Confrontation:
Four blurs moved through the sand as they neared the border of the desert. It was getting darker as night started to fall, and Kakashi held his hand out to stop his team. "I have located the marshes with the Sharingan, it is two miles ahead. There are also rocky patches among the marshes, huge caves and boulders; I am guessing that Gaara is held in one of those caves. Remember the plan, as soon as we get Gaara we get out, we are not to confront the Akatsuki unless absolutely necessary. Understood?" said Kakashi as he looked at each member of his team.
"Why not confront them, there are only two of them and four of us, statistically we can take them down and capture them, then we can interrogate them to find out more about the Akatsuki and why they are after the bijuus," asked Naruto, nobody could tell in the dark (and Kakashi had already covered up his Sharingan) but Naruto's eyes were red, he was using the Kyuubi's enhanced visions to see more clearly so that they did not get ambushed.
"Yes, statistically you are right Naruto, but it does not apply to these ninjas because they are top class Shinobis, we have no idea what their skills are, and we do not want to endanger Gaara's life by fighting the Akatsuki instead of getting him out of there and back in Suna. Secondly, I believe that we are not ready to take on two dangerous criminals all by ourselves," replied Kakashi though he knew Naruto did not believe him.
"Can I talk to you alone for a moment?" asked Naruto, and with a nod Naruto and Kakashi moved out of Sakura's and Chiyo's earshot.
"What do want to talk about?" asked Kakashi.
"Have you really not noticed, or are you pretending to keep us in false security?" asked Naruto, as far as he was concerned they were not truly alone.
"Damn, I got caught," thought Kakashi before asking "How much can you sense?"
"Two, not as strong as I thought they would be. One is much more like an aquatic organism, and has a little bit higher chakra reserves than the other, both are moving towards our location at a very low pace, and they are a little less than a mile away from us," replied Naruto, he could see the silhouettes of two figures moving towards them, but they were taking their sweet time.
"Wow, he has better chakra sensing abilities than me," thought Kakashi. "How can you tell how far they are Naruto?"
"I can see them."
"How? You do not have a blood line limit, nor do you have transplanted eyes!"
"I have got the Kyuubi, as you already know, using his eyes, I can see more than normal sight, and his eyes have an effect, if you look at me directly for a few seconds, I can put a little Kyuubi chakra into my eyes and you will be paralyzed by fear for a few hours, unless you have your own ocular powers. It is just that the Kyuubi has certain…qualities that make him more unique than any other tailed beasts." Naruto replied, shocking Kakashi a little bit.
"Well I think we should still stick to the plan because Jiraiya-sama said that he does not want you to face the Akatsuki yet, and you are my responsibility until this mission is over. We get Gaara and get out, unless we are forced to face them." Kakashi said, as he took his mask down, to look at the pursuers that Naruto mentioned.
"These are not the ones that kidnapped Gaara," said Naruto.
"What? How do you know and who are these then?" asked Kakashi, again surprised by Naruto's level of intuition and deduction.
"These are back up so that the other two can get Gaara out and take him to the main stronghold, or delay us for some reason. I found traces of chakra all over the village, these two are a little weaker than the ones that kidnapped Gaara." said Naruto getting back to thinking why the Akatsuki had back up in the first place.
"I see," said Kakashi. "Well that means that we have to take these two out, fast and before dawn."
"Yes, let's go tell Sakura and Chiyo-sama to get ready for the Akatsuki," said Naruto before sushining back to the spot where Sakura and Chiyo were waiting.
"There are two Akatsuki coming at us from there," said Naruto pointing in the general direction where he had seen them. "We have to take these two down, and before dawn. Get ready." Naruto said to both Sakura and Chiyo.
"Crap, that means these two are not the ones that kidnapped the Kazekage?" asked Sakura as she put her gloves on and got her medical kit ready for immediate use.
"Humph, these younglings are eager for a fight, maybe I should just let my puppets do the fighting," said Chiyo and she opened a scroll and summoned two of her puppets.
"Sakura, stay close to Chiyo-sama. I will attack the shorter one to distract him, you three take the swordsman down as fast as possible," said Kakashi.
"Kakashi-sensei, be careful the shorter one is…an Uchiha!" Naruto said shocking both Kakashi and Sakura. Naruto, remembered Fukasaku's training against an Uchiha, do not look in the eyes and always keep an outlet to make sure one can break out of a genjutsu. Naruto quickly made a shadow clone and it disappeared into the darkness.
"Everybody ready?" asked Kakashi, whispering. When the other three nodded, he pulled up his hitai-ate, revealing the Sharingan and said "Go!" As if on cue, the two Akatsuki came in their view and stopped.
As soon as the two Akatsuki stopped, Kakashi was on them. They did not have time to react as Kakashi kicked the shorter of the two, square on the chest, and then attacking him with Tai jutsu, solely intent on taking the fight away from his comrades. Kisame turned to attack but came face to face with two puppets, completely armed and ready. Kisame snarled before jumping back, only to see an oncoming fist. He pulled Samehada in front of him blocking the punch but miscalculated the amount of force behind the punch. Sakura's fist connected with tremendous crash and sent Kisame flying. Naruto was on Kisame in an instant, rasengan at the ready. He drove his rasengan into Samehada, driving Kisame into the ground and creating a small crater.
"Damn, you ninjas don't give a break do you?" said Kisame, as he coughed some blood but climbed out of the crater unscathed. "I guess I have to go full out," he murmured before pulling the wrapping away from Samehada.
"So you are the famous swordsman Kisame, and that is the fabled Samehada? Boy I thought that it would look better than a dead fish," said Naruto in a mocking voice, clearly trying to enrage the swordsman. He had confronted only one swordsman of the mist in his life before Zabuza Momochi, and insulting a swordsman's sword really tended to make them angry.
"Yeah, me too when I first saw it up close but then seeing as how the sword's shape is really useful in battle I was satisfied." Kisame grinned as he said that before charging at Sakura. It did not work because he got body-tackled by one of Chiyo's puppets from his blind side. Sakura did not get attacked but Samehada crashed down on the puppet's head and completely obliterated it. Naruto was on the move; he quickly pulled out ten shurikens and threw them before doing the "Shadow shuriken technique," the ten multiplied to a hundred and fell on Kisame in a spiral, almost forming a dome around him. Naruto was not done; he quickly made two shadow clones and attacked Kisame with first class, coordinated Tai jutsu. All Kisame could do was defend himself, that shuriken technique had taken him by a surprise, not many ninjas appreciated the art of weapons anymore, and that shuriken technique was one of the oldest techniques in the book made to incapacitate an opponent.
"Hey brat," shouted Kisame. "Who the hell are you, how come I have not seen you in any bingo books before?"
"I do not like to advertise my existence," Naruto shot back at Kisame, as he came at Kisame again with his clones.
"Smart kid," thought Kisame before doing a few quick hand seals and a dragon rose, right from the mud and attacked one of Naruto's clones. The clone vanished in a puff, giving Naruto time to attack, he also did a few quick hand seals and the mud dragon was cut in half by a wind blade. Just as Naruto was about to attack Kisame with his clones, a mud dome rose from the ground and trapped Kisame from neck to toe. Naruto looked around to see Sakura, holding the ram seal, her brows were furrowed and she was pumping a lot of chakra to keep the jutsu going.
"Take him out fast Naruto, I can't hold him for long," Sakura said, she was already breathing a little hard; beads of sweat was forming on her forehead. It didn't take much convincing; Naruto formed a rasengan with extra density, than a normal rasengan, and shoved it into Kisame's head. Sakura's knees buckled and she slid to the ground, breathing hard. As the mud that covered Kisame's body disappeared, Naruto saw a shift, like a genjutsu disappearing. Suddenly, the features of the body changed and it turned from scaly blue to normal human skin. There wasn't anything left of the head, but Naruto was sure that the face, if it was still intact, would have also shown a different person and not Kisame.
"Damn, I should have known this would happen, Kisame is one of the strongest members of the Akatsuki." Naruto had fought another Akatsuki named Zetsu before, and it had turned out to be a fake also, though it was more like a really sturdy clone than anything. Naruto looked towards the direction where Kakashi was standing facing off against Itachi, both stood stock still not moving a muscle, it looked like they were having a stare battle, as none of them were blinking.
"Naruto, do not distract Kakashi-sensei, he had this fight before, and he was in the hospital for more than a month because he lost to Itachi, This time he has come prepared, I think we should trust him." Sakura said as she came to stand beside Naruto, also looking at the two combatants.
"Sakura, he was beaten by the real Itachi, this one is a fake," said Naruto putting emphasis on the word real as he pointed to the body that once resembled Kisame. Sakura gasped, before looking back at Kakashi with concern. "We have to warn him, I think I can break him out of the genjutsu, can you distract that other man?" asked Sakura she was already gathering her chakra to pull Kakashi out.
"Yes, I think I can keep him long enough for you to inform Kakashi of the situation. Go, as soon as I attack Itachi, ready?" Sakura nodded. Naruto charged at Itachi and, as he was taught by Jiraiya, instead of looking at his eyes, he stared at his body, mainly Itachi's legs. Naruto vaulted over Kakashi and did a spike kick, driving his heel into Itachi's shoulder bone as hard as possible. Itachi fell clutching his left shoulder, and he heard movement behind alerting him that Sakura had pulled Kakashi out of the genjutsu battle. Not looking around, Naruto attacked him, and was answered with well coordinated counters to all the Tai jutsu combinations that he threw at Itachi.
"Are you a student of the Jounin named Might Gai? It seems you are using his form, not looking at the opponent's face but his body and legs to predict his movements and attacks, a very impressive form against people with ocular powers I might add." Itachi was quietly contemplating as to who this blonde teen was. When he had visited Konoha before to check whether they had a jinchuuriki at all, he had not sensed demonic chakra in anybody. Yet this boy was wearing a Konoha headband, and jinchuurikis were not allowed to change their villages, so who exactly is this boy and where was he all this time?
"No, I am not Might Guy's student, I was taught in the way of Shinobis by Jiraiya of the Sannin," Naruto replied, he had read Itachi's chakra signature, it was a clone. A clone that could endure a lot of hits and that could relay its information to the user instantly, not after it is destroyed.
"Oh I see, so you traveled with him and did not stay in Konoha, like the rest of the teens your age?" he asked, if Jiraiya had taken an apprentice then the council, especially Danzo, would have known about it, why wasn't he informed, or could it be that Danzo did not know about this boy at all. It just made the Akatsuki's job a lot easier if Konoha did not even know that they had a jinchuuriki. Before Naruto could answer, Kakashi intervened.
"I take it that you are an imposter, or a clone but not the real Itachi?" Kakashi stated more than asked as he came up to stand beside Naruto.
"Yes, as always your deduction is accurate, in fact I was surprised that you did not realize that when you first attacked me with your Sharingan," said Itachi "It seems I have done all that was required of me." As soon as Itachi finished his statement, his body split into several ravens.
"Well then, since that is done with let us resume our search for the young Kazekage," said Chiyo, reminding everybody why they were here in the first place.
"Yes, let's go," agreed Kakashi as they all started to move in the direction where they had sensed the two Akatsuki members before.
"Naruto, I want you to use your chakra sensor and sense how many human chakra signatures there are in the vicinity," said Kakashi, he had only sensed two chakra signatures. Naruto nodded and widened his search as far as he could, he located the two Akatsuki members just a few miles ahead and four more rapidly moving from the direction of Suna directly towards their location, it would, at least, take the four new people an hour to get here.
"I sense six," said Naruto, Kakashi was not as surprised as Sakura, who spun around.
"Are you sure Naruto, if there are five Akatsuki members with Gaara, then this mission is a failure already," Sakura was certain that two Akatsuki members were enough, but taking down five criminals of S-ranked ninjas required a battalion of soldiers.
"No, there are only two Akatsuki; the four that I sensed earlier are Might Gai and his team," replied Naruto, maybe this mission will not be as difficult as he thought it could be.
"And what of the Kazekage boy, did you not sense him at all?" asked Chiyo, making Naruto realize that he had not sensed a chakra pulse from Gaara at all. That could only mean that either Gaara was suppressing it or he was…dead.
"SHIT!" shouted Naruto before putting more chakra into his legs and with a burst of speed started moving towards the base where he had sensed the two Akatsuki members before.
"Wait! Naruto! Damn, he is not going to listen, Sakura stay with Chiyo and follow us in exactly fifteen minutes, I am going in after Naruto," said Kakashi before rushing after the blonde.
"Darn how could I have been so dumb, I feel like a total idiot? I should have noticed that Gaara had no pulse, did these bastards kill him?" thought Naruto as he moved towards his target as fast as possible. He stole a glance behind him only to see a silver haired Cyclops following him. "Okay, so they have not abandoned me, good I don't think I am ready to take these guys out alone. Okay, Ero-sannin said that without the experience I was as strong as any ANBU squad captain, so with Kakashi I think we should be able to take down the two Akatsuki, even though they are the real deal." Naruto landed in front of a tunnel that snaked its way into a very a mountain.
Kakashi landed beside Naruto a few moments later. "Naruto, what were you thinking charging in like that, do not let your emotions cloud your judgment." Kakashi admonished Naruto, even though he was whispering it was clear that he was unhappy with Naruto's rash decision to move in by himself.
"Don't worry Kakashi-sensei, I have a plan so hear me out," said Naruto as he explained what he thought they could do get the Akatsukis. "You know as well as I do that these ninjas are S-class, and we also know exactly how strong S-class ninjas are, they are not invincible. As far as I know about you, you are an S-ranked Shinobi yourself, so my plan is to charge in and create a distraction. Then you can go in and take out at least one of them as fast as possible, and then we can take the second member easily. I assume that you have given Sakura and Chiyo-sama a little bit of time before they join us?" After Kakashi nodded, Naruto dispelled the clone that he had created before his fight with Kisame and created a new one. This clone quickly disappeared, moving in as silently as possible.
"Ah, shadow clone. Very clever but quite ineffective, if they find your clone then they know that you are at least close to them," said Kakashi, as he tried to think why in the world he never used shadow clones for scouting, it was simple but very effective method.
"While they know I am close, I know exactly where they are, and it is still better than trying to scout by yourself and getting caught," said Naruto as he quickly checked his pouch to see how many shurikens, kunais, and explosive tags he had. As they waited for Naruto's clone to return, they were joined by Sakura and Chiyo.
"Why are you guys just sitting here, I thought we were going to attack and get Gaara?" asked Sakura.
"Yea that was the idea, but Naruto here preferred a little scouting, which, in my opinion, was a smart move. If we know the enemy's location we can formulate a strategy to take them down quickly," Kakashi said, sounding a little proud of Naruto, even though technically Naruto was still not his student.
"Oh, but he is not really scouting, he is just relaxing," said Sakura sounding a little lost when Kakashi said that Naruto wanted to do a little scouting.
"No, he is relaxing because his clone is doing the scouting," Kakashi said, he also wanted to relax but Sakura's questions was interrupting him constantly.
"Guys, my clone just killed itself. The two Akatsuki members are just waiting right now, it seems like they knew we were going to be coming after them. Gaara is at the corner of the cave and is being guarded by what looked like a big clay dragon. Are you guys ready?"
"Yes, as long as you do not interfere in my fight," said Chiyo, as if she had already decided to fight no matter what the situation was.
"Who are you going to fight?" asked Naruto, he was always interested when old people wanted to fight, it usually meant that the fight was going to be long and usually were strong fighters with awesome jutsus.
"I will fight Sasori," said Chiyo, who was also her student and grandson.
"Okay, we will take care of the other guy, he looks like he works under Sasori, so he is the weaker of the two," deducted Naruto.
"So how do you plan to attack?" asked Sakura, she was not a tactical or strategic Shinobi, she needed a plan that she could follow to use her medical skills effectively when needed.
"Naruto is going to use his speed to enter and hide, and use stealth to attack the second Akatsuki member. Chiyo-sama and I will enter and face them, while Sakura, stay behind us, and cover us if needed." Kakashi knew this plan worked quite well with all the former members of team seven. Naruto was not a member, but he hoped that Jiraiya-sama had taught him the importance of team work. "Okay, go!" Naruto vanished, as soon as Kakashi's last syllable left his mouth, surprising Chiyo again.
"Is that the yellow flash of Konoha?" she asked a little hesitantly because she thought he would be older than a teen.
"No," said Kakashi immediately, he did not want to talk about Naruto's past, not with the Akatsuki so close. "I think we better move in."
Kakashi, Chiyo, and Sakura walked in what appeared to be a cavern. There was a little stream running at the side and the two Akatsuki members were seated, and one looked like he was bored out of his mind. "Alright which one of you wants to experience my art hnn?" asked the blonde Akatsuki as he stood up. The other Akatsuki was hunched over, and had what appeared to be a tail, but it was made of steel. Chiyo quickly laid down her scroll did a few hand signs, and with a puff of smoke there were ten battle-ready puppets in front of them.
"Sasori, what are you waiting for?" asked Chiyo, her eyes narrowed, and an immense amount of killing intent was flowing out of her.
"Deidara move back," said a raspy voice as Sasori moved forward. Chiyo motioned with her hand and all the puppets attacked at once. As soon as the puppets attacked, Naruto attacked the other member of the Akatsuki. He appeared behind the Akatsuki and punched him, yet it was the force behind the punch that surprised every-one. Deidara flew almost fifty feet before crashing into a wall that formed a little crater where he crashed. When he turned around, he was a little amused to see the jaws of Sakura and Kakashi on the floor.
Kakashi recovered when he saw the red hue that surrounded Naruto's golden eyes. "Sage mode, and no morphing, he must have mastered it completely." Kakashi thought but quickly pushed down his urge to ask and moved his head band to reveal his Sharingan. Naruto noticed that unlike the regular Sharingans, Kakashi's did not have tomes anymore instead it appeared like a three sided shuriken where each edge had a protruding angle that curved and connected with the end of the edge of the following side (just look up Kakashi's Mangekyou).
"Hmm, more talented than I thought, he mastered the Mangekyou Sharingan without being an Uchiha; I did not think that was possible!" he mused as he slowly stalked towards the body that had crashed into the wall. He had sensed a chakra spike just before his punch connected, Naruto has long since learned to never under estimate an opponent, even the weakest of them could pull out unbelievable feats when facing a stronger, or an overconfident opponent. He suddenly stopped as he realized that there was a chakra signature to his left and snapped his head there to see the blonde haired Akatsuki member hanging upside down from the ceiling in the farthest corner of the cavern. He gave Naruto a lopsided grin, but his eyes seemed to search Naruto's face for something.
"Hey boy, you look like you are not even out of your teens, but the techniques you use are quite dandy, are you also an avid believer of art hnn?" he asked, for some reason this young boy showed potential and experience well beyond his age, if Deidara had to guess, this power could be coming from a jinchuuriki. But he also knew shinobis like Itachi, and their intellect and tactical use of jutsus made even jinchuurikis look like baby wannabes. Maybe this blonde was another example of genius prodigy, or some clan that granted him the strength and power that the boy seemed to have, and the jutsus he used seemed like Kekkei Genkai because he hadn't seen anybody else move with such speed and hit with so much power.
Naruto returned the lopsided grin with his trademark foxy smile, but said in a cold and indifferent voice "In battle there is no such thing as art or beauty. If you find your explosions and fireworks are a work of art then I suggest you get some medical help, because they are just what they are, a tool to end life. As for a believer of art, yes but for me art is something that makes life more peaceful, aesthetic, so shut your crap about art before I shut it for you." As Naruto finished his speech, Deidara's face took on a look of disdain, which then turned to anger when Naruto threatened him. Nobody insulted the great artist Deidara and got away with it, and with that thought Deidara moved his hands forwards in a thrusting motion and out came several fist sized spiders, they were all made of clay.
"Take this you insolent fool, today you will meet your doom in the form of my magnificent art of destruction," screamed Deidara in glee as he was about to see the end of another genius who was too proud of himself and his luck begotten genes to appreciate the beauty his art. His delight did not last long as Naruto put his hands together in the form of a tiger seal. For a brief second nothing happened but then, the wind in the cavern began to shift and change, the temperature rose at least ten degrees and it seemed like all the air in the cavern was being sucked by a huge vacuum cleaner. When Sakura looked at Naruto, she realized it was Naruto who was doing all this, but was confused when she saw strange symbols and markings were coming out of Naruto's arms, like a 3D projection. Neither Sakura, nor Chiyo had seen anything like this before, Deidara and Sasori also stood frozen just as baffled by his display of awe inspiring power over nature. It was only Kakashi who had a faint inkling of what might be going on, but he could not be sure as he had never seen fuuinjutsu of this caliber at work before. In fact Kakashi was not even sure this was fuuinjutsu, he had no idea that fuuinjutsu could be used in this way at all. It was only that he recognized some of the markings that were coming off Naruto's arms.
"If my line of thinking is correct then this type of fuuinjutsu is much more complex and of much higher level that what I am or even Jiraiya-sama is capable of. What is this kid capable of?" thought Kakashi as the air that seemed to be sucked in actually formed a fierce vortex that surrounded Naruto, and even though it looked like the vortex was very strong, it was under Naruto's complete control as it only moved in a perfect circular trajectory around Naruto and disappeared once it had cut the clay spiders into dust, rendering them useless. Throughout this whole time Naruto was constantly glaring at Deidara, and his hand formed a medium sized rasengan, but it was purple in color. Kakashi's Sharingan showed him that the rasengan was far denser than a regular rasengan, hence the change in color form light blue to purple. In his other palm, it appeared that Naruto was holding a circular sphere but made only of air.
"Surrender now, or else you will feel the edge of my chakra," said Naruto in an eerily quiet tone, but there was no argument that it held barely contained fury that could come flooding in at any moment. Sasori knew that this lad was not to be messed with, and that he was well beyond Deidara's ability to take him down. The only option that was left was to flee, so Sasori's tail shot out with as much force he could muster and drove right through the ceiling of the cavern. There was a mini explosion, but as it died down, everybody could see the huge hole that had formed in the middle of the ceiling. Morning sunlight streamed in from the hole, it was probably during the dawn of the next day.
"Deidara, we have what we came for, take the demon binding and go, do not stop until you have reached the base. I will hold them off for as long as possible. Go now while you still can, the rest of the mission is up to you," said Sasori in his perpetual raspy voice. Deidara had also come to the same conclusion, so he clapped his hands twice. Naruto was confused until he saw the clay dragon that was sleeping at the corner of the cavern rise swiftly and flew towards Deidara with impossible speed. Deidara saluted quickly and jumped on top of the dragon.
"I will see you later boy, and next time I will make sure you feel my art before you meet death," he shouted as the dragon carried him towards the Akatsuki base with speed that no living animal could have achieved. As Naruto saw Gaara's limp body on the floor, his rage seemed to return doubly, newly fueled by Gaara's condition. He turned towards Sasori, and there was murder in his eyes. He simply vanished and then he was on top of Sasori driving the purple rasengan squarely into his back. Much to everyone's astonishment, Sasori began to laugh. There was so much that these simple minded fools did not know. As the smoke cleared, Naruto saw why Sasori was laughing, there was a huge shield, shaped like a mask that covered Sasori's entire back, and was also the reason why he always stayed in a hunched position. Because of the rasengan there was a long crack running perpendicularly running across the entire shield. That deadly tail was also an extension of the shield; it started where the shield ended in a curved tip at the base of Sasori's back. As the remains of the Akatsuki robes fell away from his body, everyone was stunned at what they saw. Naruto jumped away from Sasori's back, Kakashi's eyes widened; the body was composed of inorganic materials only. Sakura gasped loudly, and Chiyo could only look on in sorrow filled eyes at what atrocity her grandson had turned himself into.
"Yes, look at my body, and be afraid for that is what you should feel when you mere mortals gaze upon my immortal form," rasped out Sasori, his non-living eyes glinting with malice.
"Oh my boy, what have you done to yourself?" said Chiyo, as she looked at her grandson but only saw a puppet, non-living non-feeling.
"What every puppet master should do, and what you were afraid to do. Look at me, look at this perfect form, an immortal form that the human body could never achieve because it is weak and rots away with time. But this body, It will never age, never rot, it will always remain strong and powerful," Sasori proclaimed proudly, though with his raspy voice it was a miracle he actually proclaimed anything at all. Naruto on the other hand was busy scanning the insect like body to pinpoint the source of the chakra signature that he was feeling coming from Sasori, just as he would from any living person. A quick scan showed him that it was coming from the middle of the chest area where lied a tube that spread the chakra to the rest of the inorganic body via artificial chakra transponders that was set very much like a nervous system through the rest of the body. All he had to do was taking the source and destroy it; the rest will take care of itself. As the shield fell off Sasori's back, it clearly, Naruto saw a circular outline where the source of Sasori's chakra was coming from.
"I had warned you not to play with things that you could not understand! I had warned you that changing bodies and exchanging souls from living objects to a puppet could make the sustenance very unstable. I don't have to look to know that you cannot utilize your chakra to its full potential, can you?" asked Chiyo with such confidence that the others did not have to look anywhere to verify it to be a fact. With a wave of Chiyo's hand all the ten puppets exploded into action and they all attacked Sasori at once.
"Take a look at Gaara, see if you can help him, go" said Naruto as Sakura ran towards Gaara's prone body. "All right, I have to get close and take that heart out, that will at least contain him if it doesn't right out kill him," thought Naruto. He saw Kakashi was intently monitoring the fight between Sasori's and Chiyo-sama's six remaining puppets. "Did you find a hole in his defenses yet?" asked Naruto hoping that Kakashi's Sharingan eyes had caught some flaw that had missed previously. He couldn't ask Chiyo either, she was having a hard time as it is in fighting Sasori with her puppets.
"No, his tai-jutsu is even better than my comrade Might Gai, and the enhanced strength due to his inorganic body allows him to keep going even after sustaining injuries that would fell even the toughest of humans. If we have to take him down, we have to rake him down with something extremely powerful, even stronger than your condensed rasengan. I don't have anything that is stronger than your rasengan, but if you do, I and Chiyo-sama can work together to give you a small but clear opening for you to take him down," Kakashi had a feeling that Naruto had a lot more than he was showing, so he decided to give Naruto one more chance to surprise him again.
"Yes, I have one more attack but it is really risky."
"What do you mean by risky?"
"The attack is large enough to bring down this whole cavern, I am not sure that is safe, especially for Gaara."
"Okay you prepare the attack, I will talk to Chiyo-sama and Sakura," said Kakashi as he created a copy of himself and it ran towards Sakura while the original moved towards Chiyo, where she was fighting Sasori with four of her remaining puppets. Naruto pushed his hand out, and swirling chakra quickly took the form of a rasengan, now came the hard part. His face contorted as he focused all his attention in adding the wind Chakra to the swirling mass of regular chakra, until a year ago he needed clones, but Jiraiya had force him to try making the Rasengan and the Rasenshuriken without the aid of clones so that he could reserve his chakra. While it did take a large amount of concentration, it did save quite a bit of chakra that he needed for creating clones. Slowly the shape of a slowly rotating shuriken formed with the fast rotating rasengan at its center, the glow from the Rasenshuriken filled the cavern. Naruto looked up from the attack to see Sakura vanish into the tunnels with Gaara's body, and Kakashi and Chiyo had also retreated back towards the entrance of the cavern. The only thing that was keeping Sasori from charging right at Naruto was Chiyo's two puppets.
"GO!" Naruto shouted as he vanished in a golden flash and appeared in front of Sasori, the Rasenshuriken was squarely pushed into the circular outline which marked the source of his chakra. The rasengan disappeared into Sasori's body before expanding from inside outwards and formed a huge dome of immense chakra. From outside Sakura, Kakashi, and Chiyo saw the whole structure that made the cavern came tumbling down on Sasori and Naruto as it could not withstand the force of the attack.
Mwahahaha, cliffhangers! Okay now I know you guys must be epically angry at me till now because this chapter came out like a millennia after the previous one but I guess I should give my sorry reason for being this late. I have been in California for the whole time now and I was so busy that I haven't even caught up with whatever is going on the manga of Naruto (I am sure amazing stuff has happened by now). So along with juggling classes, lab work and my cousin's wedding, I just did not have time to concentrate on writing but I promise that I will make this up to you now that I am back in Arizona, and the wedding is over, I have submitted my research paper, and am hoping for an A, oh and just finished writing this chapter. Hey, some people in review have been saying that I have made Naruto too string at the age of 12! Guys I am starting from around the Shippuden timeline and he is fifteen, just making sure you got the fact right. Again I am really sorry for the delay. Let me know what you think of this chapter and please review.