Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Troublesome ❯ Chapter 1

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

A/N: Well... Sorry guys. I had to start this fic. It's been bugging me ever since I have thought of it. Though on the bright side after I get this chapter out I can focus on Blood Naruto and Naruto of Spira and finally finish them, baring anything else happening. I put a little comedy into this chapter to lift the mood before having the real fun begin. This fic, for the most part, will be serious but don't be surprised to see a few comedic scenes like that every now and then. I'm not entirely sure who is in the Niju Shotai, so if I make any mistakes, deal with them. I'm unfamiliar with this part of the manga as I haven't read it yet, but I'm not really following cannon anyways so it doesn't matter, though I am at the same time.

I will say this once; there will be Character Deaths in this fic, and in THIS chapter. And this is M rated for a reason; some of this stuff is actually pretty gruesome. Hell I had to edit one scene as I couldn't show that on here. Hope you enjoy it.

Warning! Spoilers for Recent Naruto chapters ahead, so if you don’t want to know what happens till you read it in Shonen Jump or whatever, don’t read.

I Do Not Own Naruto.

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In a hidden village on top of a mountain, a blonde haired girl wearing a black and white outfit panted lightly as she looked at the two men wearing black cloaks in front of her and gritted her teeth. She couldn't understand how they were matching her move for move and easily countering her. She was the second strongest in Kumogakure even without the use of her tenant. And if she did use it, she was stronger than even the Raikage himself. Yet these two men seemed to be beyond even his level as everything she did left them unfazed.

Growling lightly to herself, she glared at the two in front of her. Seeing she had no choice, she backed up a bit and was ready to call on her tenant. "You guys just made a big mistake. I’m not going to hold back on you any longer."

The two men just smirked at her as if daring her to go all out making the blonde haired jinchuuriki grit her teeth even more. 'Nibi! I need your help with these guys!

From deep within her mind, two goldish yellow eyes opened up before a hiss that sounded somewhat like a groan was heard followed by a somewhat feminine, yet powerful voice. "What now kitten? I was having the most wonderful dream. I was getting ready to get laid by this..."

'NIBI! I SAID I NEED HELP HERE! NOT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR DREAMS OF GETTING LAID!'

Another groan was heard from the being with the two large yellow eyes before she sighed and closed her eyes. "I heard you the first time kitten, but what's in it for me? I'm tired of helping you every time you need help. I hear you talking about wanting to be normal and wish that you didn't have me sealed within you. So here is your chance. Do this on your own."

Growling was heard from its vessel, most likely angered from the fact that it denied her of the help she needed. 'NIBI! HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THAT IF I DIE YOU DIE?!’

"Kitten, when you die, I will be resurrected. I cannot die as the God of Death is my boss and he doesn't allow me die. I was nearly killed by Kyuubi over half a millennium ago and was about to die when he stepped and saved my life and sealed Kyuubi away. So do not think of yourself as special as if you have the power to wield death over me Yugito, as not even the great kitsune could. I am immortal, unlike that man in front of you."

Yugito's eyes widen as she heard Nibi's response and couldn't help back up even more. 'But that shouldn’t be possible! The seal was designed so that when I died I would take you with me!'

Nibi sighed in annoyance as she shook a bit, revealing her to be a giant pitch black cat with two body length tails chained down as with the rest of her body. "Kitten, I already have explained it to you, but to clarify it for you, I will do it again. I cannot die because the God of Death will not allow me to die. So I am immortal to every extent of the word."

'But why?! Why did you help me for all these years if you could be freed if I died?!' Yugito screamed at her tenant as she backed away even further from the two slightly confused men, waiting for her to release the power of her tenant.

A sigh was heard from the nekomata as it pawed the ground lightly. "Because I believed I could change you. I have never seen a jinchuuriki act like you before. Every single person that has been or is a jinchuuriki has lived through things that they should not have to endure, yet the almost always persevere. They don't take for granted everything they earn and cherish the small things in life."

"You on the other hand are a spoiled brat that has been given everything you wanted and thrown it away once you are finished with it. You are arrogant to those who you believe are inferior to you, explaining why you are in this situation, fighting two beyond your precious father's level. So since you got yourself into this, get yourself out of it and stop bothering me!" Nibi cut the connection between her vessel before curling into herself and closing her eyes.

Yugito's eyes widen once more as the connection between them was cut off. She looked up to see the two men advance on her making her back up even further, not sure what to do. She looked around, trying to find someone to help her and/or a way to escape, but she found none as she backed herself into the alley wall. Her eyes widen in fear and realization as she looked back at the two in front of her. She wasn't getting out of this.

The man with silver noticed her eyes before shaking his head. "It seems she finally understands that she cannot get out of this. And here I was going to show her how terrifying we really can be. Damn, let's just get her back to the base so we can extract Nibi and seal her with the others."

In an instant, two yellow eyes snapped open from within Yugito before a pulse of purple chakra surrounded her and began to take the form of a cat. It continued to expand as it pushed back the two men from the sheer force of it as a large purple chakra cat, the size of a building, with two tails swaying beyond it formed. Yugito's eyes widen as her tenant chakra flowed through her and didn't understand what was happening. 'Nibi. I thought you weren't going to help me.'

"Do not think I'm helping you for the sake of being kind. I am helping you because I will NOT be sealed with the other bijuu! I hate ever last one of them and will do everything in my power to keep from ever having to see them again! Even if it means helping a pathetic excuse of a jinchuuriki like you." Nibi growled out in response as her focus was completely on the two men in front of her vessel.

Yugito mentally nodded at her tenant before turning towards the two men looking at her through the haze of chakra. Neither seemed to be worried as the both looked at her with an indifferent look on their faces. Both Nibi and Yugito snarled at them seeing this as the chakra cat lowered itself into a pouncing position. After a few minutes, both noticed they weren't going to move so Yugito made the first move and lunged at them.

In response, Hidan quickly threw his scythe towards the middle of the chakra cat as one of Kakuzu's bird mask detached itself from him before floating into the air before it shot out what seemed to be a ball of pressurized air. The giant cat easily dodged the scythe in mid air and landed on the ground before it was forced to jump into the air to avoid the ball of air, which slammed into the building behind and leveled it with the utmost ease.

Yugito narrowed her eyes as she landed on the building at the side of the alley and noticed the damage. 'Dammit! They were toying with me earlier!'

Nibi did not answer her vessel as she already knew this but her sole focus was on the two as Hidan caught his scythe as two more mask detached from Kakuzu.

Jumping back down, Yugito narrowly avoided the two lighting bolts that shot from the Ox mask as she charged them once more before sending a chakra claw towards them. To her surprise, neither jumped to avoid it as it hit Kakuzu, barely pushing him back and not even leaving a scratch. Yugito's eyes widen seeing this before she was forced to dodge a stream of fire from the lion's mask. She noticed Hidan rushing her once more and slashed a claw towards him.

To her surprise, he didn't even dodge as the claw tore through his abdomen and didn't even look like it fazed his as he threw his scythe towards the center of the chakra cat. Ducking below the scythe, she quickly ran towards him in hope to catch him off guard, only to jump back as a stream of fire enveloped him in an attempt to hit her. Yugito's eyes widen at the fact that his partner didn't even try to avoid hitting him in battle. As she watched the fire die down, her eyes widen even further as the man stood there looking unaffected by the flames, though he seemed to be a little irritated.

"KAKUZU YOU ASSHOLE! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE AIMING THAT THING! IT HURT LIKE HELL!"

"Don't get in my way then." Kakuzu responded not caring at all for his partner's safety.

If they weren't in the middle of battle, both Nibi and Yugito would have laughed from the exchange between the two. Shaking that off, Yugito quickly charged Hidan to put him away. Hidan quickly turned to her before pulling his arm back. Both looked confused as to why he did that before they heard something flying in the air. Yugito turned her head around only to see the scythe right in front of her and slashing into her rib cage.

She hissed in pain as she jumped out of the way to keep it from doing more damage as Hidan walked up to it and picked it up with a smile on his face. "Well, this fight is over. Kakuzu, hold her off a bit as I begin the ritual."

Kakuzu nodded as Hidan walked besides him and order his mask to attack the chakra cat. Yugito gritted her teeth as she dodged two bolts of lighting only to see the ball of wind catch the fire and created a fire wave heading towards her. Both of their eyes widen as the chakra cat tried to jump out of the way, only to be slammed into the wall by the exploding flames. Nibi's chakra keep the fire from doing too much damage to Yugito, but it still was enough to leave some first degree burns on her.

Once the flames died down, Yugito took a moment to recover before she was forced to dodge another fire wave, this time succeeding. Once she landed she rushed towards the two, avoiding the bolts of lighting, balls of wind and flames coming from the mask. As she neared them, Kakuzu jumped into her path as she slashed at Hidan and pulled in all his masks to protect them. Once again, he was only knocked back as her claw left no signs of damage on him. Yugito hissed at this and slashed at him again as Nibi analyzed what was happening.

'How is my chakra claw not harming him? It is hitting him dead center every time, but it hasn't even left a mark on him. It's as if it's hitting metal... That's it!' Nibi proclaimed to herself before speaking to her vessel. "Yugito! The chakra claw isn't going to work against him. He's using an earth jutsu to harden his skin to keep us from damaging him! The only way to damage him is to over power it or attack it with a lighting jutsu!"

Yugito nodded her head lightly hearing this, but due to her inability to use jutsu while using Nibi's chakra, she had to go with over powering him. Combining her chakra with Nibi's, she slashed Kakuzu furiously, but to no avail as he just continued to be knocked back and had no damage done to him. Yugito continued slashing at him as Nibi realized she wasn't going to be able to.

"Yugito no! Go after the other one! You can't do any damage to this one like this!"

Nibi's cry went ignored as Yugito continued to slash at the seemingly indestructible Kakuzu as her claws were doing absolutely nothing to him. Even slamming him into the wall was doing absolutely nothing as he walked out and wiped the dust off his cloak. Yugito roared in fury as she saw this and rushed towards Kakuzu and was about to slash him she stopped and screamed in pain before coughing up some blood. She looked down and noticed a hole in the left side of her stomach. Her eyes widen seeing this as she saw nothing do it before turning to Hidan and noticed he had a pike in the same spot where the hole in her stomach was.

Kakuzu walked towards him, seeing that he was no longer need to distract the girl from attacking Hidan. Hidan smirked viciously at the stunned girl seeing the confused look on her face before he ripped the pike out of him making Yugito scream as the same happened to her as her blood splattered onto the ground She looked up at them in confusion, not understanding what was going on as Nibi gritted her teeth, realizing that he forged some kind of connection to her vessel.

Hidan smirked as he rammed his pike into his right shoulder, almost ripping it off and doing the same to Yugito's and heard her scream in pain as she fell to her knees. He smirked even more as he brought the pike over to his right chest before driving it in. Yugito's eyes widen as she bit her lip to keep from screaming, but couldn't as the pain was too much and screamed as he pulled it back and pulled part of her lung out with it.

Nibi's chakra began to leave her as Yugito fell to the ground. She tried to force more into her, but her body would accept it. She gritted her teeth as she used her chakra to scan around the area, hoping someone was coming to help, but didn't sense anything other than what seemed to be a plant like creature. At first she had no clue what it was, but she quickly realized it was human and was heading towards them. Even though she disliked her vessel, she hoped that whoever this was going to help her vessel as she did not want to become sealed with the other bijuu.

But it was for naught as the said man rose from the ground wearing the same cloak as the other two. He looked around before noticing Yugito lying on the ground, bleeding heavily and almost lifeless before he looked over to Hidan as he was about to cause more damage. "Hidan stop. She cannot do anything else. I will take her to the base and prepare for the extraction. You two head over there as well and make sure no one follows you."

Kakuzu nodded as Hidan flipped Zetsu off. Zetsu rolled his eyes before picking up Yugito and melted into the ground with Yugito and left the scene. Hidan rolled his eyes as he transformed back to his regular form and put up his pike as Kakuzu checked to make sure his masks were okay before they both quickly left the scene.

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Naruto sighed as he walked along with Sakura and Kiba as they followed Ibiki to find out a clue to find the confirmed Akatsuki member they were chasing as he was reported to be in the Land of Fire not to long ago. He wasn't against finding information on where he went, he just wanted some action. He was getting bored as it had been a while since he had done anything and this entire information gathering was as tiring as it was boring.

Sakura of course noticed her teammate’s restlessness and shock her head. She could understand his reasoning as she to was bored, but knew this was very important. Though she was slightly confused as to way they were with Ibiki. They could have assigned practically anyone from the Niju Shotai, but why them? She understood why she was there as she was a medic Nin and a decent fighter as well. And Kiba could track anyone with his nose, but wouldn't they need the rest to help them take down the Akatsuki member? And why Naruto? It was him that Akatsuki was after. She couldn't understand why they would put him in such an unprotected group.

Shaking that thought off, she placed a hand on Naruto's shoulder to calm down his restlessness. "Calm down Naruto. I know you dislike waiting, but we're not sure where to go next. And without knowing where to go, we can't catch Itachi."

Naruto nodded lightly before sighing as I he looked up at the sky. "I know that Sakura-chan. It's just that we're sitting here waiting, they could have caught another one of us..."

"Another one of us? Naruto, you feeling okay man? I didn't think they had caught one of us yet and I thought they were going after demon vessels like Gaara." Kiba interrupted, looking slightly confused at Naruto.

Naruto's eyes widen as he realized what he said and tried to figure something out so he could cover up his tracks. He knew Sakura and Ibiki knew of his condition, but a good portion of Konoha's younger generation didn't and he wasn't too thrilled about them finding out his dirty little nine tail secret. Luckily for him, Ibiki was paying attention to their conversation and quickly bailed him out. "We're here. Let me do the talking and we'll get out of here faster."

All three of them nodded, Naruto a little more as he was trying to thank Ibiki for bailing him out of saying anything to Kiba about him being a jinchuuriki himself. Ibiki nodded and headed into the building and they quickly followed him in. Once inside, Ibiki quickly navigated his way around it and stood in front of a large, bald guy sitting at a desk. The man looked up and noticed the Konoha hitai-ate on his head before looking down as he didn't care.

Ibiki narrowed his eyes such blatant disrespect, but that did not matter to him at the moment. "Excuse me; I have a few questions to ask you." The man grumbled as he nodded and looked at the paperwork in front of him with unaltered hate. Ibiki shook his head, understanding the reason he was glaring at his paperwork decided to get straight to it. "I've came here in pursuit of a nukenin that was suppose to be seen at this bank and that you were the agent that worked with him on some sort of deal. So am I going to ask once, have you seen this man or are they mistaken."

He held out a picture of the same man that had just helped in Yugito's capture. The man shrugged as he was paid to keep silent if anyone to where to ask about his customer. "Nope, now if you would please leave. I have work to do."

Ibiki narrowed his eyes as he turned back to Kiba who turned to Akamaru, who in turned barked. Kiba nodded at Ibiki who turned back to the bald man. "I’m afraid your lie was sniffed out. Now I'm going to ask you, where did he go?"

The bald man shrugged his shoulder as started to sweat a bit, not liking where this was going. "I have no clue. He didn't tell me."

Another bark from Akamaru and nod from Kiba, Ibiki narrowed his eyes at the man in front of him before growling at him. "Listen to me punk, either tell me, or I'll make you tell me." He laced his voice with enough killer intent that it made all three of his subordinates back up in fear as they all remembered him from the chunin exams and really didn't want to be present to witnesses him make the bald man tell him.

The man shrank in his chair as he looked up at Ibiki while trembling madly before nodding his head and speaking faster than most normal people could hear. "Yeah sure! He said he was going to Kumogakure and would be back within a week! He also said something about stopping at the border of the Land of Fire and the Land of Lighting! Please don't kill me!"

Ibiki nodded at him before putting his fist down onto the desk and snapping it in two. "Thank you for the information, but I will warn you. If you deal with that man or any other nukenin and I find out about it, consider your career over."

The bald man nodded quickly in fear as Ibiki quickly left the building. Kiba, Naruto and Sakura looked at each other for a split second before running after him, not wanting to piss him off. The quickly caught up to him and made their way back to camp with absolutely no talking, mainly because they were still frightened of Ibiki.

Once they got back to camp, Ibiki quickly railed up the rest of the Niju Shotai. Once they were there, he started pacing in front of them before speaking out. "From the intelligence I gathered, it seems that our target has left for Kumogakure a few days ago. Most likely to capture another jinchuuriki. From what I learned, he will come back within a week. But he is going to stop at the Land of Fire and Lightings border, making believe there is something important there."

At this everyone there, besides the ones that were there when Ibiki was told, looked up at this while Ibiki continued on. "I know it might be risky, but I believe it might very possibly be one of the Akatsuki bases. And if that is true, we can eliminate and capture a few of the Akatsuki members for interrogation or at the very least destroy one of their bases. That's why I say we should at least check it out, that way we can confirm it. But we'd have to be careful and not give Kumogakure any reason to believe that we are invading them because I don't want to get involved in another war any time soon."

Everyone there nodded in agreement as they didn't wish for that either before looking back at Ibiki, who seemed to be taking on the position of leader for the moment. Kakashi was the first to speak out of the group. "That's not good. From what I heard from Jiraiya-sama there is a jinchuuriki in Kumo. If he is heading there it most likely means he and his partner are aiming to capture him. And if that's the case, the stop between the borders is most likely a base like the one they had in Suna. I believe it's best to head towards the border now so we can catch them when they arrive."

Ibiki nodded at Kakashi statement, agreeing with it as well as the others nodded, not wanting to allow Akatsuki to gain more power. "Good, now if now one objects, we head for Kumogakure in our specialized eight man cells."

The group nodded and Naruto, Kiba and Sakura quickly joined up with Shino, Hinata, Sai, Kakashi and Yamato. Kakashi and Yamato looked over all of them before going through the basic preparing stages of checking their equipment to make sure they had everything before heading off towards Kumogakure.

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From within her vessel, Nibi was hissing and growling up a storm. She continued to try and follow her chakra into Yugito, but it was to no avail. It just wouldn't flow into her coils. She gritted her teeth and wished she could get up and pace, but she couldn't so she would have to think of a way out of this without being able to pace. She could and would not be sealed with the others, even if she had to destroy her body and become part of the God of Death, she would not join them.

She sighed a bit as the air around your grew darker indicating that her vessel had officially passed out and wasn't just in a daze. Being shut completely out from the outside world, she couldn't do any but wait for now. She knew that there had to be an extraction to bring her out to seal her into something else. So she contemplated on what to do at that precise moment. She could just flare her chakra and try to break it, but her chakra wasn't much compared to the other bijuu. But in pure strength she could defeat all but Gobi, Hachimata and Kyuubi. So the right mixture of strength and chakra should be able to allow her to break free and walk amongst the living once more.

Sighing and shaking her head, she would have to wait for now and being unable to move, she closed her and let the darkness around her consume her.

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In a dark cave around a platform, Zetsu emerged from the ground and laid the unconscious Yugito onto the said platform. In an instant, six other figures appeared in the room and noticed the girl. The first to speak was the one on the far left with spiked hair and grey, spiraled eyes. "Hm. Seems like Kakuzu and Hidan succeed in their capture. Konan, please check the seal for me."

The woman besides him nodded as she walked up to Yugito, revealing that she had blue hair, cold blue eyes and a white paper flower in her hair. Lifting up Yugito's shirt and hearing some mumbling and commotion from the other guys as they tried to get a peep, she looked at the seal, only after blasting them with enough killing intent to make them feel like Jiraiya when he peeped on Tsunade and got caught. She was slightly glad that the only ones not interested where the leader and Kisame, but she had thought Itachi to be above that, though she blamed the others for corrupting his once pure and unperverted mind.

Shaking her head from that thought, she took a good look at the seal and instantly recognized the seals. "It's a Three Star Double Helix seal, covered by a Five Elemental seal along with some suppression seals to keep the Nekomata's chakra from overwhelming her."

The spiky haired one that was shrouded in darkness nodded before walking out to reveal that he had auburn colored hair, a slightly pale skin and way too many piercings on his face. "I see. Thank you Konan. Itachi, I want you to assist Konan in preparing for the extraction. She will walk you through it as Sasori was the one that did it before."

"Zetsu, keep a look out for intruders that might be following Hidan and Kakuzu when they arrive. Kisame, Deidara and Tobi, if there is anyone following them, I want you three to eliminate the pursuers before they get here. I know they can take care of themselves, but there is always a possibility that it could be Jiraiya or the Niju Shotai that Konoha created for capturing and eliminating us. Do not take them lightly if it happens to be them, the Kyuubi jinchuuriki is among them. If he is in the group, call for me as I will be the one to capture him seeing as you have failed on multiple occasions Itachi. Once you're back in, set up the barrier to keep any unwanted intruders out."

"Hai Taishou!"

The Akatsuki members quickly took off to do their said duties, though Itachi and Konan stayed as they had to prepare for the extraction. Itachi glared at the leader for a moment, not liking that the leader had basically called him incompetent in front of the others, but could not do anything at the moment as the leader only an astral projection seeing that he disappeared from sight.

He quickly turned away and followed Konan's lead as she lead him through the preparations. "Itachi, I want you to help me create a twelve trigram seal around the platform. Then once we finished I will need you to assist me on creating the extraction seals."

Itachi nodded as he got to work on the trigram seal with Konan on the opposite side of the platform. His vision became blurry each moment he drew the seals and he shook his head every few minutes to try and get it to go away. He sighed lightly as it briefly did before it came back even stronger than before. Shaking his head, he activated his Sharingan and the blurriness went away and he could see perfectly.

From the other side of the platform, Konan noticed this. "Couldn't see again." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

Sighing a bit, Itachi nodded as he continued to mark his side of the platform. "Yes."

Konan nodded slightly as she worked on her side, looking up every now and then to make sure Yugito was going to wake up on them. "I see. I've been wondering; why didn’t you just kill your brother when you ran into him three years ago? With him having absorbed Orochimaru he is now a threat to Akatsuki, but it could have been avoided if you had killed him then."

Itachi did not answer as he continued to work on his side of the platform while scanning Konan's side to see if he was doing it correctly as he was by no means an expert on seals. After not getting an answer, Konan had just figured him to have not deemed it important to kill him then and continued working on her side when he suddenly answered.

"Because he was not ready then. His eyes would have been useless to me if I had killed him at that moment. They are the only reason I kept him alive when Madara and I massacred our clan. Because without them, I will never regain my light again. Without them, I cannot access the full power of the Mangekyou as Madara did years ago. And without him, I cannot test my true capacity."

Konan stopped working on her side as she looked over Yugito and at Itachi before shaking her head and getting back to work. "Ah. I get it now. That's also why you told him how to activate the Mangekyou and to read the clan secrets. Makes sense now, seeing that you just wanted to take his eyes for your own. Pretty clever I must say, but I see one problem with that. What if he is more powerful than you when you two meet again?"

Itachi scoffed at the idea as he continued making the seal, nearing it's completion on his side. "Doubtful. Even with him absorbing the snake, the Mangekyou is much more powerful then he wants to believe. Even then, if he is more powerful, I have a few trump cards up my sleeve to insure victory. But if it comes to terms that I lose to him, I will give him my eyes willingly."

At this, Konan stopped working on her side before standing up and looking down at Itachi, who finished his. "You'll do what? You would help out a potential threat to Akatsuki because they bettered you?!"

Standing up, Itachi looked her directly into her eyes without a hint of fear. "Yes, yes I would. Because if he does better me, he deserves to have the true power of the Sharingan. And to that, even if I killed them all... I will not allow our blood to be erased from this world. The only reason I have not gone off to find anyone to procreate my clan with is that I want to test my capacity against the only other worthy of restarting it. Only after then, will I think of it."

Konan's eyes widen at this as she heard this as Itachi finished the rest of her side up before walking back to the other side of Yugito. "Now, if you have no more questions, can you show me these extraction seals so Taishou doesn't blame this on my incompetence?"

She nodded numbly as she quickly showed him an extraction seal and he began to create them along side of Yugito's body. Konan just watched him to make sure he was doing it correctly. After a few moments, he finished up and deactivated his Sharingan before leaning up against the wall as he waited for the others to arrive. Once she was sure it was right, Konan turned around and looked straight at Itachi. "So, explain to me why you would give your brother your eyes, especially since his power is not his own."

Itachi shook his head as he closed his eyes before answering her in a monotone voice. "There is no wrong way of gaining power. You can train for years and develop your strength, speed, chakra, taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu and kenjutsu or you can find some artificial source of power that you can draw from. Either way, it is legitimate because on the battle field, no one cares how much you trained, only for how strong you are. Sasuke was smart to accept Orochimaru's offer to grow stronger with both training and artificial powers given to him. Even smarter for absorbing him and adding his strength and jutsu to his own. For that, I commend him, but in the end, it does not matter as I will win and regain my light."

At the end of his little speech, Konan was left shocked at what she heard. Yet she understood it perfectly. It was odd, she had never once faltered in her training to become stronger, to think about getting it from external sources. In the past, had she had been offered the choice to gain strength through means by a seal or something else, she would have laughed saying that they were weak for using external powers. Yet, she never thought about it that way and she had to think of the jinchuuriki they had been catching.

They had no say in the fact that they were given external powers for whatever reasons. Yet, did that mean they were weak because they had them? No, she could honestly say they weren't. Each one they had ran into happened to be unbelievably powerful, especially for their age as most of them where around fifteen to twenty-one years old. And yet each one was almost as strong as the Kages that governed their hidden villages.

Foot steps interrupted her train of thought as Hidan and Kakuzu followed by the rest of the Akatsuki members walked into the room. As soon as they did, Zetsu emerged from the ground as the leader's astral projection appeared besides the platform. "Good, we are all here. Now let us begin the extraction. It should take at least a day to complete. As long as you continue to send a minute amount chakra to the statue I'm about to send over, I do not care what you do, as long as it doesn't disrupt the extraction process or make it longer than it has to be."

All the Akatsuki members nodded expected for Hidan, who flipped the leader off. "Whatever Pein. I'll do whatever the hell I want to."

Pein gritted his astral teeth at him and was considering summoning one of his bodies over there to beat the hell out of him, but decided against it as he had work to do and didn't want to waist his time on beating up the immortal. "Fine, but if you disrupt the process, I will promise you that I will seal you into the statue in the Hachimata eye."

Hidan stopped at this as they all remembered the hell Hachimata caused them when they went after to catch it. They had lost almost their entire mercenary army, two former members of Akatsuki as he had to replace one of them as he was hired for the army and the fact that he was immobile for almost an entire month from the poisons flowing through him. He nodded numbly, not wanting to have to deal with that creature again. Ever. He would sooner dishonor Jashin than deal with it.

Seeing that his job was done, he nodded they all began flowing chakra as the statue appear from seemingly nowhere. They all sent a small portion of their chakra into it and the mouth of the dragon head open and nine light blue, energy like dragons protruded from the mouth and headed towards Yugito's stomach before sinking into it.

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In an instant, Nibi's yellow eyes sprang open as she felt something reaching into the seal. Her eyes searched around as she looked for the perpetrator, but could not see anything. She growled lightly knowing this had to be the beginning of the extractions and quickly calmed herself, not wanting to waist any unnecessary energy as she had to wait for the right moment so that she could break free and escape the fate of being sealed with the others.

Her eyes continued to scan the area around her and continued to find nothing. It was an odd silence, but she knew something was coming, she just didn't know what. She knew her it wasn't her container as the girl was soul was in front of her, laying on her stomach, looking almost lifeless except for a few grimaces of pain. Whatever this extraction was doing, she could tell it wasn't pleasant as an unconscious soul should not feel very much pain, and Yugito looked like she was being put in a grinder.

Nibi gritted her teeth at this as her eyes scanned the area around her, looking for the disturbance. Though she may dislike her vessel for being a spoiled brat, she was damn well happier in here than with the other bijuu. Just as she thought that, she noticed something glow in the distance. Using her eyes like a sniper scope, she homed in on it to see an eerie blue dragon crawling towards them at a slow pace. Then she noticed that it wasn't the only one as there a dragon coming from each direction towards them.

She gritted her teeth even more as she hissed loudly and clawed the ground madly as she wasn't going to go without a fight. And she was ready to fight tooth and nail to keep her from the fate they wished on her.

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Naruto ran directly Kiba, Shino, Kakashi and Yamato as they rushed through the forest as they neared the border of the Lighting Country. It had taken half a day for them to get this far, but it was worth it. Kiba had picked up a scent. At first he said it was that of a cat’s and the others shrugged before he said it had a human smell to it, kind of like how Naruto smelled of foxes. Of course that made him nerves as Kiba was closing in on the fact that Naruto was a jinchuuriki himself.

He also wasn't too thrilled to come here as he had heard from Neji's story that they were responsible for his father's death and Hinata's attempted kidnapping. He knew they weren't going to do anything now, he just didn't like the fact that they tried to do so before and the fact that they would no admit to the fact that they did anything wrong.

Shaking that thought off, he continued following them as he was worried about his fellow jinchuuriki. Even though he hadn't met her, from what Kiba said, she was like him and Gaara, even though he no longer held Shukaku. And that alone was enough reason for him to save her. There wasn't many of them and the few that there were should stick together. And he refused to allow someone to die if he could save them, even if they happened to be an enemy.

Sakura jumped besides him and stayed besides him for a few moments before she moved a little closer to him and whispered. "Naruto. I know something’s wrong, what is it?"

Naruto’s eyes widen for a brief second before he shook his head as Sakura had become better at reading his emotions and was one of the few people he knew that was generally concerned for him. Shaking that thought off, he sighed a bit as he whispered back. "It's nothing much. I'm just worried that we are going to get there to late again like we were with Gaara. ...And I think Kiba and Shino are catching on that I'm... That I'm the same as Gaara."

Sakura smiled lightly at Naruto and patted him lightly on the back. She knew he was a caring person and the fact that he was worried about the girl that Akatsuki had just captured. But she had to sigh at the fact that she knew Shino already knew he was Kyuubi's vessel and she had an inkling that Kiba was on the verge of discovering it. "Naruto, don't worry so much. We'll get there on time. And you need to have more faith in your friends. When I find out I didn't freak out and Sasuke didn't seem to harbor... Well harbor you ill will for being it's container."

He smiled slightly at Sakura and nodded at her. "Thanks Sakura-chan. I need that."

She smiled back at him as they both turned their gaze forward and concentrated at the task at hand, not wanting to be left behind by the group. From behind them, Hinata sighed and shook her head as she looked around with her Byukugan. She wanted to be the one that comforted Naruto, but she had to be the rear look out for the group so she couldn't. And besides, she knew Sakura wasn't interested in Naruto that way, so it made no difference to her. All she wanted was to at least tell Naruto that she had feelings for him.

From in front of them, Kakashi had to refrain from smirking with Yamato as they heard the entire conversation while keeping Kiba and Shino from hearing it. Both had similar thoughts to Hinata, but without the liking him that way thoughts and the fact that Naruto was finally being accepted by those around him. Shaking their heads as well, they looked dead ahead, getting ready for the battle of their life time as the other Niju Shotai members joined them.

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Sasuke walked down the trail heading towards the Lighting Country as he had just found out that the Akatsuki's next target was in Kumogakure. Behind him were his three teammates for his newly formed team snake. The large man on the right was his technical body guard known as Juugo. The guy on the left wielding Zabuza's Kubikiri Houchi was Suigetsu, who he brought along as he wanted to collect all the Mist Tenken. And in the middle of the three behind him was a red haired girl known as Karin, who had the ability to seek out chakra from ranges that shouldn't be possible.

He sighed lightly as the night sky began to settle in. He had half a mind to continue onward, but knew that would just have them tired by the time they reached there targets. "We stay here for the night."

Suigetsu looked at him oddly as he said that before shaking his head. "No, I think we can continue on. I'm not sure about the girl here... OW! ALRIGHT! I GIVE!" Karin had quickly twisted his arm and had a kunai point straight at his crotch, making him one nervous man.

"If Sasuke-sama wants to stop, we stop." She spoke in a voice laced with venom as she pointed this out by poking his crotch with the sharp kunai. Both Sasuke and Juugo mentally winced at that, glad they weren't in his place at the moment. Needless to say Suigetsu quickly conceded and set up the camp.

After a few minutes, Sasuke started the fire and had a wild boar cooking on it while Juugo sat silently on the other end. He didn't know where Suigetsu was, nor did he really care. He was still probably frightened of Karin at the moment so he was most likely hanging around in a tree somewhere nearby. Not that it mattered; she would know exactly where he was even if he was ten miles away.

Shaking his head of that, he turned back to the fire and poked it with a stick to relieve some of his boredom. It really wasn't working as he was ready to bar-be-que the damn thing after a few minutes. He could sense something was about to go down and that it would somehow involve his brother. Turning to Karin, he noticed for once that she wasn't ogling over him, but looking off into the distance. This perked his interest as it was hard for her to find something that could actually distract her from him.

Standing up, he walked over to her and stood beside her. After a moment of not being able to see something, he figured it had to deal with her extreme chakra sensing. "What's going on Karin?"

The said red head looked up at him before looking down the road once more. "I'm feeling a large amount of chakra signatures converging at one area. It's very faint, but I can sense that two of the people there have dual chakra reserves."

At this Sasuke's interest perked even more. He knew from Orochimaru that there wasn't many jinchuuriki left and that Naruto was one of them. So he instantly figured out that one of them had to be Naruto. Even though he refused to admit it, he was the blonde haired jinchuuriki's friend, but refused to say anything about it as he didn't want to sink down to his aniki's level and kill his friend to gain the Mangekyou. "Anyone else you can sense out that you would deem important?"

Karin smiled at this as this was the most he had ever talked to her before. "Sure, hold on a minute." Sasuke nodded as he waited for Karin to figure out how was all there. After a few moments and her face changing different colors from concentration, she spoke up. "I got it. I sense around twenty-four chakra signatures heading to a spot where nine, very high chakra signatures are. There even seems to be people with more chakra than even you Sasuke-sama. And one feels very similar to your own."

As soon as Sasuke heard this, he instantly put out the fire, much to the dismay of Juugo and Suigetsu, who had just arrived. He ignored them and turned to Karin quickly. "How far are they?"

Karin looked alarmed at this as she was pretty comfortable here and having Sasuke talking to her, but not to disappoint him, she answered dutifully. "They are about six to seven miles away."

Hearing this was all Sasuke needed as he turned back to the angered Juugo and Suigetsu. "Pack up. We leave."

Juugo could hold it in any longer and erupted at Sasuke. "WHY SHOULD WE LEAVE?! WE HAD A GOOD DINER SET UP AND YOU RUINED IT!"

"I GOT MY MANHOOD THREATENED BECAUSE OF YOU SAYING YOU WANTED TO STOP AND NOW YOU WANT TO LEAVE!" Yelled Suigetsu as he was still sore about that.

"Juugo, unless you want to go back in that prison of yours, you will follow me. Suigetsu, Kisame is there." Sasuke responded swiftly as he picked up his chokuto.

"Alright, let's go! I have a tenken to claim as my own!" Suigetsu said as he jumped up and quickly picked up Kubikiri Houchi. Everyone there sweat dropped at his easily swayed opinion before shaking there head as they stood up and followed Sasuke as he rushed towards the directions Karin was giving him.

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Kisame sighed as he laid against the wall as he counted the scales on Samehada as he flowed a minuet portion of chakra to the statue. He looked around the room and noticed Konan was half asleep as she continued to send some of her chakra to the statue unconsciously. Smirking at this, he slowly reached into his cloak and pulled out an orange book. He knew that Jiraiya made them, but he couldn't help it. They were so good. A few of the other members noticed this and slowly slunk their way towards him.

In a few minutes, everyone in the room besides Konan, including Pein and Tobi, were besides him reading along with him. They all refrain from giggling as it would wake Konan from her daze and they didn't want that to happen. Pein of course looked like he normally did, but if you looked closely he was refraining from giggling as the rest of them. Now they normally wouldn't be doing this, but after a day and a half with no sign of danger they got very bored. And with great boredom, very strange things follow.

But it had to come to an end as Tobi was way too energetic. "WOW! I DIDN'T KNOW KONAN COULD BEND LIKE..."

Pein along with the rest of the Akatsuki members clamped their hands around his masked mouth to shut him up, but it was to no avail as Konan jerked up and heard exactly what Tobi said. Her eyes locked onto the book and absently noticed it was the fourth addition, the one she knew that Jiraiya had put her in. Killing intent leaked out of her as she approached them with the air around her shimmering in fear. They all knew they were going to die because of Tobi's big mouth.

"DAMMIT TOBI! YOU GOT US KILLED, YEAH!"

The strangling commenced as Deidara gripped his throat as the others soon pulled out weapons to kill Tobi with for bringing their doom on them. Just as they were about to start, the statue began to shake a bit. Pein noticed this as he had bit his thumb and was about to summon something to kill Tobi with when he noticed this. "Everyone, back to your stations! The extractions is about to commence!"

Everyone reluctantly stopped beating the poor Tobi and walked to their station as they got ready for the hard part of the extraction. Konan glared at all of them for a brief seconds before sighing as she would get them some other time as she pulled Tobi from the ground and walked to her station. After shaking off his beating, Tobi joined them and got ready.

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Nibi hissed and yowled loudly as she tried to shake free of her chains as the dragons near closer to her. Her eyes keep shifting from each one of the dragons before moving to her chains, damning them to hell for keeping her from escaping this situation. She hissed loudly as the dragons lashed out at her, knocking Yugito's unconscious soul out of the way. She hissed even louder as she bit down on the dragon's neck in front of her, only for it to go straight through it as if it was a ghost.

She hissed even louder as four of the dragons latched onto her legs with their mouths as two others bit down on her tails while a seventh one bit down on the top of her neck to keep her from doing any damaged. Nibi hissed and yowled in anger as she tried to shake the dragons off as they seemed to be draining her chakra. The final two dragons began to chomp away at her chains as the others began to drag her. She yowled even louder as the broken chains allowed her to thrash even more, but it was to no avail.

The two dragons that were chomping her chains away finished with them as the other seven dragged a struggling Nibi. She thrashed around wildly and began to flare her chakra to the max to break free from their grip. She clawed the ground and dug her nails deeply trying to resist, but the seven dragons easily were manhandling her and dragging her out of the room. Against her better judgment, she looked back to see what the other two dragons where doing before her eyes widen to see them draining the remaining life force of Yugito as she knew that the girl could survive her being extracted from her.

Nibi yowled loudly as she clawed and bit at the dragons, doing everything she could to get free and give Yugito a fighting chance to survive. She had no clue why she cared about the girl, but she probably guessed that it would to be the eighteen years of confinement within her that changed her outlook somewhat. She shook, clawed, bit and anything else she could do to the dragons, but everything seemed to be ineffective as she was almost outside of Yugito's consciousness.

A lone tear escaped her eye as she looked back to see the life be drained from her former vessel before the two dragons went to assist the others. Her anger grew as the gripped her tails and dragged her out of Yugito's body. They had no right to finish off the vessel. All they wanted to do was extract them, so why did these dragons feed on the soul of the innocent victim? Now she couldn't say much as she had killed many people in her life time, but being the most merciful of the bijuu, she would spare those that had nothing to do with the reason she was killing.

As her anger increases so did her chakra as she struggled even further against the dragons keeping her bound. She noticed ten figures surrounding a platform and noticed Yugito's body on it. She gritted her teeth as the dragons pulled her closer to the statue as they slid into the statues mouth. Nibi narrowed her eyes as she flared her chakra to new heights, even beyond what she had originally as she thrusted around viciously, knocking a few of the dragons off her legs. With these extra appendages freed, she clawed and swiped the other dragons off of her before completely freeing themselves from their grip.

As they watch the dragons struggled to pull in Nibi's soul, the Akatsuki members continued pouring chakra into it to keep from being over powered as the amount of chakra being put out and struggling was making even Pein sweat slightly as they tried to contain the nekomata. Then in an instant, purple chakra flooded the room, blinding everyone in the room.

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Naruto gritted his teeth as Kiba and Shino had both stopped as they could no longer follow the scent. This was not going as they planned. They couldn't let Akatsuki get another bijuu. And with another bijuu down, it meant they would be coming after him with more ferocity. He knew he couldn't hide it much longer, but he'd be damned that they would learn from the Akatsuki then from him.

Shaking that thought off, all he could really do was wait as they tried to find the scent once more. Kakashi had already summoned Pakkun and had him search for the scent with Akamaru, but so far they couldn't find a trail of it other than the way they came.

Sakura noticed Naruto's tension and walked besides him before leaning against the tree before sighing. She didn’t know what to say to him. She couldn't say just to give up as that would be saying that she would give up if it was him in this situation. She wanted to tell him that they would find her, but that would be filling him with false hope. She sighed more to herself as she rubbed her temples as this situation was too complicated for its own good. Sometimes she wished Naruto would just be like his old self and blurt it out to them, but she knew that would be a good thing.

Just as she turned to Naruto to say something, a large blast of malevolent chakra reached them. Naruto stood up straight as he felt it an instantly recognized it. "It's demonic chakra! It's coming from over there!"

Before the others could say anything, Naruto had sped off towards where he had pointed. The others didn't need a second invitation as they followed Naruto towards his destination. Naruto quickly followed where his gut was telling him to go as he was pretty sure Kyuubi had a good idea of where it was exactly coming from. He wasn't exactly listening to the kitsune, but it would give him good advice physically when he needed it.

He quickly arrived at what seemed to be a cave entrance like the one in Suna, only this one was harder to see due to all the foliage covering the entrance. Though the barrier around the cave entrance tipped him off as it was the same as it was in Suna. The rest of the Niju Shotai arrived moments after him and noticed the barrier as well. Kakashi remembering it from before began barking out orders. "Everyone spread out and search for seals like this one right here. When you find it, you will need to destroy it so that we can move in."

Everyone nodded as they heard this and spread out as Naruto formed a Rasengan in his hand and was ready to destroy the seal when Kakashi gripped his shoulder. "Wait for it. Once the others are destroyed, and then do it as we can rush in."

Naruto nodded in understanding as Sai pulled out his utensils and began to paint quickly so he would be ready. Kiba pulled out a soldier pill and had Akamaru eat it before using a Henge to transform the dog into another him. Hinata activated her Byukugan as she looked around the area and was ready to tell Naruto when to destroy the seal. Kakashi quickly uncovered his Sharingan as he knew he was going to need it.

Hinata noticed that almost all the seals had been destroyed and when the final was, she alerted Naruto. "Naruto-kun, now!

He didn't need to be told twice as he slammed his Rasengan into the seal and blew it away with the force of a small bomb. Most of their eyes widen as they saw this wondering how much Chakra Naruto had put into it before they rushed down into the cave entrance.

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Regaining their sight, each Akatsuki member pulled out their respective weapons of choice and/or got ready for battle knowing the Nekomata managed to get loose somehow. As the chakra died down, they did not see a great beast as they expected to, but a young woman that looked to be in her mid twenties slumped over Yugito's lifeless body. She had pitch black hair and golden yellow eyes that seemed to be paler than normal. Her skin was slightly pale, had two cat ears on top of her head and two tails swaying behind her.

But the most notable thing about her was that she wasn't wearing any clothes as she panted as she picked herself up. In an instant, she had Kisame and Deidara knocked out with nose bleeds and having Hidan and Itachi blush heavily while Konan face grew red with anger. Blinking a few times in surprise and repressing a nose bleed from his real body, he over came her appearance. "Contain her!"

"I will... not... be sealed... with... them. Even if it... cost me... everything..." Nibi countered while panting heavily as it consumed most of her chakra and strength to break free from the dragon's grasp and knew she couldn't beat them all together as she didn't even have enough chakra to hold her demon form. She knew she would have to call the God of Death here to bail her out, but she'd rather have her body destroyed and become one with him then to be sealed within... within that thing.

At this, all ten of them got ready for battle, though it was a mystery how Deidara and Kisame where back on their feet. Pein not having his body there, decided to step back and only assist if they needed it as he could sense that the nekomata was drained and could not back up her words. Konan was the first to make a move, probably because she was offended that Nibi wasn't wearing anything, and threw a dozen paper shuriken before taking of into the air with two paper angel wings on her back.

Hidan quickly followed her up as he threw his scythe towards the nekomata as she dodged the shuriken. Being as weakened as she was, she only avoided the scythe due to her own tails knocking her down in self defense to protect their master. Nibi rolled out of the way as a stream of flames scorched the grounds she was as Kakuzu's lion mask floated besides him. She didn't have much time to react as her neck was scraped by a kunai thrown from Itachi. But that was only a distraction for Kisame and Hidan to get in close and take a swipe at her.

Much to their surprise, she caught Samehada in her hand as well as Hidan's scythe before throwing the two like backwards like rag dolls. She looked up at all of them as she panted lightly. "I... may be weakened... but physically... Only two are stronger than me!"

With that said she grabbed the kunai that Itachi thrown at her and threw it at the clay bird floating out of Deidara's hand with blinding speeds. The clay bird exploded on impact, sending the clay user into the wall making a light crater. She was quickly forced to jump back as a horde of paper shuriken pelted the ground she was standing at. She looked back towards the group only to see Itachi finished the seals for Katon: Gokakyu and blew out a giant fire ball that was caught by a wind blast from Kakuzu.

Nibi gritted her teeth seeing this and realized she was pinned as she looked for a place to dodge. Seeing no way to do so, she took a deep breathe and breathed out flames as well, but these looked like the black flame that came from Itachi's Amaterasu. The heat in the room increased by three fold as the darkness flame quickly over came the wind powered flame as it headed towards Itachi with blinding speed. He quickly evacuated the area with a shushin. Kakuzu wasn't as luck as he managed to dodge the flames, but last his lion mask in the process. Even more unlucky was Konan, who was flying near the top of room, fell to the ground as her wings caught fire from the heat coming from the flames.

The nekomata smirked at her small victory and turned to run out of the room, only to see Tobi blocking it. "Sorry, you no pass."

Nibi growled in annoyance as she through a punch at him, but to her surprise and shock, the teenage boy caught it as if it was nothing. She could smell the boy smirk from underneath the mask before he spoke in a much deeper and powerful tone, but only loud enough for her to hear. "You will not leave here until I have what I wanted."

Her eyes widen as she heard the voice as it was so different from the one earlier, but this voice shocked her to the core. She had no clue why, but she had a small feeling that this man in front of her could make Kyuubi bow down to his will just with his voice alone. She didn't get any more time to think about it as Kisame side swiped her with Samehada. Though the blade didn't do any physical damage to her, it still drained what was left of her chakra.

Falling down to her knees, Nibi looked up as the members of Akatsuki surrounded her. She knew that any hope that she could escape on her own power was gone. She had nothing else left other than to summon the God of Death and give up her body and her freedom to him. She didn't like the idea of doing that, but she would rather it being that than having to be stuck inside a statue with the beings she hated most in the universe.

As she thought this, a few explosions rocked the walls as a bit of debris fell from the cave roof. Pein looked up towards the direction of the entrance as he heard this. "Zetsu, go find out what happened..."

Another explosion was heard this time, but this one took down the barrier. Silently cursing to himself for not having made a copy of someone to keep watch as he was too confident that no one would come after the girl, he turned around to the rest of the Akatsuki. "Get out of here now and take here with you!"

Hidan was about to retort as he believed they could get rid of them when he felt two dozen chakra signatures closing in around them. Now, he might have been confident, but the fact that they were a little out manned and a good portion of the shinobi coming after them were at least B to A-class with a few S-class among them, he wasn't going to try and test his luck. He quickly turned around and was about to grab the nekomata, only to receive a fist to his face and flew through the cave wall and temporarily out of harms way.

The others saw this and cursed lightly as the nekomata stood up shakily with a small smirk on her face. "Like hell you'll take me without a fight."

Pein cursed lightly again at this before shaking it off. "Forget her! Get out of here! I sense more coming!" With that said, his astral projection faded away along with the statue leaving the rest of Akatsuki by themselves.

Not even glancing at the others, they all quickly shushined outside the room just as Naruto along with Kakashi, Kiba and Hinata ran into the room followed by half of the Niju Shotai. Nibi fell to the ground and leaned against the wall and panted lightly as she looked over to her saviors. Seeing that they were human, she pushed herself into the corner so that no one could see her.

Kakashi noticed the body of Yugito on the platform and looked solemnly over at Naruto, knowing he wouldn't take this well. But at the moment, she wasn’t the main objective and with his Sharingan eye activated cursed out loud as he noticed the chakra in the air signifying they used shushin. "Everyone they are outside."

Everyone besides Sakura, Shino and Shikamaru rushed out of the room as they noticed Naruto stay in and walk over solemnly to Yugito's body. When Naruto reached it, he closed his eyes as her lifeless eyes were staring straight at him. He shook his head and placed his hand over them before closing her eyes so he didn't have to see the haunted look in her eyes. He had failed another, but this time there would be no chance to bring them back to life. Not even Tsunade could pull it off.

Sighing lightly, he turned around to see the three behind him. He understood why Sakura was there, but not Shino and Shikamaru. Shino shook his head before responding in his normal monotone voice. "Naruto, I know this hurts, but we have to leave and find the ones responsible for this. Otherwise her death will be meaningless as your life will still be in danger."

From her corner, Nibi's eyes widen as she heard this. She had figured out that the goal of the ones that had capture Yugito was to collect the bijuu. So from this statement, he had to be a jinchuuriki as Yugito was. She hid herself even further into the corner, not wanting to be noticed as she really didn't like the others. Especially the one she could sense that was sealed in him.

Naruto's eyes widen as Shino said this and took a step back. "H-how long have y-you known?"

Nibi narrowed her eyes a bit as she could sense the fear emanating from his voice as he said that. She instantly understood the reason as he had lived the life of a true jinchuuriki and was afraid to lose friends that he had gained over time. She peaked her head out slightly to get a better look at him before her eyes widen in shock.

'It can't be! He's the same from my dream! No freaking way that I would sleep with anything that has to deal with Kyuubi... Wait... what's that feeling coming from his stomach... It feels like a death seal...' Her eyes widen in realization as she saw this were her specialized eyes.

Shino shook his head as Shikamaru quickly answered for him. "We figured it out about a month after you left on your training trip with Jiraiya. I'll explain how later, but we need to go now."

Naruto nodded at him lightly and walked towards them and was about to head out when he felt another presence in the room. He quickly pulled out a kunai as did Shikamaru while Shino and Sakura tensed as they heard the movement. From the block off corner of the room, Nibi crawled out of the darkness not wanting to be left alone when she was this weak. And that she trusted this boy, as anyone that was marked with a seal from the God of Death was trustworthy in her eyes.

All four of them jumped back in surprise seeing her ears and tails and instantly and knew they were dealing with a bijuu and where wishing that they weren't left behind. Naruto was the first to calm down out of the three as he could tell that she was seriously weakened and soon was followed by the others, though all four of them didn't know that they had human forms.

Nibi looked up at Naruto as she panted lightly before she passed out from the stress and lack of chakra. Naruto had noticed her eyes for a second before she had passed out and something clicked in his mind. Before he knew it, he made a few Kage Bunshins and had them pick her up. Sakura was the first to recover as they saw this and jumped in front of him. "Naruto! What are you doing? She's a..."

"I know, but it's also true that Akatsuki is after. And her eyes... they told me she wouldn’t do anything against us unless provoked. And I don't attend on giving her a reason, do you?" Naruto responded quickly much to the surprise of the others.

Shikamaru shook his head quickly. "Naruto, you’re troublesome as ever, but I do agree with you that taking her with us is for the best right now. They could come back and seal her away. Now let's go before this situation becomes even more troublesome than it is."

Shino nodded in agreement while Sakura looked hesitant, before nodding as it was for the best. Naruto nodded as a clone pulled out some of his clothes and quickly slipped them onto Nibi before all four rushed out of the room as the clones carried the nekomata out of the cave.

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Kakashi quickly chased after the closes chakra signature and was followed by Sai, Kiba and Hinata. Whoever it was fast as he was having a hard time keeping up with them. "Hinata, use your Byukugan and tell me who it is that we are chasing."

Hinata nodded as she activated her eyes before gasping out loud. Kakashi not liking this, turned around to see Hinata looking somewhat frightened as she answered. "I-it's S-Sasuke's b-brother..."

His face paled at the thought of going up against Itachi again as his last encounter was anything but pleasant. But this time he had a chance as Itachi's Mangekyou wasn't going to be the deciding factor this time as he had one of his own. And he had a good back up that was almost perfect for taking on an Uchiha. The only down side was the not killing him part so they could use him as bait for Sasuke to return to Konoha.

"Alright, I'm going to go on ahead and catch up to him and stall him to give you time to help me. Hinata, Kiba, Sai. When you three arrive, I want you three only to engage when I say so or if I'm in danger. And whatever you do, do not look him in the eyes. Do I make myself clear." Kakashi said in a commanding tone the entire way through making all four nod as they continued to rush behind him. Kakashi nodded seeing this before rushing in front of them with nearly blinding speeds as he rushed to capture the cause of the Uchiha massacre.

Itachi narrowed his eyes as he felt the highest of the chakra signatures following him quickly close the gap in. Sure, he wasn't going full speed, but that was because he didn't think they would catch him, but he knew this person could catch him unless he went full speed, and even then he knew he could track him. After all Kakashi was one of the few Konoha shinobi he respected.

Turning on a dime, he threw a dozen shuriken behind him just as Kakashi had caught up. Thanks to his implanted Sharingan, he had the time to react to Itachi's sudden attack and used the tree besides him as a catapult to avoid being impaled by the shuriken. Once Kakashi landed, he looked up at Itachi before standing and placing his hands in his hands in his pockets. "Yo Itachi. That isn't very much like you. You rarely ever attack first, so what gives? Are you in that much of a rush that you couldn't stick around and chat a bit?"

Itachi mentally narrowed his eyes at his former captain's words before mentally shaking his head at them. "I do not wish to waste my time with you, that is all. We already know what the results will be, so it would be wiser just to let me go."

Kakashi gave no visible reaction to him, but mentally he was screaming at himself to stall for the others as he knew that Itachi was right. Even with his single Mangekyou Sharingan, he knew Itachi was more experienced with his and had unlocked all the techniques that his eyes had to offer while he only unlocked one. Even with all that against him, he knew Itachi's fighting style well, though the reverse could have been said for him. So truthfully, all the advantages leaned to Itachi.

The only advantage he had over him was that he could summon. He silently cursed at that face knowing it wasn't even going to be helpful against him. "That maybe true, but I'm not going to allow you to get away so easily this time."

Without wasting a second, Kakashi activated his Mangekyou, in hope to catch Itachi off guard as he quickly rushed him. Instead, the said Uchiha, shockingly, looked amused as he parried the kunai strike with one of his own "So Deidara was telling the truth that you have a Mangekyou. Now that's interesting." Kakashi narrowed his eyes at this before Itachi continued. "Then shall I activate mine, or do you want to believe you have a chance."

Kakashi didn't give a visible emotion as he heard this, but seeing Itachi's Sharingan morph into a Mangekyou, he was mentally kicking his own ass as he was about to have it handed to him. He jumped back quickly and pulled his hitai-ate over his normal eye to give himself a fighting chance as he looked Itachi dead in the eyes. Itachi just stared back at him as his Mangekyou slowly spun before he whispered one word that gave Kakashi nightmares.

"Tsukiyomi."

Suddenly, Kakashi found himself in the same exact spot he was three years ago when he last encountered Itachi. His eyes widen as he tried to break it with his Mangekyou, but it was to no avail as Itachi walked up to him. "Kakashi, you still don't understand do you. Without Uchiha blood running through your veins, you cannot defeat me or overcoming with that eye. You would have a better chance with your own than with it. That is your downfall."

Kakashi paled hearing this. It wasn't that he had forgotten what the rogue Uchiha had said; it was that he was confident that his eyes could at least stall him off a bit. But he was dead wrong and could only hope that the Hinata, Kiba and Sai would get their soon, otherwise he might just die today. His eyes widen as he suddenly found himself free of his bondage, but something was dead wrong. All he could see where the corpses of the ones he cared about the most. That when he heard Itachi's voice from all around him.

"For the next 72 hours, you will be force to run from the corpses of you precious people as they come back to life to devour your flesh."

All the blood left Kakashi as he heard this and just as Itachi's voice had said, all of his precious people began to resurrect in front of him. Tears began to well in his eyes as Itachi had some way found to emulate how each one died of the ones that were no longer amongst the living.

He saw Obito’s crushed body crawl its way over to him, ignoring the fact that one of its arms was crushed as well. Rin was crawling towards him as well, only her top part as her bottom was left behind her as it was severed during Kyuubi's attack. He noticed his sensei, the Yondaime Hokage, the only whole one out of the group moaning and groaning as he walked over to him. But these weren't the worse of them all.

The worse in his eyes happen to be the ones of his team now. He saw Naruto's body covered in cuts and the lifeless eyes he saw from the girl that they failed to save and to make it worse was he was walking besides his father and idol, the Yondaime. Sakura was limping her way towards him as her ankle was broken and a kunai was stuck in her chest, where her heart should be as blood oozed out of it showing that it was recent. Sasuke was there as well, but was looking worse for the wear and without his eyes.

Gai, Kurenai and Asuma were there as well. Gai had his bones snapped and his flesh mangled as if he went through a grinder. Asuma had his throat slit as his body with multiple stab wounds. Kurenai was the one that nearly make him break down as her clothes where ripped off and it was obvious to him from the smell that she was raped before being stabbed repeatedly in the head.

Kakashi closed his eyes, not able to bear looking at them as he turned around and was about to run, only to run into something. His eyes snapped open and his tears fell freely as he noticed who he ran into. It was his father, Hatake Sakumo, with his stomach ripped in two as if he had committed suppuku. Kakashi's heart jumped to his throat as he saw this and stepped back, not believing what he was seeing. As he did this, he bumped into the Yondaime, who in turned gripped his shoulders.

He turned back to look at him and looked at his senseis eyes and for a brief moment, thought he could see the compassion in his eyes, but it turned to horror as he bit down onto his bone and ripped a chunk of his flesh out. He jerked away, only to run into Naruto's zombie and have him bit down on his stomach. He screamed in pain as he tried to pull out of his gasp, but the others had grabbed him and started biting into his flesh and ripping chunks out of him and swallowed them.

His screams of pain increased by the second as they pulled him down to ground and continued to rip and shred pieces of his flesh out of him as he struggled to break free. That's when Obito and Rin had finally made it to him. Obito gripped Kakashi's neck as Rin did the same with Kakashi's leg before they bit down harshly and pulled back, ripping his flesh with them. Kakashi's screams stopped, but he was still alive even as they tore and ate his vitals and knew he should have already died from this. Even when the striped him to the bone, he could still feel the pain.

Then he found himself whole once more and he was looking at their bodies resurrecting once more as he heard Itachi's monotone voice.

"Seventy-one hours, fifty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds left.

Kakashi's screams were only stopped when his throat was ripped out each time.

Itachi watch Kakashi's body fall to the ground remorselessly as he pulled out a kunai as he kicked Kakashi's body over so he was lying on his back. He quickly brought his kunai to his throat before slashing through it, ending the Copy Cat's life just as Hinata, Kiba and Sai arrived. All three of their eyes widen as Hinata covered her mouth to keep herself from screaming.

Itachi's eyes shifted towards them as he stood up and looked at them. His right eye began to show its veins as they bulged out and blood began leaking from the corners of his eye. "I do not have the time to waist on you. Amaterasu!"

Seeing everyone in danger from this obviously powerful jutsu as they were told to get out of the way if they ran into Itachi and he used it, Kiba, in an act of bravery, pushed Hinata and Sai out of the way. As soon as he did, his body was vaporized on contact as the black flames consumed him. Hinata couldn't refrain from screaming this time as even Sai looked shock to the core. Itachi on the other hand turned around and ran off after uttering one word.

"Pathetic."

------------
Ibiki, Kotetsu and Izumo were hot on Konan's tail as she has shushined besides them. All three of them had tried to ambush her, but it failed as they both where surprised and now they were forced to chase her. And it wasn't helping that she was putting distance between them every second as she was much faster then they were. And their kunai and shuriken that they thrown at her seemed to never reach her as they mysteriously blocked by what looked like to be paper shuriken and kunai.

Of course this was confusing them as they didn't understand how a paper shuriken could effectively block a regular one, but they couldn't think about that right now as they had a job to do. Ibiki looked around at the area as he tried to come up with a plan; otherwise they were never going to catch her. In a moment of Naruto madness, he came up with a simple, yet effective strategy. He quickly completed the seal for a Kage Bunshin and one poofed besides him and grabbed his arm before spinning him around and throwing him like a discus.

His plan worked as he soared passed Konan and landed on the tree in front of her before diving at her knocking her to the ground. Konan quickly jumped up, but realized that she was surrounded by the three of them. Taking a look at her opponent and quickly analyzing her own abilities, she wasn't too worried. She could handle them, but she didn't want to waist any time so she would make this quick. "You three made a big mistake by not letting me go."

All three narrowed their eyes and prepared for battle. Konan on the other hand hadn't even moved and continued to gaze at them with her cold eyes laced with her killer intent. Ibiki easily brushed it off as he had seen worse, but it was harder for Kotetsu and Izumo as they had nerve felt anything like it before and could quite honestly were surprised that this was the difference between them and a Kage leveled shinobi. Seeing this, he had to give a boost of confidence in both of them so they could stand a chance. "Hmp. Is that all? It's going to take more than killer intent to get us to back down."

At this, both the chunin gain some of their courage back and nodded with him. But in response, Konan made them lose it. "I know. That's why you should look up."

Ibiki narrowed his eyes hearing this and was about to think it was a trap when Konan suddenly turned into a spiral of paper butterflies. His eyes widen as he looked up and noticed Konan flying in the air with two paper angel wings holding her up before she circled around them, throwing and dropping paper kunai at them at an alarming rate and number. Using his experience, Ibiki managed to avoid all of them while Izumo and Kotetsu where nicked and buzzed by them, but no serious damaged. He was about to look up again and come up with a plan to defeat her when he noticed that she was gone. That's when he noticed the sizzling sound.

"SHIT! EXPLOSIVE TAGS! GET OUT OF HERE!"

A large explosion filled the clearing and knocked a few trees down just seconds after.

------------
Deidara was quickly running with Kisame following him closely and was glad that no one had followed them. Most had ended up going after Kakuzu, Hidan Itachi and Konan. He'd knew they would never get Konan unless they had wings and Itachi was insured to get away as barely anyone in Konoha could take him on, or would want to take him on. He was absently pissed that Tobi seemed to have disappeared from their sights as soon as this was said, but he considered that a good thing as long as he didn't hear...

"DEIDARA-SEMPAI! I FOUND YOU!"

"GODDAMMIT TOBI! SHUT UP WILL YOU, YEAH! I'M PRETTY SURE EVERYONE IN A TEN MILES RADIUS HEARD YOU!"

Deidara began his customary strangling of the odd teen as Kisame sweat dropped at the scene and glad no one was seeing this as it would put a serious dent in his pride knowing the Akatsuki where suppose the best of the best. Sighing a bit, he was about to continue running until he saw a very familiar blade being swung at him. "What the hell? I thought Zabuza died... OH SHIT!"

He quickly parried it with Samehada before jumping back as Suigetsu walked out into the clearing with a wicked smirked on his face. Deidara let go of Tobi as his hands reached into his pouch before he was forced to jump back as hail of kunai landed where he was. Tobi had no such warning as he was impaled by the kunai in almost every vital organ.

From the opposite end of the tree line, Sasuke stepped out with Karin and Juugo. Sasuke scanned over Deidara and Kisame before speaking in his usual indifferent tone. "Where is my brother?"

In response Kisame shrugged as Deidara answered. "I seriously don't know, yeah. We all scattered as the damn Konoha ninja invaded our base. So go find someone else to bother, we have no time for you, yeah."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at this response. He knew it was the truth as he could see it on both of their faces, but he wasn't going to let them get away. He had a few reasons of why not to, but he decided that he would just get rid of a potential threat right now than have it coming back to bite him in the ass. "I can't do that. You see, you are helping my brother, therefore are my enemy."

Deidara narrowed his eyes at this as he collected some clay into his hands and waved Sasuke on. "Fine by me then. I've been waiting to have this device tested out against a Sharingan user..."

"OW! THAT HURT!"

All eyes turned to Tobi as he got up and pulled the kunai out of him and he was seemingly unharmed from them. Everyone there eyes widen in shock, except Sasuke as I shocked Uchiha didn't fit his families image so he was mildly surprised. He was the first to over come up as he seen Naruto recover from attacks he should not have gotten up from. The others quickly followed after seeing Sasuke over come it and focused on their opponent.

Suigetsu didn't let a moment pass before he charged Kisame. Samehada and Kubikiri clashed in a display of sparks as they grinded against each other before Kisame kicked him back. The shark man rushed towards him and parried the counter swing from Suigetsu before landing a knee into his gut and then the hilt of his blade into his chest, but instead of damaging him it went through him as though he was water. Kisame cursed lightly at this and ducked below Suigetsu's swing and sweeped kicked him, knocking him off his feet.

He grabbed Samehada in mid air and brought it down on Suigetsu, who barely parried the blade but still was hit by the tip though he liquefied to keep it from doing any real damage. Kisame tried to over power him in an attempt to end the fight there and as he did, he noticed a few water bottles on his possession. His cunning mind instantly took over knowing that Suigetsu needed water and chakra to be able to liquefy himself and knew what he had to do to end this battle. Shifting his stances a bit, he hit one of the water bottles and broke it before jumping back to avoid having his feet cut off.

Suigetsu quickly jumped up and gritted his teeth as a decent portion of his chakra was drained when the tip hit him and that one of his water bottles was destroyed. Kisame smirked seeing this before grinning like a mad man. "Suigetsu, you really don't think you can win this fight on your own do you? I know all about your abilities and even your new ones. Helped that Orochimaru was part of Akatsuki for a while.”

Kisame smirked grew as he noticed Suigetsu's anger grow before he charged him. Kisame easily parried the swings as they were a bit sloppy due to his anger. He continued parrying his strikes till he was able to get up close and grab and crush one of the water bottles, even though Suigetsu attempt to arc back with his water morphing abilities. Kisame smirked as he started to go on the attack and quicken his swings and slashes, forcing Suigetsu on the defense as the shark man was moving at unbelievable speeds for his size.

He gritted his teeth as he tried to grab his one of two remaining bottles of water to hydrate himself, but Kisame wasn't allowing that as he continued to attack him faster and faster. Suigetsu was forced to keep all of his focus and parrying his strikes to keep more chakra from being drained and making his need for water useless. Gritting his teeth, he final noticed Kisame letting up a bit and used this opportunity to jump back and gain some distance from him. He pulled out one of his water bottles only to see the water rising out of both of them before turning into a small dragon and splashing against the ground.

Suigetsu looked up to see Kisame smirking as he moved his hands out a seal and grip Samehada. "Ah, ah, ah. I don't want you to be able to liquefy on me again. It is hard to have fun when you can’t make your opponent bleed.”

His eyes widen as Kisame shot off towards him with frightening speeds. He brought up Kubikiri in defense, but Kisame slid past it with ease and caught hold of his arm. Using the last of his liquefying ability till he got more water, he let Samehada rip through his arm doing no damage other than draining more of his chakra. As he did this, he thrusted Kubikiri towards Kisame and caught his chest before the shark man jumped back to keep any real damage from being done.

Kisame gritted his teeth slightly before smirking as he felt Samehada pulse in his grip while Suigetsu looked somewhat tired. His smirk grew as he placed his sword in front of him and got into stance before rushing Suigetsu. The water morpher barely had time to react as he jumped to the side and tried to slash at Kisame's legs, only for the shark man to jump over it and bring Samehada down upon him. Suigetsu's eyes widen as he attempted to roll out of the way, but had his ankle caught and crushed. Kisame smirked at this before pulling back, ripping his foot off.

Suigetsu bit his tongue to keep from yelling in pain and gripped Kubikiri tighter as he looked up at Kisame. He wasn't giving up just yet, nor planned to. Just as Kisame was about to attack, they both sensed a large amount of chakra being put out and Kisame's eyes widen. "Oh hell no! That suicidal bomber isn't doing that! Sorry, Suigetsu, I can't stick around to kill you now."

With that said, Kisame rushed out of the area, leaving a confused Suigetsu who was trying to stand up.

Juugo and Karin where trying to figure out to do with their opponent. No matter what they did to him, he just kept on getting back up. And soon as he did, every single wound they put on him, he stood up as if they didn't do a thing and then complained that it hurt. Karin gritted her teeth in annoyance as Tobi stood up once more looking no worse for the where, even though she had just put a kunai through his had as Juugo had crushed his legs and chest.

"Ow! That really hurt you know!"

Karin refrained from screaming in annoyance as she didn't know what was worse. The fact that they couldn't kill him or the fact that his voice was so damn annoying. Juugo on the other hand couldn't control himself and went into a blind rage. Karin's eyes widen seeing this and jumped back, ready to defend herself if he didn't recognize her. Juugo rushed Tobi and quickly was on him as his knuckles turned into miniature blades and began to pummel the orange masked teen. Oddly enough once more Tobi did not try to dodge as he absorbed punch after punch with the blades piercing into him and stabbing his internal organs.

With one last strike, Juugo undid his blades before smashing his fist into the teens face, crushing his skull in and sending him flying through a few trees. Juugo panted lightly as his eyes unclouded making Karin sigh in relief as she jumped besides the crazed orange hair man. After checking out the damage, she nodded lightly at Juugo. "Good work. I think that got..."

Her eyes widen as Tobi stood up once more as his part of his mask was cracked, but still intact. Even Juugo's eyes widen in slight shock as he never seen anyone that could take the amount of damage they had inflicted upon him and just keep getting back up as if it was nothing. Tobi shook his head as he was probably still feeling the effects of having his head crushed in before looking at them.

"OW! Will you stop that already?! I said it really hurts!"

This time neither could handle it as the both screamed in rage as they charged the seemingly invincible Tobi. Karin reached him first being the faster of the two and drove a kunai into his heart before pulling it out and continued to stab him rapidly in no particular place. Juugo arrived right after her and had turned his fist into what seemed to be clubs and began to beat down on Tobi, crushing him into ground and breaking as many bones as he could. The two didn't stop for a second as they continued stabbing and beating, hoping that it would kill him as his blood sprayed on their face.

After a few minutes, the both stopped and stood up as they panted heavily as they looked down at him. Karin shook her head as she wiped the blood of her face before turning to Juugo. "That is enough. No one can get up from that. Let's go help Suigetsu and Sasuke-sama.

Juugo nodded in agreement as he followed her and just as were heading towards where the others were fighting, they heard something moving behind them. They both rapidly turned around and their eyes widen in shock and fear as Tobi once more was standing up, seemingly unharmed from their assault. Karin backed up in fear as she shook her head, not believing this. "No. This can't be possible. He should be dead by now. Nothing can survive that! SO WHY IS STILL STANDING?!"

Tobi popped his neck and other joints as he put them back into place. His sighed lightly as he looked down and noticed his mask was shredded into pieces. Well, he didn't need it know anyways, he was going to kill these two. Once he was sure he had recovered, he turned to the still stunned Karin and Juugo. Both of their eyes widen even further as they saw two Mangekyou Sharingan spinning violently at them before Tobi spoke in the same commanding tone he used on Nibi. "I was going to allow you live as I didn't want to reveal myself, but now you are going no where."

Juugo instantly jumped in front of Karin as he transformed his body, preparing himself to fight. "Karin, please go warn Sasuke-sama about this. He must know that we found the other that murdered his family."

Karin looked up at Juugo oddly, never seeing him like this before, but nodded her head as she turned around and sprinted towards the others knowing what she must do. Tobi smirked viciously at Juugo before speaking in a cold tone. "How brave of you. To sacrifice yourself for that worthless insect, knowing that he will die."

"I don't care what the future holds for me. But Kimimaro sacrificed himself for Sasuke-sama, so therefore his life is already more important than mine. And do not underestimate Sasuke-sama; he is much more powerful than you think." Responded Juugo calmly, knowing he was at his end of life.

Tobi shrugged uncaringly as he looked straight at him. "Since I'm in a hurry, I will allow the girl to live for now. But if it is death you want, I will grant you that. Amaterasu."

As she ran, Karin could hear Juugo's screams of pain before she sensed his chakra signature fade soon after. Unknown to her, she had a lone tear escape her eye before she turned back and ran towards Sasuke's signature. On the way, she found a struggling Suigetsu as he tried to stand up. Quickly helping him up and giving him her shoulder to move, she continued to rush towards Sasuke's signature.

Sasuke looked on passively as he continued to counter the clay bird flying towards him with well aimed kunai. His Sharingan easily located the clay birds and he could easily dispatch them before they got close to him to do any real damage. Of course though he was getting annoyed from the amount of there were. He knew he was running low on kunai and shuriken as he was being forced to use Kunai and Shuriken Kage Bunshin to counter the increasing number of the birds, spiders and other odd creatures he didn't know what to call.

Getting annoyed at this fact that he hadn't been able to go on the offensive yet, he silently activated his curse seal and the black marks scattered around his body. Using his Sharingan, he searched for Deidara as he continued to pick off the clay incarnations while he was forced to begin to dodge them as he wanted to conserve his weaponry. Looking up, he noticed Deidara flying on a rather large clay bird as he jumped back to avoid a spider falling onto him.

He landed on the tree and quickly jumped off as it exploded as two birds collided with each other. Grabbing another shuriken, he threw it towards Deidara while doing a few seals to turn into a few dozen shuriken. Deidara weaved his bird through them while getting a few scratches as he was a sitting duck when he was in the air. Sasuke quickly landed and noticed the difficulty it took for Deidara to dodge the shuriken.

A small smirk grew on his face as he activated his curse seal once more and his appearance change as two hand like wings grew from his back. Now they didn't give him the ability to fly, but they acted as a great shield and he could also use them to glide. He closed the wings around him as a few clay birds and spiders collided with him, barely even scratching his wings.

Deidara looked on as he saw his birds impact Sasuke to see whether or not they succeeded. As the dust began to settle, he saw that he wasn't there anymore. His eyes widen as he felt something behind him and the sound of a thousand birds chirping and turned around to see Sasuke gliding towards him with frightening speeds. His eyes widen as he knew he would be able to dodge on his bird so he did the only he could do and jumped off. Unfortunately this played straight into Sasuke's hand as he pulled back his wings and dove straight at the falling bomber.

He smirked seeing the horrified look on Deidara as his Chidori pierced his heart. Instantly he knew something was wrong as his inside didn't feel right. In fact they felt like clay. His eyes widen as he pulled his hand back and brought his wings in front of him as he tried to jump back as Deidara exploded, leveling the clearing.

Deidara flew above clearing as he looked to see if his exploding clone did the trick. Even before the dust settle, a horde of kunai and shuriken erupted from the cloud. Cursing loudly, Deidara jumped off his bird as it was shredded into pieces and exploded. Luckily for him the explosion wasn't to large so he was only slightly singed by it. He land in a knelt position as he looked around through the dust with his mechanical device to try and locate Sasuke. His eyes widen as he jumped up and barely avoid taking Sasuke's chokuto to his heart as he busted from the ground.

Unleashing a few more clay birds to give him some time, Deidara jumped back as he began to form stronger clay explosives in order to bring down the younger Uchiha. He knew C-3 was as high as he could go with going suicidal on him, and he didn't want to resort to that unless he knew he was going to lose.

Sasuke quickly sliced through the birds using a Chidori current and his chokuto before turning to Deidara. He instantly noticed chakra being channeled to his hands again, but this time it was much more than before. He could only theorize that these were going to be bigger on more destructive like his clone was. Not wanting to give him a chance to do more damage, Sasuke quickly threw a few kunai combined with his current before rushing the explosives expert.

Deidara quickly dodge the kunai and was glad he did as he notice them pierce through the trees behind like a hot knife through butter. But before he moved again, Sasuke was upon him and his chokuto was aimed straight at his heart. Deidara quickly shifted his body to the side only for his shoulder to get pierced instead. He gritted his teeth and tried to back hand the younger Uchiha, but Sasuke quickly grabbed his other hand with his. Deidara gritted his teeth before jumping up and using Sasuke as spring board and jump away from him, only to have Sasuke's chokuto cut through more of his shoulder, nearly slicing it off.

He grunted in pain as he looked up as Sasuke looked ready to charge again. Seeing his left arm was useless and the electric current in Sasuke's other hand had stopped his chakra molding to his right arm, he knew he wasn't getting out of this fight alive. Undoing the top portion of his cloak and ripping his shirt underneath it in half, he revealed his chest had a giant mouth on it. Sasuke looked oddly at this until he saw Deidara pick up his pouches and dump all his clay into the mouth.

His eyes widen in an instant that this was not good as all of Deidara's chakra began flowing to his chest and especially knew it wasn't as Deidara began to laugh at him. From what he had seen in the battle, the amount of chakra used for the clay had to purposes. One, it increased the strength of the explosion and two; it increased the time if he used more than he need to make it. And he knew this was the case now.

Biting his thumb, Sasuke went through a few seals just as Karin ran into the clearing with an injured Suigetsu. Just as they stood besides him, his palm hit the ground as he shouted out the name of his jutsu.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

In a large gust of smoke, a large purple snake filled the clearing, alerting everyone to Sasuke's presence. Manda looked up and hissed loudly as he saw Sasuke. "Boy! What are you doing summoning me?! No one other than that rat Orochimaru is allowed to summon me!"

Sasuke just looked Manda dead in the eyes with his Sharingan spinning wildly at him. "Manda, I will only say this once. I have absorbed Orochimaru and if you do not obey me, I will kill you. Now get us out of here, or I will force you to get us out of here and then kill you."

Looking Sasuke dead in the eyes, Manda could detect no variance in his voice and could tell the Uchiha was dead serious with his threat. And with a quick taste of the air, he could tell that he had indeed absorbed Orochimaru and was more than powerful enough to kill him. Still, he wasn't going to bend down to his will that easily. "Boy do not think you can threaten me! I will give into your request this time, but next time I demand a tribute of at least a hundred humans."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, but nodded lightly to please the snake, but by no means was he giving into its demands. Seeing his nod, Manda slithered out of the area with unreal speeds as Deidara began to glow brightly before erupting, leveling the entire forest and catching Manda in its blast.

------------
Asuma, Ino and Chouji were in trouble and they knew it. They had originally had been chasing Kakuzu as they felt they had a chance against him, only for him to run into a cussing Hidan rubbing his face. It went down hill after that as both decided that staying and fighting was a better idea than running from the three that were chasing.

Both Chouji and he were still standing and do pretty well considering they were going up against to S-class nukenin, but Ino had already passed out. She had succeeded in possessing Hidan for a second, but a strange light had forced her out with the utmost ease. And the jutsu was always draining for her to begin with, but being forced out that easily was humiliating. And the fact that she had been his by a lighting bolt as soon as she returned to her body wasn't helping things.

All three cursed lightly that Shikamaru wasn't there as at least then they could have some sort of plan on winning this fight, as at the rate they were going, they weren't going to last to much longer. Chouji quickly used his Nikudan Sensha to try and steam roll over the two Akatsuki members, but neither were stupid enough to stand still and let that happen. They both quickly dodged him as Kakuzu's bird mask hit him with Futon: Atsugai and blew him into the trees and taking him out of the fight temporarily.

Hidan quickly rolled to his feet and parried Asuma's trench knife, but had his cheek cut by the extended wind blade at the end of it. He gritted his teeth as he pushed Asuma back before pulling his scythe back and slashing at Konoha's wind expert. Asuma barely managed to avoid it as he jumped back before rushing back at Hidan and cut the upper of his shoulder. Hidan grunted before jamming the butt end of his scythe into Asuma's gut before trying to cut him with his scythe.

Asuma easily dodge it only to be struck by two bolts of lighting. He gritted his teeth before rolling away from Hidan to see both Kakuzu and him advancing upon him. He cursed silently to himself as he saw Ino slowly pushing herself off the ground and Chouji leaning against the tree, trying to get back into the fight. He knew they wouldn't be getting back into the fight soon and that he was on his own.

Quickly set himself up in his Hein stance and awaited for them to make the first move. He wasn't disappointed as Hidan rushed him as Kakuzu followed him up with a Futon: Atsugai. He quickly jumped out of the way and allowed Hidan to get blasted by his partners attack before rushing towards Kakuzu seeing he was the long distance fighter and had a better chance of taking him out, he hoped.

Kakuzu's ox mask shot two lighting bolts out of its mouth, but Asuma easily dodged them and began slashing at him with his trench knives. Kakuzu not being as capable in close range as Asuma was having a hard time evading him, but it really didn't matter as the extended wind blades were bouncing off him due to his Iron Body technique from his earth element heart. Asuma narrowed his eyes seeing that he wasn't doing any damage and they were trading blows in hand to hand. His hands hurt every time they connected on Kakuzu as if he was punching metal while every blow that was landed on him felt like it broke something.

Not being able to withstand this kind of an assault, Asuma jumped back and panted lightly. Something was right here. No matter what he did it seemed that neither felt the damage he inflicted upon them or even take damage. He growled lightly at them as he settled into his stance again seeing Hidan rushing him once more. Gritting his teeth, he rushed him back only to receive a cut on his chest from Hidan's scythe before he was blasted away by a blast of wind from Kakuzu's bird mask.

Hidan smirked as he licked the blood of his blade. "Jashin will be pleased with this sacrifice. Kakuzu, give me a few moments."

His partner nodded and began to walk towards Asuma. Asuma gritted his teeth as he was forced to dodge lighting bolts and blast of wind from Kakuzu as he watch Hidan transform. Growling lightly, he tried to rush him only to be stopped by Kakuzu, who seemed to be smirking at him. Hidan had finished his seal and was about to step into it when he suddenly stopped and dropped his scythe as an all familiar voice to him was heard.

"Kage Mane success. Naruto take him down!"

"RASENGAN!"

Naruto jumped out of the tree lines with a Rasengan in hand. Just as he reached Hidan, Shikamaru released the shadow so he wouldn't take any damage from Naruto's Rasengan as it rammed into Hidan's chest, sending the immortal flying towards Asuma. Smirking at this, Asuma grabbed Hidan before slashing at his neck, decapitating him in one stroke. He quickly turned around as Naruto, Sakura, Shin and Shikamaru surrounded Kakuzu with him. "Give it up and come with us quietly. You cannot win this fight."

"Dammit! Kakuzu I need some help here!"

All they're eyes widen as Hidan's head yelled at his partner. Kakuzu rolled his eyes as strings shot out of his body and began to slowly attach his head to his body once more. Regaining control of his body and seeing the rest of them were too shocked to do anything, stepped into the seal before grabbing his pike from his cloak and stabbing himself in the heart. In an instant, blood began seeping from Asuma's chest as a deep a large appeared before he collapsed to the ground. Seeing this, Kakuzu quickly patched up the rest of Hidan's neck and chest before they both rushed out of the area, not wanting to test their luck any longer.

Ino was the first to recover as she saw this and the blood seeping from her senseis neck before screaming, snapping everyone out of their shock. All of their eyes widen as they rushed towards Asuma's limp body. Using the last of his strength, Asuma coughed up blood before speaking a very light voice as it was difficult to say anything at all. "Sorry... guys. I'm not going... to make it this time... Shikamaru... take care... of Kurenai for me... And don't... become whipped... Ino... do your father proud... Chouji... lay off... the chips..."

He coughed up more blood as he spoke. Ino tried to stop him from speaking but Chouji held her back as he knew it was too late. Shikamaru on the other hand was standing still with a look of regret on his face. Asuma eyes slowly closed as the last of his strength left him and laid motionless on the ground. Ino tried to shake him awake and after a moment she realized it was too late and tears began to well up in her eyes. Chouji quickly hugged in comfort as Naruto turned to Shikamaru to say something, but stopped as he saw the shadow user's face.

Shikamaru was gritting his teeth as his chakra slowly swirled around him while everyone shadow began to bend towards as if they were sensing his anger. Naruto's eyes widen as he saw this and knew what was going to happen. "Shikamaru no!"

It was too late as the lazy genius had turned around and gave chase to Hidan and Kakuzu. Both Ino and Chouji seeing this quickly chased after him intending on helping him. Naruto cursed lightly before turning to the others. "Sakura stay here and guard the cat lady incase someone comes back for her! Shino, let's go!"

Shino nodded as they both rushed off after them leaving Sakura to sigh as Naruto's clones walked into the clearing, carrying Nibi and laid her down on a tree. She sighed more before looking around and keeping watch. After a minute, Yamato jumped into the clearing with Neji, Lee and Tenten behind him. His eyes widen slightly seeing Asuma before cursing lightly and turned to Sakura. "Where are the others?"

Sakura sighed lightly before pointing towards where they went. "Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji chased after the two that did this to Asuma and Naruto and Shino followed them to help them out."

Yamato nodded as Neji, Lee and Tenten quickly gave pursuit, not wanting to leave their friends to deal with this by themselves. Yamato sighed as he walked up to Asuma and checked his vitals before looking up at Sakura. "Why did you stay behind...?" His eyes widen as he saw two Naruto clone's besides Nibi as she slumped further into the tree. "A bijuu... How did we...?"

"You left too quickly and she was hiding in so we couldn't see or sense her. Naruto brought her with us saying that they might come back for her." Answered Sakura quickly, not wanting to give him the wrong impression. Yamato thought about it for a second before nodding as it was a very likely possibility.

Shaking his head, he looked at Sakura. "Go helped them. I'll stay here seeing that I can repress her chakra if she becomes hostile."

Sakura nodded and quickly rushed towards were her friends were, not wanting to see anyone else die today. Yamato sighed lightly as he looked at her before turning to the Naruto clones and sighing. "Figures you would have to bring her along."

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Chouji, Ino and Shikamaru had finally caught up to Hidan and Kakuzu and cut their retreat off. Shikamaru focused was completely on the now stitched up Hidan as Chouji and Ino's eyes were on Kakuzu. Shikamaru didn't give them any time to think as he trapped Hidan in his Kage Mane and began to walk away from Kakuzu. Both Chouji and Ino's eyes widen as they saw this but he interrupted them before they could say anything. "Do not worry about me. For what I seen on how he fights, my skills negate his and it's best to separate them so he can't be put back together again. Besides, Naruto and Shino are coming and they'll help you take him down."

Ino would have protested when Chouji shook his head. "Let him go, he's right. Besides, we have to deal with him." Chouji pointed at Kakuzu.

She wanted to argue, but didn't as she looked her gazed on him before growling lightly at him. "You are going to pay."

Kakuzu just smirked at them, figuring he would finish this fight quickly as two of his mask detached from him and lifted into the air. "I don't think so. I don't wasting my money on childish things."

Shikamaru continued leading Hidan through the forest, purposely having him run into trees and anything else along the way, not caring that it hurt him as well. Hidan of course didn’t exactly like this himself. He didn't mind the pain, but the fact that he wasn't causing it pissed him off. Growling, he was forced to follow Shikamaru as they stopped besides a canyon.

Looking around him, Shikamaru nodded before reaching into his weapons pouch and pulling out a sheet of explosive tags. Hidan scoffed at that. "Give it up boy, you cannot kill me."

Shikamaru didn't answer as he walked around Hidan and placed them as he were he wanted to before moving to where he placed Hidan directly were he wanted him. Hidan of course was fighting against Shikamaru's hold, but it seemed he just couldn't break free. He wasn't worried as he knew he'd survive whatever the kid threw at him, he just wanted to get out of here before more came and they managed to capture him.

The lazy genius turned back to him and pointed at the canyon, making Hidan point at it as well. "Do you know what that is?"

Hidan refrained from laughing at him as any idiot could tell what it was. "Of course, it's a canyon you asshole! I'm not retarded like that shark Kisame!"

Shikamaru shook his head at head before glaring at him with hatred equal to that of Sasuke's for Itachi. "Yes, I know that as well, but do you know what it is called?"

At this, Hidan attempt to raise his eyebrow, not really caring but was semi-interested as he had a feeling the brat was trying to throw him into it. "Nope. Geography isn't my thing. I prefer killing people than paying attention to landscape around me."

Hearing this made Shikamaru smirk at him before looking down in it, making Hidan as well. "It is known as Sokonashi Goruju, a bottomless canyon. No one that has ever fallen into it has ever come back out. A fitting place for you to spend the rest of eternity in."

Hidan's eyes widen hearing this as he tried struggling against Shikamaru's Kage Mane, but was stopped as a few shadow tendrils impaled his legs. He gritted his teeth as he fell to the ground and looked up to Shikamaru, how pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Taking a few puffs of it, he flicked it over towards the immortal. "Go to hell."

The cigarette landed on an explosive tag as Shikamaru released his Kage Mane, resulting in a large eruption that blew up Hidan's body into a few pieces before they plummeted into the gorge, never to be seen again.

Both Chouji and Ino panted lightly as the looked towards Kakuzu, who seemed to be getting rather bored as his bird mask blasted them with another Futon: Atsugai. Ino hit a tree as Chouji rolled into her, knocking the young blonde girl out. Kakuzu walked over to them as Chouji tried to pick himself up, but failed to do so. He gritted his teeth as Kakuzu was standing above them and had pulled out a kunai.

Just as he was about to bring it down and end Chouji's life, a foot connected to his face followed by an orange and black clothed figure landing in the spot Kakuzu once stood. Chouji's eyes widen as he saw this. "Naruto! Get out of here!"

Naruto looked back at him as Shino landed besides them and checked Ino out to see if she was alright. "Don't worry. I can handle myself Chouji. Just worry about recovering."

Chouji gritted his teeth angrily at Naruto because he wasn't listening to him. "Naruto listen to me! He can't be physically damaged! Nothing I did even hurt him!"

Both Naruto and Shino narrowed his eyes at this. Naruto shook his head as he turned back from Chouji and faced Kakuzu as he stood back up. "I will not leave you two behind."

As soon as Naruto said this he charged Kakuzu and reached him before delivering a left hook to his chin, only for him to here a few of his knuckles crack from the blow. The said immortal smirked before he back handed Naruto sending him skidding across the ground. Naruto growled lightly as he wiped a bit of blood of his mouth as he glared at Kakuzu as he shook his hand. 'What the hell? It felt like I just punched a steel beam. Is this what Chouji was talking about?'

Kakuzu rushed towards Naruto and quickly engaged him. Naruto weaved in and out of his strikes as they felt a little weaker than Sakura's, but stung even more as he wasn't blown back from the blow. And it wasn't helping that attacking him hurt just as much as his fist began to bleed from the strikes he was landing. He gritted his teeth as he tried to form a Rasengan to push him back, only for Kakuzu to grip his wrist.

"Sorry, not allowing you use that on me." Naruto gritted his teeth at Kakuzu as he tried to form another with his other hand, but only had it gripped by Kakuzu's other hand. "You're not getting away this time Kyuubi jinchuuriki."

Naruto's eyes widen hearing this knowing Chouji was up and he hadn't told him yet. Kakuzu brought his mask up in front of him and aimed them straight at Naruto. The said jinchuuriki gritted his teeth as he tried everything he could to break free of his grip, but nothing seemed to work. Just as the masked opened their mouths and were about to fire, they fell to the ground as their strings were severed before a loud cry was heard.

"Konoha Senpu!"

A foot connected with Kakuzu's face and two large cracks where heard as Kakuzu went flying and Lee landed gingerly on his feet. Both Neji and Tenten ran into the area quickly followed by Sakura who immediately got to work on Chouji and Ino. Shino jumped up besides Naruto as his bugs flew back to him from the masks making Naruto smirk lightly. "Thanks Shino, Lee. I need that." He turned to Neji before smirking. "This guy seems right up your alley Neji, he seems to have iron skin and neither Chouji nor I could do any damage to it."

Neji activated his Byukugan and nodded with Naruto's assessment. "It’s no wonder why. He's using an earth jutsu to protect him. It's quite similar to the one Iwa's jutsu to try and counter the Yondaime's speed with. But it seems a little different as it flows chakra through it constantly meaning that the jyuken would have a difficult time penetrating it."

Hearing this, Naruto gritted his teeth not liking the sound of that before an idea hit him. "Guys, I have a plan, but I need you to hold him off for minute so I can prepare my newest jutsu."

"What guarantee do you have that it will penetrate his armored skin?" Neji responded as Kakuzu stood up from the crater he landed in from Lee's kick.

Naruto smirk at Neji as he created two Kage Bunshins. "Trust me Neji, this jutsu is unstoppable."

Sakura's eyes widen as finished healing up Chouji and was about to move to Ino when she heard this. "You can't be serious about using that Naruto! The last time you tried to use it Tsunade-sama barely manage to save your arm!"

The others eyes widen hearing this before he shook his head at them. "Do we have a choice? Even Neji says that he can't penetrate this guy’s defense. This is the only way."

Each was slightly unnerved by this and didn't want to speak up till Lee did for the simple fact that his entire arsenal was risky. "Alright Naruto-kun my friend! I will give you the time you need or I will run five hundred laps around Konoha on my hands!"

Everyone there including Kakuzu sweat dropped at the statement before Naruto shook his head and smirked. "Thanks Lee. Knew I count on you."

After Lee nodded and turned to face Kakuzu, Neji soon followed him as did Shino and Tenten. Sakura glared at Naruto a bit before she started getting to work on Ino. "Naruto, I swear if you aren't careful I'm going to break your legs so you will stop doing things like this!"

Naruto scratched his head sheepishly at that before shrugging and becoming dead serious as he moved his palm out and began to form a Rasengan while his two clones began rapidly spinning their hands around it.

Lee shot off towards Kakuzu with speeds that few could match as Neji quickly followed him. Kakuzu eyes widen as he tried to counter the green blur, but found it was extremely difficult to do so. Unknown to them, the attacks that landed on him did hurt, it just was harder to do so and Lee was definitely hitting hard enough to make him feel pain. And what was worse was he had to keep up his chakra disruption shield up around him so that Neji's jyuken couldn't attack his eternal organs.

As the two engaged him in Taijutsu, Tenten began to accurately throw kunai and shuriken to give Kakuzu something else to worry about as he had to keep them from hitting his eyes which happened to be the only part of him that didn't harden when he used the Iron Body technique. Shino hadn't moved, but was analyzing the situation in case Naruto's technique didn't work while he had ordered his kikai to try and sever the final mask from him, believing it to be important and possibly why Kakuzu couldn't be damage easily.

Kakuzu gritted his teeth as he continued to dodge and parry the strikes of Lee and Neji while swatting away the pesky kunai and shuriken aimed for his eyes. And he knew something was trying to attack his last outside heart and did not know how to stop it as he couldn't see what it was. And then there was that huge chakra spike he was feeling. Where was it coming from?

Taking a look around as he felt the spike get even higher and the fact that they all had stopped attacking him to figure out what was going on, he looked over towards Naruto to see the two clones he summoned disappear as he held up what seemed to be a giant Rasengan with four points protruding out of it making it look like shuriken. The chakra spike increased by two fold as he held it above his head as the sleeve of his jacket started to be cut by some invisible force.

Kakuzu knew he needed to get out of there. The amount of chakra being poured into the attack was beyond anything he had ever felt before. Sure, he had felt large reserves before, but never had anyone one of them put the amount of chakra Naruto was into this attack.

As he turned around to run, Naruto had sprung from his spot and leapt towards him. Not thinking twice, Neji and Lee ran as fast as they could and grabbed Ino and Chouji as they got the out of the area, not wanting to be caught in the blast. Kakuzu ran while sending every last amount of chakra into his legs, but it still wasn't enough as Naruto was on him and was shoving the attack into him.

"KAZE RASENSHURIKEN!"

In the next instant, the ground where Naruto had hit Kakuzu was destroyed as Kakuzu's body was slowly sliced into thousands of pieces. There barely any blood left from him as the cells and atoms were sliced into pieces leaving absolutely nothing left. But Naruto knew the damage wasn't done yet as he fell forward and hit the already ground with it.

A large dust cloud almost equal to the explosion of Deidara covered the area as soon as it hit while stray blades of wind sliced down everything in its path. As the cloud settled down, the remaining members of Niju Shotai began arriving at the scene to see what had happened. The only ones that hadn't arrived were Hinata, Sai, Ibiki, Kotetsu and Izumo.

They all looked through it as the dust began to settle to see Naruto in the middle of the crater, with nothing but a few stains of blood from Kakuzu. But that wasn't what all of them were worrying about as they looked at him. It was the fact that his arms had pieces of it own flesh ripped off down to the bone and his entire arm was covered in blood. Sakura's eyes widen as she quickly rushed over to him as he fell to the ground while biting his lips from screaming in pain.

The silence was so thick that every single silent scream he made was heard while Sakura attempted to patch up his arm.

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A few hours later, everyone that had survived the day had returned. When Hinata and Sai returned with Kakashi's limp body and said that there was nothing left of Kiba, it took the entire task force to keep Naruto down so that he wouldn't chase after Itachi. And the news of Asuma's death had put a damper on everyone's spirits even further as two of their top shinobi and their top tracker were gone.

Ibiki and Kotetsu had returned carrying an unconscious Izumo. When he heard both of their deaths, he told everyone to pack up and they would be leaving in the mourning. When he finally arrive, Naruto along with Sakura due to his condition and Yamato had pulled him aside as he was technically the defacto leader know that Kakashi was gone. Ibiki looked at all three of them before sighing lightly knowing this couldn't be good. "Alright, what else is wrong?"

Naruto winced at this statement before his two clones emerged from the forest, carrying a still unconscious Nibi. Ibiki's eyes widen as he noticed the tails. It took him a full minute to recover before he calmed himself down and spoke. "So I'm guessing you want us to take her with us so the Akatsuki don't come back and find her."

Seeing Naruto and Sakura nod made Ibiki sigh before nodding. "Under two conditions, one, Yamato is around her at all times to restrain her if she becomes violent. Two, when we arrive back at Konoha we will allow Tsunade to decide what to do with her."

Looking over at Nibi, Naruto nodded as it was for the best and already had figured this out. "Alright, I just don't want Akatsuki to get a hold of her. It seems they really did a number on her as well."

Ibiki nodded believing that seeing the state of Nibi before turning around and heading to camp as he needed a good rest as today's events were just too much to handle right now.

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Sasuke sighed deeply as he looked over to Suigetsu's sleeping form before turning back to the fire and poking it with a stick. "So both Juugo and you fought the other Uchiha. And from what you picked up on the Konoha team with your chakra sense, Kakashi-sensei is gone as well."

Karin nodded solemnly as she gazed into the fire with her dull red eyes. Sasuke closed his eyes before throwing the stick into the fire and punching the ground besides him. Karin looked over at him as he pulled his fist out of the ground and sighed. "Karin, get some rest. You need it. I'll be look out tonight."

She looked up at him for a second before nodding lightly and crawling into her sleeping bag. Within moments she was asleep as Sasuke had used a minor genjutsu to put her asleep. He sighed deeply before standing up and walking towards where the battle field was and looked upon it with some sorrow in his eyes before he went through a few seals and breathed deeply and exhaled a large fireball, consuming Manda's lifeless body.

Looking upon the flames, Sasuke had only one thought on his mind. He was going to kill Itachi, not only for his clan, but now for his team. He had made it personal for the last time.