Alright, here's the next chapter finally. I don't have an ending author's note for this chapter, because I don't have much to say otherwise. Nevertheless, enjoy... even though I don't really like this chapter all that much. Come to think of it, I've kinda soured on this story as of recently, there's something off about it I can't put my finger on...
Chapter 15: Return to Konoha
"I should've just gone somewhere else..."
Naruto grumbled to himself within his human form as he stood outside the gates of Konohagakure no Sato. Nevertheless, his mind was pretty much telling him that doing this was the most suitable option.
If he wanted just basic information on the remaining Bijuu, he could've settled for any old library in any old town. Unfortunately for him, the newest Bijuu needed far more than basic information.
For several hidden villages, information on the abilities of the Bijuu, and more importantly, the identity of their Jinchuuriki were kept a secret. A library in Tanzaku Gai wouldn't stock that sort of information.
But Konoha would. Thanks to all the prying and espionage they did, they would at the very least know the names of all the Jinchuuriki in the world and what villages they hailed from. Of course, it wouldn't be out in the open either. Those would be nothing less than secret files.
Going back to Konoha so soon would be seeing his family again, something he wasn't exactly prepared to handle. If he could get the information he was looking for without drawing any attention to himself... well, that would be the best case scenario.
He should've been feeling pretty accomplished after defeating both the former Ichibi and Nibi, but he still needed to be careful, for one specific reason. Even if he now held the rank of "Nibi", Konoha still held the Kyuubi.
Fortunately for him, Naruto was well equipped for an espionage trip, even if he didn't exactly have the experience with it that a shinobi would have had. Camouflage and transformation were still well within his capabilities.
He had a plan to get the information he needed, but instead he decided to sit down underneath a tree in the forests outside Konoha, watching the village from afar.
For hours on end, Naruto just sat underneath a large maple in his human form, waiting for the hours to count down. He closed his eyes and reflected on how far he had gotten. If he was unlucky, then this would be the first time he had seen his family in person in many years, what he could view within Yukiko's mindscape notwithstanding.
The hours finally whittled down into nothing, with the familiar pink and orange Konoha sunset falling over the village. Naruto waited even beyond that point, finally getting up from the tree when the black blanket of night had completely fallen over the world.
"Okay, time for me to go..." Naruto said, the lizard-like human pulling himself to his feet as he surveyed the village before him. Entering through the front gates was obviously not in the equation, but if ninjas could scale the walls, then so could he.
Naruto's eyes were trained on the southern gate of the village not too far from his position, noting the two Chuunin guards who would no doubt hold up any passerby.
He could've probably passed as a traveler visiting the village if he felt like it, but going through the gates would raise unwanted questions, and his appearance would've given him away as someone other than a civilian.
After looking at the southern gate for a few seconds longer, Naruto turned his attention to the wall he was about to scale. Any lookout towers would be an issue, but the village wasn't exactly in a state of emergency.
Like a chameleon, Naruto began to blend into the exact color scheme of the wall, to a detail that even a shinobi wouldn't be able to do. Slowly but surely, Naruto stuck himself into the wall and began inching his way up, all the while never dropping his perfect camouflage.
He shimmied his way up to the top, dropping his camouflage for a moment while he stood in the dead of night upon the rooftops of Konoha's wall. Most of the lights from houses and businesses were out, with only a few bars and brothels clearly still open.
Sighing, he pulled his camouflage back on, leaping from Konoha's wall to the nearest building's roof. The Hokage Tower stood in the backdrop of the Hokage Monument as it always did, looking like a stern protector of the village. While a visit back to his old house would be nice, the information he needed was probably being held there or in the department of information.
His saurian eyes panned to a few specific buildings, noting the familiar flak jackets of Chuunin within the towering buildings. Their eyes were mostly trained on the forests outside the village, however.
Therefore, when it came to initially entering the village, Naruto didn't have much trouble. What would come later would be quite a bit more challenging. The Hokage Tower wasn't exactly known for having tight defenses, but still... the Hokage might actually still be in his office at this hour.
Naruto just prayed that his father was at home by this hour, and not being flooded underneath a wave of paperwork in his office. If he could just get what he needed and get out without seeing any family members, this mission would have gone smoothly.
The human-shaped Bijuu entered through a window on the back of the third floor, one floor below the Hokage's main office and away from any of the other windows.
Naruto snuck through the darkened hallway without so much as making a noise, looking upon the doors that passed him by as he did. At any moment he was expecting his father to just appear around the corner, but at no point did that actually happen.
"Secret documents... secret documents. Well, there are some regular documents out in the open that should be available to anyone under the ninja registration, but they're keeping the secret ones somewhere in this tower."
He tested a door and peeked inside, noting that it wasn't the one he was looking for. He closed the wooden door with only a slight creak, before moving onto the next one.
Three doors down the hallway, and Naruto began to feel he was onto something as he poked his head into the room. The Hokage Tower's personal library, but also one that was open to any ninja above Genin level.
There would be no top secret information available on the shelves, or... at least any top secret information that was visible. Every village had some sort of hidden archive for their secret files, invisible to the public and only accessible to the real higher-ups within the village.
"Let's see here..." Naruto said, shutting the door behind him with a small creak, leaving him submerged within the darkness. His eyes panned over to a table, where a few candles lay. He lit one, not turning on the main lights so he could avoid drawing attention to himself.
Naruto looked around the room, checking the bookshelves just as more of a formality. Most of the books on the shelf were about various forms of jutsu or biographies on the shinobi world and its countries. There were a few books on the Bijuu, but they were just general information he already knew. He could've gone home if he wanted that information.
"It has to be around here somewhere... unless they've moved it..."
In the back of his mind, Naruto scarcely remembered him talking about the secret archives with his sister one day, but it had been a few years since that one conversation.
The secret files were beneath the tower's library, in a hidden vault that could only be activated by the real higher ups within the village. They had hidden it well, but Naruto was here to scour the room for the secret vault.
As Naruto was running his hand along a bookshelf near the back well, he found it. The old secret room behind the bookshelf; a cliche yet classic trick for hiding something. Who knew Konoha employed it?
No one, except for those who heard it after their leader let it slip. Too bad Bijuu could hear things while they were trapped within their seals, even if the conversation wasn't necessarily meant for Yukiko anyway.
He moved the retractable bookcase aside; it was at least hidden well in that one would initially guess that it was nailed into the wall instead of those portable ones in the center of the room.
It swung out like a door once Naruto applied a truly ridiculous amount of strength to the shelf. On the floor was a trap door that probably led into the basement of the Hokage's tower.
Naruto reached out a reptilian hand and grabbed the candle from where he had left it, before descending down the trap door and into the dark, dank basement of the Hokage's tower.
The trapdoor deposited the disguised Bijuu in a room that fit the decor of the rest of the tower, but was clearly detached from the main floors. It was completely dark immediately after the trapdoor, with a small door leading to the next room.
The door creaked open as Naruto opened it, leading him into a room much smaller than the main library. The information contained within this room were not kept as books upon shelves, but rather files within old metal cabinets. A thick layer of dust and several cobwebs had settled over all of the filing cabinets.
Naruto looked behind him to the ladder that led up the trapdoor. He had moved the bookcase back into its original place as he had gone down, in case someone came into the library and noticed it moved. He could actually be here a while.
He moved into the room, hitting the light switch for the single bulb that hung over the center of the room. He pulled open the nearest cabinet, a loud clattering resounding through the room as the rusted hinges strained underneath the stress.
A few documents and manila envelopes spilled out as Naruto opened the file, and he leafed through a bunch of them until he figured out what he was looking for was not there. He wanted information on ninja personnel from other villages, specifically information on ninja that the other villages wouldn't be keen on handing out.
Naruto rifled through half a dozen different cabinets filled to the brim with the same manila envelopes and papers. Secret plans, top-secret mission details were what he found readily, with some of Konoha's skeletons being concealed here as well. It was on the seventh cabinet in the middle drawer that he finally found what he was looking for.
When he opened a manila envelope on that drawer and withdrew a random file, he noticed that they were ninja registrations. And not just any ninja registrations, but they were those of other villages AND were those of significant ability or renown.
The one he had pulled out was of a kunoichi from Kusagakure, an elite ninja from their village who had gained a reputation for always killing every enemy she could on missions. This was no run-of-the-mill Genin or Chuunin.
"Aha! Ninja registrations!" Naruto snapped his fingers and withdrew several more envelopes, placing them in the center of the room to be bathed in light. They seemed to be organized by village, but that was of no help to him.
Naruto sighed, pulling up an old stool from the corner and sitting down at the desk in the center. He rifled through the rest of Kusagakure's files, noting with disappointment that they didn't seem to have a Jinchuuriki.
Ichibi and Nibi were out of the picture, Konoha held Kyuubi and that was it, so there were only six of them to find for Naruto. Not every ninja village was guaranteed to have one.
"Aha!" Naruto said once again, this time when he was rifling through files from Kirigakure. What he had fished out was a file on a young, dirty-blonde shinobi from Kirigakure named Yagura.
Yagura held the Sanbi.
"Wait a minute. Yondaime Mizukage, and instigator of the Village of the Bloody Mist? What the hell, that was a lot more than I expected from the Sanbi's Jinchuuriki..."
Only when his eyes panned down to the reminder of the file did he realize that there was a big, red "DECEASED" stamp near the bottom. Naruto narrowed his eyes.
Yagura was apparently already dead, but Bijuu don't die easily. Did he die from having his Bijuu removed or from other causes? And where was the Sanbi now? Whatever the case, Naruto now knew that Kirigakure probably still possessed the Sanbi.
Naruto pocketed that file, deciding to put that issue away for later. Kiri was without a doubt his next destination anyway, even if they weren't guaranteed to hold the Sanbi anymore.
Five more to find...
As he continued moving through Kiri's files, he was surprised to learn that the village was in possession of another Bijuu, this time the Rokubi. The file of the man named Utakata showed that he was still alive, so there weren't any extenuating circumstances like with the Yagura case.
He began checking through the other village's files, specifically through the other members of the Five Great Shinobi Nations. Iwa happened to have two, the Yonbi and the Gobi. Yet Suna seemed to only have the one, which he had already taken. He was heartily surprised to learn the Kumo had another besides the Nibi, a shinobi who was apparently the Raikage's brother.
Information on the last Bijuu took a surprising amount of time for Naruto to scrounge up. The Nanabi was the only Bijuu to not be held by one of the Five, and it was when he was moving through Takigakure's files that he finally found its Jinchuuriki.
He pocketed the last file, having information on all six Jinchuuriki he needed. If everything went according to plan, it went Kiri, Iwa, Iwa, Kiri, Taki, Kumo, and finally Konoha. It looked like he would be spending a lot of time around Kiri and Iwa in the oncoming months.
He shut the light off in the room before fixing everything to the way it once was. Missing files were sure to be noticed the next time someone went down here, but he'd be long gone by the time that would hopefully happen.
Naruto climbed back up the ladder and moved the bookcase out once more so he could squeeze back into the main library. This mission was going about as smoothly as the Bijuu could've hoped for.
And then, he opened the door back out into the main part of the Hokage Tower, and Naruto realized how much he had lost track of time while he was within the secret vault.
The sun was just peeking over the horizon, and although his father wasn't bound to be there yet, some of the Chuunin on guard, doing chores, or other work were.
One of them just happened to be moving down the hallway just as he opened the door. It took him a moment, but Naruto finally realized that the person he ran into was someone he knew.
Inuzuka Kiba was the one walking through the hallway, carrying some kind of desk drawer with him as he did so. Akamaru was surprisingly absent, but maybe Kiba just didn't want to burden his friend and familiar with early bird duties.
Nevertheless, Naruto's sudden appearance seemed to throw Kiba for a loop, and the Bijuu would soon find out why.
"You!" Kiba roared in surprise, dropping the cabinet he was carrying with a loud thud. "Who the hell are you, and where did you come from? I would've smelled you coming!"
Ah, so that was it. Human-shaped or no, Naruto was still a concentrated mass of sapient chakra at this point. He didn't have an odor.
"I don't enjoy getting smelled by dudes..." Naruto responded with a certain amount of brevity. Already though he knew that he had aroused some kind of suspicion. For starters, he wasn't dressed in what he could call standard issue of Konoha shinobi, and he was keeping his face concealed underneath his hood.
"You're not a Konoha shinobi... you don't even seem human. What are you?" Kiba asked, getting into a Taijutsu stance. Naruto cursed; the lack of a smell must've tipped him off.
Naruto frowned, not bothering to say anything else. The hood all of a sudden seemed remarkably inadequate to disguise his face though, and he subconsciously pulled the fabric forward.
Kiba's eyes narrowed further, like he was trying to catch a glimpse of the face beneath that hood.
"What were you doing in Hokage-sama's library?"
Naruto thrust his arms out, bending his knees in a crouched position. Golden chakra rocketed out beneath his legs, and he leaped into the air like a coiled spring, bursting through the ceiling at a breakneck speed.
The disguised Bijuu went straight through two floors and out the roof of the Hokage Tower, leaving Kiba to growl as his jaw dropped.
"Oi, come back here! Akamaru!" the teenage Chuunin gave a sharp whistle, before he set himself to pursue the mysterious intruder up to the rooftops. His trained ears picked up a familiar bark in the distance making its way toward his position, as well as the rustling of footsteps upon the rooftop.
"An intruder in the village? Seems pretty obvious, but what ninja in their right mind lets themselves get caught so easily? And this escape plan doesn't exactly scream subtle. Something is going on here..." With a few nimble movements, Kiba was already on the rooftops. He was right, Naruto's flashy escape plan had already drawn the attention of a few more interlopers.
"Akamaru!" Kiba cried, when he glimpsed the familiar white coat of his canine come into view, following by a deep bark. The figure was in Kiba's peripheral vision, moving across the rooftops near the Hokage tower.
Kiba did a backflip as Akamaru came into view, landing upon his familiar's back as if he were a mount. With agility a dog shouldn't be capable, Akamaru bound across the rooftops toward the mysterious intruder, and Kiba could already see several more shinobi closing in on his position.
"Inuzuka-san!" a Chuunin Kiba had seen here and there took a position right next to him and Akamaru. "What's the situation? What is going on?" he asked.
While Kiba was tracking down the intruder, someone had raised the alarm in the Hokage Tower when they saw said intruder jump through two stories and practically dismantle the building.
"An intruder in the Hokage Tower! I haven't figured out his objective yet, though..." Kiba replied, seeing five shinobi of various ranks corner Naruto on the rooftop of a house near the Hokage monument.
"Does Hokage-sama know?"
"He wasn't in the office yet. Someone will tell him though once he arrives... For now, we just have to make sure that this one doesn't escape the village!"
Meanwhile, Naruto had stopped when he had been cornered by the group of random ninjas, most of which had been in the Hokage Tower at the time of his discovery. Some of them were wearing looks of uneasy anger, while others just seemed uneasily confused.
Like clockwork, most of the shinobi pulled out kunai and prepared for a fight, as Naruto was just standing there with his face concealed and his body hunched over.
The nameless ninja nodded to one another, until one of them seemed to take the role as leader.
"Come quietly with us and we promise you will be treated fairly..."
Naruto rolled his eyes underneath his hood. Coming with them would mean getting turned over to Ibiki or someone else with the T&I department of the ANBU.
Speaking of the ANBU, Naruto caught a glimpse of one of them hiding in the shadows. They were probably either waiting to track him outside the village should their compatriots failed to capture him. Well, that organization acted quickly, he had to give them that.
Naruto didn't really have much experience fighting in his human form, other than training against himself while in the cage and a few bouts once he had gotten out.
Whatever the case, "human" form wasn't exactly what he'd use to describe himself in this shape. Humanoid was more like it, since he still didn't follow the biological standpoint or combat style of a human.
For example, the acrid chakra of his carried over once he transformed.
Inuzuka Kiba and Akamaru landed on the roof alongside their comrades. A few of the shinobi gave him and the dog space to move forward, considering Kiba had already turned half-beast.
For Naruto, it looked like fighting was the only way to get out of this situation. Yet the longer he lingered, the more attention he would draw to himself. He might even give himself away, considering Konoha was the place of his former Jinchuuriki.
Kiba was about to say something, but was cut off when golden chakra erupted from the cloaked Naruto, gradually taking the shape of a cloak as it materialized.
Of all the things they could be fighting against, the surrounding Konoha shinobi were not expecting this. Several of them groaned and murmured to one another, and Kiba grit his teeth at the odd display while Akamaru whimpered.
"Hoshi, what is that?" a random ninja whispered behind the ninja-dog pair.
"I don't know, but it kinda looks like..."
"It can't be, can it? I've heard that it was lost not too long ago..."
"Just look at that thing, though. It even kinda looks like the Demon Fox's Cloak, except gold..."
Naruto glowered underneath his hood. They were already onto him, so he might as well go the extra mile. A tail of golden chakra extended out of his backside, turning him into his single-tailed state.
One Chuunin had managed to get behind Naruto and tossed a kunai at him from about ten feet away. As he did however, the cloak began to fully form around the disguised Bijuu, and the viscous chakra stopped the kunai in its tracks before dissolving it completely.
Naruto's arms fell out of his sleeves quick as a flash, and he pointed three fingers at the offending individual who attacked him.
The chakra around Naruto's arm shot out like an extension, flowing toward the attacking shinobi like a cascade of poison, its four fingers outstretched. It crashed into the panes of the rooftop, missing just barely as the Chuunin leaped out of the way.
A sizzling sound was heard as the concrete and stone of the rooftop began to burn, but Naruto withdrew his chakra just a few seconds after the attack had failed.
"Gatsuuga!"
Twin tornados of grey assaulted Naruto's senses as his attention was drawn to the spinning Kiba and Akamaru, the latter of which had transformed into the former when Naruto wasn't looking.
"Wrong move..." Naruto muttered, holding his hands out. As the twin clones tried to bore through Naruto, Naruto caught one of them by the hands as they struggled in deadlock.
The one he caught made a remarkably human grunt of pain as their fingers interlocked, his golden chakra overpowering the human's regular, blue chakra as Kiba's hands and wrists were engulfed.
The force from the conflict had knocked Naruto's hood down, revealing his blonde, reptilian face to the world. Kiba and Naruto locked eyes with each other, one with agonized exertion and other with a irritated glower.
"You! You're... do I know you?"
Naruto kicked out, catching Kiba in the stomach while the Chuunin was preoccupied with the pain. Kiba skid along the panes of the rooftop as Akamaru kept barreling to attack Naruto from the periphery.
The chakra had seared Kiba all the way up to the elbow. He was lucky Naruto had kicked him, a few seconds longer and his chakra would've corroded his hands to the bone.
He was also so preoccupied with that the he didn't notice Naruto had flipped over Akamaru as he attacked from the rear, and the cloned dog finished spinning and returned to normal.
"What are you all doing? Capture him!" Kiba barked to the various ninjas that seemed to do nothing more than stand around while Kibe fought Naruto. The nameless ninjas seemed to pull their heads out of their asses when Kiba barked at them, but Naruto had slipped away in the confusion.
"There he is!" someone shouted. Since the building they were fighting on was close in position to the Hokage Monument, Naruto had taken the opportunity to try and sneak away by climbing up the Nidaime's left cheek.
He lifted his legs and flipped up the side of the rockface as he scaled to avoid a few opportunistic kunai that had been thrown. A Fuuma Shuriken had even embedded itself into the rock right next to him.
Naruto allowed himself a look behind himself as he climbed, the ninjas he had been fighting fanned themselves out in a certain formation, apparently in attempt to pursue him up the mountain. His cloak hadn't faded at all, but when he reached the summit of the mountain he almost immediately found himself pinned to the nearest rock wall by a strong and speedy Taijutsu attack.
Naruto winced in pain from the attack, but the chakra surrounding him otherwise protected him. He moved himself out of the crater the attack had made, his swimming vision picking up on a masked face that he vaguely recognized.
"Kakashi..." Naruto snarled. He had faith that his Bijuu form could take Kakashi, but he wasn't so sure about his human form. And turning into a Bijuu here would no doubt draw the attention of his parents.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Kiba cried out as he landed atop the head of the Nidaime along with Akamaru and a few of the other ninja who had pursued Naruto up the mountain. Kakashi narrowed his visible eye, holding his arm out to prevent any of them from taking action.
"You guys... Where did this intruder come from?" Kakashi asked. He could obviously deduce much of the situation by observing the fight, but he wasn't exactly in the tower when Naruto was discovered.
"The Hokage Tower, I caught him while he was coming out of Hokage-sama's library!" Kiba told the elite Jounin. Naruto was beginning to get annoyed as well as a little worried. Kiba he could probably get away with showing his face, but Kakashi might pick up on it despite his older age and reptilian features.
"I see..." Unlike everyone else there, Kakashi knew why someone breaking into the Hokage Tower was a bad sign. It wasn't the only thing on his mind, though.
"Um... yeah. Can anyone also tell me why said intruder just happens to be a Jinchuuriki?" he deadpanned. Some of the Chuunin behind him seemed to mutter some nonsense to each other. Either they never made the connection, or they didn't even remember what a Jinchuuriki was.
Even though he didn't show it, Naruto became confused. They really thought he was a Jinchuuriki? Though, he was in a humanoid form using a technique that was characteristic of when Bijuu bestowed their chakra upon their hosts.
His mission that was going so well had turned into a disaster. He had alerted the village of Konoha to his presence and had given away at least a piece of his identity. Even if they only labeled him as a Jinchuuriki, he didn't want any parts of his identity known by Konoha, lest they attempt to take him back.
Naruto looked behind himself; he was only in his One-Tailed State. With Kakashi, it was better to not take any chances. Slowly, Naruto cast his head down and drew any more chakra from his system, as a second tail of chakra sprouted out of his backside.
His face began to crack and become more demonic, with his eyes slanting even further than normal while becoming one solid gold color. His claws lengthened further and became coated with a deeper color of gold chakra.
"Well, this is nice and all, but I'm going to make my escape now. So you guys will have to wonder about that on your own..." Naruto said, wanting to make his escape before Kakashi recognized who he was.
"Sorry, but I'm gonna have to make you get acquainted with a certain guy named Ibiki. Jinchuuriki or no... rummaging around in top secret files isn't allowed in this village..."
Naruto got into a stance. It was not a Taijutsu stance.
"Kiba, I need you to back me up. The rest of you, alert Hokage-sama that there is an enemy Jinchuuriki in the village," Kakashi ordered. Despite his resoluteness, Kakashi couldn't help feel he was missing something with the individual before him.
"Sigh... this is why I have to do what I do. The fact that your village has enough military power to take me down means that I'm never going to rid of you humans..." Naruto said, confusing Kiba and Kakashi as the other ninja ran off.
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing, just thinking aloud..."
"Whatever... you can think aloud all you want in front of Ibiki..." Kakashi said, lifting a hand up to the top portion of his mask. He pulled the fabric down slightly, not enough to reveal his whole face, but just enough to reveal his famous Sharingan eye.
"Kakashi... using his Sharingan. Are you under the impression that I actually use jutsu, let alone ones that you can copy..." Naruto's chakra pulsed and fluctuated as the Bijuu itched for battle.
Naruto sped forward like an animal, arms outstretched in order to cover as much area as possible with his chakra. There was a panicked bark from Akamaru, before the agile ninja dog leapt into the air.
Kakashi meanwhile had finished scanning his surroundings. The four of them were standing on the tip of the Hokage Monument, with very little cover in the area besides a few jagged rocks to hide behind. Terrain like this was sure to favor a Jinchuuriki who had more raw power.
Pretty soon, Naruto was in striking distance. He raised his chakra-coated arm above his hand, wasting no time in bringing it down upon the spot where Kakashi stood.
The acrid chakra dispersed into five thick streams of toxin when Naruto wiggled his fingers. Two of them chased after Kiba and Akamaru in mid-air, and the other three pierced Kakashi through the lung, right leg, and neck.
At least, they would've if Kakashi didn't disappear into a large rock.
"Kawarimi?" Naruto muttered, seeing Kiba beginning to make his move, while Kakashi was nowhere to be seen. Using the Kawarimi in this area would allow the Jounin his hiding spot.
Naruto still felt that there was something very off about this battle. Here he was, out in the middle of broad daylight fighting two ninja from his former village was using Bijuu powers. Kakashi seemed very lackadaisical in his approach, so perhaps they were just...
...stalling?
"Ugh, goddammit..." Naruto growled out in frustration, bringing his hands up into some seals as Kiba and Akamaru had transformed into some two-headed dog thing that was drooling everywhere. That beast wasn't what he was concerned about, however.
He had been stupid, and had allowed himself to be drawn into the fight, which is exactly what the Konoha shinobi wanted until backup could arrive on the scene, in which he would then be turned over to Ibiki.
So, there was only one solution. Get out now.
Kakashi had appeared out of his hiding spot and was ready to go on the offensive once more, but the Jounin had underestimated the extent that Kiba was such a hands-on fighter. Him and the dog were once again attacking in a much more direct approach than Kakashi.
Naruto leaped into the air away from the area of battle, hoping to get out of the village before any back-up shows up. Unfortunately for Naruto, Kiba didn't plan on letting that happen. Unfortunately for Kiba, Naruto was now in a less than forgiving mood.
"Move it!" Naruto roared in a bestial voice, putting his cloaked hands into a seal. When he finished, his chakra cloak began to warp and jiggle, small orbs of the golden chakra breaking off from the rest and floating in mid-air.
The two-headed dog had starting spinning at this point, moving around in a circular pattern around Naruto to try and cut him to ribbons. Naruto spread his arms out in mid-air, shooting the little droplets of poisonous chakra off like bullets to the flying dog.
The spinning dog was fast, but there were hundreds of chakra bullets enclosing the transformed Kiba from every possible direction.
The bullets impacted the two-headed dog while it was spinning, as they were encompassing him from all sides with little way to avoid them.
The giant dog howled and fell out of the air as the poisonous chakra pierced straight through the Henge. It impacted the ground and the transformation was dispelled, leaving the wounded Kiba and Akamaru at the bottom of the rockface.
Akamaru had flopped uselessly over to the side, the large, mountable dog unconscious with several burn mark on his belly. Kiba too was grimacing as blood leaked out of his hip, apparently hitting the Henge had created lasting damage.
"Kiba!"
It turns out his comrade getting injured was enough to draw Kakashi out of hiding. The Jounin leapt out of hiding and quickly checked for a pulse on Akamaru, never taking his eyes off the Bijuu in front of him.
He half-expected their enemy to attack him right there as he came out of hiding, but Naruto seemed to regard this as an escape opportunity.
"Wait!"
Of course he wasn't going to wait. The Bijuu took off like clockwork down the mountain and to the side, leaving the wounded Konoha shinobi in the dust while Kakashi tried to tend to his comrades. He glared at the receding figure underneath his mask, but tending to the wounded was more important.
Akamaru was already unconscious, and Kiba had a ugly hole in the side of his body, and was trying to hold onto consciousness.
"Kakashi-san!"
Kakashi looked up to see some of the backup he was expecting to arrive, but Naruto had bowed out of the battle to retreat a little too early. The group of ninja looked down at Kiba and Akamaru in surprise, but when Kakashi looked off to the side, he saw an individual ANBU in hiding.
Kakashi nodded to him, and the ANBU nodded back. The ANBU had clearly been informed to the situation and had probably seen the Jinchuuriki retreat, and would deal with his tracking accordingly. It was out of Kakashi's hands now.
Five minutes later, and a medic-nin had arrived, though Kakashi had applied rudimentary care to both Kiba and his familiar.
"Kakashi-san, we'll take Inuzuka-san and Akamaru's recovery from here on out. Hokage-same is in his office, and would like to speak with you about these matters."
Kakashi nodded curtly, having had expected that. The medic-nin's hands began to glow as he applied the healing chakra to Kiba's wounds, and the dog ninja had manage to regain consciousness.
"K-Kakashi-sensei…" Kiba breathed, and Kakashi turned his attention back to the wounded teen.
"W-Was it me, or did that guy seem familiar?"
Kakashi looked ahead as Kiba was brought away on a stretcher to the hospital, but his words rang true with the elite Jounin.
Kakashi wasn't ignorant. He noticed the familiar color and abilities of the chakra that Jinchuuriki used. He should've recognized it as the Reibi, but there was something off about it that made him hesitate to think that it truly WAS Yukiko's former Bijuu.
The cloak was a standard feature of a Jinchuuriki's power, but the Reibi was the Zero-Tailed Beast that had only been discovered around a decade that. That one used two tails of chakra, more than the Reibi should physically have.
But even then, the Jinchuuriki himself was one that Kakashi was positive he had seen before. But the reptilian features clearly made it more difficult for Kakashi to determine the identity of that Jinchuuriki.
Kakashi bid Kiba farewell as he was carried away on the stretcher, before heading off to report to his leader and sensei in the tower. Minato had no doubt been in for a rude surprise when he arrived to his office building.
Meanwhile, Naruto had breached the exit walls just as the sun was about to rise over the horizon. Injuring Kiba had given him the means to escape, but he couldn't help feel that it was entirely too easy.
He had met shockingly little resistance on his way out the village with the information in his pocket, even after he had been discovered. He wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth though, but when he entered the thicket of forest, his chakra bristled when he realized why he had escaped so easily.
It was the type of presence that made his chakra bristled, a resonation of his own chakra and the residual chakra emitted by the individual who he was closest to in location.
"ANBU..." Naruto muttered to himself in his mind. So, that's why he got away so easily with such pitiful resistance from the Konoha shinobi. Back-up was going to come for Kakashi and Kiba and they had orders to capture him on the fly, but the village still needed to determine an ulterior motive. The ANBU probably had their own agenda that was separate from Kakashi's. Holding and questioning a "Jinchuuriki" wasn't always the smartest move, so what better way than to tail him and see if he has an objective?
The ANBU of course were doing everything they could to avoid detection, hanging back a reasonable distance. They probably would not have been detected if Naruto was human.
There couldn't have been more than four of them, with only a single ANBU Captain in the basic platoon. Naruto unconsciousness tapped the scrolls that had made their home in the pockets of his robe, moving through the forest at a steady pace.
The ANBU wouldn't attack, he knew that.
But if they wanted to track him for a while, well, he'd let them knock themselves out...