Title: A Demon's Tale
Author: swiftstar85
Genre: Drama/Friendship/Romance
Rating: T for some strong language, violence, suggestive material, and crude humor.

~Chapter Nine~

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, though I wouldn't mind if I did.

Gaara stared in horror at the creature that Naruto had become. He just couldn't believe his eyes. This creature, he could sense, was pure evil. He could feel the evil power behind it. And he knew very well that it was his best friend. His best friend was hardly in control anymore. The young Kazekage felt pain within his chest as he watched the creature roar and snarl as it whirled around in circles, looking for Orochimaru. It was like a wild animal and it hurt Gaara to think that his friend was this creature. "Naruto." He breathed in horror again before quickly hurried into the clearing. He had to stop Naruto at all costs. The Nine Tailed Fox was trying to destroy what innocence that Naruto possessed. He knew it had to be.

The creature turned its head as if it sensed Gaara's presence and those vicious red eyes found his wide, terrified teal ones. It snarled at him and even looked as if it was about to lunge. "Naruto, stop it." Gaara begged quietly. He couldn't stand this anymore. He couldn't stand seeing his brother like friend turning into such a wretched and blood thirsty creature. He refused to let him turn into something that he, himself, had almost turned into. "Naruto!"

Suddenly there was several hundreds of hisses, making both Gaara and the creature's heads jerk around only to see nearly a hundred snakes pouring right out of Orochimaru's mouth and rushing at Naruto. The snakes were hissing violently as they raced at the now monster turned Naruto, snapping fangs at him and ready to start biting him.

Gritting his teeth, Gaara quickly lunged into the clearing with sand swirling around him and now lashing out towards the snakes. He was not going to let Orochimaru hurt Naruto, even if this creature was vicious. He swore that he would protect him and he was going to live by that promise. His sand quickly engulfed most of the snakes and he began squeezing his fists, crushing the snakes as fast as he could. He felt the eyes of the creature Naruto had turned into watching him as he defended him but he didn't pay too much attention to him. He just kept swallowing up the snakes with his sand, not noting how one of them whipped right around the sand and turned towards him instead of Naruto.

'Gaara! Watch out! You missed one!' Shukaku roared within his head.

Gaara's eyes sharply jerked downward to see the snake rearing its head and baring dripping fangs full of poison. He quickly took a step back and lashed out a hand towards it, bringing sand to quickly grab at the snake. The snake struck though before the sand could wrap around its long purple body and crush it. The fangs bit into his leg, sinking into him. The red head could not stop from crying out in pain before the snake was crushed to death by his sand. He fell to his knee and clutched at his wound on his calf. He felt his blood trailing between the sand skin he wore and through the fabric of his pants. 'Urgh!' He groaned as he felt sweat breaking from under his hair line. And because of his adrenaline was pumping, he felt the dizzying effects of the poison.

'Damn it! You just had to go get bitten, didn't you?! Poison can even work on us, Bijuu, if injected right into the blood stream!' Shukaku growled at him.

"Shut. Up." Gaara groaned as he clutched his left, gritting his teeth.

"Well, that's one way to get rid of an annoying pest." Orochimaru sniggered from where he was crouching low to the ground and spilling more snakes to attack Naruto and even sent some towards Gaara. He had been rather terrified of Gaara when he saw him on the bridge but now he was wounded. There was no need to fear him now that he was inching closer to death. He knew very well he should finish him off while he had the chance though. That way, the One Tailed demon wouldn't be a threat to him anymore. Kill the Jinchuriki host, kill the demon.

However, before the snakes could even reach Gaara, the creature Naruto became let out a terrible sound. It sounded like a very angry creature who found something to savage. Naruto's beast like form had seen what Gaara tried to do for it and found itself enraged when he had gotten injured in protecting it from the snakes. Raising a hand full of vicious red and black claws, the creature lashed out into the air towards the snakes.

There was a huge explosion and a wave of energy engulfed the snakes before Naruto and the ones rushing at Gaara. It engulfed the red head too but the sand shield had managed to pull up before it could do any damage to him. The sand felt hot through Gaara's connection with it and it made him wince as he raised an arm to protect himself. He winced as he felt the Nine Tail's energy even bite into his skin a little. He blinked several times when he heard a loud crash and saw the creature slam its claws into the ground below it. The ground rumbled violently before exploding out of the ground to attack Orochimaru.

Orochimaru was quickly leaping away as the two claws from under the ground chased after him and tried to slash him apart. He was no longer smirking as he concentrated on getting away from the claws. He had to be constantly moving as the creature's claws continued to chase him all over the clearing and he even tried to draw the claws over to Gaara, hoping they'd strike him. He leapt out of the way to let the claws past him, and even smirked when they came close to striking the red head.

But they stopped only inches from the young Kazekage's face, who had drawn back with shock.

It seemed that the creature's intentions were not to hurt the one who had tried to protect him. The claws hovered in front of Gaara's face for a few mere seconds before they suddenly turned sharply and was chasing after Orochimaru again. 'Huh? Naruto......' The Kazekage thought with surprise.

'It seems to me that there's some control there then. Because you saved it from the snakes, the fox knows you're an ally. It's not going to try and hurt you.' Shukaku stated, sounding very relieved.

Gaara blinked several times but looked to see the claws reaching for Orochimaru, who had a large snake shoot right up his arm and wrap around the creature's arm. But as the snake tried to slither right up the creature's arm, the very energy burned the snake's skin. The young Kazekage grew tense when he saw Orochimaru's mouth open wide and a second Orochimaru came right out of his skin's mouth, speeding towards to the Naruto creature. He lashed out a fist and slammed it right into the creature's face and sent it flying back a little.

However, like what happened with Orochimaru, the creature seemed to split in two, becoming two creatures. The new one sliced at Orochimaru right through the middle, slicing him in two.

But instead of blood and gore, snakes poured out of both halves of the body and began rushing away from the creature before pulling itself together. Orochimaru had practically put himself back together, using the snakes. Smirking at the creature, he gave it a smug look, which seemed to enrage it more. It threw its head back and let out a terrible roar as blood red and ink black spheres began to explode from it, creating some kind of beam at its mouth. The energy grew more deadly by the second before forming into a nasty ball right before its head. Gaara could feel the terrible energy that the creature was putting into this next attack. This was going to be a very devastating one.

Orochimaru seemed to have guessed so too because he was quickly leaping away as fast as he could, trying to escape this attack.

"NARUTO! STOP!" Gaara yelled as loud as he could, ignoring the pain he felt within his body. He knew he had to stop Naruto from throwing that energy attack before he destroyed everything within five miles. He had figured that was how big this attack was going to be. "NARUTO!!"

The Creature stopped with the energy ball hovering right over its mouth before it opened it and swallowed the ball right into it. It then suddenly began to swell up as if the ball had exploded within it, making Gaara freeze with horror and concern. He could only watch as it swelled up bigger before it opened its mouth and let a devastating blast shoot from its mouth and right at Orochimaru. Gaara could only watch in horror as the blast went flying at Orochimaru, who was smirking as if he had a plan. And apparently he did because he slammed his hands onto the ground.

Suddenly the ground began to rumble and break, making Gaara tense up just the ground around him began to rise up all around him. He swore loudly before quickly summoning his sand around him to protect him. He still was allowed to see what was going on and was shocked to see a huge building of some sort fell rose around him and Naruto, trying to trap them both inside.

But as soon as the area went dark around them, there was another loud explosion.

Even though Gaara was protected within his sand shield, he had covered his head to protect himself from the explosion. But slowly, he lowered his arm and looked around with shock, to see that the building had been devastately destroyed. His teal eyes flickered around the area to see that it had been the creature Naruto transformed into had been responsible for it. It was snarling at Orochimaru, who was no longer standing up. He was lying in a very awkward position with half of his body standing up into the air and the shoulders to his head was buried within the ground of the crater that the creature had caused.

Gaara could only stare with alarm at the entire scene before him. He just couldn't believe this. The power that Naruto possessed when he was transformed, he knew that if Kyuubi gained total control over his best friend, the devastation would be completely catastrophic.

Just then there was a low rumble from right under the dirt making Gaara grow very stiff as he fought his hardest to stand up and ignore the poison in his system. He knew that this wasn't the time to fallen ill. He could sense that Orochimaru was still somewhere near by and his suspicions proved to be correct because the source of the rumble was Orochimaru's sword thrusting out of the ground, right under Naruto's chaotic form. The sword pierced him right through the chest making Gaara's heart nearly stop as he watched the creature get thrown up into the air because of the snake like monster with Orochimaru's face came shoving itself up out of the ground.

"Naruto!" Gaara growled between his teeth as he forced himself to his feet, shivering a little from dizziness but closed his eyes quickly to take a deep breath. He concentrated very hard on his energy within. 'Shukaku, I'm releasing some of your power. Can you get rid of the poison?'

'I'll sure try. I can probably get rid of most of it so it won't be too dangerous for your body. But it'll still be in your system. You are going to be pretty sick later on. But there's nothing I can do about that unless you can get some kind of antidote.' Shukaku rumbled at him.

Gaara merely nodded before snapping his hands together and unlocking a piece of Shukaku's power. He felt hot energy flowing through him, mostly down to his leg now and felt the demon fighting to heal the injury on his leg. Once the pain was somewhat gone, the young Kazekage opened his eyes and looked over at Naruto and Orochimaru. He was surprised to see that Orochimaru had knocked Naruto right back towards the bridge. With a firm look on his face, he began running as fast as he could, hoping that Shukaku could hold back the poison from spreading through his body.

Quickly, he was back at the bridge, looking over at Naruto, who still had the sword pierced through the chest and not moving for a moment. He also caught sight of Sakura standing in between Yamato and Kankuro, which brought some relief. But he knew that he couldn't concentrate on them right now. He had to help Naruto first.

However, as he started to take a step over, the creature grabbed the sword in his chest and yanked it right out, throwing off to the side, which went flying right at Sakura, Yamato and Kankuro. Gaara stiffened before he saw all three leap out of the way in time. Either way, the rest of the bridge had been destroyed. He also saw Kabuto had moved out of the way, while listening to the haunting sound of the creature's roars. It was the worst sound that Gaara had ever heard.

"Will you look at that....." Kabuto said chuckling as he stood up. "I guess he wanted to save Sasuke badly enough to end up like that. He's turned into a real monster." He didn't even seem to realize that his words were hurting Sakura so badly that she was close enough to crying. But Gaara saw it. He saw the tears flooding her eyes as she looked at Naruto painfully. "Right now, he's not even conscious.....what a sad kid......"

And then Sakura began running.

"Sakura! No! You can't go near Naruto right now!" Yamato yelled after her.

Even Gaara and Kankuro looked after her with shock. They both took a step after her but then stopped as she began yelling for Naruto. "Naruto!! This.....that's enough! I'll save Sasuke for you!" Sakura cried with tears flowing down her cheeks. "So, Naruto! It's enough! You don't need to.....!"

Suddenly Gaara was moving very quickly for he saw the creature growl at her before swinging one of its tails. He also saw Yamato snapping his hands together to help but it was the red haired Kazekage, who wrapped his arms around Sakura protectively when the tail came whipping out at them. It was, however, a little too late. The tail sliced right into Sakura's arm, making her scream in pain as she fell against Gaara, who kept a firm grip on her. His sand shield was doing it's best to protecting her from any more damage as the tail kept on swinging at her.

But strong wooden beams began to shoot out of the ground and wrap around the creature Naruto had become, binding him as best as they could. The creature let out a growl as it began struggling to get loose.

Gaara quickly dropped down by Sakura's side, holding her close to her and watching her as she writhed in pain. The hot red energy the demonic fox possessed was causing her so much pain. He didn't like to hear her crying against him and clutching her arm. But then his attention was on Kabuto as he was coming up to them. Glaring at him and covering Sakura's body protectively, he dared the medic to come near her. But before Kabuto could get too close, a root came streaking out of the ground and wrapped around his arm and leg, trapping him.

"Now, now. You're jumping to conclusions. I no longer mean you any harm. Quite the contrary....." Kabuto said smirking over his shoulder at Yamato and Kankuro as they gave him a look of warning.

"Touch her and I will kill you." Gaara growled threaten at him as he had his sand swirling around them both and he held Sakura even closer to him. But then he frowned when he saw the wound on Sakura's arm starting to sizzle like it was on fire. Sakura let out a cry in pain as she grabbed a fistful of Gaara's pants and clutched it tightly as if trying to release the pain. He could tell that she was in a lot of pain. "Sakura...." He muttered with concern.

"Your side and mine have something in common...." Kabuto stated as he looked down at Sakura, who's face was twisted with pain. "Akatski's a thorn in our side. As I see it, if we let you live, there's a chance that you might take out another Akatsuki member for us." He paused as the creature only got louder and the wood started to crack. "That said, it was you brought that thing here. So you're the ones who'll have to do something about it." He remarked before he was gone in a puff of smoke.

Gaara's head jerked up when he saw that the creature was now breaking loose from Yamato's little prison. He wrapped his arms tighter around Sakura, frowning darkly up at the fox. He knew that it was Naruto but he felt a hate for Kyuubi. It had caused her pain. "No more." He growled before lifting a hand and thrusting it towards the creature. "Sand Coffin!" He yelled.

Sand began shooting up and wrapping around the creature, which made Sakura gasp within his arms and look up at him with horror. "Gaara! No!" She begged reaching out and clutching his outstretched arm.

"Hokage Submission Jutsu!" Yamato shouted before he leapt forward and slammed a hand through the sand, touching the creature's hand with his hand.

There was a huge explosion all around them, yet Gaara kept his eyes firmly on the creature his best friend became. He didn't look concerned at all as he just hand his sand keeping the monster bounded tightly. He watched as light surrounded it before the red skin of the creature exploded right off of Naruto, revealing his true form once again. He was once again Naruto Uzumaki, himself.

Then with a little wave of his hand, Gaara called back the sand, forming his gourd once again. He looked down at Sakura, who looked pretty surprised by what just happened until her face lit up as she realized what Gaara really had been up to. While she thought he was going to crush the creature Naruto had been with his Sand Coffin Jutsu, it was the fact he was just binding him so that Yamato could free him from the Kyuubi's hold. "Gaara....I...." She murmured sheepishly.

The young Kazekage reached up and touched her lips with his hand, giving her a soft look. He knew that she was trying to apologize for thinking that he was going to kill the creature. "I know." He whispered before helping her up to her feet.

And then he went down, hissing in pain.

"Gaara!" Sakura yelped as she quickly dropped down beside him, her hand wrapped around his arm. "Gaara, what's wrong?!"

Quickly, Kankuro was there beside her, looking down at his younger brother with concern, while Yamato also hurried over, frowning with alert. Gaara just shook his head as he touched his leg where Orochimaru's snake had bitten him. "Snake bite." He groaned. "One of Orochimaru's snakes bit me while attacking Naruto. It was poisonous but Shukaku's managed to stabilize the poison for now." He told them.

Sighing, Sakura shook her head as she began digging into her hip pouch and tugging at Gaara's pant leg. She pushed it up to his knee so that she could see the snake bite and winced a little. "Ouch. It must have been a pretty big snake." She murmured before pulling out a very familiar rosy pink flower. It was the desert flower that Gaara had given to her nearly two months ago. It was somewhat dried out but still quite alive. She gave Gaara a faint smile before plucking one of the rosy petals. "Here. Chew this. It's not tasty but it'll get rid of the poison." She reassured him. Gaara faintly smiled right back at her before he opened his mouth to let her stick the petal into his mouth. Sakura smirked at him, giving him a sly look but stuck the petal in between his lips, which closed around her finger. "Hey, be nice, Gaara. Don't do anything kinky in front of your brother." She warned him.

Of course, Gaara pulled a face as he released her fingers and gave his older brother a dark look who was grinning at the idea of his little brother doing something a little naughty right there. "Kankuro, go get Quoi. I think it's safe for him to join us now. I can't sense Orochimaru near by anymore. He and Kabuto has left." He told him.

"Okay. But don't do anything too bad until I get....ouch!" Kankuro had been saying until sand lashed out and slapped him in the back of the head. He was quickly moving away.

Sakura finally moved away from Gaara and went over to the fallen Naruto to check on him. She had a very grave look on her face as she laid him out on his back and started to heal him. She was very upset to see her and Gaara's best friend in such a sorry state. She even had tears starting to fill her eyes as she attempted to heal him. But a few minutes of healing him, she grimaced as if she felt a little irritated before gasping as her arm began to throb with pain.

Immediately, Gaara was at her side, touching the slash marks in her arm. He knew it was causing her some pain and he didn't like it. He tilted his head to the side as if looking for Shukaku. 'Shukaku, can we do something for her? You once said that if one Bijuu's energy touches another, they might be able to connect.' He thought.

'Yeah, but healing a wound that another caused, it's not entirely possible. It'll go away in time. Might leave a scar, but it'll stop hurting. She'll be fine. Just rub it. It should help with the pain a little.' Shukaku suggested.

Nodding with a sigh, Gaara began rubbing her wounded arm. He saw her glance up at him with a thankful smile, obviously it worked a little. But then her face saddened again as she looked down at Naruto's sweaty form. She, like Gaara and Yamato, knew he was hurting a little. Just by looking at that look on his face told them that it was hurting him. "Yamato-taichou," Sakura began making both of them look at her. "That Jutsu you stopped Naruto with just now......would you....would you be willing to teach it to me?" She asked, softly.

Gaara glanced up at Yamato to see what his reaction would be but he wasn't surprised to see the soft look on the ANBU captain's face, which clearly read that he couldn't. "I'm afraid I can't. You see, being compatible with Shodai-sama's cells, I'm the only person in Konoha who can use it. The ability to suppress the Kyuubi's Chakra by force. Still, as the lab experiment as I am, my powers will never measure up to the original's." He explained softly. It only made Sakura look sadly down at the blonde she was trying to heal. "You know that stone Naruto wears around his neck?" Yamato started up again, making Sakura look at him, as did Gaara. "It belonged to Shodai Hokage-sama. It's a Chakra crystal that responds to his Chakra alone. With it, you can control the power of the Jinchuriki." Those words even surprised Gaara as he looked at the blue crystal hanging around Naruto's neck. "It's said these powers are what let the First become Hokage in the first place. And it's also because of them that I was made your squad captain, see?"

"So, it's not only because of what Tsunade said to me." Gaara stated, catching Sakura's attention, while Yamato just glanced up at him. "You were assigned to watch over Naruto because you could control Kyuubi."

Yamato sighed but nodded. "You probably don't like that, do you? Controlling the Bijuu inside of Naruto like that, you probably don't like that at all." He said softly.

There was a very long silence as Gaara stared at him with somewhat hard eyes but they softened again. It was true he didn't like the idea of his best friend being controlled by anyone. It was like taking away his own free will. But then again.....he had to admit with a sigh. Kyuubi was already doing that. "After seeing what Kyuubi tried to turn Naruto into, I don't think I mind as much. Naruto will understand when he finds out about this." He said softly.

"Same as always......" Sakura murmured, making Gaara and Yamato look at her. "I can only do the dumbest of things for Naruto." She added with a tear-filled smile. But Gaara knew very well that she was thinking herself weak and stupid again. He hated it when she did.

Yamato, however, merely glanced at the gash in her arm before looking away. "It's not what you do for Naruto that's important. It's how strongly you feel about him that counts." He said softly, which made Sakura's face light up a little. "Sakura....I can tell just by looking at you.....the truth is....you...." He was saying.

And then Naruto shot up, groaning.

"Ow!" He groaned before end up lying back down and wincing as he rubbed his head. Both Gaara and Sakura's faces brightened to see how well he was doing now. He groaned a few times before sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck as if trying to get rid of a crick in his neck. "Huh? What the....what happened to me?" He then noticed the tears in Sakura's eyes. "Why're you crying, Sakura?" He then got a very enraged look on his face as he stood up and began looking around. "That foul mouthed Sai hurt your feelings again, huh?! What did he say this time?! Butt Ugly?! Freak of nature?! THAT JERK!!" He roared.

Gaara sweat dropped as he watched his best friend and shook his head as if he was looking at the biggest idiot on the planet.

'That's because he is.' Shukaku thought dryly.

WHAM!

Sakura slugged Naruto hard in the stomach, looking very irritated. "Moron. You came up with "Freak of Nature" on your own....." She growled at him.

Both Yamato and Gaara couldn't help but smile and shake their heads while Naruto doubled over, holding his stomach and groaning pitifully. They were just glad that he was okay now. But still, the thought of Sai made Gaara's face grow very cold. He remembered what that stupid emotionless prick had done to Sakura, or what he hadn't done. He still swore he was going to hurt him for that. He had already warned him about what would happened if Sakura got hurt because of him. Even though she hadn't, she very well near had.

"Oh! That's right! Yamato-taichou, Gaara! What did happen to Sai?" Sakura asked as she looked around.

Gaara's face only darkened at the thought of that ninja in black. "He let you fall of the bridge, that's what." He stated, making all of them glance at him. Naruto's face even started to darken. "He let you fall off the bridge and when he had the chance to save you, he didn't. Kankuro had to come into the mess and save you while Yamato-taichou and I were trying to keep the bridge from collapsing."

"Eh?! Kankuro?! He helped?! Where is he, anyway?!" Naruto yelped." What in the heck did I miss anyway?!"

Yamato, however wasn't paying very much attention to them. He was looking off to the side with a very serious expression on his face and it was too serious in fact. He looked as if he had just discovered something very serious. "I figured as much." He murmured, catching Gaara's attention and giving the ANBU a questionable look.

"Gaara!!" Came Kankuro's voice, as he was running towards them, looking very pale. Everyone looked at him with concern as he hurried over. "It's Quoi! I can't find him! He wasn't where I left him!" The Puppet Master said with alarm. "He's gone!"

Gaara's face drained of all color, if any, as he stood up straight and looked wide eyed at his brother. "What?!"