A/N: This is my first try as an author so bear with me. English isn't my first language so don't hesitate to pm me with any fault you find, I am always eager to learn.
Well I'm pleased with the reader's reaction to last chapter. According to the reviews, most enjoyed it while some found it too short or unrealistic that Naruto won against Gaara in that manner or the correct expression was 'bulldozed over another jinchuriki' without using their bijuu. Well good news for all, (AND as I said in the ending note of last chapter prior to any editing work) the fight is not over …
Finally, to those who find Naruto too powerful, or the pairing with Natsuki unrealistic, well not much I can or want to do about it, the summary of the story is pretty simple but covers it all, those two themes are the core of my story and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Many thanks to my regular reviewers pointing out spelling/translation/syntax errors in my writing.
Welcome to the next chapter of Kaze No Kami.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Chapter 13: Clash of the Titans
Konoha Stadium – Arena
Naruto looked at what his jutsu just did, sure he remembered his training and performing it against large trees or rocks but this was the first time he used Rasengan against another human being.
The result was astonishing and terrifying at the same time. He knew he could have put more chakra in the orb before releasing it, the result would have been him tearing a hole inside of his opponent's body instead of just scratching him.
He stood there in the middle of the arena, lost in his thoughts and trying to catch his breath.
Spectators seats
Most of the spectators were stunned to see the Rasengan again. That was one of the two signature moves of the Yondaime Hokage Namikaze Minato. Few of them knew Jiraya could also use it but the old pervert was almost never in Konoha, the rare times he was there, the hermit just visited the Sandaime or went to the red light district.
"How the hell did Naruto learned Minato-sensei's jutsu" Thought Kakashi.
"What is that jutsu? I couldn't copy it either. How did he progress so much in only a month? Is Kakashi the right sensei for me? What have I been doing all this time?" Were the questions flashing through Sasuke's mind.
"Kushina-sensei would have been so proud of you Naruto, show them, show them all your true worth." Thought Kurenai with pride looking at her sensei's son.
Arena
Seeing the unmoving form of Gaara, Genma was about to end the match and announce Naruto as the winner when an explosion of chakra shook the whole stadium, a thick cloud of dust and sand preventing anyone from seeing what was happening in the arena.
"So it has finally come to this..." Thought Naruto looking in the direction of the demonic chakra leaking inside the arena.
"The real fight starts now Naru-kun, be careful and remember the techniques you learned" Said Natsuki.
When the dust settled down, Gaara's new form appeared in front of everyone. He looked like a chimera, a mix between including his old body, some overgrown sand armor and some bestial features, as could be seen a tail behind his back and his two pointy ears.
"I'm free after so long, the boy is finally asleep." Roared the beast.
"How unpleasant to finally meet you Shukaku" Answered Naruto as he took off his protection vest and teared his right hand sleeve, revealing a strange tattoo in the form of a fox on his right biceps.
"Remember you only control one of my tail so far Naru-kun" Warned Natsuki as she knew Naruto was about to unleash her powers.
"I know Na-chan, this youki storage seal only contains one tail worth of your youki so far. I'll have to read the Uzumaki scroll again to know how to boost its storage capacity up." Replied Naruto as he spread some of his blood over his fox tattoo.
Once done another surge of chakra resonated in the arena, this time Naruto was the cause. The activation of his seal, or deactivation depending on how you see it, managed to fuse on tail worth of Natsuki's power to his own. His eyes were blood red instead of his natural blue ones and he had an aura of visible red chakra surrounding his whole body.
Kage Box
Sarutobi's eyes widened at the display of power in the arena. He then turned to his old student and started to whisper.
"Jiraya, what was the seal he released just before that second chakra surge? And is it demonic chakra I feel?" asked the Sandaime to his student.
"Yes that's a seal we came up with together, while going through the scroll he found on his family's fuinjutsu. It allows him to store demonic chakra, or youki as he calls it, for future use. Furthermore, it is completely harmless for his body since it doesn't come directly from the fox but has been filtered through that special purification seal." replied the Gama sennin to his sensei.
The Kazekage, who was of course out of hearing range from the previous conversation, was seething at what he saw, first the arrival of the Gama sennin. He knew he could deal with Sarutobi but Jiraya's arrival changed everything.
Then his trump card in destabilizing Konoha's forces, the Ichibi, was being pushed around by a mere genin.
Finally, it turns out that mere genin was most likely the host for the Kyuubi no Yoko and seemed to have some control over his demonic powers, very unlike Gaara.
The most logical decision right there was to cancel the invasion and discretely pull back all his pawns before being discovered and loosing the element of surprise. His spies in the stadium were still waiting for his signal to launch the operation but he decided to wait a little more before making a decision.
Arena
Shukaku decided to attack first, he took a deep breath and filled his lungs with air then violently expelled it while calling his jutsu "Futon : Renkudan", a huge mass of pressurized air went it Naruto's direction.
With his chakra reserves to the max again, Naruto decided to use one of his more chakra taxing counter as he charged wind chakra to his hands and slammed them to the ground while calling the jutsu in his mind "Futon : Higuma Otoshi". This was the same move he used against Zabuza's water dragon in Wave Country.
Naruto was shielded from Shukaku's missile behind his wind wall, the mass of condensed air just impacted the rising wind column Naruto made without dealing any damage.
This angered Shukaku, not liking the sight of his jutsu being easily countered, launched the same attack again, only this time instead of one air cannon ball he used three of them. Naruto looked at the sky, smirking as he saw a huge dark cloud forming above them as he continued to absorb every air missile the Ichibi was throwing at him and redirecting them into the sky.
Naruto then took out a special looking kunai and threw it in the direction of the raccoon hybrid, going through hand signs as the kunai left his hand. Only a few in the crowd recognized the sequence of hand signs he did, to the others it looked vaguely familiar. As he ended the last hand sign Naruto called his jutsu out loud, "Futon : Houou Gaeshi".
"Uzumaki Naruto, I don't know what you're trying to do but that jutsu of yours won't be able to pierce my defense. I was aware of my surroundings when you were fighting the boy, so even if your kunai reach my back with that strange technique, it won't damage me." Said the Ichibi.
True to his words, the kunai first divided itself in a dozen of kunai, then they all changed their course and went to target his back like he saw when Naruto first used the Tsubame Gaeshi. He didn't even feel the need to raise some kind of defense to intercept the incoming kunai.
To his surprise though, as they were close to hitting him he could clearly see that those kunai weren't regular kunai, they all had exploding tags attached to them and they were all ready to blow.
Before he could react, the exploding tags all detonated, creating a huge flame that combined with Naruto's original wind attack looked like a bird of fire. The fire predator impacted Shukaku in his back. The roar and cries of agony from the beast sent chills down everyone's spine in the stadium, as large flames were surrounding its body.
Naruto then used his speed to appear behind him and sent a powerful kick to the back of its head, forcibly sending him in the center of the arena.
He then did a single hand sign and the four kunai he seemingly accidentally dropped to the ground during the first part of the fight started to glow, revealing that they were actually placed in a perfect square position all around the Ichibi.
"Uzumaki Hijutsu : Akuma Sokubaku Wana" Called Naruto as his trap was activated and four dark chains went out of the ground and each went to tightly restrain one of the beast's limb.
Shukaku with a large part of his body still lit on fire, tried to force his way out of the chains but felt his strength being rapidly drained away, most likely by those chains.
Naruto then channeled wind to his hands again and called his next jutsu, "Futon : Kirin Otoshi" as he slammed his hands on the ground just in front of his opponent's feet.
A new column of air rose from the ground, with the still restrained and burning Shukaku as its base and the large dark cloud as its top. Seconds later a large thunderbolt left the cloud and fell directly on the trapped demon, using the conductive chains as an entry point then dispersing into the ground.
The energy behind Naruto's last attack was high enough to literally melt the Ichibi's guard, turning the Suna no Yoroi recovering most of its body into glass then shattering it into pieces, also taking away the chains and kunai that served to trap it.
The jutsu was covered by a blinding white light, when everyone's eyes started to recover from the blinding flash, all they saw in the arena was an unconscious Gaara on the floor, gone were the extra appendages of sand on his body, gone was all trace of demonic chakra coming from him as well.
Naruto was standing a few feet away, his aura of chakra also dispelled and he had recovered his deep blue eyes again. He looked slightly tired but did not seem hurt, his injury from the first part of the match against Gaara already healed.
Genma, who had taken refuge in a corner of the arena, made his way back to the center of the arena. He crouched down to check on the status of the Suna shinobi. He was able to feel a pulse from the young red head and let sigh escape his mouth as he stood up and looked at the audience.
Everyone in the stadium was silent, waiting for the referee's announcement, you could hear the wind blow and several noises from outside the walls of the stadium and the silence was starting to get heavy when Genma finally decided to speak.
"Sabaku no Gaara is unconscious and consequently unable to continue the fight, the winner of the fight is Uzumaki Naruto, winner by knock out." Finally said the bandana wearing referee.
After a few more seconds of silence, suddenly all hell broke loose as the entire stadium was on its feet, applauding for one Uzumaki Naruto.
The pariah of the Leaf stood there in the center of the arena, not knowing how to react to the cheers, admiration looks and cries of joy he saw and heard in the crowd.
Spectators seats
Kiba and Hinata who had come back just before the last attack were happy for their teammate and clapping their hands like everyone around them.
Kurenai was proud of her student and found funny that he didn't know how to react in that situation.
The other students were stunned at the level of skill displayed by their fellow genin comrade.
Several chunin and jonin made comments about Naruto's growth and how he seemed in full control of the Kyuubi's powers during his fight. They could see first hand the difference between a host controlled by his beast in the image of Gaara and one who had the control over his inner demon looking at Naruto.
The several foreign ninja who came to watch the match while impressed by the fight just like everybody around them, also noted in a corner of their mind to speak with their leader about this really talented though extremely dangerous new talent the Leaf had, for future reference.
The shallow civilians who had hated Naruto for most of his life now looked up to him and cheered for him as if they were long friends.
Kage Box
In the Kage box, the reactions were mixed.
The Kazekage was silent. "Damn it ! With Gaara out of the picture I can forget about the invasion, it was already looking bad with the addition of Jiraya but now I just lost my trump card." He thought.
"I have no choice, I'll have to call it off" mused the masked Kage as he made a discrete sign to someone in the spectators area.
At the same time, Sarutobi and Jiraya were celebrating for the young blond.
"It reminds you of another certain blond hair blue eyed boy Jiraya, doesn't it?" asked Sarutobi to his student.
"Yes sensei, it certainly does." Replied the toad sage before adding "I can't believe he went that far in only a month, I taught him the Rasengan in only two weeks, it took me months to master that. I only taught him the basics in fuinjutsu and he was able to create such an intricate trap based on them in the middle of a damn match."
"Are you disappointed that he will not take over you as the next toad sage now that he is the summoner of the legendary contract of the dragons?" asked the Sandaime.
"I would lie if I said that it doesn't affect me, but I know that I can't request anything from him, after all I'm his godfather and I was never there for him when he needed me." Said a serious Jiraya.
"You had no choice in the matter, we both know he would have faced the same or worse dangers if he went with you during your travels." Said Sarutobi as he continued with a subject he had wanted to talk about with Jiraya for a long time already.
"We will have to tell him the truth about his father soon Jiraya."
"I know sensei, let's wait for the end of the tournament." replied the senin.
"He makes a good chunin don't you think?" Asked the old Kage.
"He sure does." Said Jiraya with pride in his voice.
Arena
"Since Uzumaki Naruto has to fight again, it is only fair to have a break now, the finals will resume in one hour." Called Genma.
As Naruto was granted a 1 hour pause, the crowd also used that time to go refresh themselves, eat and rest from the mentally exhausting match they just saw.
When the time was over, everyone was back in their seat.
Naruto stood in the center of the arena, he had go home to change his clothes and took a rapid meal at the Ichiraku ramen bar on the way.
Genma was also there but Sasuke was still nowhere to be found.
A/N: Before anyone starts to complain about how I could have a "semi" transformed Gaara hybrid form be controlled by Shukaku, well if Naruto can get to this stage in canon why not Gaara. I think that as long as he's asleep or in this case unconscious anything is possible.
Next, YES this time the fight is over between the two jinchuiki and they used their demonic chakra. Sure Naruto kicked his ass again but when you look at it, from what we saw in canon Shukaku only used the Futon : Renkudan so there's no way he can beat this version of Naruto while using wind techniques.
About the fuinjutsu trap, I did mention him dropping those kunai I my last chapter, that wasn't for nothing :)
Finally, the invasion is called off. I was wondering how Orochimru would have done it in canon if Sarutobi had any S class fighter to his side during the whole thing. The answer is he would not have been able to pull it off, seeing how he struggled to fight only Sarutobi, there's no way he could have defeated him with someone of Kage rank next to the old man.
Where the hell is Sasuke, wait the next time to see :)
As usual Read & Review please.
New Jutsu:
Futon : Houou Gaeshi , Phoenix Return, Improved version of the Tsubame Gaeshi. Instead of cloning regular kunai from the previous attack Naruto use kunai with exploding tags, creating a flying phoenix aimed at the back of his opponent.
Uzumaki Hijutsu : Akuma Sokubaku Wana , Uzumaki secret Style : Demonic Restraining Trap. Naruto uses four special kunai with fuinjutsu seals engraved on them to form a field that reacts to demonic chakra when Naruto activates the trap. The result is the apparition of chakra draining steel chains that prevent the target to escape.
Futon : Kirin Otoshi , Kirin Drop, Modified version of the Higuma Otoshi. Naruto deflects opponent's elemental jutsu to modify the weaver above him, like canon's Sasuke, he uses the clouds and the property of high differential temperature within them to create natural thunderbolts.