Well... THIS took longer than expected. But it's a longer chapter than usual, so I think it's ok. These Naruto Gaara fights are getting really troubling, there's only so much I can think of crazed Gaara doing. Well, it's fine anyway, just let me know what you think, okay?

Disclaimer: Looks like we're in for another Orochimaru vs Sarutobi thing here, you all know what I mean right?


Requisition of the damned

The walls exploded in a shower of brick and mortar as two figures crashed through it. The empty halls lay in wake of the forms, one of a man and one of a monster. Only one stood; the other lay in the pile of debris created by their forced entry. Naruto winced in pain at the pieces of rock jabbing into his back, but his attention was focused on Gaara, to whom the dust seemed to whirl around. Even Eko, who lay beside Naruto, was left stunned by the sheer power and speed of the attack that had thrown them through the thick walls.

"Naruto, move fast and hit hard!"

Naruto nodded in reply, taking the great sword in hand as he steadily got to his feet. He readied the blade in both hands, holding it so that there was a steel divide in the middle of his viewpoint. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes for a moment to clear his thoughts. Across from him, Gaara rose higher to a more upright position, watching Naruto with bared teeth and a creased brow. His frown deepened as he saw a grin slowly creep onto Naruto's face, before the blonde's eyes snapped open with a determined expression. "Let's do this!" he exclaimed, before suddenly charging at Gaara full speed.

The sand manipulator stood rigid as Naruto reached him, not expecting the force that struck him a moment later. He was pushed back into the outermost hallway of the building, visually expending effort as he tried to avoid being knocked over the side. But before he knew it, he was stumbling forward as Naruto suddenly darted to his left, whipping around with several spinning slashes to thin air. "Fuuton: Windstorm Slicer!" he called, as a wave of blades made of wind flew from the edge of the Ekokaeten.

Gaara saw the attack in time and threw his arms to the ground in front of him. The sand extremities moved according to this and formed a powerful wall between him and the razor wind. Each arc stuck the sand hard, causing small dents in the arms but nothing more. Naruto came a stop as he finished the Jutsu, but immediately saw and took advantage of the opportunity given by Gaara's defence. Running straight at the bizarre form, he jumped off the sand arms and over Gaara, before slicing down hard with the Ekokaeten. The giant blade dropped down through the air and struck the tail of sand, severing it instantly.

"That's one thing taken care of, but what about the rest?"

"I'm working on it!" Naruto thought in reply, as he landed just a few feet behind the quickly disintegrating tail. He let a hand go of Eko as he made to strike Gaara from behind with wind, but the deranged ninja had noticed his missing tail and predicted where Naruto was. With a strong thrust, he rammed his elbows back hard, bringing with them the immense limbs of sand. Naruto was taken off guard by this sudden counterattack, he had never witnessed Gaara's sand to be this versatile before; normally it needed to be directed with hand gestures. It was for this reason that he was hit by the full force of the attack, and sent flying so far he left the building altogether.

"Aagh!" Naruto thought, as his body flew through an opening but his head hit the wall. He tumbled inside, rolling across the ground while clutching the back of his head in pain. There was a ringing sound in his ears, and his eyes seemed to register the world a little slower than his body did. Eko dropped out of his hand and clattered to the ground, the sound of metal on stone magnifying and echoing several times over.

"Hey, get up!"

With slight difficulty, Naruto opened his eyes to look at the window he had come in through. The light was obscured by Gaara's perched form, looking down at Naruto like a lion watching its prey. The look in his distant but bloodthirsty eyes set Naruto on edge, but also sparked something else inside of him.

He watched Gaara carefully, waiting for the exact moment he anticipated. It came as Gaara crouched lower, preparing to leap in for the kill. Naruto threw his hands together in a string of seals, just as Gaara leapt through the air. "Fuuton: Great Wind Palm!" he called, before slamming his open hands onto the floor to either side of him.

The ground cracked suddenly and quickly, fissures spreading throughout as the floor collapsed beneath Naruto. He and Gaara both fell through this cave in, Naruto using the distraction to grab Eko and take to higher ground. Even while jumping through the opening back outside, he swung Eko around to create an arc of wind to force the close following Gaara to defend.

"Naruto! You're using too much chakra!"

Unfortunately, Naruto hadn't realised this until Eko had mentioned it. He'd been too busy fighting to realise the strain of his earlier fights had collected to what he was feeling now. But even then he barely cared; it wasn't like he could afford to slow down. Things were going to hell in a hand basket, and he was slowly forgetting the reason he was here.

Landing on the rooftop of a building several floors down, Naruto turned around to the place he knew Gaara would emerge from. The adrenaline pumping through his body had left him excited; despite his feelings he had a broad grin and a jumpy stance about him. But there was no use denying it; he knew there was no way the battle was going to end soon as it was.

"Hey… Eko." Naruto thought, as once more Gaara appeared in his line of sight. It seemed that massive amount of sand was weighing him down, aside from his lunges the rest of his movements were rather slow. From this distance, Naruto doubted that Gaara could even get over here as he was. "I'm gonna use it."

"Whoa whoa whoa, WHAT?"

Without giving any explanation, Naruto pushed Eko deep into the rooftop so that he stayed in place. He then raised his hands together, forming them into the common ram seal as he prepared to mould some chakra. Ignoring Eko's continued protests, he closed his eyes and began to focus deep within himself.

At first nothing happened, but that wasn't unexpected. Naruto's expression grew more serious as his brow creased and his lips parted to a soundless growl. Far up above, Gaara was watching him curiously as he detected something strange. There was an aura rising around Naruto, something dark and malevolent. But more than anything else, it was powerful; powerful enough to make Gaara stop in his tracks.

Deep inside the realms of Naruto's mind, there was a faint but powerful voice. It rose up from the depths of his consciousness and rang through his ears, a deep call that unnerved him even then. It was that sound that drew him in, turning his world to darkness as the meanings of time and space changed into something obscure. "Here he comes, the brat once again…"


Naruto slowly opened his eyes as the cold feeling of water around his feet came to him. In the vast darkness of the chamber in which he stood, he fixed his gaze upon the metal bars of the enormous prison in front of him. It was there, just beyond the place where light fully existed, that a pair of lambent eyes stared at him. Two large, red orbs hovering in the air, with black slits focusing on the tiny boy below.

"Here you are again…"came the guttural voice of the Kyuubi no Youko, the owner of those giant eyes. The face of the beast slowly moved forward, and the gargantuan visage of a demonic fox came faintly into sight. The beast's nose squeezed partway through the bars, taking in a deep inhale as it continued to watch Naruto closely. "I don't sense any malcontent… so that must mean you're in a situation of some sort."

Naruto stared defiantly at the Kyuubi; he had no desire to give the monster the pleasure of knowing the full situation. He had a reason to be here, one that he wasn't so quick to forget. "Give me chakra." he ordered, in a commanding voice which he seldom used. He ignored the Kyuubi's curious yet angered look, not wanting to go into details. "I can't hold back, not at a time like this."

His words hung loosely around the echoing hall, filling both his and the Kyuubi's ears as they repeated themselves just a moment after being spoken. Naruto stared strong up at the demon fox before him even as he openly asked for its help. To that end, he saw every slight change to the Kyuubi's expression; the slowly narrowing eyes, and the steadily growing grin that showed all of that monster's huge, sharp teeth.

"It sounds like you're really in a bind."it said, clearly enjoying itself as it watched Naruto flinch slightly from those words. The beast was almost tempted to chuckle, if laughter had not been something missing from his existence for many years now. But right now was a moment he could scarcely pass up, and there wasn't a part of him that wanted to really. "Beg me."

Naruto faltered for a moment from that sudden demand, backing off a little as his brow rose in surprise. But then it came back full speed, his eyes widening until they were about popping out of his skull, his look turning to a strong glare as he pumped his fists. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BEG?" he demanded, with an incredulous look on his exasperated face. "JUST GIVE IT TO ME YOU DAMN FOX!"

This time the Kyuubi really did chuckle, though this was a more natural reaction to the situation. The boy before him was being unrightfully insolent, though the Kyuubi knew there was little he could do to stop him. "Is that any way to request my help?"it asked, in a haughty tone of voice. But then it chuckled again, this time a more prolonged sound that put Naruto even more on edge than he was before. "How am I to know you won't waste the power I give to you?"

The Kyuubi gave a pause as he awaited the answer to his question, knowing full well what he would get in return. Naruto simply stared back, trying his best to remain defiant while having no reply to give. Since this was expected, the Kyuubi was less than surprised. "No matter, I have nothing to do with it myself." he said, as his head slowly lowered to the ground. Between his fangs came a thick liquid of a very pale red, flowing out like foam from a rabid dog. It dripped into the waters of the cavern and mixed with them, making the calm stream bubble and boil. "However, don't ever forget that you in your clear state of mind asked for my power. Never deny that you need what I possess."

Naruto ground his teeth in anger, but remained silent in spite of himself. It was this very reason that he didn't want to use the Kyuubi's power, he wanted to do it on his own. But he had other issues at hand; there was no other way at this moment in time. He simply allowed the reddening waters to drift past him, out into that hallway back there. "Yeah… I got it." he thought, as he turned around to face what was out there.


Eko, with his full range of vision, was caught in a frenzy of distress. Though it was one thing for Naruto to use some of the Kyuubi's chakra when he needed it, to actively call upon it when all else had not been tested was something that had never been done before. What seemed even worse was, though Gaara had been initially interested by the change in Naruto's chakra, that quality seemed to have waned since.

Then it came, like a silent roll of thunder. Something inside of Naruto changed at a rapid pace as energy flowed through his body. Despite his average size, his body became a monolith of chakra, too much for his form to contain. It slowly spread out over his body like a thin film, enveloping him before bulging grotesquely. His eyes opened up, revealing crimson irises with black slits, just like that of the beast itself.

This sudden changed had sparked something not just inside Naruto, but Gaara too. Feral instinct took over the malformed boy as he suddenly leapt over the broad chasm, forgetting his weight as he headed for the source of the killing aura he was detecting. However, though he forgot about it, gravity most certainly didn't. He barely made it to the halfway point before he began descending, his expression contorting in anger. But just as he prepared to use the sand to sling onto the rooftop, Naruto met him halfway.

"HREEARGH!" the blond boy roared, as he appeared from nowhere. He quickly grappled with Gaara, a long tail of red chakra curling around them both in a vice grip. The impact caused the two to stop moving either way, resulting in them plummeting down to the chasms below even as they fought each other off. Naruto clawed at the sand, trying to rip it straight off while Gaara attempted to crush Naruto in a bear hug. Both of their attacks were ineffective however; there were only indents left in the sand and the chakra covering Naruto's body protected him from being squeezed to death.

When both of them realised that what they were doing was futile, they quickly moved on to another strategy. At the same time, both of them made their moves to distance themselves, Gaara attempting to punch Naruto off of him. However, it was Naruto's attack that succeeded. He released from his lungs a powerful roar that created a shock wave strong enough to throw Gaara back a considerable distance. Naruto meanwhile shot his tail out behind him, gripping the rock wall and pulling himself onto it. However despite the action he took, he still gave a glare and a growl at Gaara, who extended the same, but silent courtesy right back at him.

They had descended far below the reaches of the sun now, their vision granted only by the thin light that hit the buildings above. Almost systematically, the further they got from the sun the rougher the stone walls became. What they gripped on now could only be described as a cavern wall, nothing like the smooth ones of the towers and such above. Of course, these features were wasted on the bestial boys, who couldn't take their eyes off of their opponent.

Neither waiting for the other to move, the two possessed boys attacked each other much in the same way. Gaara threw an arm out at Naruto, the sand extending and thinning out as it reached to grab the veiled boy. Naruto did the same thing with his tail, which changed in shape to form a long claw of sorts. The two demonic appendages met midway, gripping onto each other tight.

What came next was a ferocious struggle as the chakra and sand gripped onto each other. Though Gaara tried to force his way past and attack Naruto directly, Naruto intended something different altogether. He grasped the sand arm tight in the tail, before crouching low and bounding off of the wall he latched onto. He soared through the air high above Gaara, before landing on the same wall the red haired boy clung to. Then, with great force, he pulled Gaara off the wall and threw him up into the sky.

Gaara flew up several metres in the air before his own weight got to him. But Naruto didn't allow that to matter, he already moved to follow him out of the darkness. The two once more collided, but in this instance Naruto was purely on the offence while Gaara was on defence. The Kyuubi affected ninja threw punches and kicks at every given opening, hurling his limbs around to connect to Gaara's body. Though there was a great deal of sand in the way, Gaara was far from completely covered. And his sand shield could not stand up against the cloak of chakra that enshrouded the attacks against him.

"Gooah!" Gaara grunted, as a leg was thrown into his gut. He grabbed onto the leg, but his grip was slackened as the chakra tail turned into a giant fist and struck him square on the forehead. He was knocked once more through the air, this time becoming embedded in the rock wall of one of the buildings. Before he had a moment to recuperate, Naruto was upon him, throwing his chakra covered fists straight into Gaara.

"Gotta… drain his… chakra!" he thought, as the armour of sand cracked and chipped under the force. He knew that the armour of sand was tough to keep up, and that the strain of maintaining a form like that must have been adding to the stress Gaara's body must have been going through. If he could force the invading chakra to come to a stop, then there was a chance that Gaara could come back to his senses. That was what Naruto was hoping for anyway.

But then there came something he hadn't anticipated, something very troubling indeed. The force of his attacks, though only enough to crack the sand armour, had caused the crater in the wall to crumble more so, until the two of them were inside the building. It was here that the problem was raised, and that problem was defined by screams; they had stumbled on one of the places the civilians were hiding.

People were everywhere, filling the room as they surrounded the two horrific invaders with terrified expressions. Panic exploded as they all backed up before fleeing the scene, making for the exits. However, they weren't the only ones feeling heightened alarm. In the moment Naruto had been distracted, Gaara too had come to notice the civilians in the room.

He threw his arm up and caught Naruto in the chin, knocking the blond off. In an instant he had pulled himself to his feet, and was throwing his arms out to the crowd. "Blood and sand, BLOOD AND SAND!" he screamed, as the sand blasted from his arms like bees fleeing the hive.

The mass of dust like stone rose through the air at a swift pace, snaking and chasing after the fleeing civilians. Several people were caught in the storm, the sand tightening around them so they couldn't move. In moments, four people were trapped in mounds of sand, crying out in fear as they tried their best to escape. Gaara lifted his hand, his eyes wide with a manic glee as his fingers tightened around the air. "SABAKU-"

But before he could finish, he was knocked aside as Naruto barrelled straight into him, the pair rolling across the ground towards the hole they had entered from. Across the room, the civilians were freed by Gaara's distraction, and hastily made their way out after the others. That left Naruto beneath Gaara, he had lost the advantage somewhere in the midst of rolling.

"FALL, DIE, DISAPPEAR!" Gaara yelled, amidst throwing his massive fists at the pinned down Naruto. Each strike hit hard, leaving an indent in the chakra cloak that was steadily growing closer to Naruto's body, threatening to deal him fatal injury in the process. All the while he struggled against Gaara, but his arms were pinned to his sides. "YOUR BLOOD WILL FEED ME, AND MAKE ME STRONGER!"

"HAAAARRRGGHHH!" Naruto roared, throwing his head up. Chakra pulsed from his guttural scream and struck Gaara like he had been hit with a hurricane. But his grip on the ground was tight; all that was done was that he was lifted slightly off of Naruto. Luckily that was all that was needed as Naruto loosed his arms and with them, added to the force of his roar with blasts of wind.

Unable to stand steady against this level of wind, Gaara was lifted off his feet and thrown through ceiling. He was lifted several metres off the ground, until he was pressed against the roof of the next floor up. It was here that the sonic and wind attacks came to a stop, as Naruto gripped his arm at the side. Then everything seemed to slow down, as Naruto collected all his effort into this one move.

Wind whirled around his bandaged arm, mixing with the Kyuubi's chakra in a volatile manner. What came from it was a strange cyclone of sorts, forming around Naruto's arm in a rounded shape that more closely resembled a whirlpool when mixed with the tangible red chakra. But that form was nonetheless intense, moving so fast small fragments of the red chakra flew off and dispersed in a mist around it. Along with it came the sharp blades of wind coursing around Naruto's arm, both threatening looking and downright scary. Naruto took this arm, and with the last of his strength, leapt into the air to intercept the descending Gaara.

Their roars came almost in the form of a canon, first coming Naruto's scream of effort followed closely by Gaara's cry of pain. The windstorm around the blond boy's arm struck Gaara's stomach, and the result was that unreal sound, rising in intensity until the latter stopped suddenly. Thrown back up from the force of the attack, Naruto could literally see consciousness drift away as Gaara's head cracked against the ceiling above. The two boys fell back to the ground, Naruto landing considerably neater than Gaara did.

Naruto turned to face his friend, his eyes still wide and his teeth still bared. But his breathing was heavy, and that red chakra was steadily dissipating. It lifted away in an opaque fog, leaving Naruto as he was, looking down at Gaara as air poured in and out of his lungs. The strain of his constant attacks, and the attacks dealt to him, proved to be too great however. Soon he fell to his knees, before collapsing beside Gaara. The last thing he recalled seeing, before winding up in the same state as his friend, were the Iwa Shinobi who suddenly came running in through the open doorway. "Damn… it…" he thought, before his eyes forced themselves closed.


Complete though it had been, the darkness was disturbed by a faint glow, accompanied with the sound of flickering flames. That glow sat across the back of Naruto's eyelids; he was at this moment still unwilling to open them up. It seemed so much easier to be unconscious right now. However, a bone shivering noise hit his ears, a crunching sound that made him feel strangely uneasy. Reluctantly, Naruto slowly moved onto his front, his eyes opening slightly as he turned his head away from the headache inducing light. Across from him he saw the familiar form of Gaara, no longer covered in sand; he was back to normal.

"Gah…" Naruto grunted, as he pressed his hands upon the cold rocks beneath him. With difficulty, he managed to raise himself to a sitting position that had him facing his slightly older friend. It was a troubling sight, Gaara's face was contorted and there seemed to be a cold sweat dripping down his face. Naruto hurried to his side, placing his arms on Gaara's shoulders and roughly shaking him. "Hey Gaara, wake up!"

Almost instantly Gaara complied, his eyes snapping open and his back snapping upright. In a moment he was in a sitting position, panting with his mouth wide open. What was worse, even though it was Gaara, Naruto couldn't help but notice that the boy looked rather pale. However, he already knew better than to ask; it looked like the Shukaku was "talking" to him again. That to Naruto was a stressful thought; he could hardly imagine what it was like for Gaara.

In spite of his worry however Naruto was disturbed as once more there came a crunching sound, somewhere behind him. It was that sound that reminded him of their situation, and put him on full alert. In this case, he wasn't sure if Gaara could do all that much to help; he would have to take care of things himself. Carefully, he turned his eyes to the place behind him, his brow already creasing into a glare.

"Yo." Deidara said, taking a bite out of an apple. He sat not far from the fire in the middle of the room, leaning back leisurely as he watched the two boys with half closed eyes. He seemed not bothered by either boy's condition, and in fact looked almost bored by it. However as a kind of gesture, he raised his other hand to show a whole apple he was also holding onto. "Hungry?"

"What's going on?" Gaara asked, looking up at Deidara while he gripped the side of his throbbing head. He looked between the two blonds, confusion clear on his face from their situation. Rather than a prison, this place looked more like a cave. And what was more, since the exit was not too far away it was plain to see that night had fallen.

Lightly tossing the apple through the air, Deidara leant forward with a smirk on his face. As Naruto caught the apple in his hand, the Akatsuki member looked over his two "employers", before speaking in a low but clear tone. "What happened was that while I was looking for information on our Jinchuriki, you two were tearing the village up and releasing enough chakra to alert every Shinobi in the entire place of your presence." he explained, making sure that both boys weren't misunderstanding his words. "The best part was, you weren't even fighting the enemy, you were kicking each other's asses, heh."

Gaara frowned at Deidara; he seemed to have no recollection of such a thing. He looked up at Naruto however, and the blonde's expression confirmed it. His friend was watching the fire closely, purposefully not making eye contact with Gaara. "I see…" he muttered, dropping his eyes to the ground below him. Though he said nothing else, it was clear to the other two that he had fallen into deep thought.

"Anyway, it sort of helped out in the end." Deidara said, as he tossed his finished apple into the flames. He leant back even further, slipping his arms behind his head as he rested against the rocks. "With all those Shinobi gathered into one place, finding the info that we needed was a piece of cake. Tomorrow we'll go find the Jinchuriki, and see what happens from there."

Once again he had drawn the attention of the two boys, but he closed his eyes and avoided answering questions. This left Naruto and Gaara to look only at each other; they had succeeded then? Certainly it was too early to celebrate, but knowing they had gotten what they needed in spite of what happened was comforting to say the least. Although, Gaara already had something on his mind, Naruto was the only one between the two who could relax. Though he wasn't too keen on leaving his troubled friend in the state he was in, he knew that Gaara would never openly speak about it; he would be much too embarrassed to. And so in the end he decided that he too should get some rest. Laying the apple next to Gaara, Naruto lay down in the dirt, and tried to forget what had happened today.