CHALLENGE by Aengus: According to Erik Erickson, German-American psychologist noted for his theories on the development of children, because of Naruto's childhood as the outcast child that no one wanted or had time for, Naruto has severe attachment issues and problems socializing with others his age, not to mention a terrible fear of adults. Instead of him being the loud idiot that is portrayed in the manga and anime, Naruto should be very quiet, shy, extreme nervousness, with excessive smiling and nodding. In essence Naruto does not trust anyone, a severe inferiority complex, all the while being one of the most competent and caring ninja in the village. Sasuke cannot be his friend in any way, shape, or form; he is the main antagonist to Naruto's growth and relationships with others, sometimes even going out of his way to try and ruin them. During the main story, a kunoichi begins to have feelings for him and must convince him of that fact.
Conditions: No yaoi, no good Sasuke, no Harem (he's going to have enough problems with one girl), no 'over-night' change for Naruto, no Naruto/older women (ex. Anko, Kurenai, or Tsunade), while I would prefer a Naruto/Temari, I won't insist.
Chapter 8
"We don't have time to find a leader, we need to act now or my brother, your Kazekage will be killed" Temari yelled in frustration at the council.
"We need to chose a new Kazekage immediately before the other villages find out we don't have a kage and decide to attack us" an elder said.
"If we leave and find him now we don't have to worry about that, or are you afraid to get your hands dirty" Temari asked.
"Are you suggesting I wouldn't fight for my village" the elder asked.
Hinata, Naruto, and Sakura watched as they went back and fourth all getting a giant headache, "I'm glad I'm only an heir, I don't think I could handle this everyday" Hinata said.
"I'm glad I wont have to deal with any of it" Sakura said.
"Maybe we can do something to help Temari, we are wasting time here" Naruto said.
"Good idea Naruto" Kakashi said as he walked up behind them.
"So what will we do" Naruto asked.
Kakashi shrugged, "your the one who wants to be Hokage, what would Tsunade do if she was here" he asked.
Naruto put his right index finger on his chin and narrowed his eyebrows together as he looked slightly downward getting into his thinking phase. Sakura and Hinata looked at him thinking the look was cute, in a brotherly way for Sakura and in an I want to hold him and kiss him way for Hinata. After a few minutes of thinking Naruto looked up, "I got it" he said.
"Oh, what do you plan" Kakashi asked.
"You'll see" he responded with a smirk. He then walked up to the council table and stood behind Temari, "if you would please excuse Temari for a minute" he asked.
"What is it Naruto, is Kankurou OK" Temari asked.
"We don't have time for your private conversations, we have a crisis to deal with" the elder said.
"If you all think Gaara is dead then your fooling yourselves" Naruto said.
"What are you talking about" an elder asked.
"I would like to know what your talking about also Naruto" Temari said.
"I wanted to tell you in private, but on my travels with the perverted sage we discovered that Akatsuki removes the bijuu from its host which kills the person" Naruto said.
"All the more reason to appoint a new Kazekage" an elder yelled.
"No, let him finish" Hinata said.
"You see the process itself takes 3 days, and that's after the 4 days it takes to prepare for the bijuu to be removed, this window is what makes Akatsuki so dangerous because we don't know where they are hiding, but it also gives us time to send enough search parties out to find and rescue Gaara before they are able to remove his demon from him" Naruto explained.
"So we have 7 days to find Gaara before we can say he is dead" Temari asked.
"Yes" Naruto said.
Temari thought for a minute, "is that good enough to hold off on picking a new Kazekage" she asked the council.
They talked amongst themselves, "yes in 7 days we will chose a new Kazekage" an elder said.
Temari nodded, "follow me" she said to the Konoha ninja's. She led them outside the tower, "you have 5 days, after that I'm going to put myself up for Kazekage and finish what my brother started" she told them.
"We will be back in 3" Naruto said.
"Be careful and please find my brother" Temari said.
"Leave it up to us" Kakashi said as they started to walk away to prepare, "I didn't know that it took 7 days to remove the bijuu from a jinchuuriki" Kakashi said.
Naruto looked around, "it don't, but I couldn't think of anything else to do to delay them" he said after he was sure he wouldn't be heard.
"Spoken like someone who was raised by Anko" Kakashi said.
"Are you saying I did a bad job on raising my gaki" Anko asked as she walked around a building with Tenten, Neji, and Lee.
Kakashi blinked at her, "it wasn't meant like that, but why are you 4 here" he asked.
"You failed to make one report since you been here, Tsunade is pissed, now whats the report" Anko asked.
"Not good, Temari is trying to keep the village under control, while the council is trying to appoint a new Kazekage without knowing the fate of Gaara, its because of Naruto that we have 7 days to find him, but I would prefer we head out now" Kakashi explained.
Kage bushin no jutsu Naruto called out, "report to Tsunade as fast as possible and give her a full report" he told his clone. The clone took off immediately at full speed in the air.
Anko looked at Naruto, "how fast can you make those seals" she asked.
"Um, I can have a fully working one in 15 minutes" he answered.
"You have 6 minutes to make enough for all of us" Anko told him.
"But nee these seals are not easy, one mistake can be fatal" Naruto said.
"Naruto me and Kurenai spent years teaching you chakra control and how to write seals while adding chakra to them for a reason, I know you can do this so stop setting limits on yourself or you will never become Hokage like you want" Anko told him.
Naruto looked at her for a minute, "OK nee I will have them done in 6 minutes, I need everyone's shoes though" he said.
Naruto created 6 clones and each sat on the ground and pulled out a pin and ink he then proceeded to draw the seal while adding chakra to it in each shoe. Anko looked at her watch, "5 minutes and 30 seconds have passed" she told him.
"Done" Naruto said as each clone held up a pair of shoes.
"5 minutes and 50 seconds not bad gaki, your going to have to work on that though, you should be able to do a seal you created in under a minute" Anko said as she pulled her shoes on.
"I'll work on it when we get home, Lee I know your limited with chakra so I used more chakra with your seals" Naruto said.
"Oh thank you Naruto-san, now I don't have to use the chakra seals lady Tsunade put on me" Lee said.
"Chakra seals" Naruto asked.
"They allow him to do some of the basic C ranked jutsu's, they refill by absorbing chakra from the earth so he will always have some chakra" Sakura explained.
"Cool, maybe I can upgrade them after the mission" Naruto said.
"Lets get going, we have a kage to find" Kakashi said.
Naruto's summon came up to him, I found Gaara's scent he said.
"Lead on, we will follow" Naruto said.
The kitsune took off in a streak of blue. The ninja's took to the air and followed. The kitsune stopped at a large rock in the middle of the ocean, his scent is strong in here the kitsune said.
"Go tell Temari we found Gaara" Naruto said.
The kitsune took off back towards Suna, "how do we get in" Sakura asked.
Kakashi looked at the rock, "it looks like its closed by a seal, from the looks we have to find another seal to deactivate it" he said.
Naruto looked at the rock and held his right hand towards the water with his left hand holding his right wrist. He closed his eyes and concentrated on both his chakra and Kyuubi's chakra. Everyone looked at him as they felt him gathering his chakra at an extremely fast rate. He had 2 tails swinging behind him, his eyes opened and he had his sage mode activated, the amount of chakra he was giving off forced everyone to jump back away from him. Naruto jumped back from the rock, Fuuton: Demonic Rasengan he yelled and threw it at the rock.
The red jutsu hit the rock and it blew up, the jutsu continued through the debris into the hideout, "what the hell" they heard.
Naruto stopped the flow of Kyuubi's chakra and sage mode and fell out the air. Kakashi appeared next to him and caught him before he hit the water, "or we could do that Naruto" Sakura said.
"Lets go" Anko said and ran into the hideout with the other 6 jounin's.
"Who the hell are you" Hidan asked.
"We are here for Gaara" Anko said.
"Take him, we have what we needed from him" Hidan said.
"What did you do to him" Sakura asked.
"Took his demon from him, not sure why you would want a corpse though" Hidan said.
Kakashi walked in with Naruto, "whats going on" he asked.
"Gaara is dead" Sakura said.
"Maybe we can save him" Naruto asked.
"He has no pulse" Hinata said kneeling over him
"Maybe you can use some of my chakra to save him" Naruto asked.
"I'm sorry Naruto there is nothing we can do for him" Hinata said dejectedly a she tried to hold her tears back.
Kakuzu laughed, "you thought you would get here in time to stop us" he asked while laughing.
"Shut up" Naruto said.
"What are you going to do, no one here can kill us" Kakuzu asked.
Hinata stood up, "we''ll show you what we can do" she said.
Before the 2 could say anything a stream of water burst into the hideout and pinned them to the wall. Naruto reached out with both his arms and with his Fuuton element the water turned ice cold and started to freeze around the 2 Akatsuki members. Everyone watched as the 2 lovers froze their enemies without a second thought about it. The two stopped what they was doing and turned to the others, "I think we should destroy this hideout" Naruto said.
"Good idea, lets go" Anko said.
The 2 teams was flying away from the destroyed hideout as it slowly sunk into the ocean. They came to land and was greeted by a gathering of Suna ninja's. Temari ran up to them, "you found Gaara, is he OK" she asked.
"Sorry, but he is dead, we didn't make it in time" Hinata said.
"At least you tried, thank you for bringing his body back home" Temari said taking the body from Naruto.
An old lady walked out of the crowd up to them, "this shouldn't have happened" she said.
"What are you talking about" Naruto asked.
"This seal, I should have never put it on him, its my fault he lived the live he did, its my fault he became a jinchuuriki, and I am going to fix it now" she said.
"Its not so easy to fix someone when they are dead" Hinata said.
The lady smiled, "for me it is, please Temari lay him on the ground" she said. Temari did as she was told and the lady got down beside him and went through some hand signs and rested her glowing green hands over Gaara.
"What are you doing" Naruto asked.
"I'm giving him my life force" the lady said.
"But that will kill you" Sakura said.
"I know, its a price I'm willing to pay to bring him back to life" she said.
"But that should be impossible, people shouldn't be able to bring the dead back to life, even Tsunade-sensei can't do that" Sakura said.
The lady frowned, "that old hag think she is the best medic in the world, but before she came around that title belonged to me, she may know more about medics than I do but I know one jutsu that she don't and it will die with me" she said.
"This defies the laws of nature" Sakura said.
"Sakura I agree with you that this shouldn't be possible, but as we can clearly see she is bringing him back to life" Hinata said.
"So he will be fine after you bring him back to life" Naruto asked.
"If I can bring him back to life, this jutsu takes to much chakra, more than I have" she told him.
"Can you use my chakra" Naruto asked.
"Place your hands over mine and let your chakra flow into my body" she told him.
Everyone watched for an hour as the lady drained her life force to bring Gaara back. Gaara slowly opened his eyes, "what happened" he asked.
"I fixed the mistake I made so many years ago, Gaara live long and be strong for our village" she said then laid down closing her eyes, never to be open again.
"Chiyo-baasama" Gaara said as he looked at her.
"Gaara" Temari said as she dropped next to him and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.
"Temari" he said shocked.
"Don't ever die on me again, your supposed to bury me since I'm the oldest, not the other way around" she said while playfully smacking him.
"I promise I wont" Gaara said.
"Looks like our work here is done" Kakashi said.
Gaara stood up, "thank you for coming to our aid" he said.
"That's what friends are for" Naruto said.
*-*_*-*_*-*_*-*
Orochimaru walked into his lab, "Kabuto how is it coming" he asked.
"Well Sasuke's chakra network was almost completely destroyed, he is lucky to have survived this long" Kabuto answered.
"All I want to know is will he be able to continue his life as a shinobi" Orochimaru asked.
"I did the best I could, but all I was able to do was prolong his life, he can't even walk let along be a shinobi" Kabuto said.
"I see, is his Sharingan still working" Orochimaru asked.
"Yes" Kabuto said.
"Good, prepare for surgery, I want that Sharingan transplanted" Orochimaru said.
"But that will kill Sasuke" Kabuto said.
"He is useless to me, and unless you want to die also I suggest you remember your place" Orochimaru said.
"Who would you like me to transplant it into" Kabuto asked.
"Tayuya" Orochimaru said and left.
"What about the other one" Kabuto asked.
"I will send the person in when he is ready" Orochimaru said.
Orochimaru walked out the room and into another room, "Karin have those two showed the ability to use the Sharingan" he asked.
"Not yet" Karin said.
"They better show an ability to use it within a few weeks or I will kill them" Orochimaru said.
"What they are only 3, they have already shown to have my sensor ability isn't that enough for now" Karin asked desperately.
"A sensor is useless" he told her then walked out.
Karin pulled her twin daughters close to her as she tried to keep herself from crying about their fate, but she wasn't giving up without a fight, if he wanted to kill her kids he would have to kill her first. She then sighed, 'I'm no match for him, I need protection' she thought.
*-*_*-*_*-*_*-*
Tenten was having a rare off day, ever since the mission to Suna Tsunade kept them all looking for Akatsuki to prevent anymore unnecessary deaths, at the moment team 7 with some strange guy named Sai, team 8, and team 9 all was out looking for clues on where Akatsuki was and team 10 was given the day off so Tenten made the most of it not even participating in team training. As she walked past the gate she looked out it and saw someone running towards the village walking up to it she focused on the person, "get the Hokage" she said to the chuunin guard while pulling out some kunai's.
Before the chuunin could say anything she launched the kunai's past the gate and into the forest around the person. 4 ninja's dropped out the forest dead and 4 more dropped down and prepared themselves. Tenten ran out top meet them, "who are you and why are you attacking this person" she demanded.
"Konoha should stay out of things that don't concern them" one of the ninja's said.
"Your in Konoha's boundaries, it already involves us" someone said from behind them.
"Haku good timing on finishing your mission" Tenten said.
An entire ANBU squad appeared, "Tenten and Haku stand down we will take them into custody" the leader said.
"Fine" Tenten said.
Once the ANBU and ninja's was gone Tenten and Haku turned to the lady, "who are you and why was they chasing you" Haku asked.
"I can't say, it will endanger my family" she told them.
"You ran all the way here, so you must need our protection, and you wont survive long with 2 kids by yourself so you should start explaining" Tenten said.
"Tenten that's enough, escort her to my office where we can talk" Tsunade said as she walked up.
*-*_*-*_*-*_*-*
"OK, so why are you being chased by ninja's" Tsunade asked.
"They are out to kill me and my daughters" the lady responded.
"I can see that you are a kunoichi, would that have anything to do with them chasing after you" Tsunade asked.
"No, they are trying to kill my twins, I ran and came here for help" she said.
"I see, it would be easier if we knew why they want those two dead" Tsunade said as she looked at the sleeping girls.
"You wont judge me will you" she asked.
"Of course not" Tsunade said.
"My name is Karin and I am an Oto kunoichi" she was cut off.
"Its a trick" Tenten yelled.
"Tenten calm down, continue" Tsunade said.
"Well I'm also a sensor, 3 years ago Orochimaru came back with a barely alive Sasuke" she was cut off again.
"Naruto should have killed him" Tenten said.
"When he returned he was pissed about Sasuke's body and demanded that his semen be injected into as many kunoichi's as possible, many kunoichi's was mad about this and Tayuya outright refused to do it, and I was the only one who actually became pregnant. A month ago I was told by Orochimaru that if my daughters don't show the ability to use the Sharingan he will kill them, even though they have the ability to use my sensor bloodline which includes the ability to heal others by letting them bite me" Karin finished.
"So you came here more out of protection of your kids then yourself" Tsunade asked.
"Yes" Karin said.
"Tenten go get Kakashi, he should be free since I kept him back from going on the mission with team 7 then your free to leave" Tsunade said.
Kakashi walked into the office and looked at the kunoichi and sleeping girls, "why is an Oto kunoichi here" he asked.
"She is here for protection from Orochimaru" Tsunade said.
"Can we trust her" he asked.
"At the moment I'm not sure we will have to wait till Hinata or Neji get back to find that out, but her kids are Uchiha's, their father is Sasuke" Tsunade said.
Kakashi looked at the girls, "I see, why do you need me though" he asked.
"Your the only person in the village who can use the Sharingan" Tsunade said.
"So you want me to keep an eye on them" he asked.
"Exactly, until we can trust her she is to stay in your company" Tsunade said.
"Fine, lets go" Kakashi said and walked out with Karin and her twins.
*-*_*-*_*-*_*-*
Ebisu sighed as he looked at his team, ever since Hinata came back and started to give Hanabi 'extra' training she had become almost impossible to tell anything, "Hanabi for the last time you have to work on D ranked missions until something else that you can handle comes around" he said.
"Neechan says that missions of harder value can be taken if the sensei is good enough" Hanabi countered with her fan in her hand.
Tsunade sighed as she watched the two argue about what rank mission they can do, "Hanabi are you sure you haven't been influenced by Naruto" she asked.
"Yes I'm sure" Hanabi said.
Speaking of Naruto, he and Hinata walked through the door both pissed at the 3rd member of their team, if they wasn't told not to do him any body harm he would have been dead along time ago, "Hinata Naruto why are your chakra so out of control" Tsunade asked.
"Our teammate almost got us killed by Akatsuki" Hinata said.
"Not my fault dickless over there can't control his hormones" Sai said casually.
Naruto's eyes flashed red for a second then changed back to their normal blue. Hanabi and Moegi blushed at the statement, Hinata was struggling not to kill him, "I see well Naruto I have a mission for you, Ebisu is failing to control his genin's, I'm removing him from sensei and putting you in charge of these four" Tsunade said.
Naruto quickly became happy again, "thanks, I always wanted a genin team" he said.
"What about me, I want a genin team" Hinata said.
"Fine, the chuunin exams are in 2 months, you will be their co-sensei, if they pass I will give you both official genin teams" Tsunade said.
"Thank you" Hinata said.
"Your giving dickless and flat chest a genin team, they will ruin their futures" Sai said.
Tsunade glared at him, "Sai get out of my office now or you will find yourself in the hospital" she told him.
"I guess I can leave to then" Ebisu said and left.
"Now I have a B ranked mission, its in Snow country, Koyuki asked for Naruto specifically" Tsunade said.