Chapter 2: Dislocation
Burning red sensation filled Naruto. He could feel his chakra system struggling to cope with the immense pressure. His nails dug into his palms in a pathetic attempt to stop the massive pain.
Naruto was a jinchuuriki. What most people didn't realize was this included a variety of benefits besides healing quickly. He was one of the few people on the human world who could stroll into Makai and breathe without dying from the Youki-infused air.
That didn't mean that a shit-load of youki going through him didn't hurt.
It just meant he could survive it.
His reaction in light of this wasn't all that surprising "Fucking tailed bastard! Auuugh!"
His screa-er, manly roar drew the attention of all 8 participants in the clearing. Hyuuga Neji's eyes narrowed in interest and he observed the cave where the screaming came from.
Sakura scowled and wiped her tears from when she had stopped Sasuke. Sasuke on the other hand moved away from her discomforted by the show of emotion, and angry about the loss of that power. All the others looked curious at the cave, while Ino voiced what everyone was silently thinking.
"Oh he wakes up after the fight for our lives not before."
Naruto blinked into the sunlight to watch all eight konoha-nin staring at him. He stared back at them not knowing what to think.
So he decided to ask the question "You wouldn't be trying to take our scrolls would you?"
All six non-team 7 shinobi looked at each other and then back at the weakened members of team 7. Now that he mentioned it….
Naruto saw the lightbulbs flick over the other teams.
"Oh shit."
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"Naruto, why did you have to mention that to them. The only reason we managed to get away was because the creepy one was exhausted and you mobbed the Hyuuga with your stupid clones!" Sakura yelled at him while checking the fish over the fire.
"…" The Uchicha chose to mutely glare at him, too tired to do much else. The power-up might have been intense but so was the chakra low.
"I'm sorry for doing something that stupid. I really am." Naruto muttered. He really had done something stupid by drawing the teams attention to the scrolls.
"…." Both Sakura and Sasuke stared at him.
One of the most obnoxious characteristics of Naruto was that he would never apologize after doing something stupid. It was like he didn't see anything wrong with doing stupid things and just laughing it off. It had made Sakura hit him on the head more than anything else.
"….That's fine, just don't do i-" Sakura was interrupted by Sasuke who threw her a quick glare, and made a hand gesture.
"Who are you? Talk and I won't burn you into a fireball." Sasuke growled at him.
It wasn't like he was worried about the dead-last. Said dead-last was his teammate though, the only one that got to kill him was him. He needed him to complete the sharingan.
Somewhere inside there, might have been a small fragment of genuine worry for his teammate but he squashed it handily.
"Hello, I'm Naruto. You know the supposed dead-last who once tied you to a chair on the day we graduated?" Naruto asked rhetorically, hoping that would be evidence enough.
He really didn't want to find out if he could regenerate fast enough to survive a fireball.
Sasuke relaxed, although he looked angry at the reminder. His hand wasn't in the seal for fire anymore anyway.
The aggressive display had lighted up a memory inside Naruto though. Something the Kyuubi had said before sending him to the real world. Naruto struggled to think, which looked oddly cute on him from Sakura's perspective.
'Nighty night, Sasuke's best friend!'
Oh.
Oh shit.
This was not good.
He was the best friend (or at least the closest thing to a friend) to a member of a clan who gained ultimate power by killing said friend. Not only that, Sasuke was valued among Konoha while Naruto wasn't. If Naruto were to die under mysterious circumstances very few people would shed a tear.
He wasn't even sure the rest of rookie nine would shed a tear. Hinata would probably.
The rest?
They would be sad, alright-but it would be the sadness of losing a nin that worked for the same side they did. Not the sadness of someone who had lost an actual friend.
He had a few points in his favor though.
One, Sasuke wasn't nearly smart enough to think to kill Naruto silently and without fuss. Sasuke despite his title, genius, was a rather direct thinker. He thought linearly, and couldn't think of any alternate solutions to the same problems.
He suspected that was a problem with all geniuses but didn't have enough proof.
Second, there was absolutely no evidence that Sasuke actually knew about the Mangenkyou. His clan had died out when he was about seven-one didn't spill clan secrets to children. It was quite possible that the Mangenkyou would die with Sasuke and it would never be heard of again.
He somehow suspected the knowledge that they gained ultimate power by killing their comrades wouldn't exactly pass mustard with Konoha; Konoha was big on teamwork. So they obviously kept it a secret.
He visualized how Sasuke would react if he told him that his bloodline would make him insane the more he used it. Oddly enough, the image was never about a psychotic and furious Uchicha bearing down on him. Rather, it was about many fireballs raining down on him while Kunai peppered him between barrages.
Not going to happen.
He would have to do it quietly then.
Now if he could only get to Kakashi-
Oh that was the person he was forgetting.
Kakashi had a sharingan as well. It was quite possible that insanity had already taken hold; what kind of person reads porn in bare daylight?
Then again shinobi had different standards of what constituted insanity than civilians.
Maito Gai should have been stuffed into a hospital with the best security in the world for his antics alone.
He had even infected Lee.
The most important thing was to determine whether Sasuke actually knew about it before moving forward.
Naruto cleared his throat, and went to get a fish. Then nonchalantly began the ruse "Hey, Sasuke I was reading about the Sharingan in a book found in the basement of the library. Is it true that the ability to see the future is a complete lie from the Uchicha?"
Sasuke glared at him "No. What was the title of the book?" He demanded.
Naruto thought of an answer of the top of his head "The annals of the Senju." He continued regardless "Funny, because it mentioned about a few other things being lies as well. Like some Fourth level mangenkey thingy…" Naruto shrugged his shoulders.
Sasuke was staring at the blonde, the white in his eyes being very apparent. His mouth was left open, and his fingers had gone slack around the stick he was holding. He was completely still.
It lasted for a brief second, before Sasuke collected himself "That is a lie."
Naruto had seen the look. That wasn't the look of someone who had discovered something completely new about their bloodline.
That was the look of someone who realized that they had nearly been stumbled about their deepest, darkest secret and wanted to cover it up the best way possible.
It would be real inconvenient if the sacrifice to the altar of ambition knew about it beforehand.
'Fuck you Sasuke' Naruto thought furiously 'If you think you are going to make me your sacrifice in order to fulfill your selfish ambition, you better think of a very good plan'.
A feral smile occurred on the inside of him.
'Because you might have just chewed a bit more than you thought. After all I've got some very motivated assistance'
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"Testing 1, 2, 3. Dead Konoha-nin on a roast pit." Came a deep voice from the inside of his head.
'You can talk to me?' Naruto somehow wasn't surprised. It figured that the Kyuubi would somehow worm a way to communicate with chakra package.
"Yes. Now that I'm finished testing it, I'm going to go back to sleep."
'Wait'
"What? Finally caught on to the tidbit of information I gave you at the end."
'Yeah' Naruto sneered 'Pretty obvious'.
"Your previous mental faculties wouldn't have let you do even that."
'Rub in how I was used huh? I need to ask some questions.'
"Go ahead."
'The Yondaime was related to me wasn't he?'
"What gave you the clue? The startling near clone resemblance you sport?" The Kyuubi snarked.
'Laugh it up. So second question I got to ask, how closely related were we?'
"Do I look like I know your genealogy tree? To answer your question, your relationship is very close. You are either his son, or brother."
'….how the hell would I be his brother? I mean our ages are twenty years apart.'
"So? I have had children who are two-hundred years apart in ages, and they are still siblings."
Naruto paused for a minute to think of the almighty Kyuubi as a father/mother/whatever it was. Then he thought about the kids.
He shivered. Some images were just not right to even think about.
'It's different for humans. Wait, if he's my dad…then that would mean he knowingly sacrificed his only child.' Naruto thought shocked.
"It isn't that odd. If you consider the facts, this man actually sold his soul to eternal torment just to stop me from crushing this particular village. The man was quite obviously a zealot of the worst kind. Sacrificing you to prevent the destruction of the village must have been a cake walk after that." The kyuubi said. It irritated and scared Naruto that he was talking about this like it was on the same level as buying flowers.
Naruto frowned 'How do you know what lies in the shinigami's stomach?'
"I don't. I can only assume like the humans; compared to us all the gods stand supreme. I can tell you that the Shinigami is a sadistic bastard who makes me look like your pink-haired teammate" The kyuubi snarled.
Naruto's mind blanked out as he thought about the Kyuubi's power and comparing it to Sakura. It didn't just compute. All he knew was that if the death god came calling he was going to come peacefully, and hope the shinigami didn't feel like playing with him.
'…so you mentioned a bloodline.' Naruto decided to get off the somber subject.
"Your bloodline is of contractual origins. Obviously your clan either had a jinchuuriki as it's founder (extremely unlikely as I would have heard of it) or they made a contract with a strong cat spirit. One has to wonder what they gave to get a bloodline…" The Kyuubi trailed off.
'What they gave?'
"Every bloodline comes from a contract between spirits, demons or other beings besides human nature. Even summons can provide a contract if done right. Souls are the preferred gift. There is a reason bloodlines are given a bad name and it isn't just because of their use in warfare."
'So who wrote the contract? What was the price?' Naruto muttered curious.
"As far as I can see, not that I can read the contract very well, it was a contract between a Hakachi Hana and…you have to be shitting me." The kyuubi shouted.
'What?' Naruto was nervous. Surprise tinged the Kyuubi's voice. That never happened before (admittenly before was one conversation but still).
"Your patron is the whispering cat. Your ancestor had to be crazy to even think of making a contract with the crazy bitch." Hearing the massive genocide-causing demon call someone crazy did not fill the blonde with good feelings about his patron.
"The whispering cat spent years being a god's toy. She never was quite the same after she left his grasp, and her powers made her very difficult to put down. In fact, the contract specifies that the person must provide 200 souls as food to her." So his ancestor had sacrificed people as well to their patron. What was in the past was in the past though; Naruto would be unable to do anything for those 200 souls.
"She shows exceedingly bad taste. I would have asked for 500 at the very least." Naruto had to stop himself from letting his mouth open and merely settled for mentally staring at his…clearly insane guest.
'What does the bloodline give me? Please don't tell me it's a doujutsu.' Naruto had come to associate doujutsu with snarky bastards.
"It gives you a cat's traits. It's much like the Inuzuka, you get advanced senses and night vision. You understand feline species like they do dogs. There is only one difference in between the two, something about being able to let you use the hallways of non-existence for survival. She always was long-winded."
'What could that be referring to?' naruto wondered.
"I believe it's talking about some form of shifting dimensions. Such a powerful ability must have a drawback or be temporary. Possibly both." The kyuubi muttered.
'Why must it be temporary?'
The kyuubi went into it's lecturing tone again "To shift dimensions is monumentally tasking. It is one of the higher arcane arts in existence, and only a few beings know of jutsu like it. Among these are humans who shortcut the process by using summons, your dear father whose face was utterly hilarious when he realized I was always able to predict where he would go, and demon lords. The Uchicha would count but they sacrifice their souls for the process."
'You have any idea how to activate it?'
"No idea."
'What?!'
"While I admire your seeming belief that I know everything, I do not. I just know enough to crush any pesky mortal that isn't suicidal. I swear those are the worst…."
'…Do you have any idea where I could get the information from?' Naruto wondered.
"Since it's a bloodline, it's possible that all you need is focus and desire for that. Your genetics will take care of the rest. I would suggest using the Snake or Rabbit handseal for your testing. Those have the most connection to space dimensional jutsu."
'Alright…forgetting that. I have something else to bring up; your familiar form.'
"What about it?" growled the Kyuubi. Obviously it was a sore subject for him.
'You can't appear as a fox; the paranoid idiots would instantly think that would mean association with you.' Naruto decided to ignore the fact that they would be right 'You could perhaps appear as a cat? Then everything could be explained by way of bloodline.'
"Which will only make you more desired." Commented Kyuubi dryly.
'That's a problem…why?'
"Besides the fact that it would make them wish you were in chains even more. They are going to be wondering why you don't croak at the age of twenty; the blonde rat wasn't alone in this. For instance he didn't put the bloodline blocking seal; that was put later by an old man. All of this will just make your faked death bring a lot more publicity than it should. At this rate you'll need to somehow make yourself into ashes in front of viewers just to get them to declare your death without looking further."
'Old man….was it oji-san? Did he know about the other seals?' Naruto dreaded to hear the answer to that particular question but it needed to be answered before progressing farther.
"Yes, it was your oji-san." The kyuubi struggled with his next answer. He dearly wanted to tell the brat that his grandfather knew about it and hated his guts. Unfortunately he had given his vow for the information to be honest "As for knowing about the seals…I'm not sure. However he had someone check the seals for him before putting the bloodline seal. This man had shaggy white hair, and the most horrendous facial markings. So either the man found out and chose not to tell or they were both on it. Which do you think is more likely?" So what if he was supposed to tell the truth; he was technically telling it just a little skewed.
'I….see. Final subject, any ninjutsu that you know that are possibly connected to the Kage Bunshin?'
TBC
Ok, about namikaze minato. Namikaze minato doesn't strike me as a bad guy….or at least not knowingly a bad guy. Of course this is a world where mercenary villages fight against one another for power, prestige and bijuu so the concept of good is relative here.
Anyway, Namikaze was completely dedicated to Konoha. If he wasn't he must have been pretty stupid because he supposedly sacrificed his soul for all eternity for the sake of it.
That level of dedication either screams Zealot, or Stupid.
I went for Zealot myself.
So having sacrificed his soul for all eternity what do you do when confronted with the notion that your son might end up becoming the monster (or something similar to it) that you just sealed? Especially considering that the village is not known for it's generosity in the light of it's 'mistakes' (cough Anko cough).
You make him loyal, and when the time comes send him on a express train to death dragging the kyuubi for all eternity.
Works pretty neatly.
Shame he didn't count on outside factors.