Chapter 1 - Encounter

The clearing was silent, wrapped in the darkness that was broken only by the dim light from the full moon that looked like it has been bleeding – stained in the red of its blood, along with the small flames littered all over the ground. The air felt like a thick fog, heavy and sticky, but as clear as the night sky was, something in it was making it suffocating and suppressive; it was vile and disgusting and stretched for miles and miles, with the clearing being the center of it all.

A figure walks up at the edge of the clearing. Taking a look at the sight before him, he notices the scorch marks, smoking craters, small roaring fires that were the only source of sound for miles, along with broken and burnt trees scattered all around. Some of the trees even looked like they were trampled on. He holds his breath as he memorizes the scene in front of him, thinking that this battlefield was an art he had to preserve in some way, even if it is through an image in his memory.

"But considering it was a bijuu, this is actually pretty mild."

He scans the entire field before zeroing in on the two figures in the center. He moves up to them quickly, checking the bodies. A shiver in his body makes him pause; such was the thickness of the atmosphere here as compared to all other places that he was no longer immune to it.

"Dead."

He looks down on the prize he was too late to claim. A man with a mess of spiky yellow hair, Konoha hitae-ate on his forehead and though his eyes were closed, he knew that they were blue, lay dead on the ground with a large hole through his body, the large white coat with designs of flames on it singed at the edges and was already either red from the blood, grey from all the dirt or black from all the burns. There, lying on the ground in front of him, was the legend that was Konoha's Yellow Flash.

"No trace of chakra left. That means he's been dead for a while now."

A tail comes from below the man's robe and lashes out at a nearby rock, crushing it into pieces. With a growl of irritation, he forces his eyes from the legendary nin to the kunoichi beside him. The woman had a long fiery red hair, with whisker-like marks on her face. Judging from the large hole on her body, she died from the same thing as the dead Kage. He leans in to check on the kunoichi's body, feeling a bit of a positive emotion at the readings he had found.

"There's still a workable trace of chakra left. The only problem is, I don't know if she has any abilities I could use."

Thinking it over for a while, he decides to take her with him, if only to experiment on. While retrieving a scroll from somewhere within his robe, he notices a small bundle between the two corpses. He stops in mild surprise when he sees the bundle moving. Forgetting about his scroll completely, he reaches for the cloth and flicks it to the side, giving him full view of what was inside.

"A boy…"

Blond hair and whisker-like marks on the baby's face caught his attention, but what really got his interest was the seal on the child's stomach. Having a sharp mind, it didn't take long for him to piece together all the pieces.

"So that's where the Kyuubi disappeared to, and sealed in your own son too. What a pity."

He continues to stare at the boy with a look that says he wasn't really feeling any kind of pity, and the monotonous tone at which he uttered his statement only solidifies his lack of care for the child. Standing up, he finally produces his scroll and starts the process of sealing up the woman inside it, but is again stopped when the child's movements catch his eyes.

His hand twitches as the sight before him causes memories of his own childhood that he's buried long ago to suddenly surface, and a feeling that he doesn't quite understand grips his core. He closes his eyes and lets the memory wash over him. When he opened his eyes, the images float above the child's and his parents' forms, before they disappear completely. Returning his scroll into his robe, he instead takes out a piece of paper with a seal on it stuck at the end of a needle. Using his tail, he gently lifts the child from between his dead parents' corpses as he places him firmly on one hand. Looking at the boy and the needle in his hand, he decides against the normal needle and returns it inside his robes. Feeling around for a bit, he instead pulls out the same paper seal. Channelling and molding his chakra, he forms a chakra needle to mimic the needled tag he was holding earlier. With his hand flaring from chakra, he gently eases the chakra needle through the back of the child's head, through soft skin and bone, shrinking as it passes through to better fit the child's size. Soon as the chakra needle has went all the way inside, the chakra wrapped around his hand engulfs the paper seal. As he watches the child for any problems, the ink on the paper starts shifting, disappearing through the child's skin as the paper dissolves.

"Grow and learn all you can. That is your mission for now."

Having completed his technique, he places the child back into the arms of his dead parents. He looks at the kunoichi once more and can tell that the chakra in her was still present. Unable to decide whether he'll take her or not, he instead gets another needle with a paper tag on it, with a different seal on it. Performing the same technique on her, he nods as he makes certain that his technique was working the way he wanted it to. Turning around to leave, he spares one last glance to the three before he walks off, reaching the end of the clearing where the forest hides him at the same time that the Professor along with his ANBU squad arrives.

"I will return for you soon."

And he disappears into the woods. Contrary to his words, it will be a long time before he meets the boy again.

= Five Years Later =

A young man with silver hair tied at the back in a short tail comes out of the shadows and walks up to the doorway. Pushing his glasses up, he knocks on the door.

"Come in."

Slowly and carefully, he opens the door and enters the dimly lighted room. Walking up to the man with long hair and pale skin who was scribbling on some papers, he gets down on one knee and waits for him to be addressed. For a few seconds, only the sound of scratching as the man continues to write could be heard.

"What is it, Kabuto? This better be good."

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama."

Kabuto rises and walks forward, dropping a folder on Orochimaru's desk, making sure that it doesn't disturb any of the papers that the Sannin was working on.

Orochimaru eyes the document for a second before finally taking it, opening the folder and scanning through the contents, not really interested in it.

"And what is this?"

He holds up the page with a picture of a blond boy, not really bothering with reading any of the information.

"That, Orochimaru-sama, is Uzumaki Naruto."

"Uzumaki?"

"Yes. The son of Uzumaki Kushina and-"

"Namikaze Minato." He hissed the name with disgust.

"And what do I want with this…abomination?"

"Well, despite his parentage, the child is almost always without a guardian."

"Oh? As interesting as that may be, I don't see what I would need this brat for."

Placing the page back into the folder, he throws the entire document onto Kabuto's feet and returns to his paperwork.

"Orochimaru-sama. He is a prime subject for an experiment of mine."

"And you're asking my permission?"

After a few seconds of silence, Orochimaru lets out a sigh as he finishes up another document.

"Fine. Just do as you wish with the boy, he is of no concern to me."

"Thank you Orochimaru-sama."

With a bow, Kabuto walks out of the room and closes the door on his way out. Taking out the page with Naruto's picture on it, he allows himself a sly grin. He never really needed his master's permission when doing one of his own experiments since he could always keep it hidden from the Sannin, but he wasn't as confident with keeping this particular project hidden. After all, it was a long term project and one that would most certainly eat up a lot of his time.

"Let's see how Konoha would feel if I turn their weapon into one of my spies."

A/N: Now, to those who've read Scorpion's Disciple by nobody102, I know that this seems like something taken from his fic. Truth is? I don't know if subconsciously, I took the idea from him/her. I read his/her fic a long time ago and forgot that Kabuto was also part of that story as one of Naruto's teachers, and then this idea popped up. And then I read the fic again, which made me come to the sudden realization that my mind may have been playing tricks on me when it was giving me this awesome idea when it really was just making me remember something. So now, I really can't say that this idea is mine completely, but well…just to be safe.

Sasori and Kabuto taking Naruto in as a student is not my idea, it may have come from nobody102 and his/her work, Scorpion's Disciple. But all the other elements (I hope I'm not subconsciously copying off another's work O.o), I think is mine. Oh! And I do not own Naruto and the entire cast. So, there? O.o

But don't think that this'll be much like Scorpion's Disciple, that is what I can promise you...it is very different from it. :D