In case you're all wondering, Shukaku appears to be stronger than Nibi was ONLY because he is using his chakra at its (very small) maximum and generally relying on brute strength, whereas Nibi was restricted by Danzo's control. All cleared up? Good.

Enjoy this next chapter, took me long enough lol ^_^

I cut short the previous chapter because it seemed like a good place to stop and I hate to keep you all waiting, I know how frustrating it is. Anyways, keep those reviews coming! 3

Chapter 9

It happened so fast, Kakashi barely had time to follow it. A blur of enraged red fur slammed into Shukaku's chest, knocking him back a bit and sending sand into the air in cascades. The burning crimson chakra that encased the furious demon boy swirled and tore into the giant racoon's flesh, forming a crater similar to the one he'd just sprung from and wrenching a howling scream of pain and anger from Shukaku.

Recovering from the shock and the pain, Shukaku slashed viciously at the creature embedded in his chest, but his claw was stopped just a few feet away by a large red-orange tail that wrapped tightly around it, preventing it from moving anywhere. He tried again with the other claw. Another tail wrapped around that one. He tried to bite. Another tail encircled his neck, choking him.

The tails were strong. They were unmoveable.

Shukaku looked visibly concerned by this. His eyes widening and panic beginning to set in. Naruto hadn't budged from his chest, his sharp fangs and powerful jaws ripping and biting; his claws securely rooted in the sand of his skin.

Even with the sand regenerating the wounds, the hole kept getting bigger. It just wasn't fast enough. The great racoon's chakra reserves were beginning to run low and more and more sand fell to the piles at his feet.

In a last effort to dislodge Naruto, Shukaku whipped his tail around, intending to pummel the boy to death. A fourth tail intercepted it, bringing it to a halt metres away.

Kakashi blinked. Fourth tail? Yet another tail flicked beneath the mass of twisting limbs. 'FIVE tails?!'

The situation was worse than he had thought. Naruto had already past half way, it was unlikely there was any humanity left at all.

Crimson chakra billowed thickly. Too thick to really make out much of what was inside it, but Kakashi was willing to bet it wasn't human shaped.

Shukaku was at breaking point. He could barely breath and neither his tail nor his arms could be moved. He flung himself around in a vain attempt to crush or dislodge his attacker. To no avail. He smashed himself repeatedly into the ground.

But Naruto refused to be moved. His chakra protected him from the impacts. It wasn't as if he needed to conserve any chakra like most people did, he had more than enough to literally reduce the giant racoon demon to the sand he came from. But he didn't. He enjoyed tormenting him instead. Taking malicious glee in the demon's pain and suffering. He was, completely and absolutely, a monster.

Kakashi didn't know what to do. The teenagers around him all had equal expressions of horror and alarm. They didn't know what was going on, why Naruto was acting this way. Why he wasn't Naruto anymore. There was nothing he could do. He had never felt so inadequate.

Shukaku was growing steadily weaker. His eyes looked to be going out of focus and he was visibly shaking.

With a mighty crash, the great racoon fell to what could only be described as his knees, if racoons had knees, and collapsed onto his side in a cloud of sand that settled everywhere.

Slowly, Naruto withdrew his tails from around Shukaku's neck, claws and tail; allowing them to fall with soft thuds into the sand, and his chakra receded back into his fur. Grinning triumphantly he turned away and padded towards the overturned cart and its terrified occupants.

For a brief moment Kakashi wondered why he'd just left Shukaku there, but decided he had no idea what went on in a demons mind and couldn't ever possibly understand the reasoning behind it all.

Close up and without the chakra shrouding him, Kakashi could now finally see Naruto in his five tailed form.

He looked exactly like a fox should look.

A giant fox. With five tails.

Kakashi stood cautiously and made to step out from the cart. A hand shot out and grabbed his arm. He looked around in surprise into the emerald green eyes of Sakura. They were filled with fear and a sincere insistence.

"Don't go," she whispered. Her voice trembled and her fingers were white where they gripped his arm. "Don't. Don't go," she repeated.

He gently prised her off and placed a soothing hand on her shoulder. The others had turned and were regarding him with varying degrees of panic and curiosity.

"It will all be ok. He's Naruto, he won't hurt us." He wished with all his being to believe his own words. But he knew he couldn't. He just couldn't.

It seemed they didn't believe him either, but Sakura didn't try to stop him a second time. She watched as though he was walking to his death, pale and trembling. With a practised effort, he hid his fear and walked confidently out into the open to confront the boy-turned-demon fox.

He was so large, even on four legs Naruto was at eye level with him. Looking into those red dilated eyes was like staring death in the face. Kakashi schooled what was noticeable of his expression to neutral and approached warily, his hands in plain sight. There was no chance for him at all if he did decide to attack. Five tails would channel an unbelievable amount of chakra.

Stopping a few metres away, he tried to give a placating and friendly impression while forcing himself not to run away in terror. Naruto stared him down, his expression unreadable. Though Kakashi wasn't sure whether that was because his face was fox-shaped and therefore limited in expression or not.

Behind them, Shukaku had gradually reduced in size and had returned to his human form. Unconscious and severely injured, he lay still as his sand seeped in to see to his wounds.

Kakashi steeled himself and drew in a deep breath. "Naruto..." he began.

Suddenly the air was full of black cloaks and at least three dozen ANBU officers appeared around them. A few of them collected the fallen Gaara, binding his arms behind him and stuffing him unceremoniously into a sack.

Stunned by the sudden appearance, Kakashi was caught off guard and couldn't move. This was not the case for Naruto. Seething with repressed rage, he swung his tails at the nearest group. They were thrown across the street and into an unstable brick wall. It cracked loudly, then collapsed over their prone forms.

Without warning, several ANBUs revealed thick ropes and attempted to restrain the raging demon. He picked them up in his tails and swung them around. Throwing them into the ground or a wall. Swinging them into each other, knocking them down. But they just kept coming.

A rope was somehow placed around his neck, another around his left hind leg. Off balance, he stumbled and roared in frustration, snapping at anything that got too close to his jaws. He tried to naw at the rope, but another rope snaked around his neck, preventing him from doing so.

Kakashi wondered why he wasn't using his chakra. Surely he could just blast them all to smithereens. Looking closely he could see the same thought crossing his mind. But something was wrong. His chakra wasn't being formed!

Rough hands grabbed Kakashi and dragged him out of the way as Naruto disappeared under a sea of black cloaks.

In what seemed like no time at all, the ANBU had disappeared. Taking Naruto and the sack containing Gaara with them.

Kakashi just stood there in bewildered silence.

A few moments later he felt a soft hand touch his arm. He looked down at a concerned Sakura. The other teenagers were also reappearing from behind the cart, gradually coming to terms with what had just happened. Already they were grouping around him, searching for answers. They weren't going to let him go until he told them everything.

He sighed and brushed a hand through his silver hair. 'At least the battle should be over now' he thought. Without their beast at the frontline, the sand village ninja would be forced to retreat.

Adjusting his thoughts, he turned to regard them all, then launched into the full story of the nine tailed fox.

It was dark and smelled weirdly of potatoes.

That was because his head was currently trapped inside a potato sack. For some reason the humans didn't want him to know where he was going. All four of his paws and all five of his tails were bound together and to the thick stick that was dragging him along the rough floor. Judging by the feel of it, it was a stone paved floor.

It was very frustrating to him not to even be able to smell where he was going. Even sounds were muffled through the thick sack material. Not that there were many. His captors were remarkably silent. He would have thought they'd at least have been bragging to each other about bringing down a demon as mighty as he was.

That was even more frustrating. To think that mere humans had overpowered him! It set his teeth on edge and he growled again. He remembered it vividly. The feeling of grasping at nothing. At the very instant he needed it, his chakra had failed him. He frowned to himself and sucked absently at a fang as he thought hard. That was something he tended to do when deep in thought. He also tended to scratch his ear, but that wasn't possible right then, since his scratching leg was attached to the stick.

It was odd that he couldn't form chakra back then. It was as if the seal had suddenly returned in full force, trapping him in the form he was in, but completely powerless. Something must be wrong with it.

He sent his mind towards it and almost immediately encountered resistance.

This was weird too. The resistance wasn't the same as before. He should know, he'd been trapped behind it for 12 years. This resistance felt... different.

Before, it had carried traces of its caster, the fourth Hokage, as any powerful jutsu does. An essence of their intent; their will.

This time, the traces were most definitely not the fourth Hokage's. They felt... wrong somehow. As if the intent behind them was rotten.

His subconscious sniffed at it curiously, then retreated back to the safety of his mind. His human persona watched inquisitively, expecting him to explain everything... yet again.

Snorting at him, he settled down with (if they had been physical forms) his back facing him and completely ignored him. He could feel the disappointment and irritation this caused and felt smug about it. He enjoyed annoying Naruto; it gave him something to do when he was bored.

Vaguely aware of what was going on physically, he allowed Naruto to retake control of the body and went to sleep. Hopefully something more interesting would happen when he woke up. He had been happy to fight Shukaku today, it had brought back such fond memories. Remembering the last time he had seen the one-tailed, he smiled to himself and slipped into pleasant demon-butt-kicking dreams.

Danzo was literally bouncing on his toes in delight.

Three demons. Three!

He had three of the nine most powerful monsters in existence caged here. Two of them now under his control, it wouldn't be long now before the third was too.

Locking the door to Shukaku's prison he ushered the two ANBU guards to their positions on either side. They had their instructions, and would follow them to the letter. They knew what would happen should they fail at anything.

He swept down the corridor, his steel capped boots making loud clicking sounds against the cold stone floor. He strode past another guarded door. Nibi had been no trouble since that incident with the kyuubi. He had kept her seal to a minimum and left her in her cage. She wouldn't protest. She had learnt by now to obey him.

The kyuubi would be more challenging, but that's what made it all fun. He would break him. One way or the other. The boy could not resist him.

Chuckling ominously to himself, he approached a third guarded door at the bottom of the corridor and inserted the key.

Sakura landed on her bed with a huge sigh. It had been a long and eventful day. She had learnt things she could never have guessed at. Met not just one, but two powerful demons. Discovered that one of them was, in fact, her teammate. She struggled to gain control of her thoughts. They tumbled over each other in waves. Everything was just so confusing.

She was beginning to get a headache so she reached for the bag of medicine she kept by her bedside for just such an occasion.

Taking deep soothing breaths, she considered her feelings. Surely she should hate him. The kyuubi. Naruto. He was a demon. An evil monster. He had tried to destroy the village. And yet she just couldn't bring herself to hate him. She was scared yes, terrified in fact. But every time she thought about it, the image of his idiotic grinning face flashed in front of her eyes. There was no way she could consider him evil.

Rubbing her eyes she cast her gaze around her room and it landed on the item on her dresser. The emerald green hair comb he had given her all those weeks ago for her birthday. It matched her eyes perfectly. That had seemed so long ago. To think so much could happen since then. He had disappeared and then returned as a terrifying demon.

She fiddled with her hair and chewed her lip. It was all so confusing.

Obviously the Hokage must have ordered the ANBU to detain Naruto, to stop him going out of control like Gaara had. 'I wonder where they took him,' she though, and gazed out of her window, lost in thought.

'I shouldn't worry,' she chastised herself, 'he's a demon, what could happen? Why the hell am I worried?'

For some reason she just couldn't shake the anxious feeling inside her. 'I'll go see him when they let him go,' she decided. They wouldn't let him go until they were sure he was in control. She could confront him then. Tell him what an idiot he was. How upset she was that he hadn't told her who he was...

He had kept it from her. His secret. For so many years.

Angrily, she stood and stormed down the stairs to raid the fridge. She needed something sickeningly sweet and unhealthy to set her mind at rest. Nothing calms a girl like chocolate ice cream.

Grabbing the first tub she could find she slammed it forcefully onto the table and attacked it furiously with a spoon.

((Mmm chocolate ice cream...... xD))