Chapter 44

I smiled right at it, a savage, bloodthirsty smile, as I prepared to do what few had done before me. Defeat a whole fucking tailed beast right in its element. The longer the fight went on, the more of Iwagakure's landmass was consumed by the lava that the Four-tails spawned with every step of his. The lava spread around us in a circle, melting and consuming everything in its path with little resistance. "That looks like a bijudama" The Yonbi said, shocking me with its astute analysis. As well as with the fact that it could talk without screaming my head off. I nodded and shot forwards, diving right at it. The tails lashed out, attempting to swat me out of the air like a troublesome bug. I spun in the air, barely having the first tail miss me by a hair's breadth. The second one was mistimed, so it was easy to dodge it. For the last two, it was all I could do to dodge the third, and for the fourth I made the right choice of substituting with a clone I'd formed at the last sec, and before it was about to hit me. With my new position, right above the beast, I reared my hand backwards for a second before I tossed it right at him. The spinning disk of chakra and wind weaved through the air, dodging around all the balls of lava he tried sending at it to detonate it, as I controlled it using the same chakra principles Kankuro and Chiyo used to control their puppets. When it finally hit, it was with an astonishing explosive sound, slamming into the beast's jaw right as it was about to try forming a tailed beast bomb to head it off once it saw nothing was working.

Microscopic blades of wind tore through the side of the tailed beast's face, leaving bloody tissue in their wake, but beyond that, I could tell that the attack had not penetrated deep enough to cause meaningful damage. What little effect it had begun healing right before my eyes. And it was angry. Fucking pissed. I'd have called it quits right then and there if a voice did not ring out suddenly towards the Fourth Tails.

"Roshi what are you doing" Han asked, clad in two tails of his own tailed beast's chakra that allowed him to walk right on top of the lava with seemingly no ill effects. The rest of the village around the three of us was being evacuated.

"It's Son Goku, boy" The Monkey safe replied to the Five Tails Jinchuriki, who merely snarled in reply.

"If so, I command you to return to Roshi now and cease this madness."

"You command me? You? Me? I am Son Goku, the Monkey Sage. No one commands me" He screamed, tossing me backwards with the force of the scream while Han maintained his position by bracing against it and upping his tailed beast chakra output up to three tails. With so much chakra, it was difficult to have my senses active or concentrate on them. In the span of seconds, Han was off. The five tails jinchuriki moved with speed I'd never seen any human capable of, and took the Yonbi right in the face with a punch that caused a shockwave but failed to move the larger creature. Its tails lashed out, smashing Han right back into the ground and leaving him there.

"It is only for Kokuo that I do not kill you where you lay, upstart" Son Goku said, clearly not taking the host of his older sister seriously. When he turned back to me, it was with murder in his eyes. I guess he didn't like Shukaku as much. He walked forwards, the ground shaking around him as the lava sloshed from right to left under his command. When he felt he was close enough, he lashed out, testing at my reflexes. It was all I could do to spin backwards from the slap that would have turned me into paste. The next attack, a tail swipe, was blocked as a shield of sand formed around me with sand from my inventory. Just having the Yonbi's tail touch it was enough for the sand to lose consistency, as a good portion of it was instantly turned into glass. The longer the fight went on, the more I could see it. Tailed Beasts. Natural Disasters. I could see the reason behind the looks the villagers had tossed at me, with no justification. A tailed beast was a natural disaster given flesh, and Jinchuriki had the power to toss out those disasters whenever they wanted to.

I felt a beep on my vambrace and nodded to myself. That was the seventh squad announcing mission completion. As it stood, my people would be done with Iwa in a few minutes, and by then the Yonbi would be down. I just had to figure out how to do it without having to resort to the n nuclear option. I crossed my fingers in a hand-sign familiar to every Naruto fan and increased my numbers threefold. "Plan Alpha" I said to my clones as we all took to the sky. Three of them used the Tsuchikage's weight reduction technique along with wind release to glide in the sky while I surfed on my sand platform. The goal was to confuse the Yonbi while preparing our jutsu. All of his attempts to swat us out of the air were dodged with ease, as each of us moved much faster than a creature as large as the giant four tails could ever hope to react to.

In my left hand formed the jutsu, a sphere of pure chakra surrounded by blades of wind, before it began to flatten with a telltale whine into the familiar Rasenshurinken. All around me, I could hear the same thing happening. The clone above me was the first to move in as he flew right at the Yonbi. He had an easy time dodging hands and tails and weaving right through, until it was met with the Yonbi's smiling visage. The tailed beast opened its mouth and roared, sending us all flying back and popping two of my clones as they lost control of the jutsu. Keeping three different jutsu active at the same time while trying to control them all was no mean feat. It was only me and my last clone remaining, so we flew at the same time, me from the left, and him from the right. Another powerful roar made my clone lose concentration before his body was smashed to smoke by a lashing tail. When the Yonbi turned to me, I didn't wait for him to use its roar, as I just tossed the rasenshurinken right at it.

It seemed to have learned its lesson this time, though. The roar, teeming with red tailed-beast chakra, sent me flying backwards and unravelled the rasenshurinken, forcing it to explode harmlessly without ever reaching its target. The Yonbi suddenly screamed in annoyance and I looked over to see Han smashing a fist into its knee before jumping off to avoid the retaliation and landing right on the back of the Yonbi's hand. I just remained where I was. Laying down on my sand platform watching the fight. My head was pounding. It felt like every thought I had was a drum banging against my head. I just wanted to rest. Surely, I could. I could just close my eyes for a few seconds.

XXXXX- Temari

Sealing up the contents of the vault had taken less time than even Temari had expected. After it was empty, they began making their way to the room they'd used as their entrance. At least, they were, until she spied an open door that led into what looked like a large amphitheater. Kankuro followed her eyes and walked into the room before she could say anything. It had a large window that gave them front-row seats to the fight between Gaara and the Yonbi. She watched as her brother formed the clones and prepared multiple instances of one of the most powerful wind release jutsu she'd ever seen him use.

"No" She heard Kankuro whisper behind her in shock. She could share the sentiment. Why the hell was Gaara just laying there, not standing up. Surely, he wasn't dead or unconscious? The sand that carried him was still floating. That couldn't be it. She wanted to yell out his name from their position, but that would have given up everything.

"Who the fuck are you?" She heard a voice behind them. Even Ebizo-sensei had been so distracted by Gaara's fall that someone had been able to sneak up on them. She dropped a knife into her hand before she turned around, keeping that hand out of sight.

"We're just maintenance people, a little lost" She said, already cursing herself for her terrible lies as she met the coal-black eyes of the Tsuchikage's daughter, Kurotsuchi.

"You!" The older girl said in shock but was quickly interrupted as Temari's wind enhanced knife made its way for her neck. She cursed within her as the Tsuchikage's daughter merely leaned out of the way of the attack. Considering the girl was wearing a blouse and loose trousers, she could guess that she wasn't really on duty now. Even off-duty, a Ninja was a ninja, Temari grudgingly admitted.

"I wanted to get a crack at that brother of yours, but the two of you here together is just a perfect opportunity" Kurotsuchi said, black eyes falling on Kankuro. She probably thought they were still chunin level ninja. She thought them weak. They'd show her and all those who thought them lesser.

Temari took her stance as she saw the girl begin to weave hand-signs. She mentally went through what she knew of her. _Kurotsuchi of Iwa. Strong lava release, middling taijutsu, and no genjutsu. Use wind release to nullify lava release attacks. Trust Kankuro to derail her fire release if she decided to whip it out, and do your best to give Ebizo an opening to take her out in close range._ She heard a voice that sounded like Gaara's speak to her in her mind. They'd gone through so many strategy sessions with each other that she'd begun to think in his voice sometimes, especially when she was coming up with plans on her own.

The girl was almost done with her signs, so Temari brought her hands together, slapping her wrists with the opposite hands, left with right and vice versa, unsealing her new weapons. Two hand fans, with frames made of chakra metal, that had the telltale whirls and circles of Gaara's sealing script. He'd made them for her a few weeks ago, and they still made her warm at their sight. Special weapons as worthy of the name as the Seven Swords of the Mist, and Gaara deemed her worthy of them. That was what family meant. The handguns appeared right in time as the girl across from her unleashed her jutsu, a barrage of balls of molten lava.

Temari widened her feet to give herself more of a base as both Kankuro and Ebizo-sensei jumped behind her. She held the fans in front of her and then waved them right at the oncoming attack with a violent slash. She didn't have to spend the time consciously shaping or transforming her chakra into its wind nature with these fans. They did it automatically for her by default, like the thunderswords of Kiri. And even better, when she did go through the trouble of performing the conversion herself, they amplified her results exponentially.

Where she would have just barely managed to cool the Lava attack to become solid before, now she cooled the balls into stone and sent them flying right back at their creator. Kurotsuchi jumped right out of the way, but was faced with a shambling mass of wood. One of Kankuro's new puppets, the Deathdealer. She hadn't even seen him get unsealed. Crafty. Kurotsuchi leaned out of the way of the puppet's blade hands, barely avoiding getting scratched by a poison that she'd seen turn a prisoner into a sobbing mess in second. Gaara called it a neurotoxin. Whatever he and Chiyo cooked up in that lab of theirs still gave her chills because apparently this was one of the least effective ones.

Kurotsuchi made the mistake of standing still for a second too long, and the Deathdealer's midsection opened up. Blades upon blades, all poisoned to the tee shot out. She slammed her hand down on the ground at the last second, upsetting the puppet's aim with a small earthquake and lifting a stone wall to protect herself for those attacks that still managed to remain on target. _Your jutsu must accomplish more than one goal,_ Gaara would always tell her when they trained, and she could see it in Kurotsuchi's movements.

Her fans flashed out as she waved them again, cutting straight through Kurotsuchi's earth wall, and the clone that she'd left behind it apparently as it collapsed in mud. Ebizo-sensei didn't quite shout out, but he did jump behind her urgently. She was unable to react as he used his kunai to block an attack that she hadn't even seen coming. He and Kurotsuchi remained in a deadlock before the girl snarled and spat a ball of lava at him. He kicked her away and jumped out of the attack's path in the same motion. She felt her heart beat out of control as she realised that she'd almost died right then and there. She would have, if Ebizo-sensei hadn't stepped in the way. The Deathdealer pursued Kurotsuchi as she ran backwards, but this time she fended off the offbeat puppet with the knife in her hands with apparent ease. Temari could recognise the knife, anywhere, as she saw the ceremonial hilt and design. That was her knife. The knife Grandpa had given her for her birthday after Gaara got them back in contact. She scowled at the thought of that knife remaining in enemy hands.

Not for long, she consoled herself. Kurotsuchi would be dead in a few minutes, and she'd pry her knife from the girl's cold dead hands if she had to. She waved her fans again, sending a storm of cutting winds at her once all her attention looked to be taken up by the puppet. Kurotsuchi turned to her with a smirk before, almost faster than she could track, she jumped forwards, kicking right at the Deathdealer, somehow avoiding all the blades that littered its frame and sending it backwards. She spun into a backflip and formed a single seal. "Katon: Great fireball Jutsu" Temari didn't need to hear the jutsu's name with how often Gaara had pulled it out when he sparred with her.

"Kankuro" She shouted with what she would later deny was alarm as the fire release technique came into contact with her own attack and multiplied in size, threatening to completely cover the entire room. It was impossible to dodge. A puppet dove right in front of the attack out of nowhere. She recognised this one as well. _Glutton._ It opened its mouth and the entire attack flowed into it as it ate the powerful fire release technique. There was an audible belching sound as the puppet belched up smoke after that. Fuinjutsu is fucking broken, she thought, quoting Gaara to herself with a smile as she saw the look of confusion on Kurotsuchi's face as her attack failed to achieve anything.

Kankuro's fingers twitched again as a third puppet joined the battle. This one looked more man-like than any other puppets she'd seen him use. _Iron Man_, Gaara called it. The adult sized suit of wood raised its hand and fired off a concentrated beam of chakra that Kurotsuchi was lucky to dodge. Behind her, the blast had torn through the wall of the room they were in and continued past the wall of the next room. Would have been a killing blow for sure if it managed to hit.

After dodging the attack, it was all Kurotsuchi could do to parry Ebizo-sensei's flurry of hits as he engaged her in a furious taijutsu exchange. Even a non-taijutsu master like Temari could see it. She was trained well, but nowhere as good or fluid as the likes of Ebizo-sensei or even Gaara and Shira. The only thing that let her keep ahead of Temari's sensei and prevented him from ending the fight instantly was that chakra enhancement could only go so far; the man was so old that his body was lagging behind.

He wasted no time in proving Temari wrong, however, as he baited Kurotsuchi in with a feint that he quickly capitalised on by leaning backwards and kicking her right in the mid-section, sending her flying. It was with no small amount of awe that Temari watched Kurotsuchi get sent flying, only to keep flying upwards as she floated towards the high ceilings of the room they'd found themselves in.

"The three of you are strong. Not as strong as your brother, but strong enough that you will be worthy foes to hone my jutsu against before I use it to claim your brother's life" She proclaimed grandly, almost making Temari facepalm. She held her fans in a tight grip before stepping forwards and waving them in unison, creating a storm of cutting winds. Once again, Kurotsuchi countered with fire release, but the Tsuchikage's granddaughter was forced to abandon her position as the winds cut through the fire this time.

_"Wind is the greatest of affinities, Temari. Do you know why that is?" Gaara asked, staring at her as she unfurled his gift for the first time._

_"Because we can do the coolest stuff?" She'd replied, giving a reply that Kankuro would have, since she knew that whatever a swear she had would be wrong and Gaara was going to give her a lecture either way. Her genius younger brother was cute like that. _

_"No. Because wind is the only affinity that is also strong against its elemental superior, fire" He said._

_"What? How?" She'd asked, shocked._

_"There is a secret subset of wind release techniques only practiced by absolute masters of the art that I have been able to discover. It is called Vacuum style."_

_"And what is that"_

_"You know how regular wind release is dedicated to either blowing or cutting, right?"_

_She nodded._

_"Well, this form of wind release is aimed primarily at countering fire release. Just like us, fire breathes. It needs air to exist. Vacuum techniques use wind release to remove the air in an area. That's a gross oversimplification, but that's the basis. What makes your fans special is their secondary ability. They can use vacuum techniques by default. They'll take more chakra, but I'll teach you how to activate the seals." _

The Tsuchikage's daughter looked flabbergasted as the stone behind her was scarred as Temari's technique tore large rents into it.