Disclaimer - I do NOT own Naruto or any Naruto Character.

A/N - Fixed some mistakes. Gomen if there's still some!

A/N 2 - Savior, saint, salvation is a song by Bleeding Through (which I don't own -.-)

(Warning! This will cntain BLOOD and Violence!)

Chapter 18 - Savior, saint, salvation

Kankuro stood in front of Kaoru's house. A million thoughts mindlessly ran in his brain. The thought of killing the man as soon as he saw him persisted. Though, he knew he couldn't let his guard down. If he stood nearby Kaoru his power would be useless, he wouldn't be able to use Sasori.

The Jonin unscrolled his puppet, as long as he stood 3 meters away from the girl, everything would be fine. Maybe he could even trap her father in those 3 meters. That was a good plan.

Kankuro knocked the door. He had to speak to the man before hurting him, Kurokaze was an importaant person in the village, so the puppet master could only attack in self-defence.

No one answered, but Kankuro kept knocking. The idea of no one being at home, crossed his mind, but soon he started to sense a terrible chackra release inside. Kankuro pounded the door with his fist, but still no answer. Taking his impatient nature as a virtue, Kankuro blowed the door with Sasori. As the smoke faded away, the puppeteer carefully entered the house.

He heard screams coming from one of the rooms, Kaoru's screams. The sound was terrifying. He rushed to the room and kicked the door open, and the sight he had was worst than a nightmare. Kaoru was on the floor covered in blood, in the middle of a gigantic seal. The seal on her stomach was partially empty. Kankuro was too late, the seal was already activated. The girl screamed in pain.

"Look what you made me do, Kankuro-dono." Kaoru's father said. The moment Kankuro noticed the man, the puppeteer jumped on him with all his strength. Both men fell on the floor, Kankuro on top, punching his enemy. The older man tried to push away the younger, but he wasn't strong enough, the puppeteer was uncontrolled like a wild animal, a predator, a black panther attacking his prey. Kankuro punched the man's face several times, his gloved hand covered in blood.

Even though, Kaoru's father was badly injured he still laughted.

"Are you gonna kill me? If you do she will die too. Only I can cancel the seal. Not even my death will stop it." the man said, grinning. The man speaking caused him to get distracted, when he felt something hitting his head.
Kankuro fell aside, but he still was conscious. Slightly dizzy he noticed a woman hit him with some kind of metal object. He almost felt like blacking out, a dejá vu feeling came to his mind. Just like that time Sasori left him in the desert dying, that horrible feeling of falling into darkness and failing to rescue someone he loved...

Kaoru screamed higher than ever, that awoke completly the puppeteer. He noticed his scorpion puppet on the floor, and with a little twitch of fingers the puppet grabbed the woman and stabbed her on the back with one of it's venomous blades, it wasn't a fatal blow but the poison would take care of her. Then he realized his chackra strings worked and he was nearby Kaoru.

"Look she's screaming alot isn't she?", the man saying ignoring his injured wife on the floor, "I think her blood is starting to boil, cooking all her organs..."

"STOP IT!" Kankuro ordered. His eyes filled with hate.

"Why would I?" the man asked grinning like a maniac.

"I will make you stop!", Kankuro said directing Sasori to the man, but then something happened his chacka strings were vanishing. The boy was incredulous, what was happening? Was it Kaoru?

"Fool, you are in my cage, see this beautiful seal you are sitting on?", the man spoke, Kankuro notice that he was indeed in the huge circle, "I command anything that happens inside. I use this circle to work on Kaoru. It numbs her, and drains her chackra. However I can change that, and I can make it drain YOUR chackra."

"Why do you do this? She's your daughter!" Kankuro yelled, Kaoru's screams next to him almost muffled his own voice.

"You said you like her hair loose... do you like that color?" he asked the puppeteer. The older man seemed thoughtful like his was remembering the past.

"I do... That's why I wear it in my face."

The older man chuckled.

"I fell for her mother because of her hair. The same shade of purple. I did everything I could for her, and then she betrayed me. She cheated on me that whore!"

"Is that why you killed her?" Kankuro asked with rage.

"No... I put that seal on her stomach. To control her. But then I met Kyo, over there. And she convinced me to sell Kaoru to a slave trader. Kaoru was pretty young and she was worth a lot of money, but her mother found out and threatned to tell the Kazekage, your father. We were good friends, but he wouldn't allowed such a thing."

The man paced towards the older woman lying on the floor, she was coughting blood, the poison was working. Then he continued.

"Of course as a mother she wanted to save her daughter, but that day she was so annoying. I just... got carried away with the jutsu. She died in less than two hours."

"Why would you sell your daughter?"

"For income of course."

"YOU KILL YOUR WIFE FOR MONEY?" Kankuro was speechless. It was such a low reason. To kill the person you are supposed to love for money.

"Kankuro-dono, you are young and naive. Money is the true power in this world. That bitch made me kill her and I couldn't sell Kaoru because it would sound suspicious. But since then, Kaoru is paying her freedom, even though she doesn't know why."

"Stop the jutsu now. Kaoru doesn't deserve it...I will you hunt you forever, if she dies." Kankuro said.

"Oh I think you got this wrong. You are gonna die, along with Kaoru." the man said amused.

"And you think you can run from this? I'm the Kazekage's brother-"

"You will be a betrayer. You attacked my house and poisoned my wife. Then you were about to rape my daughter but she couldn't bare it so she decided to commit suicide just like her mother. And I, in pure vengeance killed you." the man laught.

Kankuro was horrified. He tried to get up but he felt weak, his chackra was being drained in a fast rate. Was he really going to die along Kaoru? Plus he would be blamed for her death? The girl's screams and sobs pierced his body, he tried to reach her, crawling towards her...

The older man amused started to make handseals.

"NOW DIE!" the man yelled. When he was about to perform the last handseal his arms stopped. Sand was warpping around his arms. Kankuro looked at the man struggling against the sand in his arms, then at the room's entrance, Gaara was there along with Baki and a few shinobis. The puppeteer recognized the jutsu Gaara was about to perform, the Sand Coffin.

"NO! GAARA, he's the only one that can stop the jutsu." he said grabbing Kaoru. He was weak but it didn't matter, he only wanted to grab the screaming girl in his arms. There was so much blood.

"Stop the jutsu." Gaara ordered the man who was laughting,"If you won't I'll make you.", Gaara said with a even colder tone that his brother before. The man screamed when the sand wrapped around his feet and broke one foot at the time.

While Gaara tortured the man, Kankuro hold tightly the poor girl on his arms.

"Kaoru, hang on, ok? I'm here." he said trying to calm down the kunoichi. He wiped her tears and bloody face.

"Kaoru everything will be alright ok? I'm here for you... Kaoru..." he continued holding her tightly. The girl opened her eyes and cried in pain.

"Kuro-kun... please..." Kaoru just wanted it to stop, she was going to die, the pain was just too much.

"Just hang on a bit more, everything will be ok, I promisse." Kankuro said cupping her cheek with his hand, he leaned to her and kissed her one the lips. The girl kissed back, like that kiss would fix everything, like it would take all the pain away.

"Don't die."

The girl's body was unbelievable hot. Kankuro looked at his brother while he broke every single bone of Kaoru's father's legs. Then he saw the small seal on his chest.

"Gaara the seal on his chest." he pointed out. Gaara looked carefully at the seal and glanced Baki that was next to him. They both nodded to each other and took the monstruous man out of the room.

Some of the shinobis brought by Gaara, were medical-nins, so after helping Kankuro walk out of the huge fuin on the floor, with Kaoru, they turned to the kunoichi.

"Try using chackra, her chackra seals are broken." Kankuro said. The medical nin's hands started to glowing green, and thank goodness they kept glowing. They were able to stop the bleeding successfully, but they didn't heal completly the seals because the moment they did, the seals would be whole again. And it would preclude them from using their healing jutsu's on her.

"Her body heat is too high, her organs will start to fail soon.", one of the medical shinobis said.

"CAN'T YOU DO ANYTHING?" Kankuro asked in despair.

"We can continously heal her to win some time, but there's no way to know if that will work for long.".

Kankuro ordered them to do so and got out of the room. Stumbling a couple of times on the way, he felt his body very week because of the lack of chackra. But that didn't matter, he had enough will to continue walking. Saving Kaoru was priority even if it cost his life.

As he saw Gaara and Baki in the living room floor, around a body, the puppeteer feared the worst. Did Gaara killed the man? But as he walked in, he saw the man was alive. He was just immobilized. The Kazekage and his former sensei were studying the seal in the man's chest.

"This is the key seal, that trigued Kaoru-san's fuin." Gaara said.

"If that's so, then we have to break this seal." Baki said. Kaoru's father laughted, resulting in everybody in the room glaring.

"Ignorants... Only I can undo the jutsu, and that will never happen. It won't matter anyway she will die very soon."

Kankuro clench his fists. It was true as much as it pained him, Kaoru was dying, that miserable sealing was killing her. And only the user could stop it... Wait user?

Flashback

"I'm not even sure if there's a point doing this.", Kaoru said, regarding to the mission gave to them.

"Why do you think that?", the puppet master asked.

"Well... I don't think this jutsu can be undone. And even if it could be, the user would probably lose his life."

"Can't you do anything about it? Like trick the Death God or something."

"Trick the Death God?", Kaoru asked, with an eyebrow up. Her face clearly showing pure shock.

"For Kami's sake Kaoru was just an idea...", Kankuro said annoyed by the girl's reaction. She didn't need to react like that...

"A brilliant idea!"

"Whatev- wait what?", Kankuro was surprised.

"That's brilliant. If we could find a way to substitute the user's soul by something else, maybe we can actually do this without sacrificing someone.", she replied.

End of Flashback

Kankuro remembered the words of the kunoichi back in Konoha.

"A jutsu that can't be undone unless by the user...", he mumbled.

"How smart you are Kankuro-dono.", the older man mocked.

'If we could find a way to substitute the user's soul by something else'

"What if we substitue the user?" Kankuro said. His brother and Baki looked at him surprised. The evil grin on the man's face, lying on the foor, disappeared.

"Is that even possible?" Baki asked, pondering the hyphotesis.

"I believe so. Kaoru and I researched about it in Konoha. It has a 50% chance to fail, but... she's dying..." Kankuro said.

"Ok, how shall we do it?", Gaara asked.

"First we need a new user. Which is going to be me." Kankuro said.

"No, you're low on chackra and-"

"Gaara, I WILL be the user. I have enough chackra to stop the jutsu. And this seal it's something permanent. The user will always have this power over Kaoru, and I don't trust anyone else to carry it." Kankuro said with a firm voice. Since there was no time to argue, Gaara agreed with his brother.

"Now we need the current user's chackra or blood."

"That's easy.", Gaara said literally ripping one of the man's leg with his sand. The man screams were animalistic.

Kankuro took of his black shirt, and sat on the floor.

"Now draw in me the same seal with his blood." the puppeteer said pointing at his bare chest. Baki did so.

"Since this is a transference jutsu I need you two and concentrate your chackra to estabilish a perimeter to control the transference." Kankuro said. The older man screams were so loud, they shut it up his mouth with a cloth.

"I hope this works..." with that Kankuro started to perform the transference technique. He could feel inside his chest a small weight, he could feel the other's man chackra flowing through him. It was working, Kankuro laughted. Moving the seal from the man to the puppeteer only took around 10 minutes. The old man was unsconscious on the floor, he fainted because of the pain.

Kankuro stood up to see Kaoru, he had to stop the jutsu. But the moment he got up he fell. Gaara caught him before he hit the floor. He had almost no chackra. But he still had to stop that damn jutsu. Kaoru's screams had ceased and he felt his heart sink.

'Oh no'

Kankuro went as fast as he could to the room where the kunoichi was, falling on the way but ignoring completly his state.

Four medical-nins were working on Kaoru. They were all panting, even them were at their limit.

"Kankuro-dono, we can't hold any longer, her body will collapse."

The Jonin knew this was it. He still had a little chackra on him, maybe it was enough for him to stop it. Deep down inside he knew that it would be him or her... He kneeled down next to Kaoru's head. He looked at the girl's face. The purple hair untied surrounding her. So shiny. The puppeteer felt the hair between his fingers... Yes... he wouldn't mind to give his life for her. The girl had an horrible life, and she never had anything or anyone. But now, she wasn't alone anymore, she had the support of the village, the Kazekage, his brother at her side to protect her, and she had... Kiba. She would be alright.

Kankuro sadly smiled, remembering all the moments he went through with the girl. Their childhood playdates, the times they competed in the academy, the times they foolishly argue over little things, when she cried on his chest in the hospital in Konoha, when she slept leaning against him in the way back to Suna, when he kissed her several moments before...

The boy leaned forward, his head upside down compared to Kaoru's. He kissed the girl's forehead.

"I love you, Kaoru."

With the rest of his strength, the puppeteer made the Tora handseal and concentrated the remaining chackra of his system, stopping slowly the jutsu. It was hard, his body ache so badly, but he persisted.

His hands slided down by themselves. His body felt completly on the floor. Darkness surrounded him. That sensation of his body rhuming into deep sleep came over him again, from distance he could hear voices.

"You did it, Kankuro-dono, it worked!"

Kankuro smiled to himself, finally he could blackout in peace, knowing he was not useless and that he saved someone he loved...

The voices went mute, and the pain stopped. It was only darkness around him...

To be continued...