Disclaimer: Guess what…I won the lottery and now I own Naruto! I get to make Asuma, Jiraiya, and Neji live again! Damn, just woke up and realized it was just a dream…I do not own Naruto nor do I make any money from it…

I'm going back to sleep to dream that beautiful dream again!

An:

Well, as many of you have guessed, Sasuke's summons is indeed a Phoenix. Now before you all think I went off the deep end – let me explain – first of all I'm not crazy, my father had me tested (just kidding), seriously though, I swear that everyone's not going to be suddenly holding wands and casting spells at each other (No offence to H.P. – big fan). I chose the Phoenix simply for the fact that I wanted Sasuke to think he got screwed! I had a mental picture of them meeting and just couldn't shake it. The Phoenix in my story will not be god-like, he/she is a regular summoned creature like Gamabunta and Monda are, and has its own special powers as they all do. I repeat - it will not have god-like powers, as a matter of fact; there is a reason why it looks like a naked baby chicken. Anyways, my moment of insanity is over and although I cannot promise not to have any more 'episodes', I hope you enjoy this chapter – which happens to be a cliffhanger. (See, I'm not crazy – just really mean!)

MWA – HA – HA!

Chapter Nine:

Real Power: The Return to Waterfall

The secret side of me, I never let you see
I keep it caged, but I can't control it
So stay away from me, the beast is ugly
I feel the rage and I just can't hold it

~~Skillet~~

One month ago

Jiraiya had every intention of going to the Land of Hot Water after the island. Not only did it boast the highest amount of hot springs (naturally), but also it had the highest number of MIXED SEX hot springs.

The message Jiraiya received from Rain changed everything.

Without any explanation to the boys, the Sannin removed their resistance seals and set a brutal pace that had the genin pushed to their limits. When they took their first break, Naruto was the only one of the three with enough energy left to ask, "What's going on? Where are we going?"

"We are going back to Waterfall. One of my spies heard that they have been targeted by a band of rogue shinobi. I've been hearing many disturbing rumors about this group, but no one seems to know what their ultimate goal is. I was hoping to get some information on them."

The boys shared worried looks which Jiraiya caught. "There's no need to worry. Waterfall is, after all, hidden. No one knows how to get in."

"If this is just a simple information gathering mission, then why are we running so hard?" asked Sasuke.

"Oh, well…we took a shortcut," said the abashed Sannin.

"And…?"

"We are in the Land of Lightning right now."

"Lightning? We are actually in Lightning?" The boys looked around with interest but were disappointed to see nothing special about it. It looked boring. "So why couldn't we come here before?"

"Three reasons," said Jiraiya seriously, pointing to each of them.

"Us? What's so special about us? We've been everywhere with you."

"The Raikage is obsessed with power. He will do anything to acquire special children. He would kill to gain an Uchiha and Uzumaki. Once he saw Sai's talents, he would try to grab him as well. I think it would be for the best if we just get in and out of this country as fast as we can."

"We wouldn't abandon Konoha."

"I know. It's not much of a problem now that you are all genin now. The Raikage wouldn't be able to snatch you without serious repercussions." He stood up and gestured to them, "Break time's over, lets move out."

~~Return to Waterfall~~

The trio was amazed at how swiftly they made the journey back to Waterfall now that they were no longer blindfolded, wearing resistance seals, and stopping at every spa along the way. What have previously taken several months, took only a few days.

Everything appeared normal at the base of the falls. The noise coming from the roaring water obscured all other sounds of nature. They quickly looked around, but found nothing amiss. Not so in the village…

As they climbed out of the water, a dissonance of sound echoed around them. Jiraiya shouted, "You boys stay back."

"No sensei," interrupted Sasuke, "We are genin now. This is our duty."

Jiraiya hesitated. He knew the boy was right, but he didn't want to put them in danger without knowing the risks. Finally he agreed and instructed sternly, "Help evacuate the citizens."

They nodded as he ran off to aid the Taki shinobi and then gave each other concerned looks. Sai asked, "How did they get in? The location is supposed to be secret and the barrier impossible to breach."

"I don't know," Naruto commented, "But I can feel Fū close by and if she's here; you can bet she's kicking ass!"

~~O~~

Boo-ooom!

An incredibly powerful blast of heat roared past above them. The air was sizzling hot and impossible to breathe. It scorched their throat and lungs. Their clothes didn't offer any protection either. The heat licked at their skin, even through their jackets, shirts, and pants.

They didn't dare raise their heads until about twenty seconds later. The massive two story stone house they had been standing next to no longer existed. All that was left was one wall that had survived by some kind of miracle. There were flames still roaring and licking the stones. A broad spiral of black smoke was rising up into the sky. What kind of jutsu could do that and who did it? Where were all the people?

"We should really get out of here, like yesterday!" yelled Sasuke. His soot and mud covered face couldn't quite conceal the tension that hovered around him. "This is getting too dangerous for us to handle."

"But what about Raya? We can't leave him!" shouted Naruto stridently over the deafening sounds of the surrounding battle, "And what about all the innocent civilians around here too? We can't just abandon them."

"Jiraiya is a Sannin; there is no way we will leave him. I want to join in his fight!" bellowed Sasuke while gesturing towards the ongoing battle.

"What about the civilians?" yelled Naruto again, "We were told to evacuate the village. We can assemble everyone at the mill for their safety."

Sasuke gritted his teeth at possibly missing the fight. "Fine, but we need to hurry," he grudgingly replied. "Keep looking for them."

They each went in a different direction, urging the people to leave the area until it was safe. When they gathered as many people as they could, Sasuke said eagerly, "Let's go join in the fight now." His Sharingan blazed with hunger.

"Should we not stay and protect the villagers?" asked Sai with concern.

"They'll be alright here. There isn't anybody around to harm them. They're all fighting Raya," replied Naruto quickly. "Come on, I want to try out my new jutsu."

"I can't help but think this might be a bad decision," said Sai quietly.

"Come on Aho, bad decisions make for really good stories," joked Naruto. "If it will make you feel better, I'll leave some clones here." He focused his chakra and made twenty clones appear.

Sai ignored the funny feeling in the pit of his stomach and followed his brothers into battle, confidant in his abilities. He had to admit to himself that he was a little eager too. He was a shinobi after all.

They set out towards the Sannin to assist in the battle. He had moved out of the village and was fighting at the top of a steep rise. There appeared to be only one left; a shinobi wearing a black robe with red clouds.

They raced up the hill then stopped in utter shock and amazement at the scene before them. Never before, had they ever witnessed such devastation. The few storage buildings in the area were on fire; their contents littered the ground and clung to the branches of tilted trees. Twisted sheets of metal ripped from buildings were strewn among the graveyard. Many headstones had been pushed flat to the ground.

The Sannin and the rogue shinobi's movements were nothing but a blur as they battled. They caught a glimpse of a segmented tail whipping around and narrowly missing the Sannin. Body parts littered the surrounding area and a head rolled over to where they stood. Sai nudged it with his sandal and said, "It's wood. The bodies must have been puppets."

Sasuke and Naruto gaped at the sheer power and speed of the men. They could only dream of the day when they would be that good. They all looked for a way to aid Jiraiya, who had never looked so serious before, but before they could do anything, it happened.

Another building exploded. They all turned around and stared in stunned horror; shading their eyes against the white hot glare as they witnessed the new devastation.

A great spout of flame had ruptured skyward, trailing a mass of fluttering steel machinery, wood, and paper. In that terrible space between seconds, they saw that the entire mill was a gutted, flaming ruin.

Concussion struck a moment later, knocking them backwards. Debris blew past them in a sudden and colossal charge, along with a blast of warm air. They picked themselves up and began to run faster, but it was too late. Several of the villagers had been ripped apart from the blast.

In the chaotic aftermath, they saw a man in a black robe with red clouds standing over the dead body of the village leader and holding Fū by the arm. Some of the adults were holding onto the children. Shibuki was crying and trying to reach for his father.

The shinobi was grinning wide. He crooked his finger the boys, daring them to come closer. When they hesitated, he wagged it, as though chastising a small child. He hissed, "What naughty little boys. And to think, your precious friend here came so willingly to me so that you wouldn't be hurt."

There was an enormous flash of blinding blue light and the Taki Jinchuriki screamed out in pain. Her eyes were bugging out, her hair was on end, and it looked liked she was dancing. Smoke began to furl out from her shirt. There was another sizzling flash and it stopped.

They boys tried to get to Fū, but it was too late. She fell to the ground jerking and writhing and then with a heavy, final thump, fell silent and still. Shibuki broke away from the villager holding him, ran to his father's body and began to cry.

"Fū!" the trio yelled helplessly. They all wanted nothing more than to grieve the loss of their friend, but the monster in front of them had to be dealt with.

The horror of witnessing Fū's death devastated Sasuke. The tomoe of his Sharingan spread and converged along the edge of its iris and took on the appearance of three intersecting ellipses. The Mangekyō …

Naruto's rage went unnoticed. Several teeth began to elongate and the whisker marks on his cheek grew more noticeable.

Sai felt as though a hand was squeezing his heart and crushing it; a very real and physical pain he couldn't dwell upon at the moment. His gaze narrowed and his mouth drew into a grim line.

"I see Suien's information was correct. It looks like we do have a little Uchiha prodigy here. This looks like my lucky day." An impossibly long tongue slid out of his mouth and he licked his chin. "That's what happens when you let enemies go free, little boys and now everyone will pay."

One of the villagers tried to run away. The robed nin turned, his hands swiftly flowing through seals, and cast a jutsu. Great sheets of fire flung up from the ground surrounding him. Naruto saw the man's hair ignite. He quickly used the Marine Battle Formation Jutsu to extinguish the fire. Shrill and terrible screaming echoed around him. The nin was burning the other villagers.

Many had already turned into blazing pyres. Old granny Shio, who had been so nice to him, stared in horror as her family was burned alive. The freak stood laughing insanely. He stretched his pale arms out in front of him, blue-black tongues of fire seething off his fingertips. A tornado of blood-red flames whirled in his open mouth and dragon's breath spouted out to engulf her.

The unexpectedness and ferocity of the murders shocked silence into Naruto. Nausea rolled through him, and a sudden deluge of bitter saliva covered his mouth against the acidic rush from his stomach.

Clenching his teeth, taking rapid breaths, he swallowed hard and suppressed the queasiness by opening the tap on his anger. It flowed through him in an enormous wave, almost crushing him. The senseless killings sickened, frightened, and enraged him more than anything ever had before.

Sai raised an earthen wall separating the rest of the villagers from the enemy shinobi and stood in front of it with his sword drawn. Sasuke also had his sword out, engulfed in a sparking blaze of electricity, and drew closer to defend the people. Naruto snapped out of his stupor and created hundreds of shadow clones who raced behind the wall, scooped up the remaining people, and ran off with them. In his hand, the Rasengan howled. He leapt forward; hand outstretched and rammed it into the shinobi.

The pale man smirked evilly and substituted himself with an innocent villager. Naruto watched in horror, unable to stop his forward momentum as it struck true. The man flew back with a pained shriek and landed hard on the ground. He didn't move.

"No," screamed Naruto, "Oh Kami, what have I done?"

"Aw, too bad kid..." The black robed man pulled out a kunai and introduced himself with a slight bow of his head, "I am Lord Orochimaru."

Naruto sucked in his breath at the name, remembering the Mizuki incident. "What do you want with us?" he asked angrily. His stomach churned harder than ever with an acidic tide that seemed corrosive enough to dissolve steel nails in an instant if he ate them. Indeed, he felt as though he had eaten about a pond of nails. His godfather told all of them about what the man was capable of doing.

"I don't want you at all, little Jinchuriki; it's the Uchiha I want. What do you say Sasuke? Do you want to join me and get power like you've never seen before?"

"Tch, as if I would want to join some crazy man," he said snidely. "What kind of power could you offer me that would be worthwhile? You are a rogue-nin."

"Power is living while others inevitably perish. Power is indifference to their suffering. Power is taking nourishment from the deaths of others. Real power is created from the burning desires of the soul."

Sasuke scoffed, "That's not power; that's madness."

"You're - you're crazy, old man," growled Naruto furiously. "Real power means you protect people, not what you just did. Nobody listen to his spew anymore. He killed those poor defenseless villagers. He needs to go down."

"I agree," said Sasuke with a determined look in his eye. Although he was a bit uneasy and apprehensive, fierce glee rushed through him. The speed and quickness of battle fed into him a rush of adrenaline. He would not have wished to be anywhere else in the world then where he stood at that moment.

"Yes," agreed Sai, pulling out shuriken from his pouch. "There is nothing like combat to accelerate a ninja's development."

~~O~~

They got into defensive stances. Sasuke created a wall of fire in front of him while Naruto used Whirlwind Fist to blow the flames into Orochimaru, creating a blazing firestorm that left the surrounding area scorched. Sai quickly drew lions which jumped off the scroll with ferocious roars.

Orochimaru was faster than anything they had ever seen. Sasuke had no idea how to use the Mangekyo and could barely track the shinobi's movements. In a flash, he was behind him. Sasuke tried to turn, but he wasn't fast enough. Orochimaru slammed the heel of his hand against the side of his head, sending sparks across the backs of his eyes and then clubbed his fist against the nape of his neck.

Two big snakes crawled out of Orochimaru's sleeves and coiled around the lions, squeezing until they burst in a splash of ink. He sent more after Sai, who deftly jumped onto the back of an ink hawk to escape. He furiously made hand seals until spikes of earth burst from the ground. Sai dropped exploding tags at the evading Sannin. All of them missed. Realizing distance attacks were useless against the shinobi, he jumped off the bird to get in closer.

~~O~~

Sasuke didn't even know he had fallen. He opened his eyes to a much lower view of the earth. The Sannin, Orochimaru was closing in on his comrades. He jumped to his feet, shaking away the cobwebs that clung to his mind and raced towards them. Impossibly fast pillars of earth kept rising from the ground, causing him to slow as he twisted his way through them while cursing his nonfunctioning Sharingan.

Naruto was barely able to stop himself in time as another spike erupted from the earth; a mere breath away from being impaled, he unevenly exhaled. He barely glanced at the deep gorge that suddenly split the earth under his feet. He quickly leapt over it when Orochimaru threw something at him – a kunai with a paper tag attached.

He couldn't dodge it in time. Naruto saw it glow bright orange for a second, and then squeezed his eyes shut right before it detonated. The blast threw him flying backwards. He was weightless for a brief heartbeat as he tumbled over and down into the huge chasm.

Sai appeared at the edge and quickly looked down.

Naruto was clinging to the side of the gorge with his chakra. He shouted, "Watch those damn spikes, Aho; this one down here nearly skewered me!" He grabbed Sai's outstretched hands and was swiftly yanked up. They both turned and stumbled back, nearly falling back into the chasm. The cloaked man was a foot from them.

And he was grinning…

~~O~~

Orochimaru was having no problems dealing with the three brats. In a lightning fast movement, his kunai came down in a shining arc directly at Naruto. Sai shoved the blonde aside, taking the strike meant for him. The steel blade slide into his chest to its hilt and blood began to ooze from around the handle and splash onto the ground.

He looked down at himself, and put his hands weakly around the haft of the kunai. Dizziness and nausea washed over him as he pulled it out. Sai could taste blood, bright and slick, in the back of his throat. Smoke, acrid and chocking was drifting into his face. His hand glowed green with healing chakra as he attempted to stop the flow of blood.

Sasuke; who had finally made his way through the roiling earth, witnessed his comrade being injured. He howled in rage and with a speed never having accomplished before, practically flickered to his side. He pulled Sai away from the missing nin and leaned him against a tree at the edge of the battleground. "Are you alright?" he shouted above the tumultuous din.

He barely heard the pale boy as he said through grim lips, "I will live. Apparently, today is not my day to die."

Sasuke had to get back to Naruto. Something was seriously wrong.

Naruto was crouching on his hands and feet. His eyes were slitted and red and a cloak of bubbling, red chakra had formed around him. A tidal wave of terrifying pressure rolled over Sasuke, choking him. His arms shook fiercely as he fought the urge to impale himself with the kunai in his hand.

He abruptly felt Orochimaru's sudden and terrifying presence behind him. The Uchiha pulled another kunai from his pouch, whirled about, and hunched down to present a smaller target - ready to defend his teammate.

Before he could do anything, a puff of smoke appeared at his right and as it dissipated, a huge toad appeared. Its tongue whipped out and wrapped around Sai, swallowing him whole. Out it came again, and before Sasuke could shout, he too was swallowed.

~~O~~

A few minutes later, the toad's mouth opened, revealing a world so different from the battle-torn one they had just left. Slow and unsure, they walked out. A vast, green ocean of grass greeted them. Sasuke's feet tangled and he fell in a heap next to an odd looking tree. He lay silent, breathing raggedly, his hot face in the cool grass. Sai just stared ahead in mute horror for a moment before he fell to the ground and buried his face in his hands.

Tears of shame began to flow from Sasuke's face, scorching and heavy. Sai howled in misery. "Naruto!" they cried out.

Sasuke clutched Sai to him and held him tight while the other boy wrapped his arms around him and sobbed. "Ninjas aren't supposed to cry," he said brokenly while wiping his cheeks with one hand and spreading soot everywhere. Sai nodded once and wiped his face on his sleeve. "He's our brother, we'll get him back where he belongs…with us."

"Fū is dead, isn't she?" Sai asked brokenly.

They both thought at the same time, "And it's all my fault…"

~~Naruto's Rage~~

Sasuke was murdered in front of him. Sai was torn to pieces. These visions tortured him. Genjutsu…

Sasuke had spent hours putting him and Sai under them so that they could learn how to defend themselves. While Naruto was still bad at creating them, he did recognize when he was in one. Focusing all of his chakra tightly, he made the ram seal and shouted, "Release!"

Sai was hurt; blood was pouring out from his chest. Sasuke was standing next to him. Was he hurt? He didn't know. This time he knew it wasn't genjutsu. A haze settled over his vision as an unfettered rage consumed and overwhelmed him.

Although Naruto had taken life long ago on accident, he had never intentionally tried killing someone. But he was ready to kill now, and he knew he could do it without any hesitation, with no thought of mercy, with a vengeance, because Orochimaru had empowered him to do it. This is what the rogue ninja had reduced him to – this blind, bestial fury – and the worst thing was that it felt good, this rage, so good in comparison to the fear and helplessness he had endured. A sweet singing of rushing blood flowed through his veins lending him an incredible sense of savage and almost animalistic strength.

The boy knew that he should have been appalled at the lust for blood that seized him, but he liked it and he knew that he would like it even more when he got the shinobi in his clutches and destroyed him for killing the villagers and hurting his friends. Naruto's eyes turned red and slitted. His mouth turned up into a wide feral grin before he slipped into darkness as deep as a dead man's dream.

~~Awake~~

When Naruto opened his eyes, he discovered that his surroundings had changed. He stood ankle deep in water in front of a massive cage with a seal on it. Evil, radiant red eyes glowed from within. A deep malicious voice rumbled, "So you've come at last. Do you want to avenge them little human? Do you want to kill the man that did it?"

Naruto cleared his throat, and finally the words broke loose: "No, no, it's on me, oh Kami, all those people died because of me." Tears threatened to spill from his eyes, but fury took over and he growled out, "I must stop him before he kills the rest of them."

"You are too weak, you puny little kit." The demon made a frightening sound that the boy soon realized was laughter.

Too angry to be scared, he breathed heavily and demanded impatiently, "Let me out of here now; I don't have any time for this! I have to finish this fight and crush that man."

"Oh, so you need power?" chuckled the Kyuubi, "I can help you with that."

AN:

Thanks to my beta cookiemonster77 – You are the bomb!

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed/followed/favorited my story. I can't say too many times how much that truly has inspired me to write this story. You all are awesome! Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions, comments, and/or suggestions. I'm here.

AZFAERYDUST