Disclaimer: why yes, Naruto is mine. Bring it.
Fear: Power
by the Burned-Out sage
Of ninjas, and why they do what they do. A deeper, darker look into the Shadow.
"Why are you doing this father?" His tone rose with every step like a looming iceberg, but he stopped just short of vaulting over the desk and looming over the seated old man cradling the baby. It did not stop the icy disdain, or perhaps genuine anger carefully bound, that tumbled out, "This is not what he would have – no this is madness! Senility! I will take –"
"Stop." Killing intent filled the word, held it, and ebbed out as the baby began to scream and thrash. Children react honestly and poorly to killing intent.
Few decent men can persist arguing the face of a screaming child. These were not decent men, they were shinobi, but for the moment the argument was cast aside. The old man essayed some rocking motions, the younger looking around hopefully for a woman to magically materialize and … fix it. He had a feeling low in his stomach of primitive disgust uneasy with the idea of children; one at war with … somethinghe thought quite gone.
Something won this time. Impatiently he reached out for the child, ah, how open Sensei was, he could stretch and pluck the head of the God of the Shinobi like a flower. The thought skittered away as the baby screamed, no, if he was killing anything tonight it would be this noisemaker.
Cautiously he cradled the child, touch, warmth and scent altering, projecting comfort, safety. An eternity passed, and the child went back to sleep. Yawning, fists clenched waving, he could see how the child would be cute. He was annoyed with himself, angry - really? He was losing control. He needed more sleep.
"Quite a set of lungs on the boy, a good predictor, he'll have stamina." Chatter, to mend the trust that had been growing ragged between the two men for too long." Ibiki will be amused his technique is good for something outside T & I."
Sibilant laughter. Smiling thinly, the young man accepted the olive branch. "It works amazingly after you wake up in the wrong bed Sensei." Adding mockingly," Sadly its utility would be … lost on you." Letting the implication of the old mans age, his lack of compassion linger; no, he might not be angry, but the matter of the child was not done. Cruelty must have a purpose, and he was seeking the purpose.
Why? Why hurt, no cripple the child's future? Cruelty must have a purpose?
Sarutobi sighs, he could divert the other two, but not this one. Subtlety was his hallmark, and he could not be delayed much more. And damn it, he didn't have the time! If it needed to be done clumsily, who would judge him - two weeks into the worst disaster in the history of the village, and his student wanted to challenge him now?
He was deadly tired. He was already thwarted by the Council, and he would not allow the boy to become a weapon! He … did not know if he could save his student from what he suspected. He desperately wanted to believe, but the pit inside him whispered inevitability. Let it be done!
He folded himself further into the chair, looking up at the student he had hoped would someday be the Godaime. "Some things we do boy, because we must. The Hokage's hands are dirtier than his shinobi.'"
The Sannin inclines his head, waiting for the next step, the give and thrust of bargaining. He was the next logical successor, and his hands … they were far filthier than any Konoha-nin could imagine, yet the idea of abandoning the Yondaime's, no lets say it, Minato's child, not so pure were you Min-chan, seemed on the surface of it: unnecessary.
What benefit was there to concealing his paternity, when half the village were planning to take bloody revenge on the resurrected Kyubi that had taken their beloved Yondaime? Accusations aside, Sarutobi was not yet senile, so why?
The Professor makes a gesture that apparently can travel through the privacy wards, interesting if alarming, how many secrets had been spoken aloud tonight here? Anbu materializing by his side to take the sleeping child elsewhere as the recently reinstated Hokage wearily pulled on his pipe.
His hands were eager to relinquish his sleepy burden, the child of someone he admired, perhaps even fond of, was now a bargaining chip, and it felt … wrong to be holding him. He was glad he never had children. Shinobi ate their young.
He would not find out the why for a long time, by which point he would not care, either for the why or about Uzumaki Naruto's wellbeing, because the riposte hit him with a weight that blew apart his assumptions, shattered too many plans and messily devoured his future, and perhaps most lamentable, somethingelse, if only because that was of least value to a ninja.
Sarutobi took his time, exhaling a long bitter stream of fevered smoke before, "The survey of the damage in the Forest – they found your lab Orochi."
Something human; misshapen and unpleasant to look upon; but a man nonetheless, died that day. Naruto never found out that the last human thing Orochimaru ever did was to rock him in his arms.
Orochimaru forgot the very next hour as he fled Jiraiya, Konoha and the man closest to being his father he tried to kill.