CHAPTER TWELVE

The Bold and Unbeatable Killer B!

XXX

Deathly silence.

A flash of light.

Raw vibrations in the earth.

A rush of chakra.

And then, the sound. A loud bang at first, followed by a slow and steady rumbling as chakra was released into the atmosphere.

Seeing it from afar made you feel weak in the knees but seeing it up close. Being caught in the tailed beast's transformation. No matter who you are, no matter what you claim to be. Your life flashes before your eyes.

XXX

"He's so small… so he was premature?" Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage, enquired as he was handed his third child, his second son. He looked like a jellybean, able to fit within the palm of a large hand with red hair and skin almost equally as crimson, "Are you sure he'll be all right?"

"He's adapting," Lady Chiyo promised. "At least with the third child, we know he's compatible. This child must be brought up with great care."

"Please… let me see… my child's face," a dirty blonde woman, exhausted from the hours of pain and labour, pleaded. The nurses obliged, laying the kid next to her. "He's… so tiny," she noted. Even with her small hands, she could fit the entire child in them if she wanted to.

The machines went off. Blaring sirens of distress. "Lady Karura's heart rate is dropping," one of the nurses announced.

"This child's name is Gaara… a devil that loves only itself. Love only yourself… and fight for your own sake… then you will continue to exist… that was my sister's wish. She didn't name you out of love or concern. You were never loved."

"Do something! Quick!" Rasa ordered.

"Please die… That was Karura's last wish… for you to die… Gaara." That was the last thing Yashamaru said before he was caught in Gaara's completed tailed beast mode transformation and was killed by Shukaku.

"Gaara," she named the child.

"I said do something! Why is everyone just standing around?!"

It was too late. Karura passed away on that bed, with her last-born child, Gaara, her most precious creation, in her hands.

He took his right hand and placed it on the left side of his chest, "Here. All my life, I've always felt pain here. I thought it was getting better, but it hurts now more than ever."

XXX

The light died down.

The ambush was underway.

Gyuki emerged from the clouds. Since he was a completed transformation, whilst Kokuo's was controlled, he was more than double her size. He arrived on the battlefield with a thud, destroying the entire square, crashing into Kokuo, and almost sending her flying off the bridge she stood on.

Naruto, Hinata, and Fuu were all saved by sand.

"Thank you, Shukaku," for the first time in his life, Gaara was thankful for the tanuki that resided within him.

Even Shukaku was breathing heavily, "Not gonna lie… that wasn't me, kid."

"No matter what happens, I will always protect you, Gaara."

The redhead looked around. He'd been saved by two shields standing between him and the explosion. The first, a wall of sand shaped like a woman. It'd been almost completely destroyed, with only an ear, an arm and half its torso still visible. The second, a pair of hands that wrapped around him, Hinata, Naruto, and Fuu. The outline of a woman in the sand loomed over them. This wasn't any ordinary sand though. It was sand that'd been made up of the hardest minerals that'd been ground and dug up from within the mountain they stood on.

Everything around them had been destroyed in the blast. Except whatever the sand was touching.

"Mother?" the jinchuuriki whispered.

Fuu didn't even have time to thank the redhead. She rushed past him and dove off the nearest bridge.

A burst of light.

Choumei zipped past the jinchuuriki to aid Kokuo.

The waves of shinobi came rushing up the stairs.

"Gaara!" Naruto grasped Gaara's sides, "Snap out of it! We need to get out of here, dattebayo!" Naruto yelled before dragging both Gaara and Hinata through the empty streets of Kumo. Kumo shinobi were coming down from the walls behind them while Konoha, Suna, and Iwa shinobi came up from in front of them.

With two of their three tailed beasts pre-occupied, it became less about fighting from higher ground and more about channelling everyone through a narrow passageway, so the fight was at least a bit fairer.

"Fire Style: Searing Migraine!" Since the aim was to slow down the army, Hinata inhaled air and exhaled a bubbling mass of inferno. The initial fireball erupted into a devastating firestorm upon contact with its target. That did enough to ward off the ground troops but some shinobi leaping from building to building were still on their tail.

"Gaara!" Naruto cried.

"I'll slow them down them!" Gaara snapped back to reality. He skidded to a halt, allowing the other two to escape. He lifted a wall of sand over the army, only for them to cut through it using lightning. They rushed him. Sand tendrils exploded from the wall to try and stop some of them by they were persistent.

He used what little sand was left in his gourd to cocoon himself in a sand dome. They lined the dome with explosive kunai. The consecutive blasts tore through the armour, knocking Gaara to the ground. The sand wall came down.

He had no chance. Transforming, reverting to normal, then transforming again a few minutes later took a toll on his stamina, but nevertheless he took on the demon cloak.

His tail stretched out to grab a ledge. He was pulled away before the shinobi could get to him.

Kunai whizzed past him as he was swung between buildings by his cloak.

Gaara looked up to the night sky as explosions rang out around him. It was early in the battle, but he had to do it. He wanted to reserve his stamina but if it carried on in this manner, there'd be nothing to reserve his stamina for. The numbers were overwhelming. A wave of human flesh followed him around every corner. There was no escaping these people. He had to kill them all. What had he done to deserve this?

Nothing.

It was a decision that was made for him in the past that led to this moment.

"Shukaku…"

Gaara's body fell limp. He hit the concrete hard and rolled a couple of times.

The mass of shinobi, not sure whether to engage or not, slid to a halt. The Konoha and Iwa shinobi stopped to look at each other as the Suna shinobi turned tail to run.

Too late.

Sand.

It came from everywhere.

It burst out from the ground. Came crashing through the windows. Came down from above. It all collected around the jinchuuriki's body until his lifeless blue-green eyes reopened as black stars swimming in a sea of gold.

Shukaku erupted in laughter as those who were too close to the transformation got absorbed into his body and crushed by the pressure. A few more shinobi tried to turn around and run. He locked onto them "Wind Style: Air Bullet!"

Some were thrown off the bridges. Some were sent flying into buildings. A few were torn to shreds by the massive ball of wind exploding on top of them. The scales were tipped heavily in Shukaku's favour.

It was no longer an ambush. Now, it was a slaughter.

XXX

Gyuki stared into Kokuo's eyes as he choked the life out of her. Choumei came from behind to pick him up. Kokuo leapt away. Her steps were so light that they didn't break any bridges.

Choumei rammed Gyuki through one of Kumo's rocky pillars. The Eight-Tails grabbed one of the pillars and stabbed Choumei's side. The bug let go and fluttered away.

Gyuki landed, sending a shockwave through the village.

He rolled over and got back onto his tentacles. He grabbed another sharp rock and aimed it at the wounded Seven-Tails.

Steam tore through his flesh.

He reached out to grab Kokuo's neck again, but the steam ripped his skin and muscles off to expose bone. Gyuki stopped fighting and let the steam throw him back. He used his free hand to swing around another pillar.

When he came around the other side negative red chakra and positive blue chakra were combining in front of his gaping mouth.

"Shit!"

Choumei dropped a huge slab of rock on the bull-octopus, destroying his back and sending the incomplete orb of destruction into the stratosphere.

"So, that's it, huh? You really just tried to kill me!" Han thought, hopping from bridge to bridge. Kokuo's thin and nimble legs weaving through buildings and pillars to appear behind the bull. "Horn breaker!"

Kokuo dug her horns into Gyuki's flesh. The beast roared.

Gyuki pushed the huge rock off its back.

Kokuo tried to run but a group of Iwa shinobi had gotten close enough to clamp her hoof down with some sort of seal. Gyuki towered over her.

She fired steam into his face, but the seal activated to blow freezing air into the sky, eliminating her primary weapon.

Gyuki went ham. Landing blow after blow until Choumei drilled into his side and sent him flying into a group of Suna and Konoha shinobi. They tried to scatter but a few were crushed.

Choumei flew by. She sprinkled scale powder on the scene before lighting it up. Exploding chunks off the bull-octopus and killing any shinobi who hadn't gotten far enough away from it.

"How do we ground the Seven-Tails?"

"Someone get the net launcher!"

Choumei landed next to Kokuo.

"You okay, ssu?"

"Boy, can that bull hit hard…" Kokuo groaned.

"I can see Shukaku in the distance; do you think Naruto and Hinata are okay?"

"I'm sure they can hold their own… but… let's go check up on them. Help me up," Kokuo panted.

XXX

"Naruto!"

"Uzumaki!"

"2K!"

"Barrage!"

Two thousand Naruto clones charged down a hill as about five hundred Konoha shinobi made their way up it. Without Kurama, Naruto lacked the power to make a difference like Shukaku, Kokuo, and Choumei had, but what he lacked in power, he made up for in numbers.

They had circled around a couple of blocks and ended up behind the Raikage's tower, which turned out to be a good thing. The building was built to handle a siege. It was wide and flat, meaning Naruto could form a perfect semi-circle around himself and Hinata to stay safe, but still high enough above the streets of Kumo to create an ideal defensive position.

At least, that's what he thought until some Konoha shinobi started wheeling in a large metallic weapon of some sort. He'd never seen that thing before. It looked like a long metallic cannon on wheels, about two metres in height with a five-metre-long barrel and three seats at the base of it.

"What the hell is that, dattebayo?"

Hinata's eyes widened, "It's a chakra cannon!"

"A chakra what?"

"It uses the chakra of the people seating on it to fire a blast of chakra," Hinata explained.

"And why have I never heard of this until today?"

"It was only used during the Third Shinobi World War."

Naruto punched his open palm, "I knew I should've paid more attention in history class," the Uzumaki chuckled to himself.

"Naruto… Naruto! Duck!" Hinata grabbed Naruto's head and forced him down.

The beam of energy tore a hole clean through the Raikage's tower. Three shinobi unplugged themselves from the machine before hopping off and allowing three new energy sources to plug themselves in.

Naruto created another two thousand clones. This time, instead of defending their position, he sent them charging down the hill to attack the chakra cannon before it could fire again.

XXX

Gaara didn't have Hinata to tell her what this contraption being wheeled over to him was. Shukaku lifted his head. A crimson scarf had formed around his snout and neck as the blood of his victims dripped off. "What is th…?" He only knew he was screwed when the beam tore through his arm, the right side of his chest and the tip of his tail, turning the sand surround those areas into glass.

Shukaku went down.

Gaara came tumbling out.

In his controlled transformation, Gaara usually hid himself in Shukaku's left chest meaning he survived the beam without a scratch, but the heat definitely took a toll on him.

Choumei came flying in. She dropped Kokuo before zipping over to the cannon. They fired a second shot into one of her wings, but she still managed to lift the machine off the ground and toss it over the mountainside.

Kokuo picked Gaara up and placed him on her back. "How are you holding up?"

"That one took a lot out of me but give me a few minutes and I'll be able to transform again," Gaara promised.

"No, we're getting out of here."

"You say that like we haven't been trying."

"I think I've got the lungs to run for another thirty minutes or so. I'll run through the shinobi and get us out of here."

"You'll be destroyed on your way out."

"I can take it if it means saving you guys…"

A shadow loomed over the horse-whale and her rider.

Choumei crashed into Kokuo, sending Gaara hurtling through the streets of Kumo. The horse-whale landed with a thud and slid for a solid half a kilometre before coming to a stop with Choumei panting on top of her.

Gyuki was back in action.

"For fuck's sake… why won't you stay down?! Fuu… do you have a completed transformation in you?"

Choumei remained silent for a moment. She reared her head, "If I do, I don't think I could hold it for longer than a few minutes."

"That's all we need… I think I have a plan."

XXX

"Climb! Climb!" Naruto ordered as he rushed through the hallways of the Raikage's tower in search of a stairwell.

Hinata slipped. Naruto bent over to pick her up.

The deathly hot beam ripped through the air overhead, tearing the ceiling away, turning walls to rubble and sending office supplies flying through the air. The army, mainly consisting of Konoha shinobi, had fought through the Naruto clones and were now entering the Raikage's quarters.

The plan was to… they'd reach the top of the tower and… Naruto hadn't planned that far ahead but he needed to get away from the chakra cannon to think. It was really hard for an idiot like him to think of a plan when beams of red-hot chakra were being launched at him.

"Hinata, come on!"

"I can't…"

"Of course you can! Get up before the chakra cannon can reload!" the Uzumaki demanded.

"No, I physically can't!" she yelled back. Naruto had never heard Hinata yell like that before. She removed her sandal and lifted her pants to reveal a foot covered in blood.

Naruto rushed down a few stairs to inspect the wound further. "What happened?"

"I don't know… and it doesn't matter," the Hyuuga heiress sounded exhausted. She lay down on the wooden stairs and stared at the sky through the opening in the wall. "I'm slowing you down… I've been slowing you down. You just carry on and I'll… I'll surrender to the ground troops. After all, I'm no jinchuuriki… there's nothing special about me… I'm just a Hyuuga heiress. It's you they're really after."

Another chakra cannon shot rifled through the building. The beam pierced through the walls a few floors up.

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying: this is just the start of it… there'll probably be another ambush in Kiri, there'll probably be another ambush wherever we go… and knowing the Hidden Villages each attack will be stronger than the last… I really enjoyed the last few months with you… I really enjoyed hearing your voice everywhere I went. I enjoyed seeing you smile, I enjoyed seeing you struggle, I enjoyed watching you grow into a better shinobi, and in turn, growing me into a better kunoichi," Hinata needed a moment to catch her breath. In the meantime, all Naruto could hear was Kokuo calling his name. Finally, Hinata relaxed her muscles and exhaled softly, "That's all I wanted to tell you. Naruto, I really enjoyed dancing under the moonlight with you… now go on and grab your destiny with both hands."

"Naruto! Naruto! Where are you?"

Another chakra shot tore through the building. The Raikage's quarters were on the verge of coming down.

"I found them!" someone yelled from the base of the stairs.

The sound of footsteps.

Naruto stared into Hinata's eyes.

"Now go on and grab your destiny with both hands."

And Naruto did exactly that. A second Naruto poofed into existence. One arm under her neck, one arm under her knees, the Naruto clone made a break for it.

The army came up the stairs.

Naruto turned.

He cupped his right hand.

It was now or never.

Rotation.

Power.

Containment.

A spiralling sphere of blue and white energy erupted from the young Uzumaki's palm. It lit up the stairwell. It was too late for the man at the front, a brown-haired young man in his early thirties, to turn around.

Naruto didn't know his name. He didn't know who this man in a green flak jacket and navy bodysuit was. All he knew was that when this technique made contact. Destruction awaited.

"Rasengan!"

He got him good, in the stomach. Churning his skin and mincing his organs. Naruto released the technique from his palm, sending the man backwards. He collided with the group behind him and continued to fly. Down the stairwell, through the wooden flooring and down into the depths of hell.

The technique exploded. A deathly vortex of chakra that just churned and ate and chewed away at anything it could get its hands on. Nothing was safe as it continued to expand.

Naruto used this moment to stumble up the stairs.

"Naruto? Naruto!"

The shadow clone reached the spire at the top of the Raikage's headquarters. With Hinata in one hand, he raised his arm over his head and yelled, "I'm over here! Han! Here!"

The race was on. Kokuo leapt over buildings and manoeuvred around pillars as the Konoha team recalculated their chakra cannon. The muzzle began to rise. It came down to Kokuo's speed vs Konoha's calculations.

"Attack!" a swarm of Naruto clones came pouring out of the Raikage's tower. The hyperactive knucklehead just didn't know when to give up. As long as there was chakra in his pathways, there'd be Naruto clones on the battlefield. They made a bee line for the cannon. They definitely weren't going to reach it in time, but Naruto needed a distraction. He needed pressure. He got it.

The cannon fired early. Blasting through the top floor of the tower. The floor gave way underneath Naruto, but he used the last of his strength to throw Hinata across to a more stable part of the roof. The building came down around him as he dispelled. The spire began to lean. Hinata rolled until the real Naruto caught her, picking her up. He took a few more steps before jumping off the building. Kokuo emerged through the smoke and rubble to catch the pair in her mouth.

They climbed onto her head.

"What's the plan?" Hinata wondered.

"We're getting out of here."

"That's less of a plan and more of a suggestion," she replied.

"Wait for it…" Kokuo panted as Gyuki made his way towards the trio. "… wait for it…" Gyuki began swinging from pillar to pillar. "Cutting it a bit close!"

Kokuo's roars were interrupted by a burst of white light. Gyuki was stopped in his tracks. Naruto was blinded. Hinata closed her eyes. Kokuo's heart sank into her stomach. The plan was for Gaara and Fuu to transform at the same time and incapacitate the Eight-Tails, either with the explosion or by knocking him out. It would buy them the precious seconds they needed to make an escape on Kokuo's back.

The plan was working… until it wasn't. There was no explosion. No searing heat. No vibrations in the earth. After half a second of light. Everything just died down and returned to normalcy.

They didn't have it in them.

Gaara had already transformed three times. Fuu had taken too much damage in her fight with Gyuki. They didn't have enough chakra within them for one last transformation.

The Eight-Tails towered over Kokuo, Naruto, and Hinata. He reached out to grab Kokuo's neck.

Deathly silence.

A flash of light.

Raw vibrations in the earth.

A rush of chakra.

And then, the sound. A loud bang at first, followed by a slow and steady rumbling as chakra was released into the atmosphere.

Kokuo was safe behind the remnants of the Raikage's tower, but Gyuki was thrown off his tentacles. He flew into the Konoha shinobi, destroying their chakra cannon and killing a few of them.

The Five-Tails couldn't see but she didn't need ears to know what was going on. "Gaara? Fuu?" From the light emerged a flaming paw.

"Return to your normal form and climb onto my back," Matatabi commanded.

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. She came.

"Yugito Nii? Matatabi?" Kokuo's eyes widened.

"No time to exchange pleasantries, I am afraid!"

"Yugito Nii! I fucking knew it! You traitor!" Gyuki roared, rolling around in a puddle of blood. "You should be ashamed to call yourself a Kumo kunoichi!"

"And you should be ashamed to call yourself a human being! Trapping us in a prison cell hundreds of metres below ground for a month… for no reason… well, here we are giving you a reason!"

"You won't get away! We've got thousands of shinobi waiting in the wings… we'll hunt you down wherever you go!"

"… We know…" she concluded as Han, Naruto, and Hinata joined their teammates, Gaara and Fuu, on the elegant cat's back. She'd calmed the flames engulfing her body to expose light blue fur that the shinobi could cling onto.

Gyuki's mouth cracked open to reveal a Tailed Beast Bomb. It was time to go. He shot a series of them into the sky which Matatabi easily dodged. She leapt from pillar to pillar, before jumping over the entire army and making a break for it down the earthen stairs.

They were free. As free as jinchuuriki could be. Yugito Nii, arguably the most trained perfect jinchuuriki, could sustain her form for nearly an hour. Matatabi, fresh as she'd ever be, could ran for days. With that in mind, they kept running. Matatabi didn't stop until she was out of the Land of Lightning and into the Land of Frost. Only then, did she feel like it was safe enough to slow down.

Han grabbed both Fuu and Gaara. He held them in his arms until Fuu broke the silence. "I'm sorry, Han… I didn't have that last transformation in me."

"Shh, I'm just glad you're okay," he reached over and grabbed Naruto and Hinata too, "All of you…"

"If Gyuki was right about them having thousands of shinobi in the reserves, then considering how we barely got out of Kumo, I would not advise rushing to find the Three-Tails and Six-Tails," Matatabi finally said.

Han released the kids from his grip before staring down at the giant cat beneath him. "Yeah… you're right. I think we should lay low for a while… also… let's stop here so you can get out of there and introduce yourself."

Matatabi eased to a halt before letting the team down. She disappeared in a flurry of blue flames before emerging from them as Yugito Nii. The same Yugito Nii that Naruto and Gaara saw chained up in a dark, dingy corner of a cell one hundred metres below ground, just this time with a sly smirk running across her face.

Han gave the woman a hug the moment she stepped out of those flames.

"What made you change your mind?" Naruto wondered.

"Your words… I may have given your position away, but it was out of fear. Fear of what would happen to me if I got caught talking to jinchuuriki. But as I lay there in the darkness of my cell, your words rang true in my ears… is it true. Do you really think a place exists where we can live, not as jinchuuriki, but as normal human beings?"

Naruto nodded, "I'm sure of it… but I'm also sure we'll have to fight for our lives in order to reach a place like that."

Yugito looked around. She saw four kids and one proper jonin-level jinchuuriki. "Are we enough?" If they had to take on a more prepared, stronger army than the one that awaited them in Kumo, plus the Five Kage in their current state, Yugito didn't want to know what would happen.

And Naruto had the same train of thought, "No. We're not enough, we're probably gonna lose. But we're gonna go down fighting, because that's what jinchuuriki do, and it's better to die fighting for freedom than to live a long life in captivity."

"I like the fight in you," Yugito remarked, "But in any case, it's better we go into hiding for a year or two until things calm down."

"I was gonna suggest three," Han said.

"We can't go into hiding for three years," Naruto erupted, "We'll be cutting it too close."

"Too close to what?"

"To saving Sasuke."

"You're still stuck on that?" Han rolled his eyes.

"Who's Sasuke?" Yugito wondered.

"It's the kid's friend, but unfortunately, he's chosen to be Orochimaru's next vessel," Han explained.

Yugito stared at the Uzumaki, "I don't see why we can't save him then. I doubt we're a jinchuuriki-only party, especially since we have a Hyuuga."

Han's anger turned to sorrow, "… We don't have the luxury of saving him. The Nine-Tails won't lend us any of his power until we kill Sasuke… not save him."

"Really?" Yugito asked. Han nodded. Naruto followed suite. She shrugged, "It can't be helped. There's no point in sacrificing our own training to help someone we can't even help in the long run." She made her decision very quickly. "We'll train for three years, after that we'll find the remaining two jinchuuriki, and before finding this jinchuuriki paradise, we'll head west and kill Sasuke to gain the Nine-Tails' power. Is everyone in agreement?"

"Yeah," Han replied.

"Yeah," Fuu agreed. She raised Gaara's hand and replied, "Yeah," on his behalf. The redhead was too exhausted to even move.

"Hm," Hinata nodded.

Naruto stared at his feet. He closed his eyes. "Yeah."

"We wouldn't be doing this if we had a choice," Han said.

"I know."