Title: I let you live

Title: Battle in the forest

Rating: G, action

Pairing / characters: Naruto, Arashi, the Konoha chuunin, Gaara, Deidara,

Word count: 3,429 words

Warnings: Spoilers, as always. Er… character death for anime only??

Summary: Naruto heads back to the facility to deal with the Seekers, fighting commences, Deidara attacks Gaara

A/N: A couple of points to mention: the ending of this chapter is deliberate. There is no punctuation whatsoever, save for the ellipses. I KNOW that. Second: Sasuke will not be mentioned from here on out. I have bigger plans for him, so look out for my next big plotline drumroll 'tears of blood' starring Uchiha Sasuke!!

Hope the fight scene worked well…

'The food's not much,' Naruto began, 'but it's better than nothing. Once you've all eaten, we'll start getting back to Konoha.'

'What about you?' Ino asked hesitantly. 'Aren't you hungry? I mean – you normally –'

Naruto folded his hands behind his head. 'I already ate before Jiraiya and I left the last village. Shikamaru – tell me about the mission.'

'You don't know?' Shikamaru asked in surprise. 'I thought that since Jiraiya-sama sent you –'

Naruto chuckled. 'That idiot. He heard about the Seekers from the old witch – and that you were sent to investigate some facility. He was able to give me your coordinates, and that's about it. The fool is still hung over from the night before.'

Naruto rolled his eyes expressively. 'On my money, I might add.'

Chouji stared at him dubiously. 'Are you sure you can do this, Naruto? We are chuunin, you know.'

Naruto pointedly ignored the remark. 'From what I understand, they're S class criminals, with jutsus not seen in Fire Country, right?'

Shikamaru nodded. 'I don't think it's only their jutsus that are different. It could be something else entirely.'

Naruto looked thoughtful. 'Well, given the nature of the facility, its possible that it could be medical. Sakura, you'd know more than I would – is it possible to medically alter someone's strengths?'

Taken aback by the question coming from Naruto of all people, Sakura answered without her usual snappiness.

'It can be done – remember Mizuki?'

Naruto looked sheepish. 'Oh, yeah. I forgot.'

Kiba snorted. 'What's new? You're always forgetting something.'

Naruto's eyes twinkled, but he refrained from commenting. 'Eat, so we can get back to Konoha.'

'Naruto – that facility – I don't think we can just leave those children there,' Lee said quietly.

'You were told to investigate the facility, and report back, which you've done. Your mission is over.'

Appalled, the chuunin stared at him.

'Naruto,' Neji began slowly, alarmed at his apparent callousness, 'I don't know what happened when you left Konoha, but this – this doesn't seem like you –'

Naruto sighed. 'And once again, no one lets me finish what I was trying to say,' he told no one in particular.

'I swear, one of these days…'

'What –' Kiba began just as slowly, 'in the hell are you talking about?'

''Your mission is over,' Naruto repeated, 'but just because you've done that, doesn't mean we're finished. We're Konoha shinobi, of course we aren't going to leave those kids there.'

Naruto straightened up. 'I'm giving you another assignment. We're going back to that damned facility, and we're going to get those kids back. As I mentioned earlier, I'll be acting as jounin-sensei, so you'll be following my instructions. Got it?'

'Well, sure,' Tenten said sarcastically, but I think you left out the part where we have to defeat a dozen Seekers before we can even get inside the place.'

Naruto grinned. 'Come on, we can take 'em.'

'We can.'

'Yup.' The grin grew wider, and a little feral. 'I'm itching for a good fight anyway.'

'You've lost your mind,' Shikamaru told him bluntly. 'We should all run in the opposite direction.'

But for the first time, he could see traces of the cocky, self assured kid Naruto had been, and it made him smile despite his injuries.

'What the hell,' Kiba shrugged. 'We'd have to go back there eventually.'

Ino shook her head. 'Shikamaru is right, we're all crazy.'

'But that's why we work so well together,' Naruto told her cheerfully.

'Gaara… can I speak to you?'

The Kazekage didn't openly acknowledge Temari's presence, nor did he tell her to leave him alone. Instead, he slumped against the window and stared out into the sky.

'What is wrong, Temari?' he asked wearily.

Temari bit her lip. Gaara sounded… defeated.

'Just to talk to you, little brother,' she replied quietly. 'Nothing else.'

Gaara turned. 'I don't want to bother you with my problems.'

'You aren't. I came to you, remember?'

Still he hesitated before saying softly 'something is coming. Something… beyond our control. I worry I will fail in my duty towards Sunagakure. I worry that… that I will not be able to protect you, and Kankuro. Both of you have stood by me when others could not… I fear I will repay your loyalty to me with your suffering. I do not wish to see that.'

Gaara… You're stronger than you could ever have been. So much has changed since the Sand attacked Konoha – you've changed. You shouldn't doubt yourself so much.'

Gaara turned away from the window. 'If I die, there will be few to mourn my passing.'

'You aren't going to die! I can't believe that – I won't!'

'Temari, it is not only the Council who would see me dead. There are others who want to possess the Ichibi. They will stop at nothing to get what they want.'

'Then Kankuro and I will protect you, we –'

Temari, stop. I refuse to let you die for me.'

'We're all shinobi!' Temari protested. 'You have to trust us!'

'I trust you because we are family, but I cannot allow you to get hurt because you two are all that keeps Shukaku subdued. Were you to die, I would lose myself completely.'

'Gaara…'

The first explosion took them by surprise. The second – and third – had them running from the room.

Gaara could hear the screams from somewhere below them, and it spurned him into action.

'Attack! Suna is under attack! Someone find the Kazekage!'

'Find Kankuro,' Gaara ordered. 'My people need me.'

'Be careful!' Temari called as they split up.

Please, little brother, be careful…

Tsunade's voice was low, and dangerous. 'Where is he, Jiraiya? Where is he?'

Jiraiya lifted his hands placatingly. 'Now Tsunade, lets not be so hasty. I sent him after his friends so he could help them.'

'Without talking to me first? Without letting me see him first?'

'You've missed him.'

'Of course I have, you idiot! I have half a mind to send you after him!'

'Tsunade, believe me when I say he's capable of handling anything thrown at him.'

Tsunade's eyes narrowed. 'I should kill you now.'

'Don't you want to wait until he comes home first?' Jiraiya asked pleadingly.

Naruto's eyes were narrowed in oncentration as he knelt on the branch of a tree bordering the facility. Seekers swarmed the area, armed with shuriken and kunai, and in a few cases, katanas, but Naruto wasn't concerned with that.

Three…two…one…

Five more guards stepped out of the facility, taking up places at the periphery of the property, bringing the total to seven. Seven Seekers, and three shinobi, all of them missing nin.

'Ok, listen up,' Naruto said tersely. ''If we get split up, complete your task and go back to Konoha. If I don't come home, either I've been delayed because of the mission, or the mission has failed. Whatever happens, don't come looking for me. I made a promise to protect you, and I'll keep it. Do you understand? Whatever happens, do what it is I've told you to, and get back to Konoha.'

'But Naruto…'

'No buts. This is a direct order from your superior, and you will obey it!'

Sakura swallowed, staring at her team mate. 'What are you going to do?'

Naruto shrugged. 'I thought I'd drop in and say hi.'

Realizing his intention a moment too late, Neji lunged forward, but Naruto had already leapt off the branch and landed lightly on the ground below.

The Seeker nearest him turned. 'What –'

Naruto grinned. 'Hi.'

'We can't just leave him there, the idiot, we have to help him –'

Shikamaru grabbed Chouji's arm. 'Wait,' he said quietly. 'Naruto is up to something.'

'He's acting like an idiot,' Tenten hissed. 'Just when I thought the fool had actually grown up a little, he does something like this…'

Lee frowned. 'Shikamaru is right, he's up to something. He's too calm – normally he would have rushed in by now.'

Naruto folded his arms. 'Where is he?'

'What are you talking about, boy?' one of the Seekers snarled.

'If another person says that, I'm going to lose my mind. Where's your leader?'

The Seeker grinned slowly. 'You want to see Arashi? Don't be ridiculous. You could never hope to compare to him.'

Naruto rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, because why would I want to compare myself to such low level scum?' he shot back.

The Seekers eyes narrowed. 'Watch your tongue.'

Whipping a kunai from the weapons pouch on his thigh, the Seeker lunged forward faster than it should have been possible, slashing at Naruto….

…except that Naruto was no longer there, but a few feet away.

Arms still folded, Naruto said 'was that it? What a waste.'

'You little –'

'Leave him to me.'

At the new voice, Sakura shrank back instinctively at the menace she heard in the tone. This one… this one was dangerous, and she wasn't sure Naruto realized that.

Naruto regarded the new threat thoughtfully.

'You're a real bastard, you know that?' he asked conversationally. 'Taking kids from their homes and treating them like experiments – playthings… I never could stand people like you.'

'I make them stronger, turn them into weapons. Their villages would have done that anyway, without my intervention.'

'You destroy them!' Naruto snarled. 'You destroy their hopes, you take their lives, and you don't give a damn about them!'

'What would you know about it?' Arashi demanded. 'What could you possibly know about anything?'

Pain, barely concealed, flickered in Naruto's eyes. 'More than you'd ever know. I won't let you destroy anymore lives. I'll kill you before you hurt anymore kids.'

'Then come, and try!'

Arashi reached behind him, and Naruto tensed as he pulled a small scroll from the pouch he wore. Throwing the scarlet scroll into the air, he watched it unfurl before shouting a command, and the air was filled with a rain of senbon.

Naruto leapt backwards, out of the reach of the senbon, landing lightly on the ground in a crouch. Even as he did, Arashi flew forward, fist cocked to strike a blow. Naruto came up off the ground, catching the punch easily. Using Arashi's momentum against him, Naruto lifted his knee, sending the older man tumbling. Despite the weight of the scroll, Naruto fought easily, and economically. Arashi pulled himself to his feet, panting.

'Damn you,' he hissed.

'Come.'

Above them, Neji was watching Naruto, pupils dilated. Three years was not a long time, but Naruto's fighting skills were vastly different than he remembered. He was faster, sharper, and as he watched Naruto block a series of attacks with a combination of taijutsu, Neji was forcibly reminded of Lee. The only difference was that while Lee used his speed to his advantage, Naruto used a clever combination of moves that were hard to predict, and an almost uncanny knowledge of what his opponent was going to do next.

Naruto's eyes flickered to the side. Three Seekers were advancing slowly, clearly hoping to turn the tide in their favour. He and his opponent were evenly matched, and Arashi refused to give him quarter to use any ninjutsu. Shrugging mentally, Naruto skipped to the side, neatly avoiding a blast of flames that would have incinerated him. Grinning, Naruto leapt into the air…

…and came down on the back of the large, speckled frog that took out several trees as well as the Seeker who had attempted to sneak up on him.

'Impossible!' Neji gasped.

'What is?' Lee demanded, completely thrown by Neji's clear shock.

'He – he summoned a frog…'

'He has been known to do that from time to time, Neji,' Ino said dryly.

Neji turned and said quietly 'Not when the amount of chakra he uses is roughly the same as we used for the tree climbing exercises, its not.'

Taken aback, Ino stared at him. 'but I thought that summoning used large quantities of chakra…'

'It does… besides that, he never used a single seal – at least, none that I saw.'

Ino glanced down at the ground, and the fight taking place.

Naruto surprised Arashi by yawning widely. 'Is that all you've got to offer? I'm kind of getting bored here.'

'Are you an idiot? If you think a simple summoning is going to defeat me, you're sadly mistaken!'

Naruto shrugged. 'I wasn't using it to defeat you, but your little friends who tried to sneak up on me. I don't think they'll be trying again, for some reason.'

Sitting down, Naruto propped his head on his hand, before sticking out his tongue.

Enraged, Arashi ran forward, forming seals as he did so, when Naruto's voice stopped him in his tracks.

'Typical. Do you ever stop to look behind you?'

Arashi froze, and turned around slowly to see Naruto standing behind him, hands on hips, expression grim.

'How – how did you –'

'I've been here all the time,' Naruto told him. 'You were so focused on what you thought were your superior skills, that you never noticed what I was doing.'

'When – when did you?'

'When did I use kage bunshin? Right about the time you used your trick with the senbon. I was already using the clone when you attacked 'me'. This time, the games stop. If you still insist on attacking me, I'll show you my real strength.'

'Real strength? All you've done is play games with shadows.'

For a moment, the brash thirteen year old made a reappearance as Naruto stuck his tongue out.

'Baka!!'

Snarling, Arashi leapt forward.

In the treeline, a frozen Shikamaru watched the undoubtedly taunting gesture, his mind racing. Naruto was still the overconfident shinobi he'd always been, but a nagging feeling told him that this time, Naruto had the strength to back up the confidence. This time… this time, Naruto seemed different. He was stronger, faster, smarter, and there was something about him that had not been there when he'd left Konoha. As he watched silently, Naruto slammed a fist into the ground between himself and another Seeker, causing a crater at least a metre deep to appear before he moved away so swiftly that Shikamaru couldn't even see it.

Suddenly suspicious, Shikamaru replayed the events since Naruto's arrival, and came to a conclusion that was both startling and a little disquieting.

'It can't be,' he whispered. 'But then again…'

Gaara ran along the cliffs, eyes following the movement of the small clay bird that hovered above his city. Already, one had exploded, and his sand had barely succeeded in protecting the shinobi below.

Swearing silently, he hoped that Temari and Kankuro were well away from the fighting – and that they were safe. This was a fight he wasn't sure he wanted either of them seeing – especially considering that his opponent was Akatsuki.

'You're stronger than I expected, yeah,' the shinobi murmured. 'I wonder if Master Sasori counted on that happening.'

'Sasori?' Gaara questioned, the name both familiar and unfamiliar. 'Who is Sasori?'

The Akatsuki member laughed. 'You'll find out soon enough, jinchuuriki!'

Another clay bird joined the first, and Gaara paused to assess the situation, sand swirling around him.

'Hokage-sama, be careful!' a voice called up to him, but Gaara barely heard it. The two birds were merging, taking on a new shape as their wings melded together, their bodies and beaks following suit. The air around them hissed and shuddered, and before Gaara's eyes, a bird, nearly ten times the size it had been, flew down towards the vulnerable town below.

Snarling, Gaara sent jet after jet of sand after the bird, but it was far faster than the first, and for a moment, despair made him lose his focus. If he failed in protecting Sunagakure, he would have given the Elders just cause for his murder…

But it was not yet over. Gaara refused to give up, refused to surrender his village to Akatsuki. There were screams of terror from the villagers as the clay bird exploded – and darkness fell over Suna.

For a moment, the terrified villagers were too afraid to move, too afraid to look up and see their own demise, but when nothing happened, a few risked glances upwards to see the large blanket of sand that literally covered Suna from one end to the other. Gaara stood poised on the cliff, both hands extended in front of him, struggling to maintain the chakra control necessary to protect his village. Again, he could hear cries below him, but this time, they were of joy and relief, rather than fear.

'He did it!'

We're saved, we're saved!'

'Kazekage-sama is the greatest!'

And such was Gaara's focus that he failed to see the last bird fly straight towards him. Despite the swiftness of his sand's defense, the bird was faster, and white hot pain exploded in Gaara's shoulder. Unable to regain his balance, Gaara fell from the clifftop, the densely packed sand crumbling away from his slender form.

'That did it, yeah,' Deidara said in satisfaction. 'The jinchuuriki is ours.'

Naruto stepped backwards, his eyes narrowing. Before, he'd been relaxed, almost uncaring, but now his opponent could sense the killing intent that rolled off him. Naruto was no longer playing games.

'You're beginning to irritate me,' he said flatly. 'I never could stand people who thought they were better than others. You are just like Orochimaru… all you do is play with lives, and you don't care who you hurt.'

Arashi smiled thinly. 'Don't talk about things you don't understand, little boy. I am better than Orochimaru, far, far more superior… I am equal to a god!'

'Spare me,' Naruto muttered, rolling his eyes.

Naruto brought his leg forward, moving into a wide legged stance as he brought his hand up, focusing his chakra. The rasengan swirled in his palm… and then a sharp, papery sound filled the air.

'What… is… that?' Tenten asked softly. 'It sounds… different…'

'Wind!' Neji gasped. 'It's wind!'

'What do you mean?' Ino demanded. 'Where's the wind coming from?'

Lee glanced at her. 'Every shinobi is capable of producing elemental chakra, although some are have a natural affinity for certain elements – Asuma-sensei, for example, uses wind chakra. There are five different elements in the order of fire, wind, lightning, earth, and water. It appears that Naruto-kun has a natural affinity for wind chakra as well.'

Shikamaru's suspicions coalesced as he watched the shuriken-shape form around the rasengan. He'd never seen anything like it, and clearly, neither had Arashi.

'What – what is that?' Arashi demanded, knowing immediately that such a jutsu would be lethal.

'It's called the rasenshuriken,' Naruto answered, 'and it's my own, original technique. Not even the sharingan can copy this. It also means your end!'

Before Arashi could react, Naruto leapt forward with a cry, lowering his hand. In the ensuing chaos, a scream could be heard as Arashi was caught up in the jutsu.

When Neji lowered his hands, his silver eyes were wide with shock. A crater, at least ten metres deep had been created, and at the bottom lay an unmoving Arashi. Naruto himself was poised gracefully on the edge of the crater, clutching his right shoulder.

'Naruto!' Sakura gasped, dropping to the ground and moving towards her team mate. 'Are you alright?'

Naruto smiled faintly. 'I'm fine, Sakura. The jutsu… it's incomplete. I was still working on it when we were on our way home. I just haven't had a chance to work on it, that's all.'

Sakura pointedly ignored him, peeling his hand away from his shoulder to see blood slowly soaking the sleeve of his shirt.

'Can you move your arm?' she asked quietly.

Naruto shook his head. 'There's no feeling in my hand, Sakura. It's ok, it'll wear off… I think.'

Kiba leapt down from the treeline in time to hear Naruto's last comment, and he groaned audibly.

'Some things never change. You still don't think things through, do you?'

Naruto grinned tiredly. 'Apparently not-'

Abruptly, his knees buckled, and he sagged to the ground. Moving swiftly, Kiba caught him, lowering him onto the grass carefully.

'Are you alright, idiot?' he demanded.

'I will be – I just need a moment to catch my breath-'

Naruto sighed. 'Jiraiya's going to kill me for using that jutsu so soon in my training.'

'whose hand… is this?'

'It's… my hand…'

'what happened to me?'

'am I… dying?'

'have I fulfilled my dreams… my promises?'

'I'm all alone… always alone…' 'never to be loved… never to be… wanted…'

'temari… kankuro… so lonely… so lonely… and now… I'll never be… loved…'