"Fuyukaji!" Tatsumi said with concern. His large wings shuddered and he dropped fifty feet before regaining his balance. Hibara flapped several times to maintain her height.
"I'm fine," Fuyukaji growled. "The wind current is disturbed."
"Kyuubi," Ganenmaru snarled. "He's awakening. If we don't hurry, that Uzumaki boy is done for." Fuyukaji roared and loosed a torrent of white fire from between his gaping jaws. Tatsumi growled with him.
"I snacked on ten foxes yesterday," he growled. "They're tough and flavorless." He licked his chops and loosed another stream of fire. "I'm overdue for another meal." Tatsumi grinned.
"Don't forget," said Ganenmaru, growling deep within his chest, "I was once the most powerful chakra beast in existence. Kyuubi is no match for me..." He snarled and began to glow with blue chakra. "When I can return to my old form at will!"
"GRAAAH!" Naruto cried, leaping toward Sasuke and clawing at him in a frienzied state. Sasuke dodged effortlessly, his Sharingan standing out against his face like rubies against snow. Every time Naruto's claws neared his body, he countered with his blade. Neither opponent seemed tired.
"Unh... hah!" Sasuke grunted, blocking Naruto's attack again and throwing him into the dirt. Naruto leapt up and rushed forward again. Again Sasuke blocked and threw him. Naruto growled in frustration.
"Heh. Physical attacks are useless, at least straight to the front." He formed a few hand signs. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!" A cloud of smoke covered the field. When it cleared, one hundred Naruto clones surrounded the original. Swirling spheres of red chakra formed in their palms. "Rasengan!" they all cried, dashing toward Sasuke. Sasuke's eyes widened a fraction of an inch. His hand tightened on the Chidori blade, and he drove it into the ground. Electricity coursed through the moisture in the soil, hitting and destroying all of the shadow clones. Naruto panted angrily, his eyes glowing red.
"Hmph," Sasuke sneered. "So much for your 'powerful' fox." He sheathed his blade and crouched low, forming hand signs. Black lightning crackled around his palm. A stream of black chakra covered the ground around his feet, spreading farther every second. He dashed toward Naruto with speed nearly equal to Lee's. "Haaah! Chid-" He stopped a yard away from Naruto, clutching his chest and sinking to his knees. He coughed, spitting a large amount of blood onto the ground. The black chakra behind him began to take shape.
First the feet appeared, then the legs, the torso, the arms, and finally the head of a pale man with long black hair and purple streaks beneath his amber eyes. Sasuke paled and coughed up more blood as the man turned toward him. Sasuke looked toward Naruto, pure terror in his eyes.
"Naru... to..." he gasped, his eyes losing their cold indifference. "This... isn't me..." He gasped in pain as the chakra began to envelop his body. His skin began to separate from his hands and arms to be replaced by green and black scales. "I don't... want... to..." He screamed in agony as the chakra intensified, covering his neck and torso in scales. "To..." The scales covered his legs and face, and his eyes burned amber as his forked tongue lashed around his venom-dripping fangs. "Kill you..." he whispered. His eyes dulled and lost their emotion, and he stood, vomiting a stream of blood onto the grass. The man behind him chuckled.
"Poor Sasuke," he said mockingly. "You truly thought you were rid of me." Sasuke hissed as his arms and legs contracted into his body, which elongated into a snakelike form. "You came to me on your own. It was your choice to surrender your body to me." He touched a hand to the snake-who-was-Sasuke's forehead. "You thought Itachi rid you of my influence." He leaned closer and whispered, "But we are the same, you and I. You can never be rid of me."
"Orochimaru!" Naruto growled in disgust. "It was you! I knew something had changed about Sasuke!"
"Yes," Orochimaru smiled. "Because of you, in fact." Naruto froze.
"Because of me?" Orochimaru grinned.
"You really do look like Yondaime..." he said casually.
"Quit trying to change the subject! What do you mean 'because of me?'"
"I was never really dead. I merely took me time, hiding within Sasuke's body and feeding off of his chakra. In their final fight, Itachi used the Mangekyo to prevent Sasuke from drawing on my powers for the rest of his life. Quite an inconvenient snag in my plan, since now I was trapped." He shrugged nonchalantly. "Maybe Itachi was too weak to cast the seal entirely correctly, or maybe he didn't plan to. But either way, after five years, Sasuke gave up his quest for vengeance and came to find Konoha, although he wasn't sure about truly coming back.
"However, when the Anbu attacked him near Tanzaku and Miss Hitarashi nursed him back to -"
"Sango?!" Naruto cried in disbelief. "She knew he was - She helped him?!"
"I take it this is news to you, eh? Anyway, after she banished him from her house - which served him right, in my opinion. He was being very rude - he couldn't shake the urge to see her again in an effort to gain acceptance from at least one person." He sighed. "In fact, he even let the pregnant little thing beat him senseless in the hope that it would make amends. Not my idea of how to win acceptance, but... Ah, anyway, the day he saw you and Sakura, Itachi's seal broke. I can't really explain why, but the second he entered the confrontation with you, the jealousy and anger and all of his memories broke the seal."
"No..." Naruto whispered. A fourth and fifth tail appeared behind him. "Noooo!" Snake-Sasuke hissed at the immense power emanating from him. Naruto's skin peeled away like Sasuke's, blood and chakra forming him into the shape of Kyuubi. He roared and howled like a rabid wolf, screaming his pain and rage to the heavens. The seventh and eighth tails whipped out behind him. His transformation was nearly complete.
Suddenly a growl shattered the air like thunder. With a crashing force that could destroy Konoha if needed, a blue chakra beast burst through the trees and stopped before Naruto, growling as if all the fury that had ever existed in the world had entered him. A smaller gray wolf stood beside him, the result of Beast Mimicry in its advanced form.
The eight-tailed beast's chakra was so strong that it created a crater in the earth and stung the smaller wolf, making her whine and shy away a few steps. A white tiger stood behind the beast, and a dragon flew next to an eagle over his head.
"Ah, the Eight-Tailed, hachibi... Ganenmaru..." Orochimaru whispered. "So this is the Great Demon Wolf..." Ganenmaru snarled and snapped his teeth toward Orochimaru."
"Traitorous snake!" he spat. Orochimaru smirked.
"Shouldn't you worry a little less about me a and a little more about Kyuubi?" Ganenmaru wheeled aroudn as he heard Sakura scream.
"No, Naruto! Please!" she begged. "Don't transform now! Please! You want to be able to come back!" Naruto snarled at her, his small form overshadowed by the fiery demon bristling behind him. Eight tails thrashed behind his glowing bulk, and the tip of a ninth had begun to surface. Ganenmaru's eyes widened in fear. With a roaring growl, he sprang at Kyuubi, aiming his gaping jaws for the neck of the fox. The two collided in a mess of chakra and thrashing tails, snarling and roaring as each struggled for the upper hand.
"Stay... out of this..." Kyuubi hissed. Ganenmaru roared in pain as the fox's teeth sank into his right shoulder. Chakra ran like blood from the wound. With a roaring howl, he wrenched himself free and sank his fangs into Kyuubi's back. The fox shrieked in pain and tried to slash at Ganenmaru's belly, but he couldn't free himself from the wolf's crushing jaws. Below them, Naruto groaned in pain as Kyuubi's chakra retreated from his body. Ganenmaru ripped and tore at the fox with his claws and teeth, making Kyuubi whimper and whine like a wounded pup. Finally he rolled Kyuubi onto his back and clenched his teeth around his neck, snarling as every hair on his massive body bristled out.
"Do you submit?"
"Bah! Never!" Kyuubi spat. Ganenmaru's jaws tightened around his throat. After a few minutes in the stranglehold, Kyuubi relented. "Fine. You win," he hissed. "I'll retreat for now. But only because my presence is killing the boy, and you'll soon have other foes to deal with." Ganenmaru snorted in surprise.
"Other foes?! What do you mean?" He snarled and snapped his teeth a hairsbreadth above Kyuubi's vulnerable neck. "What have you done, you fool?!" Kyuubi grinned.
"I've done nothing. It was the Snake..." He laughed as he faded away, enjoying Ganenmaru's confusion and anger. "Nice to see you again... Cousin..." Ganenmaru shook his head in frustration, then allowed himself to regain a solid form and trotted over to Sango.
"What is it?" she growled, her long white fangs glinting in a snarl. The others joined her from behind, Fuyukaji and Hibara descending into the trees to let Tatsumi, Ruku, and Disura dismount. Hibara screeched and ruffled her feathers in agitation. Fuyukaji growled deep in his chest, the fire on his feet and tail burning pure white, as Kirimatsume tore at the soft earth with his claws.
"Sasuke and the Snake Sage aren't our only enemies, it seems," he whispered. Disura and Jakku groaned.
"What do you mean?" Sango asked.
"I'm not sure, actually. But Kyuubi said we'd have other foes to face, thanks to Orochimaru."
"It feels like we're being watched, doesn't it?" Tatsumi suddenly broke in.
"Like we have other..." Sakura trailed off. "Ah! Get down!" she cried as she pushed Jakku to the ground. It wasn't a moment too soon. The second they touched the ground, a kunai sailed over their heads, embedding itself up to the hilt in a nearby tree. In an instant, the bark began to darken and peel off, killed by the poison on the kunai.
"Kuso!" Tatsumi hissed. "If it's not one thing, it's another!" Kirimatsume growled and leapt into the trees, a white, silent blur. A moment later, he reemerged, carrying a man between his teeth, which were buried in the man's flesh around his chest and abdomen. The man groaned and struggled, but there was no escape. Kirimatsume dropped the man at their feet, flicking his tail impatiently.
"A spy," he said. "From the Sound."
"The Sound?" asked Sango. "But that m-" A buzzing sound interrupted her, vibrating around her furry neck.
"-go! I... d your help... diately!" a voice buzzed through the transmitter.
"Konohamaru! What's wrong?"
"..."
"Konohamaru!"
"-ango! Lee's un... scious and... been pois..."
"I can't hear you! The signal's weak!" she cried as she moved the frequency dial with a gray paw.
"-r me? Sango, can you hear me?" Konohamaru's voice hummed over the transmitter.
"Yes! What's wrong?"
"Sango, we're being attacked in Konoha," he responded with a forced calm tone. "Lee fought off some of them, but they knocked him unconscious... He's bleeding a lot..."
"What's happened to you?" Sango asked as she heard his tired, ragged panting.
"I've... been poisoned... By a kunai... Unh... I can hold them off a little longer but... ugh... Sango, they're... They're trying to get to Jitchi."