This chapter is dedicated to rasengan86. Thank you for beta-reading!

Legacy of the Rasengan III
Chuuten
By: Tellemicus Sundance
Chapter 7: In the Darkness

Akatsuki hideout, River Country
2:32pm

"You know something that I dislike?" Deidara asked as he and Sasori entered the gigantic cavern. "It's having my prey think that they've fooled me…But what really I hate is when they actually do."

"Is that your excuse for bringing that Bunshin all the way here?" a cold, eerie voice demanded from the deep darkness of the cavern.

"The Jinchuuriki was much more skilled than I'd originally anticipated," Deidara replied in a surprisingly even voice, despite the great amount of fear that suddenly shot through his body. Shit! I didn't think he'd come here himself!

Some footsteps echoed in the silence of the darkness as a pair of vague silhouettes stepped forward. Deidara and Sasori stared back steadily at their superiors without flinching. Separately, the pair of them were undefeatable and outrageously powerful. But together, they were the things of legends. And the fact that both of them decided to grace the pair with their presences meant that someone was most likely going to die…or something big was about to happen.

Movement at the entrance of the cavern drew the attentions of the four Akatsuki agents. As the Suna Bunshin disintegrated, all four Akatsuki turned when they heard a sound. A literal tidal wave of blood-thirsty sand came blasting into the cavern towards them. Like any person with a grain of common sense, the four individuals leapt clear of the onslaught easily.

As they face the entrance, they saw their opponents standing proudly in a dazzling halo of sunlight. It was a fiercely glaring brother duo. Sand was frolicking wildly around Godaime Kazekage Gaara, dancing and thrashing to the torrent of raging emotions that lay hidden behind his ever-present mask. Kankurou, on the other hand, was quite content to show his deep anger the quartet as he reached for the trio of thick containment scrolls strapped to his back.

"I see you finally decided to show yourself," Pein observed, thoroughly measuring Gaara. The teenaged Kazekage's chakra levels were still significantly diminished, probably just over half of what they normally were. Yet he could also feel the slight pulse of youki circling weakly around the boy, he was drawing on small portions of the Ichibi's power to speed up replenishing his lost reserves. And from the look on the boy's face, he was most definitely considering using the Ichibi's full powers when the fighting started.

"So, you ready for round two?" Deidara asked with a snide grin as he quickly regained his usual swagger. He had already gotten a good measure on the young Kazekage and now knew various ways to defeat the boy. Even if he pulled out the Ichibi, Deidara was completely confident he could still win.

Giving the two strangers calculative glances, Gaara said icily, "You have attacked my village, when we have done nothing to provoke any such hostile actions…" There was a certain tremor in his voice that sent warning bells ringing loudly in Kankurou's head. He started to move unobtrusively to the side, knowing full well what was going to happen in point-three seconds. "Thus, you shall all die now!!"

With a sudden feral roar, Gaara dropped down onto all fours as a haze of yellow youki and sand erupted around him. The light that the youki was giving off was enough to momentarily light up the darkness as Gaara's abilities suddenly took a drastic increase. Before the light and dust had even cleared, a partially-transformed Gaara launched himself at the quartet with the speed a high-powered bullet. Only Pein and the shady leader were able to leap clear in time to avoid the boy's monstrous appendixes.

Landing on opposing sides of the cavern walls, Pein and his partner simply sat back to watch the fight that was soon to take place. Even as they landed, Pein sensed the arrival of the rest of the Akatsuki agents via astral projections. Silently, the gathered collection of powerful nuke-nin watched the battle unfold below them.

Sighing slightly in resignation, Pein watched as the target was able to slam Deidara into the far cavern wall with his mutated arm. But the twisted body lost its coloration to reveal it had been a Dosei Bunshin. Sasori, knowing that this level of battle was outside his specialty range, had quickly fled for the exit. But the moment that he'd set foot on dry land, he spotted the Kazekage's brother.

Glancing momentarily over at his partner, Pein saw him watching the battle with a piercing gaze. It was an unspoken agreement between them that they'd only step in if Sasori, but mostly Deidara, were about to die. Despite being such a loose-cannon, Deidara's skills were highly unique and extremely useful for their cause.

Down on the cavern floor, the battle between the Gaara and Deidara had begun…

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"Well then, boy," the hunchbacked figure said as he noticed Kankurou nearby. "Since the Kazekage's focused on Deidara, what do you say we entertain ourselves while they have their fun?"

Smirking with a false show of bravado, Kankurou reached for the three sealing scrolls on his back. He could tell from just one glance that this obese man was a lot tougher than he let on. "That's just fine with me."

With practiced ease, he summoned his three most favorite puppets from their scrolls. Karasu and Kuroari took the offensive positions with Sanshouo hanging back defensively. Immediately, Kankurou sent Karasu and Kuroari racing forward in a basic attack pattern. With a flick of his finger, he had Karasu launch a trio of kunai at his enemy.

Dodging with impressive speed for a seemingly fat man, the man chuckled darkly. "So, a boy like you wants to use puppets against me? This is not going to be very entertaining in the least."

"How about you shut up and fight?!" Kankurou yelled as Kuroari rushed the man's backside.

Without even looking, the man leapt into the air to evade the attack. Kankurou grinned slightly as he directed Karasu up above the man and sent a wave of poisoned senbon down upon him. Those senbon would've skewered the man's face with pinpoint accuracy if a long scorpion-like tail hadn't suddenly sprouted from under his cloak and deflected them.

Rather than let himself become distracted, Kankurou pressed the attack. He slammed Karasu down into the man, but the puppet was easily blocked by the tail. However, it had served its purpose wonderfully. The man was now falling straight into the gaping jaws of Kuroari's stomach, which quickly closed shut after he'd landed inside.

"Karakuri Engeki," Kankurou muttered as he quickly disassembled Karasu and sent the bladed limbs flying for the small openings. "Kuro Higi Ippatsu!" The lack of any blood or sounds from Kuroari immediately told Kankurou that something was wrong.

As he was withdrawing and reassembling Karasu, a sound behind him caused Kankurou to jump to the side. Turning to see what was behind him, he spotted the man's scorpion tail erupting from under the ground and flying towards him. Yanking Sanshouo with one arm in front of him and erecting its shield, he heard a loud clang of metal on metal as the tail was blocked. Using his other arm, he pulled Karasu into the air and sent a spray of poisoned senbon at where the man had emerged from the ground. But like before, the senbon were easily dodged.

Grinding his teeth in anger and forcefully suppressing his rising fear, Kankurou stared at the man. 'I don't get it. It's like he can read my every move! And he's anticipating every attack with my jutsu.'

"I stand corrected," the man said, amusement faintly noticeable in his voice. "You are indeed very skilled with those puppets and your reflexes are very admirable. This could prove to be more entertaining that I first thought."

"Don't take me so lightly!" Kankurou yelled.

Karasu and Kuroari began circling the man for a moment before launching volleys of kunai and senbon. The man's tail once again easily blocked each and every projectile before suddenly lashing out. With devastating force, the tail smashed Karasu and Kuroari to pieces.

"And now let me show you Sanshouo's weakness," the man said as his tail dashed forward.

'I don't have a choice!' Kankurou realized a split second before the tail arrived. Yanking Sanshouo in front of him, as though to defend him from the assault, Kankurou severed his chakra strings to his puppets.

The giant iron shield on Sanshouo's back went flying after the tail snapped the joints and bashed it aside. With another flick of the tail, Sanshouo was utterly crushed…but Kankurou had vanished.

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"My, my!" Deidara chuckled as he jumped onto his discarded bird. "You certain have a temper! And you are a terrible house guest, attacking before even giving a proper greeting!"

The misshapen Kazekage ignored his enemy's taunts as he crouched against the cavern wall like some animal, watching his prey take flight with mismatched eyes. His mutated arm was supporting a vast majority of his weight as it held him against the wall, its powerful grip crushing the rock under it like tinfoil. He knew that Deidara was going to try to bring out his clay bombs once he attained a great enough altitude, just like at Sunagakure. Only this time, Gaara wasn't throwing this fight for anything!

Standing upright, Gaara thrust his arms out as he focused hard. The sand that had slowly been stretching over his shoulders began working it's way up his other arm as he drew upon more youki.

Seeing the Jinchuuriki preparing something, Deidara hurriedly reached into his cache of clay and started molding it into his agile bird bombs. But unlike his fight in Sunagakure, he was packing them with measured amounts of his chakra. He couldn't afford to expend all of his newly recovered reserves when it was obvious that his opponent wasn't using his own.

Throwing the seven birds into the air, they formed and began hovering around him protectively. Knowing that Gaara was about to attack, he sent two of the birds to attack and distract him. However, before they came anywhere close to him, Gaara let out a roar as the cavern walls suddenly began shaking violently.

"What's going on?" Deidara demanded, a little unnerved. It wasn't until he saw thousands of sand needles erupt out the walls and come racing at him at immeasurable speeds. Deidara sent his birds and himself flying in wild patterns throughout the cavern in a desperate attempt to escape.

"Suna Harimedo!" Gaara roared out as he waved his arms about, directing and redirecting the sand needles towards his evasive target.

'Using the terrain to keep me on the evasive, and thus unable to properly counterattack…clever,' Deidara deduced. 'But what affect is this having on the terrain?'

Willing his bird to fly closer to the wall, Deidara quickly analyzed what he saw. The sand was being drawn out from between cracks of the rocks in the walls, and no doubt creating more sand as it was being pulled out. But that would mean that the Jinchuuriki was weakening the cavern. 'If he keeps the attack going much longer, he'll most likely cause a cave-in!' Deidara realized. 'And I can't use my jutsu, or else I could cause a cave-in myself…I need to take this outside!'

Looking around hurriedly, he spotted only one of his bird bombs had thus far escaped being turned into a pincushion. He sent it swooping in on the now halfway transformed Kage. Gaara was still focusing his attention on his Suna Harimedo so he didn't seem to notice the approach of the bomb until it was too late.

Exploding in a dazzling fiery display, the bomb provided Deidara with ample amount of cover as he flew his clay bird towards the cavern's entrance. Yet even as he approached the light, an oppressive aura of titanic proportions descended upon his shoulders. The gaze of a rampaging beast had fallen upon him, thirsting for his death.

It was his only warning before a massive stalagmite came rocketing out of the ceiling, guided by the powers of Gaara.

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'Where'd he go now?' Sasori wondered as he glanced around almost distractedly.

As much fun as it was to see this little boy's expression change from self-confident to worried and scared as his puppets' attacks were repeatedly rendered useless, Sasori was getting bored of this. Not only that, but he had a job to do in acquiring the Jinchuuriki.

He knew he shouldn't have left that task up to Deidara! The incompetent fool had allowed the Jinchuuriki to outsmart him, which was now delaying their task of extracting the Bijuu. And now, the blonde brat was once again being outsmarted in battle. If their battle continued at the pace it was, the entire cavern was going to be destroyed! It was just a shame that the Jinchuuriki's abilities were a complete mismatch to his skills. If that was him battling Gaara, the battle would've been over by now.

A sudden shower of kunai from his side quickly redirected Sasori back to the battle at hand. Flicking his tail out, he easily deflected the kunai. This brat just didn't learn that projectile weapons didn't work against him, did he?

A slip of paper dangling off each kunai changed his mind.

"Boom," Kankurou said, igniting the six explosive notes he'd attacked to the kunai.

For the split second before the explosion, Kankurou saw the man's eyes widen ever so slightly out of surprise. It was a truly vindictive pleasure to see that near-nonexistent expression of fear on this man.

When the smoke and fire cleared, Kankurou was treated to a very unsettling sight. The massive cloak the man wore had been uttered destroyed, and what it revealed underneath was something he hadn't seen before. The man's body was highly disproportioned and clearly not his true body.

In Sunagakure, there are a surprisingly few number of shinobi who use puppetry. This was mostly because puppet-users were generally very weak physically, they relied solely on their puppets to do the fighting. However, the few who actually deserved the merit to be called 'masters' were some of the fiercest and most dangerous shinobi in Wind Country. And Kankurou, who was still training relentlessly to attain a level beyond master, instantly recognized just what the man was wearing.

"So, you're a puppeteer too?" he said, a frown pulling at his lips. "That would explain how and why you could predict my moves earlier with such ease."

"Very true, boy," the man said in a faintly amused tone. "But there's another reason as well. Since I created those puppets, I know them very well indeed."

"What?!" Kankurou gasped. This is bad! Very bad! "A-Are you Akasuna no Sasori? The infamous puppet master who abandoned Suna twenty years ago?!"

"For a brat like yourself to know my name," was the man's answer. "is a truly an honor indeed. But enough small talk, I've got a job to do and you're delaying me."

"Oh shit," Kankurou whispered to himself. I'm a goner for sure!

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Wind Country, 73 miles away from the border
2:50am

Team 7 and Chiyo had made excellent progress across the desert as they followed Naruto's nose. The formation they were following was rather simple. Naruto was at the point, following the weak trail he'd discovered. Sakura followed as back-up, with Sasuke and Chiyo pulling the rear guard.

When she had joined the team, Chiyo had been absolutely disgusted with herself. Here, on this one team, was a combination of three majors pieces of the Konoha shinobi power from during the Third Great Shinobi War. An Uchiha, whose skills had already garnered him a great amount of renown and respect. The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki (she recognized the whisker marks for what they were), who possessed the very same chakra alignment that Wind Country shinobi prided themselves on. And finally, the youngest apprentice of Tsunade, whose abilities were already reaching higher than many other healers in Sunagakure. Why had she joined this team again?

At first, she mostly kept her opinions to herself as she silently observed the young team. It became immediately clear to her that they were extremely familiar with one another, probably were on the same genin team. The Uchiha, despite being a Jounin and the leader, seemed quite content to hold argument contests and bicker pointlessly with the Jinchuuriki. That was rather unusual from the normal Uchiha persona that she had known during her prime years. Though she quickly understood why they bickered since the Jinchuuriki could actually poise some very unique and entertaining counters against the Uchiha. Tsunade's apprentice played mostly the role of mediator, though she did throw in some of her insults at either of the boys when she deemed they were getting a bit too carried away.

It was this sense of camaraderie between them that Chiyo began to grow confused. Based on several of their comments, both the Uchiha and Haruno knew about the boy being a Jinchuuriki. Yet all their barbs and insults were made in jest or with a strange hidden meaning underneath. Why? Why did they seem to instantly accept him for being what he was?

Chiyo was no stranger to what a bijuu or Jinchuuriki was or what they could do when push came to shove. She also understood that while a Jinchuuriki held a bijuu inside them, they themselves were not the beast. She knew for a fact that every single shinobi village that had a Jinchuuriki treated the unfortunate souls as though they were the scum of the earth, or they were terrible beasts. Either way, they were isolated, left to grow crazy in their loneliness. Eventually, all Jinchuuriki snapped and lashed out back at the people who avoided them.

This was especially true for Gaara. He had followed in exactly the same footsteps as his predecessors had: being raised to be cold killing machines, lonely but scared to associate with others for fear of rejection, unable to control his abilities at an early age which resulted the deaths of numerous people around him. Then after one assassin too many, he finally snapped. He sought companion by the very creature who had ever caused his isolation.

Then, three years ago, Gaara suddenly changed. He began to lose his cold, indifferent persona, slowly but steadily reaching out for others. It had started with his siblings, then his sensei, and gradually to the rest of the shinobi of Sunagakure. Once it had been discovered that Gaara had somehow changed, the masses had quickly accepted this new teenager. Even making him the new Kazekage.

Now Chiyo was seem reflections of Gaara the Kazekage in this blonde Jinchuuriki. Was this boy the reason Gaara had been able to change so much? If so, how did he do it? And since Jinchuuriki in the past hated one another, why was he trying to save Gaara now? So many questions…

"Chiyo-baasama?" a quiet voice spoke up nearby. "Is there something wrong? You seem a bit tense."

Looking up, she spotted the young Uchiha Jounin staring at her. Though his expression had returned to the usual cool indifferent one that she'd seen so many times before on his clansmen, the look in his eyes was questioning. Ahead them, Chiyo saw that the blonde and the Haruno girl were currently in the midst of an argument about something to do with a boat and a shapeshifter. From the sounds of it, it was an old favorite argument of theirs.

"Why is that boy trying so hard to save Gaara?" she asked in a very quiet tone. "Jinchuuriki tend to despise one another, fighting to the death to prove who's strongest…Why do you follow him with such camaraderie despite what he has no doubt done to the others in your own village?"

Sasuke was silent for a moment, turning his attention back to his friend and teammate. After a moment of contemplation, he turned back to Chiyo with a serious expression. "Let me share with you an observation I made of Naruto a long time ago."

Interested, Chiyo gave the young Uchiha her full attention.

"From a young age, Naruto has had nothing," Sasuke said quietly. "He was hated for being what he was, and had almost no one to go to for comfort…But he pushed through." A small rueful grin split across his face as he continued, "Despite his total lack of tact or social standing, he's actually something of a genius…in his own way. And when he fights, when he truly fights, it's like watching a force of nature: beautiful but extremely dangerous…And it makes you realize just how weak you yourself are. It makes you want to train harder, get stronger. So that one day you can fight him to gauge your skills and then push yourself beyond those limits. To become the strongest you can possibly be."

Turning his attention back towards his friends, Sasuke said, "When we meet up with Gaara, you'll see what I mean."

Chiyo was silent as she stared the young Jounin. He was clearly speaking from personal experience, she had no delusions that he must've battled the blonde himself in such a manner. Was that blonde really so strong that he could get an Uchiha, of all people, to admit that he wasn't all-powerful? That boy would require further investigation on her part.

It was with slight surprise that she suddenly found herself anticipating the coming fights. And for reasons beyond simply getting to see her long-lost grandson, no less. Clearing her mind, she forced herself to focus. It was not time to get sidetracked!

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(Author's Note) I know, it's been like forever since I updated this story. My only excuse is a combination of lack of inspiration and exhaustion. Have any of you ever worked 3rd shift in a poultry factory? Not a pleasant experience, and the smell only makes it worse!! But beggars can't be choosers I guess.

That's right, I have finally moved out! I've settled down, gotten a job, and a fairly reliable source of internet connection! Aside from the late hours and the nasty smell, I'm living on cloud nine now! Boy is 'freedom' (if you wanna call it that) blissful!

Another reason for the long delay between posts is fairly simple. Up until recently, I've been having conflicting desires of where I want this story to go and how much canon I want to incorporate into it. With all the revelations that Madara has given us, as well as Sasuke's not so surprising decision to destroy Konoha (which is ironic and pitifully predictable in my opinion), things have been quite confusing for me.

But no more.

Translations:
Dosei--clay
Karakuri Engeki, Kuro Higi Ippatsu: Puppet Performance, Black Secret Technique

Suna Harimedo--Eye of the Sand Needle/One of Gaara's newer attacks, it draws upon sand and gravel from the surrounding landscape, forms it into needles and spikes, and shoots it the enemy(s). Due to the extremely high speeds, it is a very difficult jutsu to dodge or counter against. However, this jutsu requires a considerable amount of chakra and it's best used when in a canyon or cave where there is significantly greater amounts of rock and dirt available. (High B-Class Ninjutsu) (Gaara)