Patterns

By BlackChaos105

A/N: Okay, I've been feeling a little down, for some reason, it's like I'm not even FEELING right now, it's like emotion has left me somewhat, like I'm just a drone. I really needed something new, I needed to change things up a little bit, so I started writing Patterns. Don't ask me where the idea came from, because I don't know either. All I know is, this is yet another fic to add to the list. Alright, here we go.

BlackChaos, out.

P.S: In this fic, Akatsuki is killed BEFORE Orochimaru dies, which means yes, Jiraiya is dead.

Disclaimer: Yadayadayada-don't own Naruto-yadayadayada


Chapter 1

A Daring Escape

The heart of Rice Paddy country, in the middle of a silent and black night.

An explosion rings out through the silence, cutting the darkness asunder with a beautiful red blaze.

Screams begin to flow like wildfire, and the blasting whine of music begins to penetrate the air.

"Stop him!"

"Somebody hold him down!"

"Kabuto, do something!"

"I-I can't hold him!"

Another explosion rings out, and more screams, as a young redheaded man jumps clean through the explosion.

"FREEDOM!" He screams as he heads off towards the Land of Fire border.

The pale and shock-stricken face of Kabuto watches in horror as he sees this man make his way to enemy territory.

"O-Orochimaru-sama…" He sputters out.

The ghostly face of Orochimaru sneers in the shadows.

"You have not seen the last of me, Toyosuke-kun…"


The young man raced off through the forests, red hair hitting his face, a guitar strapped to his back.

"I finally made it out…" He thought to himself, and he began to watch the leaves as he passed them, watching the colors change in the ever shifting moonlight.

"Patterns…" He whispered as he watched the patterns indeed begin to form.

He slowly made his way into the Land of Fire, slipping past an ANBU unit fairly swiftly. He was getting closer to his goal, almost halfway there…

"Hey!" A loud and clearly obnoxious voice shouted.

He turned briskly to face the voice, only to see the blond blunder of Konoha.

"What the hell are you doing in Fire Country?!" Naruto yelled.

The man just frowned and placed a hand on his guitar.

"Is he going to get in my way?" He thought to himself.

Naruto saw this slight movement and latched a hand on a kunai, throwing it in a heartbeat.

The guitar slipped off his back and into his hands, and from there he swung at the kunai with it.

Naruto ducked as his kunai came flying back at him, and watched it buzz over his head, and then he looked at the item used to send the knife back at him.

It was a beautiful guitar with a red body and a pitch-black neck. It almost seemed as if it would be impossible to play without memorizing the frets. However, that wasn't the strange part about it. On the center of the body, a symbol rested around the pickups. It almost looked like an hourglass, but it was constantly zigzagging, set in an eery pattern…Naruto then looked and saw the neck wasn't as black as he thought, for the symbol ran up and down the neck as well. Whereas it was black on the body, it was a faint glowing white on the neck.

Naruto shivered as he followed the pattern.

"Alright, who the Hell are you?!"

He didn't reply, just held the guitar over his head like a bludgeon.

"If he gets in my way, then he has to die…" He thought.

Naruto took out another kunai and prepared himself for battle.

The man just charged, the guitar's body sliding along the ground beside him as he held its neck.

Naruto braced himself for the impact, locking the kunai in place right in front of him.

The guitar smashed into the kunai, and Naruto pushed back.

"Alright you! I'll show you what I can do!"

Naruto charged the man, who had doubled back and swung the guitar into a playing position.

His fingers began to dance across the frets as his worn down nails strummed the nickel strings.

A high pitched whine escaped the guitar, which had begun to brightly glow red.

The man sneered at Naruto.

"Fire Style! Dragontongue Requiem!"

The whine began to grow, and this whine turned into different pitched whines, until finally a sinister tune made its way to Naruto's ears, and he watched in horror as a beam of fire made its way from behind the musician, and that fire launched itself at him.

Naruto quickly rolled to the side, but with a swift change in pitch by the guitarist, the fire turned on a dime and darted for Naruto.

His eyes widened as he watched the fire dart for him.

"Crap!"

He rolled aside again, and continued to roll as the fire followed his every move.

Naruto finally stopped and let the beam hit him, only to vanish in a puff of smoke, replaced by a log.

"That's it!" Naruto yelled from a tree as he jumped down, fist ready to slam the man's face in.

Another melody began to play, and the guitar turned pitch black.

"Shadow Style! Oblivion Rhapsody!"

Naruto slammed into the ground, only to find that he was in pure darkness.

Naruto looked around and broke into a sweat.

"C'mon, think, think…"

He placed his hands together and poured chakra into them.

"Kai!" He screamed, and the darkness washed away, revealing the guitarist beside him, playing yet another tune.

The guitar began to glow a bright yellow, starting at the mysterious symbol and growing from there.

"Lightning Style! Olympian Breakdown!"

A loud crackling was heard, and a swift beam of lightning began to flow from behind the guitar.

Naruto frowned.

"You have GOT to be kidding me…"

Naruto darted aside and continued to roll as close as he could get to the musician, alternating between Kawarimi and simple dodging.

The musician played some more high notes, and the lightning bolt began to grow in size, and get even faster than before.

Naruto's eyes widened.

"Crap crap crap!!!"

He put out his hand at his side and tried to focus as he continued to dodge. Finally, he took in a deep breath as he continued to roll, and eventually chakra began to build in his hand.

"Screw this…" He glared at the guitarist.

"Rasengan!" He screamed as the ball of chakra slammed the mysterious assailant in the side, and sent him reeling into a tree. However, at the same time, the lightning bolt made contact with Naruto, and the guitarist's fingers slid across the frets, playing some extremely high notes, which made the bolt explode in a blinding display, which scorched Naruto severely.

The musician struggled to his feet, and slowly a black pattern began to grow across his body, the same pattern that was plastered across his guitar.

Naruto weakly opened his eyes and looked at the assailant.

"A curse seal…" His eyes rolled back in his head, and he began to glow a faint red.

The trees began to rustle.

"That's enough." A voice calmly stated.

Within the blink of an eye, Hatake Kakashi was upon the two youths.

"Night night Naruto." He said with an eye-smirk as he slapped a seal on Naruto's forehead, then appeared behind the guitarist, chopping him in the neck and sweeping his legs from under him.

"And YOU are due for an appointment with Hokage-sama." He said coldly.


The guitarist's eyes slowly opened, only to find himself staring face to face with the great healer Tsunade.

"Well this is…Uncomfortable." He said as he realized he was tied up in a chair.

Tsunade frowned at him.

"You better have a damn good explanation as to why you decided to cross the Fire Country border AND attack a Konoha shinobi." She hissed.

The guitarist frowned.

"I had just escaped from Orochimaru."

Tsunade glared at him.

"I sincerely doubt that."

He just nodded.

"It's true."

Tsunade continued to glare.

"Then why do you bare the attire of the Sound Four? And why the Hell did my Jonin see you activating a Curse Seal?"

He shrugged.

"I'll admit it, I served him. Did I like it? No. But I had to, I had to for Tayu."

That's when the door to her office opened slowly, and none other than Naruto and Kakashi walked in, a grim look on Naruto's face.

"So that's it, that's who you are. Toyosuke, the brother that she always spoke so highly of."

The man, now identified as Toyosuke, glared coldly at Naruto.

"And how the Hell did you know Tayuya?"

Naruto shook his head.

"I can't tell you that yet. I still don't trust you enough, and you don't trust Konoha."

Toyosuke snorted.

"Konoha was the bear that devoured my sister whole. However, Orochimaru was the one who punched that bear and left my sister in his place. It's not the bear's fault, the bear has to eat. It's just a foolish animal, and all it does is kill. The one to blame is the one who antagonized it and left my sister to die. The one who knew better, and still did it."

Naruto nodded.

"I see. I can tell you your sister survived her encounter with Nara Shikamaru and Sabaku No Temari, and that I spent much of my time with her before her death. That is all I can tell you right now." He quietly left the room, leaving a bewildered group of shinobi.

Toyosuke finally turned to Tsunade.

"I suppose I would be acting a bit earnest by imposing you untie me."

Tsunade nodded, and Kakashi walked over, slicing the bindings.

Toyosuke flexed his hands and blinked.

"That was easier than expected."

Tsunade got up and walked over to him.

"Naruto told you that in trust, I value the opinion of the Toad Sage. I will give you some slack in honor of your sister's good will, but I want information."

Toyosuke chuckled.

"Well you'd be hard pressed to get it, I wasn't exactly on Orochimaru's guest list, in fact, I was on his black list."

Tsunade gave a cold smile.

"You'll have to forgive me if I don't believe you right away."

Toyosuke smiled.

"All I got were the assignments, I wasn't given a why or how, just do this or that. And all I got for it was this." He pulled the side of his shirt so Tsunade could see the sinister pattern that lined his collarbone. It was exactly the same as the one on his guitar.

"A curse seal that doesn't even function the way it was designed."

Tsunade stared at the curse seal and smiled.

"You'll defiantly want to talk to…"

"Mitarashi Anko." He finished.

Tsunade nodded.

"Yes, that's right."

"He hated me, partially because of how much I reminded him of her."

Tsunade nodded and sat back down.

"As of right now, you are still in my custody. Do anything stupid, and you'll be sitting in one of our special interrogation chambers."

Toyosuke smiled.

"I wouldn't dream of it." He explained calmly as he began to walk out.

"Hold it!"

He turned back, curious.

Tsunade had a pile of clothes.

"That just screams 'arrest me!'. Put something acceptable on. And I want some information."

Toyosuke sighed as he sat down in front of her and took the clothes, then leaned back in his seat.

"Fine, what do you want to know?"

"What's Orochimaru planning?"

"I don't know, all I do know is that it somehow involves my powers. That alone is something you should be concerned about. Without the Uzumaki boy going over one-tail of the Kyuubi's power, I could defeat him."

"Only through the experience chain."

"Barely. Experience barely gets me through, but I have something far worse inside of me, a power I haven't touched since the day I saw it ruin my sister. The power of the flutists in my family is dangerous, and something Orochimaru tainted. We were artists, and he made her a soldier, a murderer. I won't become that."

Tsunade just nodded slowly.

"Anything else?"

Toyosuke shook his head.

"Everything else was above my clearance. Orochinmaru did a damn good job of keeping me out, because he knew I was dangerous."

Tsunade frowned.

"Dangerous how?"

Toyosuke grinned.

"You know how everybody with a curse seal has several levels of that power, correct?"

Tsunade nodded.

"Well, I've never gone past the first stage, never needed to, yet whenever I sparred Kimmimaru or the others, they would go all out, and still I would pound them. That's not the point though."

Tsunade just kept listening for something that would be relevant.

"Orochimaru would deem me one of his greatest threats, his worst failed experiment, and his own self-made ulcer."

Tsunade cocked an eyebrow.

"Orochimaru is a control freak. Every curse seal he brands someone with can control them after a certain point, brainwashing them, making them do whatever he commands. Mine didn't."

Tsunade's eyes widened.

"Orochimaru knew I was trouble the minute he branded me. He bit into my neck, but in denial I grabbed his head and made him bite harder. He screamed as he pulled away, and I saw his mouth was burning, some kind of acid, almost. His teeth seemed to be melting, and he watched in terror as my seal formed. That was the day I was forbidden to see Tayuya."

Tsunade just looked at Toyosuke in amazement. This man, who couldn't be more than in his early twenties, had been able to make Orochimaru stare in terror, make him scream in pain, and been able to avert the power of the curse seal.

"Orochimaru can't control me, he never could. I was his last-ditch effort, the very last thing he would rely on, because he knew there was no way to keep me in check, nothing aside from Tayuya, the only reason we had come to him in the first place. With her gone, he knew I could snap at any second, most of the time I was kept in isolation, but whenever my 'master'…" He spat as he said that title.

"…Needed my services, I was released, and sent to complete my assignment."

Tsunade just listened, and it seemed to her like the world had stopped as Toyosuke told his story.

"Then the breakout happened."

Tsunade just watched him closely, eager to hear the conclusion.

"I had managed to hold myself together just long enough for Orochimaru to finish his daily 'lessons'. Once he left, I managed to create enough of a chakra surge to break the seal on my chamber. I grabbed my equipment and made a break for it. Naturally, it wasn't easy, what with Kabuto using that damn genjutsu, and my 'master' trying to detain me using simple doujutsu."

Tsunade heard doujutsu and was instantly curious.

"And who exactly is this master of yours?"

Toyosuke frowned.

"You already know."

Tsunade nodded.

"I figured as much. Uchiha Sasuke."

Toyosuke nodded.

"The bastard liked to think of me as his manservant."

Tsunade nodded.

"So he's that forgone…"

Toyosuke nodded.

"He was gone the minute he showed up." He slowly got up and sighed.

"If that'll be all for today, where will I be staying?"

Tsunade just nodded and several ANBU appeared.

"Take him to the guest chambers." She instructed.


Toyosuke grinned as he walked into an extravagant room that looked to suit a kage, yet he would spend the night there.

"Not bad…" He flopped down on the bed and sighed, looking at his guitar, which had been brought there for him.

"Tayu…I suppose I'll find out how well they took care of you in your last days." He moved back towards the pillows and smiled.

"Tomorrow."


A/N: I know, it didn't really take off yet, and the chapter was fairly short. However, I'm just glad it's done. For the moment, I'm kinda all over the place. Please don't ask me about Inuzuka Naruto, as I don't know when the next update will come myself. Please, don't be angry at me for it, writer's block, you understand. I've got several stories in the works, and I'll update them all as fast as I can. In the meantime, keep an eye out for some new upcoming stories that I'll do, one's a comedy! Enjoy, and I'll update soon, the entire plot is already thought out, so now I just have to write it.

BlackChaos, out.