"You will not hurt Naruto Uzumaki because he is my friend and my brother!" ~ Gaara
To say that Gaara looked strange wouldn't have seemed out of place looking at him right now. The sandy from of the Shukaku had covered him like a coat, extending down his arms and hand, wrapping around across his back before going up to cover his hair, eyes, and nose. Not that he looked any less terrifying.
Naruto growled as he forced himself to his feet, reaching into his kunai pouch to throw several at the Suna-nin's exposed abdomen, only for him to cross his bulky arms with surprising speed, the metal barely penetrating at all. Then, with a resounding roar, Gaara charged the blonde, who barely managed to roll to the side, rolling through more hand seals as he sent a moderate sized fireball at his back while he searched for Naruto. However, the sand covered jinchuuriki's tail seemed to have a mind of its own as it sliced through the attack with ease as Gaara spun around, sending his tail at the stone Naruto was hiding behind.
Naruto would've liked to think he could've dodged the attack, but Gaara's tail simply zipped across the open air at him far faster than he could adequately dodge, tired as he was getting by his two intense battles. And so, although he managed to avoid the majority of it, Gaara's tail still sent him flying back, tumbling across the ground as the scattered glass sliced into his body, although, as he forced himself up, wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand, the cuts vanished in quick spurts of red.
And it was good that he'd managed to get to his feet as he was thrown in a rudimentary judo throw by his hastily created clone which was instantly crushed seconds later by a hammer strike by Gaara. Having the time to right himself in midair, Naruto landed in a crouch, sliding back, numerous Shadow Clones poofing into existence beside him.
However, Gaara seemed to go ballistic at Naruto getting more help that he couldn't bleed. Roaring in rage, sand began to cover his abdomen, leaving only his legs exposed beneath the mini-Shukaku. Continuing to roar, which now came at more as a screeching wail, Gaara exposed his newly sanded over chest, which now bulged as multiple mouths appeared all over his body.
"Wind Release: Great Sandy Breakthrough!" Gaara yelled, the numerous mouths each sending a gale force wind at the crowd of Naruto's, who all reacted in different ways. Those closest to the real Naruto, immediately formed a basket for him before throwing him up and over the attack as he watched the others turn and face the attack, only to get reduced to shreds at the powerful attack.
As the blonde jinchuuriki landed safely, he breathed heavily. He could fight for hours on end, even one as intense as this, but he'd need a moment to catch his breath that Gaara just wasn't giving him with his relentless pursuit of Naruto's blood and life. Even now that Gaara had spotted him; he began to run at the blonde, the strange tail poised to strike him.
Throwing his rotund body at Naruto, the blonde did something stupid as he fell backwards, reinforcing his legs with chakra as he kicked upwards, planting both in Gaara's bloated stomach, sending twin jets of flames from them as Gaara was sent soaring back from the attack, only for his tail to prove itself as more than mere decoration as it first swatted Naruto away before it dug into the ground immediately, securing Gaara as he landed in a roll.
Standing, he crossed his arms, before multiple shurikans shot out of his arms in droves.
"Sand Shurikan." Gaara exclaimed, calmly by his current standards. Jumping to his feet after having his head rang by the spiky tail; Naruto didn't have time to call up enough chakra for one of his better jutsu like the Grand Fireball Jutsu that was widespread enough to cover all the incoming projectiles or his Flame Bullet which he'd probably need to penetrate Gaara's bulky, juggernaut style armor. Instead, he resorted to his first Fire Jutsu, and having a Clone that appeared with a thought augment it.
Going through the three necessary seals, he breathed out, tiny sparks of fire littering the air.
"Fire Style: Ember Storm." He said, as his clone finished the combination jutsu, each sparks growing to rival a softball in size. Behind him, Naruto's clone exhaled, a wave of wind enhancing the once tiny embers. "Wind Style: Great Breakthrough." With the added power, the attack broke through Gaara's, peppering his body with the balls of fire, but he shrugged them off with little thought as he glared at Naruto, who couldn't resist smirking in return.
Naruto breathe din deeply, preparing to unleash a much more powerful attack, with his clone behind him doing the same, but Gaara wasn't about to let them get the upper hand that easily. Growling loudly, he began to stomp, swinging his arms wildly, his tail whipping through the air much like Hinata's had earlier. Without a conscious thought, sand began to leak out of the ground, the stones nearby to him being slowly reduced to sand as Gaara wailed at the top of his lungs, "Sandstorm Jutsu!"
What followed as pure chaos as sand began to sweep around the arena in a manner that was expected given the name, however, that didn't prepare Naruto as the sand literally carved up the ground, boulders, tress, everything began to be shredded by the tiny particles. Naruto felt true awe by the force of nature, and he started to wonder how a village could exist in a desert where sandstorms could happen several times a week. So, he did the only thing he could think to do, he sucked deeply on the paper cylinder which he'd replaced, and closed his eyes so as to be blinded by flying grit.
However, he was caught off guard as something snaked around his neck, strangling him as he was yanked from his hiding place behind the, somehow still intact glass dome. He noticed that as soon as Gaara's eyes locked on to him, the storm began to die down.
"How did I not sense him coming? He's like a walking can of garbage in terms of chakra, all that youki." Naruto thought, only to get his answer moments later as he mentally face palmed. He'd tried something similar in wave to find where Zabuza and Haku had been hiding, but had been unable to detect them in the chakra mist. Kakashi had told him later than part of the Silent Killing Technique involved matching your chakra output to the chakra mist you hid in. Apparently Gaara's sand worked the same way.
Watching his eyes, Gaara began to tighten his tail's hold on the blonde's neck, cutting off his oxygen as Naruto gagged, trying desperately to get some air. Seeing the primal thrill on Gaara's face, Naruto resorted to one last trick, something he'd learned from Kyuubi in one of their talks.
Forcing his dwindling oxygen supply to his brain, he focused intensely on Gaara's tail, feeling a similar primal joy as Gaara's face twitched, before grimacing as a slow line of smoke began to rise from the middle of his tail. Finally, he put the final nail in the coffin, managing to barely get his little finger through the loop of a kunai, he grabbed it, sinking it into the red spot on Gaara's tail, the sand-covered jinchuuriki, screeched as he threw Naruto with more than enough force to snap his neck, except that Naruto was made of sturdier stuff.
However, Gaara seemed to realize this as seconds later, his wounded tail wanted revenge as it hit Naruto straight on in the chest, the tip spinning as he hit the arena wall, spewing up blood as he felt the tail pierce through his jacket and skin. Pulling back, Naruto fell to the ground, still coughing up blood.
"Uzumaki, I'm going to kill you!" Gaara shouted, before he seemed to relax, his saffron orbs vanishing behind his sandy lids.
"So you keep saying, but so far all you've done is screamed and threw a tantrum." Naruto taunted, rising slowly as Gaara's arms extended forwards, the palms facing each other as Naruto felt the air shift as he made the judgment call to turn tail and run for his life. But he found himself unable to run as he tightly gripped his chest from the wound. Glancing at Gaara's still form revealed a ball of condensed sand about the size of a basketball between his palms as he threw it at Naruto, who tried to dive to the side, but the attack still caught his shoulder as he screamed, knowing that it was dislocated. And Gaara didn't seem ready to stop the attacks coming as another ball began to form already.
"Sand Bomb." Gaara seemed to whisper over the sound of sand exploding everywhere. Through some quick thinking, and a pure miracle, Naruto managed to create a Shadow Clone just in time to substitute with, more appearing as he was forced to repeatedly dodge the explosive sand-based attack.
Finally, Gaara stopped attacking, to take a deep breath, Naruto doing the same, although they were for different reasons.
"Why won't you just die Uzumaki?!" Gaara screeched, Naruto starting to retort until Gaara's sinuous tail sprouted from the ground, hit Naruto straight into the air as his air was knocked out of him, his limp body hitting the ground with a muffled thump. The whole arena went silent, even Gaara who paused to watch Naruto as he tried to force himself up, coughing all the while, managing to get to his knees before coughing blood into his hands which he cupped to catch it.
"Grrr, DIE! Air Bullet!" Gaara yelled, puffin up his chest as he struck it, a concussive air bullet heading straight for the downed blonde.
"Hehe, sorry man." Naruto apologized as he finished the last seal, barely hitting the sand with his hand as a summoning circle appeared, a dark purple toad with spikes all over its body around three times Naruto's size appeared in a plume of smoke, looking irritated as it turned to tell Naruto off, only to be hit in the face by Gaara's Air Bullet.
"Uzumaki-san, we will talk about this later. I've told you before not to summon me during the day, it's too sunny." The toad croaked balefully, turning to send a glare at Gaara.
"Yeah, yeah, I know Gamamashi. But you're the only horned toad I can summon, and you don't have to actually fight the Tanuki prick, just keep him busy. Then, you can get back to napping." Naruto groused, standing slowly as he leapt back Gamamashi rolling his eyes as he got into what appeared to be a sumo stance, staring at Gaara's sand-covered form with half-lidded eyes.
"It's called rumination, you blonde annoyance." He said off-handedly watching Gaara carefully, who charged the toad, who in turn sighed before flipping the tanuki with ease before sitting on his back.
Naruto meanwhile, was sitting in a meditative state, communing with his furry passenger. "Hey Fuzzy, think you could spare some chakra to help me fix myself up perhaps?" Naruto questioned rhetorically as the oversized fox simply glared at him.
"Think you could loosen the seal a bit more?" Kyuubi asked sarcastically in return, Naruto giving him a deadpan look. "I only made that deal with you because you're too weak to beat my pathetic little brother on your own. If you can't even beat his keeper, then you have no chance in hell of beating the Uchiha." Kyuubi snarled, Naruto growling in return as he stalked towards the collared fox.
"What does that mean, and don't even act like you didn't jump at the chance for a little freedom from that cage." Naruto growled out between his clenched teeth.
"I'm simply saying that the Uchiha could probably finish the stupid tanuki off in one move. You can't blame me that you are incapable of ending your opponents, you're too soft!" The Kyuubi jumped to his feet, roaring at Naruto who did something very foolish, he jumped up punching the Kyuubi's nose as hard as he could, stunning the giant fox.
"Silence Fox, I can make your stay in here very unpleasant, now give me just enough to fix my shoulder and then I'll leave you alone until Sandy comes out to play, okay?" Naruto said, and the Kyuubi contemplated eating the little blonde whole, but discarded the thought. He'd probably give him indigestion.
"Fine, but if you come back, you better be missing at least two limbs and maybe some organs too." The Fox said, sitting back down as he wrapped one of his luxurious tails around Naruto, channeling the most miniscule amount of youki into the blonde to fix his shoulder.
"Thanks, Fluffy." Naruto said begrudgingly as he left the mindscape. Now that he was gone, Kyuubi touched his nose gingerly with one of his paws, pouting as he laid his head back down to watch the fight.
Opening his eyes, Naruto rolled his shoulders, each one in turn to make sure they were working properly. Finding that they were, he smirked as he stood, three clones appearing around him as he began to charge at the embattled Gaara.
"I need you to pin his tail down Mashi, then you can go, okay." Naruto ordered, the horned toad nodding reluctantly, not because he was scared, but because he was already bored and the stupid tanuki had managed to dump a load of sand down his throat.
A clone ran up the toad's back, leaping into the air, Gamamashi biting his tongue as he dispelled for a split second, confusing Gaara, who looked around for his opponent. He found him a second later when the air born clone called out, "I haven't got to try this move before, hope it works okay. Summing Jutsu: Food Cart Jutsu." And Gamamashi reappeared in the air, slamming down on Gaara's tail, crushing it as the tanuki roared in pain, trying to turn around and crush this toad in sand, only to find himself pinned in place since he couldn't move his tail.
Before he could find a way to do such a thing, a second Naruto clone ran up and leapt off of Gamamashi's back, the toad announcing his displeasure this time as the clone smirked, flipping into the air, the third and final Naruto clone doing the same on the other side, using the real Naruto as spring board as the clone buzz sawed in the air, clapping their hands together as they reached the peaks of their arcs simultaneously.
"Wind Style: Flying Swallow Jutsu!" The twin clones shouted, descending as they swung downwards, hitting Gaara in both the front and back as he looked untouched for a second until bright blue blood sprouted from his body, his sand cloak split in two as it fell to the side, Gaara looking scared for the first time as both clones dispelled, just in time for the real Naruto to burst through the cover of the smoke, a swirling ball in his hands.
Slamming it into Gaara's chest he shouted, "Blistering Bomb!" and for the first time, Gaara didn't have his sand to protect him as an explosion hit him fully in the chest, sending him soaring back, bouncing across the ground before he fell into a limp heap on the sandy floor.
Bending down on one knee, next to Gamamashi, Naruto breathed heavily looking at his shaking hand that had just unleashed an explosion at his fellow jinchuuriki. Even so, he reached over and patted Mashi's side, "Good job, Mashi. You can get back to your na-ruminations." Naruto said, and the purple toad nodded, vanishing in a plume of smoke.
Genma watched the downed redhead, waiting for him to get up, but when he didn't he dropped to the ground, sending a grateful smile to Naruto, who kept his cool and nodded.
"Well, it looks the winner by knockout is Na-!" Genma's shout was broken up by a loud groan by the facedown jinchuuriki, who began to scream.
"NO, NO, NO, I WON'T LOSE HERE. I WON'T LET MY EXISTANCE BE REMOVED, NOT NOW OR EVER! MOTHER!" Gaara screamed, and Naruto's eyes went wide as he jumped back. Genma noticed his actions, leaping away back to his secluded alcove above the arena floor, only to find it only high enough that he was staring straight into the eyes of the Shukaku who appeared in a massive tsunami of sand, wailing in glee.
"Oh YEAH! I finally got out of that decrepit place! It feels good to be out again baby!" Shukaku wailed, the crowd's nerves set on edge as he began to look around, his manic eyes sweeping over them before giving up as he felt a small tickle down below. Looking down in confusion, he found a small, blonde haired boy spitting fire at him like an overzealous dragon.
"Hey you, how about you pick on someone your own size!" Naruto shouted; using chakra to enhance his voice as the oversized tanuki looked confused by the order.
"Haha haha! Like who, none of you could take me on! Certainly not a little pipsqueak like you!" The Shukaku shouted down, his wailing voice grating on Naruto's ears.
"You ready to assert your dominance, Fox?" Naruto questioned, receiving a mentally nod of ascent, as well as exhilaration if he was correct. "Okay, here we go." Naruto mumbled to himself as he channeled chakra to his feet, fire sprouting from the bottoms as he shot into the sky like a rocket.
"Oh yeah! I'll take you down in one hit!" Naruto bragged arrogantly, and everyone rolled their eyes at the impossible claim. It was only the Jounin, and Hokage who realized shortly after that everyone went silent to watch the crazy blonde try and follow through on his claim, rather than freak out and try to evacuate as they almost had. Even Orochimaru who had his hands halfway raised to start the invasion froze at the wild claim.
If the boy managed to succeed, then the Snake Sannin'd have to make a visit to congratulate the blonde on his seemingly impossible task; if he failed, well, it would just be one less obstacle during the invasion, after all, this was the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, he'd give them trouble unless he was taken out early on.
Back with Naruto, he kept going higher and higher before leveling out about 50 feet above Shukaku's head, calming his excited breathing, he needed control right now if he was going to pull off this move.
He ran through the seals in a methodical manner, even though his hands seemed to blur. Breathing in, he felt the Kyuubi begin to fill his reserves with his youki, although Naruto could easily detect the difference between his own chakra and the Fox's youki considering how potent it felt.
As it happened, his mind went back to earlier that day.
(Flashback)
Naruto stood calmly in front of the Kyuubi, who growled at him from behind the steel bars of his cage. "What are you doing here, brat?" Kyuubi questioned, Naruto smirking as he walked closer extending his hand.
"I've come to ask for your help during the upcoming fight. I'm going to fight the Shukaku, and I'll need your chakra to beat him, especially with what I have planned. So will you help me?" Naruto asked, already knowing the answer, which is why he came ahead of time, to give himself to time work out a deal.
"Hell no you stupid brat! You think I'm going to just help you?" Kyuubi roared, and Naruto sighed at the rush of wind that hit him.
"I figured as much, so I'm willing to work out a… deal." He said crossing his arms over his chest as Kyuubi stood to snarl at him, only to pause at the blonde's words.
"A deal? What kind of deal?" Kyuubi asked, genuinely curious. He'd been prepared when his jailor had entered for a fight involving yelling, posturing, and general demands; instead the blonde seemed to take a more logical approach.
"How about I loosen the seal some for you, let you out of that cage. It looks rather cramped in there and besides, I'm going to be fighting a Bijuu, and I plan on showing the village that I'm not to be taken lightly. You play with matches and you'll get burned sort of lesson, you know? Naruto said, already reaching forwards to adjust the seal.
"So, I just give you some of my youki and you'll weaken the seal? That seems to be heavily skewed to me, and I know by now that you're not that dumb, so what else is there in it for you?" Kyuubi said, his voice calm, but due to his size it still almost knocked Naruto back if he hadn't secured himself to the floor with chakra.
"You tell me what'll happen if I loosen this seal too much, and we'll call it even. Sound good?" Naruto said, pulling out a paint brush as he began painting over the seal paper.
"Yeah, it won't really matter how loose you make the seal, since I can't get out unless you fully remove the seal. However, the looser you make it, the easier you can call up my youki, but the harder it'll be for you to control yourself while under the influence." Kyuubi answered, the bars vanishing as a collar appeared around his neck as he sat down, Naruto mindscape surrounding him now that his cage was dissolved. Kyuubi found himself under a large rotunda inside a massive library, overhead a stain glass depicted the Kyuubi enthralled in battle with the Fourth Hokage. Lifting himself up, he found the floor underneath him tiled in the pattern of the Uzumaki swirl with one difference, the outer circle having the many kanji for the Shiki Fuin keeping him contained. Naruto looked around appreciatively before turning and walking away.
(Flashback End)
The first step done, he work on his side, cupping his hands like he was going to shout, he began to push as much wind chakra in-between the palms as possible like compressing it into the tiny space as he began to feel it push against him, slicing into the palms of his hands.
"Ready?" Naruto asked mentally, Kyuubi snorting in ascent as Naruto almost smiled before remembering he was pressed for time, holding this much chakra back was actually hurting him.
"This is possibly my most powerful jutsu. The chakra cost alone could take down a majority of the shinobi in the village, and then there's the temperature. All the same, there's a fire pent up in my bones, and I just gotta let it go. HELLFIRE CANNON!" Naruto roared, breathing out what would've been a massive fiery stream big enough to rival the Shukaku, but Naruto hadn't stopped there, no, he'd compressed as much wind based chakra s he could into the palms of his hands, and once the first flame hit the wind, it exploded in size, the stream now covering the sand-based Bijuu in a tsunami of white fire as well as the entire arena as nothing was left untouched by the fire.
The attack only last 10 seconds. As it dissipated, a massive Shukaku sized and shaped glass sculpture was left.
"Fine." Naruto groaned, reaching into the coat as he pulled a soldier pill to keep himself from succumbing to the black spots on the edge of his vision as he began to fall, flipping over as he landed on the ground below, having enough chakra spare from the pill to activate his fire shoes and slow himself down.
Once down on the ground, Naruto was stunned into disbelief as he saw Gaara looking up at the glass structure, actual tears in his eyes. "Mother. Mother, speak to me. Mother, what's wrong, speak to me, please." Gaara sounded like he was begging and Naruto felt the hatred leave his body as a loud crackling was heard.
Naruto looked up to see the glass cracking, and seeing Gaara standing under it completely oblivious to the potential danger, Naruto did something that he'd never consider doing in this situation, except for Hinata-chan, but that was neither here nor there. He pushed himself to his feet, bum rushing Gaara as he tackled the Suna jinchuuriki out from under the glass structure just as it shattered into a blizzard of glass that descend on the pair, Naruto actually covering Gaara with his body as the glass rained down.
"How can you be so strong? No one has ever been strong enough to defeat Mother, and you beat her in one move. You-you-you ended her existence, I don't want my existence to end, but I can't prove my existence without Mother." Gaara cried, and Naruto tried to smile, but it came out as more of grimace as several shards of glass were sticking out of his back, and there was scarcely an inch of skin not covered in blood from the cuts.
"My precious people prove my existence by respecting me, acknowledging me, and loving me." Naruto whisper/hissed as the shower of glass ended, trying desperately to stand, but failing.
"My Father says I am a demon so therefore I can't love or be loved. Even my brother and sister look at me with those scared looks, and won't touch me." Gaara said; his eyes glistening before Naruto did something he regretted seconds later.
Reaching over, he pulled a long sliver of glass from his arm, hold Gaara's hand as he cut it open, Gaara crying out, looking at the blood.
"My blood, I'm bleeding!" He yelled, and Naruto growled loud enough to get this attention.
"Yes, you're bleeding, that means you're not a demon, demons don't bleed, only humans bleed red like this, see," He paused in his words to raise his own heavily bleeding hand which he pressed to Gaara, their blood mixing.
"There now, we've shared blood; we are blood brothers, joined by out mutual burdens. We are not demons, we are the demons' keepers, the protectors of our precious people, right?" Naruto questioned, and Gaara looked shocked at the words as he looked between the blood on his hand and Naruto's soft, yet pained smile. Then, for the first time since he could remember, he wrapped his arms around Naruto's neck, hugging him as tears fell from his eyes.
Unseen by the blonde, who was stunned, a sentiment shared by both Temari and Kankuro in the stands, a Sand Clone began to take form behind Naruto, reaching down to pick up a shard of glass, advancing slowly, shakily on the exposed blonde. He'd show him that a Bijuu didn't go down so easily, that he couldn't just drop in and erase years of pain and hurt.
However, the currently Shukaku possessed clone didn't expect Gaara to flip Naruto over, standing in the way of the Sand Clone who was trying to kill his first friend.
"Move aside Gaara, let Mother protect you again. He's lying to you so when you drop your guard he can kill you, and prove his existence. He's too strong for us, we have to kill him now or we'll never be able to." The clone spoke, and Gaara turned to look at the bleeding Naruto, who even now had small flashes of red over his body as he removed glass, the cut healing up.
"NO! You will not hurt Naruto-nii-san because he is my friend, and my brother!" Gaara rasped loudly, sweeping his hand through the sand clone as it vanished.
"Proctor, I concede." Gaara said with his usual monotone, walking over, helping Naruto to his feet, and once he was satisfied that the blonde could stand on his own, he sat down, staring at his bloody hand.
Feeling a fluttery feeling in his chest, he reached over with his bloody hand, and remembering what he'd learned years ago about pains of the heart, he slowly traced the kanji for love over his heart, the blood drying in the pattern.