My bodyguard

Chapter 25

Team 7 was on the move after successfully retrieving their intended scroll after a long and tedious search of three other labyrinths.

However, they were unfortunate in encountering the sand Jīnchuriki.
Naruto found himself isolated from his teammates. Sasuke and Sakura had their hands busy fighting Kankuro and Temari respectively.

The blond team leader couldn't bring himself to seriously fight Gaara. Whenever he tensed to react to an attack, his body failed to move. All he could think about was Fū.

The lack of fighting only further enraged the redhead. He wanted revenge for when Inari won against him with one single swoop. Gaara held a special grudge against Konohagakure for that reason.

He was supposed to be the Sand's greatest weapon, yet he lost to a normal shinobi. As if being shunned and abused by everyone wasn't enough, the humiliation that followed was even worse. So he promised to never lose against anyone ever again.

Now if he were to take the nine tail's Jīnchuriki out of the equation, everyone will fear him. Gaara wasn't looking to earn anyone's respect anymore.

The two Konoha Chūnin struggled to hold their own against the Sand siblings. Sasuke found out a second too late that the knives used by Kankuro's puppets were poisoned. The injured raven still stood with an activated Sharingan to protect his teammate. His vision blurred and his breathing erratic as he tried to remain conscious. 

Sakura saw how far behind everyone else she truly was. All that training she did was nothing in comparison to the strength of her own teammates.

The Uchiha glanced momentarily at their team captain. He didn't know why Naruto wasn't fighting. What happened that made Naruto so afraid of fighting back?

The raven found himself activating his incomplete Susano'o yet again. Blood trickled down his cheeks as he forced his Sharingan beyond its limits. The skeletal Susano'o started taking a more humanoid form, wielding two Katanas.

Sasuke went all out with the last bit of chakra he could do without. The double Katana slash had created an opening for them to regroup. 
"Naruto, snap out of it!" He shouted at the blond.

"I-...I-...I don't want to fight anymore," his shaky hands barely gripped the kunai knife. "I don't want to kill one of my own again..." his eyes watered. He murdered the Fourth Mizukage who was the three tail's Jīnchuriki without questioning the village's motives. he had taken the lives of the second and fourth tailed beasts Jīnchurikis upon their own villages' request for deflecting. and just recently he took away Fū's. 

He understood better than anyone else why they ran away. Yet he took away the light behind their eyes. he deprived them of a chance to live with dignity by following orders of the same people who prosecuted them for existing. 

A thump on the ground brought him back to reality as Sasuke fell face first in a pool of his own blood. The purple chakra guard disappeared as the Uchiha struggled to remain awake.

The blank obsidian eye begged him to fight before it closed.

Kill or be killed; that never was a problem before. But Naruto hesitated for the first time in his life. Couldn't there be another option?

"Sasuke..." He called out the unconscious raven. His sole blue eye burned crimson as Kyūbi's chakra lashed out in anger.

The once reluctant blond had attacked the sand trio. Four tails have already formed and Naruto was losing his human form. Sakura rushed to Sasuke to heal his wounds, her eyes still fixed on the two Jōnin captains fighting.

Kankuro's puppets were smashed into pieces by one of Kurama's giant chakra tails. Then he and his sister were both swatted down like mere flies. 

Kyubi's attacks kept getting deflected by Gaara's sand but even the redhead's ultimate defense cracked under Kurama's speed and cunningness. The claw-shaped-hand squeezed Gaara's neck.