Blade in the Shadows

Prologue

I crouch on the ledge, looking over the brink into the seething whirlpool far below. I knew my sensei Jiraiya of the Sannin was just behind me, watching as I looked down into the water.

I am here, it transpires, because my sensei had made a promise to my mother on her deathbed after the Kyūbi had been sealed into me. He had promised that one day he would bring me to this spot and allow me to take "a leap of faith" from the ledge into the waterfall. Then my destiny would present itself.

I shift my position slightly, still looking down, and only now notice a small line of text scratched into the rock right at the edge of the stone:

Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

"Curious," I mutter, before turning to look back at my sensei, "I'm going to jump now. See you later, ero-sennin."

Jiraiya scowls, folding his arms, "If you do survive, please stop calling me that."

I smirk back at him before turning back to the ledge and kicking off, propelling myself into the air like a bird, spreading my arms like an eagle's wings as I arc gracefully out over the centre of the whirlpool and plunge towards the eye of the maelstrom.

I land in a pool of water deep below the bottom of the whirlpool, climbing out to find myself standing in a large chamber, empty but for an elaborate arch at the other end. Around the walls hang banners, each with the same emblem; a single line in an arrowhead shape with curled in points at the bottom, another curved line underneath that and in the middle, an Uzumaki spiral. I am evidently in the right place.

I walk on through the arch and find myself in a large chamber with a set of doors leading off in different directions. Ahead of me, directly opposite, sits a throne-like chair, and in the chair sits an elderly man, staring across at me and leaning on a long staff. Next to the throne is a workbench with a large cleaver embedded into its pitted wooden surface.

"Who are you?" I hear myself say.

The man stands up and takes a shaky step towards me, "I am the last Grand Master of the Assassin Order. I see you have finally come before me to pursue your destiny, young Uzumaki."

"The Assassin Order? What is that?" I respond.

The man smiles, stepping forwards with a rhythmic clunking noise from his staff, "It is an organization devoted to defending the freedom of humanity. Even now, young one, the world comes steadily closer to being totally ruled over by one man. You are here because it has come to the point where you are the only one who can stop this man and repopulate our Order."

"Me?" I protest, "I'm only one person, a genin! I still need to catch up with my friend, I made a promise!"

The man raised his eyes to me, and I feel as though the breath has frozen in my lungs. His eyes are deep and mysterious, eerily so, and I feel as though they are looking into my very soul, my very essence, the being that makes me who I am. "Yes, I know of the one named Sasuke Uchiha. He is a pawn, an accessory to the one who would take over the world. Your destiny lies not with him, Uzumaki."

"What do you mean? I made a promise, and I never break a promise!"

"Everybody must break a promise at one point in their life. The Uchiha is far beyond your reach now; he does not wish to repent of his sins. You must come with me, young Uzumaki. There is much that must be done before you may leave this place."

"Like what?" I reply, feeling a flash of indignation but deciding to play along for the moment.

The man stares me right in the eye for a long moment before he spoke again, "Follow."

I follow him towards one of the doors, which bears the same logo as the banners. When he opens it and enters, I walk in cautiously, seeing a number of dummies around the room with copies of the same outfit on them.

The man walks to a dummy, removes the outfit from it and hands it to me, "Put that on!"

I open my mouth to protest, but decide not to after a few moments and start putting on the uniform. Finally, I pull up the hood and am directed to look at a mirror to one side.

The outfit resembles a hooded robe, the front of the hood being designed to look vaguely like an eagle's beak. An elaborately tooled sheath hangs at my left hip, and the belt is adorned with an emblem like that on the doors and banners, with several pouches hanging off the back and sides of the main belt.

The elderly man then escorts me from the dressing room, for that is what it seems to be, and walks over to another door. When he opens it, I see glinting metal and grin. An armoury is in the next room, it seems.

We walk inside, and I am proved right. The man directs me to a weapon rack, where I am instructed to collect a dagger and some kind of strange gauntlet which goes on my right arm. Next, I am told to go to an armour rack to collect a pair of shoulder pauldrons, a breastplate, greaves and a vambrace for my left arm. Donning them, I sheathe the dagger and start to examine the odd gauntlet adorned with what I now know to be the Assassin emblem.

The man explains, "That is the basic tool of the Assassin Order; your hidden blade. It also contains a hollow blade connected to a sac of poison which will kill a man in under a minute. You must wear gloves when using that blade, because the slightest drop of that poison getting into your bloodstream will kill you. Under the blade is a tiny firearm, something like a chakra-powered kunai launcher, except it fires tiny balls of metal. You may use that to kill your opponent from a long range. There is also a method of modifying your poison blade so that it fires poisoned darts at your enemy. I can show you how to do that, if you so choose."

He pauses to look me in the eye. When I nod, he continues, "Now come over here. You need one final weapon, and then we may progress."

I approach, and he hands me something that looks like a wooden stick with two curving sticks poking out either side. A string is tied to the ends of the two curving sticks, pulling it back into a shape reminiscent of a bow.

"This is a crossbow. It is like a bow, but held in one hand. You can use it for silent instant kills. Put it on the harness on your back." I hang it on my back as instructed, and the man supplies me with a full set of kunai and shuriken, a dozen smoke bombs and a quiver full of bolts for the crossbow before we walk towards the door once more.

I now stand in front of the bench as the man gives me a hard look, "There are three last things we need to do before you can become an Assassin. The first is that you must make a sacrifice. The way the blade is constructed, you must cut off your ring finger in order for the blade to function properly."

I feel a momentary twinge of apprehension, but the knowledge that I would be able to defend my precious people from being enslaved allowed me to curl all my fingers but my ring finger into a fist and set it on the table.

There is a brief pause, then a flash of steel and a sharp pain in my hand. I groan and clench my other hand reflexively over my injured one's wrist, but I can already feel the Kyūbi's chakra healing the injury. A few seconds pass and then I inspect the injury. It is now a perfectly formed dome of scar tissue. I flex my remaining fingers. It is an odd feeling, missing a finger.

The man smiles for the first time, "Now, the second thing, we must awaken your kekkei genkai."

I stare at him blankly; surprised by this revelation, "I have a kekkei genkai?"

He nods, "Yes. It is called two things among our Order and clan: the Washigan, or Eagle Eye; and the Hanteigan, or Judgement Eye. Another term is "Eagle Vision". You will be able to tell if a person is a friend or an enemy, it also grants you the ability to read their intentions. You may turn it on and off at will, but it is not possible to use it to attack anybody. It is not like other kekkei genkai."

I listen to him telling me all of this for a long moment and find that all I can say is, "cool".

I am startled when he steps forwards and sets a hand on my forehead. All I can see is that the hand is glowing slightly, before suddenly I feel my eyes tingling and then the man before me is wreathed in bright blue. "Cease channelling chakra to your eyes and you will turn it off."

I concentrate for a second, and finally manage to sever the chakra flow, deactivating the kekkei genkai. "What's the final thing I need to do?"

The man fixes me with his piercing stare, "Where other men blindly follow the truth, remember…"

I stare at him for a second, wondering what he meant, but then I recalled the inscription on the ledge above the waterfall and responded, "Nothing is true."

He continues, "Where other men are limited by morality or law, remember…"

I answer, "Everything is permitted."

He makes eye contact once more, causing me to shiver slightly before saying, "Nani mo shin no subete ga yurusa rete iru. Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

He turns away, leaving me to stand there in silence until I ask, "What about training? Am I going to be trained to use all of this?"

The man twists to face me again, his face looking in that moment older than he has all the time I have been here, "My time grows short. I am only here because I am bound with a forbidden jutsu which allows me to live on until I have fulfilled a certain purpose. I can feel it now, unravelling as I have now passed on our Order's secrets. I have only one thing left to tell you, the tenets behind our Creed and our brotherhood, our Order; and then I will bestow my own knowledge of the skills and jutsu we use on you. Then I can die, after countless years in this lonely place. It will be up to you to teach the new generation of Assassins."

I stare at him, "Sorry?"

He smirks under his beard, "I know well that Konoha has something called the Clan Resurrection Act, to help revive failing clans. I know your parentage exactly, Naruto. Under that act, you will be required to take a minimum of four wives in order to revive your clans."

I pick up on a single word, "Clans?"

He smirks again, "Yes. Obviously you're responsible for reviving the Uzumaki clan, but you also need to revive your father's clan too."

I don't know who my father actually is, so I voice the obvious question, "Who was he? I don't actually know."

The old man frowns, "He was Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage of the Leaf Village. Actually, for that matter I'm fairly glad my village is the safe hands of my grand-daughter."

I think on this for a second, and am stunned by the answer provided by my brain, "Your grand-daughter? But that would mean… but that's not possible! You died! Years ago! You handed over control of the village to your brother and then died! We learnt about in the Academy! You should be dead by now!"

The man smiles, straightening up and laughing, "Yes, you got it right! I am Hashirama Senju, Shodaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato. As for How I'm still alive, it's a side effect of my bloodline. Much like the Uzumaki's incredible physical endurance, in fact; but that's to be expected considering the Senju and Uzumaki are actually distantly related."

I am stunned again as yet another revelation strikes me; the third in about fifteen minutes, "We are?"

Hashirama nods, "Yes, we are. Both our lines have been part of the Assassin Order almost since the roots of our clan first began to spread. My grand-daughter is the only one who has not been trained in our arts. She is now too old for the training, plus I don't think she has the figure for it. I have seen her; she has grown well."

I smirk, thinking of baa-chan's figure and remembering how he enthrals the ero-sennin, "You can say that again. Hang on, how do you know what she looks like if you haven't seen her in years? She thinks you're dead!"

Hashirama reaches into his robes and pulls out a small orb, "Do you know what this is?"

At my puzzled look, he answers, "This is what allows each Hokage to look over the village. It's attuned to my chakra signature so each Hokage has to have them made specifically for their use. I kept mine when I went into hiding; my brother Tobirama helped me get away. What was buried in my grave was in fact a wood clone of me."

I look predictably stumped, and ask the question which is really nagging at me, "So what are the tenets of the Creed?"

Hashirama holds up three fingers, looking between them into my eyes, "One: Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent. Those who must die; must die. Those who do not need to die; do not need to die."

I frown, "I would never strike down an innocent anyway."

Hashirama smiles, lowering his first finger, "Just what I would expect of one of the Uzumaki. Now, the second tenet: Always be discreet. You must be one with the crowd and one with the shadows. Appear from nowhere, slay your target and disappear again."

I nod, understanding, but then think, "Why don't more shinobi use stealth? We teach about stealth and evasion in the Leaf Village as you know but all I've ever seen is shinobi fighting head-to-head like samurai, never any stealth."

Hashirama nods as well, lowering his second finger too "Indeed. That is why our brotherhood exists; we work in the dark to serve the light. Now, the final tenet. We cannot dawdle any longer, I feel the jutsu weakening." He stared me right in the eye, his Hanteigan glinting in the torchlight, "The third tenet: Never compromise the Brotherhood. The actions of one must never bring harm to all. If you are captured, if you fail in your mission, or you are being chased by your enemy, you mustn't say or do anything that harms another Assassin."

I nod one more time, "I understand."

Hashirama steps forwards slowly, leaning on his staff. I notice that he seems to be leaning more heavily on it than before. Evidently the jutsu is taxing his limits as it starts to fail. He sets his hand on my head one more time and concentrates.

I look up into his eyes from under his hand, and he smiles at me.

Hashirama removes his hand from my head, taking a step backwards and smiling. "It is done. In twenty-four hours my thoughts, experiences and memories will be fully integrated with your mind, and you will be an Assassin on the level of a Grand Master of the Brotherhood. From now on, Naruto, your duty is to revive the Brotherhood. You must return to Konoha, where you will speak to my grand-daughter of the Clan Resurrection Act. You will find four women who are willing to marry you for it, and train them in the arts of the Assassin Order. When they give you children, your children will also be trained." Hashirama pointed towards a door behind his throne, "The exit is there. It will take you out to the very top of the sheer mountain above us. Then you must take a leap of faith off the top into the calm part of the pool above the hideout."

He smiles again as his body starts to fade away, "Goodbye, Naruto. Tell my granddaughter I love her."

I nod, "I will. I promise!"

Hashirama's face is all that's left of him as he gives me one last smile, "Shikaku ni shōri o. Victory to the Assassins!"

I smile back, "Shikaku ni shōri o. Victory to the Assassins!"

-BitS-

I left the hideout five minutes later, after laying Hashirama's staff, the only thing left that signified he had ever been there, in a special place within the last chamber, which looked to be a mausoleum devoted to past assassins.

I now stood upon the very brink of the mountain-top above the hideout, my new Assassin robes rippling slightly in the breeze.

I am Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze. I am the last of the Assassin Brotherhood, the one charged with reviving it. And I will succeed. That is a promise. And I never break promises…

I am an Uzumaki, after all.

(A/N: So what do you think? I just came up with this idea while writing Chapter Eleven of Both Sides of the Kunai, of which I now have eleven-and-a-half thousand words. I want at the very least thirteen or fourteen thousand before I post the next chapter. Anyway, drop me a review telling me what you think, and I will think about whether I want to continue this fic or not depending on your reactions. Thank you for reading, Leonineus OUT!)