The terrain was silent as a shadow, no rustling of leaves, chirping of birds or anything that would confirm the presence of life.

Nothing showed that the land was about to cry with chaos about to occur, as the four dangerous shinobi eyed each other, none making a single sound.

Just then, Naruto realized just how different these guys were to the last Akatsuki member he fought. Unlike Hidan, Kisame and Itachi were patient, cunning, skilled, experienced and well balanced.

He didn't sense a lot of chakra in Itachi but Kisame more than made up for it. Kisame may not be the smartest of shinobi but Itachi was a beast in that regard. Itachi was subtle and Kisame was overwhelming. Kisame had water and Itachi had fire. And while Kisame was a huge man who preferred brutal short range combat and a devastating water affinity. Itachi on the other hand was reserved, short, fast, smart and was fully capable of fighting at any range he desired.

These guys were the perfect partners.

They covered each other's weaknesses and supplemented each other's strengths as well. It was going to take something really special to defeat them.

Luckily for the two sages though, Naruto had his own secrets and trump cards.

He silently took out three shiruken from his pouch, coated it with wind chakra and launched them at the Akatsuki duo…

"Shiruken shadow clone jutsu"

"Wind style; great wind breakthrough"

The blonde said as the launched shiruken multiplied to twenty as the wind jutsu doubled the speed.

The two criminals quickly jumped to opposite directions in order to avoid the shiruken, Naruto used their separation to his advantage as he took out two more wind coated shiruken and once again launched them.

Kisame was ready to parry the shiruken away from him but as soon it reached close enough, it turned to a puff of smoke, showing that it was in fact a Naruto clone instead. It threw a punch aimed at the swordsman's face, yet Kisame blocked it with one hand and used his Samehada to pierce the clone in the gut.

He was surprised when instead of puffing out of existence, the clone merely grinned and held on to the sword. Kisame tried to pull the sword out, however found it to be stuck inside the clone; one look at the penetrated stomach later confirmed that the clone was somehow made of oil, very sticky oil.

'A good counter' Kisame thought, Samehada is notorious for absorbing chakra and sensing strong opponents, but against natural things it's just like any other sword.

The Akatsuki shinobi was then forced to abandon the sword as the clone went out with an explosion sparking an oil fueled fire.

While this was happening, Itachi didn't let the shiruken anywhere near him as he responded and turned into a flock of crows, suddenly appearing behind Jiraiya.

"You have taught him well, but will it be enough?" the Uchiha said,

A kunai in his hand, Itachi slashed at the back of the sannin's neck, only for his hair to suddenly elongate and harden rendering the kunai ineffective.

Jiraiya quickly countered with a low sweeping kick to knock Itachi off his feet, yet the Uchiha easily jumped over it but couldn't do anything about the rasengan brutally delivered to his gut.

The kick was a feint…

Jiraiya looked at the bleeding Uchiha, not believing for one second that he could be defeated that easily, fearing that he was in a genjutsu until Itachi pointed to the spot he was previously standing on.

Jiraiya turned his head and was forced to erect a mud wall when the real Itachi spat another fireball jutsu at him.

Naruto then appeared in front of the Uchiha ready to slam a brutal jab to the face, the Uchiha easily dodged but was still sent flying when an invisible force hit him square in the face.

The blonde didn't get the chance to press the advantage as Kisame appeared in front of him having finally recovered his sword. The bluish man sent a punch to his gut that would have surely connected, if not for the sannin defending him with a high kick that Kisame was forced to block with his Samehada.

Before either of the two toad affiliated shinobi were able to take advantage of their temporary numerical advantage, Itachi delivered a brutal kick to the sannin that sent him flying and followed him to press the attack, leaving the chakra tanks by themselves.

Kisame swung Samehada at Naruto, however the blonde was fast enough to take out another kunai, coat it with wind chakra and meet Kisame's Samehada slash for his neck. The two, with their blades locked, glared at each other, Naruto sneering and Kisame with a smirk on his face. He blocked Kisame's first swipe, and the next, and countered with a slower kick that Kisame sidestepped but was still sent back by an invisible force.

Kisame regained himself and continued with his attack as Samehada's scales absorbed the chakra on the blonde's kunai with tiny sounds of steel scraping on steel. Kisame pushed Naruto back and began hacking continuously at him with Samehada.

Kisame's hacks increased in speed, each swipe faster than the last, each one Naruto blocked and parried and dodged. Then after one very long swipe, Kisame overextended himself and Naruto once again got into his defense, delivering a kick across his chest that the man ducked over but was once again sent flying.

Kisame came back swinging Samehada sideways in order to slice the jinchurikki but Naruto was able to quickly block with a kunai having continuously coated it with wind chakra despite the fact that Samehada was absorbing it.

As the weapons clash, a battle of strength and power begun, Kisame trying to overwhelm Naruto with his strength and Naruto pushing back trying to avoid being sliced open by the huge sword.

"Perhaps you've grown a little, so why don't we up the ante, eh?" The swordsman said as he jumped back, weaved through hand seals and unleashed a solitary water shark headed for him.

Naruto easily destroyed the shark with his kunai, before realizing that it was just a ploy when massive torrents of water came rushing towards him soon after.

"Earth style; Mobile Core." The blonde said as the ground he stood on suddenly rose high enough above the great flood that Kisame had just released.

'Crazy fast hand signs these guys have' the jinchurikki thought as he tried to think of a strategy to defeat this battle crazed man.

In less than a minute he had not only sent a shark after him but was also fast enough to create a jutsu that suited his preferred environment.

He wanted to use frog kata but he also needed to find a way to use ninjutsu on him without his precious sword absorbing the chakra.

This was a fight that Naruto would need to use the full measure of his abilities to win, that he could use to test how far he had really come, with the dark cloud looming overhead that countless other things would fall apart if he found himself unable to pull through.

Kisame continued grinning as he stood at the surface of the water, "Well come on then, let's play." He said as he motioned for the blonde to get in the water as well.

"No"

"Come on, I won't kill ya"

"Nope"

"I promise"

"Kiss my ass shark-face, you think I don't know what's waiting for me down there?"

At that moment sharks and water clones rose out of the water and come rushing for him. Fortunately, Naruto was a master of the 'numbers' game, easily countering with the multi-shadow clone jutsu.

Smoke and water flew through the air as clones clashed and dispelled each other in a stalemate.

When he was finally sure that there were no more surprises waiting for him in the water, the jinchurikki jumped back down to the water, but as soon as his feet touched the surface, the blonde appeared in front of Kisame with a rasengan in hand aiming straight for the gut.

Kisame gleefully brought Samehada down to once again absorb the jutsu grinning in the process, "So you really want to donate some chakra eh? Well then by all means, give it to me."

Just then, another Naruto appeared in front of Kisame with a big ball rasengan in hand and this time the former hidden mist swordsman was slammed so hard that he was actually sent flying by the force of the jutsu.

"Well then take it!"

Jiraiya and Itachi

This was exactly what he was trying to avoid, one on one battles, he didn't want to be too far from Naruto in this kind of battle and it really irked him that they were separated so easily.

He needed to think of something that would allow him to neutralize Itachi and regroup with his student before anything damaging could happen. Of course that was easier said than done, Itachi was no walkover.

He gave as good as he got and then some, despite his small stature and disarming looks, the Uchiha was a force to reckon with.

Devastating genjutsu skills, perfect mastery of the sharingan, incredible taijutsu and a ninjutsu arsenal perfectly supplementing his style.

Itachi was the kind of opponent that didn't waste anything, every move was perfectly executed, nothing was ever without purpose.

All in all, Jiraiya finally understood just why there was so much hype surrounding the former anbu.

Itachi's foot came up to kick Jiraiya in the face but the sannin was able to block it and countered with a punch to the face but once again, Itachi bust into a flock of crows.

The Uchiha was in the middle of weaving through hands signs as Jiraiya quickly created another mud wall to block Itachi's jutsu.

Something is wrong here…

Throughout the battle, Itachi had shown an ability to weave through hand signs faster than the eye could follow, then all of the sudden Jiraiya was capable of erecting a mud wall before Itachi could execute his jutsu.

Genjutsu.

Jiraiya quickly dispelled the jutsu, widening his eyes when he saw Itachi appear in front of him, who then sent him flying with a brutal kick.

A few quick hand signs later, Itachi pressed the attack with the fire style; phoenixflower jutsu. The former anbu spit countless small fireballs at the sannin, which he tried with all his might to evade but one eventually caught him on the arm.

Jiraiya didn't get the chance to put out the fire before Itachi appeared before him and delivered another kick.

A puff of smoke was the result, signaling that it was only a clone, though Itachi didn't seem surprised at that, if anything he seemed to be expecting it.

The Uchiha was quick to hop over a hand that reached up from the earth to pull him under, he landed lightly and burst forward as he felt Jiraiya pull himself from the ground.

Itachi never got the chance to attack as once again, Jiraiya's hair elongated, needle like pieces of it shooting towards Itachi with the aim to impale.

"Needle Jizo"

As soon as one of them touched him, Itachi simply broke apart into a flock of crows reappearing fifteen meters away.

The two s-ranked shinobi faced each other down, no one making a move or a single sound but knowingly to both, a battle of strategy had begun.

"Perhaps it's now time to take things seriously Jiraiya-sama."

"Hmm."

Before either of them could make a move, an ocean of water rushed towards them at full speed, threatening to swallow them if they didn't do anything to avoid it. Though two quick shunshin later and the two shinobi found themselves on the surface of the raging water.

"Kisame must have be getting excited, it would be in your best interest to end this quickly" the Uchiha bluntly said to which Jiraiya inwardly cursed.

"Though I do wonder, will you be able to defeat me Jiraiya-sama?"

Suna

As it turned out, the one-tailed jinchurikki could fly. Or at least his sand could, which amounted to the same thing. The mad bomber couldn't help but grin as he thought of the last battle he had in the sky; after being declared a rogue ninja by Iwa, the tsuchikage had taken it upon himself to hunt down the art lover.

Though he may have been past his prime, Ohnoki was no pushover. The longest reigning kage took to the sky and personally confronted Deidera, and on that day, Deidera realized just how beautiful his art could be.

He held his own against the famed particle style, his art giving as good as it got, the battle was so fast and furious that seasoned jounin were not able to follow it. He would have loved to defeat the old kage and leave Iwagakure in debris and smithereens, but he was forced to flee when he ran out of clay.

An exciting day for him that ended in disappointment but then he at least learnt some things from it.

His clay was not invisible and he always has to prepare himself for anything.

He had never thought that he would ever find another shinobi that could fly, but his expecting the unexpected allowed him to not be too surprised when it turned out that not only could the Kazekage fly but the 7 tailed jinchurikki could as well.

Deidera was taken from his mental musings by the large stream of sand that shot towards him from the mass of grains in front of the Kazekage. As he absent-mindedly sent his hawk into a steep dive to avoid it, he continued thinking about the kid he was supposed to capture, and later kill. He was quite skilled, but still he (Deidera) was out of his league anyway.

While Gaara's sand provided most of his arsenal just like his clay, the young kage didn't have the same kind of diversity. Gaara depended on his sand to capture opponents before hurting them, his art on the other hand didn't have that problem.

Gaara's sand was slow but his clay was fast and destructive.

On any other opponent, Deidera would have written them off as unfulfilled potential but considering this boy was still a kage and the battle had only begun, he guessed he needed to keep a watchful eye.

He looked up to see a massive face looking back at him, mouth wide as his bird hurtled towards it. he pulled up, and the mouth reached up to snap at him. he pulled up, and quickly spun to the side to miss the stream of sand from before. The art lover had heard what the Kazekage could do with his sand, and he knew if he was caught in it, he was done for.

He tossed his right hand out, then the two birds inside it came to life and sprinted for the Kazekage from opposite directions. The sand beneath him shot up from both sides and blocked the birds, which exploded anyway.

The sand retreated back to ominously float around its red haired master, and Deidera pulled up across from him. He had gathered that the young kage wasn't one to talk, so he was slightly surprised when he deigned to do so. "I have been warned of Akatsuki and their intentions towards me. But know that as Kazekage, I cannot lose."

"Cool, yeah. But you're gonna have to try harder if you really want to kill me, Hn!" shouted Deidera, emphasizing the point with a small, four-winged bird that went flying from his left hand.

He had perhaps hoped that the bird would prove faster than the sand and defeat the Kazekage then and there, but he wasn't overly annoyed when the sand came up to block the bird and succeeded. After all, the smoke from the failed explosion concealed the first bird's twin that had emerged from her right hand moments later. The Kazekage would lower his sand to try and keep an eye on her, and the second bird would swoop in and detonate. Sasori had been worrying too much when he had insisted he bring a third bag of clay.

The second bird swooped around the edge of the sand shield to escape any remnants, and Deidera was shocked to see a large mass of sand move to the left to block her second bird as well. He growled under his breath at the sight, which came with the knowledge that this might not be as easy as he had first thought. Responding to the Kazekage's emotionless gaze, the sand began to chase Deidera across the sky once again.

Meanwhile

Fu was a proud kunoichi, one who worked hard for everything she has gained in life. Unlike other girls, she didn't grow up to be a 'fan girl' that was only interested in boys and relationships.

Even before Chomei was sealed inside of her, she had the desire to be the strongest kunoichi Taki has ever known. When she was made a jinchurikki, that desire only grew, she wanted to be strong enough to protect her comrades and her friends (assuming she ever got any). The village elders convinced her that she was tasked with the honor of being 'Taki's guardian', even though no one else saw it that way in the village, her strength would be key to Taki's survival.

But every time she saw these Akatsuki agents fight, Fu was more and more convinced that she couldn't possibly hope to defeat them on her own. Even though Hidan was still easily defeated by Naruto, she still didn't have any jutsu that worked like the shadow clone leaving her with nothing to use to draw out the jashinist's true power.

And now, here she was battling 'Sasori of the red sand' along with five other jounin and despite the numerical advantage, they found themselves still on the losing end of things.

Sasori, or Hiruko as the man liked to call it, was the most dangerous man-made weapon that Fu has ever come across, from head to tail everything about it screamed terror.

Hiruko's Tail; which comes out from the back of Hiruko was very flexible and could withstand much powerful attacks before breaking. The tail is easily maneuverable and can be used as a defense against Non-Elemental Attacks. It can extend about twenty meters from the puppet.

At the tip of its stinger is a dose of poison; the poison created by Sasori himself.

Lethal and potent, as one unlucky jounin found when he got closer to the puppet in his bid to slice it in half, the tail lunged itself at him and scratched him on the forearm.

"One down." Hiruko said as its tail somehow reattached itself to his back. "Unfortunately for you, every part of my puppets is coated with a poison of my design, one touch is all it takes for you to be affected. Now it's only a matter of time before it affects your entire system, three days to be exact. If I were you, I'll be rushing back to the village to get an antidote, that is… if there is one."

The shinobi in question merely gave him a hateful sneer, "if I'm going to die then fine, then I'll make sure my last act on earth is rid this world of scum like you"

"laughable." Hiruko responded as its mouth opened releasing countless senbon after senbon.

Fu took to the sky trying by all and any means to dodge, but the senbon were just too much and some could have definitely impaled her were it not for one of the jounin, a middle-aged bald man, who took out a war fan like Temari's and released a wind jutsu that pushed the senbon away.

"Impressive" Hiruko said his face giving nothing away. "Though I wonder, how long can you hold out?"

The puppet's mouth still opened, it started releasing more and more senbon, shooting at impossible speeds causing the fan-using shinobi more pressure as he tried by all means to defend while the others tried to do the same with their wind jutsu.

Before anything else could be done, the poisoned man appeared behind Sasori and quickly grabbed hold its tail, refusing to let go even as it separated itself and made him a human pincushion.

With the head busy shooting senbon and the tail caught, Fu took the advantage and immediately flew to where she assumed the heart of Hiruko to be located intent on striking a killer blow.

Though once again, she was reminded why he was an S-ranked shinobi when Hiruko's left arm detached itself and flew at her turning into a rocket and started shooting out bars. The bars then open up and sent on more Senbon at the dark skinned jinchurikki.

The little needle like weapons would have surely skewed her if not for the poisoned shinobi to suddenly shunshin in front of her with Hiruko's tail still lodged in him.

The man ended up taking the fall for her as the senbon impaled him all over his body. He grunted as he fell to the ground, blood leaking all over.

"W-Why would you do that?" Fu asked stepping closer to the man, "I'm not even from your village"

"I-I-I know, but w-we're still a… t-team plus we d-don't have a c-chance of beating him without you, i-isn't that what com… comradery is about?" the man responded, from the moment he was poisoned, he decided to make himself the decoy, the one to take Sasori's attacks as it wasn't going to make any difference since he was bound to die anyway.

"B-But you didn't have to sacrifice yourself like that for me, I-

Despite knowing his rather gruesome fate, the man managed to give Fu a small smile. "I k-know, I did it b-because I wanted to" he said in his labored breath.

"What a fool" Hiruko stated as it stopped firing senbon looking at Fu directly, "he deludes himself into thinking he's made some heroic move but what he doesn't understands is that your death is inevitable"

"Shut Up!" Fu growled as her body was wrapped by Chomei's cloak, she flew faster than ever at the puppet yet he once again opened his mouth and started shooting out more senbon. This time, instead of dodging the poisonous weapons, the senbon failed to penetrate her bijuu's cloak giving her an opportunity to reach Hiruko and landing a powerful hit on its chest.

"Bug bite"

She said as she hit Hiruko with what appeared to be a glancing a glancing blow but was actually a piercing bite that completely obliterated the puppet.

She stood for a few more seconds to see if it would move, when it didn't she and the rest of Suna jounin breathed a sigh of relief. She looked back at the man who had taken a hit for her and smiled when he gave her a 'thumbs up'.

"Well that was quite interesting"

All eyes widened when, a young redhead boy appeared before them wearing an Akatsuki cloak.

"I never expected you to defeat Hiruko... then again, you are a jinchurikki so that should not be so surprising"

Fu couldn't believe it; all this time they have been getting their asses kicked and just when they thought they had finally won; it turns out that it wasn't even the real one.

She tried to speak but her voice failed her so she settled for gaping astonishingly along with the others.

"Why so quiet?" did you really think that you have defeated me so easily hmm?" Sasori asked with a small smile, when he didn't receive an answer he took out a scroll summoned another puppet.

One that somehow managed to double the jonin's fear and terror, one of them could be seen shaking, his eyes wide as saucers as he stared upon someone he had only read in history books, someone who was known all over the land of wind as the strongest Kazekage in history. A shinobi whose power was once said could rival the likes of Ohnoki the fence sitter, Hanzo the salamander and Hiruzen the professor.

The third Kazekage now turned into a puppet.

"Y-You monster" one of them said taking a step back

"Ah, so now you finally get it huh? You have no hope of ever winning this battle. So then, shall we let the fun begin."

Otogakure

Despite the hole that was slowly healing on his chest, Kisame was still giving Naruto a savage grin as he took off his Akatsuki cloak.

First Hidan, now Kisame? seriously, did everyone in Akatsuki possess some insane jinchurikki level healing abilities?

"Now that was more like it, it seems by too close to you is rather dangerous so let's see how you handle this…" the swordsman took off after him, his sword in one hand as his other weaved through hand signs, "Now let's play kid"

"Ninja art; Hidden mist jutsu"

Naruto senses were immediately on high alert as soon as he heard Kisame call out the name of the jutsu. He had already seen the effects of the jutsu from Zabuza and knew just how dangerous the supplementary jutsu could be if used right.

Once again, Naruto mentally thanked Fukasaku for teaching him sage mode, if it wasn't for the advanced sensory abilities, he would have been in a rather adverse position right now.

"Water style; Water pistol jutsu"

A powerful shot of water flew at him with blinding speed and an unbelievable force that would have surely left a hole in his head. The young sage used his enhanced speed, reaction and wind chakra to avoid the jutsu at point blank range.

Kisame appeared behind ready to strike, however he was quick enough to duck under the swordsman's swing. Before he pressed his attack Naruto took him out with a brutal roundhouse turning him into a puddle of water.

'Clone.'

He wasn't given any breathing space as another Kisame appeared above, coming on him with a downward strike which the jinchurikki dodged.

Before Naruto could attack this one, a second Kisame appeared in front of him, he threw a punch at him but it caught it and created a water sword with his other hand aiming for his gut.

And would have been impaled if it wasn't for his (Naruto) unorthodox thinking sometimes; Just as Kisame was about to connect, the jinchurikki pushed his head forward and gave him a brutal head-butt turning him into water as the other Kisame reached him.

He didn't give this one any chance to attack as he quickly outstretched two fingers towards him in the shape of a gun.

"Wind bullet"

He said as he pierced the man in the chest, dispelling him as well.

Naruto frowned as the mist thickened, he could sense that Kisame hadn't moved from where he was standing, obviously the man was trying to mock him as he heard a chuckle.

"You know, if you want a 'who can make more clones game' I'm all for it but I thought you wanted to take this seriously" Naruto said as he felt Kisame gathering up chakra for his next jutsu, he sped through hand signs of his own ready to defend and counter.

"Water style; water shark bomb jutsu"

Kisame called out as the water near him took the form of a large shark, Kisame jumped inside of it and thrust his hand towards Naruto sending it towards him at really high speeds.

Before Kisame could make any impact, Naruto called out his jutsu;

"Summoning jutsu"

A puff of smoke later, Gamakichi appeared on his feet and quickly jumped so as to avoid the battle crazed shinobi and his water shark.

"Yo Bro, what's up?"

"I need fire now"

"Sure thing"

As both sage and summon were pulled back down by the force of gravity, they sped through hand signs ready to roast the shark man.

"Sage art; Toad oil"

"Sage art; Wind style; devastating windstorm"

"Sage art; Fire style; flame bullet"

The resulting jutsu was a big firestorm that came down on Kisame fast with the intent to roast.

"Water style; wall of water"

A large stream of water was created, forming a protective wall preventing the fire to reach Kisame.

The jutsu clashed but due to the fire's added fuel, it overpowered the water and went straight for the Akatsuki agent.

Kisame in turn used the shark he was in to swim fast in order to avoid the fire and soon realized that was what Naruto had planned as he appeared in front of him and gave him a brutal uppercut sending him flying to the air.

The blonde followed that up by creating a rasenshiruken and followed Kisame in the air ready to finish him but the bluish man somehow recovered quickly and summoned another big shark this one even bigger than the last.

"Water style: super shark bomb"

Kisame thrust his hands forward towards Naruto, and the shark obeyed, speeding towards faster than he would have anticipated but since he already a jutsu in hand, Naruto decided to hurl the rasenshiruken at the shark instead.

As the jutsu clashed, it looked like the shark was trying to absorb the chakra from the highly powered wind jutsu but weather it was because of the sage chakra infused with it or the rasenshiruken was just that powerful, the result was the shark being completely destroyed but still gave enough time for Kisame to shunshin himself out of trouble.

"You know despite what Itachi-san said about you, I do admit to having still underestimated you kid. But no more" Kisame said truthfully as he threw Samehada up in the sky and created another jutsu.

"Water style; Great exploding water colliding wave"

The swordsman spit out a great volume of water, covering the entire area with crushing unavoidable waves thereby swallowing up both Gamakichi and Naruto. The water then formed into a giant dome trapping all three inside of it.

"Uh, Naruto I have a bad feeling about this" the toad said as it swam closer to the young sage.

"Me too"

'I should have summoned Gamabunta instead' the blonde thought begrudgingly, the chief toad would have been better suited to deal with this kind of thing.

"You're faster than me and a little bit unpredictable as well, I admit it. But there is one thing you should know about me…" the criminal said as it merged with its sword turning into what could only be described as some crossover between a merman and a shark.

"The stronger my opponent is, the stronger I will be as well. Due to my overwhelming chakra reserves, perfect water control and everlasting stamina, I have been given the name 'the tailless tailed beast'. You could even say that I am the 'zero tails' and… you've just entered my domain kid."

Meanwhile

The two clashed, Jiraiya bringing a kunai coated with earth against Itachi's well-placed fire-coated kunai that kept his arm braced. The way Itachi used his second arm to support his other at the wrist, gave him enough space to quickly rattle off hand-seals before Jiraiya could overpower his one limb,

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"

Jiraiya was able to leap away, keeping himself just out of the way of the expanding blaze. One of his arms burned, but it was preferable to his entire body being immolated. The sannin quickly prepared a jutsu of his own as he flew back through the air, "Earth style; earth dragon jutsu!"

The two contrasting jutsu cancelled each other out, but Jiraiya wasn't done though as he called out his second jutsu, "Earth dragon bullet jutsu!"

He then touched the ground immediately creating a mud source. A dragon like head emerged from the mud and started shooting out mud balls at Itachi.

The Uchiha dodged but then Jiraiya poured more chakra into his jutsu and combined it with a fire jutsu making the mud balls fast and searing hot.

Itachi managed to dodge a few of them but they were too fast and too many so eventually one managed to hit him on the chest.

But once again the renegade broke apart into a flock of crows.

'Man, I'm really starting to hate birds' Jiraiya thought irritated as he disrupted his chakra once again breaking the sensory genjutsu cast on him by Itachi. Due to him avoiding staring Itachi in the eyes, the Uchiha was restricted to executing only simple, subtle genjutsu.

Jiraiya took off running toward the Uchiha and Itachi shifted his left foot back to engage him in a taijutsu duel. The two began exchanging blows and parries and blocks and little feints and dodges. The uchiha suddenly drew out some shiruken and threw them straight at the older man who skillfully dodged and ducked but Itachi took advantage and caught Jiraiya with a flying knee to the sternum that sent him flying. Jiraiya quickly righted himself in midair in time to block Itachi's follow up kick with his forearm. The sannin turned the block into a grab rotating backward to draw the rogue shinobi towards him. A fist to the gut sent Itachi plunging back into the water below with the wind knocked out of him.

Just as he regained his equilibrium, Jiraiya angled up a high kick for Itachi's face that the Uchiha caught with one arm and Jiraiya could feel his crushing strength as Itachi held him in place. Itachi raised his other hand and made one hand seal and his chest puffed up.

Jiraiya's eyes widened before a giant wave of flames devoured him at close range though unsurprisingly the sage puffed into smoke.

Jiraiya was proving to Itachi just why the man was feared, despite the fact that he was past his prime, Jiraiya still had enough power to topple some of the best shinobi to this day. He may be faster, more technically gifted and had a dojutsu but still the sannin matched him blow for blow.

Left? Right? Underground? Itachi wondered, his senses on high alert but once again Jiraiya surprised him when he appeared.

"Behind you!" Jiraiya said, holding a swirling ball of chakra. Itachi's eyes widened. "Rasengan!" Jiraiya dug the Rasengan into Itachi's back. His success lasted only a second. In a smoke cloud, Itachi was gone, replaced by a log that exploded into a shower of splinters as the Rasengan tore into it.

Itachi reappeared a few meters away as Jiraiya began running through a couple of hand seals. Itachi did the same, matching Jiraiya sign for sign. The two men locked their hands on the last hand seal and simultaneously shouted: "Firestyle; greatfireballjutsu!" Both inhaled deeply, and their chests puffed-up.

The two expelled two massive streams of flames that clashed with a deafening roar. The clearing lit up from the light of the flames as the two techniques battled against each other. Itachi's fireball grew larger as he funneled more chakra into it.

He played straight into Jiraiya's plan.

Another Jiraiya exploded from underneath the ground and ran through a set of handseals.

"Ninja art; needle Jizo" His hair stiffened-up, every strand hardening into steel. He whipped his hair back and forth and shot off a hail of needles from his hair like a porcupine would its quills. The hair needles whirled through the flames as the original Jiraiya let his fireball dissipated.

Itachi saw the hail. He saw it coming as slow as a snail, throwing reflections of moonlight. Every single sharp, white deadly strand he caught with clear detail. He saw them all. He saw them at the last moment. He had only a split second to move….

There was a shower of thumps as Jiraiya's jutsu connected, the sound coming like a thousand pitter-patters. The earth all around Itachi cracked from the hair-needle hail, kicking up dust that could only be seen with the moon's light.

Itachi reappeared a few feet away to the right from where he originally stood, his cloak swaying from the sudden stop in motion. He looked relatively fine, except two of Jiraiya's hair needles had found their way into his arm and shoulder respectively. Itachi removed them without so much as a flinch, and thin trails of blood swam out from the holes.

Itachi gave a light cough that went unnoticed by his opponent. "I must say, you live up to your title as 'sannin'." Itachi stated as he let both needles drop to the ground with soft steel thumps.

They were both forced to temporarily halt their gruesome battle when they saw a large dome of water being formed where Kisame and Naruto were.

Jiraiya frowned not recognizing the jutsu but got more worried as he thought of how Naruto would fare against such a thing. And the trepidation for his student only increased when Itachi spoke,

"That is one of Kisame's most dangerous jutsu, if Naruto-kun is unfortunate enough to find himself inside it then he's as good as defeated." Itachi stated in a matter-of-fact manner.

That's it, well, he really had to use it now

"We'll see…" Jiraiya put his hands together and began making a sequence of all too familiar set of hand-signs.

"Summoning jutsu!"

The twin plumes of smoke that came were too small for any of the big toads. Instead when the smoke cleared, two small toads stood on both of Jiraiya's shoulders – one on the left and the other on the right. The toad on the right was green-skinned, with thick white eyebrows, a white goatee, a stubble of white hair on its head resembling a Mohawk and wore a high-collared brown cape. The one on the left, was a lighter shade of green with a purple head that looked like she was wearing a hair-net with hair rollers underneath. There were purple markings around the toad's mouth and it was wearing a high-collared cape as well.

Itachi's eyebrow crinkled up with interest.

"Jiraiya-boy? What is the meaning of this?" came a throaty female voice from the toad on Jiraiya's left shoulder, sounding none too pleased. "You better have a good reason for this. I was making dinner." The toad waved a wooden spoon in Jiraiya's face.

"Shut your yapping will ya Shima! Look around." A wizened male voice came from the other toad perched on Jiraiya's right shoulder. "You did well calling us, Jiraiya-boy. I see a formidable opponent." Jiraiya nodded his appreciation to the male sage toad.

"Forgive me, Ma, Pa. I had no choice." Jiraiya said with determination in his eyes, " Naruto might be in trouble, we need to end this quick."

"I see" Fukasaku said as he narrowed his eyes at the uchiha. "Alright then Jiraiya-boy. You know how it goes."

"Let's do it!" the two toads on Jiraiya's shoulders closed their eyes and clasped both hands together. This was one of the jutsu Jiraiya least used, because of the fact it was incomplete and secondly, downgraded his looks, he really envied both Naruto and Minato in that regard.

His Sage Mode.

The two toads on his shoulders would gather natural energy and then proceed to fuse themselves to Jiraiya, thus allowing him to access the Senjutsu chakra they had gathered. He kept his eyes on Itachi, hoping that he could keep him at bay long enough until Shima and Fukasaku had both gathered enough Senjutsu chakra for him to quickly end this battle.

Itachi decided he wouldn't wait for Jiraiya and his toads to finish what he was presuming to be the sannin's trump card. Jiraiya tensed up as the Uchiha began weaving through a flurry of handsigns and leaned back.

"Fire style; phoenix flower jutsu!"

Jiraiya knew if the flower flames were to hit him, they would cause harm to Fukasaku and Shima as well, thus rendering all their efforts useless.

The small fireballs came at him. And Jiraiya sped through handsigns of his own.

"Sealing art; chakra barrier"

Jiraiya muttered as a blue barrier erected him, the flames hit but the barrier stood firm protecting Jiraiya.

"Fire style; fire ball jutsu!" the Uchiha called forming another fireball that hit the barrier with all its might but was still unable to neutralize it.

"Hang on for just a bit longer Jiraiya-boy, we're almost done" Fukasaku encouraged as the two small toads continued gathering enough nature energy.

Seeing his second jutsu fail to penetrate the barrier, frowned thinking of what he would be forced to do if Jiraiya managed to enter sage mode. He had been trying by all means to avoid using his mangyeko but it seemed that he would be forced to.

"I see. The acclaim on fuinjutsu was well deserved after all" the uchiha commented as Jiraiya smirked

"But then again, every jutsu has a weakness" as he closed one eye, blood profusely leaked out of it and when he opened it, a black plume of black fire engulfed the entire barrier as it started to slowly but surely started melting.

"Amateratsu"

'Black flames! But he didn't even-! All he did was just look!'

Itachi had control of black fire that he could use just by staring at something? If ever there was a jutsu that had unfair written all over it…

He remembered the black fire from three years ago when the Uchiha had used it to escape from him and he had sealed the fire to study them as he had never seen a jutsu like that before.

The sannin had gone through all past records, even the sealed Uchiha records but didn't find anything that said anything about them.

All Jiraiya knew was that it could burn anything it touched and now apparently could be executed with just a look.

Itachi let out a grunt, heard clearly by Jiraiya, blinking his right eye painfully as they the Uchiha's knee went to the ground.

'I see, it seems the jutsu has quite some adverse effects to those that use it' Jiraiya could sense that it took a great amount of chakra to use the jutsu and by the pained look on Itachi's normally stoic face, he gathered that it hurt the body as well

'Well atleast it has some consequences' the sannin thought vindictively but his cruel look was turned to one of panic when Itachi stood up and re-centered his vision's focal point at him.

Only a quick desperate shunshin saved him as the spot he was standing on was covered by more black flames, this time completely melting the barrier and started burning the previous black flames as well.

"Uh guys, now would be a good time to enter sage mode" Jiraiya said as he hurtled through the air and used another shunshin to land on a tree, another body flicker and he was back on the ground.

This went on for about a minute as he felt this was the best way to avoid being caught by such a dangerous technique, one that should be banned in Jiraiya's own humble opinion.

When he once again shunshined to the air, Itachi took out some shiruken, weaved through handsigns and called a jutsu.

"Fire style; phoenix flower jutsu"

The uchiha fired the flames, but this time the shiruken were inside the flames.

"Shiruken shadow clone jutsu" Itachi said as the shiruken doubled along with the flames.

Once again, Jiraiya used a shunshin to transport himself to the ground but immediately regretted that decision as he just realized that he had fallen right in Itachi's hands when he heard.

"Amateratsu"

He tried to speedily maneuver himself to move out of the way but the black flames caught his left hand burning intensely.

"Gaaahh!" the sannin screamed in pain, feeling his burning flesh, the flames were even hotter than he ever expected. and this was only his left arm burning, he dreaded to think what would happen if the black flames had hit his entire body.

In a moment of desperation, the sannin quickly created a seal less clone who took out a scroll and sped through handsigns

"Sealing art; chakra barrier!"

He said as another barrier erected around Jiraiya, the clone wasn't done though as it opened the scroll and sped through more handsigns,

"Sealing art; Fire consuming seal"

The blames were then consumed by the seal, leaving the hand charred, bleeding and so black that it looked rotten over roasted flesh. Even though the fire was sealed away, Jiraiya could still feel his skin burning and itching, a closer look at it and one could easily see the humerus bone inside the black flesh.

His precious hand was pretty much useless now, even just trying to move it a fraction of an inch hurt, if he didn't get any medic attention soon he might be forced to cut it off in order to avoid it contaminating the rest of his body.

He gritted his teeth as he glared at Itachi who was once again on his knees, one hand on his bleeding eye as he tried to nurse the excruciating pain he felt. Though a vindictive smirk appeared on the sannin's face when Shima told him,

"Alright Jiraiya-boy, we're ready"

SUNA

Deidera was a frustrating opponent for Gaara, the man was really quick on his bird but that wasn't the main problem, he had battled against really fast opponents like Rock Lee and Sasuke so it wasn't the main issue.

The thing with Deidera though was that the 'mad-bomber' was not only quick but versatile as well. When he had fought Lee, all the genin used was taijutsu and it was the same with Sasuke until he used the chidori to break through his defense.

Those two battles taught him one thing; his sand was too slow for his own good, his offence mostly depended on him grabbing his opponent before effectively ending them but if he's too slow to catch his opponent then it reduces his chances of winning tremendously.

So over the past three years, the Suna kage had been training hard to improve on his weaknesses and he's proud of what he has accomplished until now.

Using less sand from his gourd made his sand much quicker but that seemed to play right into Deidera's hands as he was easily able to evade his attacks with a grin on his face.

The ex-Iwa shinobi flew away from his sand in fast speeds, zigzagging and changing directions randomly as he completely avoided entrapment.

If this battle was on the ground, it would have been over by now but as it turned Deidera could fly, fast as hell.

'A different strategy then'

Gaara had also learned from his battle with Naruto that while giving into the Shukaku made him stronger, he sacrificed control and much of the things that made him formidable to begin with. Losing to Naruto showed him that the tradeoff wasn't worth it and completely abandoned using his tiny Shukaku form, learning to do some of the techniques himself without having to tap into the bijuu chakra.

With a series of hand-seals the sand morphed itself into a head of Shukaku that sucked in wind hard, giving off a whistling, hissing sound as a pressurized ball of air formed at the mouth of the construct, "Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!"

Deidera saw it coming and guided his clay bird was to avoid it when it shot at them in the air, ' A nice change of pace. Atleast he can do more with his sand than I had initially thought.'

It wasn't over though. Gaara kneaded more chakra through his sand that began to gather at the Shukaku mouth for another compressed air bullet and began shooting them off, one after another with only enough lag-time in between them to build up more for a new shot.

He could see how much force those large balls of wind had within them. If they made contact with anything, whatever they hit just wasn't going to exist in the same state any longer.

A quick decision later, Deidera guided his bird to fly straight to the kage while still dodging the sand+ wind combo, he flew right at the Kazekage faster than most high-level ninjas could even move and would have scared the hell out of most people, but Gaara was not most people.

Gaara's sand formed a thick half dome right in front of his body as Deidera jumped off of his bird as it crushed into the sand wall going off in an explosion catching Gaara in it.

Deidera was almost worried that the explosion was too much for the jinchurikki to take but then narrowed his eyes when the redhead then proceeded to crumble into sand, revealing to be a Sand Clone.

"I have you now." Gaara commented, appearing behind the art lover who had created another clay bird when he jumped off the first one.

'Well…' Deidera thought as he turned Gaara's way and saw a horrifying amount of sand rising up from the ground like waterfalls, only this one the sand was rising up instead of going down. It just kept coming. When had he put together the time to even do such a thing?

"You're quite skilled, that's to be expected from a kage, Hn"

Of course, When he'd been firing off shots with the Shukaku's head, Deidera had been flying around to avoid them for over a minute. But was that really enough time to gather up enough sand to make this big jutsu? Good Lord. There wasn't any way around that.

"I can make so much more. As much as I need." Gaara said as he stood elevated off of the ground by a sand platform while he started manipulating the rest underneath him Deidera's way with multiple hand-seals that started and ended with him clapping his hands, "This is why I am known as Sabaku no Gaara in Sunagakure. Gaara of the Sand. Quicksand Waterfall Flow!"

And with that, Gaara sent every bit of it forward. Deidera was not going to avoid anything like this. There was no way. Even looking at him from where he was standing, Gaara knew as much. He did his best to fly away, but it caught up to him and engulfed him entirely, covering over him and burying him entirely.

"Now die for me Sand Waterfall Imperial Funeral!" Dropping down from his platform, Gaara slammed his hands onto the ground and let out a shockwave that sent ripples all throughout a good part of the desert.

And that was that.

But then why couldn't he feel a body down there as his sifted through the sand to confirm his kill.

The one tail jinchurikki's eyes widen when the real Deidera's head emerged from the ground, some distance away from him. He jumped onto a crane and flew upwards giving him a savage grin.

"You're not the only one who can make clones yeah" the blonde man said making one handsign before shouting out, "but now you're standing on my land mines, Katsu!"

'Boom!'

The resulting explosion went directly beneath Gaara's feet kicking up a lot of smoke and sand in the process.

When the smoke cleared, it revealed Gaara inside a semi-closed ball of sand effectively protecting him from the underground explosion.

Though when Gaara brought his eyes back to Deidera, he was surprised to see the mad bomber grinning instead of showing frustration that his jutsu had just failed.

"You have a very good defense, yeah" the blonde praised, "but… You've just made a big mistake" he said making an all too familiar handsign

Gaara wondered what that meant, but immediately understood as small clay creatures emerged from the sand-ball protecting him. He wasn't given any time to escape before they all exploded right in his face.

'Boom!'

When the smoke cleared, it showed a pissed Kazekage with half of his face and left hands taking the form of Shukaku. He growled loudly in pain and anger and it doubled when he saw Sasori killing his people with what he could only assume to be a puppet of Suna's past kage.

And he moved to help his fellow jinchurikki causing Deidera to chase after him now reversing their earlier role of cat and mouse.

Meanwhile

Sasori decided not to waste any time and made the Kazekage fly forward, his wooden limbs crackling in the air.

One of the jounin launched an exploding note at the flying puppet with a short fuse forward but the Kazekage puppet glided to the right easily and extended his arm forward. Joints and incisions in his arm popped open revealing several series on intricate seals on flaps of his arms. The seals glowed for a moment before bursting forth with hundreds of hands.

Fu used her bijuu enhanced speed as she along with the remaining four jounin tried to stay as far away from the puppet as possible. They run, ducked, dodged and tried with all their might to avoid being caught by the extending limbs.

Their job got even harder when the puppet's arms disconnected from the elbows and started shooting out hundreds upon hundreds of senbon.

Fu called upon Chomei's wings still in chakra cloak state and flew high completely avoiding all of the senbon but her comrades weren't able to avoid as three of the jounin were made into a human pincushion leaving only the fan wielding shinobi who used his wind techniques to deflect them and used the fan itself for protection.

"Four down, one more to go" Sasori said finding himself impressed that Suna shinobi would last long against him and even force him to use the Kazekage. He thought of releasing his poison mist but decided against it as it wouldn't do much in such an open space.

Seeing more of her teammates dies like that, Fu let a feral growl as she let more of the Chomei's chakra up to three's tails worth.

The puppet responded by letting out Iron Sand from its mouth that began to shape spikes in the air.

Iron rods shot forward at her as Fu darted forward. An Iron rod shot down right at her chest only to be batted away like a fly by one of her flailing red chakra tails. Iron rose out of the ground causing Fu to leap and launch an arm forward with a roar. The arm extended and flew right at Sasori who side stepped with wide eyes. That was the first time he had seen of any chakra manipulation such as that.

Fu gave another leap causing the Kazekage puppet to fall back to protect Sasori with a giant Iron shield that the jinchurikki collided with.

The fact that the girl was batting away Iron rods annoyed him to no end, in addition to that any time anyone clawed at his wall of Iron any other human would be paralyzed. However, this damn girl could claw, scratch, dry hump the wall for all she cared and would not be effected by the poisons of the wall made of his Iron Sand.

Being a jinchurikki was just an unfair advantage.

Nevertheless, this battle was his for the taking, he would have been in much more trouble had the jinchurikki being able to fully control her bijuu but seeing her straggle to maintain her three tails state alleviated Sasori's concern of facing a perfect jinchurikki.

A sizeable part of Sasori's wall broke apart as it took the shape of small shiruken, kunai and spear. A little flick of the wrist was all it took to send the small sand weapons hurtling towards Fu intent on piercing her though before they could their target, the desert sand rose up and clashed with the iron sand effectively ending the attack.

Sasori didn't have to guess who responsible as Gaara appeared by Fu's side giving him a death glare.

"Are you alright?" he asked seeing how her face was flinching from the bijuu chakra currently surrounding her.

"Well I'm not dead yet" Fu replied as the fan wielding jounin joined them his fan practically torn to shreds with Sasori's senbon and his clothes showing spots of blood.

"Kazekage-sama" the man said momentarily shocked with Gaara's new look. The last time he had seen him like that was when he was still terrorizing the village.

"You should go back to the village" Gaara said his voice a mix of man and beast. He pointed at the jounin, "Saduko, if the battle carries on like this, it will not end well for us, go back and request for backup while I hold them, request for granny Chiyo, she may be past her prime but she still remains the best puppet master in the village at the moment. Fu I can't risk you being caught by these guys, I underestimated them but you shouldn't pay the price for my mistake. If Akatsuki manages to catch us both, it will not only be disastrous for our respective villages but for the entire elemental nations as well. I thank you for risking your life to fight with for my village and I but-

"But these guys are after me too" the seven tails retorted. "This may not be my village but you are my friend and a fellow jinchurikki. I'm not leaving" she finished defiantly

"You can't say here either don't you get it! Fu you-

"A few weeks ago Naruto-kun risked his life to save mine and tonight one of your own jounin gave up his life for me, they both did it because they saw me as a comrade and friend, that's the first time anyone has ever done that for me. For the first time I have people that care and are willing to die for me, If I can't do the same for those I care about then Taki was right about me all along; I'm just a monster"

"Well, isn't this sweet, there's nothing quite like a precious bond between two hurt souls eh Sasori-dono" Deidera said as he joined Sasori's side. The mad bomber quickly created another clay bird that Sasori jumped on seeing as the Kazekage could easily use the sand below them to crush him.

"Yes, but unfortunately for them, this will be more like a fatal attraction than anything else"

Gaara's sand grabbed hold of Saduko and flung towards the village hoping he lands safely enough so that he relays his order.

"Alright Fu, you want to remain and fight? Fine but you better not die"

The girl merely nodded her head as she took off charging at Deidera who once again took off initiating another game of cat and mouse leaving Suna's past and future in a standoff.

"As Kazekage, I won't allow myself to lose again." said Gaara as he faced down the legendary Akatsuki member who looked more like a pretty boy his own age than an experienced war hero turned criminal.

"I've heard it all before." he responded in a soft voice. "The Third said something similar before I killed him. And I imagine that your own father would have done the same had I got to him faster than Orochimaru."

Gaara's ringed eyes narrowed at the Akatsuki member's words. "What interest do you have in the Kazekage?"

"I am Sasori of the Red Sand, famed puppeteer of the village you now rule over. I am the killer of the Third Kazekage, who has joined my collection." Sasori gave the jinchurikki a disarming smile that would have surely fooled had he no idea of who the puppeteer was. "I had plans to add the Fourth Kazekage to my collection, but the man decided to foolishly trust in a snake and paid for it dearly. No use crying about it now, you will be my second Kazekage."

Gaara's sand moved instinctively to stop the barrage of senbon that emerged from Sasori's mouth. The sand became so saturated with senbon that by the end of the bombardment, the needles were bouncing off of themselves rather than being caught in the sand. One large pulse of the wall of sand sent the senbon hurtling back at Sasori, albeit with a much lower standard of accuracy. The Akatsuki member simply fired more senbon from the Kazekage's many arms that cancelled each other out with the ones sent his way.

"For your crimes against the Village Hidden in the Sand, I, the Fifth Kazekage, will be your executioner." With that said, Gaara's sand shot forward in a massive wave as the Kazekage rose his arms as if beckoning it forth. Sasori was many things, but puppeteers were not very mobile as a general rule of thumb, and there was no way he could simply avoid the enormous wave of sand even if he had placed more effort into the art of dodging.

He had to remember to thank Deidera for providing him with a bird that he used to escape the young kage. The man might be annoying with his blasphemous views on 'art' but he would still admit that the mad bomber's techniques were really useful

The tsunami of sand formed a large hand around Sasori, trying to grab the puppeteer but once again, Deidera's creation proved to be the difference between life and death.

Seeing as pursuing the Akatsuki member wasn't achieving anything, Gaara called off his sand, a good portion of his agitated sand whirled around him protectively. This might be his domain but both Sasori and Deidera were proving just why they were tasked with hunting down jinchurikki. He had to handle this carefully, one simple mistake was all it took for Deidera to almost kill him and he had a sneaky suspicion that Sasori could much worse if he let his guard down.

The puppet of the Kazekage snapped open as a compartment on his chest opened to pulse out waves of magnetism.

A wave of Gaara's sand rushed out to meet the attack of the Akatsuki's puppet. Despite the amount of sand towering over all of the combatants, it was met grain for grain by a wave of black sand. The amount was less, though the greater weight of the black allowed it to overwhelm the Fifth Kazekage's Sand Tsunami. "Black Sand: Ten Foot Spikes!" Gaara's sand reacted instinctively to the attack from above, and while it didn't stop the massive shapes made of iron sand, his ultimate defense did slow the Third Kazekage's attack long enough for Gaara to jump out of the way.

Gaara realized then that the puppet of his predecessor still had access to his abilities, something that Kankuro had told him was impossible. Sasori brought his hand up in a unique seal to launch his next attack, determined not to give his latest target a moment's peace. "Thousand Hand Manipulation Force!" The Third Kazekage raised his left arm and the sides opened menacingly to reveal the seal matrices inscribed on the insides. Near identical copies of the Kazekage's arm burst out of the seals, which in turn opened up to produce even more arms.

Soon a wall of wooden hands was hurtling towards Gaara, who raised his sand to catch the attack. The hands wove around the sand, or attempted to anyway, as a blue veined hand reached out and grabbed a hold of the arms. That didn't stop one of the hands from retracting into the arm to make an opening for a deadly purple mist to rain down on the Kazekage. His sand reacted immediately, but the poison was already around Gaara, who was holding his breath and sensing the world through his sand rather than risk opening his eyes.

Not wanting to open his mouth and utter the name of the technique, Gaara simply sent his sand into a frenzied sandstorm to scour the poison from the air. Cables shot out of the mass of hands as it flew through the air, and wrapped themselves around his shield of sand. The Third Kazekage popped off his arm at the elbow, detaching the mass of wooden hands. Sasori's hands snapped together in another unique seal that did nothing but command his puppet. "Black Sand: Treasure Drop!" Gaara looked up at the massive sphere of black sand that began to fall on top of him.

Gaara's sand formed a thick dome over him, as he was currently held in place by his own sand, which refused to move to keep the cables from tightening around him. The black dust weighed down on the sand dome, which held up admirably under the pressure. Gaara used the room around himself and the time his defenses bought to grind the floor beneath him to sand and escape. Still obscured from Sasori, Gaara sensed his sand cave in under the weight and velocity of the golden sphere and crush where he had been.

Bursting from the ground in a flurry of sand, Gaara enveloped the Kazekage puppet in a coffin of sand. Crushing them did little to actually kill them, but it did freeze up all the joints of the puppets, turning them into useless hunks of wood, flesh, and metal. Sasori sighed heavily as his puppet failed to respond. "I suppose this is what I get for letting my guard down."

"Give up now Sasori." said Gaara, glaring at his village's pioneering puppeteer. He had no plans of sparing the murdering puppeteer, but if he stood still, Gaara would have a much easier time killing him. "You're all out of puppets, and I've beaten your most powerful."

"There are actually two puppets I adore more, though they're more sentimental than combat oriented." said Sasori as he slowly unbuttoned his Akatsuki cloak, not turning to face the Kazekage who was glaring at his back. "And the Kazekage wasn't my best work. I don't make puppets, I make art. Art is eternal, and guess what? So am I!"

Sasori wheeled around, and concentrated jets of water shot out of his palms. Gaara's sand was barely fast enough to get between him and the attack, and his ultimate defense began to sag under its own weight as it took on water. The water gave up after a moment, and Gaara got a good look at the monster, for there was no more mistaking Sasori as human, before him.

Sasori had looked unnaturally young, and now it made sense. He stood on a thick cable that emerged from where his stomach was supposed to be as blade like wings fanned out behind him. The lines where his joints held him together were all too apparent without the Akatsuki cloak covering him up. Small gray tubes in his palms still dripped water, and Gaara could see two compartments in his chest, one adorned with the kanji for scorpion painted on in red. "So you see now?" asked Sasori mockingly. "Art is eternal beauty, and my greatest masterpiece… IS ME!"

Otogakure

"Earth style; Mud swamp!" A sudden shout rang out through the entire clearing and the ground around Itachi broke down, becoming a virtual swamp of mud. Itachi's began sinking into it, the mud solidifying and Jiraiya – now sporting a large nose and warts – came running in full speed, a ball of blue chakra swirling within his palm. He leapt up and thrust his now webbed hand forth.

"Rasengan!" Jiraiya thrust his jutsu as he descended towards the Uchiha. When it threatened to connect at last, the Uchiha burst into a flock of crows and reappeared behind Jiraiya. Itachi threw a right-footed kick that Jiraiya blocked on the turn with his Rasengan-wielding hand, causing the technique to dissipate. Jiraiya aimed a fist with his left hand at Itachi's jaw that the black-haired man young man dodged.

Jiraiya smirked.

Then it happened. An invisible force hit Itachi square in the jaw at the same time that Jiraiya's fist missed him by a few inches. Itachi was tossed back, back-flipping before his body hit the ground but Jiraiya was on him again with a roundhouse kick aimed to separate his head from the rest of his body. The former anbu dodged again but was once again hit with the invisible force sending him flying.

Jiraiya watched Itachi stand up and grip his jaw reflectively, narrowed eyes confused. The Uchiha looked at Jiraiya, or rather at the cloak of green chakra that surrounded him and the toads on his shoulders. Was this what Senjutsu was capable of? Itachi made the conclusion that this new chakra allowed Jiraiya some ability to physically extend the reach of his blows.

What hit him hadn't been Jiraiya, it must've been his chakra.

Just like Naruto earlier in the fight.

This certainly changed things. He had hoped to finish this useless battle as fast as possible but Jiraiya was proving too much to handle. From the very beginning the sage had not looked Itachi in the eye thereby making it impossible to use Tsukuyomi on him.

He used Amaterasu a couple of times but it not only cost him too much chakra but Jiraiya proved once again that experience and resourcefulness could effectively negate talent and badassery.

Why couldn't he just fight an overconfident opponent instead? This would have over in seconds. Even with Orochimaru, the only reason he defeated the snake so embarrassingly easy was that he was too arrogant for his own good, believing that his natural talent was enough to subdue any opponent. Isn't that the main reason he decided to invade the hidden leaf despite knowing that he had no chance of winning.

But unlike the snake sannin, Jiraiya was different. Instead of showing arrogance and showing off, the toad sannin was weary of his opponent, almost to the point of giving them respect. A wide range of jutsu in his arsenal but still choose to draw his opponent into a false sense of security by using the same ones until he saw the right moment to switch styles. This man used his battle experience, losses, failures and victories better than anyone Itachi has ever met.

He was giving Itachi a true battle and if this continued he may be forced to call upon his trump card and he really wanted to avoid that. He could feel his chakra was at roughly 30% and he knew that Jiraiya wouldn't be defeated by any easy means.

He never thought he would ever consider summoning Susanoo for any battle other than his last against his brother but now that hope was drastically fading.

Man this battle was taking it out of him, and the fact that it achieved nothing for him only made him hate it more. If it wasn't for the fact that he was sure that Madara was keeping an eye on him, he would have mostly likely left this scene.

Itachi almost frowned disapproving at the people reading this with a frown on their face thinking he was some demigod who could 'one-shot' any opponent he could ever face. He wondered if there was ever a time he had used Shisui's eye on them to give them those beliefs.

For only a fraction of a second, the Uchiha's eyes glanced towards them speaking in a whisper only they could hear.

"I cannot defeat Madara" he said hoping that settled a lifelong senseless debate.

"Give it up, Itachi." Jiraiya stated. "There's no need to continue fighting"

Of course there was no need for fighting! there was never any need for fighting! He wanted to scream that out loud but instead spoke in monotone voice that made Jiraiya feel like slapping himself.

"Unfortunately, there is. You're a rather persistent thorn to Akatsuki so you need to eliminated. Naruto is also needed to further Akatsuki's goals"

"For what? Why do you need the jinchurikki so much? why hunt them down? What is Akatsuki trying to achieve?" the sannin asked a furry of questions hoping to finally get something about the elusive criminal organization

"I'm not at liberty to answer any of those questions Jiraiya-sama." Itachi replied with a small frown as he realized that he too had no idea just what the Akatsuki were really planning.

Pain and Madara had once spoken of peace but they never really explained what they meant by it.

"I see" the sannin sighed "I guess you leave me no choice then"

Jiraiya appeared in front of Itachi aimed for a punch in the gut the Uchiha choose to wisely avoid him completely, the Uchiha leapt into the air and Jiraiya followed with a rasengan in hand. In only a fraction of a minute, the uchiha broke apart into a flock of crows and appeared behind Jiraiya sticking a fire coated kunai in his back. When it connected Itachi frowned realizing that it was only a clone as Jiraiya wouldn't be caught that easily.

he was proved right when Jiraiya appeared a good distance above him holding another rasengan in his hand and the blue Rasengan became pitch black with a fiery aura around it. Jiraiya's hand was clearly burning up just from being near such powerful chakra. "Take this! Hellfire Rasengan!"

Jiraiya wanted to drive the destructive jutsu into the Uchiha sending him back to the ground with it resulting in a pillar of fire that stretched into the sky, incinerating everything in a half mile radius resulting in the instant death of Itachi.

A form of poetic justice for what he did to his arm.

And that would have happened, if not for a large, orange outline of chakra forming around Itachi. Within it, a transparent skeleton began to form around him, and then muscle, and a humanoid being with glowing yellow eyes and an intimidating face.

The hellfire rasengan was Jiraiya's strongest jutsu, his coup de grace. A jutsu he would always rely on to get the job done when all else failed.

And words failed to come out from his mouth as he just saw it completely fail against the Uchiha as it hit an ethereal round shield wielded by the Susanoo's left arm.

Jiraiya along with the two toads on his shoulders couldn't hide their shock seeing how the sannin's jutsu didn't even crack the shield, not a single scratch.

What kind of monster were they fighting?

"Such a terrifying opponent" Shima spoke voicing everyone's thoughts

Yeah, no shit granny.

Damn, this was Hanzo all over again.

The sannin unconsciously took a step back, his expression conveying something he had never thought he would ever experience since his battle with Hanzo.

Defeat.

For the first time in a very long time, the resonating feeling of hopelessness was creeping in. his best attack had just failed miserably and it seemed like his opponent was still pulling jutsu out of his ass.

He found out about the Tsukuyomi from Kakashi and how Itachi is able to cast it and had done well in completely avoiding the genjutsu being cast on him and he was fast enough to avoid being hit by the black flames again, but now this?

He thought Amaterasu was unfair, but this?

He wanted to scream out, "Come on Kishimoto! seriously?" in frustration, because honestly, how the hell could someone, anyone ever hope to win against this?

Jiraiya's heart sank deeper when he realized that Itachi was just a pawn to the Akatsuki, if this man with such incredible power was just another soldier in an organization then how much more powerful was the man leading them?

Ever since he had found out about the criminal organization, Jiraiya had spent most of his time investigating them, trying to find out who they were, what their purpose was, how many they were and how they would affect the elemental nations. He used most of his resources into uncovering the mysterious organization…

And now, he had gotten a very good idea about them… Akatsuki were some really really bad motherfuckers.

Whatever they were planning, they had a very good chance of succeeding unless something drastic changed. Now more than ever, Jiraiya wished the elemental nations weren't so focused on murdering one another and saw the real enemy that was knocking on their door.

He shuddered to think just how much more powerful they would be if they got the bijuu they were after. Just having the power of the one tails Shukaku in their corner was already a frightening prospect, how worse would it be if they got the nine tails?

The nine tails…

Naruto.

These monsters were targeting his godson, his very last student.

No way in hell he would allow that, he had failed in a lot of things throughout his life but he will not fail to protect his godson. He would mostly likely end up dying in the process but atleast he would have done one thing right.

For Naruto, he had to keep on fighting.

Jiraiya's conviction and determination double when Itachi suddenly fell to his knees, most of his Susanoo dispersing leaving only the skeleton body of chakra surrounding him, the shield disappearing as well. The Uchiha coughed up massive amounts of blood, clutching to his head as he breathed hard.

That's it, this was his chance. It was a now-or-never situation.

"Sage Art; Big ball Rasengan barrage!"

Meanwhile

Naruto was in awe at how much chakra Kisame had, he has never met anyone with even half of what the shark loving shinobi had. He too had massive chakra reserves but he always figured that was because of the seal constantly syphoning chakra from the Kyuubi and because he was an Uzumaki but even then, he would still bet that Kisame had more chakra than him in his base form.

The fact that he could create this large dome of water and not show any chakra exhaustion just reinforced his thought.

His eyes went to Gamakichi who was a good distance away from him but still safe.

"Now then let us begin shall we" Kisame said drawing blood and weaving through handsigns, "Summoning jutsu!" he called calling force another shark that sped after Gamakichi who took out his blade ready to defend himself.

Naruto was about to swim closer to his toad summon but halted when Kisame swam at him faster than what should have been possible for any human… then again this man wasn't exactly human.

Once again, the blonde had to be thankful to Fukasaku for teaching him Senjutsu which greatly increased his speed, and in hindsight his swimming speed.

The blond swam the opposite direction, trying with all his might to avoid the barreling shark man. He achieved little success as the rogue shinobi still caught up to him but then still used his superior reaction speed to duck or dodge when Kisame was about to bulldoze him.

Naruto spared a second to see how his summon was faring and was relieved when he saw Gamakichi defending himself, swinging his ninjato (as well as he could, considering that this was in water) at the attacking shark summon. The shark did get a few hits in but all in all the toad was defending itself well.

He was about to go help him but Kisame once again proved a pain in the ass when he sped through more hand signs, "Oh no you don't, your battle is with me boy"

"Water style; Five hungry sharks!"

Five more sharks were created, these ones even faster than Kisame himself, at him with the intent to devour.

"Sealing art; impregnable ice wall!"

Naruto called out clapping his hands once, immediately a glass-like orange barrier was erected all around him. The barrier wasn't big or imposing in any way but it covered Naruto's body quiet well and despite the vulnerable appearance it had, it was actually stronger than steel. He had Haku to thank for giving an idea for this jutsu.

The ferocious water sharks came at him with blinding speed but bounced off the barrier upon impact. That didn't seem to deter them though as they continued their assault on the barrier but it still held firm, not showing even a single crack. One by one, all the tried to break through without any success.

"Itachi-san was right…" Kisame said using a single handsign to command his sharks to halt their attack. "…You've become quiet the formidable foe, not many people can last this long against me inside this jutsu. But…" the shark-man took his eyes to Gamakichi who was still struggling against his shark summon giving the toad a predatory grin. "…the same can't be said for your toad friend!" he said as he along with his five sharks suddenly swam after the toad.

'Shit'

Naruto was forced to dispel the barrier and took off to help his friend, he soon realized that he had just played into Kisame's hands as the criminal shinobi made an abrupt U-turn coming back after him.

"Shadow clone jutsu"

He created countless doppelgangers but the jutsu was made irrelevant when Kisame created many water clones as well cancelling the shadow clone jutsu perfectly. After the smoke of dispelled clones had cleared, the five sharks came at him again and once again, he thankful for sage mode as he landed a brutal punch on the one that reached him first. When the second one reached, he created a rasengan nailing it in the mouth and executed an awkward (considering this was inside a large dome of water) roundhouse kick to the third shark. Two handsigns later and Naruto defeated the fourth and fifth shark with a simultaneous "windbullet "piercing their skulls.

Kisame took advantage of the blonde's distraction that his sharks had afforded him by quickly bulldozing over Naruto. He came so fast even with his superior sensing abilities and enhanced reaction, the blonde couldn't do much to prevent it.

The former hidden mist shinobi harshly pressed the attack as he went through him again sending him backwards. Again and again, the shark-man bulldozed over Naruto targeting the head and chest causing some blood to leak out of the blond.

Not only was the Akatsuki member seriously hurting Naruto but he was stealing his chakra every time he made contact with him.

"How pitiful… so this is what the great sage can do?" Naruto heard the unmistakable voice of the kyubi as he was getting run over by Kisame.

"Shut up!" he mentally growled back at the legendary chakra construct.

"I could always give you some of my chakra you know… go ahead, lets show him just how powerful we can be"

"I said shut up!" using all his anger, frustration and annoyance to counter with a devastating uppercut to Kisame sending the man back with so much force that it temporarily disoriented him.

A quick look at Gamakichi later, Naruto confirmed that the toad had just managed to defeat the shark summon with boiling oil jutsu.

That actually gave him an idea, something so obvious that he felt stupid for not utilizing it earlier. The blonde smoothly weaved through handsigns and executed his jutsu before Kisame had a chance to come at him again.

"Wind style; freezing winds!"

"Sage art; Boiling Oil!"

he said adding so much wind to the water to the point where it was turning to ice. The blonde then added plenty of scolding oil from Mt. Myoboku in the icy waters, the oil was so thick and plenty that it stuck to the Kisame, Gamakichi and Naruto himself burning them a bit but he still paid it no mind. He looked at his toad summon who nodded understanding what he wanted to do.

Naruto stood on top of Gamakichi and both summon and summoner expertly weaved through handsigns as an oil covered Kisame resumed his charge.

"Fire style; toad flame bullet!"

"Reverse summoning!"

Just as soon as Gamakichi released the huge grand fireball, Naruto was quick to reverse summon them back to the land of the toads leaving Kisame to suffer the results of boiling oil and ice alone.

"Gaaahh!"

Kisame now hated fire more than anything else. This would mark the second time that it had screwed him over and cooked him alive. Skin burned heavily, body covered in oil and ice that was surprisingly reacting rather volatile with the flames, it was boiling him so much that he could feel his hard skin melting off him as he quickly dispelled his water jutsu.

Kisame crawled across the ground gritting his teeth in fury as he tried to get back up on his feet shakily. "I'm going to cut your arms and your legs off brat!" He bellowed, pushing himself up, the damage was so much that even Samehada was failing to heal him despite the large amounts of chakra it had absorbed.

"You know what… fuck leaving you alive, I'm gonna cut you up piece by piece you hear me!" he growled finally managing to stand up albeit barely, at this point he was struggling just to stay conscious.

Kisame looked up to where Samehada was sensing the blonde, he expected to find him grinning or preparing some jutsu to finish him off, though he saw the last thing that he would ever expect to see; his eyes were open but it was completely dark only showing golden yellow eyes with bar like pupils. That was all he saw, the blonde's eye. Kisame tried to shake his head to clear his vision but still nothing changed. He became confused when suddenly, one of two eyes started rotating, first slowly then fast enough to rival the rotating tomeos of the sharingan.

Then the darkness faded and he saw that he was surrounded by four large toads, wearing what would be a comical getup in any other situation. Each told either had a flute or drum with them. Further in front of the toads were two small, old looking toads, one male and another female, both cleared their throats and started singing really high notes that made Kisame's ears bleed and the four large toads backed them up with their own musical instruments resulting in a really weird, really annoying song. The toad confrontation chant. And what was worse was that they were using chakra to complement their ridiculous song.

Kisame held his ears in pain, gritting his teeth, this was genjutsu, it had to be. That was the only possible explanation for this. Though he couldn't help but wonder just how it was possible, from what he knew Jinchurikki aren't supposed to use genjutsu. Their bijuu didn't allow them to master chakra control so well that they could use the illusionary arts. Hell, it was common knowledge that jinchurikki and genjutsu did not mix well.

Kisame disrupted his flow, slowing down his life energy to a trickle before using all he had in one big flare. When he opened his eyes, he found himself still surrounded by the toads.

"How is possible? How the hell are you able to do this" he asked unable to grasp the situation he was in.

"Because I'm a sage bitch!" Naruto shouted as he brutally drove a rasenshiruken in Kisame's chest sending him flying to an instant death.

A few minutes later, Naruto sighed a breath of relief when he confirmed Kisame's death as he could no longer feel any chakra coming from the blue man.

"Man, that was quiet intense eh Naruto?" Gamakichi said impressed with his summoners strength, that was the first time the toad had seen a summoner perform the toad confrontation chant and it was just as badass as his father had told him.

"Yeah, thanks for the help Gamakichi" he replied giving the toad a thumbs up.

"No problem, anyway my time is up. See ya later…" the toad spoke before he puffed out of existence.

"Yeah, sure thing"

Naruto sat down on the ground wanting to catch a breather and reflect on his latest battle before a chakra flaring reminded him of another battle taking place a few kilometers away. He grew even wearier when he sensed two more huge chakra signals near the three tails.

He had no idea who these people were but he sure as hell knew that they were no friends of his. Another chakra flare made him look to the direction were Jiraiya was battling Itachi.

'The battle must be fiercer than I thought' he could sense his teachers; Jiraiya, Fukasaku and Shima all in sage mode as well and that was never good.

Naruto stood up and charged his chakra, getting it ready to execute a long distance wind shunshin. He then created a rasengan and started adding his earth style making the rasengan change color to copper, its size twice as that of a normal rasengan but it now looked like a round, hard stone than an actual jutsu.

Satisfied, Naruto executed his wind powered shunshin with jutsu in hand hoping to end this battle quickly before these two shinobi could enter the fray.

With Itachi and Jiraiya

Itachi was really pissed at the moment, this wasn't what he had intended. The plan was to show Jiraiya a bit of the power Akatsuki had at its exposal and leave but somehow, he found himself having a full-fledged battle with the sannin who was proving just why he was a sannin in the first place.

Despite the fact that he was blocking all of Jiraiya's high powered attacks with the Yatamirror, the sannin kept coming at him over and over again. He used different strategies, different jutsu, different approaches but still Jiraiya wasn't deterred that he was failing to penetrate his defense.

Itachi himself had tried to use Amaterasu on him again, but the sannin always moving making it impossible to hit.

Tsukuyomi was also impossible to cast since the sannin had not stared in his eyes even once.

And using the Totsuka blade was out of the question because he wasn't fighting to kill here though with the way things were going, he might as well do it and get it over with.

"Big ball Hellfire Rasengan!" the sannin drove another attack his way but once again, his defense held firm.

"Man what the hell is up with that shield of yours?!" Jiraiya screamed out loud in frustration seeing another one of his attacks fail.

Despite it all, this actually got Itachi to give a small smile at the sannin.

"This is my ultimate defense, the Yata mirror. No attack could ever pass through with this by my side. I-

The Uchiha once again fell to knees cough up blood, he's chakra was almost at the point of exhaustion and his body was aching as well. Most of his Susanoo including the Yata mirror had dispelled as well leaving only the skeleton protecting him. He tried to get back up on shaky legs but then-

"Rasen-Drill!" Naruto suddenly appeared above him driving a copper-black Rasengan through his Susanoo shattering the remaining skeleton with extreme ease but before he could drive the Jutsu into his chest, a masked man appeared sucking Itachi in what appeared to be a vortex and then made himself intangible.

Naruto was shocked out of his wits seeing how he suddenly passed through this mysterious masked man thereby driving his jutsu to the ground creating the biggest crater any jutsu has ever created.

The Rasen-Drill might be small and not flashy but it was just as destructive as the rasenshiruken because while the Rasenshiruken severely damaged the body on acellular level attacking the chakra circulatory system, the Rasen-Drill wreaked its way through a target. It had the force of three wrecking balls combined into one deadly jutsu that would surely wreck everything in its path.

The masked man whistled impressively looking at the destruction Naruto's jutsu had formed. He made himself intangible again as Jiraiya attacked him with a big ball Rasengan only to go through as well.

"Wow! you've gotten quite strong Naruto-kun, how impressive" he said in a childish tone as a plant like creature emerged from the ground standing next to the masked man.

Naruto eyed the man with narrowed eyes wondering who he was and why the Kyuubi was growling at the site of him.

"Who are you?" he asked not a making a move but still on guard

"Me? I'm nobody really, just a random guy trying to look out from my comrades ya know" he replied in a way that made Naruto remember his first days as a gennin

"You're Akatsuki" Jiraiya said entering the conversation, "What do you want with the tailed beasts? What is your purpose?"

"Our purpose? Well… I just you could say that we want peace"

Peace? Seriously?

"Are you stupid? What sort of peace can be achieved by hunting down jinchurikki?"

"The good everlasting kind" the man's voice suddenly changed to one that was commanding and demanded respect whether you wanted to give it or not.

Naruto was rather surprised by how the Kyuubi was reacting to this man's presence, his stomach was even heating up as the seal tried to hold back the clearly infuriated creature.

"Have you gotten Kisame's body?" the masked man asked the plant like creature to which it nodded speaking in what heard like two voices.

"Yes, Naruto did quite a number on him though, he was barely recognizable"

"I see…" the masked man responded as a vortex appeared sucking him in while the plant creature was swallowed by the ground. "… we will meet again Naruto Uzumaki. Oh and by the way… do say hi to my old friend the Kyuubi for me."

And with that, the man's chakra signal along with his companion completely disappeared reappearing where the three tail was located then once again disappearing along with it.

Jiraiya was left frowning at what just transpired, wondering just how many dangerous shinobi were remaining in the criminal group. His frown deepened when he suddenly heard Itachi's voice speaking to him. He knew that Itachi was no longer with them seeing as he couldn't sense him but his voice was too clear to ignore.

"Trouble approaches from where the land cries" it said

Suna

"Hiding in Scale Powder!" A stream of blinding powder was propelled out of Fu's mouth, effectively blinding her opponent as the jinchurikki of the Seven Tails made her attack using her chakra arms to grab the mad bomber and squish his head to oblivion only for the man to suddenly explode.

"Clone" Fu said as she put on a burst of speed to get further away from the sent her way from above. The jinchurikki managed to escape the resounding explosion and growl when she saw Deidera looking at her with a smile.

She was about to resume her chase when Deidera suddenly dropped lots and lots of small animated C1 bombs towards her and it would have surely bombed her to shreds except the Seven Tails had one thing going for it though, and that was speed and maneuverability. Fu's beating wings enabled her to avoid being trapped by the small bombs, and Fu realized that she wouldn't be able to simply get lucky and escape this time. Wincing as she drew on more of her Tailed Beast's chakra, crying out in pain as more and more of Chomei's power leaked out.

The small bombs surrounded her and went off. To seal the deal, Deidera sent a big eagle into the smoke, when it went Deidera was surprised to see that it had done no harm on her whatsoever. The smoke cleared to reveal that Fu had become obscured by a thick blue armor, reminiscent of the beetle sealed inside her. It was one thing to draw on a Tailed Beast's chakra, but to cover your entire body in it was a burning experience comparable only to being burned alive forever. Fu had no illusions that she could keep up her armor indefinitely, but it was infinitely better than exploding.

"You're hard to kill yeah, gets that's to be expected from jinchurikki" the mad bomber said

"You can throw in as many of your bombs as you like, you will never be able to penetrate my armor, the end result will still be me killing you." Fu growled back

"Yeah? I wonder…" Deidera then sent his eyes towards Gaara who was in another battle against Sasori. Deidera then gave Fu a feral grin flying over to Sasori and Gaara whilst shouting, "Lets test that theory out shall we?"

Once again Fuu gave chase intent of ripping the blonde bomber to shreds but then her eyes went wide when she saw just what Deidera was about to do.

At that moment, Fuu couldn't give a proper response of what she did next, she could say that she forgot that Gaara had a perfect defense or she could say that she was not thinking straight due to the bijuu's chakra but the truth is… her heart and body just moved on their own.

With Gaara

Sasori felt pretty good with himself for manipulating the Kazekage into the perfect position to use his Red Army, but then he realized that the Kazekage gained just as impressive of an advantage. As it turned out, the wide open space of the desert that allowed Sasori's entire collection to run wild also gave Gaara more room to manipulate his sand. So now Sasori was looking up at the red headed leader of the Village Hidden in the Sand who was now flying. And while Sasori had wings on his puppet body, they were purely decorative. Well, not decorative per se, but they were pretty useless when it came to actual flight so he had to think again for that little help.

Not to mention that the Kazekage's Ultimate Defense remained as effective at blocking poison coated weapons as before. Sasori's water jets were a bit more effective, as getting the sand wet had the added effect of slowing it down, but by this point the Kazekage had more than enough sand standing by that some of it getting wet wasn't a real issue. Turning the sand to glass with his flamethrowers was little more effective, as it rendered the sand unusable, but Sasori had a limited amount of oil to ignite and throw at his enemies.

Which left him with the brute force tactic of throwing everything but a toilet at his opponents from over a hundred directions at once after covering it in poison.

Just as the master puppeteer began to think about making a Plan B in case his blitzkrieg of puppets failed, the bird that Sasori was on suddenly flew high away from Gaara as one of Deidera's huge C3 bombs dropped above Gaara. Before the half transformed Kazekage could do anything to defend himself, Fu suddenly appeared above him using her chakra cloak to completely provide cover for him.

'BOOM!'

The resounding explosion sent ripples through the desert, no doubt the whole of Suna had heard that.

When the smoke cleared, Gaara's heart dropped when he saw Deidera's bird carrying a heavily bleeding, unconscious Fu in its mouth.

"You bastards…" he didn't realize it then but he was summoning his bijuu chakra as well, massive amounts of sand reacting to his call as it rose. "…I'm gonna kill you"

Deidera was quick to respond as he dropped another C3 bomb near the Kazekage, this one even bigger than the first.

'BOOM!'

The blast echoed throughout the desert creating so much smoke and kicking up sand in its wake.

When it cleared, it still showed a visibly unharmed Gaara, well he was still half transformed but still unharmed from the explosion as a lot of sand had surrounded him completely.

"Man, I guess the term 'perfect defense' wasn't just a moniker eh Sasori-dono" Deidera said as looked on at the incensed redhead kage.

"So it seems…" Sasori paused when he saw a couple of Suna shinobi including his grandmother approaching them from far away." It seems we have a few more visitors." He said

"What are we going to do yeah?"

"You can drop one of your bombs on them before they reach here"

"Uh… I can't… I'm kinda out of clay."

The mad bomber gave a nervous laugh as his partner glared at him, obviously annoyed with his stupidity.

"I told you to carry enough clay"

"Give me a break yeah, nobody expected to find two jinchurikki here, Hn." The blonde said defending himself.

"(sigh) well the Kazekage has destroyed a lot of my puppets as well, we won't win this fight if we choose to stay. At least we have one so there is some success here. Let us leave Deidera."

As the two criminals started to retreat with Fuu, more and more sand rose and rose up into the biggest sandstorm ever seen threatening to swallow them all.

Deidera was quick to instruct his two birds to move faster so as to avoid the destructive sand jutsu.

"You're not going anywhere, Desert sandstorm!" Gaara shouted bring his hands together before pointing them at the two criminals.

The sand pushed forward, approaching the retreating Akatsuki members as fast as it could, swallowing up everything in its path. The clay birds did well to avoid been swallowed up the sandstorm but Deidera was unlucky as he got the whole of his left arm caught by some sand.

"Sand coffin!"

Gaara growled brutally destroying the arm with his sand, though Deidera wasn't deterred much as he continued guiding the birds to fly away from the desert.

End Chapter

Well that was quiet a long chapter, I was tempted to break it into two but then reconsidered. I'm new at writing battle scenes but I hope this didn't disappoint much.

Another thing; a lot of people are complaining that I've made the villains more powerful than they are in canon, but that is not the case. Sasuke Did defeat Kakuzu yes, but keep in mind that this Kakuzu only had one heart and was running out of chakra, surely Hebi-Sasuke is atleast strong enough to defeat him in those conditions right?

Another one that perhaps got lost in translation is Kisame absorbing jutsu… he doesn't, Samehada absorbs chakra from a jutsu that's pretty much common knowledge.

And his Naruto is NOT weaker than his opponents, he has all power of a toad sage but just doesn't have the experience to back it up. It's kinda like how Juubito, with all his power was still struggling Sasuke and Naruto or how Kaguya was struggling to kill Naruto and Sasuke despite the fact that she hard all the power in the world, or even how Frieza was still giving super-saiyan Goku a fight despite the fact that Goku had just been given a power-up while future Trunks just obliterated the same opponent with much ease. Once again, it's not because these guys were weak but they just lacked the experience with their new powers so NO I did not make Kisame (who is a very much underrated character btw), Sasuke or anyone else except Orochimaru stronger.

And with Orochimaru… I've already said why I've given him the power-up.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, our feedback is always appreciated.

P.S; F**k you to the guy who told me to go back to Africa.

SARAVAN OUT!