It was hours later when Jiraiya finally caught up to his old teacher. "You are looking pretty good, old man," the giant of a shinobi said to his old mentor.
"I won't admit it to anyone else, but I was very worried there for a second. Then some genin managed to rescue me. It appears the will of fire is indeed strong in the next generation." The short, old man chuckled at that as he fiddles with lighting his tobacco pipe. "I've already had some of my advisers in here trying to convince me that I should not advance either of them to chunin. The only one they want me to advance is the Uchiha and the older Hyuga. And they were very impressed with the Nara."
"So they are holding Naruto's passenger against him still? And the reasoning behind not advancing any of the girls? From what I heard, they were all rather impressive considering they were rookies," the Toad Sage noted sagely, then cracked a wide grin.
"It seems there is some bias that they weren't nearly as entertaining for the younger Hyuga and Haruno, while for Sheila... they seem to think she was showing off too much of her ability." The Hokage chuckled again at that. "Yet she only started being serious when Orochimaru showed up and tried to assassinate me."
Jiraiya took in the furious scowl that appeared on his mentor's face. "I know that look, that's the one when you have to deal with something unpleasant."
"I had to make it clear that promotion of someone to Chunin is not a popularity contest," the Professor stated as he shook his head. "My old teammates tried to tell me that I was being sentimental. You don't stand up to one of the Three Ninja and derail his plan by only being lucky. But I'm too old, Jiraiya. Orochimaru might have actually killed me this last time."
"Whoa! Whoa! Not it!" the big shinobi said as quickly as possibly, looking comically terrified.
"No, you aren't the right personality to lead Konoha unless I have no choice. So I need you to find your other old team mate and tell her she is to return to Konoha to meet me or be considered a Missing Ninja. And you can tell her I don't have time to coddle her wallowing in her grief. This is a direct order, Jiraiya," the old man told him in a very hard voice.
"You have got to be kidding me." Jiraiya realized after a long moment that his teacher really wasn't. "Look, let me try to convince her first before you lay out the big guns. And give me Naruto. I think it would be a good idea to keep him with you or myself at this point. They are starting to move and it would be bad for him to be by himself."
"That... could work. Tell Naruto to come by the Tower to get his flack jacket and first solo assignment as a chunin. Tell his teammates to show up for their promotion at the same time." He would have to send a message to Haruno, that Nara and both Hyuga also. That would send a very strong message to the rest of the villages. "On another matter, you need to watch out for Stone ninja. The Tsutchikage thinks that Naruto is the Fourth's son." Hiruzen then chuckled. "And that Sheila is his daughter."
"Well, a 50 % ratio of being right and wrong isn't bad. Maybe I should have told him to not summon the toads to fight, but I didn't actually expect him to improve so rapidly. It seems he figured out that you get the memories of your shadow clones." Jiraiya frowned. "Could the girl be from one of Minato's previous girlfriends?"
"She's not from Konoha. In fact, I believe she said she came from across the Eastern Ocean from before the age of the Sage of Six Paths."
"I thought she was just a genin? Something isn't adding up here, Old Man," the Toad Sage asked in confusion.
"She's a mistaken summon from the past, Jiraiya. An orphan of time." The Hokage snickered at Jiraiya's confusion, the first sign of his normal humor. "Yes, I'm positive. I was the one that accidentally summoned her with a scroll I was trying to make."
"So she's from hundred of years in the past? That's amazing, Professor." Jiraiya was considering the matter. "So she has advanced, ancient secrets that are her secret."
"No, not like you think. She's also the demon container of the One-Tailed Beast; Shukaku."
"You trust her that much?" Jiraiya almost shouted as he leaned over the desk to loom over his old teacher.
"No... Sheila did that on her own. And even did a genjitsu trick so they didn't realize the demon was missing. She really leverages the Shadow Clone technique to its fullest. Jiraiya... don't tell anyone that she is its container. If They don't know, they can't send someone after her."
"Tricky, Professor, tricky. I like it." The sage had to chuckle and then start to laugh, scaring the chunin assistant outside the Hokage's office.
Sakura looked down the row, taking in the other genin. Sasuke was down at the far end, next to both of his team mates; the annoying Naruto and that harridan Sheila. The bored looking Shikamaru seemed to be studying the clouds outside, but that was probably not something to bet on. Hinata and Shino were there representing their team, while Neji looked angry and aloof at being in the same room with his cousin. And then herself, of course.
The Hokage stood up from behind his desk, Shikamaru's father at his side along with everyone's jonin team leader. Asuma was next to his father, while Kakashi looked nearly as bored as Shikamaru. Inoichi gave Sakura a wink while Kurenai stood impassively.
Hiruzen looked over the large batch of kids that were about to be promoted. "This has been an amazing year. Each of you showed that you are excellent ninja with the skills necessary to advance to the chunin rank. This does not mean you do not have things to learn. You are new to your rank and you have to learn to lead," the Hokage explained. "But in the furnace of battle, you proved that you have the Will of Fire."
"Pardon me, Lord Hokage, are you saying all of us are being made chunin?" Shikamaru asked in confusion.
"Ah, thinking that some of you are not yet leaders? Or are not powerful enough to be considered chunin?" Hiruzen smiled at him for that. "But being a chunin means not being as strong as a jonin. There will be times when you will have to fight far above your power like Sakura or Neji. How you reacted said a lot about what you are and might become."
The branch member of the Hyuga had a truly ferocious scowl on his face for a second before he could school it to passivity.
"Or deal with seeming unstoppable bloodlines... or worse." The Third Hokage looked over them all. "For these reasons, you are all being promoted. And yes-" Hiruzen was looking at Shikamaru and Sheila for this. "-this will send a very powerful message to our foes."
The jonin captains handed out the chunin flak jackets to their students. Sakura had happened to let herself be moved close to Sasuke, who actually nodded to her. "Oh?" the pink-haired girl asked as she tugged at her jacket. She was glad it was actually optional for most missions.
"I see you got past that useless girly stage you were stuck at. I can actually respect you a little bit," the last Uchiha said finally.
Her heart soared at that even as the voice in the back of her mind started laughing. 'So all you had to do to get his attention was be a kunoichi. We're going to beat Ino no problem!' Inner-Sakura shouted out in her mind.
"Um, thanks."
"Everyone but Uzumaki, you are dismissed. Chunin Uzumaki, you have an escort mission that leaves in one hour," the hokage called out.
The rest of the new chunin all stepped out.
"Team 7... Sasuke and Sheila... you are no longer my genin, though we will hopefully work together," Kakashi said as he tried to hide some of his emotion at losing the team he really had not wanted. Felt compelled by history and obligations, but not really wanted. But now the legacy of Obito and Minato were spreading their own wings.
It was a day later that Sasuke and Sheila were walking to meet Kakashi at a restaurant for their celebration. They were meeting up with Shikamaru, Shino and Hinata along with their jonin leaders. And, if Sheila surmised correctly, Maito Gai and Neji Hyuga.
She blinked as she spotted a figure being dragged back down the road, carried by Asuma Sarutobi and Maito Gai. "Kakashi?" He was in some sort of systematic neurological shock, as if he had been tortured for days with genjitsu. In a single bound, she landed next to them "What happened to him?"
"We were attacked by Itachi," Kurenai said, looking a bit battered herself. "He was here for Naruto." She had been surprised to discover that both of his teammates knew of his tenant.
"Itachi?" Sasuke echoed in shock from behind them all where he had been unseen. Then suddenly he was rushing off off in the direction they had come from. He was a literal blur.
"Sheila, you can't just leave to chase after him! Only bring Sasuke back! Do not leave the village!" Asuma shouted out as she took off after him. "Dammit. Kids these days."
Sheila poured on the speed as she hit nearly three hundred miles an hour. Various ninja thought it was someone trying to escape using the body flicker technique and tried to keep up, only to realize that it was something different than they had seen before. She appeared in front of Sasuke at the bridge. "Slow down a second!" she called out.
"Get out of my way," the last loyal Uchiha snarled.
"Look, you want to track down your brother for revenge. I understand that. Vengeance is a major thing of my family. But if you leave the village without attempting to get authorization, you might be declared a missing ninja. And how can you rebuild your clan in that case?" she argued.
"This is a clan business. As long as I am not currently on a mission, it has precedence," he snapped back.
"I was given a direct order by a jonin. One second. How about this. You create a shadow clone to come with me and I create one of my special shadow clones to go with you. This could be a trap and we have the security of your clan to take into consideration. My clone will assist you with tracking down Itachi," the demigoddess said while thinking furiously.
"I... That will work," Sasuke decided. Backup while taking on his brother would not be a bad idea. Especially with someone that was actually better at fighting than him. Even with his Sharingan. And to be honest Sheila was one of the few he'd want to have help him in a fight.
They both created a pair of shadow clones. Sheila then put her hand upon the sternum of her clone and very carefully created her ichor-link seal and put half of her legend within the clone. It was now nearly as powerful as she was.
"What is that seal?" the black-haired boy asked as his Sharingan deactivated.
"Something I think only I could probably use. At least without having as much chakra as Naruto and as much control as the Hokage," she explained. And even that was improbable without the ichor of the gods within your blood.
Sasuke took off with her shadow-seal clone while she headed back to the gate with his shadow clone. She and Sasuke's clone appeared at the gate. "Chunin Sheila reporting in. Sasuke Uchiha is headed out on clan business."
The chunin looked at the two newly promoted kids. "Uh, he's right there."
"I'm not. This is just a shadow clone," the fake Sasuke said. "But Sheila convinced me that I should do the paperwork, even if I was leaving before I could get it dealt with."
"Better than Anko. She usually lets us know that she left after she gets back. You two, go let the hokage know."
"This technique better not be something to just keep me occupied," Naruto accused Jiraiya the Toad Sage. He had a balloon in his hand and was trying to pop it with just chakra control.
"Look, brat, this is the prized technique of the Fourth-!" the older, big man was saying as he suddenly moved to intercept a mishappen blur zooming towards them.
"Chunin Sheila and Sasuke arriving!" the seal-shadow clone of Sheila announced. "Itachi is on his way after having defeated Kakashi, Kurenai, Asuma and Maito."
"Itachi is on his way here? Why?" the Sannin asked seriously.
"They said he was after Naruto," Sasuke said as he slipped of Sheila's back. That speed... he would figure out how she ran so fast. That had been exhilerating.
"Hmm. That's not good. I'm not sure I can defend you boy and fight off Itachi and his partner," Jiraiya said seriously.
"Should we prioritize setting up a trap or making Naruto disappear?" Sheila asked intently as she was already thinking ahead.
"Protecting Naruto, but defeating and driving off these two... that will make them more cautious," the Sannin thought aloud. "I like the way you think."
"Okay, Naruto, we'll need you to stay here but disappear back to your master seal," Sheila explained. "The Hokage agrees with your plan. He's gathering several special jonin and chunin teams."
"Uh, I don't have a master seal," Naruto said in confusion. "What's that?"
"You can do the space-time technique without the master seal? They are all supposed to be linked and make the chakra cost..." Sasuke stopped as he considered things. "Naruto, how much chakra do you use to activate the technique?" He had gotten his version of the Flying Thundergod technique down to about a single shadowclone, or about one-fifth of his chakra.
"Um, about as much as ten shadow clones?"
"You kids are really amazing. The Fourth never did manage to teach it to me. And he was my student," Jiraiya said with a laugh. "You two, go to town under a transformation and follow us back to our hotel. We'll stay at the Velvet Glove."
And with that, they took off.
Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki walked into the roaring festival town. The shark-like ex-Mist ninja was carefully taking a look around. "Are you sure you saw two chunin making better time than we did here?"
"My eyes never lie," Itachi said stoically. Though he was wondering at the bloodline ability that would allow for such fleet running speed.
"It still shouldn't take long to track down the demon container. What do we do about Jiraiya?" Kisame did not like to admit to anything, but the sannin would be a major hindrance.
"We will have to distract him, which should be easy enough," the traitor to Konoha said flatly.
Two hours later, they made their move. The lecherous 'Sage of Toads' was distracted by a comely trio of women that Itachi had put under a genjitsu to make him seem very irresistible. They then casually entered the inn that they two were staying and and Itachi knocked at the door.
"Hello?" Naruto asked after opening the door casually, looking quite innocent and vulnerable.
"Trap," Itachi called out to his partner.
Kisame snapped his mouth closed even as he reached for the wrapped up sword on his back as Naruto clones poofed out of their transformation as light sconces and vases on a table. "Get 'em!" the clones shouted.
Itachi stabbed out fast at the boy in front of him, cutting arm and revealing a dark-haired boy. "Sasuke?" He grabbed his younger brother as he started to charge up some form of electrical attack, tossing him right through a wall.
The shark-man lashed out with his sword, popping two clone, but six avoided the attack and then threw kunai at him. "Sheesh, I'm definitely going to cut off this nuisance's legs," Kisame groused even as his huge, wrapped sword deflected the kunai into random directions.
The older Uchiha kept an eye on his brother even as he tried to determine which of these was the real one. It was only the supernatural sight picking up movement on a brass fitting in the hallway that allowed him to spot a kunai coming from what appeared to be the empty room that Sasuke had come from. His senses screaming danger, he replaced himself with the brass light fixture.
It disintegrated in a blizzard of brass shavings as Sheila finished her Flying Thundergod technique. "What?" she asked in shock, not able to believe she actually missed hitting him from behind and ambush. Her head raised up slightly to look around, catching two red eyes with spinning blades in them in her too perfect vision.
"Tsukuyomi," Itachi said as he activated his eye-bloodline technique.
Sheila could feel the genjitsu activating, even as she struggled to build up her chakra and release it, but everything disappeared and she appeared in a negative, black and white world under a blasted red sky. She struggled against the cross she was bound to with ropes, narrowing her eyes
"You are too dangerous to live," Itachi declared. "I don't know how you can figured out that technique, but it dies with you. For the next 72 hours, you will experience unending death." And with that, the many clones of Itachi started to stab her over and over with many katana.
"Ergh," she tried to scream out as ten Itachi clones ran her through.
The scene reset under the red sky, leaving her surrounded by the many figures of Itach Uchiha.
"Seventy-one hours and fifty-nine minutes left," he said after.
"Obviously, this is a purely mental damage," Sheila said as she gritted her teeth. The pain was much more than she knew she could personally withstand physically. She screamed in agony as she was impaled and stabbed again.
"Seventy-one hours and fifty-eight minutes left," Itachi said in his flat way.
"You know, a katana is a poor stabbing weapon," she noted, just before the many figures stabbed her again, causing her to scream in agony.
Again and again.
In the real world, Sheila collapsed to one knee. "What- is- that Sharingan?" After the first day of dying, she had nearly shut off, but stubbornly resisted. After the second day, she thought she would go mad. And on the third day, she was sure she had gone mad.
Kisame frowned. "Another person that survived your eyes, Itachi. Is it weakening?"
"That should have killed any chunin," the traitor said with narrowed eyes.
The chirping of birds came from the whole that Sasuke had been thrown through as he came out like a blazing lightning bolt, nearly clipping Itachi. "I've lived only to hate you!" the younger sibling shouted as he struck.
Back in Konoha in a ready room, the real Sheila sagged sideways and then collapsed on the ground. "What- is- that Sharingan?" she muttered as her cheek lay on the ground.
"Sheila!" Naruto shouted out. "What happened to her?"
"She must have gotten hit by that same genjitsu that Kakashi is in the hospital with. We'll have to hope that Jiraiya can deal with the attackers himself," Inoichi said as he clenched his fist.
"No way," the real Naruto shouted. "I can get us... well, some of us there!"
Kurenai and Asuma shared a quick look.
"Take the jonin. And come back immediately. That's an order," Sarutobi said in a hard tone.
"I'll come back with Sheila, Sasuke and Pervert Sage for sure!" he promised even as he he had the three jonin put their hands upon his shoulder and then instantly teleported into the battle even as the Hokage called for medic ninja to take Sheila to the hospital.
"You don't have enough hate yet," Itachi was saying, only to look up in surprise at the arrival of the four new people as they charged out of the room. He let the broken form of Sasuke drop to the ground.
"That enough out of you," boomed a big voice. "You didn't really think that girl would distract me, did you?" Jiraiya stood at the end of the hall, while the three jonin and Naruto stood in the other way.
"What the hell? How did they get here!" Kisame asked in frustration as he readied his Samehada for a battle.
"Flying Thundergod technique, Naruto style!" the self-proclaimed next hokage called out.
"Kisame, we need to retreat from here now," Itachi ordered. "There's no way we can defeat three jonin and Jiraiya of the Sannin."
The two members of Akatsuki suddenly split up, smashing through two walls in opposite directions even as they both used two techniques. Itachi's left eye spat black flame behind him even as Kisame unleashed a huge barrier of water and fled.
"Naruto, I need you to take Sasuke and Sheila back to Konoha," the Sannin called out. "The four of us are going to chase after them a while. They are too wily to be caught, but it will force them to run further."
"Okay, Pervert Sage. You'll keep my kunai with a seal on it so I can catch up to you tomorrow?" Naruto asked.
"Yup! You still need to learn that cool technique, huh?"
Asuma, Kurenai and Inoichi all shared a measured look.
"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" Maito Gai shouted out as he blitzed into the hall and punched Jiraiya in the face, knocking him back. "Don't worry, friends, with our youth and passion, we can defeat these scoundrels easily!"
"Maito... that's Jiraiya," Kurenai said in a pained tone of voice.
"Really?"
"Yes," Inochi remarked.
Gai looked sheepish. "Oops."
Sheila swam to wakefulness painfully and tried to blink. She seemed to be shackled down somehow.
"Don't bother. It took quite a bit of effort to discover you were behind my recent... setbacks. Removed from all ninja duties, my rank as jonin revoked and all my plans in ruin." The deep voice lacked any anger, but that could just be a carefully controlled persona. "I have had my ROOT removed from my control. ANBU and the Hokage's Torture and Investigation are enrolling them into his own ranks. Like Hiruzen has ever had the stomach to make the hard choices."
"What are you doing?" Sheila asked the man as she tried to sort out the feelings in her eyes. It took her a moment to realize her eyes were gone.
"I am going to rebuild. And you will be the first seed to replant my ROOT. Konoha can not survive in this world without my hand guiding destiny from the shadows," the man said. "I will break you down and rebuild you into a true kunoich; without the flaws of emotions and with my purpose to guide you."
"You think merely taking my eyes will force me to join you?" she asked incredulously.
"No, it is merely the first step. I will keep them upon myself at all times. If you escape... I will destroy them. A blind ninja is worthless." With that, he shuffled out of the room, the sound of his cane tapping across the floor before the door closed behind it.
Sheila bent her legend to continue listening, hearing him move down the hallway and about fifty fee away he started to move up the stairs. She tried to sit up in the bed, only to discover that she was tied down with heavy shackles. She might be able to break free with great effort, but she was not her Uncle Hercules. So she needed to fight smarter, not harder.
She shifted her mind to her other body in her shadow-seal and sat up in the bed at the hospital. She looked over at another Sheila laying unconscious. Probably one of the old man's clones transformed. Most people would not catch it for a while. Sheila tried to sneak out of the bed without making a nose, but rustled the cloth and had to stop.
That was actually pretty smart of him, even if he didn't know that she was one mind in two bodies. Which was why she had not tried to double team Neji constantly in the finals. At least her clone actually still had its eyes. Listening carefully, she overhead several medics moving around. It appeared they did not think she, Sasuke and Kakashi would recover any time soon. Especially considering they had all both been in a coma for days.
The mysterious person that had kidnapped her would probably return to her real body to start trying to brainwash her or something. But he had her eyes...
Concentrating, she created a temporary beacon for the space-time technique. If she could not capture the man and recover her eyes, she would have to come back here and pretend to be in a coma still. She created a shadow clone silently under the covers and then disappeared to appear next to her real body and her Flying Thundergod Seal upon her ankle.
She blinked as she took in the heavy shackles and chakra-suppression seals upon her body. "Damn that- Urghk?" Suddenly, she could not speak as her tongue's muscles seized up. She checked her real body's tongue, finding a silence seal. She could break it, but better not quite yet.
The clone immediately started to check the area out out, finding it was a very small hidden base only six rooms, probably underground in Konoha. It looked very private, which would probably explain why the Hokage had missed it. She almost whistled as she saw the jars of eyes, they narrowed her eyes in as she took in the red eyes with two or three tomoe everywhere. Sharingan.
She had studied how to transplant eyes, but this was only going to be temporary as she liked her own eyes perfectly fine, thank you. If she could pull it off with these preserved abominations... And Sasuke would probably be pissed as hell. She quickly gathered all but one pare of eyes that had three tomoe and quickly sealed them away in a scroll from a cabinet. Then she took the last pair of eyes and quickly moved to her real body and checked the eye-holes for boobytraps.
This jerk must have decided that the silence seal was enough. Her hands glowed green, even as their stomach rumbled from hunger. She would have to grab some food and soldier pills.
Danzo awoke the next morning and prepared for his day. He covered the abomination of his Sharingan eye and almost useless wooden arm. If only he could have gotten that medical treatment from Orochimaru or his lackey. But that was water under the bridge.
It was time to start breaking in his new, BLACK ROOT as he was already thinking of her. She was a very remarkable specimen and even better, Sarutobi would have no idea that she was turned. He walked down the hidden passageway in his basement and through several quarters of the underground city. Few people realized that there even existed an under-Konoha. His chakra was the only thing that could open this door.
He frowned for just a second as he thought he had caught a minor scent, but continued on... cautiously. He opened his private interrogation room, seeing the figure laying there with empty eyes. "Are you ready to begin, child? When I am done with you, you will be truly powerful-"
He barely dodged the lethal cut at his neck as a Sheila with red eyes sliced at it with a kunai. She came back with another swing that he had to block with his wooden arm. It severed it at the forearm.
"Damn you. How dare you?" Danzo declared with a one-eyed glare. So he was surprised when a kunai flickered past him and he saw a flash.
"Got it!" the clone Sheila called out as she snagged the glass, medical container with her eyes in it from his robes. "And not damaged at all."
"I warned you of consequences," the old man with the cross-shaped scar on his cheek. He made a one-handed seal and the ten-feet of space-time around the eyes and the Sheila clone imploded.
Sheila felt herself die within the reversed Four Trigram Seal. Her hands were already going through hand gestures to unleash the storm technique when she felt something invading her mind.
"Calm down. I can recover your eyes-" the old warhorse of Konoha tried to say, desperately attempting to salvage the situation.
"Actually, I know you are lying," she cut him off as her eyes blocked the genjitsu. "My clone just exploded with my eyes. You are dead, bastard." Curving beams of light hacked into Danzo even as he desperately tried to dodge. Her hands went through a different double technique and unleashed a blizzard of ice within a small area.
A man who had once been the second choice for the third hokage died raging against his fate, frozen in the middle of a massive ice crystal. Sheila stared at him with her replacement eyes and then turned away. Walking out the door, she slammed her fist against the wall, cracking it.
"Chunin Sheila requesting an audience with the hokage," she said just an hour later in the anteroom of the Hokage's office. She was back in uniform with her chunin flack vest over her very basic black and white leaf-pattern outfit that had only changed slightly from what she had worn at the academy. The addition of a high-necked T-shirt to the gi covered up the many seals imprinted upon her body.
"The hokage is quite busy unless this is a matter of importance?" the older chunin said with a grin. She frowned as as he realized that Sheila had her eyes closed. "Is there a problem?"
"It's not an emergency, but I would like to report a kidnapping and the death of the kidnapper," she replied flatly.
"Well, deaths usually get his attention." She walked into the office and then returned in just a minute. "He'll see you now."
Sarutobi stared at the girl as she walked into the room with her eyes closed. "It's good to see you up and about. I actually had not heard that you had been released from the hospital. And what is this matter of a kidnapping and death?"
"I wasn't released, I was kidnapped from the hospital. Probably a day or so ago by a shinobi that was complaining that you took his 'ROOT' away. He removed my eyes and was starting to work on brainwashing me into loyalty to himself," she began to explain the story.
The Third Hokage's face became more grim as she continued. "This accusation is very serious. Unfortunately, I can see Danzo believing that he was above my decree for him to retire."
"Well, I guess I retired him permanently. Kakashi and Sasuke are both still in a coma?" she asked.
"Yes. So you have two Sharingan..." Sarutobi frowned at that. "Why did you implant them into you?"
"So I wasn't at a disadvantage when I confronted him. These eyes... are just about worthless. I can use them, but without being able to turn them off, I'm effectively blind unless I can figure out how the Uchiha can deactivate them. And I suspect that it isn't that easy, otherwise Kakashi would have done that already." The blind girl frowned, very upset. "I need to let them fully heal into place anyways." She would have to start making it a priority to actually learning how to heal faster with her ichor.
"I'm putting you on medical leave for now. I've sent for one of my students and she might be able to help," the Hokage explained as he leaned from in his chair, studying her. "I'll need you to lead two ANBU to take possession of Danzo's body. Can you lead them to him even blind as you are?"
"Easily enough," she said with a shrug.
"Rooster, hawk; go with her."
The two ANBU appeared with a poof of smoke.
"Just put your hands upon my shoulder and we'll be there in a flash." Once she felt their hands on her shoulder she transported them to a seal she had made under the bed in that base under Konoha. "He should be over there," she said, pointing towards the blisteringly cold to her left.
"Very well. You should head home or to the hospital," Hawk ordered even as he moved over to the huge block of ice that encased the very dead form of Danzo.
"Fine." With another handseal, she appeared back in her room where a nurse was shouting.
"One of our patients bodies has disappeared and you want to hide it?" the young man snapped out to the head medic ninja as they stood next to an empty bed.
"Hmm. I'll have to mention that to the Hokage. He might want to know if you are covering up for Danzo," Sheila said as she turned towards the other half of the room. "I doubt he was able to remove my eyes himself, which means he had to have a skilled medic do it for him."
"That's an absurd accusation," the medic ninja bluffed. "You probably just left on your own. And to accuse Danzo of such actions... you are obviously too young to remember the great things he did in the last Great Ninja War."
"Considering I killed Danzo... yes, I do dare to accuse him," she replied casually as she dispelled her own shadow clone that had been lying here. "I bet you were the one in charge. The Hokage-"
She heard the rustle as the medic charged her, snapping her eyes open. The older medic ninja had green-glowing chakra scalpels out as he lashed out in a lethal attack. But with the Sharingan, she could see where he was going to move and dodged with superhuman ability.
"Sharingan?" the old man with gray hair blurted out.
"Well, Danzo had stolen my eyes. So I had to improvise." She blitzed in between his attacks, her new eyes letting her see where he would attack. She then put everything into a very heavy rabbit punch that folded the medic over. "I'm sure the Hokage will want to speak to you. Well, probably his Torture and Investigation... but that's how things fall."
"I, uh, think I'll go get the ANBU," the assistant said as he quickly ran off.
"Thanks for thinking of the patient and not just assuming I had run off," she called out with a smile, even as she closed her eyes and sat back on her bed. It was going to be a long day.
It was a week later when Naruto started banging on her apartment's door early in the morning. "Sheila! Sheila!"
She opened the door, peeking her eyes for just a second. "Yes? Back already?"
"I need your help! Tsunade and Jiraiya are being attacked by Orochimaru and that Kabuto guy!" He reached forward and grabbed her even as his other hand made a hand-seal and transported him to a battlefield.
Sheila opened her mouth to berate him and then shrugged. She needed to vent some frustration anyway. She took in the form of Jiraiya on the top of Gambuta facing off against Orochimaru on top of his boss snake, Manda. There were two unknown ninja fighting against Kabuto, though the older woman appeared to be in shock and blood-splattered, kneeling on the ground. Strangely, the blood was not hers.
"Oh, so that's where that clone went to," Kabuto said from over the body of a Naruto that was bleeding heavily.
"Stabbed through the heart?" the girl asked through her slightly-slitted eyes. "Well, we can't have that."
"Oh, and what are you going to do?" the traitor medic-ninja asked.
"Heal him, of course." In fact, she had already turned his most grievous wounds into merely life threatening ones. "Now its time to kill a traitor." She opened her eyes fully so that the three tomoe were plainly visible. A kunai appeared in her hands. "Damn, I should have told Naruto after the exams that you were Orochimaru's spymaster in Konoha." She flew over the ground, passing the dark-haired woman laying on the ground.
"Watch out, he uses chakra scalpels," Shizune called out even as she continued to heal her cuts. She blinked as her wounds suddenly became just bruises instead of cut ligaments. "What?"
Sheila skidded across the ground to move into position, flinging her kunai as hard as possible at Kabuto and then back-peddling as fast as possible to avoid the swiping green chakra-scalpels. "Hmm. It's probably a good thing I have these eyes right now."
Manda screamed in agony as the kunai hit him like a cannon ball, distracting him just as Gambuta sliced out at him. The boss snake dove below the ground even as Orochimaru frowned at her as he leaped free. "That girl again. Kabuto, if you fail to kill her I will make you regret it dearly." He then ducked a Rasengan from Jiraiya.
"Only good for taking on little girls, eh?" the Toad Sage asked with a smirk on his face.
"I will have her secrets. And her having those eyes... that's a wonderful turn of events," the golden-eyed Sannin with a smirk.
"You know... I don't really get that title. Three Ninja. Are you sure you guys weren't name because someone yelled out, 'Get those damned three ninja!'?" Sheila quipped, feeling more alive as she kept barely ahead of Kabuto.
"Well, if you can make jokes, I guess I can't hold back as much," the traitor said, glinting the sun off of his glasses. He slashed out easily twice as face, only to blink as he chakra scalpels only sliced the top of her skin just a little bit.
"Hmm. Those are awfully sharp." Gold flowed across Sheila's skin again, turning her into a living statue of gold again. She then made a hand-sign and ten clones appeared as she spent her chakra miserly. She had not fully recovered from trying to figure out a way to turn off the Sharingans.
"Shadow clones. Never as good at the original," Kabuto noted as he lashed out at two clones with his scalpels. So he was quite surprised when they did not pop and had to roll with one of their punches that nearly took his head off. "Not even scratched?"
Sheila frowned as she realized she was nearly at the end of her legend, feeling tapped out... ordinary. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woman with a diamond mark on her forehead finally moved to desperately heal the real Naruto as his clone watched on anxiously. Gambuta was being squeezed to death by Manda even as Jiraiya and Orochimaru dueled with earth techniques that were tearing up the ground in large swaths. Shizune dashed back over to help fight Kabuto.
Sheila then zipped over to the 'short' katana of thirty-five feet that the toad had dropped, probably weighing over ten tons of steel and wood. She leaped up along the blade and kicked out with a massive burst of chakra, something she rarely did. The gigantic blade was kicked into the air and then she threw it with all her might. Being much lighter weight than the katana, she went one direction one way very fast while the sword landed in Gambatu's out stretched hand, barely moved fifty feet.
The boss toad then grinned. "Can't duck under ground now, can you?" He swiped at the snake, cutting it severely.
Manda hissed in vexation, ignoring a kunai that bounced off his head. At least he did until a figure appeared to snatch the spinning blade out of the air. "Hi, Orichimaru's lackey summon!" the golden figure called out, even as she gathered the last bit of chakra left in her rapidly dwindling supply and punched the snake on the crown of its head.
With a poof, the snake disappeared, even as Sheila had to close her eyes. She was cursing the Sharingan the entire time. "So, big guy? Can you help run off Orochimaru and his apprentice?" She hissed as she felt the cursed seal trying to expand on her neck. So when she felt the toad summon disappear, she almost swore quite loudly.
"Those eyes... those techniques... come to me when you want power," Orochimaru said from right behind her. His punch to the back of her head stunned her quite severely.
Her figure sent off glints of light as she pinwheeled through the air to plow through trees. "Ooph. Like I'd want to deal with a loser mortal like you."
"Loser mortal? Ah, you don't know. I'm perfect... immortal... all I require is a new body every few years," the snake sannin said as he dashed across the ground, dodging a Rasengan that slammed into the ground where he had stood.
"Come back here, you snake!" Jiraiya snapped out as he dashed after his old team mate.
"Oh, so you are a loser undead body-stealing abomination. That's so much better," she said woozily as she staggered back up to her feet as her sheath of golden armor dribbled off her like magical water. "And I can't believe I called you a stupid mortal. That curse seal must be messing with my head. And I feel really weak and light-headed. Isn't that a sign of severe chakra depletion?"
"You wouldn't be able to stand up at all," the younger woman Shizune said as she pushed the twelve-year old girl back down as Tsunade nearly took off Orochimaru's head with a punch.
"Kukukukuku... I guess it is time to leave. Tsunade is actually functional again. And even I can't handle both of the other Sannin," the traitor said with an inane smile upon his face. His apprentice Kabuto was already gone. With that, he dove into the ground.
"No!" Sheila shouted, leaping to where he had gone to ground, slamming her fist down with over a three thousand pounds of force and made a very small crater. She cracked open her eyes for a second and felt a horrible drain.
"Kid, you need to relax," Tsunade said with a pat on the girl's shoulder.
"Haveta- beats'em-failureno-mother-" the girl started to mumble as she trembled with her fist implanted in the ground. Her eyes suddenly rolled up into her head and she face-planted into the ground.
Tsunade blinked and had her turned over, quickly closing her eyes. A quick medical technique to scan her vitals and she was frantically patting her outfit. "Soldier pills. At least three. Now."
"Three? That's nearly a lethal dosage. And we don't know if she's used any recently-" her young apprentice said in shock.
"She's already dying, this just might save her life." The slug sannin had found her stash of soldier pills and quickly crushed three of them into Sheila's mouth and forced her to swallow.
"Granny? Is she going to be all right?" the revived Naruto asked.
"I'd give her a 50-50 chance if we were in Konoha, but here her chances are less than ten percent-"
Naruto looked uncommonly serious as he put his hand on her shoulder and activated his own version of the space-time technique appearing back in his apartment where two clones were arguing over a new seal. "Come on, Granny! The hospital is just down the road! I'm not going to let my team mate die! No matter what!"
Tsunade Senju, prodigal daughter of Konoha, turned and picked up the dying girl and smashed out the window in her haste. A quick glance instantly told her where she was and with a ninety-degree turn was rushing towards the hospital with a speed that few jonin could hope to match. The door to the hospital smashed open.
"Emergency triage for a kunoichi that has severe levels of chakra exhaustion," she shouted out in a commanding tone that got everyone following her order.
The Third Hokage stepped into the hospital just as his old student was walking to the door. "Tsunade. Naruto." He studied them for a long moment. "Walk with me."
"Hey, Old Man! Do you think Sheila will be all right? And why does she have those types of eyes?" the young blonde boy asked.
"She was kidnapped by Danzo. He was planning on brainwashing her and the first step of doing that, he removed her eyes," the Hokage explained as he led them back to the Hokage's tower. "How is the girl?"
"She'll live. I don't know how anyone that chakra-depleted could survive, but her body is dealing with the soldier pill's toxicity better than I thought possible." Tsunade was a bit apprehensive. She had been hoping to skip town before her old teacher could catch up to her.
"She's been trying to figure out how to 'deactivate' the Sharingan eyes she was forced to implant them. This is actually the second time in the last few days she's been treated for chakra exhaustion," Hiruzen explained as they walked.
A rat-masked ANBU opened the door ahead of them, letting them into the administration building.
Naruto was looking down as he followed them up the stairs to the Hokage's office. "I caused this, didn't I? I mean, I didn't ask, I just grabbed her to help save Granny here."
"And she saved your life," the Slug Sannin noted with a grin down to the young blond. "Old Man, what aren't you telling me?"
"Quite a bit, actually." He sat down behind his mostly cleared off desk. "There are secrets she has that only the Hokage can know." Naruto plopped down in a seat across from him, shifting his chunin jacket.
She glared down at the old, shrunken man. "You are not seriously trying to bribe me into your job, are you?"
"Of course not. I intend to ask you to take the position of Hokage because Konoha needs you. If it helps you make that decision... well hinting at mysterious things doesn't hurt either. And Sheila has many secrets." He gave her a wintry grin. "It is good to see you. I was afraid that I would only see you in the next life."
The old woman couldn't answer for a long time as she bit her lip while trying to suppress her emotions. "I didn't think I could come back, but Naruto is very convincing. And says he's actually part of my old clan. I thought there was only a single family left. And their names are not Uzumaki."
"Through Whirlpool, of course. The relation is tenuous and through the First Hokage. I believe he's your second cousin twice-removed." Hiruzen just let himself enjoy meeting his old student.
"Well, I still don't think I'm the best for your job," she tried to argue.
"Tsunade... princess... Orochimaru nearly killed me. If not for two genin I don't know if I would be here. Trapped in a barrier with my murderous student and two resurrected Hokages, even I don't think I could have won without sacrificing myself to a Shinigami to bind their souls. I retired over twelve years ago because I was no longer the strongest of Konoha. And your village needs you, princess." His voice was gentle, even as he could see the metaphorical barbs striking home. "Who is going to stop Orochimaru next time? Minato was supposed to be my successor after-"
"The Fourth Hokage..." Naruto suddenly said. "Who was he? And why is Jiraiya teaching me all of his special techniques?" Even Naruto had heard the rumors that had come from summoning toads and using the Flying Thundergod.
"I was going to wait until you got back and could settle in, but I guess this is as good a time as any. He was your father, of course." Hiruzen Sarutobi chuckled at Naruto's comical face. "The Rock came to Konoha to find the Fourth's child, thinking it was Sheila and tried to get through you, the real heir."
"But I don't look- I-" Naruto's mind was almost blank as he tried to process that. "Why would he do that to me?"
Tsunade actually knew the answer. "Who would you trust the most? It is your family, Naruto. He put his faith in you, Naruto, that you would protect his Konoha."
"This is fairly common among the leaders of the villages. Gaara was the son of the Kazekage. It is rumored that the Raikage's brother is a demon container. But that does not keep it from being a hated position. The Tailed Demons... despair and death follow in their tracks. And few people can see the jailer for that," the Third Hokage said. He then turned to look at his old student. "Tsunade, why don't you visit Hojo's family. Maybe see if you can learn your grandfather's wood technique. I mean, if Naruto could learn it and pass it on to the rest of your family..."
That was very tempting, she had to admit. "Fine. I'll stick around for now," she finally said.
Sheila awoke, the scent of hospital detergents and chemicals filling her nose. "Huh..."
"Well, at least you recover quickly. Only one day and you are somewhat better," the voice of Tsunade said to her. "I guess Naruto was right when he said you healed nearly as fast as a demon container. Some sort of regeneration bloodline?"
"Um, who are you? Other than that lady who was with Naruto and fighting against Orochimaru?" the chunin asked as she touched the heavy bandages over her eyes. That was probably for the better, though moving around without her eyes was going to be hard.
"I'm Tsunade the Sannin. And possibly I may become the Fifth Hokage, though that has not been decided yet." The old woman studied her carefully, noting that she seemed very aware of the area.
"And Naruto, since I can smell him," the girl noted from her bed.
"Yes, and Naruto. I really should have sent him home, but he wanted to stay here and check on you and your other teammate."
"How is Sasuke?" Sheila asked as she sat up.
"He's resting since I freed him and Kakashi from the mental ravages of that Sharingan genjitsu. Which you seemed to shrug off quite well," the sannin noted wryly.
Sheila slipped out of bed, but was stopped from doing anything else by the medic.
"You shouldn't be out of bed. I'm not even sure how you are alive," the older woman said as she reached out and grabbed the girl. How could she even move?
"As long as Naruto doesn't drag me off to any S-Rank fights, I should be fine. I have information that I have to give to Sasuke as quickly as possible." She tilted her head. "Is he still in room 203?"
"Yes, he has not been released or moved yet," Tsunade noted.
Sheila's toe poked out and hit Naruto's knee, forcing it to kick out and making him fall from his precarious perch. Then she went over to the cabinet and grabbed a few scrolls by touch.
"Hey! What was that for? Oh, Sheila! You're up! Huh? I thought you were going to be out for days?" He started to look around frantically to see what was going on. "Oh, Granny! Is it all right for her to be moving?"
"She hasn't fallen on her face yet, so I'll let her talk to the Uchiha brat," the woman said impishly.
Sheila tilted her head at that, hearing the smile. With her own shrug she walked out the door and headed down the hall and then around the corner with her hand trailing lightly on the wall.
Naruto was frowning as he tried to figure out how she could move around that easily. Tsunade nodded as she saw her moving her head slightly as if listening intently and making her her toe was always in front as she stepped.
Knocking on the door, she opened it when the disgruntled voice answered with, "Come in."
"So she was able to remove that neurological stress damage? Oh, hello Kakashi." Sheila smiled wanly at them both.
"What happened to your eyes?" their old jonin master asked.
"Kidnapped and had someone rip them out to hold as ransom so he could start brainwashing me." Sheila sat down in a seat (fumbling slightly) and then gripped the chair's arms tightly. "It appears he was a big fan of stealing eyes. He had over a dozen Sharingan."
"What!" Sasuke all but shouted from his bed as he sat up.
"I stole them from him. And killed him, but not before he made good on his threat to destroy my natural eyes. Just another failure on my part," she said morosely, the chair creaking in her grasp.
"That's... not good," Kakashi admitted from his own bed
"I planned for the worst, but I'm still mostly crippled, even with the two Sharingans I implanted-"
"So you stole my clan's eyes-" Sasuke snapped out, immediately putting her in that bracket of thieves.
"If you would just shut up a second? I can't use them because I can't turn them off. It's nearly killed me once and let Orochimaru escape. Again." The chair shattered in her grasp and with a violent motion she stood up, turned and then kicked the chair (or what remained of it) right through the window. "Engh." She wanted to shout, to scream. So when Tsunade's hand grabbed her she tried to push it off. "Let me go, please. I haven't finished failing today."
Tsunade stared at her for a long moment. "No more violent actions or I'll sedate you myself." She then released the girl while wondering at her abnormal strength even in her weakened state.
"You might as well be the one to finish my career. I have to be the most useless kunoichi and daughter ever. All this power and I can't really succeed at anything important." She bit her thumb and slid her blood along a small seal on her forearm, grabbing the unsealed kunai. "I'm only deluding myself that I can continue on with these stupid eyes," she said hoarsely as she ripped off the tear-soaked bandages, revealing the whirling Sharingan.
She pressed the blade into his hand. Sasuke just looked at it numbly. "What?"
"I can't- I just can't keep these eyes and mine are gone. What sort of heroine loses her eyes?" she babbled. "So cut them out! They're useless anyways!"
"Stop it!" Naruto shouted. "You aren't useless! You're the one that we've been trying to catch up to. We'll figure out a way to help you." Tears had gathered at the edge of his eyes even as he clenched his hands into fists.
Sasuke raised up the kunai for a long moment, then gripped it tightly. "No, it isn't that easy. You took those eyes... so you have to earn them," the dark-haired boy said finally, then threw the kunai into the wall. "Damaged eyes can get stuck, but there is a trick that the Uchiha have for helping a stuck Sharingan."
Sheila collapsed to her knees, covering her red eyes with her hands. "I should be better than this. I'm supposed to be able to do miracles that are beyond- And I can't even figure these stupid eyes out." She started to sniffle and then sob.
"I think that's enough," Tsunade said. "Sasuke Uchiha, those eyes are a clan matter, but I think your teammate really needs you."
"I said I would help her, but I need to read some scrolls." He sent a furtive look at his old teacher. "I don't know that it will help you, since you've had your eye so long. And she has to become Uchiha." That would be weird.
The jonin gave him a little wave as if to say it was no big deal. "Unlike her, I still have one of my original eyes."
The sannin picked up the girl and then ran her hand with a glowing-green medic technique over her eyes again while also checking her chakra levels. "These are fully healed. They did nice work if you can see perfectly fine with them."
"I did it. Well, a shadow clone did it," Sheila said with a sniffle.
"Oh? Who taught you?" she asked curiously.
"I read a little bit in a scroll." And was about three years into her medical degree back in that far off past, she thought morosely.
"That's impossible," Tsunade said softly.
"Ha! You don't know her! She figured out how to mix chakra and single-handed seals to make bloodlines in like one day!" Naruto exclaimed.
The woman whom would become hokage blinked at the, then down at the girl with her eyes closed. "Really?" she asked.
"I'm supposed to do impossible things. That's my bloodline," she said with a sniffle. "I just suck at it."
Tsunade looked over the gathered jonin and chunin, the presence of her old mentor at her side. "So I declare here, on top of the Hokage Tower, that I am the Fifth Hokage!"
Konoha and the busts of the Hokages were visible behind her in the cliffside. The Third Hokage's teammates were both there, as was the highest ranking jonin, Shikaku Nara. While not the most powerful (that was a dubious debate between Kakashi Hatake and Maito Gai) he was considered the smartest.
"There are matters that I need to pass on to our new hokage. So if I may steal her away for a bit?" the old man called out to the gathered officers and leaders of Konoha's ninja.
Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane both tried to follow, but a firm shake of Tsunade's head and they left for their homes.
"All right, Professor, dazzle me with your secrets," the slightly younger woman said to the Third Hokage.
"It all started with a prank from Naruto. He had distracted me while I worked on one of my summoning contracts. So instead of summoning an owl... I summoned a girl from the far past," he explained as he sat on the opposite side of his old desk.
"If you said far past, you must mean it," Tsunade noted as she set the Hokage's hat to the side.
"Indeed. I figure her from being at least a thousand years in the past and before the Sage of Six Paths. In fact, she may even predate the Ten Tailed Beast that was sent to shatter civilization." Hiruzen had been thinking long and hard over that point. Who had sent it and why? "I thought she was merely from a far off place, but did not recognize her country."
"So she's an ancient, hmm? Yet that doesn't seem nearly enough. You want me to figure something out again?" she asked, discerning that he was testing her.
"No, this is not something like that. She's only half-human. And with her abilities, I have a hard time not believing her words when she declared she's the daughter of a goddess. Tsunade," he said to the suddenly disbelieving woman, "She figured out how to merge two chakra-types together to duplicate bloodlines after seeing an enemy ninja use a one-handed seal... once. She figured out the Fourth's prize space-time technique in her bid to figure out how to go back to her lands and stole an enemies tailed demon while uncovering a treacherous attack."
"And she considers herself a failure?" the Fifth Hokage asked with a shake of her head.
"If your mother was a goddess?" Hiruzen let that sink in.
"Well, right now she is one of my ninja. Let's turn to other matters. Orochimaru and our other enemies.."
Sasuke nodded as he let his own Sharingan lapse to just normal, black eyes. Just like his family's scrolls had suggested, he had finally deactivated her 'stuck' Sharingan. "That took a lot out of me," he said while panting where he knelt on a tatami mat in his family residence.
"I think your eye is developing its third tomoe under that strain," Sheila replied as she activated and deactivated her uncovered (and unstuck) left eye. Her right eye was still covered up. "Huh, that's like... hard to describe. Like trying to get your chakra to go sideways in the eye." She tried to replicate that feeling in other eye, feeling a heavy strain. Then she tried to reverse it.
"So those eyes are really hard to fix or use?" Naruto asked curiously. He had invited himself along and somehow overcome any objection that Sasuke had come up with.
"Yes. Many bloodlines have severe penalties or are hard to activate. Over half of the Uchiha could not even use their eyes, though those that did were generally at least chunin or jonin in rank. My father and mother were both jonin in rank," Sasuke said in pride.
"Got it," she said. "That is really funky feeling." She uncovered both of her eyes that were now solid black.
"That looks really odd on you," the other blond said. "You look funny without blue eyes."
"They were blue-green." She then grinned impishly as she waved her hand over eyes, swishing them blue-green again. "And they are again."
Sasuke activated his own Sharingan, trying to pierce the genjitsu. "That's not an illusion."
"Oh, good. I can still boost my eyes normally. I was afraid they wouldn't work like they used to." Of course, the blood flowing through them had her ichor within it. She zoomed in on bird sitting in a tree over five hundred feet away, admiring its eyes and plumage.
"Naruto, we have clan business to deal with," the pale dark-haired boy stated. "So could you please take yourself somewhere else?"
"Your brother, Itachi Uchiha? He's after Naruto because of the Nine Tailed Demon. So he is already involved," Sheila noted in a dry tone. "I have the One Tail that I stole from Gaara, though I hear he was actually happy to lose it." He and Temari had been sent back to the Village Hidden within the Sand a few days ago.
"Yeah, Akatsuki. Jiraiya tried to laugh it off, but he slipped that they are a group of S-Rank ninja that are after the tailed demons," Naruto explained as he waved his arms wildly.
"And Itachi is a member. Which means he has his own team." Sheila frowned at that. "And that shurikan-eye Sharingan... he beat Kakashi with it." She clenched her hand tight at that, as she realized that her old teacher was still above her and he had been taken out so easily.
"This doesn't get told to anyone outside this room, understood?" the last, loyal Uchiha said to both of his teammates. "You can evolve the Sharingan to a more powerful form, but there is cost. You have to murder your closest friend to do it."
"WHAT!" Naruto screamed out almost comically while pointing at Sasuke.
"That sounds like a paradox. If they are your closest friend... that is the sort that you would die for, not murder. I would suspect its the highly charged emotional conflict at a chemical level. Unless there is an actual magical ritual you are doing?" the demigoddess asked curiously.
"Idiot. I'm trusting you with a big secret. And no, it's just the act of murdering your best friend that activates the Mangekyo Sharingan. Unless you think you can activate it some other way?" the intense young Uchiha almost demanded.
"Activate it on myself? Probably not... Kakashi?" the moment that both Sasuke and Naruto looked away, Sheila's hands flew through a series of hand-seals then met Sasuke's eyes as he turned back.
"Hey, I didn't see Kakashi out there," Naruto complained as he turned back.
Sheila raised her hand in the gesture for silence, even as Sasuke suffered through an illusionary, sudden attack of two Rock Ninja. One was an unknown (and rather bland creation) while Sheila used her knowledge of Kurotsuchi from the Chunin exam. She was sweating hard as she kept up the illusion while tricking Sasuke into thinking his Sharingan had already activated. That took a little trickery in showing things in black and white with seeing the flows of chakra through them as Sasuke thought he was learning techniques as she fought a battle entirely in his head.
As it was not a stretch of imagination for him to believe that his two friends could be defeated, Sasuke suddenly found himself confronted with a horrible situation after a brutal and short fight.
"We can only take one," the fake Kurotsuchi said to her compatriot. Her eyes turned to the battered figure laying on the ground. "Which one lives, boy? Choose and we'll kidnap them. The other, well if you are quick you might be able to stop their bleeding out."
"What? You bastards!" Sasuke shouted out as best as he could, trying to struggle to his feet. "Don't you hurt her!"
"Her? I guess that's your choice," the nameless Stone jonin said as he grabbed the unconscious form of Naruto. Blood was seeping through his blond hair.
"No! You don't have to do this! That idiot doesn't deserve to die," the last Uchiha called out even as his Sharingan faded to normal sight.
Kuotsuchi smiled, then casually slit the illusionary Sheila's throat. "She was more dangerous anyways, if she was the one teaching you two how to merge elements."
"No! NO!" Sasuke yelled as his Sharingan whirled to life as he...
...broke the genjitsu by activating his 'perfect' Sharingan, the three tomoe swirling into blades.
"That actually worked. How cool," Sheila said brightly.
"What was that?" Naruto asked. "He just stared into space for a long time."
"I put him in an illusion where he had to choose to kill one of us to force him to activate his Mangekyo Sharinga, which he did."
Sasuke was staring at his her in shock. "You- BITCH! You made me think I killed you!"
"Uh... Oops-!"
The last Uchiha fueled his rage and chakra into his punch, reading with his activated blood-line where she would try to dodge. His hit sent her tumbling. "I don't know whether to thank you or try to kill you," he snarled. "I have the power to kill my brother now. And now I'm going to lose my sight."
"Huh? What? I'm confused," Naruto called out as he bounced to his feet. "Everyone... calm down!" He made several hand-seals and then tried to bind them in trees. Both of the other chunin barely dodged the attack.
"Are you done attacking me for giving you the same eyes as your brother? And what do you mean now you are going to lose your sight?" Sheila snapped out as she bounced across the floor of the Uchiha manor.
"These type of eyes degrade and eventually fail," he snapped out, his Sharingan whirling angrily
"Hmm. It's not in the eyes, but in the eye nerves. Which are hard for ninjitsu to heal correctly," Sheila noted as she studied his health metaphysically while kneeling back down on the ground, ignoring the new trees in the room.
"How the hell can you tell that?" Sasuke demanded in an angry, shocked tone. After a moment, ingrained social habits had him kneeling back down in front of her.
"Because I can see sickness, ailments and cure diseases with a glance," she replied simply.
"I thought you said you did not have a bloodline?" Naruto demanded questioningly as he knelt to the side of them both again.
"It's not a bloodline, even if it is a power that I share with my mother. My ichor sings with her power of healing and I can perform miracles," Sheila finally said. At their dubious look, she continued. "I'm not mortal like you two. My mother is or was a goddess."
The two boys shared a look. Sasuke shrugged eventually. "That's where most bloodlines come from supposedly. Or demons."
"I meant literally. Thousands of years old and can perform miracles." They were being awfully blase about this, Sheila thought in bemusement.
"So your mom might still be alive?" Naruto noted brightly.
Sasuke actually looked upset at that thought. All of them being orphans was one of the things that he felt bound all of Team 7 together.
"I don't know. I just can't imagine her letting something like the Tailed Demons be loose. That seems more like something the Titans would do. And they were the enemies of the gods."
The last Uchiha frowned. "Well, those eyes came with a cost. You still have to join my clan. And the clan only has one priority... killing Itachi Uchiha."
"I thought you wanted to rebuild your clan?" Naruto asked the obvious.
"Killing Itachi comes first," the dark-haired boy snarled out.
"That's not very logical. I mean, what if Itachi kills us first? Does your clan mean so little?" Sheila frowned as she saw the unhealthy elevated stress levels in her new clan head. "Why do you believe that killing him comes first?"
Naruto was looking between them both, listening raptly. "She's got a point."
"He spared me because I was too weak, but left me with the words that I would only grow strong enough if I hated him utterly. Hatred is my strength to kill my brother," Sasuke declared intensely, his hands clenched at his side. "His using the Mangekyo Sharinga on me again shows how far I have to go to become powerful enough to kill him."
"Again?" Sheila noted. Her eyes narrowed in sudden thought as she started to put things together in her head. "He used that on you the day he wiped out your clan."
"Hey, isn't what he did to all of you a genjitsu?" Naruto suddenly intuited savantly.
"Exactly. Sasuke, he used a genjitsu on you to foster the idea that you have to kill him. What is the definition of genjitsu?" The demigoddess was looking at the black-haired and suddenly very confused looking teen.
"It's an illusion to trick you, so that you may be defeated by your enemy. He-" Sasuke could not believe what he was contemplating. "He's using me, isn't he?"
"Suicide by family," she postulated aloud. "He wants you to kill him? I mean, you were already a threat if you could have hit him with that Chidori... Sasuke, you need to talk to the Hokage."
That distracted the last Uchiha. "What? Why?"
"Because you need to be deprogrammed. Itachi brainwashed you into hating him and hunting him down. I bet it's nearly irrational in strength already. Which means he and anyone else that figures this out can use it against you."
Naruto whistled. "That's a big weakness then."
"I'm not weak," Sasuke snarled out, clenching his fists again as he pressed them into the floorboards of his family home.
"Then it won't hurt to verify that you aren't under his control," Sheila noted.
His hatred was screaming deep within him, but Sasuke managed to use the thought that it might be a weakness to agree. "Fine."
"I don't want to go on a training trip," Naruto shouted at the big, gray-haired man in the middle of the street. The crowds of the hidden village were giving the two (seeming) lunatics a wide berth.
"So you just want to stay a weak shrimp?" Jiraiya shouted right back. He was leaned over and looming.
The two were acting like brothers, even with the disparate ages.
"I'm a chunin already. Why do I have to go with you?" the blond-haired boy asked.
"Yes, Jiraiya, Sage of the Toads... why does my friend and team mate need to go on a training trip with you?" Sheila asked as she landed on the ground next to them. The two had been so loud she could hear them two streets over without enhanced hearing.
"It took me days to catch up to you. Luckily I figured that you headed back to Konoha," the big man declared. "And as for the reason, I can't tell you guys here."
"Then takes us someplace you can," Naruto shouted right back.
"That is a simple solution. Fine, let's go talk to the Old Man and make some plans. Because things are starting to move."
Ten minutes later, they were in the Hokage's office waiting for the old Hokage to appear while Tsunade was glaring at a pile of paperwork. Sheila was estimating how quickly the leader was going to be finished with it.
"I think you need to rethink your strategy. You are losing ground," Sheila noted as she saw another pile of reports arriving. "Why aren't you getting these reports with recommendations on what needs to be done?"
"Fine. Make recommendations on these reports, chunin!" the hokage snapped, sliding over a pile of reports to her side of the desk.
Shizune blinked owlishly at the younger girl then smiled. "Well, doing paperwork is an important duty of a chunin," the companion of the Slug Sennin noted happily.
Sheila shrugged and pulled out a notepad and then started taking notes while making notations on paperwork, speeding up as she read through this. She frowned ten minutes into the work (as the Third Hokage had still not arrived) as she scrutinized a particularly boring looking report from a special jonin. "This is coded and you should probably read it immediately." She slid it over to the Fifth Hokage.
"I'll have to send it to my intelligence department. Unless you can break the cipher?" the old woman said with a quirky grin.
"Yes." Sheila was still working on the pile of paperwork efficiently as she made recommendations with her mechanical pencil.
"If it's that important, break the cipher and let me know," the Fifth Hokage said as she started to go through the recommendations. Some of them she didn't agree with, but each was thoughtfully crafted.
Sheila frowned a second, then scribbled down a note. "Here you go," she said, handing the note to Tsunade. Then she went back to her paperwork, grading another C-Rank mission statement.
Tsunade looked at the coded report that was still on her desk, then at the new sheet of paper that she had just been handed. "Now that's an interesting skill. How good at breaking codes are you?"
Naruto was looking quite sleepy next to Jiraiya who was actually passed out on the couch already. "Huh? Oh, Sheila's really smart and stuff. She finished the chunin exam paper test in minutes."
"My abilities are primarily mental in nature." Sheila shrugged at that. "How else did you think I deciphered seals like I do?"
Tsunade started cackling madly. "Oh, I think I just found my new assistant for helping with paperwork. The curse of the Hokage might finally be broken."
"Oh? How did you manage that?" the old Hokage asked as he slipped in the door.
"A super-smart chunin! Though I might have to promote her to special jonin for the security clearances." Tsunade was giggling like a little girl at the thought of getting out of paperwork in a relatively easy manner. "But we can get started on the issues at hand. Jiraiya said you had a plan to get Naruto trained in using that chakra?"
"What! He didn't say anything like that to me!" Naruto cried out as he awoke the old man next to him.
"Do I need to learn that too?" Sheila asked as she kept working on the pile of papers.
"Hmm. Perhaps. But I think we'll keep you separate for security purposes. So I'll be training you between missions. Naruto, that does mean you need to travel with Jiraiya, but I want regular updates. Now that you guys have that space-time jitsu working, send a clone with regular reports." Tsunade blinked as another pile was set on her desk with scribbled on recommendations. "Shizune, go get some more reports. At this rate, we'll be able to take off the afternoon!"
"For those meetings you've been postponing? Great!" the dark-haired assistant said as she headed out of the office.
Tsunade glared at her too cheerful young friend as she left.
"I do have some personal records about how previous demon containers fought with the Nine-Tail," Hiruzen stated even as he took out a pipe to light up.
Shizune breezed back in with another pile of papers, handing them mostly to Sheila, though a few S-Rank reports were put on Tsunades side of the desk. So she jumped back in surprise when Sheila's hand came from under the edge of the desk and touched page with a snap that cracked the sound barrier at the end of a set of hand-seals.
The roof over a thousand feet away exploded in a flurry of pages and notes. A figure in civilian garb leaped away out of the area as she shed her paper version of the transformation technique.
"Spy! Some sort of technique imbued into the paper!" Sheila called out even as she threw a kunai in that direction while tossing another one over to Naruto. In a flash, she disappeared even as she landed on the rooftop behind the fleeing figure.
Konan dodged to the side as she thought the fireball was about to roast her from the genjitsu she was trapped within. At least it only appeared to be one ANBU-! Where had that girl come from. "I don't want to hurt you," the spy from Akatsuki called out as she ran for the main wall of Konoha as quickly as possible.
"Spying on the Hokage and you try to claim that?" Sheila threw her Flying Thundergod kunai ahead of her and then flashed away and then to it... with the Tsunade, Jiraiya, Hiruzen, Shizune and Naruto in tow.
"Oh, shit," Konan said as she took a ninety degree turn across the rooftop. Papers fluttered out of her sleeves, forming into wings as she took to the air. How had they figured out that the D-Rank report had been one of her sensors?
"Konan? What are you doing here?" Jiraiya asked in confusion even as he glared at her as she gained altitude. He charged up a Rasengan just to be on the safe side.
A wind suddenly picked up Sheila and rocketed her up after the escaping spy even as Hiruzen creating a technique that created a massive down-draft as a inverted tornado. "I haven't had to use that since I fought the Tsuchikage in the war," he reminisced whimsically.
"He could fly? I want to learn how to fly!" Naruto exclaimed excitedly.
"It's a bit tricky," the old Hokage admitted. "And I don't think he did it the same way that Sheila is doing it."
The red-head managed to shift her wings into crude limbs to cushion her fall to the ground. That was when her shield of paper was exploded by the Rasengan that Jiraiya had held in his hand. The Rain ninja bounced off a wall even as she spun through the air. She was just standing back up when both of her shoulders were poked with blowing green fingers from the Fifth Hokage.
"I'd suggest you just stand down," Tsunade told the defeated kunoichi.
"I won't give up-!" Konan was declaring as she got drenched by a yellow fluid. She tried to activate the explosive tags that were part of her general covering. "You ruined all the seals on my papers?" That was her suicide tactic!
"It was sort of important to know. Naruto really liked explosive tags too much and I figured I would have faced off against him in the second round," Sheila said as she finished releasing the seal from the tube she was holding. "I'm just glad he used the cheap inks that are used in the north of the lands. The squid inks from the Land of Water require a totally different solvent to dissolve."
Jiraiya looked at her incredulously. "You made up a technique like that just to defeat your own teammate in the chunin exam?"
"Ha! I had a lot of things planned for her, too," Naruto shouted out at the Toad Sage. "Though that would have messed up my big attack I used to take out that Stone guy."
"Defeated by something created by a genin. I guess I have really failed you, Pain," the pretty kunoichi said in a sad voice.
"Tsunade..." Jiraiya said slowly. "They were my first students. Konan, Yahiko and Nagato. They were that group of orphans we ran into during that fight with Hanzo in the Land of Rain."
"That doesn't change the fact that she was spying on the Hokage's office," the new Hokage noted aloud. She supposed that young girl could have grown up to become this woman. "Though we aren't at war with the Land of Rain at this point. I suppose you will just have to be Konoha's prisoner while we negotiate with Rain for your release."
"Just that easily? You have to be kidding!" the young red-head stated in shock.
"You aren't a missing ninja, so it's probable that they'll ransom you back. Killing every foe that tried to spy in the village would start another great ninja war, which we don't need. Three was enough," the old woman declared.
Weak, pathetic fools is what Konan thought, though she supposed using it against them could but help herself..
"So should I send a messenger to Yahiko and Nagato?" Jiraiya asked his old apprentice.
"Yahiko was killed by Hanzo, teacher," the young woman said angrily.
"Damn. I had hoped you three would live to a ripe old age." The gray-haired man suddenly looked older. "I guess I'll have to talk to Nagato myself."
"I would not recommend that. Send someone else that he is not angry with."
Jiraya looked even more downcast at that.
"And who is this Pain?" Sheila asked intently.
Konan refused to even look at Sheila. "He is now the leader of our village hidden within the rain."
Tsunade had to stop from rolling her eyes at the clear alias for the lead of Rain. Or at least it was a title. She then looked Jiraiya if he had any idea who this leader was. The shake of his head was all it took to confirm he did not. "Well, we shall send a negotiator to your land's lord."
Sasuke awoke without moving, instantly taking in the two presences in the room.
"Don't try anything, brat. We're here to make you an offer." The head-protectors declared they were Sound Ninja. "We want you and the girl on your team. Do anything and we'll settle for delivering your eyes to Lord Orochimaru."
Sasuke did not trust himself to say anything even as his hands were bound. Inwardly he mused that he needed a social secretary or at least a more secure apartment. "Do you really think you can escape?"
"Lord Orochimaru has a plan, so of course we will escape. With Konoha having figured out space-time jitsu, the rest of the nations are scrambling for their own counters." The rough looking fellow with a mohawk nodded at his knots.
"Where exactly do you expect to run given that 'girl' is said to be the daughter of the 4th Hokage?" Sasuke adlibbed a lie quickly.
"You have to know where to find us. The Hidden Village of the Sound is nowhere any of you would think to look. Now, where does the girl live?"
Ten minutes later, they all arrived at a rather drab apartment complex. One Sound ninja quickly discovered that it was meticulously protected with seals and traps, far more than even a chunin could ever hope to use.
Sasuke had a slight smirk on his face. "She likes to be prepared. After all, the 4th Hokage made a lot of enemies."
Inwardly he thought how he could get Sheila to help with the protections on his apartment. Though he was surprised to discover that he actually knew quite a few of the seals she was using. So maybe he would only have to ask for a few.
The Sound ninja ghosted through the traps in ten minutes, showing why he was a jonin. He appeared moments later with a hogtied Sheila over his shoulder. Sasuke's keen Sharingan eyes noted her hands were slightly puffy in the darkness.
"Summon our transport," the shorter Sound ninja said to the taller one. "I'll stand guard."
The bigger ninja reached under his tattered cloak and pulled out a scroll and started to unroll it. Sasuke rolled a bit in his ropes, just enough to have the smaller ninja look over at him for two seconds. The whisper of rope on cloth was his only warning as a one-handed wind cutting technique that nearly took his head off. Even so, the attack knocked him out.
The other hand had flashed out a simple group of handsigns that even Naruto could do, even if his fireballs were rather erratic. The remaining Sound ninja snarled as he leaped away, only to swear profusely as he realized that the fireball had burnt a hole right through it. "You brat-!"
He collapsed on his face as he sprouted two kunai through his back.
"Sorry about that. It took a minute to get here from the 25th training ground," the new Sheila said.
"You let them capture you," Sasuke snapped out. "You don't have that luxury for revenge against Orochimaru."
She glared at him. "I would have been fine if you weren't here." She sent a small flare into the air to summon the nearest ANBU.
"The real you?" he said in quiet anger. "I am slowly beginning to understand that revenge should not fill all of my thoughts, but I wonder if you are just as blinded in your anger against Orochimaru for 'getting away'?" He rubbed his wrists as the ropes were removed. "T-The clan comes first. Then revenge."
The two Sheila's glared at him, but finally nodded.