Chapter 06: Wanderer

Naruto screamed his rage. "Damn you, fucking fox." His chakra exploded outwards. The force of the raw chakra pushed against Gaara's sand, preventing it from crushing Naruto.

"Don't blame me. I warned you to stay away from her!" Kyuubi replied angrily, "I tried to warn you last night but you didn't want to hear me. You wouldn't let me talk to you. No, you were too busy, too distracted."

"That has never stopped you before!"

"You were weak before! I made you strong and you shut me out so you could fill the sand bitch with your-"

"Don't make any damn excuses. You should have never let me have the third tail."

"YOU SHOULD HAVE CLOSED YOUR DAMN MASK THE INSTANT YOU FELT YOURSELF LOSING CONTROL!" Kyuubi roared angrily, "Do you really think that I'm the only one capable of doing something like this. Remember what you did to Makuradojya girl. You were fully aware when you did that. You loved it. You wanted to do this too. I'm the only one strong enough to take you now. You made me your mate, and drank of my power."

"I don't want to be your fucking mate. I never wanted your fucking power."

"You think I wanted this? To be stuck inside a pubescent boy who's barely strong enough to wipe his own ass, let alone protect us from our enemies. Were not mates because we want it, it's because neither of us have any other choice!"

"If you're so strong, then how come you can't get the hell out of me?" Naruto replied spitefully.

"Because we'd both die! It's not a death seal just because it's created with the help of a shinigami." Kyuubi's voice echoed painfully in Naruto's head.

"Stop it..." Gaara interrupted, "Mother is angry..." He grinned widely, drooling from the still human side of his mouth, "She is hungry. She'll feast on your blood!" Gaara laughed and wrapped his monster hand around Naruto.

"Both of you shut up!" Naruto turned to face Gaara, "You should have killed me before. I told you to kill us! What's the matter with you? Why aren't you killing US!" With an enormous effort of rage, Naruto spread out his body, destroying the monstrous hand of sand.

Gaara's face stretched into a wide and frightening smile.

"I'm not going to kill you... I don't kill my friends.... I am not a monster..." Gaara giggled, "I AM NOT A MONSTER! No, no I'm not. Mother isn't happy though. You hurt mother, took her daughter away. Mother is... Mother is angry... Mother hates you... Mother... Yes... Kill? He needs to be punished." The sand crept over Gaara's legs and torso. He swung an arm, slamming Naruto through the wall.

"Kill him now, before he loses himself completely to Shukaku!" Kyuubi ordered.

"Why would I do that? He can't kill me yet," Naruto replied stubbornly.

"You don't want to die!"

"No, you don't want to die! Look at all the wonderful destruction I created for you, how many people I killed in your name. How many people did I torture and kill? Can you really say that I'm not more of a monster than that?"

Gaara burst through the wall. The raccoon of the sand now obscured Gaara completely.

"I will have my revenge, yes mother, you will punish him... kill him." Gaara screamed out, leaping towards Naruto.

Naruto covered his eyes and swiped with his claws, releasing a burst of wind chakra from them. It was not as powerful as if he used his tekagi which were still in his room, but it was enough to sever the outstretched limb and leave claw marks across Gaara's belly.

Gaara roared in frustration as he hit the ground. The whole village shook. Sand rushed from around buildings cascading over Naruto's naked body as it was drawn into Gaara's form. Gaara thrashed wildly as he grew, his tail leveling his own house and crushing Kankuro who was still inside.

"Finally, free again." The now building sized Ichibi said, "Free to kill you!" He slammed a paw down towards Naruto. Naruto did not even try to dodge. For some reason the ground was still shaking, he could feel it while he was caught from the waist down under the massive paw. Screams filled the streets of Suna as the early risers saw the demon standing in the middle of their village.

"Will you really let it end like this?" the Kyuubi growled, "Would you let an entire village be massacred just to end our lives? Don't you want to save Sasuke? Even if you can't live around the people you care about, will you let them die?"

The Kyuubi had hit a nerve. Naruto couldn't allow it. Enough people had suffered in his name. He couldn't allow himself to die. It would be a betrayal of those who had already died so that he could live. It was a betrayal to his friends, his family, and his genin team. He couldn't bring Sasuke back to Konoha, but at least he could save the bastard from Orochimaru. If he was going to die, that was the battle he wanted to die in, that would make his death meaningful.

Naruto let loose a stream of expletives and then took a deep breath, "Kitsune-Bi: Furea!" Blue-white flames shot forth, melting the front half of the Ichibi's leg all the way up to the shoulder. The Ichibi's leg crumbled and it fell onto some nearby structures. Naruto could feel the Kyuubi's joy at watching the destruction.

Shukaku roared and thrashed, causing more damage to surrounding buildings and the people who were still inside them. It rolled to its feet, reforming its missing limb.

"Futon: Renkudan!" Naruto was blasted by a gigantic mass of air and chakra, sending him flying through walls.

Naruto did not know how long the blow had knocked him out for, but there were explosions all over the city. A large red mass slammed into the ground in front of him. It took him a moment to recognize it.

"Gamabunta?" Naruto muttered foggily. The toad boss just poofed back to the summon realm, too damaged to continue fighting.

"It's no time to be sleeping!" Jiraiya grabbed his arm, dragging him through the streets.

"What's happening?" Naruto asked, His question was answered when the building in front of them exploded in a powerful blast of lightning.

"The Raikage tunneled under the wall using some sort of drill. Theres a large sinkhole in the northeast of the city. Gaara must have come across a tough opponent. He was forced to release Shukaku, and now he's destroying the village as well."

"He didn't–"

A team of Kumo nin appeared in front of them and attacked. Naruto did not waste any time with them. He attacked with five simultaneous rasengans, killing two. Their bodies sprayed blood and guts all over him. He calmly closed his mask and then stared at the third nin. Naruto's tails slowly began flickering with flame-like chakra. The kumo nin seemed to be frozen in fear.

"Die." Naruto plunged his hand into the ninja's chest. The ninja tried to block, but the wind chakra coating Naruto's claws caused them to slice the ninja's arms off and pass easily through the man's sternum.

"Are you okay Naruto?"

"I'm in control," Naruto replied firmly, "But I'm seriously pissed." The combination of his demonic voice and the effect of the mask even made Jiraiya shiver slightly in fear.

Large arcs of lightning were striking back around the massive form of Shukaku. The Ichibi swung his limbs attacking an opponent and demolishing more of the city.

Wind whistled around a projectile. Naruto reached out and a sword pierced his hand from tip to guard. It tried to pull back, but Naruto closed his hand around the guard, holding it tight.

"Naruto, let go before-" Jiraiya tried to warn Naruto, but it was too late. The wire connecting the sword to the one who had thrown it channeled a powerful surge of electricity into him.

"Rasengan!" Naruto formed a rasengan in the impaled hand. The base of the blade shattered. The blade tumbled to the ground, out the back of Naruto's hand, "Jiraiya, run. I'll meet you outside the gates when I'm done."

"You-"

"Half the village is already destroyed. We're facing an army. I'm going to open my mask and let myself go. If I don't, everyone will die. I need to fight my best. Even if no one else is left alive, Jiraiya, You have to survive. You're not a sand nin, you have no obligation to stay." Naruto did not give Jiraiya time to argue. He dropped the bottom of his mask and ran towards where Gaara's demon was fighting.

Before he could reach the demon, he ran into a team of BOLT ninjas, Cloud's elite ANBU operatives. Naruto snarled. He was wearing nothing but blood and his mask. He was sure that his appearance would be frightening, especially with three red demon chakra tails waving behind him. The BOLT group did not flinch. Four of them threw kunai at Naruto. The last one began making hand signs. Naruto ignored the kunai, rushing straight at the man who was trying to do a jutsu. He caught the man's hands and he began screaming in agony as Naruto's chakra burned his flesh.

"You should know better than to mess with me, especially after what I did to the traitor and her escort."

The BOLT remained silent, except for the one he held in his hands. The four others drew swords and attacked from all sides. When Naruto's focus was diverted, the one he had grabbed kicked him in the ribs. The other four stuck their swords through various points in Naruto's torso.

"That stings a bit," Naruto gasped. Both of his lungs had been punctured. Naruto slammed the enemy ninja aside with his tail and calmly began to remove the swords. "I'm sorry this isn't much of a battle for you. Let me even up the odds a bit." He dropped the last bloody sword onto the ground and created four clones. "I'll be generous. I'll kill you painlessly if you surrender now."

The bolt members seemed slightly shaken by Naruto's survival, but were not beaten yet.

"I was hoping you'd choose the slow painful way." Naruto bit into the shoulder of his captive, "I do need variety in my diet." He swallowed the hunk of meat he had torn off.

Naruto's clones engaged in battle, creating more clones occasionally, just wearing the enemy down while Naruto calmly ate his breakfast. After a few mouthfuls, he tired of his meal and killed the man. He carved his symbol into the man's mask, then discarded him, looking for something sweeter for dessert. He grabbed the one whose blood was the sweetest smelling.

"A girl." Naruto used his claws to reveal the modest bust that had been hidden under a tight wrap. He bit into the exposed flesh. The silence of the BOLT members ended as she screamed.

"Captain!"

"Let her go!"

"And what will you do if I refuse? You've already destroyed my village." It seemed like the entire village was in ruins because of the battles being raged. "You don't have any leverage, and since the people I care about are probably dead, I don't have to hold back at all." Naruto placed his mouth over the wound in the woman's chest and sloppily drank the blood that had pooled there and then ripped out another hunk of flesh. "Tell me... Captain... Do you have any children? Is their blood as sweet as yours?"

Naruto, having satisfied his hunger, carved his symbol in the woman's throat and left her to bleed to death. His clones had already finished off the rest of the team appropriately. It seemed almost too easy.

Naruto sent a powerful surge of chakra through his body. The image before him changed. Four swords still penetrated his body. One BOLT was futilely trying to heal the burns on the hands of the first man he had grabbed. He must have had time to finish a genjutsu just as Naruto had been caught. Naruto was lying on the ground, ignored. They thought he was dead, but then most people would be.

Naruto used a kawarimi with a piece of rubble, henging it to look like his prone form. He sent out a group of clones to surround the area. He let the henge on the rubble drop and sent one clone to appear before the bolt members.

"Did you forget about me?" the clone asked mockingly, "I wanted to thank you for giving me such a nice dream."

"How did you survive?" the captain asked.

"I'll tell you how I survived, if you can tell me how you will survive this." The clone tilted his head upwards, "Kitsune-Bi: Furea!" All the clones used the attack at the same time. There were no screams of pain as the enemies were all vaporized. Naruto felt disappointed. There was no pain, or fear, or blood for him to enjoy. Worst of all, he was still hungry. His clones dispersed throughout the village, looking for enemies to eviscerate, while the original headed towards the battle with Shukaku.

There were no buildings left standing near Shukaku. He would spin around, crushing anything nearby with his tail while firing air bullets in all directions. He looked over the devastated area. Several Kumo nin were hiding out in the rubble, firing long range jutsu at Shukaku. They were doing little or no damage, but causing enough of a distraction that other ninja could get close, including a Squad of BOLT who were protecting an older ninja that Naruto recognized from reports he'd seen in the Hokage's office, the Raikage.

A clone came up to Naruto and handed him his Tekage. Several of the clones had worked together to dig it out of the rubble. Naruto put it on and then surprised a young ninja who had been firing a c-rank lightning jutsu at Shukaku. He drove his tekagi into the Ninja's gut. She screamed. She was probably only a gennin. Naruto placed a finger over her lips and shushed her, releasing his hold on his weapon, leaving it resting inside her. She tried to pull it out, but it was too heavy for her to lift.

"Help me..." She pleaded.

"That is very unprofessional of you," Naruto said, "Aren't you supposed to say something like 'I'll never give you what you want!'" He calmed himself, reverting his tails to their solid state.

"I didn't want to do this, I swear. I've never been out of the village before," the girl cried.

"That's too bad." Naruto began cutting off the girl's clothes, "For you, I'll leave your face alone, so your family will recognize you."

The girl shivered. She was growing pale Naruto lay her now naked body down in the sand and pulled the tekagi out. He licked the wound, lapping up the blood. The action seemed to calm the girl down. She grabbed his wrist as if desperately clinging to him would save her life.

"I'm sorry. You seem to have gotten the wrong impression. I'm not doing this to heal you or clean your wound. I've just never eaten anyone as young or sweet as you before and I want to savor the experience."

The scream she let out then was terribly satisfying and Naruto bit into the tender flesh. He couldn't believe how good it was. The meat was so soft compared to the older ninja he was used to eating. There was even still a bit of fat left since the girl hadn't completely trained her body. Her cries and whimpers just made her taste that much better.

"P-p-please k-k-kill m-me," the girl begged.

"As you wish." Naruto replied, he reached a hand into the hole he had made in her stomach, pushing it between her organs until he reached her heart. Her body spasmed for a moment, then fell still. Naruto wrapped his fingers around her heart and pulled it out. He squeezed it to let the blood spray over his chest, then swallowed it whole.

Naruto took his tekagi and walked out into the open. He was surprised that no one had attacked him. The girl's screams had been loud, but screams of pain were coming from all over the area where ninja lay dead or wounded and waiting to die. Naruto looked at Shukaku. That was the biggest threat at the moment. He had learned from his past mistakes and had hidden Gaara's body within himself.

"Who's that?"

The ninja attacking the Ichibi noticed Naruto. Naruto grinned behind his mask and transformed his tails into their chakra state.

"What is it!"

"It's another monster."

Naruto looked to the one who had called him a monster just as he was crushed by one of Shukaku's paws.

"Watch yourselves, don't lose focus!"

Naruto launched a wave of wind chakra at the man. He dodged out of the way.

"Ignore that one, focus on the one tail! If we beat the Kazekage, Suna will fall!" the Raikage yelled and turned his attention to Naruto, "Three tails, is that all you can handle, Naruto?"

"You know me?"

"I make it my business to know of any threat to my village."

"The biggest threat to your village right now is you. You attacked my home and my friends. That requires retribution."

"Kumo is not as weak as Suna."

"That's quite odd, I didn't see any Suna-nin begging for their lives. You should have heard the screams of that girl over there. 'Please kill me' she cried. It was beautiful."

"What did you do to her?"

"Did I just make you angry? Now that I think about it, she looked kind of like you. Did you know her?"

"She was from the Yotsubi clan... My clan!"

"You should protect your family better. Bringing a gennin on an invasion... You should have known that was a bad idea. Well... The whole thing was a bad idea actually. Haven't you heard the rumors? You don't want to cross the Kyuubi or her jinchuuriki!"

Naruto raced towards the Raikage, attacking head on. He was surprised when the Raikage dodged his attack and grabbed him by the ck. The Raikage squeezed and twisted sharply, making Naruto's spine snap in two before throwing him across the field of rubble.

"That hurt." Naruto bones and nerves began knitting back together as the Raikage started to make hand signs.

"Be glad that it didn't kill you. Now you have a chance to witness something rare. It's kinjutsu of my village, and very few have the chakra to do it."

Naruto sat up and smacked the side of his neck with the heel of his palm to force his spine back into position. "You're not doing anything."

"You're too late to stop me... Now!" All the Kumo ninja raced away from Shukaku.

"No!"

"Raiton: Kirin!" The clouds rumbled with thunder.

"Gaara!" Naruto ran towards Shukaku. The monster looked at him only to be split from head to toe by a bolt of lightning shaped like a creature. There was a large explosion and Naruto was engulfed in the blast.

"Well you were pretty useless," the Kyuubi said.

"My clones took out dozens of ninja before I was defeated."

"And now look at you. You were blown up by running into an attack. It will take hours for me to completely heal you. By the time you wake up, the village will be gone."

"Will Gaara be alright?" Naruto asked.

"I give you your regeneration. Shukaku gives Gaara sand control. It was a direct hit. There's no chance that Gaara survived. Even if he lived through the initial blast, the damage would have been too severe. The Raikage also would never leave without being sure of his death."

"I have so much chakra. He shouldn't have beaten me so easily."

"He's a kage. You don't become a kage by being weak. The attack he used was probably equivalent to an entire tail worth of chakra, if not more. It's amazing that a normal human could pull it off. I'm betting he wasn't made Raikage for his chakra reserves. Did you see his sword? He never drew it. His speed and fighting experience were on a level far above yours. As you are now, you could only beat him if you took him by surprise."

"I will beat him. I will do to his village whatever he has done to Suna. That's a promise. Teach me something to help me beat him."

:"Fine, memorize these hand seals and practice them." the Kyuubi began performing one handed seals with both hands.

"Wait, I haven't leaned one handed seals." Naruto frantically tried to copy the seals.

After some time, Naruto noticed that he could smell the Kyuubi, but just barely, despite having his mask still on. Her form also seemed more appealing to him. Though the fox-like aspects still seemed weird, he found them attractive as well. He shuddered as he realized that the tail transformations were not just affecting his body and ability to store demonic chakra – his mind was transforming as well.

When Naruto was healed, he woke up buried under a pile of rubble. His mind was stuffed with the information on the new jutsu that Kyuubi had taught him. It was not possible to perform the jutsu in his mind scape, so the entire ordeal had been difficult for Naruto who preferred more practical training.

Naruto tried to push his way out of the rubble. Some of it shifted, then the pile collapsed and he could not move at all. He formed a rasengan in each of his hands, using them to drill through the rubble. He could only get through a few millimeters before his arms could not move further.

"This is going to hurt..." Naruto sighed and let the two balls of chakra release their energy in explosions that blew the rubble off of him. Great troughs of flesh were ripped from his arms by the swirling energy vortexes.

Naruto struggled to his feet. His arms hung loosely at his sides. He could feel the flesh slowly knitting itself together thanks to the Kyuubi, but for now, his arms were useless. A step moved rubble behind him. It was downwind, so Naruto could not tell who it was from the scent. Was it a Kumo nin? The city seemed empty now. Naruto spun, aiming a roundhouse kick at the sound. It was blocked.

"Naruto, calm down."

"Jiraiya..." Naruto said with surprise and relief, slamming the bottom of his mask into place before he lost control, "You're okay."

"I've been looking for you for hours. How are your arms?"

"I was buried under the rubble," Naruto explained, wincing in pain as he tried to move the mentioned limbs, "I had to use the rasengan to get out. It's pretty bad, but it will heal in a few hours. Did anyone else survive?"

"No. I barely escaped myself. There were just too many of them. Even though we knew something was coming, we weren't prepared for this. They surprised the entire village." Jiraiya rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"How could this have happened!" Naruto's chakra flared angrily and he released a wave of killing intent.

"We thought it was an earthquake at first, then sinkholes appeared in the residential areas. Many shinobi died in their beds, still asleep. They also got the ANBU headquarters. When they surfaced and went after Gaara, there was almost no one left to defend the village." Jiraiya slumped his shoulders and shook his head.

"How could they do something like this?"

"They've probably been planning this for years. Once Konoha was out of the way, Suna had no more allies among the major villages. It was the perfect time to strike."

"So it's all my fault then. Everyone is dead because of what I did."

"No, Naruto, it's not your fault. If anyone is to blame, it is Kumo."

"Take me there," Naruto said resolutely.

"What are you going to do?" Jiraiya asked.

"Who do I have left now, Jiraiya? Just you. They even killed Teuchi's parents. They weren't even ninja. I'll never get a chance to eat Ichiraku ramen again. I'll never see Gaara, or any of my friends from this village. Even if it makes me a monster, I am going to at least kill as many other monsters as I can. I am going to destroy Kumo. I wont leave a single building standing. When that's done, I will find and kill Orochimaru."

"Naruto, that's suicide. You can't take on an entire village, let alone two."

"I can..." Naruto said, "I am sure of it."

"In the meantime, put these on." Jiraiya handed him a set of black shinobi gear that was in fairly good condition considering the state of the village. "I found them." Naruto could just faintly smell the stale sweat and blood of other ninja on the clothes.

His arms healed fairly quickly. When he had full control of his limbs, he began performing the hand signs that Kyuubi had taught him.

"What are you doing?" Jiraiya asked.

"I'm finding out what this jutsu does." His hand signs continued at a rapid pace, finally coming to a halt on dual one-handed dragons. He blew out some of his combined wind and fire chakra It flew forward, taking the shape of an animal that looked almost like the head of a fox with a long tail of fire. A hundred meters away it stopped with a jolt and curved upwards.

"What is that? How did you learn that jutsu?" Jiraiya asked, "I've never seen anything like that. I didn't even know you knew one handed signs."

"I didn't know. Kyuubi taught me the hand signs for this jutsu while I was recovering from the Raikage's attack."

Naruto realized that the fire was connected to his hands by chakra strings and that he could guide it. He began to try and move it in the directions he wanted it to go. It crashed into the ground, burning a trench and melting some of the remains of the village. He directed it up again.

The jutsu seemed to continue draining a large amount of Naruto's chakra. He released the jutsu and it continued in the direction it was heading, slowly descending until it hit the ground and exploded in a massive blast comparable to his oodama rasengan, but made of radiant blue flames that incinerated everything in the blast radius including the stones in the ground.

"I'll call it my Kitsune-Bi: Yoko Goei." Naruto announced, dropping to the ground, exhausted by the drain on his chakra.

"Fox spirit guardian, it seems more like an attack than a defense. If you had a few dozen clones you could probably destroy an entire village in a matter of minutes."

"But I can't do that. Just that one took at least two tails of my chakra, maybe a little more."

"You're probably using more chakra than necessary. You've never really had to restrain yourself before."

"But I've learned to control my chakra. I can even do a bunshin now."

"Then show me." Jiraiya said.

Naruto performed a bunshin.

"You just used ten times more chakra than I do to create a simple bunshin. You do even more for your shadow clones. The problem is that you've only ever learned low level jutsu, and the rasengan. Because of the nature of the rasengan's pure form manipulation, the more chakra you pack into the jutsu, the more powerful it is. Other jutsu require you to control your chakra more. Pouring your chakra into a jutsu may make it stronger, but only by the amount the weakest aspect of the jutsu improves. In a jutsu as complicated as the one you just did, you could be wasting chakra in hundreds of aspects and only get minimal gains."

"So my chakra control isn't good enough."

"No, for your reserves, you have excellent control, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't improve it. Now you must learn to use that control to maximize your potential while minimizing the waste."

"So how am I supposed to do that?"

"Make a rasengan and try to get the chakra as thin as wires, or thinner if you can. If you can mold the same form with equal power and less chakra, then that is a sign that your control has improved." Jiraiya formed a rasengan, "See this, I'm using the same amount of energy as I would for a normal bunshin. I could do this hundreds of times without breaking a sweat."

"Why the rasengan. It still uses a lot of chakra. Why don't I just try doing the sand exercise with less chakra?"

"You can do that as well, but I want you to master the incomplete rasengan so that you can take it to the next step."

"There's another level to the rasengan?"

"Yes, but even the incomplete version is so difficult that few have been able to learn it. Not even the Fourth was able to complete it before he died."

"So, I'll be learning something that was too difficult for the greatest ninja in the history of Konoha to learn?"

"No, you will be creating it."

"What do you mean?"

"Your rasengan is already the ultimate in pure form manipulation techniques. You could say that the chidori is the ultimate in pure elemental manipulation. Imagine combining the two. The power would grow exponentially. If you could add you fire or wind chakra to the rasengan... maybe even both... You would have what is probably the strongest technique in the world. Because of your clones, you are the only one who would have time to perfect a technique like this."

"I'll try. But I'm not going to stop my other exercises. I have a full tail of extra chakra to use. The clones I create with them will train to use the rasengan."

Naruto and Jiraiya traveled in a generally northeast direction. They wandered from town to town, Naruto's sights set on avenging Suna. He trained his clones constantly, leaving himself with a mere half tail of chakra in case there was an emergency. After a week, they stopped, at Jiraiya's request, at a hot spring to spend the night.

"I'll train then, enjoy your peeping," Naruto told Jiraiya, heading off away from the hot spring. Jiraiya grinned and raced off to register a room.

Naruto sat against a tree and focused on making a rasengan. The chakra swirled, converging on a single point. The strands were thin, but not as thin as Naruto would have liked. They were more like yarn than wires. He reduced the chakra output a bit, but the ball began to lose stability. He tried to hold it together, but in the end, it exploded in his face.

His clones were having similar problems. He hadn't made much progress at all. It seemed he was using as little chakra as possible without destabilizing the jutsu. He tried again. He formed a rasengan. A clone dispelled at that moment. It had made a breakthrough. Instead of using less chakra to make the bands of chakra smaller, why not use the same amount of power but split it into more strands of chakra. Naruto focused on his new idea.

The first few attempts unraveled, lashing his hand with the energy, The clones were having similar luck, dispelling from the force and sending Naruto the memories of failure. The next advancement was really a fluke. One clone thought that if they couldn't split the chakra normally, they could use one chakra band to cut another. The chakra went wild. The split chakra was expelled violently to the edge of the sphere before being drawn back in to repeat the process. The result was a ring of chakra that extended for about half of a foot beyond a stretched and deformed rasengan.

Naruto and his clones immediately began experimenting with the new form of the rasengan. He discovered that the enter of the rasengan still acted like a normal rasengan, but the explosive potential was diminished because the initial area was much larger, but if he struck something with the side of the rasengan, it sliced through as effectively as wind chakra. Even kunai were easily cut through with his new jutsu. If he used more chakra, the radius of the attack would expand.

"The Fuusha Rasengan!" Naruto named the new move, "I've got to show this to Jiraiya."

Naruto headed back towards the hot springs. They were putting out a lot of steam. He could see it towering over the bath area like a cloud.

"Did the old pervert head into the bath or did he get a room?" Naruto asked the receptionist as he entered the main lobby.

The receptionist just sat there smiling. She wasn't moving. Naruto immediately went on guard, sending out shadow clones to scout the building and the baths. He walked up to the woman, bumping against her desk lightly. Her body slumped and her head slipped off of her body. It had been cut so cleanly that he hadn't even noticed.

One of Naruto's shadow clones dispelled. It hadn't been able to see in the mist as it approached the hot springs. "Hidden mist jutsu..." Naruto guessed. He wondered if they had come specifically for him and Jiraiya, or whether it was just some bandits with water techniques – No, if they were bandits, Jiraiya would have taken them out by now. They were Kiri shinobi, and strong ones.

Naruto sniffed hard. Whoever it was was good. He still had his mask on, but there wasn't even the slightest hint of blood. Perhaps it was a special property of the blade the enemy was using. He headed down the hall towards the Men's side. He sent a relatively gentle blast of wind chakra to clear the mist in the hall. A kunai emerged from the receding mist and was thrown off course, barely missing him while a Kiri nin in black ANBU garb was pushed backwards by the winds. Naruto raced forwards, creating several clones. He cursed himself for using so much chakra for training.

The Kiri nin countered Naruto's three pronged taijutsu assault with ease. The two clones were dispelled immediately and Naruto was sent hurtling down the hallway by a ferocious kick to the gut. Some of his stronger training clones dispelled themselves, restoring a good amount of Naruto's chakra.

"You're pretty good," Naruto said, stalling while the information overload headache from the dispelled clones dissipated.

"I expected more from the monster who killed the Mizukage's cousin."

"I didn't do anything to the Mizukage's family!" Naruto replied, angry at being wrongly accused and attacked, "The only people I killed in the land of water were bandits.".

"Just because he was leading a renegade raiding party does not mean that the Mizukage did not care about him."

"The old man..."

"Your chakra was all over the area. It's rather unique, and you don't make it difficult to track you." The man was discreetly forming a series of seals as he talked. Naruto had see the sequence before several times. It was the water dragon jutsu.

Before the man could finish his hand signs, Naruto launched a quick attack. "Kitsune-Bi: Furiya!" Naruto's attack filled the hall with blue flames, melting everything it touched into white hot ash.

The Kiri shinobi had his ams crossed in front of his face. His clothes were mostly burned off and his flash was seared. He was alive though. The nin stood up. It looked like it was painful to move.

"You survived."

"Water beats fire..." The man stumbled. His skin crackled as he moved, at least the charred remains of it did, "But it wasn't enough."

"No, I held back. I don't know where my partner is, and I didn't want to fry him as well."

"That's impossible. You couldn't have broken my water shield if you were holding back, especially not with fire."

"You want to know something even more infuriating?" Naruto laughed, his blood lust rising despite the mask, "I just used most of my chakra while training. I am not even at a fifth of my power. To top it all off, That was just a distraction." Tekagi burst through the walls on either side of the Kiri nin, cutting through his arms and into his gut. His eyes widened in surprise and pain.

"This is impossible... No person could have so much power." He coughed up a load of blood.

"Impossible? For a ninja like you, yes. But I am a jinchuuriki. Inside me is the most powerful creature the ninja world has ever heard of." He flared his chakra, transforming his tails and making his eye glow bright red behind the mask. "Unlike my tenant, though, I have mercy. If you tell me about your comrades, I will give you a quick death."

"I'm already dead..." the man said, "You can do no worse to me."

Naruto shrugged, "Your choice." He walked by the man, leaving the clones to torture him to death after he paused briefly to carve a nine into the man's forehead.

Around the corner he found another shinobi lying dead on the ground. He had a kunai in his leg and the swirling pattern of a rasengan embedded in his chest. A strange screeching was coming from the bath area, then a grunt of pain from Jiraiya.

Naruto busted through the wall. A Kiri ninja was standing over Jiraiya with his fist raised. He shifted to glance at Naruto and the sun glinted off imperceptibly thin metal. Jiraiya's had fallen to the ground and his left arm hung down limply. He was grasping his shoulder with his right hand.

"Be careful, Naruto! He's one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist."

"Good, someone worthy of killing then." Naruto replied, flexing his fingers in anticipation. This was going to be a good fight, "If that flimsy sword of his doesn't break first."

"Kid, my sword may be thin, but it's definitely not flimsy." The Kiri nin stabbed elegantly next to Jiraiya's head and a large rock broke in two cleanly cut pieces. "Shigoshi is invincible. It's your death, like a whisper that takes you away. It can't be seen but it will surely take your life before you feel a thing."

"Too bad for you. I am not so easy to kill."

"When your head is sitting by your feet, you'll see." He leapt towards Naruto, swinging his arm around wildly. Amazingly it stayed at an angle such that Naruto rarely got a glimpse of it.

Naruto took out a kunai and prepared to parry the blow that would come to him.

"Naruto!" Jiraiya warned, but it was too late. Naruto noticed the end of a kunai sitting at Jiraiya's feet, the rest of the weapon was in his hand. Naruto managed to tilt his Kunai at an angle that slightly deflected the attack, sending it slicing through his thigh. When Naruto moved, half of his kunai slid off and fell to the floor.

"That hurt." Naruto moved and a geyser of blood sprayed from his leg. Luckily the cut had been so clean that the wound was already half healed.

Naruto leapt away from the swordsman but was outpaced but a shunshin, setting the Kiri ninja up to make a fatal blow. Naruto created a shadow clone, using it to kick him onto a new trajectory before it barreled right into the attack. He was already breathing heavily from exertion. He needed to end the battle fast.

The enemy came for Naruto, blade pointed right at him. Naruto leapt back, landing on the hard cobblestones that surrounded the natural hot spring. His footing shifted and he fell as the rocks fell apart under his feet. Naruto remembered the initial charge the man had made. Swinging the sword had not been for show, it had sliced through the ground, creating a trap right in front of his eyes and he hadn't noticed.

Naruto pushed off of the ground with his feet flipping backwards into the steaming water. The enemy sword cut through his back as he rolled, slicing through two and a half ribs. Naruto took a breath and then sunk into the milky water. He waited for a moment, then launched a blast of his fox fire combination straight up. The water above him evaporated, but the Kiri nin was not there. He was still standing on the side, waiting.

"I thought Kiri shinobi liked the water," Naruto said as he stood up.

"I don't know what's in that water. I wouldn't want Shigoshi to rust."

"Tell you what. I'm running kind of low on chakra, so I don't want to waste anymore. How about one final strike, my tekagi against your Shigoshi."

"That's a fools bet kid, for you," the man raised his sword into a ready stance. Naruto leapt onto the opposite side of the basin.

"Time to see if your sword is as sharp as your tongue."

Naruto and his opponent both leapt towards each other, swinging their weapons. At the last moment, Naruto focused wind chakra into the blades, making it as sharp as possible. The two weapons clashed together and a moment later both fighters collapsed on opposite sides of the hot spring. The mist nin's body spit into several pieces as it rolled. Naruto got up, pulling the end of Shigoshi from his chest. It had pierced right through him.

Naruto grabbed the severed torso of his opponent and leapt over the fence and out of the hot spring area. Even with his mask on, he could feel his body demanding more blood. He ran until he reached the area where he had been training. He ripped his mask off violently and sank his teeth into the still warm flesh.

"You're getting better at this," Kyuubi purred, "Killed only enemies this time."

"I won't hurt my friends," Naruto insisted/

"Unless they're bleeding, or they make you angry... or horny," the Kyuubi laughed. "But I am surprised. You won that fight. How did you ever think of using wind chakra. I expect much less than you." The Kyuubi ran a claw along his jawline, drawing a bead of blood and sticking it into her mouth.

Naruto shivered, trying to remain stoic and not reveal how much Kyuubi's actions had affected him. "I know my weapon would lose on its own. His weapon was sharp enough to cut through solid stone like butter. His weapon was of much higher quality than mine as well. Unless he made a mistake and blocked with the side of the blade, his sword would have cut right through my tekagi and me."

"So you knew you would lose in a head on fight."

"But, I knew that I could cut through rock like he did if I coated my tekagi with wind chakra. I remembered the training I had been doing with my new fuusha rasengan, and I did the same thing with the chakra on the blades. I ground it at the edge of the blade, then split it at the end, bringing it bck along to grind the wind chakra into an even finer edge before sending it out behind the claws to push my arm faster. My faster swing and sharper blade gave me the power to cut his blade, but it wasn't quite good enough. Naruto showed Kyuubi the tekagi he wore. They were sliced almost half way through. "I lost control half-way through the cut, My chakra twisted my claws and the end of his blade snapped off."

"Knew you weren't smart enough to beat that guy in our condition."

"So I was lucky... I still beat him," Naruto said defensively.

"And I suppose you didn't drag the guy away so that Jiraiya would be safe."

"Umm... I was training all day and had gotten pretty hungry. I knew Jiraiya wasn't going to attack me, especially in his condition."

"So, you're saying you haven't learned anything at all?"

"I have my new jutsu..."

"Like that will ever be useful in battle. You could just fill your claws with wind chakra. It would cut through just as well. Even with all your clones, you failed to improve your control at all."

"My control is as good as it's going to get. I tried my best."

"Sasuke's worst was better than your best! Instead of trying to release less, you should have molded it faster, stretching it into thinner strands since you have obviously reached your physical minimum limit of release."

"I would have figured that out eventually."

Kyuubi punched Naruto into a wall. "Idiot. You would have gone about creating new variations of the rasengan without perfecting the original first. After today, you should realize how precious your chakra is. You were almost killed because you didn't hold back and couldn't control your abilities."

"You're just pissed because you would have died with me. But I didn't die."

"No, you got lucky. Again and again you get lucky. If it wasn't for my chakra healing you, you'd have died a thousand times by now."

"And sometimes, I wish I had. You act all high and mighty, but what have you ever done?"

"I corrupted you."

"You think that makes me like it? I kill people, rape them, eat them. I crush peoples minds and bodies, torturing them for your pleasure. I have no control, destroying everything I love or hate indiscriminately."

"And you love every second of it. You revel in the darkness. Even not, you want to fight me, to battle me for dominance, then stick yourself into me. You want to drink more of my blood as you screw me with every ounce of your strength. You hate it. You feel guilty about it. Even then, you pant after it like a dog under the hot son, begging to please its master." Kyuubi grabbed Naruto by the neck and slammed him face first onto the ground. "Go ahead and beg. You give me grief and complain about every little thing, then you come back begging for more, complaining even when I give you what you want."

"I won't beg." Naruto grabbed her by the ankles, then slammed his head into her pelvis, knocking her down. She grabbed his ears, pulling him down with her.

"Won't beg?" she laughed and ground his nose against the musky hair of her crotch, "Well you seem to be doing a decent job of it anyway."

Naruto surged forward, trying to pin her, but she twisted, sending him rolling to the side. She mounted his back, grinding his cheek against the hard stone of the landscape. Naruto growled deep in his throat, then yelped in pain as sharp claws dug into his side.

"The only way you're going to beat me is if I let you win."

Naruto had stopped fighting her. This was how it always ended. She had proven her physical superiority. She had completely dominated him, and now, he would be forced to do things the way she wanted them done. She sometimes let him win, but not today.

Kyuubi's fingers yanked hard, forcing him to roll over. As he did, the fingers popped out of his side with a squelching sound of bloody suction. He winced at the sound. It was not the clean removal that a blade would have. He hated it. He felt so powerless, but something inside him made him submit. It made him want to listen to her. It was like some sort of instinct that , while not uncontrollable, was too troublesome to resist.

Naruto grasped the taught, wiry muscles of her legs, letting his hands slide up to her slender, boyish hips. Kyuubi smirked, purring softly. Naruto knew he was doing something right. The better he did, the better he'd receive. Sometimes he like it that way, other times he would fight to the end until she took his body by force. Either way, it didn't make a difference. Once the scent took him, it was too late to turn back, except for her.

Naruto kneaded her tight, round buttocks, admiring the way her body arched whenever one of his claws scraped against her anus. He thought of Sakura for a moment, looking at the kyuubi's flat chest. Other girls had made fun of Sakura when she had been younger. The thought passed in a moment and he reached to grab a pair of bright, rosy nipples Kyuubi caught his hands and leaned forward, her hips rubbing against his own in an almost teasing fashion. She leaned forward, running her rough tongue along his neck, biting and drawing blood. The sensation excited him.

Naruto bucked his hips and tried to get into a position to enter her. Her thighs clamped around his waist, refusing him. Kyuubi smiled sadistically as he struggled. Naruto let out a begging whine as he jerked his hips again.

"What is this? Whining like lost kit. All you have to do is ask.... Beg me for what you want." She shifted her hips back a tiny bit so that her buttocks just barely rubbed against the bulge of his penis.

"Please, let me mate with you," Naruto said, his demonic lust held back only by the Kyuubi's strength.

"Why should I do that. You are so disobedient, and belligerent. If you're that desperate, put your claws to good use and jerk off to some of the sannin's books. I am sure he would appreciate it."

"I'll be good. I'll do whatever you want."

"Promise?"

"I promise..."

"Good boy." Kyuubi released Naruto's hands.

Naruto pushed her to the ground, sitting up into a kneeling position between her legs. He cut through the seam of his pants with a claw and his hardened member popped out. Moments later, it was embedded between the buttocks that had teased him.

Naruto woke up alone in the field he had decimated with his training. It had been stupid to fall asleep. Jiraiya was critically injured, and there was no guarantee that there were not more enemy shinobi lurking around. He got up and ran towards the hot spring as fast as he could.

The building was in shambles, but he saw no signs of combat beyond those which had been there before. Jiraiya was no longer by the hot springs. Naruto searched and found him lying in one of the few undamaged rooms. His shoulder and chest were wrapped and clumsily tied in bed sheet that was stained dark red. Jiraiya's own pallor was pale, looking almost gray. Naruto would have panicked, but Jiraiya's labored breaths were easily audible. Naruto checked for a pulse. It was weak and slow. Jiraiya had lost a lot of blood since Naruto had last seen him.

"I need some blood pills." Naruto did not have a first aid kit with him. It was usually redundant because of the demonic chakra. Jiraiya's own equipment was missing, as well as several other things: money, manuscripts, and all his sealing scrolls.

"If we leave him like this, he'll die in a few hours."

"Heal him like you do me." Naruto demanded.

"You know I can't do that. Not only can I not affect anything outside of you, but you know that my chakra is poisonous to anyone but you or me."

"The last town we passed was two days back. I can't..."

"You have two choices kit: leave him to die and hope that you find someone who can heal him, or you can try to learn how to make medical chakra well enough to keep him going until he can help himself."

"Teach me," Naruto said steadfastly, "I will save him."

"As you wish, but first send some clones to look for the bandits. We may need some supplies."

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto created the clones as ordered, sending several dozen to search for whoever had stolen their supplies.

"Good. Now, concentrate some chakra into your hands."

Naruto had used some fire chakra to sear the wound closed and reduce blood loss while he trained. Even then, Jiraiya was steadily getting worse. His clones had yet to report anything, and medical chakra seemed to take more control than he seemed to possess. Even at his lowest output, his chakra was at a level that using it would disrupt Jiraiya's chakra flow and kill him.

"If you can make less, then spread it out more," Kyuubi suggested. Naruto thinned the chakra out until it was covering his whole arm in a radius of six inches rather than just a small halo around his hand. He tried to manipulate it into medical chakra, but was unable to do it. Every few seconds, there was a flash of pure red or pure blue, but he couldn't get the chakra into the form of soothing green chakra.

"Damn it!" he cursed.

"Calm down, kit. Getting angry will just make your chakra more poisonous to others. You have to purify it. Aim for the blue chakra first. If you get blue, then you're at least emitting human chakra."

Naruto focused as much as he was able. Gradually, the flashes of blue became more regular, and then in a supreme effort, his entire arm became coated with blue chakra.

"I did it..." Naruto created and dispersed a clone to spread the knowledge to his other clones.

"You're not even close. You're using too much spiritual energy in the mixture. Your chakra has to be almost pure physical energy. That's what your body needs to heal.:

"Why does your chakra heal me then?"

"Demonic chakra is pure. It's not a mixture like with humans. Since it is pure, it can be used for any technique."

"Then Why can't I just learn to do a medical jutsu with it?"

"You can, and it will be much simpler to perform them, but you already know that the chakra is poisonous to humans. Their chakra system can't handle it once it's formed."

Naruto tried to change the mixture of energies. It was a lot different than elementally composing it. Wind chakra was mostly about the chakra's movement, and the Kyuubi chakra was simple to elementally recompose into fire chakra. He had never had to change chakra composition like this before. He had barely been able to make his chakra come out in the academy... He'd almost failed the first year for that. He didn't even understand how he did it. He had just done it right one, then done it the same way every time after that. Furrowing his brow in concentration, he clenched his fist. A clone poofed out of existence. Naruto gained the knowledge that it had created a sliver of yellow chakra.

"Thats great. Pure physical chakra. You don't do anything half-assed, do you kit?" the Kyuubi chuckled, "That stuff can make you punch through solid steel, and whatever is behind it. You aren't going to heal anyone with it though. You need the spiritual energy for control. Pure physical energy just expels itself directly. If you try using it, you will snap his arm right off rather than healing his shoulder. Try to mix it in with blue chakra. You need to have as much yellow chakra as you can in the mix while maintaining enough control that you don't hurt the person you're treating."

"Dammit! It's not working!" Naruto shouted. Jiraiya's breathing was getting shallower. A clone dispersed, sending Naruto the information that the thieves had been caught and the medical supplies were recovered, but it would take an hour for the clones to return. Jiraiya did not look like he would last another hour, or even another fifteen minutes. He had already lost too much blood.

"It should be simple. Try using ox, then tiger seals. Usually they're modified, but you don't have time to learn that."

"Okay..." Naruto performed the seals. It was still difficult, but for a moment, the green chakra appeared.

"Good get the clones working on that. It's called the shousen jutsu. Your teammate used to use it." Naruto continued to practice the mystical palm technique.

Ten minutes later, Naruto couldn't wait anymore. Jiraiya was doing too badly. He seemed as if he could die at any moment. Naruto had no choice but to use the incomplete technique.

"Shousen no Jutsu!" Naruto performed an ox and tiger. A bright green glow enveloped his hands. Every so often, bright yellow or blue flares would appear in the aura of chakra. Naruto forcused to keep the part below his hands pure. He slowly ran the glow along Jiraiya's wound, his chakra speeding up Jiraiya's natural healing. Suddenly, Jiraya's body jolted.

"Ah!" Jiraiya's eye's shot open in pain. His good hand crossed over his body and grabbed his wound. His stiffened in pain.

"I'm sorry, I was just trying to help..."

"Then continue helping.... What's it matter if you crack a bone or two. If you don't fix me up... I don't think I'll last much longer.

"Shousen no Jutsu!"

"Wait!" Jiraiya said weakly. I've seen Tsunade do that jutsu thousands of times. "You need to..." Jiraiya never finished. He was unconscious again.

Without Jiraiya's guidance, Naruto had to use the incomplete jutsu. This time, he pulled back right before he felt a spike of chakra.

"Just fifty minutes, then I'll have blood pills for him..." Naruto performed the technique again.

He soon found out that he was causing almost as much damage as he was healing, but he was improving slowly. He continued. He continued. He continued. Jiraiya stopped breathing. A clone breathed for him. Another watched Jiraiya's heart. Naruto continued still. He had just about given up when a clone burst in, thrusting a blood pill towards him. He grabbed it a dropped it into Jiraiya's mouth, forcing his body to swallow. A minute later, Jiraiya regained some of the color in his face, but he was still really pale. He gave Jiraiya another pill. He knew it was not a substitute for real blood, just as soldier pills were no substitute for real rest, but it was at least a temporary solution.