Naruto no Rei
Ch. 2 – The Memories Return
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It has been a total of three years since the Hollow Incident as Konoha had dubbed it. Unsurprisingly, the specifics of the attack got out fairly quickly, and much to the satisfaction of the Rookies who'd been affected by Sasuke's betrayal, the Uchiha had his chakra coils crippled and bloodline sealed.
Sasuke had been furious, and had attempted another departure, but he was captured, and they took special measures to keep him imprisoned, these being an eight-hundred pound brick being chained to each of his limbs.
The rookies had moved on, all of them having ascended to chuunin rank. Neji had been promoted to Jounin, and Shikamaru had been placed in the mission-planning network of ANBU. Sakura had been apprenticed under Tsunade, Shizune finishing her apprenticeship and taking a Jounin rank as a field medic-nin.
Hinata… well, she had continued to defend Konoha through its many troubles. She had slaughtered every army that came near the ruins of Konoha, which were currently abandoned in favor of the temporary barracks. She had managed to learn more of her powers, Nisshoku's powers, and Gesshoku's powers.
Her death had made a huge impact on the Rookies. However, within the Hyuuga, the impact was miniscule, Hinata's title as heir having quickly been given to Hanabi. They had quickly been able to discover it was a suicide, and Hiashi's only comment was that she had deserved her death for being a waste of space and effort.
Hinata laughed and after a while, decided to try moving objects. When she found she could, she promptly took a stray flying kunai from a separate training session and stabbed it into Hiashi's Achilles' tendon. He had thus lost his ability to walk.
There had been numerous attempts at war on Konoha. The first was, predictably, Orochimaru's forces. However, he was the first opponent that Hinata dispatched, and the army was dealt with easily afterward. After that it was spy missions from Kumo and Iwa. Not one attempt was successful, and Konoha soon became thought of as a ploy for the Konoha-nins to lure in and defeat the leaders of their major enemies through assassinations.
Within Konoha's barracks, Naruto's deaths were all but forgotten, and upon hearing the fact that the entire story was known only by the boss summons, Jiraiya went to Mizu no Kuni and summoned Gamabunta. Gamabunta had explained only one thing to Jiraiya, and that was that the Kyuubi wasn't feared for being a demon, none of the Bijuu were. The Bijuu were all giant hollows known as Menos, hollows of great power. The Bijuu were all the lowest stage of Menos, Gillians, but still much too powerful for a mere human to bring down, or an army of humans from Rokubi up.
Apparently, because the Bijuu had somehow mixed chakra with spiritual power, their spiritual pressure had solidified around them, revealing them to normal humans. Gamabunta had explained that the Bijuu were feared because unlike mere demons, the summon bosses weren't powerful enough to kill them. And like demons, the Bijuu had no conscience, only hunger, rage and hate.
Speaking of…
--
Adjuchas. That is what he was now. He didn't know how he knew. He didn't know how he was able to think again. He did, however, remember everything he had ever done.
The attempted destruction of Konoha, his feedings, his massacre of the Shinigami, everything returned to him. There was something in the back of his mind that was calling him back to the forest he had just escaped from. He felt something else calling him forward. He first decided to try and discover his appearances. He attempted to access his chakra, but found a more… abundant and powerful energy flow through him.
He used this energy like chakra, and concentrated most of it to his eyes, this particular trick an idea he'd had that worked. He took the large amount of energy, and extended his sense of sight it into the air, and looked at himself. He was shocked at what he saw.
He saw something identical to what he started as, the only difference being that the sword's skull mouth was opened and the bones running up the blade opened into a fairly wide "V" now. Strangely… he could feel a source of power even more abundant than his own inside of it, and he could sense that it was reduced a great deal, clearly suppressed.
He would've continued to contemplate these things, but he heard a noise. He turned around, and looked up to see another Hollow, a few feet taller than his now six-foot form. "Who are you, and what do you want? I might not be very well-informed about things, but I know a strong opponent when I see them. Why are you here… Vasto Lorde?"
As he looked at the larger Hollow, he noticed that it was bleeding profusely. The larger Hollow hissed slightly, followed by gargling, blood spilling from its hole. Naruto couldn't see anything but the whole, and a shining object in each of the creature's hands. It seemingly gave a final, stronger effort to speak out this time.
"My name, is Aizen Sousuke. I was a Shinigami, I fused with a Vasto Lorde, and began fighting to destroy my former colleagues. I was defeated, and returned here, dying and disintegrating from my final attempt to survive, transferring to my true body here, but as my mind returned, the spiritual damage followed, and now I'm dying. I created the object in my left hand, the object in my right is called the Hogyouku. The one in my left is an object for time-travel." The hollow explained, Naruto gripping his blade tighter. "Take them both, your power is great for an Adjuchas, two times that of a Shinigami Captain as you are. You could become as strong as me if you use the Hogyouku, do so, and travel back in time to when I was alive and well, I've been holding on for as long as possible, for a being with as much potential as you. Don't stop until you're back in my time, the time-travel device will vanish from here and reappear elsewhere, still in this time."
The large hollow, Aizen, fell to the ground, dead as a doornail. Naruto thought for a second, before he made a decision.
"Very well, Aizen-san. I will help you succeed in the past… but only as a Vasto Lorde myself. If I devour you, someone who is stronger than I am now, I should be able to reach my final evolutionary stage and then use the Hogyouku. Whatever it does, some old hollow in here knows it, and wants me to be careful about it. Soon… soon I'll be myself, no other influences, just the new, improved, Uzumaki Naruto! No other Hollows influencing me!" Naruto said, voraciously lunging on Aizen, eating him quickly. It took roughly three hours to consume Aizen's spirit-rich body, and when he did, he felt himself changing again. He grew taller, roughly three feet taller. His skin hardened, and his sword grew with him, its edge sharpening and its power growing as well. He reached down, and picked up the Hogyouku. He noticed it gave off a shine, when he brought his sword over to look at his mask.
Still the same. Naruto sighed as he remained the same as before. But, he didn't feel he had any real room to complain. He'd accepted and embraced his now-evil nature, and was a true monster in one sense or another. He opened his mouth, not knowing how to use the Hogyouku, and popped it in like a gum-drop, crushing it in his teeth. He felt his power explode, his already increased Vasto Lorde power growing tremendously. He looked on in the reflection on his blade, and grinned at what he saw.
His mask was crumbling, as well as his body shrinking. As he shrank down, his skin returned to a human shade. His hair became blonde once more. And as he shrank back down, he gained clothing similar to the Shinigami clothing, only with a white leather trench coat with black trim over top that reached to his calves. He also had black boots, as opposed to the Shinigami socks with sandals, not to mention his Hakama was white.
He shrank all the way down to five and a half feet (shippuuden height), the left jaw the only remains of his mask. He still retained a single tail, two feet long with its nine lines running up the tail. He felt his power at an incredible high, four times stronger than he'd been with all nine tails in his Hollow forms. He grinned, and reached down to pick up Aizen's other device.
"Well, looks like things have come out in my favor. Lucky me, let's get things moving!" Naruto said, pushing his power into the small orb. It began to glow incredibly brightly, blinding Naruto as he vanished with a grin evident on his face.
