Author's Note: Welcome back, everyone!

Disclaimer: Naruto and Inuyasha belong to their respective owners.

Dialogue Legend:

"Unforgivable" – Normal dialogue

'Unforgivable' – character's thoughts/speaking to Inner Demon/Inner Spirit/Supernatural Being telepathically through a seal

"Unforgivable" – Jutsu name; Inner Demon/Inner Spirit/Supernatural Being speaking to someone directly.

'Unforgivable' – Inner Demon/Inner Spirit/Supernatural Being speaking to someone telepathically or through a seal

Chapter 39 – Blood on the Sand

"Halt! Identify yourselves!" The four Suna guards ordered the trio of Shinobi that were approaching the village's main entrance. The apparent leader was a seventeen-year-old girl flanked by two Anbu wearing turtle masks.

"Arashi Umino, Genin of Kirigakure." The girl responded. "My associates and I have been dispatched to provide additional security for Sunagakure's Jinchuriki. It is my understanding that your village's council has been informed of our mission."

Upon hearing this, one of the guards Shunshined to the Kazekage's office. The building housed the meeting chamber for Suna's council. Several minutes later, the guard returned. "Arashi-san speaks the truth, though the missive received from Kiri indicated that she would be traveling alone."

"That was the original intent, but Mizukage-sama felt it prudent to provide an escort." Arashi clarified. "We encountered several Iwa patrols while en route; these Anbu were invaluable in detecting and avoiding them."

The guard who had just returned from the Suna council nodded in understanding and looked at his three peers. A silent conversation occurred, and a decision was reached.

"Follow me." He ordered and began walking toward the Kazekage's office. The Kiri delegation was led to a four-story building. The first floor was filled with secretaries receiving and responding to dozens of petitions made by Suna's civilians and Shinobi. After being waved through by a Suna Anbu, the quartet ascended to the second floor. Suna's ruling council, Baki, Temari, and Gaara sat at a large, round table near the back of the chamber. At the very back, a small set of stairs led behind the wall to a balcony overlooking the table. The same symbol adorning the Kazekage hat adorned a banner overlooking the balcony. The hat itself lay atop the balcony's railing.

"So you're the one Mizukage-dono sent." Baki resisted the urge to moan. He respected Kiri's circumstances – how could he not when Suna faced a similar crisis? But he failed to see how one Genin, no matter how talented, could substantially bolster Gaara's security force. The Anbu accompanying the girl did not count; their loyalty was to Kiri first and always. The nature of Arashi-san's mission forced her to be obedient to Suna, at least to a degree, but the same couldn't be said for her escorts.

"We will need to assess your abilities." Baki turned to the guard who brought the Kiri delegation into the council chamber. "Kora-kun, lead Arashi-san to the –"

"I volunteer!" Temari stood up from her seat next to Gaara.

"And why should I allow this?" Baki raised an eyebrow.

"Being part of Gaara's security detail means she'll be working closely with me. I'll get a much more thorough evaluation of her skills if I experience them firsthand than I would by observing her fight someone else." Temari proposed.

"I agree." Gaara also rose from the table. "You underestimated Shikamaru-san during the Chuunin Exams but demonstrated a most curious ability before his strategy bested you. I wish to see more of what you have to offer." The future Kazekage turned to face the men and women still seated at the table. "My esteemed councilors, is there any business left that cannot be delayed?"

"No, Gaara-san, the remaining matters can wait until your assessment is over." The eldest councilor answered.

"Come, then." Gaara led Arashi to a nearby sparring hall. Baki and Temari trailed behind them.

"Suiton: Kyou Suisou!" Arashi conjured her aquatic claws while Temari unfurled her fan.

"Begin!" Baki barked.

Temari barely managed to swing her fan once to unleash her Kamitachi no Jutsu before Arashi exploded toward her. Her oceanic claws severed the scything wind in a heartbeat; the deadly air barely slowed her down.

'Shit!' The Suna princess channeled a large amount of Chakra through her legs and leaped backward, but Arashi mimicked her technique and kept pace with minimal effort. The deadly game of cat and mouse continued for the next minute. Temari was the slightly faster of the pair and managed to stay just out of reach, but evading Arashi left her no opportunity to weave Jutsu or formulate a plan.

As Arashi neared her prey again, she clenched her left fist and threw a punch. Temari retreated half a step backward to dodge the unexpected fisticuff, but she had no recourse when the water adorning Arashi's fist fired itself straight at her!

"Urrrk!" Temari barely managed to raise her fan to block the blow in time. The worst of the damage was deflected but the impact was tremendous and sent her flying into the wall behind her.

"In Kiri's most recent civil war, my team was pivotal to the rebellion's success. Our enemies had a name for us: the Eye Wall." Arashi's dark blue eyes glowed with power, and her left hand was sheathed in watery claws once more. Her claws on both hands had darkened from the light blue of shallow water to the abyssal blue-black of the ocean's depths. "We were named after the most vicious aspect of a hurricane because our presence heralded doom for our enemies and because – just as the eye wall surrounds the benign eye with no gaps – our formation had no blind spots. Tetsuisshi-nee-chan sniped from afar, Yuu-nee-chan's bubbles provided both offense and defense from a myriad of ranges, and I closed upon my targets with unerring speed and cleaved them asunder. Our father's immense strength and Jutsu succeeded where we faltered. Individually, our talents are formidable; wielded in harmony, they are unmatched by all but the mightiest foes."

"And yet you struggled to catch Ino-san in the Preliminaries and lost to Shikamaru-kun in the Finals." Temari rebuked as she extricated herself from the crater she made in the wall.

"Yes. I held back because killing is discouraged in the final stages of the Chuunin Exams. Even so, I will not deny that underestimated my opponents." Arashi admitted. "The descendants of Poseidon-sama are often cursed with varying degrees of arrogance. The sea detests restraint. My sisters were afflicted far less than I; for them, humility came easily. My arrogance has cost me in battle several times, but nothing has brought me so close to death as Shikamaru-san's nitroglycerin trap. I owe him much; he calmed my hubristic storm."

A pink blush spread over the Kiri Genin's face. "My sisters have both expressed a desire to romance the adversaries they faced in the Exams, and the Umino Clan is in dire need of new blood. Shikamaru-san does not strike me as the type to leave his home for love, but that matters not. Our children will bear the blessing of Poseidon-sama regardless of which village's soil they are raised on."

A huge thud boomed through the sparring hall. Gaara's eyes nearly left their sockets and Baki's jaw hit the floor.

Temari cracked her knuckles after throwing her fan away. Wind began swirling around her with tremendous force. "It seems we won't be able to work together after all. Shikamaru-kun is MINE!" The storm raging around the Suna princess became almost unbearably hot. The lifeless breath of the desert deleted all water vapor in the room, forcing Arashi to expend more Chakra to maintain her Jutsu.

'Set-sama, have you been training my sister as well?' Though his ancestor was not sealed into him, Gaara knew Set could hear his thoughts now that Shukaku was too weak to keep him out.

'She's my Lorekeeper, what do you think?' Set gloated. 'Temari's fan is an adequate conduit for Chakra, but it was never meant to channel my power. You received my power over metals; Temari gained my power over storms. If she had a Suiton or Raiton affinity, she'd be able to call rain or thunderstorms.'

'I daresay she'll do just fine with only windstorms.' Gaara deadpanned. An intense sensation of sadistic glee was his only answer.

"You are a demigod as well. Based on the power radiating from you, the blessing within your blood is equal to the blessing bestowed by Poseidon-sama." Arashi observed.

"Good, that means you have roughly a fifty percent chance to avoid being pulverized!" Temari's storm coalesced in front of her.

Arashi said nothing as crouched on the floor, a lioness ready to pounce. Lightning crackled throughout her body. With no warning, she flashed toward her prey just as Temari unleashed the full fury of her storm.

"ENOUGH!" A twenty-foot-thick wall of magnetized sand erupted between the two Kunoichi. Temari's wind blast made a wrecking-ball-sized dent in the wall, and Arashi's lightning-infused aquatic slash inflicted an equally deep gash. Arashi slid down the wall to the floor after her Jutsu was spent. Temari stumbled and barely managed to remain standing. Using the divine aspect of her Chakra put a great strain on her body. With time and training, the strain would lessen, but she had a long way to go.

"The assessment is over, Arashi-san passed." Gaara decreed as his barricade collapsed to the ground. "Temari, I expect you to show our guest from Kiri the hospitality granted to all foreign delegates."

"Fine!" Temari said through gritted teeth and stomped out of the room.

"Arashi-san, you could not have known of Temari's attraction to Shikamaru-san. I have met with him recently, so I can assure you that her feelings are reciprocated by him. If you wish to contest the issue, that is your concern, but you will not come to blows with my sister for any reason while you are here!" Gaara glared at the newest member of his security force.

"I accept your terms." Arashi acquiesced. Her feelings for Shikamaru were barely more than superficial; Umino women were instinctively attracted to powerful men, be it strength of arms or keenness of mind. But she also knew that relationships based solely on lust were often doomed to fail and she knew next to nothing about the young man who had bested her. If Temari had already cultivated a more meaningful relationship with Shikamaru, then her claim was superior. Arashi was many things, but a home wrecker she most certainly was not.

Still, she would not abandon her infatuation with Shikamaru so easily. She would only accept that her endeavor was futile after hearing it from the man himself. Until then, she could be cordial with Temari. The Suna princess was undoubtedly her senior on Gaara's security force, and likely her superior on it as well. It would serve no purpose, least of all Arashi's, to antagonize such a figure further.

"Baki-san, show Arashi-san to her quarters." Gaara ordered before running after her sister.

The next day, the guards of Suna were alarmed by the sight of an entire regiment of Konoha Shinobi. They had been told to expect reinforcements from, but they weren't expecting to see fifty thousand of them! As the regiment neared Suna's main entrance, Gaara appeared before it in a swirl of sand and gazed harshly at the newcomers. "I am Gaara, son of the late Yondaime Kazekage and Jinchuriki of the Ichibi! I would speak with your commanding officer."

"You're sounding a lot better than you did in Chuunin Exam's Gaara-san. Looks like fighting Naruto-kun did wonders for you." Asuma Sarutobi chuckled after stepping out from the rest of the regiment.

Gaara needed to be sure that the army in front of him was not an Iwa force wearing Konoha clothes and faces. 'Set-sama, you're a god of Evil. What can you tell me of this regiment's intentions?'

'They're as pure as virgin snow, dear grandson!' Set cackled.

Gaara's gaze relaxed. "Through a benefactor who will remain anonymous, I have the means to detect hostile intentions and have been assured that these Shinobi have none!" He shouted. The Suna guards visibly relaxed. "Your arrival is expected, but we did not anticipate such a generous contribution to our village's defense. We were prepared to accommodate thirty thousand Konoha Shinobi. It will take some time to arrange quarters for the remainder." Gaara apologized to Asuma.

"It's no trouble. In fact, I'd prefer if you left things as they are now." Asuma smiled. "Tsunade-sama sent so many of us to ensure that we'd have plenty of troops to bolster border patrols and exterior defense without compromising interior defense. We've already got a roster figured out to make sure everyone gets their fair share of time both outside and inside Suna's walls."

"As you wish." Gaara returned the Jonin's smile. The headache of finding lodging for twenty thousand unexpected soldiers had vanished before it begun!

"Once my men are settled in, I need to talk with Suna's council about a third party in this war that came completely out of left field." Asuma said before he turned back to his regiment and began issuing orders.

"As I have a seat on the council, I will make sure they are gathered before you finish here." Gaara promised.

"What a troublesome mess!" Temari borrowed her boyfriend's favorite word after Asuma finished his briefing on the Cult of Jashin.

"Tell me about it." Asuma sighed. "If not for Fuu-san and Utakata-san, we'd have already been blindsided by these cultists."

"At least we have two more Jinchuriki to add to the Allied Shinobi Forces." Baki said.

"We don't." Asuma frowned. "Tsunade-sama promised to keep them out of the war in exchange for the knowledge they gave and an agreement to train Naruto-kun as a Jinchuriki. They can always volunteer to help with the war, but we can't order them to do it."

"Preposterous! How could Tsunade-hime consent to such an outrageous proposal?!" A Suna councilor shrieked. The incredulity of many of his peers was evident on their faces.

"The one responsible for the destruction of Orochimaru's five-headed serpent vouched for them. She is not one Tsunade-sama is willing to cross." Asuma explained.

That shut the Suna council up. They have received hundreds of statements in the aftermath of the invasion that detailed a massive beam of green light petrifying and shattering one of the gigantic snake's heads. No Jutsu could achieve that, but an entity wielding divine power certainly could. The council was aware of Gaara's lineage. If one god could exist and grant his progeny such incredible abilities, then why not another?

"If Takigakure's fate is any indication, we must assume the cult has spies within our own ranks." Baki reasoned. "Without knowing how many there are, or their ranks and occupations within Suna, the best course of action is to wait for them to make their move and hope for the best. I don't like it, but with Iwa breathing down our necks we don't have the manpower or the time to do any housecleaning."

"You're between a rock and a hard place, that's for sure." Asuma agreed. "If not for Gaara-san's declaration that all my soldiers are clean, I wouldn't have been able to safely say that none of my boys and girls are cultists in disguise either. We had a lot of volunteers for this regiment. At the time, I thought it was because they all felt bad that Suna was used by Orochimaru. When we learned about Jashin's cult, I started to have doubts but by then we already had our orders to march."

'Set-sama?' Gaara inquired.

'I can't help you again. Not for the next month or so, at least.' Set denied. 'Remember when I said Gaia doesn't need the Worldborn anymore to defeat most outside threats? For the most part, she sleeps and allows her guardians to continue performing their duties. However, if one of them is incapacitated and the domain they were created to protect is threatened, she awakens to defend herself personally. Sensing the intentions of Konoha's army alone caused her to stir. Another direct intervention so soon may awaken her completely, and I like existing.'

Gaara barely resisted the impulse to moan as he addressed the others in the room. "The benefactor who assured me of your army's intentions did so through a Jutsu that poses a great risk to him. He will recover in time, but we can't rely on him to detect the cultists until then."

"Figures." Asuma grunted. "Sad to say, but that means a lot of the people in this room can't be trusted either."

The Suna councilors bristled with indignation but held their tongues since they knew Asuma was right.

"Gaara-san, until we know for sure there are no rats in our midst it's better if you and I discuss Suna's defense in private." Asuma suggested.

"My sister is the head of my security detail and will accompany me." Gaara insisted. "We also have a delegation from Kiri: two Hunter-nin and Arashi-san from the Chuunin Exams. I wish to trust Arashi-san at the very least."

"That should be fine." Baki vouched. "She was sent to us per the Mizukage's direct order. Per your report, Terumi-dono has already demonstrated that she's no traitor.

"Fair enough." Asuma complied.

Two nights later, when nearly all of Suna was asleep, seventeen thousand Acolytes crashed into the Konoha troops stationed outside the village like a tidal wave. Another three thousand slipped outside Suna through secret exits meant to evacuate civilians in an emergency. The pincer attack would have slaughtered the twenty thousand Konoha Shinobi if Suna's Anbu hadn't followed the rats within the village walls through the secret passages. Two thousand Konoha Shinobi died in the fighting. The cheers of the remaining eighteen thousand rang loudly in the night, only to be swiftly silenced by the two hundred Priests who leapt from atop Suna's walls and fell upon them as lethal rain.

Blood-red skin flickered through forest-green armor. Konoha's soldiers fell with brutal efficiency. These Priests had learned from the folly of their predecessors and struck with cold calculation instead of blazing fanaticism. Eighteen thousand ninja fell, and 197 Priests remained standing.

"Katon: Haisekishou!" (Fire Release: Ash Pile Burning) Asuma Shunshined onto the blood-soaked sand and exhaled Chakra-infused gunpowder at the cultists. He had ordered his surviving men to stay back, so he had no concerns about friendly fire. With a quick use of flint, the gunpowder cloud ignited and killed ninety-seven Priests.

"Sabaku Kyuu!" (Sand Binding Coffin) The sand beneath the feet of the remaining hundred Priests rose and captured them, suspending them dozens of feet in the air.

"Sabaku Sousou!" The sand prisons imploded, crushing the Priests into oblivion.

The sound of applause caused Asuma and Gaara to turn their heads to the right. A white-robed woman with a black ponytail and green eyes was clapping her hands with glee. "Well done, gentlemen!"

"You're awfully happy considering thousands of your fellow cultists are dead." Asuma's eyes narrowed.

"Their deaths are of little consequence, so long as at least as many enemies fall with them!" The woman tittered.

"The soldiers lost today died ensuring your ilk will never conquer this village." Gaara willed the sand to imprison the woman, but she moved with tremendous speed and struck at him. His sand barely had time to leap out of his gourd to defend him and the impact sent him sliding back several feet.

'Impossible! Her speed just now was identical to his!' Gaara recalled his fight with Lee.

"It is my understanding that you fought a user of the Eight Gates Technique during the Chuunin Exams, Gaara-kun." The woman smiled. "I see your sand shield has improved since then; you have so much to thank your mother for!"

The woman's eyes grew red. "In terms of combat potential, the Acolytes of Jashin are disposable. The Priests are only slightly less so. Bishops like myself represent the first step into the full extent of Jashin-sama's might!" Her eyes turned red and her body began glowing crimson with power, but whatever she was about to do was halted by a Chakra blade piercing through her spine.

"You talk too much, Bishop of Jashin." Asuma withdrew his blade from the woman, and he nearly lost his head when she clawed at his neck.

"The benefits of being one of Jashin-sama's Bishops grant me the luxury to, Asuma-kun!" The hole in the Bishop's chest was closing rapidly, the damage to her spine already healed. Her red aura flared again, and the ground began to tremble.

"Your precious mother imbued her Chakra, her very will, into the sand that protects you at all times, Gaara-kun. Without her love, you wouldn't pose nearly the threat you do!" The Bishop taunted as the bloodied sands started to visibly quake. "Tell me, boy, do you honestly believe that woman was the only one capable of achieving such a miracle? Jashin-sama feeds upon death, upon sacrifice! To the higher echelons of his disciples, manipulating life force is child's play!"

The blood seeped into the quaking sand, causing it to churn like boiling water. Asuma and even Gaara barely managed to keep their footing on the desert's surface.

"One life, one soul, blessed you with immense protection. I have over forty thousand souls to use! Your pathetic village will drown in their screams!" The sand stopped quaking, stopped churning. Gaara tried to send a sand tsunami at the Bishop, but for the first time in his life, the sand refused to obey him. The Chakra he infused into it was rejected. Asuma exhaled and ignited another gunpowder cloud, but someone capable of moving as fast as Lee with five gates open had no trouble evading the blast.

"ARISE!" The Bishop shouted. The blood-red sand erupted into a one-thousand-foot-tall humanoid. The elemental construct marched to Suna's outer wall and smashed a huge portion of it to pieces with one punch. 5,500 Konoha and Suna soldiers stationed on the shattered portion of the wall perished. As the elemental withdrew its fist, the blood of its victims flew into the air and merged into the massive monster.

"Ryuusa Bakuryuu!" Gaara reached out to the sand well beyond his immediate vicinity and formed a magnetized, five-hundred-foot-tall tsunami out of it. He held nothing back and willed his attack to break the sound barrier. The wave of sand slammed into the elemental and forced it dozens of miles away from Suna but failed to harm it.

"A futile effort." The Bishop mocked. "Elementals can't be damaged by their composite element."

"Hmph!" Gaara willed his tsunami to trap the elemental, trusting his partner to kill their enemy in his stead. Gargantuan bands of sand wrapped around the elemental's limbs. It writhed and thrashed, but had no leverage to break the desert's chains.

Asuma again flashed toward the Bishop and sought to carve her asunder on his blades. Her speed was tremendous, but he was used to sparring with Kakashi and he was far faster when he got serious. This time, he imbued Fuuton into his trench knives. The slicing Chakra made the wounds he inflicted far more difficult to heal. The Bishop did all she could to get some of Asuma's blood, but the son of Hiruzen was far too wary of Jashin's Curse to leave the woman an opening. With each cut Asuma made, the Bishop's wounds healed a little slower. She soon made a desperate lunge and overextended, granting Asuma an opening to sever her arm.

"AAAAARRRRGGHH!" The Bishop screamed. Asuma kicked the fallen limb away. The woman's wound closed, but her limb did not regenerate. The Konoha Jonin smiled upon realizing the limitation of his opponent's technique and moved to sever her other three limbs. As the Bishop was still distracted by pain, he had little trouble succeeding.

"A-A-As expected of Hiruzen-san's son." The Bishop coughed. "You truly are a cut above the rest, but my death will seal your doom!" All of the blood left in the cultist's body flooded into her mouth and solidified into a projectile. Asuma dodged the sanguine missile, but he was never its intended target. The blood warhead streaked toward the elemental and crashed into its head.

Empowered by another – far stronger – soul, the elemental tore through Gaara's bindings like they were paper. Gaara flinched badly as the recoil of his shattered Jutsu hit him, but he collected himself as the elemental stood up and began marching toward Suna once more.

'You cannot win.' Set warned. 'The elemental is immune to direct attempts to manipulate it with your Chakra, and the woman was correct. No amount of sand will harm this creature.'

'I will not sit back and do nothing while this abomination lays waste to my home!' Gaara snapped.

'Actually, you will.' Set decreed. 'Sitting down and allowing another to fight in your stead is the only path to victory. Isn't that right, Shukaku?'

Gaara felt a slithering in his mind as his soul-tenant responded. 'Fuck off, Set! Why should I bust my balls to save that shitty village when I've barely recovered enough to speak?!'

'It is your duty.' The Egyptian God of Evil replied.

'Fuck my duty! That village has put me through Hell so why should I lift one finger to ACK!' Gaara felt an incomprehensible Presence enter his mind. It was Old. It was Power. It was Growth and Trees and Rocks and many other Things. Far too many for his mind to grasp. He nearly shit himself as this Entity rummaged through his mind and focused its immutable will upon Shukaku.

'ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT I'LL DO IT!' Shukaku screamed. The Presence retreated.

'It is always pleasing to see a mother discipline a disobedient child.' Set laughed.

Gaara blanched. 'That was Gaia-san?'

'For the moment, she seems willing to overlook my presence in favor of the far more immediate threat before us. Shukaku's cooperation likely influenced that decision as well.' Set answered.

'Cooperation my left nut!' Shukaku grumbled. 'Okay, listen up brat! I'm nowhere near recovered enough to manifest outside of you, so you need to sit perfectly still while I gather the Natural Energy needed to destroy that thing!'

'Shukaku speaks of Senjutsu: the art of absorbing the energy of the planet itself into your being and blending it with your own Chakra.' Set clarified before Gaara could interrupt. 'The technique is usable by humans as well but is incredibly dangerous to learn. The Worldborn are naturally capable of it, but they can only do so while within the domains they were created to protect. This is why no otherworldly entity can best the Worldborn in their own domains.'

Gaara's mind was reeling as he sat down and began to meditate. The techniques he used to rest as much as possible while Shukaku was whispering in his mind required him to remain completely still. With his host's body completely immobile, Shukaku had no issue gathering Gaia's energy.

The elemental had walked halfway back to the Suna by the time Gaara sat down. As Shukaku began gathering Natural Energy into himself, the elemental roared in rage. A sphere of blood-red sand began forming in front of its mouth.

'Well, fuck!' Shukaku was nowhere done gathering the power he needed as the sphere enlarged to the size of a Bijuu-dama. Before it could be fired, a titanic crimson lightning bolt streaked down from a cloudless sky and struck the elemental on the head. Upon impact, the bolt splinted into hundreds of smaller bolts that tore through the abomination's body and reduced it to thousands of sand clumps, but they started to recombine before they hit the ground.

'As I thought.' Set sighed. 'The enormous volume of human souls sacrificed to birth the elemental has bound it to the mortal plane. It will reform endlessly regardless of how much power is generated to destroy it unless the souls trapped within are purged from its essence. I can use my power over Chaos to achieve this, but the effort would spiritually scar this land. At best, this would render Suna uninhabitable for a millennium.'

'Gaia-sama ain't gonna like this, but we got no choice. The sand and blood forming that thing need to be disintegrated down to the subatomic level. The souls powering it are trapped in the blood used to make it. We break it down to just protons, neutrons, and electrons, and that blood won't be blood anymore!' Shukaku strategized. 'I can pull that off, but it'll take even more Natural Energy then I was already planning to grab. I need ten minutes!'

'You'll have them.' Set promised. A gargantuan supercell manifested above the elemental as it finished reforming itself. Another blast of crimson lighting stunned the creature, and ten funnel clouds sunk into the bloodied sand. The tornadoes slammed the elemental face-first into the ground; two drilled into each limb, the ninth pierced its head, and the tenth – largest – twister bore into its torso. Only its capacity to constantly reform itself after being damaged prevented the elemental from being broken down and sucked into the hungry vortexes. The rate of damage precisely equaled the elemental's regeneration speed.

The elemental's wrathful screams were audible even over the storm's fury. Hundreds of tendrils snaked beneath the desert's surface towards Gaara.

"Kuchiyose: Kirikiri Mai!" Temari appeared beside her brother and summoned Kamatari. The sickle weasel unleashed his slicing winds upon the ground before him, decimating the elemental's tendrils. More came, but they were incinerated by Asuma's gunpowder cloud.

"Don't forget about me!" The Konoha Jonin yelled.

"Or us!" Three water dragons pulverized another wave of tendrils. While Arashi specialized in close-quarters combat, her father and long since stressed upon her the need for attacks that could be used at a distance. The Kiri delegation protected Gaara from the rear while Temari and Asuma guarded him from the front. The surviving members of the Konoha regiment and Suna's forces pitched in as well. Earth walls, fire blasts, wind blades, and even some lightning bolts all rushed to intercept the elemental's efforts.

Each one felt like an hour, but eventually the last of the ten minutes Shukaku needed passed. 'All done! Gaara, give me control for the next part. You've got no clue how to use Senjutsu and this'll all be for nothing if you die trying to figure it out!'

Gaara blanched as he relinquished control of his body to the Tailed Beast. Shukaku stretched Gaara's hands in front of his body, fingers spread wide. A Bijuu-dama formed between the outstretched hands, but it stopped growing once it reached the size of a basketball. The brown light it radiated was dull, making it resemble a large ball of mud more than anything.

'Hurl that bastard into the sky so I can get a clean shot!' Shukaku commanded.

Set's tornadoes stopped drilling into the elemental and began wrapping around their designated body parts like chains. With a roar that shook the heavens, the divine storm heaved the fell elemental skyward. The supercell vanished the instant its prey was airborne, leaving clear skies for Shukaku.

The Senjutsu-empowered Bijuu-dama grew in size and brightness as it soared toward its target. At the moment of impact, it was near-blinding to look at and over twice the size of Suna. A mushroom cloud was born as the elemental was obliterated. The accompanying shockwave would have destroyed Suna if Set had not erected a barrier of wind to absorb the blow. All of Suna's occupants cheered in victory.

"Great, great. An abomination destroyed and a village saved." Shukaku spoke with Gaara's voice. "Makes me sick to even think about the second part, so I'm going back to sleep!" Shukaku surrendered control of his host's body and fell comatose once more.

"This has been the most productive investment yet!" A white-robed man cried with glee as the elemental perished. He and eight other Bishops had been observing the battle from a site far removed from the action.

"Very much so." One of the four female Bishops agreed. "The twenty thousand Konoha souls and those atop the shattered wall were reward enough, but our dearly departed comrade even managed to corrupt a small piece of Gaia-dono herself! A blow to the strength of Jashin-sama's nemesis, however small, is worthy of tremendous praise!"

"When Hidan-sama hears our report, he will undoubtedly declare our fallen sister to be a martyr." A different male Bishop sighed in ecstasy. "Regrettably, the celebration will be delayed until this war is done. Akatsuki is slowly becoming more proficient at finding our lairs. The more of our lesser ranks perish whilst performing their duty, the fewer tracks will be left for Akatsuki to follow."

"I'm afraid none of our order will be forging elementals from blood anytime soon." The female Bishop moaned. "With the desert no longer in danger of defilement, Gaia-dono will soon return to her slumber, yet – even so – she'll not be caught off guard again."

Her fellow Bishops grumbled in agreement as the group left the area.

"GAARA!" Temari screamed as her brother collapsed to the ground. His life was in no danger, but the movement of so much Natural Energy through his body had exhausted him. He was still conscious but was far too tired to move.

Arashi had been a few feet closer to Gaara when he fell and was the first to appear at his side. When she grabbed his hand to hoist him off the ground, a feeling very similar to a static shock surged through both of them.

For Gaara, the sensation was unexpected but not a cause for alarm. He merely attributed it to another side effect of Shukaku's Senjutsu.

Arashi, on the other hand, recoiled as if she'd been burned. "By the gods, no! Please, NO! Not like this!" She Shunshined away.

"What the fuck is her problem?!" Temari glared at the spot Arashi had just vacated. Any goodwill the Kiri Genin had gained with her vehement defense of Gaara was now gone.

'Oh, my. Even I didn't see this coming!' Set cackled.

Chapter End