A/N: Wow, sitting in a hospital bed after a brush with death gives you a lot, and I mean A LOT of time to think. This particular ficklet is an idea that's been stewing in my mind for quite some time now (and I WOULD publish it on Valentines Day) Go figure! What if Naruto was the great great great GREAT grandson of one of the most infamous villians in all of anime history? Sephiroth? Nope, already been done. Sosuke Aizen? As if a man like that would ever have a family. Uchiha Madara? Seriously, just no.
Who could I be speaking of? Who could be so wicked that hell itself spat him back out...that's right. Oda Nobunaga! Now, that being said, I will give you fair warning. This chapter is a bit dark in kind toward some of the villages and characters as we see the ugly nature of the shinobi world begin to emerge. Villages will burn. Harems will be founded. Badassery will and is to be expected. That being said, enjoy!
"May the whisper of my name haunt your days, until I one day return, to make your nightmares real..."
~Oda Nobunaga.
Lord of Darkness
For as long as Fu could remember, she'd wanted to die.
For as long as she could remember Fu had been Takigakure's ace in the hole. Whether she wanted to be or not. At sixteen years of age, she was one of most powerful-if not the most beautiful-kunocihi in the Hidden Waterfall Village. Unfortunately, she was also the most reviled. Because Fu was a demon container. A jinchuuriki. She held Choumei, the Seven-Tailed Horned Beetle within her body, sealed into her by her deceased mother; who, having drank the Hero's Water of their village in order to seal the beast within Fuu's chest, perished shortly thereafter. She was the weapon of the village, used in times of great peril, and utterly reviled for her own unstable power. Loathed by her entire village, even as she protected them; knowing they'd gladly abandon her, given the slightest provocation.
So she'd abandoned them first.
The instant she realized they were after her, she'd fled the village. Why? Because she'd known. Because they wouldn't save her. They wouldn't protect her. They didn't even care for her, much less tolerate her continued existence. So she'd run. Long and hard and fast, not caring for her direction, just so long as it put Takigakure behind her. Her frantic flight from her village had lasted three years before she eventually landed her in the Land of Iron, also known as country where the Samurai resided. Supposedly this was where the Five Kage Summit would be held to deal with the Akatsuki. In her travels she'd learned that most of her fellow jinchuuriki had already been captured by those rogue shinobi. Most, but not all.
The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki was still at large. Like her, he'd also fled his village some years back, though the means and manner of his escape remained shrouded in secrecty. She suspected he was on the lamb now, just like her. She knew precious little about him in terms of appearance save that he had whiskered cheeks, blue eyes and blond hair. The brief glimpse she'd gotten of him had been in a bingo book she'd picked off of a tracker nin's corpse. He'd massacred an entire squad of Anbu once, elevating his status to that of an SS-Class missing nin. What's more, and if the last shinobi she'd interrogated had been correct, he was the great, great great great descendant of one of the most wicked men to ever walk this earth. The Dai-rokuten no mao, also known as the Devil King of the Sixth Heaven...
Oda Nobunaga.
Scary stuff, that guy.
Even Fu knew the the horrors the Oda clan had wrought on the earth before finally being obliterated by their distant relatives, the Namikaze and Uzumaki clans. It had been a basic history lesson at the academy, before she'd had the Nanabi sealed between her breasts. So what was a member of an extinct clan doing in the bingo book? Had the Oda clan not been wiped out after all? Had the survivors secretly married into the Namikaze and Uzumaki clans instead? Fu resolved to ask herself this on a latter date. For now, it only mattered that she get herself as far away from here as humanly possible.
Thus far though, everything had gone according to plan. Her petition to join the Samurai had been flatly refused. as expected. A demon container could not be trusted, they'd said. Especially a demon-container-turned missing nin. One did not forake their village lightly, no matter the reason. They wouldn't even let her see any of the Kage. So she'd eavesdropped. Thanks to her rare camoflauge ability, Fu had been able to infiltrate the summit and learn of the kage's nefariou scheme. They planned to recapture the Kyuubi jinchuuriki by using one of his childhood friends as bait. Some Hyuuga or something.
Once they'd successfully dragged the demon container back to the village, they planned to drug him, wipe his memories clean, and use him as a weapon in their war against the Akatsuki. The very notion of it galled Fu. Why did the world see them as weapons? As tools to be used in battle? Jinchuuriki were people, too! They had as much right to live their life, as anyone else did!
She might have learned more, had the Akatsuki not chosen that moment to strike. A strange plant like creature sprouted through the floor, declaring that Uchiha Sasuke had snuck into the conference. At first she'd thought the Uchiha came for her, just as he'd come for the Hachibi. He hadn't. Instead, the sole remaining member of that infamous clan gravitated toward the Rokudaime Hokage; a man by the name of Danzo Shimura. Apparently the last Uchiha held some sort of grudge against the man. Fu didn't know, and quite frankly Fu didn't care. She'd used the chaos to her advantage; sneaking away under cover of darkness while the Uchiha kept the Five Kage's occupied. One Uchiha against five kage-class shinobi?
The poor kid was probably dead and rotting in a ditch by now. Fu silently offered him her thanks for aiding in her escape, albeit unintentionally.
"Let's have a chat, shall we, jinchuuriki-san?"
Fu froze.
Stopping her forward momentum, the sixteen, almost seventeen year old kunoichi came to an abrupt halt as the madman known as Uchiha Madara slowly materialized in front of her. Gritting her teeth, she watched as the man finished his transformation, then proceeded to casually lean against a nearby tree trunk, arms crossed over his chest. When he said nothing, she edged backwards. So this then, was Uchiha Madara. The self-imposed leader of the Akatsuki.
"What, no hello from you?" Madara clucked his tongue. "That makes me a little sad."
"Why the hell would I want to say hello to you?" Fu growled. Panic clawed at her throat, made a tight fist in her stomach. No. Dear maker, no. She had to get away from here. Now. If this really was Uchiha Madara, then she had no chance of winning. If she tried to fight, she would be defeated. If she was defeated, then she would be captured. If she was captured then it was all over. She'd been seeking death for what felt like an eternity now, and would have been content to welcome it under any other circumstance. Now that she knew that the Kyuubi jinchuuriki was in danger, even though they'd never met, she somehow felt obligated to warn him. She might hate all of humanity for what they had done to her, but she didn't hate him. She would have liked to meet him, she thought, taking another step backwards. Not that it would ever happen now.
"W-What do you want with me?" Fu cursed herself for the stutter and how weak it made her sound.
"Isn't it obvious?" The Uchiha sighed, then pushed forward from the tree he was resting against. "I just wanted to have a little fun. But I see you're not up for any games."
"The hell I'm not!" Fu hissed. "You've already captured the Hachibi, now you've come after me!"
Madara chuckled from behind his mask.
"While its true that we've captured most of the jinchuuriki, I'm afraid your information is woefully outdated." He held out both hands and proceeded to count down, from nine to three as she looked on, baffled. "Ichibi. Nibi. Sanbi. Yonbi. Gobi. Rokubi. Nanabi, Hachibi, Kyuubi." Madara ticked off the names one by one. "That leaves three. Once we've captured you, my Moon's Eye Plan will be one step closer to fruition. Now... I guess I should ask this once, just for old time's sake. Will you come with me peacefully so I can extract the Nanabi's chakra?"
A growl. "Never."
"I see." Well, that's a bit of a shame.
Fu might have said more, had Zetsu's spores not chosen that instant to sprout from her body. Fu yowled. She swung around, her amber eyes flaring saffron as she clawed her arms free from the stuff, only to be overwhelmed by more of the strange milky-white substance as it burst from her arms and neck and shoulders. She toppled forward and to one knee, struggling to extricate herself from beneath a mass of swelling spores. She did not succeed. Her cries grew more and more feeble, her weighted limbs too heavy to support her weight as the strength was sapped from them. She slumped to the snow and concentrated on breathing. It wouldn't take her long to die here, with so much of her chakra exposed to the spores.
But, oh, kami, she didn't want to die.
"D-Damnit!" She cursed. "Damnit! Why are you doing this!"
She skittered backwards as dozens upon dozens of White Zetsu clones materialized around her. Rather, she tried. Instead, she only succeeded in miring herself even further in the muck and ripping open her blouse. Madara looked away from the teen for a second, up towards the sky. He shrugged as he looked back down. "Separating the wheat from the chaff, that's all. Only the strong deserve to witness the paradise I will bring to them."
With that he reached for Fu.
She screamed; a strange, wordless scream.
"Daaaaaaaamniiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"
Overshadowing that soft whistle, came a sound. It was strange, this sound, a reedy thin cry, that echoed on into the distance, as though it were the dying gasp of an ancicent creature. It hung in the air, reverberating around them for what seemed like an eternity, before finally losing its tune and fading sadly into the night. However, another chorus immediately overlapped its final note, filling the void that had been left to it by its short lived predecessor.
The antithesis to its parent, this melody contained the voice of a young woman's. Soft and despairing, vibrant and brimming with boundless desire, emanating boundless grief and sorrow within this, its final melody. Unlike its bretheren, it was easily recognizeable, and distinctly human in origin. 'Twas many things, yet all were one and the same. It was the voice of a young woman, whispering softly to her lover. It was the laughter of a little girl, innocent and kind. It was the cry of an insatiable demon, raw with fury and battle lust. It was the sound of many, and the voice of one. It was joy and sadness, anger and weakness, mistakes made, and yet to be made.
And it was coming from inside her.
She felt Choumei rise to the fore, its anger washing over her like a tide of crimson-
And then it all stopped.
With nary a sound, a kunai phased through Madara's mask. The ceramic orange rippled harmlessly, allowing the deadly projectile to pass through the Uchiha's forehead with a small sigh. Fu wriggled upright, eerily aware of the Uchiha's hand protruding from her midsection as she scrambled limb ghosted through her as he straightened, his lone eye scanning the clearing for any sign of his attacker.
"I'm afraid I can't allow that, Uchiha-san." Called a voice.
Fu rounded on the sound, her eyes tracking across the gloom and endless white. And then she saw him. The moon and a half-mask hid the upper half of his face.
Thunder and lightning danced through the false and grief stricken afternoon sky as he descended to the battlefield. He was both terrible and handsome to behold. Death and suffering followed him as his stewards. His breath drew a third of the Zetsu armies sent against him to hell and those that remained were nothing more than a great feast for vultures. He was the one for whom darkness parted and became created; he held the soul of the enemy of all living things...he was death incarnate.
He laughed; it was a deep, throaty sound.
"Greetings, my deceased fellows."
Garbed entirely in black and silver armor, and armed to the teeth, the boy-he couldn't have been much older than her-crested the hill with slow, smooth steps. Upon reaching the plateau, he folded his gauntleted arms and awaited a response. Silhouetted against the clouds and the moonlight sky, his shadow stretched across the ground alongside a red cloak, stradling the landscape like an angel of death. Given the circumstances, Fu should have welcomed the intrustion with relief. Instead, she was inexplicably overcome with fear. Terror, as this blond-haired whiskered stranger forsook the path of patience and advanced upon them, his sword clearing its scabbard with a raspy hiss.
Suddenly, she wasn't so certain.
"Deceased?" Madara tilted his head, giving the newcomer a sidelong glance through the hole in his mask. "That's an interesting way of putting things, isn't it?" He didn't even so much as glance at the charred bodies of White Zetsu surrounding them. His gaze remained fixated upon this armored newcomer who bore both blade and strange barreled weapon with twin barrels that he didn't quite recognize. What kind of weapon was that?
"Yes." The man continued, dropping down from the hill with an effortless grace bellying his charm. "The current situation doesn't allow for your survival." With swift and steady steps he stalked forward through the snow, shoving his smiling face at the masked madman. "Therefore, you are dead, Uchiha Madara." He let the statement hang unadorned between them; a gorgeous white grin streaking across the lower half of his face.
He slapped Madara.
Not gently.
The flat of an open palm cracked across the man's mask and shattered it, showering Fu with shards of chakra-embued porcelain. Madara staggered backward, his visible eye now wide with alarm. He'd never had his intangibility breached before. Never. Not once. Not unless he was attacking. And here this man-this boy!-had struck him, as though he were naught but a child. It infuriated him.
"Who are you?" he demanded, struggling to stem the flow of blood from a nasty gash in his forehead.
The interloper did not honor him with a response.
Instead the armored stranger struck again, his sword hand sundering the air as it descended toward Fu's head. Her eyes flew wide, only to snap shut as she braced herself for her end and her demise. Nothing happened. The White Zetsu clinging to her succumbed to the sword's wrath and withered on the spot, freeing Fu from its grasp. She tumbled forward and into the arms of a second armored stranger. A kage bunshin. She frowned, glaring bleary-eyed at the armored assailant as he advanced upon Madara, sweeping a swathe of destruction before him.
'Who the hell is this guy?' Fu wondered, as the armored attacker did what he did best. He attacked. His sword descended with a mournful how and stained the snow scarlet. In the span of a second that it took for her to recognize the blood, she also realized that the man had somehow surmounted Madara's intangibility. Again.
The famed founder of Konoha staggered backwards, clutching at his now lifeless left eye. Bloody viscera dripped from the now useless orb, forever denied the life of day. With a maddened grin, the sword-wielder plunged his free hand into the holster holding his strangely barreled weapon. Upon removing it, he pointed it at Madara and squeezed the trigger, to devastating effect.
Madara flew.
Literally.
His body struck the snow and bounced, striking the ground end over end as if someone had just severed his spinal column. Judging by the way he lay there, Fu suspected he had done just that. As he struggled to rise, the interloper took aim with the strange rifle again, depressing the trigger in quick succession. Blood spurted from Madara's arms, legs, then chest as the lead projectiles pierced his shroud of supposed invincibilty, striking flesh and marrow and bone.
Fu had seen it. She'd seen it all. She'd seen it as chakra coiled about the projectiles, warping the bullets to a speed inconveivable to the human eye. Not at all, as she watched crimson chakra envelop his right arm, twisting the appendage into ghastly and grotesque proportions. She watched the change take place, watched as a cloak of crimson took hold of his features and sharpened them into something like that of a kitsune.
"You wish to know who my name?" The man asked, his tone bleak. "Very well! Look upon my face and know the one who has ruined you, Uchiha Madara!"
The man removed his mask and cast it aside, exposing his visage to the elements. Fu took in whiskered cheeks and blond hair and blue eyes and marveled at him. The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. Uzumaki Naruto. He was here! He was alive! Even as she struggled to accept it, to accept the fact that one of her own had come to save her, she shuddered. Both the cold and the frostbite were beginning to get to her, and her lack of attire certainly wasn't helping any.
"You," Madara exclaimed aghast, glaring bloody red daggers at the boy. "Uzumaki Naruto! To think that you'd been alive all along...
"Wrong." The man fired another round into the Uchiha's broken leg, his expression unchanging as the Uchiha founder screamed in agony. "Uzumaki Naruto has been dead for quite some time now." Discarding his weapon, he leaned close, his expression one of deadly intent. He seized Uchiha Madara by the throat and forced him upright bringing the aged Uchiha within inches of his face. He smiled. Then he levered him into the snow with enough force to shatter the earth.
"Listen to me, Uchiha Madara, and listen well." He began, his words growing in ferocity with each and every syllable. "Uzumaki Naruto is dead. He died the day you decided it would be fun to torment him with the knowledge of his parents, all those years ago. He died the day he stole the Scroll of Sealing and learned of his true lineage. He whom is before you now...is not Uzumaki Naruto."
Fu felt the life leach from her features. So this was what the prescence of another Jinchuuriki felt like. It was overwhelming. Horrifying. It made Choumei quail with terror; her tenant's once brash personality made quiet and reserved in the prescence of this monstrosity.
An overpowering sensation of pressure bore down upon her like an invisible hand. She sensed something enormous nearby, silent in the dark, like a giant passing within arms reach. A gravid deadly prescence too huge to grant her notice. She glanced to Naruto and saw him grin, grin as her fingertips pressed against her temples. A droplet of blood fell from her nose as the armored ex-shinobi continued to speak.
"Worship me. Fear me. For the crime of attacking my fellow jinchuuriki, die now and repent forever." His grip tightened, his gloved fingers grinding against blood and sinew and bone. "There are none before me. There are none behind me. I am the Devil King of the Seventh Heaven; Oda Namikaze Naruto!" His eyes blazed black and slitted with crimson and the last thing Madara saw was his own death, repeated a thousand different times over.
Then the unmasked man grinned; it was a sickly sweet smile that promised death.
"You can't kill me, boy." Madara said, mocking him. "I'm immortal. And I will extract your biju. I'll chase you and that girl to the ends of the earth if I that's what it takes!"
"I'd like to see you try with a body full of bullets and broken spine, fake Madara-san." Naruto countered darkly. "You won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Neither will the Uchiha you've seen so fit to manipulate, once I've had my fun with him." His grin spoke volumes. "Oh, and don't worry about Konan. I'll be sure to give her your regards." If Madara had been stunend before, then now he was speechless. The boy had just ferreted out his plan to twist Sasuke and obtain the Rinnegan in one fell swoop. No. This was not happening to him. He had a war to start, and the boy was about to deprived him of his two strongest assets and there was nothing Madara could do about it in his current state. Even as he struggled to proccess his own powerlessness, the rage came.
"How did you-
Naruto's only response was to smile as he released the Uchiha. He took Fu from the shadow clone, ignoring the girl's small meep of surprise as he swept her off her feet like a newlywed bride. The latter advanced upon Madara; its fingers clenched into claws as its master seized a fistful of his own cloak and pulled the battered girl into his embrace. A harsh laugh escaped him as the elderly Uchiha tried in vain to prevent his newfound attacker from breaking the rest of his bones.
"Now, I bid you farewell!"
Naruto swept his cloak around himself and Fu and with a rustle of icy wind...
...they were gone.
Leaving "Madara" to stew in a pile of his own rapidly freezing blood.
"Damn you, Oda Namikaze Naruto!"
A/N: Argh who are you really, Tobi! We know you're not Madara really, which means you're a fake, but who in blazes are you! This fic was a challenge from an old friend, now that my arms are working again! My ticker is still ticking, folks! In this fic Naruto is the descendant of one of the most BADASS villians in all of history, Oda Nobunaga! And a king has to have his concubines, no? This is by far my most favorite work ever, and will be updated along with my other fics in accordance! I'm going to live, people! So Pm AND review AND vote on the poll for who should be in Naruto's harem! Fu is already in! The other choices are solely in your hands, so by all means, convince me of your reasons! Or don't, and just tell me what you think of the story and who you want in the harem XD!
R&R! =D
