The Will Of The Force

Chapter 1

The Forgotten Prisoner

Konoha was at war. A war they'd been fighting for fifteen years. A war that began with the invasion of Konoha by the traitor Orochimaru. When the serpent was defeated, he'd slithered back to his lair to shed its wounded skin. The might of Konoha could not let such transgressions go unanswered and hunted the traitor. But a snake is difficult to catch once it crawls into its hole. And Orochimaru had many. So while Konoha sought to bury him as he slithered from cave to cave, he worked spreading his scales across the countryside. Small bands of rogue shinobi who adopted his purpose wreaked havoc on Konoha's forces for over a decade. But shinobi of the Leaf were adaptable and soon brought their wrath upon these vagrants of terror. The snake's tail has seen cut short. Now only the head remained.

This was his day of reckoning, Tenten thought. At last he was cornered with nowhere to run, and she and her team would put a dagger through his eye.

She lay hidden in the tree canopy watching her teammates battle the snake in a barren grove. Gai and Lee burned red with the unrestrained power of three opened gates. Neji circled around the dueling trio and closed in only when he saw an opening to seal Orochimaru's tenketsu. But for all their united effort, the snake was toying with the three. His body moved with a nature no human body should possess. He flexed to dodge as if bones were only an option. He grinned maniacally as he slowly nipped, sliced and pierced her comrades with a standard sound village kunai. He didn't bother to bring out the Blade of Kusanagi. This was child's play, a serpent toying with its meal.

But hubris was the downfall of all great men. Orochimaru would be no exception. He still believed they were the threat. But it would be her that signed his doom. Just a little longer and her comrades would have him in position…

The leaves rustled at her side. She spun, meeting Kabuto and his sly smile. "Hello there."

Tenten's eyes went wide just in time to see the dagger flash into her gut.

She screamed as she fell from the branch to the forest floor. She only barely regained enough sense to roll and avoid hitting her head. She sprawled on the leaf-covered floor and looked at her stomach. The kunai was still inside her, a red stain was growing around it on her white shirt.

Kabuto leaped beside her. He smiled and drew another knife. "You really thought it would be that easy, didn't you?"

Tenten grimaced, but she wasn't ready to stop fighting. She couldn't unseal the weapons in her scroll, but she had a perfectly good knife right within arm's reach.

In a flash she withdrew the knife, ignoring the sharp pain and jabbed it just above Kabuto's knee. The man cried and kicked her head as she reared it back for another strike, sending her tumbling across the floor. She struggled to regain her senses as Kabuto hissed, "That won't happen again!"

It didn't have to.

"Fourth gate! Release!"

Kabuto was still turning when Gai's monstrous blow struck him full of his face. The mighty jonin hit with the force of a hurricane and blasted Kabuto through a tree and deep into the forest.

Gai glanced at Tenten, his eyes white against his red skin under the power he unleashed. "Tenten, do it now!" He cried to her.

Tenten grit her teeth through the pain and stood to her feet. She looked down the field, Lee was burning through his energy to keep Orochimaru in place. Neji had been thrown back with a shallow cut on his chest.

Tenten grabbed her enormous scroll and pooled blood from her wound in her hand. This was it. This was where the snake died. This was for Sandaime, and all the other victims of the invasion. This was for all the casualties from their fifteen year guerilla war. This was for Naruto, who never returned from the Sasuke retrieval mission!

She hurled the scroll forward with all her strength and skimmed the unrolling surface with her blood. As it reached its apogee in the sky Tenten cried, "Falling Heavens!"

Ten thousand weapons popped into existence and sliced through the wind as they flew, the entire battlefield would be a pincushion. Lee opened the sixth gate and used his rush to disengage. He grasped Neji by his collar and bolted across the battlefield to Tenten and Gai in the safe zone. Orochimaru looked up and noticed the weapons. He looked irritated.

It seemed they underestimated the might of a Sannin. Just as before he weaved unnaturally through the metal rain like a blurry rubber band. When the weapons met ground, Orochimaru was unharmed.

He grinned, "Was that your final gambit?"

Tenten grinned triumphantly, "No, this is." She formed the tiger seal.

Ten thousand explosive tags lit on ten thousand weapons. Tenten was graced with the satisfaction of seeing fear flash through Orochimaru's eyes.

The field became fire. Tenten and her team were thrown back from the incredible concussive force. Trees bent and buckled against the force, branches were thrown deep into the forest. Orochimaru's underground base was blasted open from above and turned to ruin with rubble. Even the deepest parts of his prison were filled with fire, save for one, which was shielded by a great force.

It was the cage of the forgotten prisoner. And for the first time in nearly fifteen years, it was opened.

Tenten stood up while cradling her wound to view the destruction. Smoke cleared to reveal the ruin of a base below. The winding caves were burned and littered with rubble and earth. Whatever sick experiments Orochimaru performed were lost to the inferno and landfill. Tenten thought it was for the best.

The smoke cleared further, and then she saw the snake. Its skin was charred from the explosion like it had sat on a giant grill for too long. It's mouth was opening, and Orochimaru stepped back into the world.

"No..." Tenten whispered. Gai said nothing, but he looked visibly tense. He was sweating as the effects of the gates wore off.

Orochimaru threw his hair out of his face and looked around his base. He didn't seem concerned. "My my…you Leaf shinobi have been making a habit of destroying my homes. Worry not, I'll return your kindness someday." He grinned, "Though you will not be alive to see it."

Tenten glanced at her team. Neji was back on his feet, but he was shaking and slightly pale as his white robes slowly stained crimson. Lee was in worse shape than Gai, he'd opened too many gates. What could they do now?

To make is worse, Kabuto appeared next to his master in a blur. Whatever damage she and Gai had done was already healed, "Lord Orochimaru, I apologize for my performance."

Orochimaru sneered, "You've grown slow with age. Look what the girl did to my home. But I'll allow you to regain your honor." He grinned and motioned to her, "Bring me her head."

So this is how it would end. They failed their village, they would die and the snake would escape again. How long would this war go on? She looked up to Gai, her wise master, as if he would once again have the answer. But he wasn't afraid. He was mesmerized. Tenten followed his gaze and saw why.

Far beside Orochimaru and Kabuto, rubble was rising. At first it was a bundle of stones, then rocks the size of her head, then boulders. And then it exploded as if a geyser of wind erupted from below.

Everyone turned to the chaos and dodged the rubble as it fell. The site of the eruption was covered in dust and soot. All eyes were on it as it slowly began to clear. A silhouette materialized within the haze. Tenten nearly heaved when it reached their view. It looked like a skeleton.

The body was naked and emaciated, as if caved in twice over from hunger. His body was warped and decaying as if he were a corpse dug back up weeks after the funeral. Bones were visible through the taut skin on his arms and legs, and his blonde hair had lost all sheen. In spite of his haunting appearance, he held himself with daunting pride. His blue eyes held a life his body did not as if it had absorbed all it had. They were furnaces of ice, burning a cold fury that chilled them all. A fury that came to be directed at Orochimaru.

Orochimaru looked at the boy and paled. "You...it's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible, you narrow-minded fool. You could never comprehend my power." The man said. His voice boomed proudly through the forest in a way his shrunken body should not have been able to perform.

"Naruto..." Neji whispered.

"What?" Lee asked.

Neji pointed, "Look at his cheeks."

She saw his whisker marks as he spoke, they were engraved on hollowed cheeks. This was Naruto, she realized in horror. He was alive after all these years. What had they done to him?

Naruto glanced to Kabuto, who instantly felt an ocean of ire. "Traitor." He stated.

Kabuto recovered his masked expression of pleasantness and spread his arms as if in welcome, "Naruto, so good to see-"

Naruto raised his hand and flexed his wrist. Kabuto's head whipped around with a sickening snap. He fell to the ground lifelessly.

Tenten nearly heaved when Kabuto's neck twisted from an unseen force. Naruto didn't spare the body a second glance and looked back to Orochimaru. His rage could only grow, it was in the very air.

Gai whispered, "Neji, what was that?"

Neji opened his mouth as his byakugan pulsed, paused, and answered, "I don't know."

"What?" Gai asked in disbelief.

"I don't know, but it wasn't chakra. It was...nothing."

Orochimaru looked from his dead assistant to their new assailant. Gai's team was all but forgotten. "You should have stayed dead!" Orochimaru hissed before rushing the blonde.

Naruto simply raised his hand again and held it cupped. Orochimaru froze, wincing in unseen pain. He grasped his chest and fell to his knees.

Naruto focused his gaze onto Orochimaru's whole. And he showcased his rage, his malice and his horrendous wrath.

Blood erupted from Orochimaru's chest as the point of the Kusanagi pierced his skin. It was dragged through his body by a force unknown. Orochimaru stared in horror as his own blade betrayed him.

"And you should have killed me when you had the chance!" Naruto's opened his grip.

The Kusanagi shattered into a thousand violent shards. Orochimaru exploded as the pieces tore him apart. His remains splattered across the wreckage in an unrecognizable slaughter. The last remnant of the legendary shinobi.

Konoha's war ended before Tenten's eyes as its greatest foe was shredded like cheap cheese. But she felt no joy, no relief that the fighting was at an end. Because Tenten had just seen the impossible. And now its cause was focused on them.

Naruto, or the shell that remained, looked at them with eyes hardened and cruel. He tilted forward, and just before it looked like he may fall he flashed forward and halted before them, pressing them with a breeze.

Tenten cupped her nose at the smell, rotten and dead. She felt his gaze pass over the frozen squad, and knew her teammates were all wondering the same thing: would they be next?

But Naruto did not raise his hand against them. He asked calmly, "How long has it been?"

He recognized them, she realized. She hastily answered, "Fi-fifteen years. Since you disappeared on the Sasuke retrieval mission."

Naruto nodded and looked away as he thought. He was distant, as if this were only a dream he realized he was in, and had just learned how to control it. About what, they wouldn't know until it was too late.

He looked at her with a determined gaze and said, "Take me...home."

A/N

This story began as a much larger idea, where Naruto was transported to the KOTOR timeline and became Revan. But I decided that story was mostly a retelling and not worth the time it would take to do properly, but the part of his return to Konoha in the period between meeting the Sith emperor and discovering the star forge stuck as an original and interesting idea. It's stayed with me for years now, and it's been growing more thorough and detailed with time. This story is the culmination of that idea, and I'm incredibly proud to present it. I hope you'll accompany me on this journey, I look forward to sharing it with you.