Welcome to Divergences, a story created to ask a couple of simple questions that had far-reaching consequences in the original story:
-What if Kakashi's aim was off, and the lightning blade that hit Haku Yuki wasn't lethal?
-What if Tsunade's discovery of the Third's old notes leads up to a vastly different Sound 4 mission, one that never reaches the Valley of the End?
This won't be a 'Naruto becomes god, everyone is alive and super-happy' never to be finished story. No, I hope to make this a story that is sometimes happy, sometimes sad, and sometimes awesome.
Faint moonlight illuminated the seaside cliffs, the soft hum of the eastern winds accompanied by the eternal beat of waves against the rocky shore. A full moon hung in the nighttime sky, stars shining brightly. It was a cloudless night, and one could see clearly.
Two ninja stood on the cliff, eyes turned to the horizon, the stars just beyond their sight. Their expressions were frozen into neutral masks, their worn gray mantles flapping in the wind.
"Hey old man, why'd you pick this place in particular? It doesn't look too special to me," Huffed the young man, fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of an old, Second War issue shovel. Several seals were etched into that handle, each slightly more complex than the last. They shimmered in the moonlight, at times looking like nothing more than a trick of the light.
"Quiet, boy," Growled the old man, his eyes narrowing on a single point in the horizon, "this place is sacred to the seers. It is where every one of us comes to see the vision that defines our purpose."
The young man chuckled, "Looks like a simple clearing to me."
The relationship between the two men was unusual, even for a world where beings such as the tailed beasts roamed. Neither knew the other's name, referring to each other with 'boy' and 'old man', if either was curious to the other's name, he kept it to himself. Knowing the truth now, after so many years of travelling together, it would be...wrong. Even now, over fifteen years after they've met, they held to that unspoken agreement.
The older man cleared his throat, taking a few lazy steps back. He did not need to hurry, as his fate was known to him already. Slumping down onto the soft grass, he placed his pouch to his right, and began the slow and delicate task of disarming the seals one by one. Should he fail to disarm them, he'd have to wait for them to cool off, and that was time he wasn't willing to spend. So his fingers worked slowly, chakra rising to their tips every so often when the procedure demanded it.
Soon enough, the first item had materialized inside the pouch, a set of prayer beads he knew belonged to the great seer of a village far, far away, further than even the ravaged lands. Then came a set of candles, the same kind he was taught to make by his grandfather, back when he called the land of stone his home. They were simple of design, color a muted red, the color reminiscent of a cherry fruit. Once upon a time, he knew the symbolism of it, but that was long ago, before the third war.
The experienced hands slowed down, the memories still fresh and vivid in his mind, despite the many years. The heavy feeling of earth chakra in the air, the 'squish' sound when one of the colossal boulders hit their marks, turning squads of leaf shinobi into a fine layer of crimson paste. Even this old, he could not see it in a different way from the way he did back then. He sighed, removing the scroll from the pouch.
Scrolls were a very versatile tool for a shinobi. Fuinjutsu was powerful, powerful enough to turn an average ninja into a formidable one. The stone had no great interest in the sealing arts, such matters were left to the Uzumaki of the whirlpools. But the Uzumaki were targets now, and the armies of stone and sand and waterfall gathered at the border, destined to turn the prosperous land into a waste.
He has seen the end of Uzushiogakure, just as he has seen the end of the third war.
The young man scratched at his forehead, staring at the headband in his hand. It shone with the emblem of the stone, the only blemish the deep gash across the middle, cutting the etching horizontally. He had not crossed the band, he cared deeply for his home. The headband belonged to a man who once did him wrong, a man who taught him two valuable lessons.
The first lesson he learned very young, barely a genin. He could still hear the terrible creaking as the wooden foundations gave to the earth jutsu, crumbling into fine dust. His parents were retired, they didn't fight anymore. It wasn't fair. On that day, so many years ago, he learned that nothing lasts forever, that loss was a crucial part of life, not just for shinobi, but for man.
The second was newer, only a year or two since it dawned upon him. He and the old man came back to Iwagakure, exactly thirteen years after the end of the war. They didn't speak much back then, coming 'home' seemed to take away their words, replacing them with a heaviness that ended up lodged in the pit of his stomach. However, the man was there, the same headband hanging loosely around his neck. It only took a passing glance for him to know, to absolutely know it was him.
The second lesson was that revenge was meaningless. Even as the man's blood gushed out of what remained of his neck, he did not feel the emptiness fade, he only clutched his shovel. Only years later would he wonder about why the headband was crossed through, and why the man lurked around the training fields of Iwa.
Indifferently, he once again tied the headband, feeling the soft cloth press against his forehead. He'd have to get rid of it if the old man's idea worked, he'd have to hide it in a pouch full of seals, and he would have to sit for an hour every time he wanted to get something from it. He would much rather go back to the stone and open up a ramen stand. There was a girl there, with hair as dark as the sky above him. He intended to marry her and have three children, the eldest of which would be a shinobi. If it was a boy, he might name it after the old man, if the geezer decided to reveal it before he died.
But as the waves pounded relentlessly against the cliffside, he realized that he would have to think of a name for his son. The old man decided this was the place he would die, and that was it. It was, as he was very fond of saying: 'something that simply is'.
The young man sighed, looking at the shovel in his hand. Then he looked over at the horizon again, imagining the faraway lands that the old man often spoke of, the land of mountains, the land of water, maybe even eagle empire. The moon was above them too, and the waves beat against their shores as well. It was a good night to dig.
Sight, as the seers simply called it, was in practice very hard to distinguish from a high-level genjutsu. When they accessed it, their chakra would flare, and the world around them would slow to a standstill, an eerie blue glow descending over everything. Then the tapestry would rise from the ground, thousands upon thousands of strands creating the masterpiece that is existence. One had to have respect for something so profound.
It would show itself to him at random, giving glimpses into the future. Last time he gazed upon it was two years ago, when it showed him that he and the boy would go back to Iwa, thirteen years after the war that drove them out. He trusted the tapestry, and he knew the price of the ritual he was performing.
The candle flames swayed gently from the eastern wind, never quite faltering. Chakra was thick in the air, and the old man's quiet chanting grew louder. It was an ancient tongue passed down from father to son. He knew not what the words meant, but he knew their power, and he knew their price. The seal tattoo behind his ear pulsed in rhythm to the seal on the scroll laid out before the seer. It was an old seal, used to transfer thoughts directly to paper, usually meant for when you need to write something down quickly, or without the use of arms.
"Old man, can't you sing something catchier? How about 'The tale of the Seven Swords'?"
He barely heard him. The world has already begun to slow down. The dirt thrown up by the young man's shovel froze in the air beneath the tree branches, lingering like some kind of strange fruit. Blue light crept up, coating the world in an eerie glow. Strands rose from the earth, intertwining and stretching, taking the form of the tapestry of fate. Even his own words became quiet and distant, his lips moving automatically.
A feeling of calm washed over him, his aged body feeling weightless. Time lost its significance; he had all the time in the world, and his time had already run out.
Somewhere outside the seer's mind, the young man wiped the sweat from his brow, gazing lovingly at the hole he had dug. He was proud of himself, not many would dig a hole that looked this good.
It was a magnificent hole, one he would be proud to toss the old man's corpse into. With his work done, he sat down, and reached for one of the many pockets in his robe. From it, he produced an old stone flute and began to play the song the old man stubbornly refused to sing.
Oh, have you heard of the swords of the seven, the blades of the mist?
One single cut sends you straight up to heaven, and those men will not miss...
The melody went on, but he forgot the words. Unfazed, he kept playing until the song was done. There was something soothing about it, even if it was a tale about cold-blooded assassins. The old man knew the words for sure. Maybe he'd write them down too.
He sighed, putting the flute away. The waves called out to him, so he turned to watch them again. They too were soothing.
He saw the threads clearly. He saw them as they were, tangled and entwined, some longer and some shorter. Yet he knew that to do what he intends to, he needs to find the one. The thread that affects the lives of thousands. A thread...like his.
Men like the yellow flash were born once in a generation. Men whose presence alone is enough to shape lives, to end wars. The seer still remembered the day he met him, it was the day he gained his sight. It was also the day the third great shinobi war ended.
He felt himself smile; the flash's thread was nearing its end, it was a matter of days? Weeks? He would not live to see another full moon. But that wasn't important, it was what came after that made the seer truly smile.
From the flash, a thread, so bright and entwined with the lives of hundreds...thousands... It was the thread that would shape the world. It was his son, a boy who would become the nine-tailed fox's jinchuriki. This was the boy, the strand, that would realize the seer's ambitions.
The flash ended a war. The seer would end war.
A spectral hand reached out, tugging and moving the bright strand of fate, words burning into paper. He couldn't see the entire tapestry, yet he saw strands grow longer and brighter. He saw destinies change over the smallest of divergences. He didn't touch the boy...no. He changed the circumstances of the world around him. With every change, the strand in the possible tapestry grew brighter and stronger, more strands managing to touch it.
He was finished, he managed to change the world's future. Now the only thing that remained was to take one last look at the destiny he brought about...
But it wasn't meant to be. The seer looked on in calm apathy as his own strand reached its end, the light fading from it. His eyes were fixed on it, the future of the world just beyond what he could see. As the blue glow slowly faded into darkness, taking the light of the moon along with it, the old man would laugh at what his last thought was.
Oh have you heard of the swords of the seven...
Like that, the man's life ended, one more in the infinite tapestry of fate. But he was not insignificant. He made a difference.
He was the man who changed the world. He was the last seer.
There was a dull thump, and the chakra in the air disappeared. The young man sighed.
The old man was dead. Now he had to throw his corpse into the beautiful grave, and he would have to pick up his list and read it, and he would read it until the sun shone on the cliffs in the land of crabs, until it was burned into his mind like the sound of creaking wood, like the feel of a shovel handle, like the melody of a song about killers.
Then he would wait until the time was right and check off whatever the old man wrote down on that scroll, no matter what it was, or how difficult it could be. He would do it. After all, it was the old man's final wish. He deserved that much.
He walked over, picking up the limp body, carrying it the few dozen steps to the hole he dug earlier, and tossed it in. There was a 'thump' sound, and the body simply stayed there, half-obscured by his shadow.
He could just use a jutsu and bury him, it would be fast, painless and tidy. He started shoveling again.
"You know, I could just ignore that little list of yours. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"
The shovel was a gift, you see. When he met the old man, it was the most important day of his life. It was the end of the third great shinobi war, it was the day his family home was crushed under a massive earth-style jutsu, and it was his birthday.
He never asked where it came from, or why the old man gave it to him. He never said a thing when the old man taught him seals that would stop the shovel from deteriorating, seals that would enable it to disrupt chakra, seals that would make it always return whenever he threw it away.
He pondered the meaning of the shovel. It wasn't the best of tools, but it wasn't bad. It wasn't the best of weapons, but it worked in a pinch.
"Hey, listen old man, I finally got it. The shovel is a sign that I should bury my past, right?"
"..."
"Fuck you, old man."
As the dirt slowly covered the body, he noticed the prayer beads in the corpse's hand, sticking out awkwardly on the uncovered side. They were simple white beads, usually used to help focus one's mind on prayer or mantra. They were also stolen from a grave somewhere in the land of wind. That was a fun couple of months, the Suna shinobi sure had interesting gimmicks with puppets and all.
He bent down and tore the beads from the body's hand. It let go easily, it probably didn't care much for the beads after all. He also considered placing them around his neck immediately, but decided against it. After all, he wasn't finished burying the old man.
"You better wrote something interesting there. If you have me running from country to country leaving notes, I'll be so upset."
The old man didn't say a thing. Soon enough, the dirt covered the last of his body, and then filled out the rest of the once magnificent hole. The young man realized that he didn't have anything to mark the grave with. Then again, there was no one who would visit it anyway, so it wasn't that much of a loss.
"Alright, now I'll just take that scroll over there, and read it." And he did so.
He didn't expect it to be that...detailed. The scroll was filled from top to bottom with text, on both sides. Every action was explained to the smallest detail, connected to any other relevant action. Every piece of equipment was accounted for, every foreign factor, even the weather. He brightened up a bit, realization dawning on him.
"Well, at least I'll get to see the world..."
And there, at the very end, was a message from the old man. It was a simple sentence, devoid of any emotion or real meaning. It was just there, a sign that he recognizes the fact that he'd read the scroll, nothing more. No lyrics to 'The Tale of the Seven Swords'.
Good luck.
"Guess the ramen stand will have to wait..."
And with that, the young man turned the scroll over and began reading it again.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Under this message is a rundown of what you can expect from future books
(Contains spoilers, will be updated periodically)
-Prologue - Seer
Under a starry sky, two men decide to rewrite the future.
-Book 1: Zabuza
The Demon of the Hidden Mist survives the events of the Great Naruto bridge. Reinvigorated, he carries on back to the Bloody Mist in order to realize his ambition once and for all.
-Book 2: Team 7
Starts at the end of the anime-only 'Land of Tea' arc. False messages are left for Tsunade to find, leading to a considerably different Sound 4 mission, one that never reaches the Valley of the End.
-Interlude Book 01: Whirlpool
Isolated in the dead village of Uzushiogakure, four shinobi are forced to settle their considerable differences and put the ghosts of the whirlpool to rest.
