Well, this fic has finally come to an end. I'm sorry this chapter took so, so long; see my profile for an explanation, but long story short, I had health problems that took over my life but I'm back now and writing like mad! I've gotten out two chapters of another story of mine, masks, and now this, and it's only just now nine here. Anyways, this last chapter is Roshi, the jinchuuriki of the Four-Tailed Beast, Son Gokū. I really, really like how I did this one; I hope you do, too. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Nope. Didn't own it in my other story, don't own it here.
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The beast is sealed into him when he is just under a year old, with black irises and a shock of bright, bright red hair. The seal master wraps the seal around his left wrist, an easy place to conceal, perhaps so enemies will not realize what, who he is until it is too late; or, perhaps, it's a way to help Roshi, by making it easier to conceal what he is from the people of Iwagakure. Either way, it's a good place for a seal, and later in life, Roshi appreciates it greatly.
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They tell him what's sealed into the mark on his wrist when he is four and about to enter the Academy of Iwagakure. Normally, children enter the Academy at five in Iwagakure, and tend to graduate around ten or eleven, but Roshi is talented and a special case and the current Tsuchikage really just wants him occupied so he'll stop running around the office at top speed because it's distracting, damn it. So, she takes him down to the Academy himself, after giving him a pair of black iron wristbands to cover the seal, and enrolls him, giving her seal of approval. She also makes sure the teacher knows who and what he is, and also that the Tsuchikage is fond of him and if anything, anything, happens to Roshi on the teacher's watch that could have feasibly been prevented he will pay.
Roshi likes the Academy; he does. His classmates are all a year and change older than he is, but they still get along fine; they don't know what he is, won't find out for a few more years yet, and so they are friendly and inviting. In this way, Roshi's childhood is very different from other jinchuuriki's; his Academy days are not spent isolated. Instead, he spends them laughing and chasing his classmates during games, playing pranks on the teacher along with the other students and overall enjoying class.
This is how his life goes until the age of nine, when the Academy is attacked and he reveals his power as a jinchuuriki for the first time, both to himself and his class. He fends off the attackers long enough for the Tsuchikage to arrive and neatly beat them into submission, but by that time fear is ingrained into his classmates, and the Academy is never so enjoyable again. Occasionally, another student will approach him, but it is rare, and he spends most of his days until graduation alone.
Still, though: he protected them, and he is proud of himself for that, and is until the day he dies.
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When he is ten, he graduates and is placed on a genin team. Again there is a difference from the lives of other jinchuuriki; often they are graduated from the Academy earlier than other students, so as to learn how to use their power earlier and therefore become a weapon in shorter time. However, other jinchuuriki also don't have the Kage of their village wrapped around their finger so much, so that is another difference, and it makes his life very unique from other jinchuuriki: he graduates on schedule with his class; is placed on a genin team, with two classmates and a jonin sensei; and doesn't have any special training for his power, because she doesn't wish him to be a tool, she wants him to be a shinobi, and the way to do that is to treat him normally.
(Besides, there isn't anyone who could train him.)
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At twelve, after two years of being a genin and completing D and C ranked missions, their sensei finally enters them into the Chuunin Exams. They're excited, so excited, and celebrate all night (Roshi's teammates don't fear him anymore, and his sensei never did; after two years in his constant company, they know his true nature, and that he wouldn't hurt them for the world).
The first stage goes flawlessly, and they all pass it; the second stage a little less so (they come out of it bearing scratches and scrapes, but smiling, too), but they pass it, too. The third stage, the stage with the tournament of battles, is where it all goes wrong. One of his teammates is killed by a ninja from the Mist, and the other is crippled by a ninja from Sand. Roshi is the only one who comes out of it unharmed; he faces both of the ninja who dared hurt his teammates, and soundly, thoroughly beats both of them, and in fact wins the tournament (it doesn't bring back Akiko, though, or uncripple Daisuke, so it doesn't mean much to him other than a ceremony he only barely registers through his grief).
He's promoted to chuunin, of course, and begins taking missions as one, with other chuunin. He comes out of every one unharmed, and not just because of the beast inside of him; he's incredibly talented for being only twelve years of age, and it shows. He constantly visits Daisuke, who works at a weapons shop now, and regales him with mission tales as he asks; and also brings flowers monthly to Akiko's grave, and lets tears fall on each bunch.
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In his sixteenth year, two things happen: he is promoted to jonin after a particularly spectacular performance on a mission, and the Four-Tailed Beast speaks to him for the first time.
For a demon, it is surprisingly amicable.
He learns its name (Son Gokū) and its history, of the three jinchuuriki before him and what they were like, how they lived, and how they died. Each of them actually had a very peaceful death, and he hopes his will be the same way. He also learns how to release bits and pieces of Son Gokū's power, and how to control it, and it makes him just that much more formidable as a shinobi. He becomes a deadly jonin, with pinpoint accuracy and a large range of ninjutsu that he knows how to use, and well. Soon, he's respected for more than just the beast sealed in his wrist, and he's happy again.
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When he is twenty-two, just on the edge of twenty-three, the Tsuchikage dies in battle, and Roshi cries for three days, though he doesn't know why (he never did find out, or even guess at it, but she was his mother; that was why she was wrapped around his finger so tightly, and why his life was so much different from other jinchuuriki). The new Tsuchikage is appointed a day after his twenty-third birthday. Two weeks after that, war breaks out.
Then, two months into the war, the Five-Tailed Beast is captured and brought to the village to be sealed. They choose a young boy, perhaps a year old, by the name of Han, and seal it into a swirl on his left forearm. Roshi is there for the process, just in case the sealing is rejected and it breaks free and needs to be subdued, and he stands in quiet contemplation the entire time.
Three weeks after that, he requests a long-term mission out of the village, receives one, and leaves for the last time (he can't stand to watch Han be abused, as he knows, just knows, that he will be by the people who don't respect a jinchuuriki's role in keeping them safe; he would stay and try to stop it, but he's afraid he wouldn't be able to, and he can't watch it in the likely case he can't).
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Eighteen years later, he is forty and still alive and well, with an amazing grasp on the power of Son Gokū. The war ended long ago, as did his mission, but he wrote in a request to stay out of the village but still do the occasional mission and also stay loyal, and it was accepted, and now he wanders about the Elemental Countries, doing the occasional mission but mostly just traveling and seeing the world.
He is training alone in an isolated field in Lightning Country when they come for him: two men in black cloaks with red clouds, one pale with Sharingan eyes and the other blue-skinned, with shark teeth and a sharp sword. He fights them for a long, long while (three days), taps into Son Gokū's power more than once while still in a human form, and finally lets Son Gokū's huge form take over. Eventually, though, the blue-skinned one wears him down long enough to capture him, and that is when he knows it is over.
As he lays on the cold stone of the cave they brought him to, he thinks of all the people he's loved and protected and lost over the years, his precious people: Akiko, who died so, so young; Daisuke, who could have been legendary; and, of course, the Tsuchikage, the mother he never realized he had.