I know I should have finished the fight in this chapter, but I saw a review that said something about cliffhanger so I decided to give everyone a good one. Hope everyone enjoys it. (evil laugh) Muahahahahahahahaha. Don't forget to review.
I don't own Naruto in any way shape or form, but if I did this is how it would go.
EXPLOSIVE SURPRISE
Sakura finished throwing up the lunch she never ate and wiped her mouth clean. She lifted her head and surveyed the landscape around her through blurry vision. She quickly snapped out of it and jumped to her feet as a thought jumped into her mind. 'What if this was another puppet, I would have been wide open'. She looked around quickly in a fighting stance ready do defend herself. She knew it was maybe a foolish thought, but one that she could not get out of her head so easily. She fought her paranoia down and calmed herself. She had to check on the others and make sure they were okay. Her worries completely changed as she saw Kakashi. She forgot about being attacked and ran to his side. "Kakashi. Thank the gods you're conscious." she said as she saw he was weakly trying to prop himself up.
Kakashi looked at his former pupil, relief that they had won washed over him. "You did very well Sakura." He said.
Sakura raised her hand in a silencing motion as she crouched to inspect his condition. "You shouldn't talk Kakashi-san. You need to conserve your strength while I look at you." Sakura still felt inadequate and her mind wanted to obsess over her failings, but she pushed those thoughts away. She had to focus on getting through this, their mission still wasn't finished. She looked at the spear going through Kakashi and noted that it had missed the vital organs, he would be fine. He had lost a larg amount of blood however and the poison was already coursing through his blood. She took out a kunnai and began cutting the rope that was in Kakashi's chest. She was having a tough time, but she wasn't about to give up. "Demo, sensei I should have evaded him and been better prepared." she said. With a lot of effort she was finally able to cut the rope. She sat Kakashi up and pulled the rope out from behind. Kakashi winced in pain as the rope grated through his body on the way out. She quickly set to closing the wound and heal him.
After a while she finished with him. She had mended the skin with a thin membrane so that it could provide quicker rebuilding and wrapped him up with bandages, she then gave him the antidote and healed his interior organs as well as she could. Once that was all done she breathed a sigh of relief, he would need a crutch to walk, but other than that he should heal fairly quickly. She told him to rest and regain his strength because after the mission was complete they would have to trek back to the village. She was about to get up and look for Chiyo when Kakashi grabbed her ankle, she looked down in curiosity. Kakashi spoke "Don't fret about the details Sakura, if you had dodged it you may not have been able to capitalize on the opportunity. You have to deal with the hand life gives you, you did well Sakura. Don't be down on yourself." Kakashi released her ankle and closed his eyes so he could rest. He didn't see the tears in Sakura's eyes.
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Lee couldn't believe what he was seeing. That Naruto in the sky was not the Naruto he had come to know. Even though his appearance had changed it was more than just that. Not only were there streaks of red hair on Naruto's head the chakra around him was burning so brightly it made Naruto look dark skinned. There was something about that chakra surrounded Naruto that was totally off. He didn't know what to do when suddenly Neji's voice spoke through his communicator. "Lee keep an eye out on Naruto this is our mission if Naruto is out of control then we have to use the seals the Hokage gave us." Lee didn't understand what Neji was saying Naruto was out of control, but from his perspective he was totally in command.
He mentioned this to Neji. "He looks in control Neji. What do you want me to do?"
Neji sometimes couldn't believe how thick Lee was. "If he gets out of control. IF Lee, don't attack him if what you say is true. Just keep the seals handy." Neji said. He was making much faster progress now that all the birds had left him alone. He knew she called them away for some reason. He had to hurry up.
Naruto was now falling down to the ground with the smile still on his face. He saw another large clay bird flying at him at tremendous speed and his grin widened. His tails grew in size and spread out like a fan. As he kept falling he began to flip. He was now headed down to the ground head first with his back to the oncoming bird. He scanned the horizon with his keen eyes and picked up Neji running at incredible speeds. He looked to see the reason and spotted a flock of small clay birds heading his way. Nice plan he thought. Whoever was fighting him had a limited attack variety, but they compensated for it with their strategies. His tails shot out to a huge size and he put his hands above his head. Once he felt the bird was close enough his tails clamped down like venus flytraps and widened to envelop the bird. Incredibly he did not miss the bird was swallowed whole. The next second his chakra arms hit the ground immediately after that his arms also hit the ground. He brought his legs and body around and was in a crouching position his tails still forming a circle containing the large clay bird. Lee had now come and was standing next to him. Naruto's voice yelled in his mind. "What the hell are you doing! You're letting them get away!" Lee came into Naruto's field of vision and Naruto yelled again before the fox could answer. "Don't let him get hurt!"
The fox did not like getting bossed around and his first urge was to destroy Lee, but he restrained that urge. He realized if he hurt the brats friend he would negatively affect his chances of getting a good deal out of the boy. His eyes narrowed in on Lee. He answered Naruto's questions in his mind. "The thick eye-browed baka won't be hurt. Don't worry boy, I know what I'm doing." Lee was about to ask a few questions of his own when he felt the pressure on his chest, he hadn't noticed that the chakra could act on it's own and now it made contact with him and began exerting force.
Lee was able to notice all these details because of his superb senses, but it was too late to do anything about the force which now pushed him. "N-nani!" He was suddenly flying backwards at an incredible speed. He could not stop himself because his feet wouldn't touch the ground and he knew now something was wrong. Naruto would never do something like that to a friend and the eyes that had looked at Lee were not Naruto's familiar blue eyes. Lee decided he needed to help Naruto and as soon as he hit the ground he would get to it.
Naruto's yells once again erupted in Naruto's mind. "What the hell was that! You said Lee wouldn't be hurt!" He was almost immediately drowned out by the fox's angry retort.
"Are you really that stupid brat. Didn't you see the bird I'm holding. If the boy were anywhere closer then the distance I sent him flying he would be killed by the blast." The fox didn't waste anymore time he knew the other smaller birds would be there in seconds. He released the bird behind him and simultaneously ran the recovering bird throufh with one of his tails and with his chakra legs pushed off the ground. When the bird began exploding the fox was already speeding away at speeds Naruto thought inhuman. Naruto wasn't aware of it, but they had broken the sound barrier and were causing a sonic boom as they escaped the explosion. The birds explosion kept growing a conflagration of flames spreading out as it launched sand into the air developing like a nuclear weapons explosion. The fox was kicking up waves of sand in his wake and his grin had become a full fledge smile. Naruto's fangs were bared and there was a gleam in those red eyes as the fox was once again on the hunt.
Deidara was flying away at a distance contemplating the repercussions of her actions. Aketsuki had worked so hard to get to where they were and she just went a wasted the main target. She was cursing herself for acting so rashly. She had never felt the way that demonic chakra had made her feel. Insignificant. She couldn't bare that feeling, she heard the explosion and began to think of how Sasori would react. He would know immediately what she had done. Would he tell the other members? Of course he would she thought, he had no real loyalty to her and she had just done something that was worthy of loosing her life for. She looked back to see the small mushroom cloud in the distance. Damn she thought to herself, maybe if I hadn't used so much Chakra the jinchurikki would have just been knocked out. As she was looking, the cloud beginning to break up something caught her eyes closer and moving much closer at a great speed. From the distance she was at she could only see the cloud of sand being kicked up, but she knew almost immediately what was causing it. She did not panick this time, but in her heart she knew she was no longer the hunter, she realized this was about to become a battle for survival. She formed her seals and began preparing for the Jinchurikki.
Neji had stopped running a good distance before the blast. He saw the bird coming at Naruto and the strange chakra surrounding him. For some reason he felt compelled to backtrack, instead he began running to the side. He saw the initial explosion and began running faster wishing he had Lee's speed. He felt he was already a good distance away from the explosion, but didn't stop running because he didn't want to risk being wrong. The explosions force did get to him lifting him up into the air in a cloud of sand and sending him sprawling, but at least he was able to avoid the actual explosion. He immediately yelled into his communicator. "LEE! ANSWER ME!" worried about his team mate Neji would not forgive Naruto if Lee were dead.
Lee had hit the ground just as the explosion began. Even though he had promised to go back seeing this explosion made him pause and the realization dawned on him that Naruto had saved his life. He was confused to say the least, but even though Naruto appeared and acted differently Lee had a hard time deciphering if he had lost control. Lee stood there and watched while the explosion grew, he was worried about his friend and knew not what to do yet. As he stood there a voice suddenly yelled directly into his ear making Lee forget all his thoughts and jump about ten feet into the air. "Nani, Neji. Don't yell so loudly, you don't have to act as if I forgot my communicator you know." He said as he rubbed his ear and the side of his head. "That really hurt my ear you know." He heard a loud sigh of relief on his communicator. Funny he thought what was Neji so worried about. "So what should we do now?" Lee asked.
Naruto/ Kyubi saw their target and leaped up into the air. This time they were much higher then when Naruto last jumped. He was high above their quarry. Their target was moving closer to the ground, but the fox had no intention of letting it escape. His tails shot out growing at an amazing speed and headed directly towards the flying bird. He saw her put up some sort of protection, but it would be useless. Suddenly just before contact Naruto's voice rang in his head. "DON'T DESTROY IT GAARA IS IN THE HEAD!" The Kyubi was able to alter the course a few inches before contact. The tails barely missed the bird as they continued on their maddening way finally striking the ground. It penetrated the hard surface and stayed there. It was no longer sand, but looked like hard clay. Naruto was still high in the air held there by his tails. The kyubi let out a deafening roar of frustration the gust of winds released from Naruto's lips were not human and the wind was strong enough to make Deidara's bird struggle with flight. She looked at her surroundings and saw the tails had encased her. She could try flying between them, but knew the Bicchuu had powers she didn't know about and would strike her down with them if she wasn't aware. The Kyubi's frustration was rising, he wanted to simply unleash his power and destroy something, mainly Naruto at the moment for bossing him around. Thoughts were always colliding in the Kyubi's mind and right now the wisdom of dealing with the boy and the frustration of what he was putting up with was tearing him apart. All these thoughts ran through his mind in less then a second as he re-focused on the target. So the boy was in the birds head Kyubi thought. So be it he would handle this. He threw his hands out and his chakra hands extended past his physical reach. They grew to great proportion and closed around the bird his claws cutting the head of the bird cleanly off. The Kyubi's eyes widened as he saw the girl finishing her seals and from his peripheral vision saw what she had accomplished. He took a moment to admire her skill. Not many shinobi's could muster what she had just accomplished. The ground over which they were was made up of clay like substance she had been able to manipulate it and now a plethora of spikes was flying towards him. He closed his hands completely around the bird as the spikes flew past Deidara and became explosively charged. Kyubi's tail grew as he pushed off further and went higher into the air being followed by the volley of spikes. Naruto stood quietly watching the events unfold. He questioned how far he had come seeing these two fighters engaged in battle, and wondered if he could hold a candle to either of them. He did not think he would have survived the first explosion much less what was happening now and seeing the Kyubi using the same amount of power as him with such efficiency Naruto began to feel dwarfed. As the battle raged on an idea began to formulate in Naruto's head or not so much an idea as what it was he would ask in his dealings with the demon fox. The fox suddenly changed directions and began plummeting towards the ground at a steep angle. Naruto had no idea what the fox was planning, but he was running out of time. The Kyubi had successfully gotten all the spikes to be above him. The spikes were not able to keep up with the demon fox's speed so now they were high above them and the fox had let his arms stretch out as he escaped the spikes so the bird was now also high above him. The fox unclasped his hands from around the bird, but there was no longer a bird there instead there was that red sphere that Naruto had seen before. It's effect this time was different though, instead of disappearing it exploded to enormous proportions with energy flying all over the place it consumed all of the spikes. Naruto thought it would keep growing until it burned him as well, but the fox knew what he was doing as soon as the sphere consumed all the spikes the fox dispersed the growing sphere. Energy shot everywhere and Naruto could see it all breaking apart like falling meteors. Kyubi looked at his handy work and smiled. The smile quickly disappeared as he realized his time was almost up. He scanned the scene before him and quickly saw something. He had returned to normal size chakra wise, but now one tail shot out towards the fallen head.
Naruto screamed in his mind at the fox. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! GAARA'S IN THERE." the tail did not stop at all. Suddenly there was a jolt Naruto heard the demon fox roar in frustration. The tail stopped and came back. Naruto's field of vision shifted and landed on Lee. Naruto didn't hear the words Lee said as his fist connected with Naruto's jaw and sent him flying back. Suddenly behind Naruto the seal began to glow and there was an earthquake in his mind as the demon fox was forced back behind the bars. The fox's roars continued behind the bars as he was forced back into his prison.
Naruto was forcefully forced back into sole occupancy of his body. Before he was totally there the Kyubi yelled. "Your enemy escaped, she had hidden herself in the head with the other boy." Then suddenly the fox's voice boomed. "DON'T FORGET YOUR WORD BRAT! THREE DAYS! DON'T DIE IN THE EXPLOSION!" Suddenly Naruto was back in his body lying on the ground. What the hell had the fox been talking about at the end.
"What explosion?" Naruto said. Suddenly arms gripped him and he looked up to see Lee standing over him and saw Neji running towards them in the distance.
Lee had seen the fight and did not know how to react as he ran towards them. He measured his steps to see how it would developed. When he saw the tail begin to shoot out towards Gaara he accelerated at an incredible pace with seal in hand. He slapped it on Naruto just in time, the tail had almost reached its target. Naruto turned to look at him with burning red eyes. He did not hesitate. He apologized to Naruto as he launched a decapitating blow. Now that Naruto was on the ground Lee ran to him to see if they had been able to save him. Naruto asked a question, but Lee ignored it. It made sense Naruto was unaware of the explosion he had just caused having lost control. He gripped his friend and apologized once again. "I'm sorry my friend. I had to do this, it was also part of my mission." Naruto had no idea what Lee was talking about. His mind was running trying to assess the situation.
He looked Lee in the eyes and barked. "We gotta get Gaara! Let's go." Naruto didn't wait to see if Lee followed, but was up on his feet and running at top speed towards the head in which Gaara was in. As he closed the distance the Kyubi's words finally clicked. The head was the explosive. He had to get Gaara away from it. He came to the head and Lee was right behind him.
Lee saw Naruto was back to his senses and did not hesitate in following him this time at full speed. When they stopped Lee asked. "Now, what do we do?" Naruto was inspecting the head. He saw there was a hole where it had been separated from its body and in it was Gaara's unconscious body. He waved Lee over and Lee went to him. Naruto was not sure when the head would explode, but he needed to get Gaara away from it as soon as possible.
He looked at Lee and hoped his friend wouldn't ask any questions. "Lee I need you to take Gaara and run back the way we came from. As fast as you can. I have to deal with this trap." Thankfully Lee nodded his head and went to grab Gaara. Once Gaara was in his arms he nodded towards Naruto and turned back the way he came. Without hesitation he was gone, headed back to Neji. Naruto picked up the head and began running the opposite way from Lee. Naruto couldn't see the chakra inside the clay anymore and had no idea how long he had. All he knew is that he wanted to toss the head away as far as possible and return to his friends. He had covered a large amount of ground and thought the distance was enough. He stopped and launched the head out towards the empty land. As he turned around to run back his fear was realized. The head blew up. The explosion was too close to Naruto. Without the fox's chakra Naruto was not fast enough to escape the blast he was engulfed by the flames. He let out a yell. "NNNNOOOOOOO!"
Lee was reaching Neji when they heard the explosion. Lee turned back and looked for Naruto to be running on the horizon, but this sight did not greet his eyes. Neji was now standing beside him byakugan turned on and looking at the explosion. He looked as hard as he could but could not see Naruto. His mind began racing and his hopes fell. He could only hope the jutsus he had seen Naruto carrying would be enough to save him. He looked at Lee's waiting face and let him know the sad news. "I can't see Naruto." Shock overtook Lee and he dropped Gaara, he was about to run back to find Naruto when a hand gripped his shoulder. He turned to look at his friends grim face. "Don't rush to your death Lee. We have to wait for the explosion to die down first." They stood there looking at the explosion and the developing mushroom cloud. Disbelief on Lee face and hope on Neji's face.
Deidara had made her escape smoothly. She had set the head to explode at a set time after she left it. She knew the boy would not harm their captive and had created a clone and gone into the head with Gaara. Once she saw that it was safe to come out she did so and set the trap so that if anybody noticed her escape the explosion would occupy them. She smiled as the plan had gone off without a hitch. She had gaged the Jinchurikki's powers and avoided any casualties. She breathed a sigh of relief. She would have forfeit her life had the Jinchurikki died. Suddenly a voice spoke to her and surprised the hell out of her. A figure was standing not far from her shrouded in darkness with an orange swirling design on his face. "Tobi saw... you. You forgot to take into account if the target would be the one to take the bomb in hand. Like he just did." Shock registered on Deidara's face whoever this Tobi was, he was right. Tobi looked into the distance. "Don't worry, Tobi is a good boy. Tobi can keep a secret."
PREVIEW
Hinata, hot springs. Do I dare?
RSO'S
acrazygirlofmanynames- Kyubi better if he knows what's good for him. BTW, I didn't know about that folklore. Thanx for the info.
iceprincess421- deja-vu is crazy. Maybe you read the first few chapters and didn't like as much as the second time around... maybe. So I'm on that list now huh? That's great to know. Thanx for the kisses.
dragonman180- Yeah, but you know Naruto. He's not the brighest bulb in the... you know what I'm trying to say. Neji should be used to it from dealing with Lee so much, but I guess you never get used to some things. lol.
danny- Not a problem, thanx for the compliment. I forgot how many he used. I remember seeing alot, but I never really bothered to count the puppets, but thought 50 was a good number. Yeah, Kakashi's history was explored in the cannon, so I didn't just want to completely leave it out of my story. Aight, from now on I won't worry about your drinking. Lol.
I can relate to your schedule. I don't work out everyday, but its not for lack of trying, I'm usually to tired from work to work out. It's alright if you miss out, the story isn't going anywhere. Ey how could I forget you, you've been reviewing for a while now. You and others that constantly review are the main reason I keep writing. (Yeah, I'm talking about everybody that reviews every chapter, so don't feel left out.) Neji frowns to much huh. Hopefully that will change soon. Kyubi's don't have periods... at least this one doesn't. P.S. I'm only human, I'll make mistakes.
iceprincess- yup, it was a clone. The Itachi in Naruto's mind was an extension of Itachi so wow now that you point it out I guess it can be confusing. Sorry, hopefully everything was cleared up for you.
hmmm, well Kyubi does care for Naruto, in his own nobody will destroy him but me kind of way. J/K I'll explore their relationships more later on and explore Kyubi's motives. Now that you put out those ideas I have to think of other ideas so it'll be original. Thanx for the extra work (raspberries at you) No mind control, mad rage, or someone doing something to him. Hmm, no more ideas this'll be a challenge as it is.
english- I doubt you'll read this, because you couldn't get past the second chapter. but. I've gotten better!...I think.
rasendori- thanx, I'm glad you like it. Ok, so where are your other reviews. I got fifteen chapters after your last review so get to it. J/K, or am I. lol
conland- aight, just cuz it's you I'll do it.
anya urameshi- Oh, ooopps, I thought you liked cliffhangers. Hopefully you liked this chapter. Nope Gaara isn't dead yet. Hope the same can be said about Naruto. Yeah, Hirai is gonna have a much bigger part in my story. She's not part of the cannon, she's my character. Thanx for the comments though, makes me want to make up more new characters. Hint hint.