Naruto, Ty Lee, and Aang faced Pein and Toph, Zuko, and Kitara took on Konan. Sokka was still to injured from the fight with Naruto to move

Pein rushed forward and slammed his knee into Naruto's stomach so hard, he was sure he heard his ribs crack. Ty Lee, angered by the attack on her friend, went at Pein with a Kyusho-jitsu barrage, Pen backed away from the assult and grabbed Ty Lee by the throat and slammed her into the ground. Aang sent a blade-shaped blast of air at him, Pein dodged and leped into the air as Aang tried earthbending the ground he was standing on to try and give himself an opening, Pein twisted his body in mid-air as the avatar sent daggers of ice at him and as Pein landed, a fireball struck him only to see that the Akatsuki member had used substituion and Aang found a punch being twisted into his back.

==========

Konan wasn't doing nearly as well as her comrad, Toph was easy to deal with so long as she used her origami wings to stay off the ground, what bugged her was the flames and water Zuko and Kitara were sending her way. If papper got wet, it beacme flimsy as it sagged and clung to itself and lost its stiffness, the flames were a bigger problem, if that connected, her skills were going to be turned to ash as the papper burnt.

As Konan dodged the flames, she felt one of the wings she made with her origami-jutsu skills get heavy. She turned to see what it was, Kitara had drinched her right wing.

"No!" Konan cried as she hit the ground with a thrump. Zuko aimed a burst of flames at her, Konan squizzed her eyes shut as she expected this to be the end.

"Yahiko...I'll be seeing you again soon..." she muttered under her breath

Suddenly, Konan felt someone roughly push her aside and a cry of pain as the fireball struck them, Konan tensed, that wasn't Pein's voice...she opened her eyes to see none other than Naruto trying to put the flames out. Everything froze, save Ty Lee elbowing Kitara in the ribs and the girl sending a wave to extinguish the flames, everyone was staring at Naruto as he got up panting, thanked Kitara for putting the flames out, no one was moving, Pein was about to stomp on Aang's throat, Toph was aiming a bolder at Pein, Ty Lee was smiling at her friend-turning-fox, Sokka looked like a fish out of water, Aang's eyes were almost the size of Appa's head, Kitara and Zuko had been so stunned that they had fallen to they're knees and were pointing at Naruto with stunned looks on.

"What? I don't like seeing people die, especaily if I can do something to prevent it." Naruto shrugged.

Konan got up and thanked him, in all honesty, she always did feel odd around Naruto, but she had finally learned why, what he did and what he'd said about not likeing seeing people die had made that clear to her at last: the fox-hoste was the same as her and Pein's old friend Yahiko. how he hated sadness and pain, wearing a mask over how he felt when something was bothering him, how strongly he valued life, how all he needed to know in order to help people was that they needed it and it was within his power to give it to them...the only thing that was diffrent about them was that Yahiko beleived in "an eye for an eye" and Naruto didn't.

"Can you forgive us for troubling you?" Konan asked. Her and Pein were about to go on their way.

Naruto stopped them, he had to know something. "Wait! Why were you two here at all?"

Pein and Konan sighed

"Danzo. We fallowed him and when we came across you, your current state made it hard not to assume the nine-tailed fox was taking control of you." Konan said.

"Who?" Toph asked

Naruto moaned

"Danzo is more militant than most in the Leaf Village, favoring aggression and war over passiveness and peace. In the past, he competed with Sarutobi for the position of Third Hokage. He created the (now disbanded) ANBU training department known as Root and acted as its head. Danzo believes that Konoha must go through a fundamental ideological shift in order to survive, he's stated that the First Hokage's influence has meant that subsequent Hokages have proven to be indecisive and weak as they adopt his philosophies of how he saw the people of Konoha as a part of his own family, and that they were worth dying for and refused to draw a line between the rulers and protecters of the people. He'll be easy to spot becouse he lost an arm at some point. Are you telling me HE'S why I'm transforming?"

Pein nodded

Suddenly, Naruto's fox-tail split, so that he nine tails.

"Ho no...THAT'S what that wacko has planned? He plans on turning me into a mimiture virsion of the nine-tailed fthen have me sent back to the village I'm from and publicly kill me so he's given control of the village?"

Pein and Konan winced, that was just cruel, it was also just the kind of thing Danzo would try.

"We'll keep the Akatsuki from troubbling you, as for finding him, you'll have to do that on your own, the transformation should wear off nartually if you stop the one who cast it on you, but that has to be done BEFORE the transformation is compleated."

With that, Pein and Konan disappered.