the authors comments for both this chapter and chapter nine are in chapter nine. enjoy.
Orochimaru grinned as he waited outside Tanzaku town for Tsunade to arrive. His arms would soon be restored to their original power and he could resume his destruction of the Leaf. As he waited, his lieutenant, Kabuto, stood nearby, watching his masters arms carefully. As they watched the edge of town a single figure could be seen coming towards them.
"She is here." Orochimaru hissed. Kabuto smirked, his masters arms would soon be healed. As the slug Sannin drew close Orochimaru felt another wave of pain. Tsunade stopped less than a hundred feet from him. Kabuto frowned slightly, something felt off about this.
"Lord Orochimaru, something is wrong." Orochimaru said nothing for a moment before turning to his fellow Sannin.
"So Tsunade, have you made up your mind?" Tsunade looked at the ground for a moment.
"Yes. I will heal your arms. But you have to bring them back." Orochimaru smirked.
"Of course." As Tsunade approached, a large kunai suddenly flew at them, forcing Orochimaru to leap back. Kabuto cursed and jumped between his lord and the former sannin. A second kunai buried itself in the dirt next to Kabuto's foot, and then a third landed behind the two of them. Soon the ground was littered with the large, three-pronged kunai. Kabuto and Orochimaru were looking around frantically for the source, when Naruto walked out to stand next to Tsunade. Kabuto smirked as he looked at the chunnin vest he wore. He failed to see how this boy could be so foolish as to challenge Orochimaru. A heavily panting figure caught their attention as the toad sannin ran up.
"Geez, brat, why do you have to be so damn fast?" Naruto chuckled as he shook his head.
"It's not that I'm fast, you're just slow Ero-sennin." Jiraiya frowned as Naruto threw the nickname out.
"I told you not to call me that!" Naruto just grinned before looking back to the pair in front of him. Kabuto was still grinning.
"So Naruto, you managed to advance to Konoha's chunnin level. They must really be lowering their standards." Naruto didn't respond, his face dropping to an expressionless mask. The change unnerved Kabuto slightly, but he saw no reason to worry. After all, this was the failure of Konoha. But a gasp from behind him made the young man turn to his master.
"Orochimaru-sama, what is it?" the snake sannin was silent, continuing to stare at the kunai at his feet. He knew this kind of kunai, as it had been their previous owner that forced him to leave Konoha.
"It can't be. He never had a child!" he whispered. Kabuto stared at him for a moment.
"Orochimaru-sama, it's just Uzumaki Naruto, Konoha's failure. Why are you so worried?" Naruto's voice rang cold in the still air as he spoke before Orochimaru could.
"I'm surprised you didn't hear, Kabuto. Oh that's right, all your spies in the village were eliminated weren't they? Well, in any case you should have heard the announcement that the exam proctor made when I beat the Hyuuga." Kabuto stared at him for a moment.
"I was busy with other things and didn't watch your match." Naruto gave no sign of being irritated by Kabuto's tone.
"Then I'll enlighten you. It's not Uzumaki anymore." both Kabuto and Orochimaru perked up their ears slightly as Naruto continued. "It's Namikaze Naruto now." Orochimaru gave a shriek of rage and charged at the blonde chunnin. Naruto rolled his eyes and stepped off to the side, letting Orochimaru sprawl in the dirt.
"You'll have to do better than that Hebi-teme." he called. Orochimaru whipped around to face the boy, but stopped as he realized what the boy was doing.
"Kabuto, deal with him." he hissed. Kabuto nodded and turned to the boy. The fact that Naruto was a Namikaze had come as a shock to him, but he gave it no thought, as he still considered the boy to be far below him in terms of ability. Pulling out a kunai, he walked toward Naruto with a cold certainty that the boy was going to die. As he approached though, Naruto held his hand out, palm up. Kabuto grinned, thinking the boy was about to realize how foolish he was being. But when he saw chakra beginning to spin in Naruto's hand, he started to have doubts about the boys intelligence.
"Surely you can see the hopelessness of your situation. You can't beat me." Naruto didn't respond. Kabuto frowned as he watched the younger ninja, wondering why the boy hadn't charged in without thinking like he did in the first half of the chunnin exams. The answer came to him however, in a clap of thunder, a flash of yellow, and a tearing pain in his abdomen. As he was flung back, he saw Naruto standing right where he had been.
"How! How did he get there so quickly that I couldn't even see him." he thought, panic beginning to rush through his mind. Naruto raised his hand and prepared for another Hiraishin, but stopped when he felt that something was off. Whipping around he saw that Orochimaru had summoned a huge snake, and was battling Jiraiya at the moment. Tsunade helped as much as she could with her slug, but was having difficulty due to Orochimaru's rapid fire attacks. He started to turn, but was cut off by a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. As he turned back, he watched as Kabuto stood, the gaping hole in his abdomen healing at a pace that rivaled Naruto's own abilities. He grimaced as he turned back to face the Sound ninja as he pushed himself off of the rock he had been flung into. Naruto pulled out a kunai and dropped into the basic academy style taijutsu stance, the only one he knew.
"This is gonna get crazy." he thought just before launching himself at the sound nin.
/
Naruto woke up in a hospital bed back in Konoha. Glancing around, he noted that Tsunade was standing over him, a clipboard in her hands. Jiraiya was sitting near the door, going over what appeared to be notes. In a corner, propped up in a chair, Sasuke rested his head against a wall.
"Baa-chan, how long have I been out?" he asked. Tsunade nearly jumped at the sound of his voice.
"Naruto! You're awake!" Naruto raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, and judging by your reaction I've been out for a while."
"Four days, to be precise." Jiraiya said. "Sasuke here's been worried sick." Naruto raised an eyebrow as he glanced at Sasuke.
"Really?" Jiraiya nodded as he stood.
"We can't beat Orochimaru by ourselves can we?" Naruto asked. Jiraiya didn't answer, but the expression on his face was more than enough to tell Naruto his answer. Looking at the floor he decided to change the subject.
"What about Sasuke's curse mark, how is he handling it?" he asked.
"I'm not." everyone jumped slightly as they looked at Sasuke. "I can't control it. I'm afraid that unless I can find some way to either negate it or seal it away, it'll eventually kill me." Naruto stared at his friend.
"Isn't there anything we can do?" Sasuke frowned.
"Yes. But you won't like it." Naruto's face turned grim.
"What do you mean?"
"Some of Orochimaru's henchmen came to me offering to take me to him. They said that unless I can master the curse mark it will eventually destroy me from the inside out. The only way to deal with the mark is to go and serve Orochimaru." Naruto's frown deepened.
"Baa-chan, have you already been instated as Hogake?" Tsunade nodded.
"Yes. And I think I know where you're going with this. But we can't discuss it here. Too many ears." the others nodded in agreement.
"Then we'll discuss it in the Hogake's office." Jiraiya said as he left the room.
/
"So what exactly does your plan entail Sasuke?" Tsunade's voice seemed slightly strained as she looked at the Uchiha.
"If I go with Orochimaru I may be able to either master or destroy the curse mark. Either way, I could possibly get close enough to Orochimaru to kill him. It may take years though." Tsunade looked doubtful as Sasuke described his plan. Naruto appeared to be somewhat pensive, and Itachi's face looked more concerned than anything else. As Tsunade weighed the risks and outsomes, Naruto voiced his opinion.
"Hey Teme, how hard would it be to convince Orochimaru's henchmen that we had a serious fight and you won?" Sasuke thought for a moment.
"Not that hard. But you might have to hold back some. I don't think I could beat you if you used the Hiraishin. So you'd have to save it for some other time." Naruto nodded slowly.
"Yeah. So Baa-chan, do you think that Sasuke and I can take on this one?" Tsunade was silent for a moment as she stared at the two chunnin, studying their faces.
"Alright, I'll give a triple S-rank mission. Sasuke, you are to infiltrate Orochimaru's ranks, learn all that you can from him, and the kill him. If you can master or eliminate the curse mark, so much the better. Naruto, you must assemble a team and convince them that Sasuke has betrayed the Leaf. You are not to stop him, but make it look like you are trying to." Tsunade's voice trembled as she sentence one of her ninja to what could easily be a fatal mission.
"Baa-chan, I think it would be best to let Nara Shikamaru in on the plan, otherwise he'll just figure it out when I fail to come back with Sasuke." The Hokage nodded.
"Very well. Do so." Naruto and Sasuke nodded and looked at each other.
"One last stop at Ichiraku's before we part for however many years we must?" Sasuke asked. Naruto just grinned.
