AN: well here it is, once again thanks for reading,sorry for the delay but the Prep school proved to be a demon in disguise.

Disclaimer: I DON'T OWN NARUTO, otherwise sasuke would suffer Bloody hell for being such a pansy and a imbecile.

Lurking Darkness

Chapter 3:

Paths of the hero

Konoha
October 10th 1025
3 AM

People change, which is a fact that can't be denied but it's also a reminder that one's plans never go as intended, this is what makes the notions of destiny or fate, in this case it is no different as Hatake Kakashi sat in a dark room thinking of what he had heard in that room from Hiashi almost 2 years ago, and he still couldn't believe what he had heard but even with all the facts and proof he was given he still felt some hate towards the boy, Hiashi had sensed this and so he had spent 2 weeks in surveillance of ANBU squads and he could only take missions inside the village.

He still remembered his state of dismay at the knowledge that he had proven his sensei right in his assessment of him being hot headed and brash when it came to desicions concerning those he cared about.

Flashback:

A 15 year old Kakashi could be seen siting in the Hokage's office, many would wonder why, and when a pissed of Namikaze entered the room, they got they answer.

Kakashi instantly bowed slightly at the awe inspiring figure of the hokage, but his words cut down the mannerism as they expressed how pissed the man was:

– Sit down Hatake. Kakashi flinched at that and immediately obeyed.
– Do you know why you are here? asked the Hokage
– Excuse me sir? Kakashi immediately knew that was the wrong answer as the Hokage paralyzed him with a wave of K.I. performing the strongest (to date) kanashibari no jutsu of history.

– DONT GIVE ME THAT SHIT! FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO I WAS INFORMED OF THE DEMISE OF FIVE HYUUGA ELDERS AT THE HANDS OF A DOG MASKED ANBU!
AND WHEN I ASKED FOR THE REASON THEY SAID THAT IT HAPPENED SECONDS AFTER THEY INSULTED UCHIHA OBITO'S FAMILY!

At the mention of the incident Kakashi broke free of the K.I. and answered in equal strength:
– YOU KNOW WHY I DID IT! I WON'T LET THEM DEFILE HIS MEMORY SAYING HE WAS WEAK! SAYING HE WAS "DESTINED" TO LOSE IT ALL! AND IN FRONT OF RIN NO LESS!

– I DON'T CARE! YOU ARE A SHINOBI! AN ANBU! YOU ARE OBLIGED TO BEHEVE LIKE A PRIME EXAMPLE OF SHINOBI PERFECTION! NOT SOME HOT HEADED FOOL WHO CAN'T CONTROL HIS ACTIONS WHEN A LOVED ONE IS THROWN IN THE FRAY!

Kakashi had no reply for that as he knew it was true but he didn't regret what he did to those bastards.

– 'sigh' your audience will be scheduled for next month, in the worst you'll get banned from ANBU permanently and serve 2 years in the shinobi prison IF you claim temporal insanity during the ordeal. Now if you excuse me I'll go to attend my wife as she is in the 30th week of pregnancy.

End Flashback

Now he was in the rooftops, going towards the boy's apartment as attack had been reported by one of the few civilians that accepted Naruto. He had now arrived at the scene and couldn't help but to feel torn because the one leading the attack was Inuzuka Rin, his only remaining teammate from his gennin days.

For the first time in his life Kakashi couldn't act by the rules not even by the morals he adopted from Obito, he just couldn't, and the fact that today was October 10th 1025 exactly ten years after the attack just made it so much harder, and it became worse when Rin spotted him: – Hey Dog, stop standing there like nothing is happening come down here, and torture the demon! For sensei!

When she mentioned that his mind snapped, the memory of his late sensei slipping into his mind, the knowledge that the very beast that killed his sensei, the beast that killed thousands of his allies, the beast that killed his ANBU squadron in which Obito's sister was included, was trapped in the boy before him, so defenseless, he just couldn't bear it so he came down stopping the crowd and said: –Stop… He raised a hand to stop the protests and said something that enraged beyond all reason the barely contained civilians in the apartment: – If you kill him now, the Hokage and council will have your heads, so please stop, I don't want innocent and ignorant people to kill an equally innocent and ignorant child. His plea went unheard and he asumed a stance ready to deffend the legacy of his sensei and surrogate, but was stopped in his tracks by the one he fought alongside for years: – You won't stop me, you can't so lease step aside, don't betray this comrade, not like you almost did. That was a low blow and Rin knew it but her thirst for anger was too heavy, and while Kakashi was writhing in pain she and the mob stepped foward with a menacing aura.

– I'll make you suffer you little beast. Said the group in chorus making them sound like the devil had possessed them.

The fear, the pain, and the agony the boy suffered that night changed him, even if he had fallen unconscious, no one noticed it but by the time the sun shone in the horizon the world would greet something different.

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In the seal while this happened, the massive energy that was the Kyuubi, had been awakened, while it seemed the seal would crack under the pressure, something else happened, it first manifested as a slight disturbance to the great beast, but it slowly began to transform into something else, like it had been given a conscience, and in the middle of the process the pain filled screams of one little boy made themselves known.

The great beast didn't understand it, why? Why cause someone so young so much suffering? Those were questions that would remain unanswered for years to come, as a conscience and moral can't be developed overnight it would take much longer to finish, but by the time it was done, the most terrible intelligence would awaken and no one knew if it would be for the redemption or destruction of them all.

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While the torture proceeded Kakashi suddenly snapped out of his confusion, the flow of his mind changed, and he for the first time in nearly 18 years he cried, and he released his anger in the air.
Everything stopped the cheers, the torture, it all went silent and Kakashi spoke:
– We've fallen too far Rin. Said female was confused out of her mind and spoke: – what the hell you're talking about?!, this demon needs to suffer! The anger turned into killing aura, so thick and so focused in the room that it was visible like a mist of foreboding death, nearly half the civilians died of a heart attack: – If he was a demon he would have attacked by now, If he was a demon he would have attacked Konoha since he was 8, If he was a demon HE COULD HAVE KILLED ALL OF US BY NOW!! Roared Kakashi as he saw the truth dawn on the eyes of those alive and conscious, the boy was just that a boy, but they knew they would pay for the transgressions done to the boy as the ANBU was still giving off the killing aura, but it slowly receded till it was nothing but a whisper in their ears, but still quite powerful.

– Kakashi Please the de- boy is dangerous if he ever cracks or gets unstable he'll release the bea... She never got to finish as the aura returned ten fold almost killing the remaining ones: – THAT'S IF YOU DIDN'T PUSHED HIM OVER THE EDGE ALREADY, IF HE FREED THE BEAST AT THIS POINT I WOULD BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO KILL AS MANY OF YOU AS I CAN BEFORE IT SWALLOWED ME

And at that point he knocked Rin unconscious, and then proceeded to butcher his way though the remaining civilians, at least 70 people were crowding the apartment and the hallway outside it and when he finished he threw the bodies near the fireworks with the help of shadow clones and ignited them. – FIRE RELEASE: HELL'S EMBER and fired a huge firebal fo scorching white flames leaving the ground at white hot temperatures,in the end remains weren't enough to feed the insects, once he finished he reported to the Hokage's assistant and delivered Rin, explaining the situation, to the ANBU he knew to be loyal to Sarutobi. And never stopped crying since all started : – I failed you, Yondaime.

xxxoxxx

The day had dawned and in the apartment of one little boy the world was greeted by something else:
Where once a little boy had been, now a young man stood, his body had aged by the sheer amount of stress suffered the previous night (It's been proven that extreme stress can age the body and mind faster if you remain in that state long enough)
his hair had become high-lighted with silver at the tips silver instead of the blond from before making his hair look more like a flame than the previous blonde, anth le extra length didn't help, he also noticed a slight pain in his muscles and bones form forced growth, in all he looked like a 13 year old version of himself with hair way too long for his tastes.
Naruto noticing something wrong crawled to the bathroom where he picked up a shard from his broken mirror and inspected himself:

– Damn I look like Sephiroth now. But this situation could be worse, at least I can use the double heart transformation seal (Nijuu Koroko Henge Fuuin) to hide the changes.

He still remembered when he met the... entity, the sheer power, and the knowledge that his posture gave away was enough to get the boy's attention. But there was no time to ponder the happenings of the last year since he needed to hide the hair and the stress marks so he quickly went for the paper tag hidden beneath the kitchen's floor and copied it on his chest with the help of a water clone, he quickly added chakra to it and the effects were instantaneous: the markings passed to his back and navel making the seal pattern in there even more complicated and pulsed until his whole body looked 10 years old again alas the injuries had to stay and he had already wasted good 30 minutes in crawling and using the seal, so he limited himself to collapse on his floor already sensing the chakra heading to him:
– The Hokage saves the day. He thought sarcastically before going unconscious.

xxxoxxx

Kumo

Temple's outskirts

Sephiroth's lair.

Cloud still couldn't believe it, Jenova had returned and it was because of the life stream, he had heard it but hadn't believed it,
"The life stream goes in cycles so the history is bound to suffer repetitions".
How foolish, he had been foolish again, if he had accepted help, if he had asked for help in his battle against Kadaj, this could have been adverted, the life could go on and the history would have remained unchanged with peace for those who looked forward to it, but the life stream had been altered. All those deaths with the Geo-stigma had changed the flow leading to a new circle, he had failed Aerith, he had failed Tifa, He failed Yuffie, Cid, Barret, Vincent, all deceased when Loz and Yazoo fused with the incomplete Sephiroth, bringing him to the land of the living once again.

"A hero needs dreams" Those words still got to him now, he was supposed to be the legacy of Zack, and yet like the others he failed him. He then heard the screams of the boy – Uzumaki Naruto. That name made him wonder if he could make one last move to save the world from Sephiroth before he expired.
The timing was crucial so he needed to prepare to the last moment because the instant he was removed from the suspension liquid he had been for the last eon he would die.

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Rice country
November 11th

Western fields

Waterfall border

Orochimaru was furious, the curse seal while powerful was also a major weakness that if exploited right could not only kill the user but him as well body transfer technique or not.

The curse seal was designed to act as a dam with the natural energy that mixed in the body of a ninja to create hermit chakra, the idea was based on Jiraiya's hermit mode, as it used hermit chakra. The seal was designed in different ways from level to level, the most powerful to the date was the curse seal of heaven, while all the seals provided the access to the natural chakra without the danger of remaining permanently in a transformed state it put a incredible strain on the body, and the ink, blood and DNA used on the seal were traceable back to him as he was the applying party and no one else could do it since the seal depended on the inner dimension within him for his seal.

At first he tried to make it regulate the natural chakra of this realm but the level two cursed user remained transformed permanently looking like frogs. Also those in level one acquired frog like characteristics, so those seals were WAY to traceable,so he waited those users to die, all but one using him as a conductor, Orochimaru gathered natural energy studying it's nature and found that the natural energy was to free willed and chaotic to be pre-arranged in the workings of a seal, even if the seal worked on the energy or the chakra it generated the energy required a conscious effort of the user to be balanced, in the end the subject died turning into stone.

Two years later when he had perfected his body transfer technique, he remembered the events that lead to his betrayal of Konoha a month after the Kyuubi, he remembered the notes he made about the inner dimension used to capture the minds of the bodies he transfered to, and got an idea: if the natural energies of this realm were too chaotic he could use the natural energy of his realm to power the seals, it would provide two major advantages over the first:

1.- The energy was untraceable and could only be felt when in level two , when the energy was fully mixed to the users chakra and left it to him the regulation on a subconscious level, and when used for the first time

2.- The user would be open for mind probing, so he could influence them with energy pulses whenever he wanted, thus making his hold over his minions even stronger

And the results had been excellent, but now he had discovered they major flaw, if the user grew aware of the connection of his seal to his energy or dimension or if he was to be rejected by the current body nearby him/her the user (he/she still needs to be concious of the inner realm in Orochimaru) could cause feedback effectively providing himself of his own hermit chakra without him or his energy, so long as he was aware of the realm within him ,and if such a user was to be killed or injured while the feedback was taking place, he would suffer the same injuries or deceases of the user.

This made him use his technique for the first time two and a half years ago and then he destroyed the scroll and all of his notes on the jutsu.

This wasn't as good as he had wanted, since he was sure one of Jiraiya's spies managed to send him the details of his situation before he killed his source, an thus his mood went from PMS like to hellish.

He had to let go of such matters however as he entered Akatsuki's HQ in Ame, where he had an appointment with the leader to discuss some things about his descendant back in leaf village.

xxxoxxx

The Hokage had arrived in the hospital a few hours ago after he ordered his team of chuunin to move him there, he couldn't say he wasn't annoyed when he received reports from the ABNU guarding the HQ of the inu captain coming to the prison section and handling them his teammate saying that she was behind the attack on the young jinchuriiki, he knew there was more to the story than Inu let on but he was willing to be lenient since the prime objective now was closing up all the cuts made in the attack and possibly torture from Ookami, but this wasn't as bad as it sounded because she specialized in superficial torture so the cuts and bruises were extremely painful but no lethal, as well as eclectically based attacks to the nervous system.

A groan to his left alerted him of the awakening Naruto and decided to greet him when he was a bit more aware of his surroundings to ask him of the events. by the time Naruto finished his tale it was mid-day and the Hokage decided that he could take him to lunch, so pain forgotten he saneaked Naruto out of the hospital and to Ichiraku's.

xxxoxxx

Konoha
Location Unknown
October 12th 1025

Danzo was traveling to a meeting with the sergeants of the Root division when the captains appeared and requested to be present in the meeting since they had information regarding Project Fibonacci.

So here he was now in the middle of a metal bridge conecting two old oil platforms making the scenery look like one of the concept drawings of anime artists (think Limha Lekan).
–Well begin, the time is crucial and I don't have any to spare.
– Hai, Danzo-sama, as you know I talked to you as you were coming here about new intelligence in Fibonacci.
As of two days ago the source was attacked and left in a state of heavy scarring once again...
– WHAT!? roared Danzo, he might have his doubts about it but he didn't like hearing this especially since he ordered his forces to prevent such occurrences at all costs.
– Hai, there was an attack to the source lead by a shinobi of relative importance to the council and as such the patrol couldn't interfere with force but with words as they relied this information disguised as civilians. As much as this is troubling to some of the goals to the project there's also the fact that the main culprit and leader of the attack was delivered later directly to the corresponding authorities.
– Is this all?
– No, there's also been a confirmation that the facilities discovered beneath the forgotten temple have been successfully linked to the source, confirming your suspicions about it holding his true power.
Now that got Danzo's interest, if the source could do that and develop so much in the six months that the facilities had been discovered he couldn't wait to see where his methods could bring to it's development, after all some people were meant to be weapons, old acquaintances and rivals be damned.
– Ok this is certainly interesting. Now Sergeant...

xxxoxxx

Konoha
December 10th
Academy grounds

The students of Iruka's class were all gathered in the front of the classroom, the reason was one hyperactive unpredictable student, and while this normally meant trouble this time it brought astonishment to the class since all of them believed him to be a dobe, and dead last, but much to their surprise (and charging to the civilian clan students) Naruto scored well above all of the civilian, and scored middle in the clan half, and while that seemed like a futile mark, in this case it wasn't since the reason for this was the sheer amount of training time in the posts placed in the training room.

Naturally at first there was three parties that refused to believe this, those were Sasuke, Fan-girl army, and Kiba, since the blond was reported to be sick by influenza, while it was bad it seemed that the doctors caught it quick enough and treated it immediately and in the end only a week of rest was needed,thus the time and other scores were highly undermined, but even then the classroom was baffled with the time, so much that even the Emo king a.k.a Sasuke had grown to respect the blond (not that he was ever going to admit it though) and thus the fan club went to check the record to know what had Sasuke so baffled:

13140 hours in the room
At least 5 times checked out a sample of the materials in the room for use (ropes, ball launchers, shuriken, kunai, bo staff, etc)

The classroom, Iruka, Mizuki, and even some jounin who would later hear from the Hokage himself, were amazed by the boys resolve and will, sure they went to the room every day of the week at least 1 hour and after finishing encouraged the students to use the room after the academy day finished, and they did as many saw sasuke there and also naruto to a lesser extent since he always seemed to be at the back, but none of them thought that he took it this far, if this was true then the boy had spent nearly a year and a half in there, 18 hours a day.
That was the main reason of disbelief but after a while it dawned on them that the blond skipped most of the classes, for this reason alone the boy could very well end up as the third place in the class and first place in the training room records surpassed only by Rock lee.

Yup, there is no doubt that Naruto lived up to his title. Things in Konoha and other places would become interesting if the boy ever graduated since his clones were plain shit and there was no way of sugar coating it.

xxxoxxx

Rice country
Unknown location

February 19th

Orochimaru was worried, the last results of the curse seal of heaven while promising were also foreboding if he didn't fix them soon, the few flaws were fixed but with that came another problem, the power could be removed if it was exposed to a unatural being and while to many this wasn't a worry but to him it was since the world of the ninja dealed with the unatural on a daily basis even if they didn't realize it, to prove this point you could just look at the body transfer jutsu, as it created an artificial realm inside the user with all that was suposed to exist in a realm like it's own setient beeings, and if that wasn't unnatural He didn't know what was.

But he forsook those thoughts for later as his spy in Konoha handed him a report:

–Orochimaru-sama, as you know there has been some movement in the council since the masacre in which the clan was wiped out along with 5 key members of the concil...
He was interrupted however by Orochimaru who was getting annoyed with the constant repetitions in the reports of his subordinates:
– Stop doing that! Don't repeat information, it wastes time I don't have so finish the report efficiently or leave!
– Hai! As i was saying the council suffered losses to a unknown assilant at the time of the masacre, thus requiring new representatives for the clans. Along them there was another minor clan added to the council temporarly replacing the Uchiha seat thou the clan is civilian and unexpirienced in politics thus making them a weak oppnent in most matters.
– What do you mean? Asked the curious tirant
– The jinchuriiki
– Please elaborate
– This would not be possible in other circunstances since he was labeled under the jurisdiction of the hokage and the civilinan laws and courts didn't apply to him but when the council included the Haruno's in the field everything changed, since now thw civilian people had ears in the other side they could aquire info and details in their common target thus making the brat even more vulnerable or so they thought.
– Explain
– The council decided that the new heads needed to be level headed in the matters concerning the boy so while the new head's in the council didn't hate the boy openly they weren't suporttive either. The Haruno though expressed a ballant hatred for the boy and wanted to search for a loop hole in the regulations to label him as a public threat and hand him to Danzo to be dealt with, the other heads saw this and made the presence of the man limited and bearly noticable striping him and his clan of a great deal of political power in the council, what they didn't foresee though was thet the new heads, included the new Hayashi clan head, would leak information about the boy's heritage and status, this information was used to gain contacts in the underground channels in Konoha formed mostly of the "demon haters" and since some channels reach the academy the clan used it to support the child that will eventually remove him of his chair, aquring him favors in the academy and even some jounin ofering to train him in private.
– Fools.
– Excuse me Orochimaru-sama but I don't think I understand, why show apathy towards the man that made easier your goals?
– Exactly beacause of that, if the fool had let it be like it was and if the old goat of my sensei had kept him out of the room the Uchiha would have been teached how to fish instead of simply givving him the food.
– So what you wanted was to mark a boy that had learned to train himself in every field instead of just waiting for someone to give him power?
– Exactly, now leave there are manny things to fix, and this little chad has givven me the answer to my problems with the seal.
– Hai

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