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…

"I wonder what Jiraiya's teaching Naruto?" mused Sakura as she continued her training.

"Probably something better than this," replied Sasuke with a twisted frown.

"Come on you two, no slacking off," stated Kakashi, watching from nearby as the two Genin continued their squats whilst holding the large boulders atop their shoulders.

Seriously, nothing that Naruto could be going through right now could be worse.

...

"Heh, you should pay more attention," smirked Jiraiya as a kunai with an explosive tag slapped onto it exploded a foot or two away from the red-haired boy's feet. Unsurprisingly, the sand which the boy had tried to crush Naruto with previously, rose into the air and shielded him from the small explosion.

"Mother desires the blood of the blond one," Gaara said with a crooked smile, as he pointed a frail finger towards Naruto before clutching the air in his palm as he looked towards Jiraiya. "However, I will crush you first for getting in the way."

"No way," spat Naruto as he threw his hands into his favourite hand seal, thirty or so replicas of himself forming on his word. "Kage Bunshin! Your fight's with me. I've got this Ero-Sennin."

"Relax, Brat." The pervert laughed a little. "I'll handle it, no sweat. I don't think you're really ready for this ye-"

The man never got to finish his sentence as a torrential uproar of sand sprung forth from the ground and consumed him whole. Just as Naruto was about to react with his clones, the sand around his sensei exploded outwards in a way that made the blond wonder just how strong Jiraiya was. Apart from the little demonstration they had had the other day, where they had managed to catch the pervert unaware in the little training Kakashi had conjured up, he had no real clue just what kind of strength the Sannin had.

"I told you to relax, didn't I?" said Jiraiya with a broad smile as he reappeared unharmed, the sand that had previously encapsulated him dissipating.

"That is the first time anybody's escaped my grasps. I shall enjoy delivering your blood to mother," said Gaara coldly as the sand around him began to dance to his command. Before he could make it destroy the insects in his path, the white-haired man vanished completely from sight and he was suddenly thankful for his sand shield as a monstrous attack nearly took his head off.

"Automatic defence, huh?" muttered Jiraiya as he leapt out of maiming distance for the time being. "Shouldn't be too hard to get around. I've faced worse."

Naruto, meanwhile, only blinked in confusion a handful of times as he tried to figure out just how fast the Toad Sage had just been. In barely the time it took to close his eyelids, the ninja had crossed the distance between himself and Gaara along with attacking at the redhead with a powerful blow - although the blond figured that that attack wasn't even scratching the surface of Jiraiya's abilities. A disproportionate amount of sand rose from under his clones and quickly dispelled them; though Naruto had decided he was content to watch the Toad Sannin's handy work, it was unnerving to see what was undoubtedly his most useful technique swept aside like child's play. Jiraiya was probably incredibly strong given that he had trained the Fourth, but this Gaara kid didn't look like a pushover either.

"Heh, so it looks like this guy's only using the sand in his gourd," said Jiraiya, a thoughtful look upon his face before he turned to Naruto who wasn't paying attention to him. "Brat, I'm trying to teach you something here!"

"Okay, so this creepy guy can only control sand so he carries it around in this massive thing on his back," said Naruto, repeating what Jiraiya had just said. "But that helps us how?"

"What do you think?" asked Jiraiya, the corner of his eyes keeping a watch on the unmoving figure of Gaara. With the redhead just standing there and staring at them the way he was, the pervert was fairly sure he was planning something.

"That information might have helped us if we could get within two feet of him, but as it stands it's not going to do us much good," admitted Naruto, knowing that it wouldn't be easy to fight of the insane Genin in front of him.

"How much sand do you reckon the kid has in that gourd?" the Sannin questioned, keeping his voice to a minimum so that the other Jinchuuriki would not hear him.

"A lot?" replied Naruto. "Did you see how much of it he used to capture yo-"

The blond Jinchuuriki threw his body backwards as a large tendril of sand crushed the spot where he had previously been standing. Jumping to his feet, he was rather thankful to see Jiraiya a little in front of him - hopefully so that the experienced ninja could shield him from the next blow. He had just barely slipped out of harm's way this time.

"Correct, brat," said Jiraiya as his slightly muffled voice floated back to the blond, continuing on with their conversation. "And it's pretty fast… but I'm faster. If you can create a little diversion, just enough to have him focus on attacking you while he keeps the majority of the sand in that gourd of his, I can sweep in and take care of our little sand problem."

"That makes sense." Naruto nodded in approval, realising that the man couldn't have reached his rank without having a knack for good tactics.

"It's a cheap shot, but this kid has a monster sealed in him just like you… except he looks a lot more unstable. It's not worth the risk for us to draw this out fully," said Jiraiya. "Now do your little diversion stunt, but don't go too close to him. You don't want him to try and crush you with his sand. Don't overdo it either, we want most of his sand to stay in the gourd as opposed to having it defend him."

"Gotcha," said Naruto with a nod, his hands linking together in a hand seal. "Kage Bunshin!"

Unlike the few dozen clones that usually appeared whenever he used said Jutsu, only two replicas of the blond were summoned. With an unusually serious look upon each of their faces, the three Narutos all ran towards Gaara, passing the Toad Sage, before coming to a halt a few metres away from the psychopath.

While the real Naruto gave himself a bit of time to focus and allow his hands to flash through a number of hand seals, the two clones emptied their weapon pouches by throwing its contents at Suna's Jinchuuriki. A thin wall of sand rose - almost lazily - to block the weapons, as Gaara seemed to exert pure bloodlust at the blond.

"Mother screams for your blood, Uzumaki," he cackled for the umpteenth time that day. "I will enjoy ripping you apart, limb from limb as my existence is validated at last."

'Meet what you could have become.' Jiraiya's words played at the back of Naruto's mind as he tried not to stare in bewilderment at the boy in front of him. They were the same age, they both held demons within them, and they were both sacrificed for the greater good of their villages. Horror ran through his eyes as they looked the redhead down, those lonely eyes, that soulless expression… Was this really what he could have ended up being?

He snapped back to reality with a jolt as his chakra built up, the blond's only response to the younger boy being to fire off his Jutsu. "Futon: Kaze no Otakebi!" Strong winds protruding from Naruto's lips made their way towards Gaara, blowing all of the boy's sand away with ease however a frown came to Naruto's face when he saw the sand levitate again after the winds from his Jutsu had passed it.

He eyed the redhead carefully as he watched the sand surrounding the Jinchuuriki, now swirling around him with more intensity. Realising that he needed to be careful and to get the boy to relax, the blond retreated as he took to the trees, while his clones followed in sync. Or rather, they both tried to but Gaara managed to snag one and literally bury it with an unfathomable amount of sand.

Naruto's face tensed as he jumped from tree to tree, just outside of Gaara's range. What his clone had just gone through… had not been pleasant. He supposed being suffocated never was, but being crushed by sand of all things was probably the worst way to die. That and he was almost sure that the sand was stained with blood. He shook his head and pushed all thoughts of the horrific death which his clone had suffered away, knowing that he couldn't allow himself to get lost in such thoughts on the battlefield.

Yet, why did it feel like he had just gone through all of that himself?

No, he needed to focus on Gaara and keep the boy at a range, but also prevent him from coming forward. However, that was more easily said than done - a mere kunai didn't phase the boy while anything stronger had him calling on half the sand in his gourd. "Alright then. So I'm going to have to do something completely unconventional," said Naruto not really understanding the irony his own statement had.

His range of techniques and jutsu, however, left much to be desired and while it would likely be worthwhile against a much weaker opponent, here he was facing somebody who's guard could protect them without even the lifting of a single finger. Naruto knew that he could summon a toad to his aid, but as soon as he were to start whipping through hand seals, he knew that Gaara would be onto him and his concentration would be shot. Summoning a tadpole would just be a complete and utter waste of time while leaving himself vulnerable to what could be a life-ending opening.

"Got it," he stated as his fingers returned to their patented seal, twenty clones of himself appearing around him.

"You merely delay the inevitable, Uzumaki," stated Gaara as he pushed his sand forward, intent on devouring the original and offering the blond's blood to his mother.

Along with his clones, Naruto circled Gaara doing his best not to get caught up in the deathtrap that Gaara possessed. With a single misstep signalling the end of his life, Naruto was surprisingly clear headed as he positioned himself. The sand was no longer coming at him, and he hoped that Gaara was slightly confused by the sight around him, but he couldn't get a single read off of his fellow Jinchuriki's face.

Indeed Gaara was intrigued, despite his placid expression, as he found himself circled by the vast number of clones. More sand began to leak out of his gourd as he prepared to guard against whatever futile plan that Naruto had conjured, for nothing that the boy did would matter.

"Futon: Kaze no Otakebi!" shouted all of the Narutos, as they plowed through the hand seals at a rapid pace. Gaara could nearly laugh at the comical sight, as his prey had already seemed to have run out of abilities to use; he hoped that mother would still find the blood worthwhile.

Naruto inwardly smiled as he didn't see the sand start striking out against all of his clones, which meant that Gaara was underestimating him. As he, along with his clones, sent the various wind currents they all aimed at the same spot.

Jiraiya meanwhile was watching his godson with interest from the sidelines. He was going to make sure no harm actually befell the boy, though he could have had the fight over almost as soon as it started but no, Naruto wanted to prove something against a psychopath. Typical. This attack, however, caused him to raise an eyebrow as, instead of all of the wind torrents aiming at Gaara directly, they were all blowing roughly three feet to the right of where the Jinchuuriki stood. With all of the clones standing in a circle, it meant that one of the attacks would be absorbed into the one in front of it, and that the resulting combined force of the wind would then join the one in front of that, and so on so forth. The end result...

Gaara was now standing in the middle of an ever-growing vortex.

Realising his miscalculation as a result of his cockiness, Gaara tried to send out his sand to impale a number of the clones, but it was ineffective, as the grains of sand found themselves getting sucked upwards. That was not his only problem, however, since the wind current circling around him had created a vacuum effect, slowly depriving him of oxygen. It wasn't a complete vacuum effect thankfully - there was no chance of him passing out due to a lack of oxygen - but the low pressure around him started to make him feel light-headed. When one harbours a twelve storey demon continuously playing with their thoughts, light-headed is never a good feeling.

Continuing to pour chakra into the attack, Naruto squinted his eyes as he saw more grains of sand start to peel off Gaara's skin, showing that there had been a second level of defence that had been behind the protective barrier. The shredding of clothing went unheard, as Gaara's tunic was torn off his body by the ever increasing wind strength, making Naruto wonder just how strong this technique was. He also wanted to see if Sakura could light it up with her fire jutsu like she had with the collaboration attack earlier.

A burning tornado of death. That would be awesome.

His daydreaming allowed him to miss a very important piece of information that thankfully Jiraiya didn't, as he saw the seal that held the Shukaku inside of Gaara. The general construct of the seal was shoddy at best - Suna was never truly any good in the whole fuuinjutsu area but this was just ridiculous.

Thanks to Naruto being able to strip the sand off of Gaara's body, the seal had quickly become a target, and from what he could see, it was a seal that consisted of an even number of ink strokes, therefore he had a definite idea how to put a stop to this kid. Flexing his fingers, purple flames appeared on his fingertips as he prepared to finish this with a single move.

"Naruto, stop your jutsu," he shouted as he prepared to enter the fray. From his estimation it would roughly take two, maybe three seconds at most for his sand to drop down and conceal the seal once more. Plenty of time.

Knowing that the pervert had something planned, Naruto stopped his technique and dismissed all of his clones. The vortex however wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. "It's not stopping!" shouted Naruto as he began to panic.

"And this is why you always practise a jutsu before you use it in the field," muttered Jiraiya as he shrugged his shoulders, bending his knees as he prepared to spring forward. It was only a wind vortex that was circling at the same speed of a tornado.

Nothing he couldn't manage.

Springing forward with intense speed, Jiraiya forced his way through the swirling vortex without slowing down in the slightest. "Gogyō Fūin!" exclaimed Jiraiya as he slammed his fingers around Gaara's seal, a cry of pain escaping the redhead's mouth. Having never been injured before, the pain he was feeling now was crippling, his eyes began to grow heavy, unconsciousness quickly passing through his system and for the first time in his life, Gaara of the desert slept.

Seconds passed as the vortex slowly span to a stop, without a constant force of chakra being pumped into it, and the conditions being relatively calm, there was nothing to fuel the attack and it soon vanished completely from sight. "What did you do to him Ero-Sennin?" asked Naruto as he visibly relaxed, the threat of death no longer looming over his head.

"I placed a seal on top of his seal," said Jiraiya, which only served to confuse the blond-haired boy. "Simply put, I disrupted his chakra network by preventing Shukaku from having as much influence in both Gaara's thoughts and chakra output."

"Wow, I had no idea you could do stuff like that," said Naruto who was quite stunned by this new discovery.

"Trust me, Kid, that's only scratching the surface," said Jiraiya with a light-hearted chuckle before he turned his head to see Naruto's two teammates. "Looks like we have some more company."

"I guess they're done with whatever Kakashi-sensei was teaching them," said Naruto with a grin, eager to catch up with his team before he glanced at the unconscious body of Gaara and realised they couldn't quite abandon him.

"Don't worry, you go on ahead," said Jiraiya as he gestured towards the 'sleeping' redhead. "I'll take care of him."

Muttering a few words of thanks, Naruto quickly made his way to the two other Genin. "Hey, guys!"

"Hey, Naruto. Sasuke and I were going to go for a bite of lunch before we resume training later this afternoon. Do you want to come?" asked Sakura as she held her hands behind her back.

"Really?" exclaimed Naruto as if one of his fantasies had just come true, until slow realisation dawned over him that he wouldn't really be able to afford much at the moment until his next paycheck arrived in a few days.

This seemed to be clearly evident on his face which caused Sasuke to speak up. "If you're short on cash, we can shout you with the tips that we made last night," said Sasuke knowing that the money that he and Sakura had made on the side could easily cover the cost of their teammate.

"Really?" repeated Naruto as his face beamed with eternal happiness.

Jiraiya couldn't help but smirk as he watched the three kids run off for some food. He didn't know how much of the fight Naruto's teammates had witnessed, but undoubtedly they hadn't just "conveniently" appeared at the end of the battle.

Brushing that off to the side, he picked up the fallen form of Gaara and slung the unconscious boy over his shoulder. While part of him wanted to just leave the boy there, he technically was an ally of the village, and it would be kind of rude for him to just leave him alone in the middle of the woods. He also had to explain to the kid's sensei that things were going to be a whole lot different once the redhead woke up.

…

"What do you most desire?" asked a strange voice that Hinata could just barely make out. It was almost like a faint whisper, except she was almost positive that nobody had spoken. "Is it power? Respect? Or maybe recognition?"

"Nothing," she said out loud before realising that the voice had come from inside her head. Strange… she was sure that there was no way a Yamanaka would have managed to sneak into the compound undetected.

"Of course you pretend to mask your largest desire. Do not be foolish, what do you want girl? The heart of a loved one? A peaceful life?"

"W-What does it matter to you?" stuttered Hinata, unsure of where the sinister voice was coming from. She recalled a nightmare which she had had not long ago, but this voice was far less sinister. It was however, just as eery.

The silence she received as an answer to her question didn't help her nerves by any means as she began to fidget, her fingers encircling one another as her knees rubbed together.

"Perhaps you wish for the head of someone who has wronged you, or maybe you just wish to show the world that you are not one to be trifled with," the voice ignored her slight protests as it continued.

"No… I don't want to hurt anyone," confessed Hinata. It was true, after what had occurred with Hanabi, the heiress wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and die somewhere. "Please leave me alone."

"You are pitiful," the voice suddenly took a turn for the worse. "Give into your desires and use the strength that will come from it. Without that you are nothing."

"P-Please."

"Worthless… you are the epitome of the word 'weak'," the voice inside her head almost scoffed. Dark marks began to run across her pale skin like lines of oil spilling onto clear snow.

"L-Leave me alone," she whispered back, not wanting anything more to do with the horrific power that she had been cursed with. "I… I won't give into you."

"You need our strength, who is going to protect your loved ones without it? Who will love you without it?" it asked, preying on some of her biggest fears. "How are you going to achieve admiration without it?"

"No…" she sobbed as the black marks began to recess, a tear falling for every half-inch the girl recovered. "Leave m-me alone."

...

"Kakashi-sensei had you lifting boulders?" asked Naruto in disbelief as they waited for their meat to cook. While Naruto had been quite adamant about going and having a bowl of ramen, since Sakura and Sasuke were paying it was only right that they decided where they would go. Per the female teammate's request, they had gone to the barbeque place that was frequently visited by the members of Team Ten. Naruto sat across from Sakura and Sasuke, the pink-haired girl making sure to have the window seat so that she could get the warm air bathing her skin.

"Yeah," whinged Sakura as she rubbed the back of her neck. "I can understand that it's going to help us, but it's a pretty big jump up from what we've been doing. This afternoon I think he wants us to water-walk while carrying these boulders."

"You guys are having all the fun," said Naruto as his shoulders slumped. "All I've done all day is learn theory on how to use… my chakra."

Both Sakura and Sasuke shared a look as they noticed the pause in Naruto's little speech, and also the way he specified that he was using his chakra. It seemed that they were slowly getting closer to solving the puzzle that was Naruto, but at the same time they still didn't have any fundamental proof. It was still something, though.

"Hmm, I smell barbeque," stated a familiar voice from nearby which caused the members of Team Seven to look up. They saw Chouji standing there, saliva literally dripping from his mouth as his eyes were glued on the sizzling meat.

"We're getting our own food, Chouji, don't go stealing others," said Shikamaru as he walked in on the scene with his hands in his pockets.

"Hey, guys," said Naruto cheerfully, happy to see a couple of his friends for the first time since the beginning of the Chunin exams.

"Why'd you have to run off like that?" complained Ino as she bursted on the scene. Before she got an answer, however, she saw just who her teammates were speaking to, and literally couldn't help herself as she leapt at Sasuke with open arms, the black-haired boy completely unprepared for the attack. Yet, at the sound of Ino's voice, somebody reacted, and barely a second had passed as the seal for a Kawarimi was performed.

Ino's arms latched around somebody, and with her eyes closed, she began to nuzzle their cheek affectionately, ignoring the small giggles that escaped the lips of those around her. It didn't take her too long to realise something was amiss, and she backed away to see that in Sasuke's place was her fellow blond, sitting there with a cheeky smirk spread across his face.

"You owe me," said Naruto as he looked over at Sasuke, who was now on the other side of the booth, and who couldn't help but agree that Naruto had saved him this time round.

"Naruto, you baka!" shouted an infuriated Ino as she swung her fist down, only for Sakura's hand to shoot upwards and prevent her friend from striking her teammate.

"Calm down, Ino," she said in her best motherly tone, hoping that the blonde didn't do anything too rash.

"Considering that I came here to keep you two company, I'll be off," said Shikamaru, seemingly having had enough.

"Leaving already?" asked Sasuke, turning his attention away from his potential attacker.

"As troublesome as it sounds, my father wants to put me through some training exercises. After you beat Kiba the other day, it seems like every other Genin is starting to get some kind of special training," said Shikamaru as he ran his fingers through his hair.

"How do you guys know that?" asked Sakura as she released Ino's hand.

"Kiba's mother sometimes drinks with my father," explained Shikamaru. "That night she was quite loud and complaining about how her son isn't fit to compete in the exams if he can't even take on somebody who got knocked out in the first round."

"I take it she wasn't sober then," said Sasuke.

"Indeed," said Chouji as his eyes returned to the meat in the middle of the table before an idea popped into his head. "Hey, Naruto, you want to have a little spar later on? It'd be nice to have a training partner for the afternoon. We'll make it taijutsu-only though, because that's one area I need to improve on."

"Sounds great," said Naruto as he smiled broadly.

"Good. By the way your meat's burning," said Chouji as he pointed to the centre of the grill where the meat that had gone unattended for the last few minutes was producing thin wisps of black smoke.

"Shit!" shouted Naruto as he used his chopsticks to salvage whatever he could, Sakura and Sasuke doing the same. Chouji meanwhile shook his head from side to side. Such amateurs should not be permitted to handle food in such a way.

...

Translations:

Gogyō Fūin = Five Elements Seal

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