Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Important Note-

This is part of a dual release so please make sure you have read chapter 6 before proceeding. Info on next release and overall schedule is at the end of the AN.

Chapter 7

Naruto quickly rushed towards his teammates. He was quickly realising that being overly dependent on a single nature transformation was not ideal. He truly didn't have any long range techniques aside from his water release. Seeing no other choice he concentrated within him, on the flow of his chakra as he started moulding it and went through a couple of hand signs. He had to tune out a large portion of his senses because he was using a very complex technique and was unwilling to use as many hand signs as was required. To him chakra was never a problem but lack of time was.

Extending his hand he formed small orb of flowing water in front of him. It grew a bit before cracks appeared on its surface revealing a small serpent. It quickly uncoiled itself before it moved forward, towards his enemies gaining strength as it drew water from its surrounding; the technique was quickly gaining mass and a more defined form. As he neared his teammates' location he winced at the feeling of his senses getting assaulted by Kotetsu's distress from feeling pain and confusion.

Quickly entering the clearing just behind his water jutsu he saw Izumo's prone form bleeding and their enemies advancing forward towards them. Naruto grit his teeth; from the rapid changes of emotions he had felt from the people gathered in front of him he could tell that it was his opponent's action that had caused Kotetsu's injury. If he had done his part of the job correctly his teammates wouldn't have suffered. He quickly made a clone by spitting some water from his mouth and before it could dissolve and get assimilated into his other technique he bit his thumb drawing blood and going through another set of hand signs. He slapped his hand on his clones back before letting it run forwards, straight into the turbulent shape of his serpent.

Guren braced herself and let the jutsu advance on her, she was injured and wasn't quite confident that she would be able to outrun it. If this technique worked anything like the famed dragon inspired ones it could be somewhat remotely controlled. She started trying to crystallise the serpent well before it made contact with her and through her effort she realised that unlike other water techniques she had faced in her lifetime the chakra in this one was far too dense, far too active… far… too… lively? She didn't know how to describe the feeling, she did not have the advance capability to sense chakra to such a level to distinguish it, but even then she could feel that the water construct felt alive. As her hand came into contact with the head only half of which she had been successfully capable of converting, the force of the technique pushed her back; she redoubled her effort by pumping more chakra only for the unthinkable to happen. She felt her hold on her crystals falter and shortly the beautiful crystalline head exploded.

All she could see at the moment was a row of large jagged teeth, easily the size of her entire arm, shimmering in the glow of her crystals, appear in front of her. Panicking, she quickly summoned her crystal armour to such a thickness that she didn't think she would be able to move because of it. She was thankful that in her haste she put more chakra into the technique than she normally did as she heard a sickening crunch and saw the teeth nearly pierce through.

After a brief period of trying to tear through her defences, she watched the thing give up and slither away and loosely coil around the three Konoha Nin; it seemed in the chaos of the situation Uzumaki had retrieved his teammate. The animal protectively coiled around him and his team was quite large, not as large as some of the summons of her lord and now that she saw it clearly it was quite different from a snake although if she wasn't so intimately familiar with snakes she wouldn't have been able to make that distinction. It was dark black in colour with rough scales on its back with a longer narrower snout than a snake's, it looked similar to an alligator albeit a limbless one.

Naruto gently passed the unconscious body of his injured companion to Izumo and said, "Take him and make your way towards Konoha I used a technique on the wound but his life might still be in danger. I'll cover your escape."

"What about you? We can't just leave you here." Izumo asked frantically. At the moment he felt very conflicted he could see that Kotetsu's wound wasn't bleeding but it was very large with small shards of crystal embedded around the opening. Normally he would be worried that the small pieces would enter his bloodstream but it appeared as if the blood was forcefully being kept in place by the web of writing that was put on top of the deep hole. But he also didn't want to leave Naruto behind.

Sensing his distress Naruto slightly turned towards Izumo and gave him a reassuring smile, "Don't worry about me I'll just reverse summon myself out of here. I can't take you with me so it would be better if you leave first." He tried not to grimace at the lie he was telling but he was the team's leader. He might be lazy when it comes to doing any of the boring work like collecting resources or intelligence but the safety of his team was his responsibility and there was no way he would shirk on that job. Naruto passed Izumo a scroll, "Here take this counter formula, apply it only when you reach a medic, but make sure they have examined the wound before you do so and if Kotetsu's low on chakra force feed him a chakra pill."

"Okay." Izumo said still worried. He carefully put the scroll inside his vest pocket before once again turning towards Naruto, "Be safe though, we'll be waiting for you in Konoha."

Nodding Naruto turned towards his summon, "Itou-san, I would like your assistance. We'll be covering their retreat. Make sure they don't pursue them."

The serpent now identified as Itou looked at Naruto for a moment before it said hesitantly "As you wish young master."

Izumo secured Kotetsu on his back making sure not to jostle him too much before he ran as quickly as he could. He had faith in Naruto to keep the pursuers off his back. The only thing he could do now was quickly make his way back to the Konoha outpost near the border to get Kotetsu some medical help and hightail his way to report to the hokage. Hopefully Naruto would be able to reach Konoha before he did.

Naruto watched the enemy ready to react at any second. He was perplexed when one of them, the crystal user, stopped the other two from pursuing.

"Hibiki, Hideki stop. Let them go."

"But Guren-sama-" The kunoichi Hibiki tried to protest.

"Enough. They are unimportant." Guren cut in with a severe tone.

So they were after him, Naruto thought, well he had already guessed that from the whole encounter he just wasn't sure of the reason for their interest. Was it because he was a jinchuriki or was it because he was an Uzumaki or maybe it was something else. Even then he couldn't fathom why they would let the others go. Weren't they afraid that the knowledge of his capture would bring forth the whole might of Konoha upon them?

"So what do you want from me exactly if you tell me maybe I could help you out." Naruto said rather conversationally. On the inside he was furiously thinking of a plan to make his escape. He was sure that even in a one on one fight against the kunoichi, Guren, he would be hard pressed to win. She had an impressive defence, her crystal jutsu was very versatile in mid to long range and she would be easily able to counter his water techniques. Most of what he had learned from the fight was that he had only been successful because she had not been expecting him to fight as he did, and now there were three of them to watch each other's backs.

"Don't pretend to not know Uzumaki, a smart boy like you surely would have figured it out by now." Guren said, "But I'll take you up on your offer you just have to come with us, my lord would be very interested in meeting you."

"You're giving me too much credit. I can't think of a reason why someone so important would be so interested in a nobody like me." Naruto said offhandedly.

"Well, why not? Your mere existence is very interesting Naruto Uzumaki, having a biju sealed inside of you since birth would have done wonders to your body."

"Oh, so you were after my body all along and here I thought we had something special. But I like you so how about you tell me who your lord is and I'll make an exception for you." Naruto said grinning, inwardly though he was put off by the fact that someone outside the village knew of his status as the jinchuriki and in such detail. It was too soon in his opinion; he was still not strong enough to stand against the others that were like him. Apparently the jinchuriki of the Hachibi along with the Mizukage who was the holder of the Sanbi were perfectly in control of their beasts. He had no idea how they had done it, so he had to become stronger than them using his own skills, people before him had challenged the beasts unassisted and prevailed so there was no way he wouldn't be able to do the same.

"Well if you come with us you would naturally meet him, I don't want to spoil the surprise."

Naruto knew he couldn't get anything more out of her. He sensed Guren's senses shift from deceit to a more sinister intent. She very quickly bought her hands together.

"Crystal Release: Amethyst Prison"

Feeling the build-up of chakra under his feet he tried to move. The foreign chakra was latching on to him, preventing him from lifting his foot. Naruto sent his chains towards the ground stabbing them in equidistant positions and siphoning the chakra out of it, effectively halting the technique.

Seeing the technique fail Guren went through a couple of hand signs before sweeping her hands forward. Several shuriken made of blue crystals the size of her palm appeared around her spinning with an uncanny speed.

Naruto jumped onto the head of his summon, which was easily large enough for him to do so comfortably, before taking out his sword and rapidly cutting through the hail of shuriken that would cause him harm leaving the rest to fall ineffectively on the back of the serpent's thick scales as it advanced forward. The other kunoichi, Hibiki, seeing them approach quickly went through some hand-signs of her own before pressing both her hands around her neck and shrieking.

Naruto felt a wave of dizziness overwhelm him and felt his foothold on the summon weaken. He was sent flying when his serpent shrieked in agony before it charged towards the noise. He sensed someone advancing on his position. He barely blocked the fist from connecting to his face using his arm. The force of the blow was so great that he was slammed into the ground creating a small crater.

Naruto quickly flipped out of the crater seemingly unfazed by the attack, but he was sure that normally he would have sustained serious injuries from the fall. He could feel himself growing stronger and faster. The world was growing brighter and more vivid by the moment but he could feel his mind growing darker, screaming to unleash untold destruction. He let out a breath but this time he wasn't as successful in calming himself as before, his frustration was mounting.

He saw Guren perform another technique. 'This is getting annoying.' He had already realised that any distance between them was far too advantageous for her but he couldn't charge in blindly as her crystals were deadly for him to take head on and he was unsure whether he could cut through her thicker ones. He jumped backwards as she slammed her hands on the ground.

"Crystal Release: Growing Crystal Thorns"

He watched beautiful pink crystal grow beneath his feet; pumping chakra into his legs he jumped again using the crystals as footing. To his surprise the thorns split chasing his ascent. He hastily turned his body to prevent getting impaled. The technique continued to grow in size, creating more and more branches, dividing again and again as if a malevolent tree made to cause him harm. Seeing no choice he used his chains for more manoeuvrability, yanking himself out of the way and swinging through the gaps. He knew that it was an up-hill battle sooner or later he would be caught, and not a moment too soon he felt the intent of all three lock on to him. He wondered where his summon was.

As if providing an answer to his thoughts he saw a large chunk of earth being hurled towards Guren out of nowhere forcing her to direct her attention elsewhere. He also registered the incoming punch from the shinobi, and multiple kunai being thrown from the screeching kunoichi.

Having exhausted every viable means he needed to outthink his opponent. He remembered his grandma's advise-

"Your mind is your greatest asset Naru. It will help you survive seemingly unsurpassable odds you just have to be creative."

Smiling maniacally he willingly took the punch to the face, trading the blow by plunging his sword through the shinobi's heart. He felt his nose break and felt a few kunai dig into his back. Ignoring the pain he coiled his chains around the corpse of the shinobi and flung it towards the two kunoichi standing side by side. As he fell down with great speed he activated the botched up seal he had placed before curling his body inwards as he smashed into the sea of pink crystals moulding as much chakra as he could.

Guren watched Naruto kill another one of her subordinate; if the stupid animal hadn't hurled a boulder towards where she had been standing she would have been able to manipulate her crystals to prevent that. She also watched him chuck the corpse in her direction, disrespectful little boy. Watching him fall into jagged crystals at high speed she thought the whole situation to be odd. Why didn't he use Hideki's body to cushion the blow?

Hibiki caught onto the body of her teammate and was about to set it down when she was met with a horrific sight. In a blink of an eye she saw black markings cover the entire body of her comrade, she tried to drop the corpse only to scream in horror as she found her hands stuck inside the body of her teammate up to her elbows. She tried to fight the strange pull coming from the seal but in mere moments half of her body was sealed inside, and all she could see were half formed walls and darkness before she felt her chakra starting to collapse in on itself.

In a flash of burning chakra the abomination of two mixing bodies exploded into a gory mess sending sharp fragments of bones everywhere. Guren felt the explosion hit her crystal armour and felt the pieces of bones leave numerous cracks all over it.

She shivered in disgust as she used her crystals to prevent all the flesh and blood from coming into contact with her skin. She saw a giant crater where her last remaining soldier had stood moments before. She had never felt so infuriated in her life, all her subordinates were dead, she was injured and all because the jinchuriki didn't play by the rules. She and all her subordinates had prepared to fight a chunin level ninja who when cornered like every other of his type would simply rely on his beast for protection, but Naruto Uzumaki was far too wild. They were severely lacking on information and considering the fact that they had an inside source in Konoha, it was baffling how off the mark they were. The next time she met him, Kabuto would dearly pay for his incompetence.

She was sorely tempted to use her life force to enhance her crystal release and put an end to this but her body had been promised to Orochimaru-sama and she didn't wish to weaken it. This had been the biggest struggle she had faced since her childhood; she had not faced such failure since she had started to serve Orochimaru-sama. If only she had struck hard and fast from the beginning the fight would not have turned out like this.

Resisting the urge to create a crystalline mirror to assess her appearance and make sure she wasn't dirtied, she decided it was time to end it. Shattering the veritable sea of crystals inside which Naruto had disappeared into tiny particles she created a storm of sharp crystals trying to grind anything within their confine.

After sometime she let the jutsu die out, seeing the result she clicked her teeth in annoyance.

Naruto stood up from his position quickly concealing the two scrolls he had created. Looking at the giant serpent coiled around his body in protection he spoke, "Are you all right Itou-san."

The serpent uncoiled himself and spoke, "It's not too bad young master but I'm ashamed to say that I've run out of chakra."

Naruto looked closely and suppressed a wince; the whole outer side of his companion was cut up with shards of pink crystal embedded into it. He quickly spoke, "Please go back and heal."

"Are you sure." He spoke with great hesitation, his eyes trained on the deadly kunoichi.

"Don't worry I'll be fine."

"You have a plan?"

"An outline." Naruto continued nonchalantly.

Hesitating for a moment the serpent nodded slightly before it poofed out of existence leaving Naruto all alone.

He looked around him taking in the beautiful destruction, the terrain was devastated with shards of crystals littering the torn ground and the tress were cracked and turned into husks as they lacked water to survive. He focused his attention to the only remaining member of the sound team, if the musical note on their headbands was any indication, he said cockily, "Well it seems we are the only ones left to the party. Your friends are kind of rude leaving you all alone."

He was answered by a sudden barrage of crystal shuriken, jumping to the side he said, "Not in the mood to chat anymore?"

"You have already annoyed me long enough. I believe it's time to finish this." Guren replied blandly all her previous humour gone. "You won't be able to escape."

She knew the limitations of summoning contracts like the snakes and was sure that those applied here as well. She had a technique that could potentially imprison the jinchuriki- her crystalline labyrinth but she was reluctant to use it. It used too much chakra and she was quite reluctant to cage herself with a jinchuriki, her body was far too precious and if she left him in there all alone she figured he would sooner than later break out, the one thing that was common between every container of the beast was their propensity for destruction.

If only she could encase him and be done with it; to be pushed so far by someone a decade younger than her was embarrassing.

Naruto knew that he couldn't just run away, Guren was at least as fast as he was and had an advantage in longer range. His sword mastery was inadequate and slow to deliver him a decisive victory. What he needed was a distraction. If only he could redirect her attention for a bit he could disappear. She was getting angrier and he hoped sooner or later she would give him an opening. Life would be so much easier for him if his summons had the ability to just reverse summon him out of here.

Naruto moved forward but his progress was immediately stopped by Guren as she sent a swarm of small crystal shards his way dense enough to obscure his vision. Pulling a kunai out of his holster he quickly attached an explosive tag to the handle and chucked it forward detonating it in the middle of the thick pink mist to break the technique. Obscured by the cloud of smoke and dust Naruto pinpointed Guren's location through his sensing and was preparing to launch an assault but he was not prepared for Guren to come running towards him out of the smoke at an incredible velocity from an entirely different direction. She twirled around, completing full rotations when she neared him sending rings of crystals around her. The rotating saw like crystals cut into his arm. Naruto screamed in pain as he scrambled away from the spinning blade. He reflexively sent one of his chains towards her head piercing it. The body crumbled into a mass of pink crystals as if it was a broken statue.

Naruto jumped back and trained his sword in front of him to defend. He tried to move his left arm but the intense pain form it quickly put a stop to it. He could see that the attack had cut into the bone of his arm and every little movement was hurting him immensely. The Kyuubi was already pumping chakra into the wound trying to mend the damage, but Naruto felt that it wasn't out of any kindness in his heart. He looked at the wound and knew even with its assistance it would take days for his arm to fully heal. He used one of his chain to wrap it around his injured left arm to keep it in place and forcefully move it if needed, and winced when he felt the links of the chain dig into his skin; if … no, when he got out of this mess he would make sure to figure out a way to modify his chains.

Expanding the range of his perception so as not to be ambushed he wasn't expecting to sense another person apart from Guren near their location; the presence had the same muted emotions as his genin teammate, another one of his watchers.

'How the fuck?' Naruto was completely baffled.

Sensing no malice from the spy, he concentrated on Guren as the kunoichi presented a more immediate threat. He couldn't reason out how he was unable to sense her clone; every clone he had encountered so far even the illusionary ones had some agency of their own. Unless it wasn't a clone, he realised; just because it looked like her it didn't mean it was a clone he would think more about it later. Right now he had to survive.

He braced himself as he heard the familiar sound of buzzing blades; he watched four giant spinning shuriken several meters tall advancing on his position each taking a slightly different route.

"Crystal Release: Giant Hexagonal Shuriken"

Naruto quickly pulled out two scrolls from his back and used his chains to unfurl them in front of him letting them cross each other in the middle. He quickly went through a series of hand signs with his uninjured hand to adjust the formula on the scroll before activating them. 'Water and Earth'. Fuinjutsu was widely misunderstood by the common people as a very complex art; that was incorrect. Sealing was as the name suggested just that to seal and unseal anything. So if the concept was so seemingly simple, why was the Uzumaki clan so feared? Well it was because of the complementary techniques generally associated with sealing- ninjutsu, barrier ninjutsu and the most complex of them all Jutsu-shiki or technique formulas. Even his chains were a combination of the aforementioned three working in conjunction with his special chakra.

He watched as the kanji for earth appear in mid-air before it was quickly surrounded by several smaller characters denoting the element of water all of it enclosed inside a circle, several smaller characters defining the function of the technique by the way of a complex formula seem to spiral out from the centre creating a spiral web. The web continued to grow in its complexity and size until it was slightly larger than the oncoming attack. The giant green wheel of crystal coming towards him seemed to phase out as they came into contact with the wall of lines made of thousands of characters.

He saw the dumbfounded look on Guren's face as the seal disappeared from view leaving no clue of the attack transpired. He could feel his face break into a giant toothy smile, stretching from ear to ear as he felt rush of excitement course through his body. He took out a piece of paper and placed it on the part where the two scrolls met. It was a small strip about a palm wide; he had yet to name it, everything he could think of somehow made it sound as if he was selling dubious 'male enhancement' medicine. This was one of the most advance formula he had created that let his clan technique of using Uzumaki chakra to take shape to the next level by copying the components of a sealed technique.

He poured his chakra into it with reckless abandon to quickly activate it. In a blink of an eye a similar spiral configuration of characters appeared in front of him in the air. It appeared seemingly indistinguishable from the previously conjured seal at least to those untrained in the art, but this technique was not a seal as it performed another function apart from unsealing its contents. It was a very complex ninjutsu and fuinjutsu combination. The technique again quickly grew into size but soon it surpassed its previous incarnation, before it was merely a couple meters in size now it seemed to tower over him.

Giant green shuriken wildly spinning appeared again only this time they were turned on their creator.

Guren watched in growing horror at the sheer size of her own attack. They were easily four or five times larger than she was capable of creating and yet despite their increase in size they still seemed to possess the same air cutting rotation they did before. She was having difficulty standing still as the wind being whipped by the shuriken was easily uprooting trees in the background. Biting her tongue to stop herself from letting a string of curses she started burning her life energy by opening two of her chakra points producing a visible aura of chakra surrounding her.

Using her enhanced chakra she started creating her strongest defensive technique.

"Crystal Release: Crystal Encampment Wall"

Red crystals large enough to obscure the sky sprouted from the ground. The rotating shuriken struck the wall of crystals creating a deafening screeching sound. Guren continued pumping chakra into the technique mending any damage done to it. As she felt the fourth shuriken strike the wall she cut off her connection to the technique knowing that it would hold true, as its defensive capability rivalled the rashōmon of Lord Orochimaru.

She quickly scanned her surroundings to locate the jinchuriki. Seeing the signs of high speed movement she pumped her enhanced chakra through her body. It was a sign of her chakra becoming so potent that her movement was causing the wind around her to crack and whip up into frenzy. In mere moments she arrived near a river bed and saw Naruto kneeling on top of the water going through hand signs. Before she could react she saw him slam his hands on the ground. Anticipating an attack she prepared to crystallise the whole area.

She watched as a head of a serpent clearly bigger than the one before appear from underneath Naruto, its jaw wide open with rows and rows of teeth longer than the boy gleaming in the sunlight before they snapped close swallowing him whole and disappearing into the water. She rushed forward and peered in and watched helplessly as the dark silhouette of the gigantic beast grew smaller and smaller as it dove into the depths of the river.

She cursed and moved away from the river and powered down. She knew there was little chance of Naruto appearing here again not after going through all this trouble. Still she would make sure and assign some of her subordinates to guard this place.

"Next time you won't escape Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto looked around the wriggling stomach of his travelling serpent; unable to find a flat spot he sighed and sat down. He looked at his clothing and frowned, despite his wishes his haori was torn to pieces along with his black under shirt. He created a clone by pulling some water out his surrounding and took off his clothes leaving him in his boxers.

"Bandage my wounds." He addressed his clone while passing him some medical supplies he kept in a storage scroll.

Sitting down cross legged he tried to limit the flow of Kyuubi's chakra into his body. He had used a fair bit of it in his earlier fight and knew he would have to pay the price for it later on. He didn't think that his first ever encounter with a jonin unassisted would be such a struggle; well he didn't count Aoi to be a full jonin. He had only fought two jonin before this and both of the time he had someone watching his back, once with his sensei and the other time with Kurenai providing a distraction. He might have overestimated his own abilities a bit. As he pulled in the vile chakra back into the seal he felt his body starting to hurt more and more. He just wanted to go to sleep but knew this wasn't the place for it as he didn't want to hurt his summon.

It was hours later, when the moon had taken the place of its warmer counterpart, closer to midnight that Naruto came out of his summon's mouth. He was clothed in a traveller's cloak to conceal his wounded appearance. The river his summon has used to travel ran from the fishing village of Makkari in Sound all the way to the neighbouring land of Hot Water. He made his way towards the nearby town, a small village lacking anything of note. The owner of the only inn in town that provided lodging to the travellers grumbled at the late night check-in.

Naruto quickly washed off the grime and blood from his body as best he could in his tired state. Quickly performing a summoning jutsu he summoned a familiar box in the room. After taking out his mother's ring with a simple chain going through it, he closed the box and sent it back to where it came from.

Placing a couple of strips of paper containing a barrier formula linked to his body on the room Naruto chowed down on some military grade nutrition bar by gulping down as much water as he could to make it easier for him to swallow. He placed a paper seal on his chest; its sole purpose was to shock him awake by unsealing low powered lightning if activated. The shock was barely strong enough to be classified a D-rank technique.

He curled up in his bed wearing the chained ring around his neck and clutching it close to his heart as he knew the night was going to be rough.

Author's Notes:

Jutsu-shiki or technique formula is the mark that appears when summoning and also on the handle of the Hiraishin kunai. (Hiraishin is not fuinjutsu its a space time ninjutsu performed using these technique formulas) more will be explored in the fic later on.

As you can see the serpent summons are not op they are more or less as strong as the other four famous ones (monkey, slug, snake, and toad) well maybe not slugs (Katsuyu is op- apparently she easily towers over kyuubi and the others in sheer size alone the katsuyu in war arc is about 1/10th of her original size so theoretically if you can summon a full sized one it might just flatten konoha without doing anything.)

If you feel Guren was weak when compared to the anime(fillers) she is as this is happening 3 years before her anime appearance.

I got the name Itou from the second main character from one of my favorite manga (its his surname), i didn't use the main mc's name because then the summon would be too op because of the sheer awesomeness of the manga character.

I'll post chapter 8 in maybe two days as editing takes a lot of time but after that for a month or two updates would slow down to maybe a chapter a month (I have an exam) after which I'll return to two chapters a month or so.

Anyways thanks for reading, feel free to leave a review about the fight scene and the plot or anything really. The fight scene was very frustrating to write, conveying action without writing every move is hard.