Friendly Ninetails 29

Word had barely finished spreading to the ninja villages of the great battle at the border of the Land of Rain when it happened.

Every creature with the potential to be a sensor ninja across the elemental nations, even the young priestess of the Land of Demons, suddenly clutched their heads in shock.

It was not pain, it was not fear exactly. It was as if they suddenly sensed a great force moving.

Those in the Land of Fire felt it if they didn't see it. They felt a single great gust of wind that barreled over the country. It was but for a second, but that second shook windows and snapped tree branches.

"What the hell was that?" Tsunade asked with a scowl as she looked to the north. Whatever caused that was so far away she couldn't tell if it was Naruto or something else. Which was...more than a little ominous.

"Lady Tsunade!" Shizune called out urgently as she rushed into the office.

"What is it? Has the creature been sighted?" Tsunade asked with a frown.

"No, Ma'am. Word from the sensor corp. They said there was a sudden, violent spike in Naruto's chakra as he raced across Fire Country," Shizune informed.

"Naruto caused that just now, by running?" Tsunade summarized. She wasn't surprised but that didn't spell anything good.

 "They don't know what, but he seems to be fighting someone," Shizune said as she came over to the desk.

"Again? It's barely been twenty-four hours, and he's been in three separate battles according to them, and only one of them was at night," Tsunade recalled with a frown. "Just what is going on up there?"

"They can't tell. But they did give a rough idea of where Naruto currently is," Shizune said, hurriedly bringing a map over to the Hokage desk. "He was halfway to the eastern shoreline when he suddenly turned around and ran straight for here."

Tsunade narrowed her eyes at the location Shizune pointed to. "I know this place. Why do I know this place?" Tsunade questioned, cupping her chin. "Wait....wasn't this the area where the rescue team fought one of Orochimaru's underlings?"

Shizune blinked. "Now that you mention it, I believe you're right."

Tsunade stared for a moment. "We were idiots."

"Lady Tsunade?" Shizune asked in surprise.

"The Sound Ninja with the bone bloodline from the reports. Naruto found the grave. I doubt he told anyone," Tsunade said, looking at where Naruto had been going and where he went, gaining an almost proud smile. "That brat. Either he figured it out in the middle of walking, or he went that far east just to not tip off Orochimaru."

"You think Naruto could make a plan like that?" Shizune asked uncertianly.

"I think that if he figured this much out? He'd be worried about Orochimaru catching on as well," Tsuande remarked.

"What do we do?" Shizune asked with a frown.

Tsunade was silent. "Get Danzo. Much as I hate it, I'm leaving him and the elders in charge. Gai and I will head out with a small team of anbu to assist Naruto if needed."

It wasn't long after that while waiting on Gai of all people, Tsuande found herself meeting one last visitor before she departed. To her surprise, it wasn't Danzo. "Shikamaru?" she addressed, noticing the chunin looked somewhat tense. "What's wrong?"

"Ino. Whatever Naruto is doing, she can't make sense of it. Had to take her to her dad, so he could help her," Shikamaru said. "Lady Tsunade, with respect, how bad?"

"Unknown, to be honest. We believe Naruto has found this thing's lair," Tsuande summarized. "Did her father say anything?"

"Just that Naruto is...cutting loose," Shikamaru said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Ino said it felt more like he just really, really wants to kick this thing's ass."

"That sounds about right," Tsuande agreed.

""Lady Tsuande? Would it be out of the question for me to accompany you?" Shikamaru asked with a frown.

Tsaunde's first instinct was to say no. But she already had a good read on Shikamaru's character. He wasn't one to volunteer for something like this for no reason. "Why?"

"Troublesome though it may sound, I just have a gut feeling that I should see how this plays out," Shikamaru answered.

Tsande considered it for a moment before nodding. "You can come, but only to observe. Do not approach the battle under any circumstances. And don't be an idiot, retreat if you need to."

Shikamaru gave a smirk of mock self-deprecation. "Trust me, I intend to. Besides, if I go and see, Naruto won't have to tell me the whole story and disturb my cloud-watching."

Elsewhere, Gaara flew high over the trees upon his sand. His body was practically on autopilot as he used his chakra to travel towards where he could sense Naruto was.

Where he was fighting, to be exact.

'Hey. kid.'

Shukaku had been more talkative since this all started. In a less hostile manner even. It was mainly Shukaku mentioning or muttering something.

Gaara wasn't sure how to feel about that. All he knew was that he never brought up how Shukaku used to cry so much for nearly a week after they left Konoha with its new golden Bijuu. It felt somewhat unkind to do so.

"What is it?" Gaara asked out loud, unused to conversing with the demon.

'Whatever you do, don't interfere with the fight unless I say so. I want to see how well this brat can do,' Shukak instructed.

Friendship, caring were something Gaara was still learning how to handle and express properly. But things with Naruto were simpler in some way. "I doubt he'd want me to do anything else. I will only intervene to protect others. Naruto can fight his own battle, we both know that well."

Shukaku growled, but it was somehow more amusing than threatening. 'Don't you get me started on that again! The brat only beat us both because of Big-'

The bijuu cut off with something hurt in his voice.

"Do you hate Naruto? For replacing your....brother?" Gaara asked with a frown.

He didn't relish the idea of his bijuu hating Naruto, but it would be hard to argue with a demon grieving a sibling.

'I hate it happened. I fucking don't even understand how it happened! This doesn't make a shit of sense to me, kid! But the golden brat himself? Nah. We didn't ask to be born, he didn't ask to be reborn. That I believe,' Shukaku said with a sigh before laughing loudly. 'Though, I'll certainly hate him if he disgraces my asshole of a brother by losing to a damn Hakaju!'

Gaara hummed.

'Word of advice kid? Don't let anyone try to turn you into me,' Shukaku warned ominously.

Gaara frowned. That was something he heard mutters about. He didn't like to contemplate that.

'That's not a fucking threat though! I just really doubt someone will pull that off again. And if you die, well, your friend might have a tail or nine to pick with your village,' Shukaku said in amusement. 'You humans do get attached really damn quick!'

"We have finite, sometimes short lives. We make what we can of the time given to us," Gaara reminded idly.

'Damn, kid. You sound like some monks I've known,' Shukaku remarked before making a noise. 'We're getting close.'

Close for a Bijuu, maybe, but Gaara didn't dispute those words. Because off on the horizon, he could see where mighty pillars of smoke and dust rose.

The closer he got, the more Gaara realized this area of Fire Country felt familiar, and he distinctly knew why.

'Yeah, you're not imagining it,' Shukaku answered gruffly. 'This is where you fought that bone-growing bastard.'

"Did you know he might become this monster after death?" Gaara asked with a frown.

'No way in hell! Look, I don't know much about whatever branch of humans had that power, but I know they had shit to do with the Hakajus of old. No more than any other human at least,' Shukaku answered before turning thoughtful. 'But in hindsight, he definitely is the type to become the "core" of a Hakaju, the main personality or whatever you want to call it. But why a Hakaju showed up at all, now after all these centuries, I still have no idea.'

It wasn't much, but Gaara took it as progress that Shukaku was at least sharing why he knew about the situation.

Both grew silent as the battlefield came into proper view.

To call it devastated would be an understatement.

For miles, there the forests were destroyed and upturned, and the ground broke open in fissues, many with massive bones jutting out of them. Fires burned and dust rose.

And amidst it all, in brought daylight, the Hakau tried to fight off the wrath of a Golden Kyuubi.

Tried.

The great beast of bones and shadows went skidding across the earth, tumbling and rolling to its feet as it roared defiantly at Naruto with its rattle of bones. Naruto stalked forth with a growl of his own. The Hakaju leaped at him but Naruto deflected it with a tail, pulling the bone-beast to slam into the ground. It reared about, bones bent in unnatural angles to bite into Naruto's sides.

Naruto winced, feeling the slight pull as the beast tried to sap at his chakra. It was barely noticeable, but every bit the Hakaju took extended this fight.

Narutko made his foe pay for that by tearing it off his body by the arm, and he pulled the skeletal limb off for the effort, crushing the long bones as he tossed them away.

The Hakaju was unbothered by the loss of the limb, the bones rapidly regrowing.

'Hmm, that's interesting,' Shukaku commented.

"What is?" Gaara asked as they observed from above.

'A Hakaju is at its most powerful at its grave. Normally, this means they're tankier and harder to destroy, but some of them just regenerate their bones faster. This one went that route, the damn leach,' Shukaku thought in annoyance. 'Don't worry, the golden brat is fine. He just has to damage it more than it can absorb his chakra.'

Gaara raised an eyebrow as he watched Naruto strike with three tails as he jumped passed the Hakaju, the tail tips shattering the spine of the Hakaju.

Gaara decided he wasn't worried about Naruto's damage output.

Naruto growled. "Right, so I either kill you until you stay dead, or I find wherever the hell your grave is and break it," Naruto muttered, looking around the ruined landscape. "Though, how we haven't already, I don't know."

The Hakaju didn't respond, the spinal column regrowing.

Naruto frowned. He wasn't sure what was the ideal solution for him, since he didn't know how long the Hakaju could generate like this when its bones would just give out. But the monster wasn't exactly giving Naruto a chance to find the exact location.

Watching his foe repair itself, Naruto did have one idea. Something a bit new. He tried it against Pain's summons, but it hadn't worked quite how he wanted it to.

Maybe this time, he could make it work the way he wanted

Naruto stabbed his tail into the ground and brought himself back up onto his hind legs.

'Hm? What the hell is he doing now?' Shukaku wondered, but Gaara had no answer.

The Hakaju, tattered cloak of darkness barely clinging to itself, also watched this display with caution. Some shred of intelligence in its soul told it that Naruto was planning something.

Fully healed, it leaped to attack, but it was too late.

Charkra flaring through his hands, Naruto brought himself down with a thunderous slam.

The Hakaju roared as it fell away from Naruto and into darkness. A massive circle of a hole collapsed under the bone beast. A sheer drop of hundreds of feet deep, a wingless beast would be forced to climb out. So wide it was that it could be considered an inversion of a plateau.

"Canyon Burial! Damn! That actually worked!" Naruto said, taking a moment to feel proud as he watched the Hakaju rattling impotently in its pit. Satisfied it wasn't or perhaps even couldn't just teleport out of the pit, Naruto turned to use the time given to search for the grave.

It all looked like the same ruined landscape, destroyed for miles from their fighting. Realizing he needed more than just his eyes, Naruto closed them and began focusing on his other senses.

He could feel it now. There was something, some connection radiating softly off the Hakaju. It was directly somewhere in this area, but it was hard to pinpoint.

But Naruto quickly realized how this "grave" survived the battle. "It's underground?" he muttered. He knew grave meant "buried" of course, but this felt much deeper than a grave.

Gaara felt Shukaku perk up at that, seemingly surprised by this as well, but no comment came from the demon.

Naruto looked over his shoulder and knew the hakaju was close to climbing out of the pit. He'd have to work fast if he didn't want to deal with that again.

Finding the general location, Naruto raised on hand and slammed it down with all his might, shaking the very earth with an impact that sounded akin to a thunderclap. Earth and stone went flying as a relatively small crater was formed under Naruto's fist.

To his confusion, he found his target and more. Below him appeared to be not only the corpse of the bone-user that had taken on Lee but all the other members of the Sound Team that had helped Sasuke escape. Except for the redhead, of course, who was still alive last he checked in Konoha's cells.

More importantly, they were surrounded by a barrier, their bodies within a large seal that kept some manner of barrier around them.

"Is that normal?" Gaara asked, using his sand-eye to get a closer look at what Naruto had unearthed.

'No, no it's not,' Shukaku answered with a strangely serious tone. 'Someone did this on purpose.'

Naruto tapped the barrier with his claws, finding it more than stabble. He scowled and pulled it out of the ground, the barrier forming a protective sphere around the bodies. It was like a small rock to him, but it was not easily broken.

As he tried to crush it between his hands, the Hakaju made its return known as it leaped on Naruto from behind and began to bite and tear into him.

"Get the fuck off of me!" Naruto roared as he grabbed it from over his shoulder and dragged it forward, slamming it into the ground. With fury, he snapped his claws and charka flowed through them, covering them in brilliant flames. "Alright, that's it, I'm going to-!"

"GRRRHHHH!"

The Hakaju began to twitch and roar in pain out of nowhere.

Naruto blinked before looking at the barrier orb in his hand. His flaming hand.

It dawned on Naruto that, just because the barrier kept the flames out, didn't mean they kept the heat out.

The Hakaju went still, causing Naruto to look down at it. IT wasn't dead, but it was silent. Then it lurched up to bite at Naruto's flaming hand, swallowing the fist hole.

Surprise more than anything was why Naruto loosened his grip, the Hankaju using that chance to take the "grave" into itself.

"....Should it be able to do that?"Gaara asked curiously.

'I don't fuck know! No one tried to focusing protect one of their graves like that before!' Shukaku answered.

Naruto glared as he grabbed only the beast before it could try to escape. "Oh no, you're not getting away!" Naruto said as he physically dragged the Hakaju back to the pit, and threw it back inside.

Naruto watched as the bone-beast stared up at him but didn't roar, didn't try to attack.

Naruto narrowed his eyes and his tail tips up. Tail tips it with fire. "Infernal Tsunami."

With a front flip, Naruto sent the blazing waves of flames down into the pit, which exploded back upwards as a column of flames for a good three seconds. Naruto looked back down inside, seeing it lit by the embers and burnt earth sizzling at the walls and the bottom.

And the Hakaju stood there, cloaked burned away entirely and now nothing more than a giant monster of bones.

Naruto frowned as he jumped down. "I got a theory," he said to the beast. "Stop me if I'm wrong."

It cocked its head at him.

"Whoever is controlling this thing right now, is the same person that made it. You took over when you tried to eat those sealed-up corpses before I could burn them," Naruto said, looking at a black ball within the skeleton, the last bit of the cloak now used just to protect the bodies. "If it was just the Hakaju, it wouldn't have thought of that and we'd already be fighting again."

The Hakaju didn't move, as if to confirm Naruto's suspicions.

"Second....the Hakaju can't teleport right now. You'd be smart enough to do that, you were last time you attacked the Daimyo," Naruto noted with a smirk. "Because if the Hakaju teleports, it leaves the corpses behind, right? It can't take the grave with it, not like that."

The bones rattled and Naruto believed it was annoyed.

"So that means, all I have to do is break your bones until they stop growing back," Naruto mused with a dark grin on his vulpine face.

The bones stilled and the Hakaju seemed poised to attack, to defend itself to the end.

Naruto grinned and launched himself at the beast. Down here, just the two of them? Where he didn't have to worry about anyone or anything else really?

He decided he was going to enjoy this.