Next chapter, the last one for the first part. I'll try to post the next chapter in the next few days because after that I'll be busy with my finals.

The shinobi of Konoha, alerted even before the beginning of the chunin exam, that a threat was hanging over the whole event, were ready to fight back. The attack came from all sides:well-timed and vicious, but there was order in the chaos.

A large group of chunin and jonin positioned themselves around the civilians and were quickly engaged in battles against infiltrated soldiers from orochimaru and Suna-jonin who had come with the suna-genin for the exam. Others still were rushing towards the Hokage to support him while a last group rushed out of the arena to help push back Suna's attack. The biju-boy was transforming and Jiraya thought of going after him but when the boy destroyed a portion of the arena and ran out of it he decided that he couldn't afford to leave Orochimaru's vicinity. Only him and the Hokage and maybe a few other high-class jonin would be able to pose a real threat to their former teammate. He saw a few chunin and an unfortunate group of genin rush after the biju and hoped they would be able to slow the jinshuriki down. After that he turned back towards his own opponent.

Orochimaru sprang from behind the row of seats and ran up to the higher levels of the arena, both Jiraya and his sensei followed closely after them. Jiraija heard a sharp clang from the tiles on the roof that were being displaced by his teammates careless retreat. He followed. Wind was blowing and from there they were overlooking all of Konoha. Orochimaru had always been fond of theatrics. His slender frame was framed by the billowing fabric of the Kage robes, thin arms were jutting out of the cloth. His ink-black hair was falling to his waist. Never more than in this moment had he embodied the graceful androgyny that he had always flaunted. He felt he should feel bitter, this battle the last proof of his teammates betrayal but he felt relieved. He was facing him at least, it had been years since he had come so close to him. Facing him in battle felt just, felt right. A part of him still believed there was something to be salvaged there, the rest of him wanted closure.

The battle was on when Hiruzen, standing to his right, started a dotton. The old man was earth and fire, immense chakra and perfect control. Orochimaru was water and snakes evading and attacking, unrelenting. Jiraya didn't wait long to go into sage mode, red lines bled onto his face. Orochimaru backed away and looked at him with interest. Jiraya realized with a pang that Orochimaru had already left when he finally mastered sage-jutsu. He fought with his mentor as one; others were approaching Jiraya could feel, he thought for a second it was backup but their chakra was dark and twisting. They didn' t intrude on the fight however but formed a barrier that isolated them from the rest of the village. It was a strange thing, half-seals and half something else. He didn't linger on it and focused on Orochimaru.

His opponent was looking at his teacher. The old man was calm, at peace with himself, he had given up on Orochimaru long ago.

"Orochimaru your madness and lust for power will end here."

The snake sanin seemed unperturbed but Jiraya knew him better than anyone else on earth and he could read anger and hurt in the glint of his eye.

"How little you know me if you think me mad, sensei"

The last world was a low blow, the tone especially, the silent, soft tone he had used as a child when asking his smart question.

"I only ever wanted more knowledge".

"And in your pursuit of knowledge you care about nothing else, neither morals, nor human sentiment."

Orochimaru inclined his had, he didn't argue that.

"The knowledge you seek is unholy and you will be stopped once and for all".

" You close your eyes to the inevitable, Konoha should not remain so stuck in the past".

"Is that why you decided to invade the village?" Jiraya shot in.

Orochimaru stepped forward, less as an attack and more to reach to them, to prove his point. Jiraya understood in that moment that Orochimaru felt no more detached about the events that led to his desertion as he did.

"I will bring new knowledge to this village, new power. Times are changing, there are new enemies, soon we will need to be stronger again, it will not be enough to round up all the troops and rush them into battle. I will lead this village, it is my righteous place, you raised me for it. I will show you that I can inspire loyalty just as you do."

For a moment he felt almost hopeful, there was something raw in his eyes. Jiraya had always wondered how much it had wounded Orochimaru to see Minato, a young man fifteen years his junior getting the hat he had always felt was meant for him.

Hiruzen however only shook his head and summoned his bô. Orochimaru sneered with that ugly, animalistic glare that he reserved for enemies and the battle was on again.

It pushed their limits and heated the air inside the impenetrable dome. Ninja battle were often quick but they were to evenly matched, to well-acquainted with each others styles, to use any of the usual tactics.

Every move could be his last. Jiraya felt his muscles burn, his throat was raw from breathing fire, he had had to end sage-mode two times, stepping back somewhat for some time. Hiruzen was using complex pluri-elemental jutsus and seals. His summon was fighting at his side. Jiraya was in and out of sage mode and his two oldest summons were sitting on his shoulder spitting oil and water, mud and fire. Orochimaru was using Kusanagi, the snake sword and didn't let up between his numerous summons, his jutsus and his more direct attacks. His regenerative abilities were challenging and several times in the fight he shrugged his skin of and appeared almost new.

They were slowly getting the upper hand however. Arguably, Orochimaru was stronger than Jiraya, possibly stronger than Hiruzen, certainly not stronger than both combined.

At one point Hiruzen locked eyes with him, in one quick movement his bô pierced through Orochimaru. One more skin fell, and his former teammate was whole again. Then his sensei stepped back and Jiraya guessed he needed time for some kind of strategy. He stepped between them and let natural chakra flow through his veins. It may not be as dense as physical and mental chakra but their was plenty of it. He welcomed his approaching teammate with burning fire and mist.

Orochimaru plowed through and he felt the blade of the sword pierce his shoulder. He caught the snake-bastard in his stomach before gripping his other hand. Orochimaru smirked for a second and opened his mouth wide. Jiraya had a second to observe the elongated fangs before a snake shot out of his mouth.

Jiraya let go of everything and jumped back, letting the blade rip though his shoulder. His left arm felt useless. A second later he aimed fire at Orochimaru and paired it with a low grade genjutsu, god knew was bad at it. Orochimaru dodged both and was onto him again. Suddenly the black-haired man stiffened and fell forwards. Old reflexes told him to catch him but instead Jiraya gripped his arms with one hand and held his face to the ground. It was hardly necessary, he saw now that black lines of seals emerged from his back, burning bright with chakra- Above them Hiruzen, his arm still outstretched his hand blackened by ink and blood, seemed to be burning with chakra.

Jiraya quickly made sure that Orochimaru couldn't move but the man was laying face down, his eyes glassy and the seals were anchoring his chakra to his deepest core.

He quickly got up and approached his sensei looking at the searing arm. The old man was grunting in pain but still upright.

"What can I do", Jiraya muttered trying to understand the seals.

"Very little I am afraid, it's not a forbidden seal for nothing. I judged that it was necessary in this situation."

The dome suddenly broke and four figures rushed at them, some underling of his old friend, Jiraya mused. They may have been a challenge for others but to Jiraya, a sanin, even weakened and with the Hokage out of the game they were easy to dispatch. At best they were low jonin level. It didn't quite leave him enough room to fight consciously enough to spare them permanent harm but they went down quickly enough.

Jiraya looked around gauging where he could help but the fight seemed to die down already. He was about to turn around and help his sensei when he saw a young boy rush towards him. It was the Ushiha. He looked worse for the wear but all over pretty alive. His voice had lost some of its monotone when he addressed him.

"The Jinchuriki from Suna, he transformed into a biju. We got him more or less blocked for some time but Kakashi-sensei told me to find you as soon as possible."

Suddenly the boy seemed to notice the Sanin on the ground and threw him a long peculiar look and Jiraya had to shake him to make him look back at him again.

"Where are they. Come on kid, we have to move quickly."

"Just outside the village wall, not far away from the Hyuga compound."

The genin promptly turned around and Jiraya followed him feeling his strength dwindle but determined to bring this battle to an end.

2 hours earlier: Kakashi

He felt the genjutsu like cold water on his skin, it hadn't passed him that his sharingan was already uncovered and then, overlapping with the image of hundreds of civilians falling unconscious he saw the complex web of chakra that was placed above the arena. He didn't need more than a twitch of sharingan-directed chakra to pass through it and snap the strings of chakra around him, in a second he lifted it from Gai and Genma who were standing near him. They would have been more than able to do it themselves but he was undoubtedly quicker at lifting genjutsus. Immediately Suna and Oto nin were on them but between the three of them, few presented any kind of real threat. Kakashi was still distracted looking at the genjutsu web.

While most jonin had easily shrugged it of a majority of genin and quite some chuin were trapped. Also there was the matter of the few hundreds of civilians who could be fried by collateral damage. They needed to get them out- They only way to succeed in that was to break the genjutsu.

"Gai, watch my back."

Gai answered shortly in the way he tended to do when the fight was serious. Kakashi just closed his eyes and forced himself to relax then opened the left one only. Chakra rushed to it and he felt the pulsing-not-yet-pain that came with using the sharingan. The dojutzu didn't allow to see chakra in the way the byakugan could. It was less like having a new perspective of the world and more like hyper-processing the information he had. While the Byakugan could have seen the chakra of all the people in the audience and a skilled user could see that the chakra of most of them was sluggish which indicated a genjutsu, the sharingan noticed every minute movement of every human being in the arena, or in that case the lack of movement. And above and between them it suggested more than showed him the links of tightly woven chakra, the glinting clues of this broad net and he could read it, decipher the slow vibrating something that had been thrown upon them. It hadn't been initiated through eye-contact neither through sound, probably not through sent which meant either seals or several casters positioned around the arena or maybe both. His eyes sought out Kurenai who must be in the audience and trying to decipher the genjutsu too. He saw her several hundred meters to his left on a roof dangerously trying to concentrate on the genjutsu with no one to guard her back.

He thought of going to her aid but here at least he knew he could concentrate on his task with both Gai and Genma fighting for him. He watched her and saw that she leaped towards one side of the arena. He opened the sharingan again and closed his other eye. There it was. In the direction she had been heading to he felt one of the anchors of the genjutsu, could they sabotage it that way? He tried to find the weak point. The whole structure of the genjtuzu seemed uneven and the ease with which it was evolving suggested some kind of initiator who controlled the rest of the web with the other anchors only providing the necessary chakra. He went on with his search, at one point he felt another anchor snap, either Kurenai had taken him out or some other ninja by incident.

Finally he located a weak string that he had discarded until now because of the low amount of strength but it seemed that in one way or another all strings were attached to it, he looked down and traced it back to a shadowed part of the arena in the back near a large column. He didn't wait a second longer, memorized the place and closed his sharingan while jumping in that direction.

He had to defend himself against a few opponents who saw him pass by but quickly arrived at the place. He opened his sharingan again to find the exact location but suddenly the anchor disappeared and the whole genjutsu crumpled. Kakash immediately looked up to locate the one in charge of the trap, meaning to catch him. It was proving to be diffiuclt. Civilians, suddenly freed from the jutsu, were running around barely kept in check by the chunin and genin who had just woken up. Kunai and shuriken were whirling around and he saw several shinobi on the ground. He heard someone cry out and looked around.

A genin with glasses and light hair was crouched over another young man and had visibly been trying to heal him when he himself got targeted. In one move Kakashi slit a kunai along the sound-nin's spine when he was to distracted and looked at the Konoha-genin.

"What is happening."

The kid ( wasn't it the one who dropped out of the exam?) seemed to barely hold it together.

"My teammate got hurt and my other teammate just left suddenly when the attack began, I don't know…"

Kakashi interrupted him:

"Will he survive?"

"I know some medical-jutsu, my father is a surgeon."

"Have you seen anyone flee before the civilians woke up?"

The kid seemed thrown of.

"Euh, I don't know I didn't pay attention".

Kakashi cursed and turned away. He looked up and saw that the Hokage had disappeared from the arena probably battling Orochimaru. Jiraya too had disappeared, hopefully with the Hokage. It wasn't the kind of fight where he could be a great aid. He noticed that several shinobi's of Konoha were assembled around another near the entrance and decided to join them to see where he was needed. Genin and chunin seemed to be managing evacuation well enough and the battle seemed to turn to their advantage but there was the battle at the walls of Konoha and the Jinchuriki to worry about. Despite a few accidents on the way he quickly reached the group and saw Shikaku standing amongst them, which was good. The jonin commander was the next in command after the Hokage and hopefully had a better overview of the situation.

"Kakashi, were you the one to lift the genjutsu."

The jonin nodded.

"Good. The situation at the wall is difficult. We need earth-users to reinforce the wall and anyone with fire-ninjutsu to counter wind. Also more medics. Anyone who fits into that go to the wall."

"What about the Jinchuriki of Sand." Kakashi asked.

"We saw some chunin go after him. Also two jonin went after them a few minutes ago."A jonin threw in before leaving.

"Kakashi looked at Shikaku for further information."

"I think it's your genin who went."

Kakashi felt his blood leave his face. Shit. Gods, please, no. They weren't that stupid.

"I'm sending you after them, I have no backup. Don' t let the Jinchuriki enter one of the battlefields, the situation is hard enough, the arrival of a biju could tip the balance to Suna's side."

Kakashi nodded absently and ran towards the forest. He summoned Pakkun without stopping and soon he had their trail.

He caught up with them quickly enough. On the way there he had seen a young Aburame fighting against the puppeteer from before. He just circumvented them. He hoped the Aburame would survive but right now he only cared about his kids. He erupted onto a strange scene.

Sakura and Sasuke were fighting against the blond daughter of the Kazekage and visibly holding their own. Sasuke was more than bruised and he could feel the biju's putrid chakra on his skin. Both seemed to fight while keeping an eye on the biju-possessed kid. The Jinchuriki was almost completely transformed. Only a little part of his face and his left arm and side of his torso where still human the rest was a writhing form of sand.

Naruto was close to him, propped against a tree and seemed to talk to him. Shit, the biju could crush him any second from now, sand was all around him, he had seen what had happened to the Ame girl. Any second now...

He loaded his arm with chirping thunder. And with a burst of chakra, concentrating entirely on the still uncovered part of the boy.

Suddenly he heard a scream. "No". Naruto had leaped in front of the Jinchuriki eyes wide, arms outstretched to protect him. Kakashi felt shock and panic, he was to quick, he couldn' t stop, he rolled and collided with Naruto but at least his arm loaded with Raikiri was halted by the ground and propelled dirt and rocks around him.

Immediately he took Naruto by the arm and hid him behind him, very aware that he was only a meager defense against a Biju. But the Suna-boy strangely didn't attack him immediately. He seemed overcome by some kind of inner turmoil.

Naruto was peeking from behind him.

"Gaara, Kakashi won't hurt you if I tell him not to. You don't have to listen to the demon. I didn't when he tried to convince me."

"But I have to listen to mother, she talks to me all the time, she never leaves me alone."

The red-haired boy's voice was strangely haunted by the Biju's deeper voice but the suffering, the very human suffering could not be mistaken.

"They always look down on me and treat me like trash and ignore me and run away. At least mother never leaves me alone.

He ended with a roar and the Biju's influence seemed to grow on the boy's psyche.

Naruto picked and a stone and threw it at the boy were it bounced harmlessly from the sandy armor

"Hey Gaara, that's not an excuse to kill everyone. Maybe people are looking down on you and I know it makes you feel sad and hated and that it hurts but that's not an excuse. You just have to make people accept you. So maybe it's harder. But we are not allowed to give up."

Naruto's outburst was growing louder and Kakashi felt absolutely lost and out of his depths

"Come on Gaara. I fucking know what it means to be looked at like I'm a monster. But that can change. I have friends and they love me and respect me and I would die for them and they would die for me. You can have that to!"

The other Jinchuriki seemed lost and struggling. Sand was rising all around them, creeping on Naruto's skin but the boy didn't budge. Kakashi was about to rush into this and try to kill it when suddenly it stopped. The boy was looking at Naruto with a chilling intensity. Kakashi didn't know what he was seeing in Naruto but a second later a small voice that was undoubtedly his and only his was talking

"Do you truly believe that.

"Naruto nodded gravely.

The boy let out a strange sight and all of him seemed to slump, sand was falling down everywhere. He heard an exclamation of relief behind him and saw Sakura and Sasuke watching, the blond girl knocked out beside them. Suddenly he felt a wave of nefarious chakra, he turned around and saw the Suna-jinchuriki completely swallowed by the sand.

A guttural voice was haling across the forest.

"Stupid boy, so naive. Humans should bow before me and give their life to quench my thirst."

Suddenly the sand was everywhere and Kakashi felt the immediate danger it represented.

He didn't wait a second and went through the signs of one of his larger water-ninjutsus and fed it as much chakra as he could. Water exploded from the ground. It made the sand heavier and slower. His genin could evade it more easily. He threw a kunai with an exploding tag at one of its limbs. It blew it up but it formed again.

"Sasuke, run and find Jiraya. I don't give a fuck what he is doing right now but if he doesn't want another Biju destroying Konoha he will have to come. Naruto and Sakura try to distract him."

All of them obeyed. The Biju seemed satisfied to play with them for now. He knew that the Biju could probably kill them with his chakra alone if he truly wanted. He wasn't the nine-tail but the sheer power he was exuding was hard to bear. Sakura seemed particularly affected by it and seemed to have troubles keeping up.

He quickly took a scroll out of his vest. He activated the storage seal to procure another larger scroll. Jiraya had given it to him to slow Naruto's transformation if it ever came to that, he could only pray it would work for another Biju. He put it on the ground and haphazardly smeared blood on it before going through the signs Jiraya had shown him. He saw the seal slowly creep on the ground and felt it eat away at his chakra reserves greedily. That would soon become a problem.

It finally worked somewhat. The Biju was heavily slowed down but it felt neither secure nor permanent. It felt like a great dog tugging at a leach made of ribbon with him trying to keep it all together. His arms began to tremble and the Biju was gaining back more and more freedom.

He prayed that Sasuke would soon come back. How long had it been since he had sent him out? Surely at least half an hour, probably more. How long would it take. He could only pray that Sasuke had reached him, that he wasn't still involved in fighting Orochimaru or worse that he had been defeated. It got hard to not let panic back in again and he tried to concentrate fully on the beast. He ordered Naruto and Sakura to go back to the city proper. They obeyed reluctantly but he wanted them out of range if the Biju got free again. If the seal broke two genin would hardly make a difference. He would hardly make a difference. A part of him was already imagining it, it pleased him in a way to be killed in such a similar way to his teacher, defending the village from a Biju. It was just the kind of way he had wanted to die. He closed his eyes and focused entirely on the seals, feeling his chakra rushing out of him. He almost didn't notice when Jiraya arrived, only felt him push him away from the seal and replace him. He stumbled back and breathed in a great lungful of air and tried to calm his breathing.

Well,it seemed he wouldn't die quite yet. He looked back and saw Sasuke peering at the Biju, behind him Sakura and Naruto, they had followed him back here. He wanted to berate them but his head felt like it was splinting open so he leaned back against a tree, palming a kunai because you never knew. He instructed Naruto to bind the Suna-girl's arms together. She was still lying there and they really didn't need another problem on top of everything else. Jiraya seemed to make progress: the Biju was screeching and shouting but slowly receding back. The boys original seal must not have been broken completely because he was still alive. When the Biju receded he just slumped over but his chest was raising and falling regularly.

Jiraya was muttering and changing the seal in one way or another but after some time he picked the boy up and threw him over his shoulder. Sasuke was carrying the girl. He got back up on his feet and tried to pretend he wasn't wobbling. Bruised and battered but very much alive they slowly made their way back to the village.