagged mouth turned upward into a smirk, and he let out a sinister chuckle. The sharp ends of Naruto's spikes reemerged from Shukaku's body, and they were all pointed at Naruto.

"Shit..." Naruto thought.

Shukaku waved his arms outwards, before he thrust them and his body forward. The spikes launched from Shukaku in a counterattack, and effectively Naruto's own natural weapons were being turned against him.

The barrage of spikes flew even faster back at Naruto, forcing him to deflect the lot of his with his claws. He winced as his claw was wounded, and a couple spikes slipped by to penetrate his scales.

No blood poured from the wounds, seeing as Naruto didn't have any. However, golden chakra began to spill from the point where the spikes had penetrated him, and the damage was no less. Hurt by his own attack, what a joke, but that was the nature of the opponent he was fighting.

"Is that all you got, Reibi?" Shukaku taunted, before he laughed uproariously. The Reibi had clearly underestimated him due to his lack of speed, but his defense more than made up for his lack of speed.

Shukaku opened his mouth again, but this time he wasn't going to fire an air bullet. Rather, he focused a large sphere of sand in his mouth, similar in size and scope as his Renkuudan. He charged his sandy chakra in the mix, effectively compressing the sand and making it far denser that it would've been usually.

He fired off the orb, it rocketing towards Naruto at a far greater speed than his Renkuudan. He fired another one in tandem, and then another. Pretty soon, he had fired off his twelfth one, and Naruto's defense was getting weak.

A compressed sand bullet impacted Naruto's shoulder, and the Reibi grunted as he almost fell to the ground. The sand was far heavier than it looked, and its power was at a far greater level than its windy counterpart.

Shukaku laughed uproariously as Naruto almost collapsed onto the ground, heavily wounded. However, Naruto caught himself at the last minute, before he disappeared from Shukaku's vision.

Shukaku grunted as a large weight fell on top of him. Naruto had practically tackled Shukaku directly after he had said that, though his lighter weight didn't completely catch the Ichibi off guard. However, since Shukaku only had one arm after Naruto's poison had severed the other one, he couldn't throw the other Bijuu off.

Naruto opened his mouth, showing off his razor sharp teeth. Shukaku narrowed his eyes; even with his heavy sand body, those things could be dangerous weapons, especially since they were glimmering with venom.

Shukaku shoved his claw into Naruto's face, pushing the other Bijuu away to prevent him from biting. Naruto snapped his jaws anyway, but Shukaku seemed to be physically stronger than him.

"RAAARGGGHHHHHH!" Naruto cried, realizing that his teeth weren't the only attack methods available at his disposal. He slashed at Shukaku's torso with his flailing limbs, trying his best to break through the hard defense with his quick, light attacks.

Shukaku grinned again, his defense could hold up to those feeble attacks, no problem. It was almost a personal insult that Naruto was even trying to break through it like that.

Naruto continued to attack the Ichibi, both of them fighting like animals, doing everything he could to try to increase the force of his attacks. However, from this position, it didn't look like that would be possible.

The Ichibi opened his mouth, and launched another Renkuudan at the other Bijuu, who was being held in place by Shukaku's one arm. Naruto yelped as the blast of wind exploded into his face, and propelled him backwards out of Shukaku's grasp. Even with one arm, Shukaku wasn't one to be taken lightly.

The dust cleared from around Naruto's face, and one could see several deep lacerations that he suffered from Shukaku's point-blank attack. Already they were beginning to heal, but even Naruto's high-speed regeneration wouldn't take away all the damage immediately.

"Damn you, Shukaku..." Naruto said, using a claw to wipe his wounds. Shukaku gave him another crooked grin for his troubles, before he pointed a claw at Naruto from his only free arm.

"I could say the exact same thing to you..." he shot back. Naruto held out a single claw, before he pointed it to the side so that all the digits were facing directly at Shukaku.

They glowed with golden chakra, before they began to rumble. He wound his arm up backwards, before he took a swipe forward with the claw and propelled five enormous and sharp claws directly at Shukaku.

Naruto felt the connection to the chakra surrounding the bullet claws in his mind, and he tried to steer them. However, Shukaku merely tilted his head to the side, avoiding the oncoming attack.

"Damn, I can't really control that attack yet. Nor can I actually produce some sort of after-effect with it..." Naruto thought to himself, as he and Shukaku began to circle each other again.

Shukaku gave him a trademark crooked grin, before he held up a claw. A clump of sand became focused in the center, before Shukaku leaned back and shot another air bullet, dispersing the great amount of sand.

The sand hovered about in the air, in a technique similar to the Kirigakure no Jutsu, except this time dozens of the grains got in Naruto's eyes, effectively cutting off his eyesight.

"Damn it!" Naruto thought, as he rubbed his eyes with the back of his claws. When his sight had cleared up enough for him to see again, Shukaku was gone.

"What the?" Naruto thought. Shukaku wasn't exactly known for his speed or anything, so there should be no conceivable way that he'd be able to move at such a quickness. It wasn't that fast by any stretch, but it was more than expected from a Bijuu like Shukaku.

Naruto lurched and grunted as a weight fell on top of him out of nowhere, Shukaku flashing into existence just a few feet above him. If he were any other lifeform, Naruto would've been crushed underneath the massive amount of weight. But thankfully, Naruto was a Bijuu. Still, he couldn't shake Shukaku off of him, meant he was pinned against the ground. Shukaku grinned as the lighter Bijuu struggled underneath him, before he cracked his neck.

"WHOOOHOO! I've finally got ya, Reibi. Turns out I didn't need to beat you into submission in order to get the job done! I just had to do this! Now all that's let to do to draw out your chakra! Hmm, I think I know how to go about doing that, but I may have to experiment a little bit..." Shukaku mused. Naruto winced and began to breathe heavier. Shukaku was raising his arm high into the air. Whatever he was about to do, it didn't look good.

Chiyo's eyes closed for the very last time, after a long, long life of serving Sunagakure. Whether for better or worse, this display... this mission would be her final stand. Whether it demonized or redeemed her in the eyes of Konoha was yet to be seen.

Nevertheless, Hinata left Chiyo's body there. It would neither be taken back to Konoha or sent back to Suna, and the Suna trackers would probably find it sooner or later anyway. Whether or not that meant a declaration of war against Konoha was another matter. Suna would definitely not be happy that one of their representatives turned up dead. This would likely mean that the Chuunin Exams were to be cancelled, or at least held in another village.

Yukiko was nestled firmly on her back as the Jounin sensei rushed through the treeline. Moegi was doing her best to keep up behind her, clearly not used to bearing a weight like Konohamaru's. The only boy on the team had still not woken up from his little stress-filled encounter. The fact that Moegi was still awake was a testament to her will.

"Sensei... where are we going now?" she asked, as she bounded through the trees after Hinata. Hinata closed her eyes for a moment, shifting the passenger on back a little up more.

"Back to Konoha, Moegi. Our first priority is to get these two some medical attention as soon as possible. This is also a high-class priority; the village may be in an emergency situation now," Hinata explained, no stutter in her voice.

"Sensei, what was that? That thing that came out of Yukiko... was that the Reibi?" the young girl asked, as she eyed her teammate in concern. She was also careful enough to not drop her other teammate.

Hinata said nothing, and her silence was apparently a satisfactory answer for Moegi. She hastened her pace a little bit more, and Moegi struggled to catch up. There came another loud booming noise; they had been hearing those for several minutes now. It seemed that the two Bijuu were still fighting, so the Suna ninja were still there.

"Let's hurry, Moegi. We've got a bit of a trip ahead of us," Hinata said. Another rumble resounded throughout the clearing, and Moegi shuddered at the evil chakra that coated the air. Hinata couldn't blame her; she was feeling afraid too. The wind gradually picked up around them, before they felt a giant torrent come from over to the side somewhere.

"This area isn't safe anymore."

"DAMN IT! DAMN IT! DAMN IT!" Naruto shouted over and over again, as he was pinned underneath Shukaku's massive weight. He could barely muster up the strength to lift Shukaku even a few feet into the air, left alone get him off completely.

"You're the only Bijuu that the rest of us can draw power from. And you're also the only Bijuu that can draw power from the rest of us. Every Bijuu should know that by now, given that you're the tenth part of the Juubi, and we're really just the same being. But... ah!" Shukaku said, seeming to be struck by inspiration.

"So, I figured, the way to absorb your chakra is to simply thrust my claw into your abdomen, and see if I can draw it out from there..." Shukaku said with glee.

Naruto winced, that was a pretty crude way of doing things, to be honest, and it might not even work. Then again, Shukaku did have the demeanor of a rowdy drunk, so him coming up with an idea like that was just up his alley.

His entire body was seemingly paralyzed, yet he knew he could move his front right claw. He would have only one shot at this, otherwise he would be incapacitated for the rest of the battle.

He charged up his claws with his acrid, poisonous chakra, and luckily the claw that was about to penetrate his body was moving quite slowly. He shot his arm forward as much as he could, poking Shukaku lightly in the claw and intercepting his attack.

Shukaku cried out in pain as the poison made contact with his sandy body, and he threw his claw up in his despair, inevitably lightening the load on Naruto.

Naruto felt his back claws wriggle a little, and his front claws were completely free. He placed his front ones on the ground, flattening a couple of trees in the process. He kicked his back claws up and pushed the other Bijuu off of him with all the force he could possibly muster.

Shukaku went flying of him, flopping onto the ground a good distance away. Naruto was still lying on the ground, but he spun to his feet the instant Shukaku's heavy weight wasn't pinning him down.

Shukaku meanwhile was writhing in agony. Naruto's poisonous claws were eating away his fingers and his claw. A few of the digits had already been severed by the corrosive poison, and they plummeted towards the ground.

"Damn you! How did you do that?!" Shukaku screamed at Naruto. Neither opponent was looking particularly strong, as they had both taken heavy hits that had weakened them quite a bit. Naruto was "bleeding" heavily from multiple lacerations on his body and a heavy bruise on his right shoulder, while Shukaku was missing a full arm, and a hand on his remaining one. They would be capable of healing this later, but for right now those injuries would affect their battle.

"I'm not about to be taken out quite so easily, Shukaku! Just because you outrank me, don't think you've got this battle in the bag!" Naruto shouted. He had a new attack he wanted to try, just by looking at Shukaku's air and sand bullets.

He bared his fangs at the Ichibi, showing off the poison that was coating them. He gathered chakra into his mouth, similar to Shukaku's Renkuudan, except this time it was molding poison instead of air.

He mimicked Shukaku's stance by standing on his hind legs, though it was very difficult for his streamlined body to stand in such a position. He placed a claw on his stomach, and shot the poisonous sphere at Shukaku.

It was a little bit slower than a bullet from Shukaku, but that didn't really matter when his opponent was so slow. Shukaku reacted too little too late towards the oncoming poison, and he held out his stump of an arm in a feeble attempt to try and block it.

The venom splattered all over Shukaku's body, mainly along the stump of his arm and his torso. Shukaku cried out in pain, scraping his stumpy claw to try and get the poison off of him. A searing noise could be heard and steam rising off of Shukaku could be seen as the corrosive poison dissolved more and more of Shukaku's body.

"DAMN YOU! YOU FUCKING SHITHEAD! YOU'RE DEAD NOW, YOU UNDERSTAND ME? DEAD! I DON'T EVEN CARE ABOUT YOUR CHAKRA ANY MORE! I'M JUST GONNA DESTROY YOU!" Shukaku roared violently, as he moved all over the place, continuing to try and get the poison off of his body.

Naruto said nothing, but he picked up speed and ran at Shukaku, who was still incapacitated by the poison. He grabbed the flesh of Shukaku's neck and held him in place, uncaring that he had just touched his own venom.

"You know, Shukaku, while you were just struggling blindly trying to figure out how to absorb my power, I actually developed a technique while I was captive for eleven years. I know how to do it, but usually things would be a little more difficult than just using one technique..." Naruto said. Shukaku couldn't really find the strength to move; the poison was also weakening him.

"But you see, you are a little different. In order for my technique to work, I have to forcibly drag the Bijuu out of his or her Jinchuuriki using my second technique, which is not fully developed yet. But you, on the other hand, are already out. The Tanuki Neiri no Jutsu had brought you fully into the thick of things, and that first step is cleared. I can use my technique right now, and basically absorb you," Naruto explained.

"And right now... I'm ready," he said, taking one claw off of Shukaku's shoulder. With his repertoire of attacks, this was one of two that he could effectively call a jutsu, even if he didn't use any handseals for it. Everything else was a Tailed Beast Skill, but he had developed this one after viewing Fuuinjutsu through Yukiko's eyes. However, he didn't get the chance to use it. A little bit of rumbling later, and Shukaku used his final bit of strength to throw Naruto off of him.

"No! I will NOT go out like this! You're just the Reibi, I'm the Ichibi! I outrank you, I should be stronger!" Shukaku roared violently. Despite being covered in poison, he was ready to hold his own.

Naruto shuddered violently as he flew back, landing on a bunch of trees. He kneeled towards the ground, but came to alert when he realized what Shukaku was doing.

Shukaku had opened his mouth, and was gathering chakra in it. But this time it was far different than his air or sand bullets. Instead, black and white chakra was swirling around in a heavy vortex inside his mouth, and Naruto knew what was up.

"Shit... The Bijuudama," he thought to himself. He hadn't figured out how to fire that ultimate weapon yet, so he couldn't use his own to counter it. If he didn't act fast, that thing would definitely obliterate him. He rushed Shukaku, but the Ichibi was already finished. He wasn't compressing it into a more powerful form, and the chakra had already turned from black-and-white, to a dull tan color of sand.

Shukaku roared, and then released the gigantic ball of chakra. The ball was launched as a powerful wave explosion that was the color of sand, but that chakra was hugely corrosive. It wouldn't do the same thing as sand.

It streaked through the landscape, being visible for miles away, and a sonic boom cracked in the air, as the energy soared through the landscape at an impossibly fast rate. The area got resoundingly bright, and Naruto could feel the heat of the ball coming towards him.

He tried to flash out of the way, but the attack was coming in far too fast. He would only have one shot at this. Naruto gathered chakra up in his claws, which glowed with his golden chakra, except it was a little brighter this time, and it flared up a little differently.

"This technique right here should splice our souls together, and allow me to drain him of his essence..." Naruto thought, as the Bijuudama continued to rush towards him. An explosion of light and force erupted as the beam made contact.

Shukaku breathed out a sigh of relief, even as the Reibi's poison continued to eat away at his sandy body. In all honesty, that fight was much tougher than Shukaku believed it would be. Forget absorbing the Reibi's power; it was good enough that the new Bijuu was destroyed.

"That was way too close..." Shukaku boomed, even though it was supposed to be a simple mumble. It had taken even his Bijuudama to win the fight; of course it was too close. The beam was beginning to disperse now; there wouldn't be anything left after that.

Shukaku grunted, as a flash of something appeared right before his eyes and jabbed a sharp object directly into the Bijuu's stomach. Shukaku's eyes widened as a singed Naruto, more than a little injured had a glowing claw thrust into his midsection.

"Reibi... you..." Shukaku managed to get out, as the combination of the poison and Naruto's strange technique was weakening him greatly. Naruto grinned at him.

"You know Shukaku, this technique right here binds our souls and our energies together by a very powerful chakra thread. It's modeled off of the Fuuinjutsu that the humans use, but you'll just have to see for yourself how it works," Naruto said, a smirk coming onto his lizard-like visage. He pulled his glowing claw out of Shukaku's abdomen, but that wasn't the end of it. A golden chakra thread was left behind where Naruto had thrust his claw, connected to Shukaku's body.

Naruto was holding the end of the thread, lengthening the distance as he walked back a little bit. A smaller out-branching of the thread ran up to Shukaku's head, where it connected to Gaara's seal in a similar manner.

"Get ready, Shukaku... I'm starting," Naruto said cryptically. The thread seemed to have a life of its own, as it wormed its way down Naruto's arm and sunk into the flesh. Naruto gasped out in pain as the icy cold feeling spread through his body, but it was replaced by pure numbness, even as Shukaku writhed and contorted across from him.

The cord of chakra began to glow brighter and brighter, as Shukaku's contractions grew weaker and weaker. No matter what he did, he couldn't seem to shake off the thread of chakra connecting the two together.

The glow of the chakra seemed to be moving like a raging river, as chakra flowed down the length of the thread from Shukaku, and straight into Naruto.

"N-No... y-you... m-my chakra!" Shukaku managed to get out, as he slowly began to lose consciousness. His chakra was getting drained from him, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about.

Naruto smiled in euphoria as a foreign chakra entered his system, and gradually became his own. Who knew that the merging of two Bijuu was such an exhilarating experience? He was feeling his power grow by the second. If he were anyone else, his body would be rejecting the chakra, but instead it was accepting it completely.

Shukaku was barely conscious now, and the raccoon was still making feeble attempts to try and resist this change. Gaara remained fully unconscious on the top of Shukaku's head, but more chakra was getting drained from the Jinchuuriki as well.

Thirty minutes later, and Shukaku's form was beginning to look a little hazy. He was beginning to break down into his base components of simple chakra. Gone was the illusion of a sandy body.

A full hour after Naruto had attached that cord, Shukaku was apparently dead. There were just a few more wisps of chakra left for Naruto to absorb, but the Reibi was still feeling his power grow. A few seconds later, and Shukaku was completely gone, and the chakra thread that Naruto had used for the dirty deed became unattached.

The chakra thread disappeared from Naruto's body as well, and faded out of existence as the technique finished. Gaara, having nothing to support him now, flopped to the ground. He was as dead as a doornail.

But Naruto wasn't concerned about the well-being of Shukaku's Jinchuuriki. His well of power had grown substantially, but other than that Naruto didn't feel much different.

That is, he didn't until he felt his insides begin to rumble with power. Naruto fell to his knees, collapsing a treeline yet again. He looked at his claws, and he could see Shukaku's trademark blue veins cover them all the way to his wrists, where they inevitably stopped.

His backside had began to rumble, and Naruto felt a sharp pain as chakra concentrated over there. After a few minutes of agonizing pain, a tail shot out from Naruto's behind, replacing his old stump of a tail. It waved around in the air, creating a large gust of wind, and Naruto got his first look at it.

It was long and sharp, and like the rest of his body, it was yellow. It was as scaly as the rest of his body, with a row of spikes covering the entire top portion of it. It ended in a sharp point. In the right hands, this tail could be a deadly weapon.

He continued to swing it around in a wide arc, and Naruto realized just what had happened. He was no longer the Reibi anymore, and he finally gained a tail. Before this, he was the Bijuu with no tail, a paradox if there was ever one. But now, he was a true Bijuu, one that had a tail.

He was the Ichibi.

So... what do you think?

Translations and Other Features

Fuuton: Renkuudan: Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet

Kirigakure no Jutsu: Hidden Mist Technique

Bijuudama: Tailed Beast Ball

That's all for now, so hope to see you next time,

Alban55