Evolution

By TwinEnigma

Warnings: Violence, language, AU, futurefic

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and do not do this for profit.


Prologue

Isoji paused, wiping the sweat from his face with a rag. It was a hot day for this early in the season, especially for Fire Country, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky to shield him from the heat of the sun. Some of his dark hair had already come loose from the pony tail he'd tied it in. It stuck, limp and heavy, against his skin. He adjusted his hat, an old, beat-up thing that was nearly as shabby as his coveralls, and looked out across his field, squinting from the harsh glare.

His heart nearly skipped a beat.

On the other side of his fence stood a figure in a black, hooded cloak, watching him from the dirt road with an eerie stillness.

Despite the heat, Isoji felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle with a sudden chill.

The small farm he and his wife, Juniko, called home was well off the beaten path, located on the hilly fringes of a sparsely populated farming town and accessible only by a small, rough dirt road that was notoriously easy to miss. It was tiny, tucked away from even their closest neighbors, with only a small single-level house and barn perched on the crest of a gently rolling hill that overlooked their fields, and surrounded by dense tree-cover. They'd picked this place for its privacy and for nearly a decade and a half after the War, they'd had just that. Even the occasional shinobi passed this place by without so much as a second glance.

And now, after all these years - Sage's balls, Otoyoshi had warned all of them this was a possibility, but he'd been sure and they'd gone so far off the grid...

Isoji tightened his grip on the handle of his spade and raised his head, approaching the fence. Inwardly, he prayed that he was wrong.

"Can I help you, stranger?" he asked. "You lost?"

He already knew the answer would be no and when the cloaked stranger shook their head in the negative, he felt his stomach start to drop. Then the stranger held up a pair of photographs in their right hand, and immediately confirmed his worst fear.

The stranger - a teenaged boy and hideously familiar-sounding - asked, "Have you seen these two?"

Isoji didn't need to look at the photos for more than half a second; he'd known what they were going to be the second that boy pulled them out. He knew the faces in those Bingo Book photos better than anyone save Juniko. He deliberately sniffed, looking away, and prayed she'd sensed the danger. "Not sure I can help you there, kid. We don't see many folks out here. You might have better luck in town."

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the stranger look at the photos in his hand, as if he didn't quite understand the problem, and then the stranger shoved the photos back at him, his whole arm extended. The action pulled back the cloak, exposing the boy's wrist.

There, tattooed in stark black ink, were the numbers B3-116 and the sight of it hit him like a savage kick to the gut.

One hundred and sixteen, Sage's balls! They'd always suspected there might be more, but this many?

"Maybe it would help if you took a closer look?" the stranger asked. There wasn't even an ounce of feeling in the words.

This was what they were supposed to be, what they were made for.

And he - he was going to die, right here, today.

Isoji wanted to scream in rage. It wasn't fair. He didn't want to die. He didn't want his wife to die. He and Juniko were good people and they'd done nothing wrong except exist. They'd stayed out of the way and they'd kept quiet, never getting involved even when the War was raging around their heads. They hadn't been bothering anyone and never once had they revealed the secret of their existence in all this time. Why come for them? Why now, after all these years? They were happy. And to send one of them to do the job...?

It wasn't fair at all.

Instead, he reached out to take the photos with his right hand, the faded proof of their common origin visible. It had been a long time since he had been B2-012 and, now, he was so much more than that: he was also Isoji Namaki. He looked at the photographs, at the two teens whose visage he and his wife had once mirrored so long ago and whose misfortune had led to he and his wife having these fifteen years of happiness, and he wondered. Then, he raised his eyes, the same dark grey as he knew the boy in front of him had, and sought them out, staring into the shadows cast by that hood.

"Tell me," Isoji said at last, his voice oddly calm even to himself. "What will you do when you run out of us to kill? Will they make you turn the blade on yourself?"

The boy didn't answer.

Isoji watched as the boy drew his sword, the arc of the gleaming blade speeding towards him in seemingly slow motion, caught the flash of black-flecked red eyes reflected in the metal, and let his death come.


AN: This is a sequel to Replica and continues directly off the Epilogue of that, but it won't be necessary to read it to understand what's going on, as the situation will explain itself. The previous version of the prologue was not to my liking so I updated it to this, which recaps the Epilogue of Replica, except in the farmer's POV.

Isoji and Juniko both have names that are a play on the number 12.