A/N: Yes people it is me! I still live! Amazing, isn't it? I blame my muse... that and I've just been lazy as of late. After this chapter goes up I'll begin work to update my other fics starting with Lightning Kit, Fire Kitten. This story will be a side-project and updated when I either have an idea that won't die or I just cant get ideas for my other fics.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Buso Renkin. I do however own any and all Kakugane and Buso Renkin that I create for this fic.
Ten year old Naru Uzumaki cursed to herself as she ran through the streets of Konohagakure no Sato like her life depended on it; which in reality; it did. Being the container of the Kyūbi no Kitsune was quite the hazardous occupation, even if it was never her choice to be the container. The Yondaime Hokage had, on the day of her birth, been forced to sacrifice his own life to stop the Kyūbi's rampage through Konoha and seal it into her. She had been selected because only a newborn child would have the undeveloped chakra coils necessary to accommodate the beast's vast chakra, and only her soul would have been pure enough to counter the evil of the beast's own soul. Alas, the villagers had discovered that she held the Kyūbi and they immediately called for her death. Hiruzen Sarutobi however, who retook the mantle of Sandaime Hokage after Minato's passing created a law which prevented people from discussing or even mentioning Naru's status as the Kyūbi jinchuriki to those who were not already aware of it.
However, this did not prevent the adults from telling their children not to interact with her in any way, shape, or form, thus making her an outcast from her own generation. The law also did not prevent the elder generation from taking out their anger and grief caused by the Kyūbi against her which had caused this current situation. Despite her above average speed and agility from her years of pranking and running from the villagers when they decided to use her as an outlet for their rage, her pursuers easily caught up to her and after a few minutes of taunts and insults they finally made good on the threats they had been making for years about 'finishing the Yondaime's work' and with the forward thrust of a sword through her chest, the life of Naru Uzumaki was ended.
Naru felt the cold steel ease through her flesh and pierce her heart. Gasping at the sensation of her life slipping away, she clawed impotently at the blade transfixing her thin chest. The ninja holding it simply laughed and twisted, sending Naru's arms crashing back to the floor as she was paralyzed by a wave of pain. As her blood welled around the wound and sheeted down her sides, as the spark died in her now-dim blue eyes, her last breath hissed between her teeth in the form of a single word, "...Kaa-san..."
Their work done and fearing the wrath of Sarutobi's ANBU should they be discovered, the mob quickly dispersed and went about their business as if nothing had happened. As Naru's lifeblood drained away, the wall behind her glowed brightly before vanishing, allowing her body to fall through, and reappearing as if nothing had occurred. Moments later, ANBU appeared on the scene and noticing the small pool of blood on the ground, the crow masked ANBU began barking orders at the others: Naru Uzumaki MUST BE FOUND.
~VOID~
Naru's first thought was that she felt no pain. Why did she feel no pain? Surely if she had just been stabbed through the heart she should have been feeling at least some pain. But she felt nothing, and when she opened her eyes she saw nothing either; only endless blackness stretching in all directions
"Where am I?" she thought, "Who am I? How old am I? Why am I here?"
Something wet slid down her cheek, and she took an instinctive swat at it. When she looked back at her fingers, the tips were slightly wet. Raising her fingers back to her cheek, she traced the slight wetness back to her eye and captured the newly-formed droplet there. "Tears?" she thought, "Am I crying? Why am I crying?"
Before she could come up with an answer to this question, she screamed as pain ripped across her chest. She thrashed around helplessly in the blackness, new tears pouring down her face and her throat becoming hoarse from her screaming, then the world turned white and she knew no more.
~UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, KONOHA~
"…Y…o ….nk …he …ill …survive?" A male voice broke through the haze of pain Naru felt as her senses slowly returned to her.
"Yes." This time the voice was female. "The Kakugane that Gozen implanted in her will slowly heal her wounds just as yours did so long ago."
As the pain in her chest began to fade, rational thought began to return to her. She was Naruko Uzumaki; Naru for short. She was ten years of age and the village scapegoat due to having the Kyūbi sealed into her. Slowly, Naru opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of two people she did not recognize standing over her and looking down at her.
"See, Kazuki?" The female spoke. She had short-cut bluish black hair similar in colour to Hinata's with harsh looking amber eyes and a scar over the bridge of her nose. She wore what appeared to be some kind of school uniform but it was not one that Naru recognized. "The girl is fine."
The man, Kazuki released a sigh of relief before flashing the woman a grin. "You know I can't help but worry about things, Tokiko." His grin then shifted to Naru. "Are you feeling better now, little one?" He too wore a type of school uniform and had brown hair and eyes though his appeared much kinder than the woman's.
Instead of responding, Naru slowly sat up and took a mental stock of her injuries which were surprisingly few. "What happened to me?" The blonde asked as she placed a hand over her heart. She could have sworn she had been killed! She idly noticed that she was lying on a comfortable bed wherever she was.
"The people of this village decided they could no longer tolerate your presence and killed you by stabbing you through your heart." Tokiko answered calmly.
"So I'm dead?" Naru began to freak out. She couldn't be dead! She still had so much to do! She couldn't become the Hokage if she was dead!
"You aren't dead." Tokiko interrupted the blonde's mental freak-out. "You were healed by the power of Alchemy and the Kakugane which now functions as your heart."
The blonde girl's face was a question mark. "Alchemy?" She asked. "Kakugane? What are those?"
Kazuki and Tokiko exchanged a look before speaking again. "Alchemy… is a science from long ago. The original purpose of Alchemy was two-fold. The first was to transmute base-metals into gold. The second was to create the Elixir of Immortality." Kazuki explained to the girl as Tokiko had done to him so long ago.
"However, that was only what the public knew." Tokiko continued, not giving Naru a chance to interrupt. "While those were indeed to goals of Alchemy, only two things ever came from alchemic research; Homunculi and Buso Renkin."
"Long ago, long before the Elemental Nations or ever chakra existed, Homunculi were man eating monsters who wanted nothing more than to take control of the world so they could forever feed their appetite for humans. They stood on one side while on the other stood the Alchemist Army; a group dedicated to protecting humans from Homunculi as well as keeping them in the dark about Alchemy to ensure the knowledge did not fall into the wrong hands. Each member of the Alchemist Army was given a Kakugane which is a precious stone created using alchemy which when used allowed a person to awaken their warrior instincts and grant them the ability to from a Buso Renkin. The abilities and shape each Buso Renkin had were and still are different for each person. Even though two Buso Renkin might take on the same shape such as a sword, their abilities would be different. For example, back during mine and Tokiko's time, I knew two warriors whose Buso Renkin took on the form of a sword. The first, Sword Samurai X had a special ability to neutralize energy attacks while the Secret Trail allowed its wielder to enter a separate dimension whenever he cut something." Kazuki explained.
Kazuki's words caused Naru to shudder. Creatures that ate humans? Something like that was right out of a horror movie! The rest of his explanation however, sounded kinda cool to her. "So… this Kakugane in me will allow me to form a type of weapon called a Buso Renkin?" She asked, wanting to make sure she understood. "You also refer to your time as if you aren't alive anymore."
"That is correct. With practice, you will be able to form you Buso Renkin, but it is not wise to use the Kakugane functioning as your heart to do so. Should it be lost, destroyed, or separated from you for too long, you will die again." The female Alchemist Warrior confirmed. "You are also correct that Kazuki and I are no longer alive. We are… for lack of a simpler explanation; memories given form and sentience so that the knowledge we possess is not lost to time. My husband and I lived long ago when technology was quite far advanced and the Earth was free of Homunculi, but all good things must come to an end. An experiment the Alchemist Army was attempting to turn a Homunculus into a human backfired and killed all but five warriors. Kazuki, Myself, Shusui Hayasaka, Warrior Chief Hiwatari, and Gouta Nakamura were the only warriors who survived; and I am still unsure how. Another side-effect caused by the backfire was that it froze our Buso Renkin in their Buso Renkin forms meaning we could not return them to their Kakugane state. Time passed and soon only Kazuki and I were alive. We took the Buso Renkin belonging to our comrades and all the Kakugane and passed them down to our children who passed them down to their children and so on. You are the last of our descendants, young Uzumaki." Once Tokiko finished her explanation, the back wall of the room they were in lit up to reveal lots of hexagonal shaped metallic looking stones. Each stone was stamped with various letters as well as an upside-down V with four lines going through it.
"How did you know I'm an Uzumaki?" Naru asked as she examined the stones she presumed were Kakugane.
"That's easy." Kazuki replied. "Only three people can access this place who are not Uzumaki and you are not any of them. Therefore it stands to reason you must be an Uzumaki to have activated the blood seal to enter this place."
"This is a place created by your mother, Kushina Uzumaki, and before you ask how I know that, she was the only Uzumaki in Konoha until her death. She gave birth to a child just before she and your father died in the Kyūbi attack ten years ago. Also before you ask when I say she was the only Uzumaki in Konoha, all Uzumaki who by the way are descended from Kazuki and myself originally came from a now destroyed village called Uzushiogakure. Uzushio was destroyed by Kiri, Kumo, and Iwa when they formed a temporary alliance in order to steal the secrets of alchemy from our clan. The war was long and bloody and in the end only your mother escaped the death and destruction by coming here to Konoha to become the second container of the Kyūbi which you now hold. She brought with her around thirty Kakugane with her. She kept them sealed away until she arrived here and settled down. She was able to use the notes passed down by the Alchemist Army and the Uzumaki clan to manufacture fifteen more before her death. She gave three of those to her students: Itachi Uchiha, Yugao Uzuki, and Hayate Gecko. Two more that she had been in the process of manufacturing were finished just hours after her death." Tokiko explained quickly preventing Naru from interrupting her.
The words of the two warriors cut deeply into Naru as she stepped away from the wall clutching at her chest. It was too much to take in all at once! She wasn't some clanless orphan as the Sandaime had always told her! Her clan had existed and they had been powerful! Powerful enough to warrant three of the five major villages coming together in order to defeat them. Those villages killed her family and stole her clan's secrets! Her mother, the only one to have escaped the massacre had come to Konoha and became the second container of the Kyūbi! Somehow, some way, the Kyūbi had escaped from her mother and proceeded to attack the village killing both her mother and her father! Fire felt like it was burning in her veins as she struggled to absorb the information she had been given. Opening her mouth to respond, no words emerged, but instead a feral roar came forth causing the room to shake as red chakra erupted from her body, covering it, and taking on the form of a fox. "THEY WILL PAY FOR WHAT THEY HAVE DONE!" The feral girl snarled. Her normally blue eyes changed to a bright blood red and her neck length blonde hair lengthened to her back and became streaked with red as she turned her attention to Kazuki and Tokiko. "I SWEAR ON THE UZUMAKI NAME, THOSE WHO KILLED MY FAMILY WILL PAY!"
"Calm down, Naru!" Tokiko commanded. "Do not let your anger overtake you!"
As if responding to Tokiko's words, the chakra around Naru ceased whipping around and began to fade away and gathered itself on her stomach where it burned away the cloth of the shirt she was wearing revealing the Kyūbi's seal which was glowing an angry red. The seal continued to get brighter and as it did it began to pulse sending waves of the red chakra into the room. After a few minutes of this, the seal pulsed one final time before the glow faded and it shattered, the Kyūbi's chakra vanishing along with it causing Naru to fall to the floor feeling like all her energy had been drained. "What... happened?" She panted.
"It seems," Kazuki spoke. "That when you died you took Kyūbi with you as per the design of the seal. However, when the Kakugane restored your life the beast was not revived with you, but you did keep all its chakra. My guess is that your anger triggered the chakra like it normally would but without the Kyūbi to maintain it the chakra is likely going to be absorbed into you and change into a more pure version of itself mixed with your chakra giving you a secondary source of chakra to call on in emergencies." He speculated based on what he knew of the seal from Angel Gozen who was with Minato during the sealing.
Naru nodded slightly at this. She'd known of Kyūbi for a while now... since her last near death experience at the hands of the villagers. She felt as if every drop of energy in her body had been drained away leaving her with nothing. "So tired..." The blonde spoke softly, her eyes drooping.
"That's not surprising," Tokiko said. "You'll likely need to rest for a couple of hours before you'll be ready to go anywhere. Not that you're leaving this place until Kazuki and I teach you all about the Kakugane, Buso Renkin, and Homunculi." She pointed out. "Although maybe we should have Gozen contact Itachi. His Buso Renkin would allow Naru to absorb the information directly into her mind rather than listen to long winded explanations."
Kazuki nodded. "Good idea, Tokiko. Gozen, go find Itachi and bring him here please." He requested.
"You got it!" Came a voice from deeper in the room as a pinkish white blur flew past Naru and vanished.
"That's nice..." Naru responded, swaying a bit from where she sat on the bed. "I'm gonna go sleepy til 'Tachi-nii gets here." She slurred before collapsing on the bed and beginning to snore.
~Konoha Streets~
As the various ANBU and other shinobi loyal to the Hokage scoured the village for the missing blonde at their own pace, three in particular were going out of their minds trying to find the girl. One wore a crow mask, one a cat mask, and one a lizard mask. These three had made it their personal goal to locate the blonde and do whatever it took to ensure her safety just as they had promised their former sensei. After what seemed hours of searching and turning up nothing, the ANBU were about ready to give up when a small pink and white angel-like thing appeared before them. "Itachi-san." It spoke.
"Gozen?" Itachi, the Crow masked ANBU replied. "Why are you here? Please tell me that Papilon-san has not returned to the village... I believe I would rather hear Gai-san's rants about Youth than deal with him. Besides that, Yugao, Hayate, and I are busy looking for Sensei's daughter..." Here he trailed off looking at the only sentient Buso Renkin to exist. "You know where she is, don't you."
"That's right Itachi-san." Gozen said, nodding in response to the Uchiha's words causing Yugao and Hayate to sigh in relief. If Gozen was here that meant Naru was likely with Kazuki and Tokiko and thus safe. For now at least.
"Is Naru-chan alright?" Yugao questioned. "From the alley where she vanished it seems she lost quite a lot of blood."
Once more Gozen nodded. "She died." It spoke. Quickly continuing before it could be cut off. "Not for long though! She was revived using the same method as Kazuki was long ago. She now has a Kakugane acting as her heart."
"And she won't turn into a berserker like Kazuki did?" Hayate prompted, being familiar with Kazuki and Tokiko's full story.
"No. Kazuki turned into a Victor due to the presence of a Black Kakugane. Naru-san's is just a regular run of the mill Kakugane, albeit one made by Kushina-sama but still, nothing special about it."
The ANBU shared a look that they all understood even with their masks on. "Take us to her, Gozen. I'm afraid I no longer recall where the entrances Kushina-sensei created are. Ten years is a long time... though I also suspect Sensei may have sealed our memories of them to prevent the information from falling into the wrong hands." Itachi spoke calmly.
With a quick affirmation Gozen led the trio through a maze of alleyways eventually leading them back to the alley where Naru had vanished. "You know the drill," Gozen promoted. "apply blood to the wall and it'll open up."
Cutting his finger on a kunai Itachi pressed the bloody digit against the wall causing the seal to be revealed before it vanished. "Let's go." He told the other two who quickly followed him and Gozen through before the wall reappeared.
"Welcome back Itachi, Yugao, Hayate. It is good to see you all again although I am sorry it is under such conditions." Kazuki spoke as the trio plus Gozen entered the main room. "Naru is resting from having absorbed all of Kyūbi's chakra after her... experience." He stated delicately.
"Of course." The stoic Uchiha responded before turning to his comrades who had removed their masks now. "Yugao, please go check the main seal on Sensei's property. Now that Naru-chan has activated this seal it may of caused a chain reaction and allow the main gate to be opened for anyone since Naru-chan has not yet used it to key herself in and activate the proper security the Yondaime created."
Yugao nodded and vanished up a set of stairs closer to the back of the room.
The Uchiha then turned to Hayate. "Hayate, please go find Sensei's map of the entrances and exits. Now that I am here once more I am starting to remember, but it would be wise to re-familiarize ourselves with them just in-case. Also, check to see if the Kakugane she was creating are finished. I shall remain here and keep vigil over Naru-chan." He said, receiving an affirmative from the male swordsman. His attention then focused on Kazuki and Tokiko. "How did she take the news?"
"Not well." Tokiko replied with a grimace. "She went into a rage and Kyūbi's chakra exploded out of her... I think it's only due to the fact that the beast was already dead and gone that she was able to regain her emotions and that this building is still in once piece."
Itachi chuckled slightly. "I've no doubt. The fact that nobody in Konoha sensed Kyūbi's chakra means the seals Yondaime-sama created work. Have you told her of the Kakugane yet?"
"Yes, but we could use your help, Itachi." Kazuki said. "Your Buso Renkin would allow her to absorb the information while she sleeps. It'll help when she wakes so we don't have to lecture her and can begin her training at once."
Nodding, Itachi pulled from his pocket a Kakugane with the letter XXI stamped on it. "Buso Renkin." In a flash, Itachi held a solid black crow themed mask similar to his ANBU mask in his hand. Placing it on Naru's face, he removed his own ANBU mask and walked over to the computer against the far right wall. Beginning data synchronization now." He said before turning to Naru, a small smile upon his face. "Sleep well, Naru-chan, for when you awaken your training will begin."