Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It is owned by Kishimoto Masashi and published by Jump Comics.
Warning: This story is rated T for violence, language and potential sexual situations.
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"Character speech"
'Character thoughts'
"Demon or large summon speech or jutsu name announced"
'Demon or large summon thoughts or jutsu name thought'
Quick AN: While I didn't get many reviews, the ones I got were good. Before I move on with chapter 2, I want to clarify some points:
-Arashi is actually the brother in law, not the blood brother, of Orochimaru. Kazama Myobu, Arashi's wife, was the baby sister of Orochimaru. You'll see more about her later.
-Naruto knows about the "Dark God." They can actually interact in his mindscape since DG is just a fusion of a piece of Naruto's soul with a piece of Kyuubi's sould that has been tainted with the chakra of gods, which is too much for humans to bear. It's a separate entity living within him.
-Orochimaru will play a big role and you'll see him at the chuunin exams, but his role will be VERY different than in canon. Obviously he's not going to invade Konoha.
-Rin and Gaara will show up soon and I won't give anything away.
-This fic isn't a crossover though there may be some influences from other series. Most likely you'll see influences from Satan 666 (really good manga, definitely check it out, written by the younger twin brother of Kishimoto Masashi) and a bit of Bleach since DG was partially inspired by Ichigo's hollow.
-You'll find out more about Sasuke and Naruto on the same team in this chapter, but personally I've never liked the idea of automatically placing the top and bottom students on the same team. It doesn't make sense – teams should be built to complement each other.
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Dark God
Chapter 2 – Memories
XXX Flashback XXX
Uchiha Sasuke bolted towards the kitchen as his mother called out that dinner was ready. Uchiha Mikoto may have been a jounin of the village, but at home she acted more like a civilian housewife. And if housewives were measured by their ability to cook, Mikoto would be one of the top ranked housewives in the world.
It was odd, in a way, growing up with a mother was sweet, never losing her temper, a mother who enjoyed cooking and cleaning and was always supportive of her children who was feared in the shinobi world as a master assassin. A chef is supposed to be a support figure on the battlefield, a field-hand who tends to the basic needs of the unit. Mikoto had been a captain of the Anbu, a leader of one of the four Anbu divisions, and yet she was perhaps best known by her division for baking cookies. Needless to say, Sasuke's stomach always growled when his mother's food came to mind.
So quickly did Sasuke rush to the table that he barely noticed the blonde boy his same age standing next to his father. "Sasuke," Fugaku said to his son, "I'd like you to meet Uzumaki Naruto. His father was a friend of mine and one of the strongest shinobi I knew."
As Fugaku finished introducing Naruto, Itachi entered the room. Sasuke called out "Nii-san!" Itachi didn't bother to return Sasuke's greeting, instead he eyed Naruto. For a moment, Sasuke thought he saw a strange gleam enter his brother's eyes, but he dismissed it as a trick of the light.
For an hour the five of them ate dinner together. It was an unusual family dinner; Naruto seemed to have an effect on Sasuke's parents, particularly his father, which caused them to open up. Instead of the usual quiet, dinner was filled with conversations about shinobi training and certain jounin who seemed particularly weird, including a green-clad man Naruto had met who would shout things about the "fires of youth." Sasuke silently hoped to never meet said man.
When dinner ended, all but Itachi moved into the master bedroom of the Uchiha compound where they played Monopoly. Itachi had an important mission that would influence the clan's position in Konoha. Despite that, Fugaku seemed surprisingly unconcerned, simply saying that he would "expect Itachi to perform well."
It was one of the few times that Sasuke ever saw his father smile or laugh, let alone "play" anything. Sasuke almost felt ashamed that he was jealous of Naruto's ability to make his father do that, but all jealousy was lost at the end of the night when Fugaku turned to his son and said, "Naruto reminds me of his father just like how I see myself in you." It would be the most complimentary thing Fugaku ever said to Sasuke.
XXX End Flashback XXX
Sasuke stared down at the floor boards that he sat on when they played Monopoly together with an almost psychotic interest, clenching and unclenching his fists. The master bedroom was left relatively untouched since the massacre. The Monopoly set still rested on a shelf of his parents' bookcase, drawing Sasuke's attention to it.
Slowly, Sasuke walked over to it, the floorboards groaning under weight felt for the first time in years. He reached out with trembling hands that dusted it off, opening it up for the first time in six years. He was surprised when he found a letter addressed to him.
Sasuke,
There is a commotion outside the house. Your father is rallying the clan, but a lot of people are dying. Just in case something bad happens, I want you to know that your father and I are proud of you. Continue to make us proud and don't follow in your brother's footsteps. I must go help now.
Love,
Mom
Sasuke's fist holding the letter clenched, crumpling the paper. His parents knew that Itachi was attacking, so why couldn't they stop him? How come the Hokage didn't help? For years all Sasuke cared about was revenge, but now that he knew Itachi's motives, other questions, thoughts and feelings were racing through his mind. Itachi was strong, but stronger than the whole clan? How did Itachi do it? How did he kill the whole clan and almost manage to abduct someone living in the Hokage's tower all in the same night?
Revenge was more important than ever, yet other issues surrounding it had also grown in importance as well. Above all else, Itachi could not get his hands on Naruto. Sasuke would see to that.
XXXXX
As dinner came out at the Haruno household, Sakura found she was unable to eat. She simply sat there playing with her food. If her mother was Naruto's head caretaker, then why didn't she know anything about it?
Sakura's father couldn't take it anymore seeing his daughter just play with dinner as it cooled. The last time it happened, she and Ino had set aside their friendship. "Sweetie, what's the matter?"
"Mom, how come you never told me about Naruto?"
That did it. Dinner at the Haruno household officially stopped. Sakura's mother asked, "What do you want to know about Naruto?" Though Naruto no longer needed a caretaker, both parents were praying that this was not another security leak. The last time there was a leak, Sakura's mother found herself observing Ibiki questioning Naruto's nannies one after the other while Sakura's father had to assign assassination missions to kill runners heading to Earth Country to deliver the information that had been discovered. It was one of the tensest weeks in the lives of the Haruno's. Sakura's dad was one of the Hokage's personal assistants, someone who had been a special jounin in the Anbu, but could no longer perform ninja duties because of injuries received during the Kyuubi attack. He was the chief missions' distributor for Sandaime, and if he chose the wrong team for a mission, it could potentially be his head.
"Hokage-sama told me about his condition…" both parents visibly looked relieved, "Mom, why didn't you tell me that you were his caretaker?"
Sakura's mother sighed. "It had to be kept a secret. Most of the ladies who were assigned to help were civilians, and only a few people even knew who they were. If an enemy found out, they could easily impersonate one of the women and do something bad."
Sakura's father added, "That thing inside of him is dangerous. We can't let it get out. To this day I blame 'it'… I probably shouldn't tell you this, but most of us who know believe that 'it' is the incarnation of Kyuubi's evil. Just stay out of trouble and your team should be okay."
That night, Sakura couldn't help but dream that "it" escaped and killed her for all the times she hit Naruto when he asked her out. She knew it was silly, but she silently promised herself that she wouldn't hit Naruto anymore.
XXXXX
The sun's first light revealed Kakashi standing over the Fallen Heroes Memorial Stone just outside his favorite training grounds. Usually Kakashi would wake up at the crack of dawn and stay at the memorial for hours on end, arriving late to all his morning appointments, choosing instead to spend the time telling Obito, Arashi and Myobu – a woman who was almost a mother to him – of the events of the past day. It was an eccentric habit, but it was perhaps all that kept him sane.
Pain was etched across what was visible of his face. Being Naruto's sensei was sure to open up old wounds.
XXX Flashback XXX
Kakashi stood over the memorial stone, staring down at Obito's name. 'It was my fault – my fault, damn it! Why? Why did you have to die for me when I failed as the team leader?'
"Kakashi-kun, come on out of the rain, you'll catch a cold," a voice said from behind him.
"I don't care." His whole life he had acted so adult, so serious. At seven he had already made his first kill and he always followed orders to the letter. Now suddenly he just seemed so childish, as if making up for all the years he had lost.
"Well I do!"
Kakashi turned to look at the woman. 'Myobu, Sensei's wife.' She was so different from her older brother. Sure, like her brother she was obsessed with knowledge, though in her case it was seals, but in almost every other way she was different. Orochimaru always had a treacherous aura about him, a sadist lying in wait for the opportune moment to strike. He was cold in a sinister way. Myobu was social, and her idea of being sinister was to simultaneously glare and pout at Kakashi with one hand on her hip and the other maintaining a water technique over her head to keep the rain off of her.
"Weren't you the cute kid who always followed every rule to the letter?" Kakashi's eyes turned downcast. "Quit beating yourself up over it. Do you think Obito gave you that eye so that you could get caught moping about in the rain and catch pneumonia?" Kakashi raised his head and his visible eye widened before he shook his head. Myobu just gestured for him to come and so he did.
When he was promoted to jounin right before the mission, he felt like he had finally achieved the level of his sensei. Even if he was not nearly as strong, he was of equal rank and therefore equal in the chain of command, right? Oh how wrong he felt after he followed Myobu home. In Arashi's living room by the fireplace were all three Sannin, Arashi and Tsunade's still living at the time boyfriend Dan, who had not yet proposed. The five of them and the newcomer Myobu entered into a complicated technical discussion about seals that drove Kakashi's head through a loop.
XXX End Flashback XXX
There were four things he learned that night. The first was that his sensei and Jiraiya were far more brilliant than he had ever given them credit for even if they acted so silly. The second was what it meant to feel mothered, something he never knew since his own mother died due to complications shortly after childbirth. The third was that Orochimaru had a bizarre sense of protectiveness for family that ran so deep he was openly discussing the possibility of raising the dead in front of people who could easily get him in trouble for it just to entertain the possibility of seeing his mother and father again. The fourth and final thing he learned was that despite being a jounin, Kakashi himself was still just a brat.
When Arashi's own brat was cut loose on the world, he wanted to be there to give the child everything Arashi and Myobu gave him and more. He and Rin planned to adopt the baby.
But fate had other ideas. Even though the fault in the sealing was only known amongst those considered to be the most trusted shinobi, the following night after the Kyuubi attack there was an attempt on Naruto's life, by an experienced jounin no less. It quickly became clear that precautions had to be put in place to guard Naruto.
Rin had perhaps taken it even worse than Kakashi. Though they were both young teenagers, the moment she set eyes on the baby, Rin was eager for motherhood. However, neither Rin nor Kakashi had the battle experience needed to defend Naruto adequately. The thought was entertained of letting Naruto stay in the Uchiha compound, but then an Uchiha had been impersonated and the perpetrator had attempted to steal Naruto and take him to a foreign country, no doubt hoping to sell Naruto for a profit.
For one of the strongest among the Uchiha to be defeated and impersonated, it quickly became clear that only the very strongest of shinobi could defend Naruto.
Orochimaru would have been the first choice since he was the baby's last living relative, but around the same time he had begun experimenting on humans hoping to understand the nature of dark chakra – the name used for the chakra of gods since it is so strong it sticks together retaining its energy, giving off no light of its own and so dense that it absorbs all light shone upon it. Needless to say, none of the village leaders felt comfortable putting Naruto in Orochimaru's hands when they weren't even sure that Orochimaru's sanity remained intact.
The other two Sannin were also both elsewhere. Jiraiya was needed to maintain his spy network and would likely turn Naruto into a pervert anyway and Tsunade's fiancé Dan had died shortly before the war with Iwa ended and Arashi took office, so Tsunade had left Konoha, unable to bear the conscious burden of war. Sandaime wasn't even sure he could find Tsunade if he wanted to.
This meant that there was only one option: since there were no defenders strong enough to watch Naruto all the time, a rotation of shinobi would be needed to watch Naruto each for a part of the time. By rotating through them and keeping the schedules random, impersonation was much more difficult, since the impersonator would have to prepare for days or even weeks in advance making it more likely to be caught.
Meanwhile, Kakashi and Rin set themselves deep into training to become strong enough to defend Naruto.
However, soon it became clear that the entity inside Naruto was more developed than they at first imagined. Rin fled Konoha in search of knowledge, hoping to find a way to seal off the entity. She would later become known throughout the shinobi world for stealing important scrolls of seals. Occasionally she would mail in "reports" to the Hokage's office, always written in the same kind of code Myobu used to use for her notes (a code that only a handful of living people, all of whom trying to help Naruto, knew). Kakashi had wanted to chase after her. He almost felt empty with Naruto being his only day-to-day tie to the past. At the same time, it was exactly for that reason that he could not leave Naruto and exactly for that reason that if he wasn't going to be Naruto's sensei, he would have left Konoha in search of Rin – a fact he said in no uncertain words to the Hokage.
XXXXX
Promptly at seven in the morning, Kakashi met up with his team. On one hand he was happy – the fact that they were all here after hearing what the Hokage had to say yesterday was proof of their commitment. On the other hand, he was angry – where was Naruto's Anbu guard?
With Kakashi as Naruto's sensei, there would be no Anbu guard while Naruto was on duty. For that reason, Kakashi could not be late even by a minute to his designated appointments with his team. However, Kakashi was precisely on time and the Anbu should have shadowed Naruto to the training ground and made his presence known to Kakashi the moment he arrived on the scene. He would have to bring this up with the Hokage later.
Putting that aside, he eye-smiled at the gennin. "Good, you're all here."
Sasuke snorted and rebuked, "Why wouldn't we be?"
Both Naruto's and Sakura's eyes widened, but for different reasons – Naruto felt that for the first time he could say somebody was his friend, while Sakura, who had felt a distinct lack of confidence approaching the training grounds earlier, suddenly felt both a true unbiased wave of awe for her crush as well as an internal questioning of her prior lack of confidence. Both felt suddenly stronger.
Kakashi retained a lazy image through all of this. "Well, you know, a little bird told me the Hokage told you guys some interesting things yesterday and not everybody has the confidence of the Uchiha." Sasuke smiled smugly.
"Now with that out of the way, you guys pass!" Kakashi eye-smiled anew.
"Sensei? I wasn't aware that we were being tested," Sakura said confusedly.
"Well, it's just that…" Kakashi started, "When I tell you this you guys are definitely going to flip. Of the twenty-seven graduates, only nine will be chosen as gennin. The rest will be sent back to the academy."
All three gennin dead-panned. "But sensei," Sakura said, "didn't you just say we passed?"
"Correct."
"What the hell! I don't get it," Naruto commented for the first time, "We worked so hard. What was the point of graduating if only nine of us become gennin?"
"Oh, that?" Kakashi answered, "That was just to see who has the skill to become a gennin."
It was Sasuke's turn to ask a question: "And why do we pass when we haven't done anything?"
"Oh? But you have done something. You're all here, aren't you?" Kakashi eye-smiled almost mockingly.
The three gennin clearly didn't get it.
"The answer to the test was teamwork," Kakashi elaborated.
Still confused, Sakura asked, "Teamwork?"
"Yes, teamwork. In the field, a rookie gennin no matter how strong will always lose to higher level opponents." Sasuke scowled indignantly at Kakashi's remark, which Kakashi ignored. "The answer is teamwork. If one gennin takes on a jounin or even a chuunin, they have no hope of achieving victory, but in a team of three, the gennin have a chance to overcome even a high ranking jounin."
Kakashi started walking back to where he originally was at the memorial, motioning for the three gennin to follow. "Normally I would test you by pitting you against each other and deciding to pass you or not based on your willingness to work together as a team. But yesterday the Hokage gave you information that would automatically set you against one member of the team. Your willingness to show up as a team is enough to show that you are willing to work as a team. If I gave you the test now, you would pass for sure."
Kakashi stopped in front of the stone, the three gennin stopping behind him. "On this stone is carved the names of heroes that died in battle. My best friend's name is on this stone. He died because of a failure in teamwork."
All was silent after that.
XXXXX
When it came down to it, Kakashi was considered to be one of the lousiest jounin instructors available. He had never passed a team, and even if he had ever done so before, people would have thought his lazy habits would rub off on his gennin. This was why some of the jounin questioned Sandaime's sanity for making Kakashi the squad leader for both the last Uchiha – one of the most promising gennin of the generation – and the vessel, who undoubtedly needed special care. They likely wouldn't pass, and if they did, they likely wouldn't receive the attention that was expected to be given to them.
Kakashi himself had shot down all the arguments. He was the only person who could properly defend Naruto. Rin wouldn't hurt Kakashi, Orochimaru probably wouldn't and even though Itachi would, Kakashi was the only person with a Sharingan developed enough to have resistance against Itachi's eyes. But he was also the only person who could train Sasuke to use the eyes as well as he himself did.
All remaining doubt was cast aside when Kakashi showed up on time for the jounin squad leader meeting to announce that he had passed his team. They were even further surprised to discover that he had already begun training them in chakra control – something which no doubt both boys needed, and further, chakra control exercises force the body to release chakra constantly and smoothly, which is an effective way to develop stamina that would aid the girl.
Since Kakashi did not have a test planned for his gennin, he started them with tree climbing – handless tree climbing. Naruto was the only one of the three who had seen the exercise before, but he was a long way away from mastering it. The reality of the situation was that Naruto had been working on his chakra control for years. It was difficult to control the Kyuubi's chakra and almost impossible to control the dark chakra, but if Naruto could manage, then he could guarantee victory over the third being residing within him, the "Dark God," as it was called.
He worked them for six hours, until the start of his meeting. By that time, Sakura lay at the base of her tree too exhausted to continue; Sasuke had managed to make it half way up a good sized tree; and Naruto had several clones working simultaneously with him – since clones split chakra evenly, they too receive some of the Kyuubi's chakra and dark chakra, though only that amount which was actively flowing through Naruto's chakra coils when he generated the clones – the clones making it as far as a third of the way up decent sized trees, while the original Naruto could make it no further than a few meters, impressive relative to the size of the tree, which was well over twenty meters (twenty meters being 66 feet).
XXXXX
"Damn it," Naruto cursed in his sleep, "Damn it, damn it, damn it. Was that all I can do?"
Within his mindscape, Kyuubi walked up next to him in her human form. A resounding smack echoed through the darkest parts of Naruto's mind as she slapped him upside the head, completely ignoring the pain that the seal reflected back onto her.
Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "Ow, what was that for?"
"Idiot," she said, "if chakra control were that easy for you, then you would already have won. Once you learn how to control the dark chakra, you can strip him of his power."
A figure appeared out of the darkness within Naruto's mind. "But that's the thing, isn't it? You never will be able to control my chakra. I can even let you try and you will fail. After all, you're only human." He looked almost identical to Naruto except that he possessed eerie black eyes and bore no whisker marks on his cheeks. In truth, he had no gender, but since he would be taking Naruto's body in due time, he would always take Naruto's form within the mindscape.
Kyuubi growled at the newcomer, but made no move. Naruto shouted, "Shut up!"
The god-in-the-making merely laughed. "You won't win, Uzumaki Naruto. You're running out of time, but even if you had an eternity you could not ever win. I am, after all, a god."
XXXXX
AN: This chapter mainly filled in some details. I'll try to make the next chapter a bit longer as we may see the team's first real mission. No, it won't be the Wave arc. That arc just doesn't really fit in nicely with my storyline. We won't see Naruto leave Konoha until after the chuunin exams, which will also play out differently.
I know lots of you guys out there are waiting for chapter 4 of NotS. Don't worry, it's coming along. I've been having a bit of writer's block. Or well, not entirely writer's block, but I keep thinking up new ideas that just don't work well in either of these stories. That said, I don't plan on publishing any other stories until these two are much further along.
Q and A.
Q: What's up with the letter to Sasuke from his mom?
A: She knew that the clan was being exterminated. She knew more than she was letting on and she hid the letter in the Monopoly set because she knew Sasuke would brood.
Q: What does Naruto wear?
A: All characters are dressed the same as canon. You'll find out why Naruto wears orange in the next chapter.
Q: What significance does the name "Myobu" have?
A: In Japanese folklore, it is the name of a fox deity as well as a name that is commonly associated with celestial foxes, messengers of the deity Inari. While foxes are widely known as tricksters, in Japanese mythology they also sometimes represent faithful lovers. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia page for Kitsune: "Kitsuneis the Japanese word for fox. Foxes are a common subject of Japanese folklore. Stories depict them as intelligent beings and as possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. Foremost among these is the ability to assume human form. While some folktales speak of kitsune employing this ability to trick others — as foxes in folklore often do — others portray them as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives."
Q: Kyuubi not in her cage?
A: You'll find out either next chapter or the chapter after.