And here we go, another chapter out here for you. I know I said I would have it out before thanksgiving but I had so much work to do. But don't worry. I'll have another one out for you later this week.

Again thanks for all the reviews. Keep it up.

The next chapter. Enjoy

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, unfortunately, because my version would be so much better.

Chapter 5: It Begins

"Yo," Naruto replied. "Neji, Gai, Lee Tenten. How are you doing?" he said nodding to each of them in turn.

"Naruto," Neji said again in disbelief.

"Its Naruto!" Lee cried.

Naruto chuckled quietly to himself. These guys sure are excitable he thought. "Yes. We have established that my name Naruto. I repeat my earlier question. What's up?"

Neji quickly recovered his composure and shook his head at Naruto. "Uzumaki-san. What are you doing here?" He asked coldly.

"Whoa, Neji. What's up with the attitude?" Naruto replied flippantly.

"You are Uzumaki Naruto. A-ranked missing nin, and an enemy of Konoha. I will deal with you accordingly." Neji replied as he pulled out a couple of shuriken. He launched the handful of shuriken and then rushed after Naruto.

Here we go Naruto thought as he watched Neji approach.

"Neji, no!" Kakashi said, but it was too late. Neji rushed toward Naruto, before delivering a palm thrust aimed at Naruto's heart. Naruto easily and lazily deflected it before pushing Neji back with the palm of his hand. Neji rushed back toward Naruto before delivering a series of lightning fast palm thrusts that Naruto was hard pressed to dodged. Neji's faster than before. I'd better stop playing around. Naruto deflected another of Neji's palm strikes before dropping to the ground and sweeping Neji's legs out from under him. Neji landed on one hand and back flipped back to his feet before thrusting out his palm.

"Hakke Kūshō" he shouted before shooting an invisible wave of chakra at Naruto. It hit Naruto and pushed him back into a tree.

What the hell was that! Naruto thought, before being forced to duck to avoid a strike that dented the wood behind him. He swiftly kicked Neji away before summoning two clones that rushed at Neji. Neji easily dispersed them with two palm thrusts, but it was just a distraction. Naruto charged at Neji, Rasengan in hand.

Neji began rotating in place at extreme speeds, expelling chakra from all of his tenketsu. "Kaiten!" he shouted. Naruto's Rasengan collided with Neji's Kaiten, letting off a huge flash of light. The two jutsu began struggling for dominance. Slowly, Naruto's Rasengan began pushing through Neji's Kaiten, until in a brief burst of chakra it pushed all the way through. Neji stopped rotating to Naruto's Rasengan an inch from his face.

"You have two options," Naruto growled out, all semblances of courtesy gone. "You can either back away, so that you can be debriefed on the situation, or you can pointlessly try to defeat me for some unknown reason, and eventually die in the process." Naruto smirked. "Oh, I forgot about one. I could shove this Rasengan through your head and save us all the trouble."

"Neji!" Gai's voice rang out sharply. "Enough with this nonsense. Your flames of youth burn brightly, but you must recognize that sometimes you have to put out the flames." He turned to Kakashi who had pulled out a familiar orange book and was reading it. "Your late Kakashi," Gai said.

Kakashi didn't even look up from his book. "Time is relative Gai. To me, I'm early." He snapped his book closed. "And anyway, we ran into some trouble. Akatsuki trouble. And from the looks of you four, so did you."

"Yes," Gai replied. "We engaged in battle with one of Akatsuki's members. He had blue skin, and chakra absorbing sword, and monstrous chakra."

"Also known as Kisame," Naruto interrupted. "His chakra capacity is on level with mine." Or at least it used to be. "He's Itachi's partner."

"And you know this how?" Neji chimed in suspiciously.

"I have my sources," Naruto said dismissively.

"So what exactly are you doing her Naruto-san," Lee asked cautiously. He quickly added," Not that it isn't nice to see you. But you are a missing nin…"

Naruto smiled at Lee's composure. "Its okay Fuzzy Brows. I'm here for the same reason you are. To rescue Gaara."

And to kill those wretched Akatsuki member's Kyuubi chimed in.

They don't need to know that Naruto replied.

"YOSH!" Lee yelled. "THAT IS EXCELLENT NEWS!!! THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH HAVE LED TO THIS MOMENT."

Tenten pushed Lee aside. "What he mean's to say is that we need all the help that we could get."

"I know," Naruto said. "Anyway we should get going. We've wasted enough time as it is."

"Right," Kakashi said. "Have you guy's located any traps."

"Yes," Neji spoke up. "There are fours seals that need to be removed at the exact same time. If not…" he let the sentence hang.

"Alright," Kakashi said. "Team Guy will find the seals and destroy them. Team Seven plus Naruto will then infiltrate the Akatsuki base and attempt to recover the Kazekage." He looked around at all of them. "I want all of you to recognize how important this mission is, for the whole Sand village primarily, and for the whole ninja world. We cannot allow Akatsuki to kidnap our comrades and get away with it. We must stop them. We will stop them!"

The ninja all stood contemplating what their actions could result it. One by one they nodded. "Alright," Kakashi said. "Lets move out." The group of ninja jumped into the tress, heading toward their respective targets.

((((()))))

"Alright, if we're going to face Akatsuki we need all the information we can get," Naruto said as they leapt through the trees. "What exactly happened when the Akatsuki infiltrated the sound village."

Chiyo recounted the tale of Gaara's kidnap, including the descriptions of the respective Akatsuki members and their abilities. When she was done, Naruto slowly nodded his head.

"This is good. This is very good news," Naruto said.

"Why is this good, boy?" Chiyo spat out. "We're going to have to fight these people, people that managed to defeat the Kazekage."

Naruto was unfazed. "From what you've told me, Gaara wasn't defeated. He was just unlucky. Besides from what you've told me about these guys I can guess who they are. You already know about Sasori. The other guy, his name is Diedara. He's Sasori's partner."

"Partner?" Sakura asked.

"All the Akatsuki member's travel in pairs," Naruto said. "Primarily, so they can't be easily overpowered. They're all arranged according to their respective abilities. Sasori is a puppet user, so his jutsu are mostly close ranged. Diedara has the ability to mold clay into things, and then blow them up. He's the long-ranged user of the group." Naruto paused to clear his throat before continuing. "Fighting them together would be near suicide. Their teamwork is bound to be flawless after having worked together for so long."

"So we have to split them up," Sakura said.

"Exactly," Naruto agreed. "We have to split them up so that they cannot help each other. Chiyo, your also a puppet user, so you and Sakura can take on Sasori. Kakashi and I have a number of long ranged jutsu, so we'll take on Diedara. Is that all right with everyone?"

They all nodded, before continuing on through the forest. When they finally reached the Akatsuki hideout, they saw the entrance to a larger cave being blocked by an even larger boulder with a seal on it. Kakashi spoke into his radio, "Team Gai. This is Team Kakashi. Are you in place?"

"Hai," Tenten said.

"Hai," replied Neji.

"Hai," Lee said.

"We are all in position," Gai said. "Give us the signal," he said.

Kakashi motioned at Sakura and Chiyo, before creeping slowly toward the entrance of the hideout. Naruto followed after them silently. This was the most vital part of the operation. Surprise was everything in this case. If they were discovered before they could infiltrate the base, the Akatsuki members inside would be able to prepare accordingly.

((((()))))

"Do you sense that Diedara," Sasori growled at his partner as they prepared themselves to leave and destroy the hideout. "That unmistakable chakra. It seems as though we have company."

Diedara laughed before speaking up," It's nothing that my beautiful art cannot handle. The question is, can you handle it? It is your family."

Sasori growled before replying," You need not worry about me. I have no family." And that was the end of discussion. Diedara summoned his clay bird, before rolling Gaara's corpse around his tail.

"Lets go," Sasori said, before the cave began to shake, and the entrance fell down around them.

((((()))))

"Okay Kakashi," Gai said. "We're removing the seals in three, two, one, now!"

"Excellent work Gai," Kakashi said as the seal on the boulder disappeared. But he got no answer. "Gai, can you hear me? Gai?" He received no answer.

"Team Gai can take care of itself," Naruto replied. "We need to act now. I'm sure that Akatsuki has some kind of jutsu that alerts them when the seal is removed. And that reminds me," he said as he reached into his pocket. He dug around for a second before pulling out 2 tags with seals in them. He handed them to Sakura and Chiyo.

"Take these," he said. "There seals that I made for this kind of occasion. Just place your hand over it and form the ram sign. The seal will alert me, and hopefully, I'll be able to come help you."

"Interesting," Kakashi said as he inspected the seal. "How do these work exactly?" He seemed unusually interested.

"I know what you're thinking Kakashi," Naruto said as he smirked. "I'm good, but I'm not that good. It would take too long to explain the different matrices of it now, but basically what is does is it transfers a portion of my chakra to whoever uses the seal. The seal changes the nature of the chakra, so that I can sense the presence of the chakra, and so that I recognize when it's taken from me. The seal also provides me with the location of the person who used it, so that I can track them. The seal has a time limit, about five minutes after its activate, the foreign chakra vanishes. So I'll have a five minute window to get there."

"But what happens when the chakra can no longer emit the location of the target. Meaning that whoever uses the seal dies."

"Then it fails," Naruto said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "So don't die."

Kakashi eye-smiled. "This reminds me a lot of the Fourth's jutsu."

Naruto smirked. "It's supposed to. That's what it was designed off of. At least until I master the Hirashin no Jutsu." The others eyes widened with shock, and Naruto's smirk grew larger from the look on their faces. Of course, he had neglected to tell them that he hadn't actually even seen the scroll that the Fourth's prized jutsu was written on, nor that he planned a trip to Konoha to retrieve it. They didn't need to know that.

Sakura took the seal back from Kakashi. "I suppose I should say thanks Naruto. But…," she seemed unsure of herself. She glanced down before speaking up again. "What are you giving this to us. Do you doubt our abilities?"

Naruto sighed. "Listen, I'm just trying to keep people from dying. Do I doubt your abilities. I don't know enough to say. But if you do get into trouble, you will need my help. No Akatsuki member would dare think of killing me. You, they would kill in a heartbeat." Sakura nodded.

"Okay, enough talk," Kakashi said. "Sakura, take care of that boulder."

She smiled before walking ahead toward the boulder. "With pleasure," she said, before tightening her glove over her hand. She brought her hand back, and drove it forward with all her strength into the rock. Cracks spread from the point of impact to the edges of the boulder before it shatterd into pieces and collapsed at Sakura feet.

Naruto whistled. He had to admit that that was impressive. Just like Tsunade he thought. I guess she took her training with Tsunade seriously. Finally, she seems like a real shinobi."

"Ho ho," a voice called from inside the cave. "It seems like they've made it. Too bad it was all for naught."

"Show yourselves," Kakashi called into the cave. Two figures slowly walked toward the entrance of the cave, letting the sunlight from outside illuminate their figures.

"Dispose of the Kazekage," Sasori said to Diedara. "I would like to have a chat with dear grandmother." He looked at Chiyo as he spoke. Her face seemed white with disbelief.

"As you wish," Diedara said, before he jumped onto his clay bird and flew out of the cave.

"Lets go Kakashi," Naruto said, before he and Kakashi hopped after Diedara.

Sakura and Chiyo faced Sasori and for a long time no one said a word. The wind blew leaves through the air, birds shrieked in the distance, but still no words were said.

Finally Sasori spoke up, in his low, guttural voice," Now, let us talk grandmother," he said before backing into the cave. Chiyo and Sakura pulled out kunai respectively, before the ventured inside the dark cave.

Jutsu List:

Hakke Kūshō(Eight Trigrams: Empty Palm)- This jutsu is similar in practice to Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin, but has a specific target rather than a general area. To perform it, Neji does a palm thrust, shooting a concentrated force of chakra out of his hand, to violently push the opponent away.

Another chapter completed. Finally it seems like things are starting to heat up. If you were disappointed by the lack of action (other than the Naruto-Neiji mini fight) don't worry. The next chapter will be a huge fight seen. And if you think the fight is going to be the same as in the anime/manga you're going o be extremely surprised. Like fore example Sakura…just kidding. I can't tell you that now. You'll have to read to find out.

Chapter 6: Desert Puppeteers

Spoiler:

"Kakashi watch out!" Naruto before throwing a kunai at the clay bomb headed Kakashi's way. Kakashi managed to dodged it, and it exploded behind him. He jumped over to Naruto.

"Thanks Naruto," Kakashi said.

"Don't worry about it," Naruto replied. "Focus on the battle. Diedara's harder to beat than I thought he would be. But together, we should have no problem taking him out."

"I know," Diedara called from his perch on his clay bird. "I can't hope to beat you myself. My art sadly isn't strong enough. " He looked up and smiled. "But his is!"

Who is Diedara talking about? Find out next chapter.