Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Dancing Kitsune ❯ the king of monsters returns... ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: the angry potato in my fridge told me I own nothing…

I always listen to my vegetables.

**************************************************************** **********************

Gaara coughed as the water in the well sloshed up into his mouth; it tasted like something rotten and old had gone to it's grave in the well's depths.

He spat out a mouthful of the water, grimacing and hugged close to Orochimaru and Naruto as the black smoke began to seep down into the well itself like slow creeping death.

He panicked, not able to touch the ground; fearing for his life he tried to grab the walls around the well and found them slippery and shapeless…

There was no way to get back up from inside the well.

This was the one thing Gaara feared.

Orochimaru didn't seem very concerned and just bobbed lightly in the water beside him, holding Naruto's head above the water level.

" We can't get back up you know." Gaara snapped peevishly at Orochimaru, wanting to strike the man across the face.

The sound ninja shrugged.

" So what? It's not like we're going to be in here forever. When I tell you, take a breath; that includes you Naruto. We're going to dive to the bottom to see if there's any way out from underground."

Gaara nodded, not liking Orochimaru any more then before.

" Now."

The three took a breath, diving below the water into the murky goop.

Gaara struggled downward, the hourglass hanging around his neck bumping against his chest as he struggled to see the water in front of him.

He caught sight of Orochimaru's sleek form darting down farther and shot down after him, not wanting to leave Naruto alone with the man.

He nearly shot back up to the top when he saw the strange remains of some long dead water creature; it's bloated corpse dissolving into the water as Orochimaru touched it to get it out of his way.

Gaara felt sick.

He pressed on, moving down lower; he held his breath, straining to keep the oxygen in this lungs alive and suddenly found himself pulled bodily through a small hole the side of the well's smooth rocky walls.

His lungs burned fiercely, choking his progress…

He couldn't go on…

His limbs felt like lead…

Orochimaru yanked him through another hole and pulled him up into a small pocket of air.

Gaara's head brushed the ceiling and he gasped for air, sucking in the musty air as quickly as he could. He heard the faint sound of Naruto doing it as well and strained to look around for the others but he couldn't see anything.

It was pitch black in the hole…

Even the water let in little to no light…

" Well… at least we found somewhere to escape the fog… but it'll continue even through the water…" Orochimaru growled, holding on tight to Naruto to insure that the boy wouldn't drown.

Naruto nodded solemnly, reaching out with one hand to grab for Gaara, scared.

" Gaara? Where are you?" The boy asked, voice shaking.

Gaara reached out blindly and touched Naruto's wet face, smoothing down the boy's soaked hair.

" I'm here."

The three shivered in the water, trying desperately to keep from loosing contact with the others. The water remained constant, not moving, and stale. It tugged at their limbs like a beggar, trying to pull them down into the oxygen deprived liquid.

Unable to see the water beneath them, they moved closer to one another, dreading the fog that would be seeping to them through the water.

Gaara gagged, feeling the slimy sensation of something climbing up his body and began to twitch, trying to get the invisible creature off. He heard the sound of the others trying to remove the same things and then nearly fainted when a fresh burst of total pain surged through his body. He felt as if he were being torn apart by the very cells that made up his body.

He groped blindly for something to cling to; he needed to find something to stop he pain…

He moved, wanting to bash his head against the wall till he was dead and was grabbed by Orochimaru, who despite the pain, was able to speak in halting words.

" Don't … give… in…" he managed to squeeze out, Naruto shaking in his grasp.

After a few more excruciating moments, the pain receded to a dull throb in his limbs.

He felt his body ripple in he water, changing despite it's own wants…

It was then that he blacked out and all else was nothing…

**************************************************************** **********************

Sasuke couldn't help but stare out his window at the strange black clouds that were making their way over the horizon toward hidden leaf village.

Bolts of lightning darted from the ebony clouds, leaving jagged lines of white coursing down to the earth.

He shivered unconsciously, hugging his body for warmth.

" Kakashi Sensei… I think something's wrong." He said loudly.

Kakashi looked up from Icha Icha Paradise, looking out the window from his position on the couch.

A single sound echoed through the room as Kakashi lept up from the couch; this sound was the sound of Icha Icha paradise hitting the ground.

Kakashi grabbed Sasuke by the arm and yanked Sakura up from the couch, pulling them from the house.

" We've got to get to the hot springs… there are a few caves there that will save us… There is no time to tell Tsunade… she'll have noticed it by now… I hope." He said.

" What is it?" Sasuke shouted, allowing himself to be pulled along.

" It's the king of monsters… and it's been summoned again…" Kakashi said softly.

**************************************************************** **********************

Gaara woke up with a splitting headache. He groaned and rolled over, finding himself lying on his back on a hard stone floor.

He blinked; realizing that he could now see the interior of the cave, despite the fact there was no light.

Perplexed, he looked down and saw that he looked relatively normal, except for the strange cracks on his sand shield. His head itched and he reached up, scratching his cat like pointed furry ears.

His catlike pointed furry ears?!

Panicking, he reached up again and felt that, yes indeed, he now had pointed ears on the top of his head instead of having his normal ears.

He frowned.

What was going on?

He willed himself to stand up and managed to drag his exhausted body over to Naruto and Orochimaru, both lying flat on their backs as he had been.

He gingerly prodded Naruto, who groaned and woke up, pointed fox ears adorning his head along with nine fox tails sticking out from the back of his pants.

The little boy shouted in horror, tears streaming down his face.

" What happened to me? I'm a monster!" he shouted, scrunching up his face so more tears could stream ceaselessly down his face. He covered his eyes with his hands, shaking.

Gaara slid closer and sat down beside Naruto, warping his arms around the small boy, thankful that nothing had happened.

He shushed Naruto, stroking the boy's head until Naruto fell silent and his tears stopped.

" It's all right… it happened to me too… though I don't know what I am exactly…" he said, trying to be calm for them both.

Orochimaru groaned and sat up, rubbing his head painfully as if he had just woken up from an all night drinking bender. He rubbed his eyes, moaning painfully.

" Ow…"

" Ow is right. What the hell happened to us?" Gaara asked spitefully, hugging Naruto to his chest.

Orochimaru cracked his neck, pulling himself up.

" It's probably the curse of the king of monsters…" Orochimaru said, shrugging.

" Doesn't appear to have affected me any…" he said.

Gaara glared at him.

" Well, what is this king of monsters?" The sand ninja asked.

Orochimaru sighed and looked around the room.

" I'll tell you if you tell me what two look like?" The ninja of sound said slyly.

Gaara glared at Orochimaru, left eye twitching again.

" I think I look like a cat… and Naruto seems to be a nine tailed fox cub." He said.

Orochimaru clasped his hands excitedly in front of his chest, beaming.

" That's wonderful! The fox demon has lent the noisy one his powerful form… that should confuse the king of monsters more then anything else."

Naruto's tail danced out and smacked Orochimaru across the face lightly in annoyance; it moved of its own free will for some strange reason.

Taking the hint, Orochimaru cleared his throat and began his tale.

" Ages ago; long before the creation of the nine tailed demon fox tried to destroy the hidden leaf village, the king of monsters was born. He is said to be something that is hideous, a graceless creature of absolute filth. He was sealed away one day for trying to steal the body of a young man, wanting to merge with the youth to attain beauty. It is said that the gods and goddesses of the ancient times cursed him, sealing him away in a realm where there is nothing but sand… There are stories that he merged with the sand and became a giant dragon like creature… but most of it I thought to have been myths… Unfortunately, it seems that everything I was told is true. The Hokage of my time used to tell us that the king of monsters was the worst possible summon; he said that there were only two copies of the sacred scroll that would allow the reader to summon the monster… they were supposed to have both been burnt by the ones who had sealed him in the scroll in the first place… but now I see that there was still some way to summon it."

Orochimaru sighed lazily, looking scandalized.

" I warned Itachi to leave the myth alone… I never thought he would be stupid enough to actually take it for the truth. To make matters worse, I told him if he ever found word of it he was to come and tell me… I wanted to be involved in the birthing of a monstrosity into this world; but that idiot went behind my back and joined up with that fool, Kazekage! I'll find him… I'll rip them both limb from limb for betraying me… But I suppose I received a consolation prize."

" Oh? And what would that be?" Gaara asked dryly.

" Simply this… I now have the power to test out the great Sasuke Uchiha… and I don't have to worry about Kakashi or any of his other fools interfering with my fun… Besides that, I get to spend some time with Leaf village's number one obnoxious ninja… I always like to root for the underdog."

Orochimaru shrieked with laughter.

Naruto stuck his tongue out at the man, clearly not pleased with the amount of laughter being spewed out of the man's mouth at every given moment.

Gaara seemed to agree with Naruto; he pulled Naruto closer, protectively, and glared at Orochimaru.

" And just what does this have to do with Naruto? He's little and …" he paused, blushing in the darkness.

Luckily, Orochimaru didn't seem to notice and neither did Naruto.

" he's little… I think that says it all." Orochimaru said with a smile, voice like poisoned lace.

Naruto shivered and pulled himself closer to Gaara.

Orochimaru sighed and stood up, yawning lazily with his hands held up over his head.

" Well then… I suppose it's time to head off to the hidden leaf village… after all… we need the Uchiha boy to finalize our plans before we go after the monster… mind you… you two will have to keep out of sight for a while until I come back from spying on those two idiots… I need to check the level of power on this monster… Why don't you two stay here? You don't seem to be having any problems seeing, and I promise that I won't leave you here to rot… I have everything under control."

Gaara frowned, but nodded silently; he clutched Naruto to his chest as the boy began to shake from the cold of the cave.

" Alright. But don't get caught… and if you do, you don't know where we are… we've never met today."

**************************************************************** **********************

Sasuke groaned, rolling over on the floor of the hot springs.

Beside him lay Sakura and the others who they had met on the way to the hot spring.

Shikamaru, Neiji, Hinata, Kiba, Rock Lee, and a few of the others Sasuke couldn't remember the names to were sitting tiredly against the far wall of the hot springs. Each one looked as if some child had foolishly decided to reanimate their faces with strange ears and noses.

He looked down at his lower body and saw the strangest thing.

A black and grey tail was curled around his leg.

A raccoon's tail…

Frowning, he reached down and grabbed it, yelping in pain when he realized a little too late that it was actually HIS tail.

He grabbed his face, running his fingers down his cheeks and through his hair, finding two furry ears and strange whisker like points sticking out from his cheeks like pine needles fallen freshly off a pine tree.

" What the hell…"

Shikamaru turned sharply and eyed him; he too had transformed into a strange variation of a human and an animal; he had become a Koala bear. Twin semi circle fluffy ears where nestled in his hair, and his nose had taken on a slightly black tint to it.

" Oh, you woke up… this entire thing is so troublesome… we've all been changed into some sort of demon creature…" he said, scratching an ear lazily; he frowned when he realized that he had been doing something he hadn't ment to do and dropped his hand to his lap, sighing.

Hinata bowed her head in embarrassment, bearing the soft furry ears of a lamb. Beside her, Neiji bore the ears of a rabbit, and he didn't look too pleased about it.

Kiba was sporting a pair of stylish floppy dog-ears; he seemed to be one of the only people pleased and not distraught about the transformations.

Rock lee was doing push ups on the floor, and from where Sasuke was sitting, he could see a skinny thin tail and two round mouse ears adorning his black hair.

Sasuke felt overwhelmed; that was, until he was what had happened to Sakura.

Feathers had replaced her pink hair; pink feathers; and it seemed that two folded pink wings where nestled between her shoulder blades. He saw a beak poking its way out of the centre of her face; her eyes were large and round.

" What the- Sakura's a flamingo?" Sasuke yelped, jumping up.

" Yes."

Kakashi appeared out of nowhere and put a hand on his shoulder, still reading Icha Icha paradise. He had most likely gone back for it.

Sasuke froze and slowly turned around, locking eyes on Kakashi.

What he saw amused him terribly.

Two floppy golden ears where sticking out from either side of the Jounin's head. The most amusing part of the entire thing was the fact that Kakashi was now weighed down with a large silky golden retriever's tail that was swishing back and forth excitedly.

Sasuke's mouth half opened in shock.

" ka..Kakashi sensei! What the hell happened to all of us?" he asked.

Kakashi looked up from his book, stuffing it into a pouch stuck to his belt and seized his tail, restraining it so that it would stop its foolish swishing.

" The king of monsters has been reawakened and it has transformed us halfway into animals… we're lucky to have escaped with what we have right now… but I feel terrible for poor Iruka. One can only be a possum when there is nothing else to become."

From up above, someone snorted.

" Oi! Kakashi, leave my misfortune out of this. You're the idiot who's a Golden retriever." Iruka growled.

Sasuke looked up and found himself staring astonished at Iruka, who was hanging lazily from a wooden beam, upside down, by a thick and muscled tail. He clearly hadn't anything against the transformation, and reached down to grab lightly at Kakashi's ears, stroking them.

Without meaning to, Kakashi began to thump one foot and his tail on the ground; half closing his eyes until he froze, batting Iruka's hand away.

" What?" Iruka said, seeing Kakashi glaring at him.

" I couldn't help it. They're so soft and velvety. Try it Sasuke-kun, you won't regret it."

Sasuke blinked innocently at Kakashi, who backed up a little, eyes narrowed fiendishly at his student.

" Don't even think about it." Kakashi growled.

Shrugging, Sasuke turned back to Shikamaru.

" Oi, Shikamaru; what's going on here?" He asked.

Shikamaru shrugged lazily, his puffy koala ears shaking a little.

" How should I know? Even I don't know about this king of monsters thing. I've only heard a few little things about it, and most of the things I know are exactly the things that happened right now. Only… I didn't expect to end up like a koala… I would have preferred to be something less… furry."

Kakashi scowled, but moved forward a little to avoid Iruka's prying fingers that had been trying to worm their way back to his ears.

" We'll just have to wait and see about all of this…"

He sighed.

" There isn't much we can do until we learn more from whoever woke up the monster in the first place… but who I'm worrying about the most is Naruto… We still don't know where he is and he's been gone now for much longer then I would have liked him to be gone for. We've got to hope to the heavens that nothing bad has happened to him."

**************************************************************** **********************

Orochimaru frowned, looking at himself in a small pool of water that was the remnants of a mud puddle from day's prior.

He had found the puddle a few feet away from the well and had been anxious to see if he had transformed.

" Ears? Lynx ears?" he murmured, fingering the furry ears that were poking out from his black silk hair.

It confused him.

He hadn't thought that it was possible to be affected after the king of monsters was summoned; but for some reason, there were the pair of ears. He felt foolish, touching the furry ears.

" Furry ears…"

He smiled shyly, almost blushing to himself when he thought of all the enjoyment he would receive out of the ears. His eyes turned a little glazed, thinking about all the fun he would have locating Kakashi to tease him.

" Speaking of Kakashi…" he growled, running a long slender strand of hair through his fingers.

He would locate the man and he would taunt him. Yes, he thought; taunt Kakashi he would.

He straightened up and sighed.

Casually, he looked around the abandoned streets; he noticed the total disarray in the normally inhabited corners of the town. There were bits of clothing and abandoned bags and baskets lying scattered about on the ground. He saw a small ball lying trapped behind a half broken potted plant and stooped to fish it out; he held it in one palm and frowned, dropping it to the ground with a spongy twang. Everyone in the village was gone. It was as if a black hole had opened up from the ground to swallow them all up into utter chaos.

" Itachi, my little foolish friend… you have double crossed me for the last time… I may have feared you in the past Uchiha… but now I fear you no more." He licked his lips longingly.

It had been years since Orochimaru had had the pleasure of visiting a vacated village and he suddenly found himself enjoying it more then anything else.

He knew Itachi well; he knew that the ninja would have set up a base of operations in a place of relative importance, perhaps even in the head building of the village itself.

Itachi always enjoyed taking things over from the people he had conquered - including the possession of a few of Orochimaru's subordinates. True, Itachi had never defeated Orochimaru in a battle as of yet; but all the same he had taken Kabuto and a few of the others into his fold, using them to control Orochimaru.

Orochimaru clenched his fists, hearing his knuckles crack from the force.

Itachi would receive his just desserts sooner of later.

Orochimaru chuckled, stalking down the streets with as much speed as he could; he bypassed the head house of the hidden village of sand and stopped dead in his tracks on top of the roof of a building opposite to the head house.

He noticed a small stream of green energy coursing its way out of the sand down below from a rift in the ground.

" Hn… my dear Itachi… what are you doing now?"

He frowned and began to tap his fingers on his chin.

The air was shivering its way down his spine like a creature of darkness; he shook a little as he locked eyes with a large seal that began to rise up from the head house of the village, encircling it in a barrier.

" So this is your base of operation…. I was right. You always were too predictable for my taste." Orochimaru purred, crouching down to avoid a large winged creature that had ascended to the heavens from the front door of a newly abandoned building.

The creature was large and gangly; its face was scrunched up with disfigurement, scarred and scaled like a mutated fish with bulging frogeyes.

Orochimaru ducked low, flattening himself against the smooth cracked shingles of the roof.

Monsters of the village had been released after centuries of being locked away.

He could sense the aura and power of the behemoth…

It was too strong for him to take on; he would need to train hard to reach its exhausting level.

It shrieked and swung around once, suddenly joined by another just as hideous creature from more of the surrounding buildings. The second creature hissed viciously and snapped at the first, but did not harm its companion. It simply circled, flapping its leathery wings like a mechanical menace made only of flesh and blood.

Orochimaru sprung from the roof and slithered down the ground again, shaking his head.

It was too dangerous to go on with his exploration. Soon there would be creatures soaring through the air that would be completely unstoppable. He escaped into a broken building, sneaking through it so he could creep out the back door. He ignored the sounds of flapping wings as best he could; there were no other sounds left in the village…

He would have preferred complete silence… but seeing as it was impossible, he decided to block out the monstrous noises.

There would be no more time for games…

At least… not until he could destroy the king of monsters…

**************************************************************** **********************

Gaara sat rigidly with Naruto on his lap, staring at Orochimaru with a look of passive aggression.

" My dears, we must leave now…" Orochimaru growled, drumming his fingers on his clasped hand.

All three were still hidden deep underground of the well; hidden away from the chaos above ground.

" Leave? I thought you said you had everything under control?" Gaara said softly, sneering at the snake ninja.

Orochimaru rolled his eyes; he moved in an instant and grabbed Naruto from Gaara's lap in a flash, holding the child under one arm.

" My dear Gaara; you have no choice in this matter. From here on out, I am the leader of you two and you'll do as I say - without any questions asked. We will leave now and to make sure you follow my orders, I'll be taking Naruto. Now get up. We're going to hidden leaf village where we are going to find Kakashi, the Uchiha and anyone else worthy of training to fight back. We are going to train until we can fight the king of monsters."

Gaara stood up, tail darting from side to side dangerously.

" Get your filthy hands off of him."

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, grinning. He stuck out his tongue, running it across his lips until a single bead of saliva dripped down his cheek. He wiped it off with a smile of smiles on.

" I seem to have touched a nerve… tell me… just how are you planning to make me get my `filthy hands off of him', HN? I don't think you have enough strength to even pull a single strand of hair from my head, let alone stop me from moving entirely." He chuckled briefly and then shook his head.

" My dear Gaara… my little sand ninja. You have nothing to worry about… I'm not going to paint the little squirt my colour until he's old enough to process intelligent thoughts…"

Orochimaru smirked.

" Of course… who can say at which age Naruto processes intelligent thoughts… that age might not have occurred yet…"

Gaara's eyes narrowed into slits of fury.

" You think… you're so strong… don't you?" He said softly, voice strained and twisted with lower notes.

Orochimaru scoffed lightly, ruffling Naruto's hair gently.

" My dear Gaara… I know I am strong; unfortunately, at this moment I am not strong enough to stop the king of Monsters… and I am nowhere near Itachi's level now that he has brought that monster into his soul…. You should be lucky that I have a small amount of patience left over…"

" I don't take spite lightly."

Naruto scrunched up his face, tears welling in his large eyes.

" I want my mommy and my daddy!" He shrieked.

Orochimaru sighed suddenly; his smile shrunk to a slim frown.

He pulled Naruto out from under his arm and held him up in front of his face, pitying the boy.

" Sadly little one… you have neither the mother nor father you need… but I will make you a promise. I will not let anything happen to you - not until this entire mess is over. You are… precious to my plans… at least for now."

Naruto's lower lip trembled, tears streaming down his face in rivers.

In a split second, Orochimaru had empty hands.

He blinked.

Gaara stood in the same place he had been in before, smiling.

Naruto had his chubby hands wrapped around the sand ninja's neck, crying softly into his chest.

" You are right… but you let our guard down too easily Orochimaru." Gaara said, voice deeper then it had been before, a sign that the demon inside him had briefly taken over.

Orochimaru laughed, throwing back his head to spew out the cackles like confetti.

He clutched his sides with laughter, body shaking.

Gaara faltered, freezing.

" I don't see what's so funny." He said.

Orochimaru turned and held up Naruto; he had created a shadow replication when he had first captured the little boy and it was now holding the real Naruto under one arm.

" Did you really think it would be so easy to reclaim the boy?" The ninja laughed.

The false Naruto vanished with a pop, leaving Gaara empty handed; the sand ninja felt foolish.

He clenched and unclenched his hands, flinching despite his best efforts.

He had failed without even noticing, he thought angrily.

Orochimaru smiled.

" I'm glad you understand… but I will be lenient… here." He motioned for his replication to hand Naruto over to Gaara with one hand, licking his lips.

" You can hold him for as long as it takes to reach the village… I think you're up to the challenge of outrunning those flying above."

**************************************************************** **********************

Sasuke frowned, peeking out the front of the hot springs; he couldn't see any of the people who usually frolicked in the springs in the water any more. They had been there when Kakashi had ushered Sasuke and Sakura to the caves, yet they had vanished somehow.

Iruka leaned out over Sasuke's head, from up above.

He held one hand up, shading his eyes.

" Doesn't look like anyone else made it into the springs… we tried to get as many people as we could inside… but it looks like they didn't listen."

He shook his head sadly, reaching down to pat Sasuke's head.

" Looks like we're on our own out here…"

Kakashi grabbed Iruka by his ponytail and pulled the teacher off the ceiling, scowling.

" Stop being such a weirdo Iruka… I think this Possum transformation you've had is warping your brain." Kakashi grumbled.

Iruka blushed and scratched his head in embarrassment.

" Sheesh. I didn't think I was being that bad…" he grumbled.

Kakashi smiled; tail rapping the ground again spontaneously.

His ears flattened against his head in defeat.

Sighing, Kakashi grabbed Sasuke by the shoulder; he pulled his team mate into the caves again and began to drag him back into the main caverns when Shikamaru wandered past him, starting to leave with a group of other ninja's who had become fed up with waiting.

Kakashi instantly formed the seals for the shadow replication and filled up the corridor with replications of himself.

" Oi. No one leaves until we've come up with a plan for survival. I don't want to have to pick up your body parts after those monsters have devoured your souls and hearts." The Jounin said roughly, voice grating like steel.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms lazily.

" Oi yourself. I want to head out there to find Naruto. He's important for this entire plan of ours to work. If we can't find him, we're as good as dead."

Sasuke frowned, eyes narrowing dangerously.

He clenched his fists, feeling jealous and left out.

Naruto was more important then anything else in some plan Shikamaru had made up? Naruto could barley walk and eat Ramen at the same time let alone work with a group of the most elite ninja's.

Kakashi sighed loudly, breaking Sasuke out of his anger.

" Look," he threw up his hands in defeat.

" I understand that Naruto is important but you all have to realize that at his moment he might not want to be found… I'm ashamed to say… I might have overdone it when I told him he couldn't come with Sakura, Sasuke and I when we went on a mission a few days ago…"

" What exactly did you say to him?" Shikamaru growled, letting out a sigh of annoyance.

Kakashi bowed his head a little, golden ears flattening further against his hair.

" I… I told him that he wasn't up to par with the assassination… I might have made things worse while trying to protect him."

Shikamaru snorted a little, chewing his lips while the thought to himself.

" Alright… I don't think you did too much damage - at least, it's not too hard to repair what you said. The most I'm worried about right now is the fact that Orochimaru might have been the one to summon the king of monsters… knowing his lust for power, it's very likely that he would have found Naruto himself and already brought the idiot into his fold."

Sasuke's anger flared up again.

" Naruto wouldn't change sides just because of a little insult! He's not that easily swayed-"

Shikamaru waved him to silence, rolling his eyes.

" I know what you mean, but I don't think you know what I'm saying. I think he would have used Naruto as a medium to revive the monster. Think about it; all that is needed for a summoning that great is energy strong enough to seal something in forever-"

" The seal on Naruto's stomach." Kakashi whispered softly, shaking his head.

" Why didn't I think about that earlier…"

Shikamaru shrugged.

" Look, it might be bad… everything in the hidden leaf villages past is bared by the nine tails. If the nine tails is released, it might come back here - which makes it no longer safe to remain in the village. But this also leaves us with another problem. If the demon fox was absorbed into the king of monsters in order to revive it, then both Naruto's strength and the demon's are infused in the creature. That makes if much worse, even thought it is most likely stronger then all of us put together even before Naruto's power was added. This is so troublesome."

Iruka sighted, shaking his head in sadness.

" Then… Naruto may be dead already…"

Shikamaru nodded bluntly.

" But, it is only a possibility. There may be several other ways that could have been used to maintain the same results, as the summoning would need. This would mean some other demon was used in order to summon the creature. All we have to do now is figure out which demon comes up to par with Naruto's nine tails and we'll have the location of the King of monster's headquarters…. But which village would have been stupid enough to summon a demon with that much power-"

" Gaara." Sasuke said coldly, cracking his knuckles.

Kakashi nodded.

" yes… the hidden village of sand did have the stupidity to seal a monster into one of their own for their petty ambitions… but there is also one other village that had the same ideals… the hidden village of shadows… it is in the northern most regions of the lightning country."

Shikamaru frowned, tapping his index finger on his lower lip.

He snapped his fingers instantly.

" It's got to be the hidden village of sand. It's impossible for it to be the hidden village of shadows. Think about it; judging by the strange disappearance of Naruto, who would have he have known enough to let into the house without a struggle? There weren't any signs of any struggle at all in the house, meaning it had to have been someone Naruto knew. It makes perfect sense… you told me earlier that you found sand on the ground outside the lower window when you walked by, right Iruka? Then that proves it. Naruto is in the hidden village of sand, which means…"

The genius ninja's face froze.

" It means that someone needed Naruto to come to the village… someone who would have known the legend behind the nine tails. Orochimaru wouldn't have done it, because Naruto would never have come with him… so it had to have been Gaara who took him… but for what reason? I never thought Gaara would try to obtain help from anyone unless it was absolutely necessary… and what reason would Gaara need in order to let his ego ask Naruto for help… and why would Naruto agree to leaving with him?"

" Hn…"

Shikamaru began to drum his fingers on his lip again.

" Sand… desert… WATER!" He snapped his fingers again.

" They must have had a drought or something. Which would mean something weather wise didn't occur for a long period of time… be it snow, rain or earthquake… are there any myths running around the hidden village of sand?"

Iruka nodded blankly.

"I think there are some documents in the Hokage's house that would tell about the hidden village of sand. We did some reconnaissance there almost thirty years ago, and a few of the myths were picked up by a ninja… I only think one was documented thought… something about the maiden of the sand… something like that."

Kakashi scowled, swatting at Iruka with his tail by mistake.

" Unfortunately, this means we have to go out there to find out what happened in that myth… and that means risking our lives. Shikamaru… do you really think it has anything to do with the maiden of the sand myth?"

Shikamaru nodded solemnly.

" Of course it does. If that's the one myth documented, it must have been important and about some powerful jutsu or something like that… and if it has something to do with Naruto, then we need to read everything about it before those creatures outside get in there and destroy the village's archives."

" But why would they do such a thing?" Sasuke asked grimly.

" It's easy Sasuke. Once they remove all traces of the original seal that was placed on the monster, there will be no way to stop it… which means it can stay in this world forever." Sakura said, startling them all. Kakashi's visible eye widened and narrowed in one instant.

" Your right Sakura. We've got to find the archives information… somehow; we've got to seal it back into the dimension it was in once more… I just hope Naruto's alright."

" that idiot Gaara, probably offered Naruto to pay his way in Ramen." Sasuke said, shaking his head in distress.

Iruka sighed.

" most likely…"

**************************************************************** **********************

T.B.C