Author's Note:
Akatsuki literally means "Dawn". Gedo Mazo means something like "Demonic Statue of the Outer Path", which is one hell of a mouthful. Since it's both obviously a statue and technically not a statue at all (it's the Ten-Tails' corpse), I shaved it down to "Demon of the Outer Path".
~oOo~
Chapter 11:
Before the Dawn
~oOo~
Two weeks ago, Nagato found a new part of his destiny. In a way, he'd already seen it, he just hadn't known what it was. He was grateful to his new guide for showing him.
Nagato was guided by his eyes, by his destiny, in everything he did.
"You're the Sage of Six Paths, reborn," Jiraiya had told him years ago. Nagato believed that. He was here to save the world from itself. He believed in Yahiko's vision, and as the Child of Prophecy, he would make it come true.
Patrolling villages on the edge of Rain, ones that Hidden Rain ninjas had abandoned long ago to rogues and bandits, was a part of that destiny. This was what he could do—protecting people from ninjas—for now. And it's what he would continue doing, even after gaining more power; guarding people from killers, widening Dawn's circle of influence, until the hidden villages were no more and the world was free of ninjas.
Two weeks ago, on that patrol, a voiced called out to him.
~oOo~
"Boy with the eyes," a voiced called out.
Nagato immediately signed for two water clones, and carefully arrayed them around himself. He'd figured out long ago that his clones were special—his eyes were special—and he shared a field of vision with his clones.
Something oily and black bubbled up out of the ground. The rain didn't wash it away. A white plant sprung up by the ooze, and the oil climbed up it. Nagato could see the chakra in it. The white one's chakra was washed-out—he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been looking for it—while the oil's was strong and repellant.
"What are you? And what do you want with me?"
A strange human formed out of the white plant and grimy oil. It spoke with no mouth.
"You are the heir of the Sage of Six Paths, Nagato, and I am the guardian of his will."
Nagato was cautious. "Why does a servant of the Great Sage feel so foul?"
"I am a mirror held up to the world. I am no more twisted than the heart of every human. Only if you redeem the world, save it from itself, can I at last be cleansed."
The thing felt strange and otherworldly. Nagato didn't trust its claims about the Great Sage, but he also felt it wasn't a servant of Hanzo. Hanzo had a method, a way of using his power honed over decades. This thing was nothing like any of that.
"What's your name, if you have one?" asked Nagato.
"You can call me Senzetsu."
"Well, Senzetsu, why should I trust you?" he asked.
"When you dream at night," spoke the servant, "do you sometimes see a great beast, frozen, like a statue?"
He stared at it for a moment. "Yes."
"I can tell you what it is. It's a weapon, unlike any on this earth. It was how the Sage of Six Paths brought peace to this world, millennia ago. None can wield it but you."
Nagato was intrigued. "And how do I get this weapon?"
"Its cost, unfortunately, is quite steep," Senzetsu said. "It requires all the tailed beasts to power it."
It would take a great deal of effort to obtain all nine tailed beasts. But Nagato needed power. He could barely fend off one tyrant right now, much less change the world.
"Can you tell me more?"
"It'd be no harder to summon than any of your other powers. It can be used right now, actually, to a limited extent, even without the tailed beasts. It may even be enough to defeat Hanzo. Though I would advise you not to, Son of Sages. Without preparation it might destroy you. But this is hardly the place for details. I merely wished to introduce myself. At the moment, it is enough that you know. You should finish your patrol, now. The people need you."
Nagato nodded. This being, this weapon, was a part of his destiny. He knew it, he felt it, his eyes showed it to him.
"How will I find you again? Do I come back here?"
"No need," said Senzetsu. "I already know where you stay. I am connected with you, after all, as a servant of the Great Sage. When you need to know more, I'll be there. You should go now."
Nagato dispelled his clones and continued his patrol. The villages around the border were frequently attacked, seen as easy targets far from the protection of any major cities, with just enough resources to make tempting targets but not enough wealth to regularly hire ninja.
Hanzo didn't care. Hanzo wanted control and power, while Yahiko, while Dawn, wanted an end to the fear and death ninjas wielded so easily.
Black Zetsu pulled itself underground and sensed him go. It was quite pleased with itself. It'd set Nagato on the right path. The Eye of the Moon would be made, even without Obito.
The final step of the Moon's Eye, of course, was to resurrect Madara. It would be easy enough to claim that, as a mere servant of the Sage of Six Paths, it didn't know how to wield the so-called weapon—the Ten-Tails—properly. Nagato would need another "teacher".
The Ten-Tails would be remade. Madara would be reborn a god. The true heir of the Sage of Six Paths would finally reign over the world.
~oOo~
Two weeks ago, Danzo of Hidden Leaf and Hanzo the Salamander met, because Danzo knew a threat when he saw one.
Danzo Shimura was a harsh man because he lived in a harsh world. The only principle he held to was Hidden Leaf itself. It was the only thing worth protecting. Everything else could be compromised.
"And I should trust you, why?" asked the man in front of him.
Danzo could respect Hanzo the Salamander. Like him, he also understood the world as it was.
"Because, Lord Hanzo, the 'revolution' Dawn preaches is not just for the Land of Rain. It's in Hidden Leaf's interest that they are crushed here, before they become emboldened and spread outside of Rain," Danzo answered.
"I'm sure you'd be happy to see the 'Monster of Rain' deposed, Danzo," Hanzo responded. "Surely it'd be easier to crush them in the chaos left after my removal?"
Danzo's respect for him dipped ever so slightly. Hanzo was a tyrant, yes, but tyranny and ninjas where hardly incompatible. The multi-clan cooperative of Leaf and the autocracy of Rain were all, ultimately, still hidden ninja villages. Such villages were the foundation for all the prosperity now enjoyed by the many nations of the ninja world. That they occasionally warred with each other hardly mattered. Danzo would personally behead every threat to Leaf's way of life, if he had to.
"We are both hidden villages. Our way of life unites us. What you do to your own people is no concern of ours. What is my—our—concern is a dangerous group whose purpose is the utter destruction of our way of life."
Hanzo's face was covered by his respirator, but Danzo still got the feeling he was smirking.
"Well, ally, I hope you don't find my methods of crushing rebellions too harsh."
Danzo honestly didn't care. "Didn't I just say? It's no concern of mine what you do with your own country." Danzo was satisfied with his choices. Better a local tyrant for a neighbor than global rabble-rousers.
They spent a half hour working out the details. When it was over, Danzo signed and he crumbled to earth. Hanzo collapsed into water. Both had sent clones, neither trusting the other enough to appear in person.
~oOo~
One week ago, Rin and Obito warped into Grass, skipping the run across Waterfall Country. Rin bought a mask anyways, still worried. Like Obito's it echoed her heritage. It was flat, like his, but instead of tomoe it had a single crane, grey-colored on the white mask, its wings spread in a graceful arc upward. She kept her protector, emblazoned with the Leaf symbol, hanging it loosely around her neck. She didn't think of herself as a rogue ninja.
One week ago, Black Zetsu met with Nagato a second time, to warn him of a dangerous young man named Obito Uchiha, who'd destroyed his own home and sought only power. The young woman at his side was also dangerous, and held one of the tailed beasts Nagato needed to power the Demon of the Outer Path.
And one day ago, Danzo met with Dawn, not speaking of whom he worked for or what village he came from, but offering to help bring down a mutual enemy.
~oOo~
Now, Yahiko was dead. He'd died for Konan, for Nagato, for Dawn itself. And Konan was dead, killed by Hanzo, by a man who took hostages and always killed them anyway.
Nagato wanted Hanzo dead. He wanted Danzo's village dead, because they'd pretended to support Dawn, only for Danzo to stand with Hanzo and attack alongside the tyrant. They'd murdered Yahiko and Konan just as much as Hidden Rain.
Nagato closed his eyes and thought of the statue he saw in his dreams. And he pulled. Even knowing the consequences, even knowing he might die, in this moment it seemed worth it. All of Dawn's enemies would be destroyed.
A great statue rose up from the ground. It was a strange head with nine eyes, surrounded by a forest of outgrowths, like thick, twisted, branchless trees. Its two hands were held at jaw-height, palms upward, fingers splayed and curled up to point at the sky. It was a pose that'd be uncomfortable for any human, and it made the statue even more grotesque.
Demon of the Outer Path.
Nagato stood between the monster's wrists. He'd only summoned the upper quarter and he was already tired. Nagato opened his eyes and reached his arm out to Hanzo, willing him to die, and the statue moved with him, swiped out at the oppressor, knocking great chunks of rock off the cliff he stood on.
Nagato willed more of the statue to appear. Hanzo wasn't dead yet. Yahiko and Konan hadn't been avenged. Then his eyes stung, and he fell to his knees as pain pierced into his back. He looked, blurry-eyed, at the statue behind him, and saw rods digging into his back, connecting him to the statue. It was consuming him, extracting a price he couldn't quite afford to pay for a power he needed right now.
"Nagato!" yelled Kie as he ran up to him.
"Don't touch them!" ordered Nagato as Kie reached out to grab the rods. Kie dropped his hand, looking helplessly at the last remaining leader of Dawn.
A spiraling hole, like space itself was draining away, appeared between the statue and Nagato. It pulled in part of the rods connecting them, severing his connection, then disappeared.
A ninja appeared, out of thin air, by Yahiko's corpse. Nagato was immediately on edge. They looked professional. Dawn was always low on supplies, and relied on whatever ninja gear they could steal, while this ninja was very put-together. They wore a white mask with some kind of gray bird on it, and a green ninja vest, with the standard forehead protector hanging from their neck. The bottom half of a dark purple knee-length, open cloak stuck out from under the vest. Their black, open-toed shoes and black pants were in far too good a condition.
To Nagato, they looked like every other hidden village ninja. They looked like every other enemy. Kyusuke, always close to Yahiko when he was alive, tensed, his sword at the ready.
"Hey, Nagato!" the mystery ninja's voice called out. "Did Yahiko die more than ten minutes ago?"
"Who... No," stammered Nagato, taken aback by this masked stranger who knew his name.
The ninja nodded, kneeled by Yahiko's corpse, and pressed hands green with chakra to the body. Nagato staggered to his feet, and it somehow hurt worse than any injury. He forced himself to limp forward.
"Kyusuke! Attack!" he yelled at the other man, who was just standing there helplessly, sword in hand but not using it.
"I... he's already dead, sir. They're not attacking us," Kyusuke stammered.
As Nagato walked, another masked ninja appeared, again out of thin air, Konan's corpse at their feet. The second looked like the first, only without a protector or vest and a slightly different mask. The upper half of the same cloak was closed, a white sash around their waist.
The ninja by Yahiko briefly looked up at the other, and if they said anything, Nagato couldn't hear it. The second ninja vanished into nothing.
"What're you doing?" he demanded as the ninja pressed glowing hands to Yahiko's wound—the very wound that'd killed him.
"I'm healing him, you dope," they snapped.
Nagato stared. He didn't know chakra could heal. (All those years ago, Jiraiya had said Tsunade was the world's greatest medic, but Nagato had assumed that meant like the ordinary doctors he sometimes saw.) "He's already dead."
"Shut up and let me work."
Nagato didn't trust this stranger, narrowing his eyes at the Leaf protector they wore around their neck. But he also saw the wound grow smaller, slowly, until it was gone.
Yahiko breathed and coughed, opening his eyes. Nagato heard Kie and Kyusuke cry out, but he ignored them.
"What happened?" was the first thing Yahiko said. "Is this the Pure Land?"
"Ask Nagato," the strange ninja said curtly. "And don't move too much, you're not fully healed." They moved to Konan.
"Nagato?" Yahiko asked. Then he frowned, seeing Nagato, literally half-withered, strange metal rods jutting out of his back. "What the hell happened to you? What did Hanzo do? And sit down, you look like you're gonna collapse." Yahiko tried to sit up, but he stopped as he felt his ribs protest.
Nagato carefully sat down. Not that any care helped much; moving at all hurt now.
"You're alive," said Nagato. "That ninja brought you back from the dead. They just appeared, along with another ninja."
"What the hell happened to you?" repeated Yahiko.
"I tried to use a new power. I paid the price."
"No offense, but that's a real shit power." Yahiko's eyes focused over his shoulder. "What is that thing behind you?"
"That's the power I tried using."
"What's going on?"
Yahiko and Nagato stared up at Konan, who was leaning on the healer ninja.
"It's a miracle," blurted Yahiko.
The mystery ninja harrumphed. "You know, for people who hate ninjas so much, you sure don't know a damned thing about them," they said. It didn't stop Kie and Kyusuke from repeating "miracle" themselves.
The ninja helped Konan sit next to Yahiko, across from Nagato.
"Are you going to heal Nagato?" asked Konan when she saw the state of his body.
"You're all alive and safe. There's a battle happening right now, and ending it is the only real way to prevent further injuries. Healing you any more would be a waste of my chakra," they said, standing back up. "Medic's order: don't move from this spot. Obito said the statue would protect you all."
Nagato's brow was furrowed. He'd been warned about a man named Obito Uchiha, who'd destroyed his own home and plotted to take Nagato's eyes for their power. He'd also been warned about the woman at his side, who had a dangerous power she could lose control of at any moment. Was that her? Was she talking about that Obito? Why were they helping them?
"You two!" snapped probably-Rin at Kie and Kyusuke. "Don't leave, either. Guard these three in case something gets past the statue."
Kie objected. "Hey, you can't order us ar—"
Kyusuke slapped his hand over his comrade's mouth. "You don't even have to ask. We'd never abandon the heart of Dawn."
Rin nodded. Then Nagato felt her gaze through the mask.
"Just don't do anything major with it, Nagato, or you'll get worse." She signed and body swapped with a large rock.
~oOo~
Immediately after Obito warped Konan's corpse to Rin, he warped back. One handsign, nine fire clones, ten Great Fire Annihilations. Half his chakra was spent incinerating a quarter of Hanzo's forces. He'd thought he'd at least halve them, but despite Great Fire Annihilation's speed, a wall of water managed to form before it could completely sweep through Hanzo's army. He winced a little inside, because it was still the most people he'd ever killed. Well, directly.
Obito poured another quarter of his reserves into a Great Wood Dragon. It still took a full six seconds to make. He phased out while doing so, since he couldn't afford to stay vulnerable that long. He saw a few squads leap down the cliff to where Rin and the others were, but his senses told him they were dying as they approached the statue.
He sent his wood dragon against the rest of the army, especially the odd group of black-ops-looking ninja, who moved as a group separately from the rest. Last he heard, Hidden Rain didn't have any black-ops. Was somebody allying with Hanzo?
Obito's first thought was to rip Hanzo's head off with Authority, but it sputtered out as soon as he focused it on him. Obito frowned. Did Hanzo have an anti-space-time seal? He was legendary for his caution, infamous for always having a counter to otherwise instantly-lethal attacks. It was how he'd survived all these years as a hated tyrant, surrounded by a people who feared him and bordered by nations that resented him.
(Space-time techniques were rare and, excepting techniques like Hiding in Water and its equivalents, were always S-rank. It was a testament to Hanzo's paranoia that he had an anti-space-time seal ready, just in case, on the off-hand chance an S-level ninja who used them appeared. A personal anti-space-time seal was also a gruesome thought. Even Minato never used one. Making such a seal permanent and attached to your own skin was a forbidden technique. It was costly, and would need to be regularly renewed with human sacrifice.)
Obito charged him, phasing out while he signed Great Fire Destruction, getting close and releasing it only a few feet away. Hanzo made a single sign, like Obito, but with only one hand, and a massive firestorm erupted around Obito, absorbing his fire attack and turning it against him.
What the hell?
He knew fire techniques couldn't be stopped by ordinary water. Fire techniques used fire chakra as fuel, though air could feed it further. But for the rain itself to burst into fire like that?
That wasn't Obito's only problem. His vision was being obscured, despite the Kaleidoscope, by a blue haze that surrounded him. His senses were being smothered by a light blanket of chakra. It was hard to sense Hanzo in it.
He saw Rin appear, body swapping with a nearby rock a few yards away from him. "Rin, wait!" he shouted. He phased her out with his left Kaleidoscope. Hanzo's seal made it useless, and a water clone appeared in an instant and slammed into her, turning into a Water Dragon Bullet as it pushed her away.
Rin herself wasn't sure how, but she'd body swapped close to Obito, then an eyeblink later found herself slammed against a tree forty yards away.
Oh, right. Special jounin Rin Nohara versus the guy who held off three S-level ninjas. Her pride hurt almost as much as her body.
She saw Hanzo pursuing her (probably a water clone), and she body flickered back to the statue as fast as she could. (There wasn't anything to body swap with where Dawn was waiting. She'd just have to put up with the vomiting for two minutes.) She swore she felt the tree behind her burst into splinters even as she flickered.
Obito trusted Rin to survive. Or rather, he trusted that he could force the Three-Tails to revive Rin if necessary. And going after her would merely draw Hanzo's main focus closer to her.
Obito closed the distance again, a kunai in each hand. He didn't even bother phasing in, because he knew Hanzo's protective seals would forcibly phase the kunai back in for him—right into his own body.
Just before Obito hit him, Hanzo flickered in place. His Kaleidoscope told him body swap, recognizing it even without handsigns, but he couldn't move physically fast enough to avoid piercing the clone, or dodge the Water Dragon Bullet that slammed into him right as he contacted it.
Obito felt the chakra around Hanzo condense into a single blob. A tsunami slammed into him. He phased out, but some of the water around Obito become a water clone that grabbed him, phasing him in. The water chakra neutralized his own chakra, making it extraordinarily difficult to use any techniques.
Obito finally put everything together. Hanzo was using the water itself to store his chakra. The rain, the puddles, the lakes, were all filled with it. He couldn't sense Hanzo because he felt the same as everything else. Hanzo wasn't a sage—at least, Obito didn't think he was—but he'd made something very close to it, pouring the chakra that a ninja's metabolism normally discarded once its reserves were full into the Land of Rain itself, and wielding it as a fearsome weapon. And since he could directly control it, that meant he barely needed to sign. He could even transform it into fire chakra for a fire technique. Hanzo was practically unbeatable in his own country.
He couldn't warp. The sheer amount of water chakra made it difficult even to body flicker, as it snuffed out his chakra every time he tried to focus it. He forced himself to, feeling his hands throb as he tried to sign while even more water clones formed around him, driving copies of Hanzo's famous chain-sickle into his body.
Obito landed on the ground and groaned. It'd been a while since he'd body flickered, but he was grateful that it wasn't, technically, a space-time technique, just very high-speed movement. The vertigo wasn't really a problem for him. The Copy Wheel still guided his movements, though it was almost impossible to actually strategize, or do anything more than react in the moment, while feeling that sick. And he didn't vomit because he didn't really eat. Obito stayed on the ground because those sickles had been poisoned, and now that his life wasn't in danger it was easier not to move. (Though with his plant body any poison would only slow him down for a while.)
He'd landed where everyone huddled under the statue, itself surrounded by piles of corpses. The Demon of the Outer Path responded to its summoner's will, as Madara had told him.
He sensed Hanzo and his army were retreating. The chakra coating the land and filling the air pulled away.
Obito also sensed Rin was with Nagato and the others. "Are you all right, Rin?" he called out, still unable to get up. Sages, it hurt to talk. He'd had blades driven through at least six different places. "Are you hurt?"
She walked over and collapsed next to him with a groan. "I'm okay." she said, giving him a tired look. "I mean, this is still only the second-worst idea you've ever had."
~oOo~
After the battle, it was Rin who ended up asking to join Dawn. Obito hadn't been sure how to ask. Madara's plan involved presenting himself with mystery and power, bringing Dawn under his heel using Madara's name and Obito's own Kaleidoscope. Obito didn't particularly enjoy dominating others. He enjoyed winning, sure, but the act of utterly crushing his enemies wasn't something he reveled in like Madara had. It wasn't how he'd imagined himself as Fire Shadow when he was a child, and he still didn't like the idea of it now. (Though, sometimes, while working with Rin and seeing her dead through his Kaleidoscope, he wondered how desperate and angry he would've become if she had stayed dead.)
Yahiko and Konan sent the other surviving members of Dawn ahead to one of their bases. They stayed in a cave, hidden not by seal or illusion but nature itself. It seemed they were the ones in charge of recruiting newcomers.
Nagato insisted on staying behind with them, despite his injuries, sitting uncomfortably on the ground. He refused any offers of healing from Rin, glaring at the Leaf protector and chunin vest she wore. However much she helped them, she was still a Leaf ninja at heart. She took orders from killers, and had almost certainly killed many innocents herself. He brushed off Konan and Yahiko's gushing about her "miracle" to gruffly remind them that she was a Leaf ninja, loyal to the same village that'd murdered his family.
Obito also felt Nagato's eyes on him. Obito's first thought was also the worst: that Black Zetsu had already reached Nagato, and turned him towards the Eye of the Moon.
"Do you even know what Dawn is fighting for?" asked Nagato them accusingly.
Rin answered. "All ninjas are tyrants. Chakra is the right of all people."
Yahiko pursed his lips. "Did you get that from a pamphlet?"
She nodded. "A girl was passing them out," she said. Rin was a little nervous now. Was that not good enough? Did it make her interest seem too casual?
"Ugh," Yahiko groaned. "I keep telling those kids to stop doing that. They're gonna get caught one day, and Hanzo doesn't care about age, he'll execute anybody for 'crimes against the village'."
Konan cleared her throat. "We don't judge you for learning about us from one of our teenaged 'pamphleteer' fans. As long as you wholeheartedly support the revolution."
"Anybody can parrot slogans. What does the revolution mean to you?" said Nagato. You'd think he'd be less aggressive, considering Rin had saved both his friends' lives.
Rin closed her eyes and breathed deep. You cannot move the world—not alone. But you can live in dissent. She opened her eyes.
"I'm dissenting from a fucked-up world," she answered.
Konan leaned forward, interested. "Oh?"
"The ninja system takes something amazing—chakra—and teaches people that it's only a weapon. I want a world where hurting others with chakra is the last thing anybody thinks of. And I think I can start building that here."
All three of them nodded—even Nagato.
"And you, ghost?" Nagato asked Obito pointedly.
Obito had stood there impassively the whole time. "Me?"
"Well?" pressed Nagato.
Obito was silent for a long moment.
Nagato scoffed. "This is a waste of our—"
"I'm tired of killing my friends," Obito said.
Everyone was staring at him now, even Rin.
"I was taught to kill and sent out to die. I want to die knowing I'll be the last. I don't want anybody else like me." Then he was silent again.
Nagato tilted his head, still glaring at him. "A self-hating ninja. I suppose I can respect that."
They were walked to the entrance of the cave by Konan and Yahiko.
"By the way," said Konan, "we have one more question. Do you have any significant others, children, or close family?"
Rin couldn't help but chuckle at that, remembering a time when her team was still whole, when Obito was still silly and Kakashi still serious.
"Something funny?" Konan asked.
"Sorry, last time someone asked my teammate if he had a 'partner', they were trying to hit on him," Rin answered. She suspected Obito was glaring at her. That incident was years ago, but Rin still found it genuinely funny.
"Well, it's an important question," stated Konan. "Hanzo takes hostages. Frequently. Last week we lost one of our main hideouts when someone betrayed us to save a hostage Hanzo had taken. He killed them anyways. All of them."
"That's fair," said Rin. "Other than my teammate, I don't have anyone Hanzo can get to."
"The last person also said that," Yahiko pointed out. "And Hanzo still got them."
"I'm a foreigner, sir," Rin said. "My only family are in Hidden Leaf Village, and they're not field ninja."
"And your teammate?" asked Yahiko.
"My family wants me dead anyways," said Obito, barely loud enough to be heard.
Konan nodded her head at them. "That's fine. Thank you for answering. We need a few minutes to, uh, deliberate."
"You mean you need a few minutes to convince Nagato," said Rin, more amused than resentful with this.
They grinned sheepishly at that, then walked back to Nagato.
"Did you really have to bring that up? It's embarrassing," complained Obito when they were gone.
"It really was funny. You loved that noble girl's attention and you were terrified of Kakashi breaking you up. Besides, it's my right as a friend to embarrass you sometimes."
"Does this mean I can bring up how you're a huge fan of the worst romance books ever published?"
She shrugged. "Sure, but I don't think it's that embarrassing. And you read them, too."
"I wanted something better than the awful books Kakashi insisted I read," Obito said.
"Why did you hate his books?"
"They were all tragedies," he said. "He had so, so many books about noble warriors sacrificing their lives. I needed something with a happy ending after all of that."
Rin felt it was a good sign that they could talk about Kakashi this easily now. Rin missed him, as did Obito, but she didn't want his memory to always make them feel sad.
~oOo~
The only reason Danzo hadn't disappeared Kouketsu Nohara into a Root facility for interrogation was, of all people, the Uchiha clan. She'd been present as Obito had escaped from an inescapable barrier—she carried valuable intelligence about the enemy, whether she realized or not. It's not like anybody would miss a Nohara anyways. But the Uchiha jealously guarded their secrets, and so guarded Kouketsu from Root. They even kept her from the mind-walking Yamanaka at the regular interrogation branch, isolating her case within the military police's own bureaucracy.
Fugaku had declared that, since the Nohara had clearly been one of Obito Uchiha's targets, but had been foiled, they required extra protection. They were to be heavily guarded by the military police until they were certain Obito wouldn't return to finish the job. It was the least they could do, he'd said, after a fellow Uchiha had shamed them by betraying Leaf.
This infuriated Danzo. However Obito's power worked, the Uchiha clan knew, and despite risking the security of Hidden Leaf, they weren't telling.
Even more infuriating was how the Uchiha found out. It'd taken several days for admin to piece together what'd actually happened that night. There'd been two Obitos, somehow—not a clone, since clones died when the original did, and the second Obito had kept fighting even after the Fourth Fire Shadow killed the first.
That Kouketsu might know how Obito escaped the Four Violet Flames seal was a small detail that the Uchiha should've found out after Danzo. He'd underestimated how deeply the Uchiha subverted Leaf itself. He knew the Uchiha were loyal to their clan, even before the village. He knew they seeded loyalists in every branch of Leaf, and schemed to steer the village even without holding the seat of Fire Shadow. They were nominally one of the four founding clans of Leaf, but seemed more than willing to compromise the village to preserve their secrets and their power. But it seemed they were deliberately thumbing their nose at him now, intercepting and acting on information before Danzo rightfully could.
It infuriated Danzo, but he couldn't afford to be anything other than cold. Too much was on the line to let emotion guide him. He wasn't like the Uchiha.
~oOo~
Mikoto's hand had barely hit the door when it was yanked open and she was pulled into a hug.
"I love you, too, Kushina," she said. "How's it going? I brought food."
"Naruto's finally asleep. I'm tired, my tits hurt, and I'm alone," Kushina grumbled into her ear. She pulled Mikoto into her apartment.
Mito Uzumaki, decades ago, had built a small clan compound. It was supposed to house the few survivors of the Second War Genocide, and form the center of a grander complex as the Uzumaki clan resurrected itself.
Kushina had lived alone in this small compound almost her entire life. It showed. The Uzumaki was a clan in name only; their wealth and power had been destroyed with their country.
Here and there were small signs of order, where Minato had put his own things or organized Kushina's. Considering how messy and careless Kushina usually was, it seemed odd that these little islands were still untouched after several weeks. Or maybe not so odd. Mikoto didn't like the idea of her friend desperately holding on to the last reminders of her lover. Kushina had always put so much effort to into appearing strong and optimistic, that for all she talked about her clan, she never openly mourned them. But for Minato, she was already leaving little shrines to him.
Kushina collapsed on the couch while Mikoto sat down much more gracefully.
"If they hurt, you're breastfeeding Naruto wrong," she told Kushina. "You need to position his mouth right."
"You mean there's a technique to it?"
Mikoto tried very hard not to judge her. Kushina tried to keep up appearances, always talking a lot about her heritage, but she really was alone in this. Mikoto had had an entire clan of more experienced mothers to help her with Itachi, while Kushina was all by herself.
They sat there quietly for a moment. Mikoto was about to break the silence, wanting to ask how Naruto was doing, maybe distract her with the idea of playdates between Naruto and Sasuke in a couple years, when Kushina spoke.
"I miss Minato." It was almost a whisper. It didn't sound right coming from the brash, loudmouthed Kushina.
Mikoto didn't know what to say. She still had her husband. She was familiar with loss—she'd gained her third tomoe hunting down a former teammate-turned-traitor—but she knew that wasn't the same. Kushina had loved Minato like Mikoto loved Fugaku.
"Naruto already looks like him," Kushina went on, still quiet. She choked. "Minato's four weeks dead and Naruto's four weeks old and all I can see when I look at him is his father. And he's just a month old. What happens when he's six? Sixteen? Is it always gonna hurt when I look at him?"
She was cradling her head in her hands now. ""I don't wanna feel sad around my own kid. And it's—what if I'm the last?" Kushina didn't know how to put it into words. She missed Minato, and she saw him in Naruto, and she feared Naruto would grow up knowing that, she was afraid he'd choose the father he looked like instead of his Uzumaki heritage.
"Kushina?" said Mikoto softly, putting her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Naruto is Minato's child, but he's also yours. He may have Minato's eyes and his hair, but Naruto has your skin and your name. Your heritage isn't just the past anymore. It's the now. He'll be a great Uzumaki, and everyone'll know it." As she spoke, Mikoto gently but firmly pulled her friend up to eye level.
Kushina smiled and nodded through bleary eyes.
"I know. But thanks, Mikoto," she said, pulling her close.
"And if you ever need any help with Naruto, always know you can just ask me," Mikoto said.
Kushina was quiet for a moment, not-quite-crying into her friend's shoulder. Then, she pulled back.
"So, you said you brought food?" Kushina said, managing a small smile. "I'm starving and I haven't had time to cook in weeks."
"Please tell me you haven't been living off of instant ramen this whole time," Mikoto said.
Kushina grinned sheepishly. "That's also part of Naruto's heritage."
~oOo~
Sakumo watched his son practice. Kakashi's aim was less than perfect.
Of course it was. He only had one eye. Before, it didn't matter that Kakashi was ever-so-slightly off his aim, because he'd only needed to reveal the Copy Wheel to instantly become better than his best when he still had two eyes.
Now, imperfect was Kakashi's best, and that wasn't good enough for Sakumo.
"Son?" asked Sakumo, announcing his presence to Kakashi.
Kakashi stiffened. "Yes, Father?"
"Spar with me." It was an order, not a request.
"Yes, Father."
Sakumo stood in front of Kakashi. "Begin."
Kakashi was ready.
Charge. Illusion. Didn't work. Use clones. White Chakra Blade against White Chakra Blade. Overwhelmed. Get away! Leap into the air. Bad at wind techniques, use one anyways. Too slow.
LIGHTNING.
Sakumo judged his son. Decent. Not bad. Acceptable, even, if it hadn't been Kakashi. His son used to do better.
Kakashi lay on the ground, still paralyzed from the small bolt of lightning his father had hit him with. One-handed shortsigning. Father was fast—not Minato-fast, but regular S-level fast, which was still faster than Kakashi could ever imagine himself being.
Sakumo knelt by his son and reached out to him. A brilliant spark connected them, and Kakashi could move again.
Sakumo the White Fang had mastered his favored element beyond anyone else in Fire Country. He'd surpassed even his mother and her sisters, already famous in their own right before the First World War. Some said he was second only to Hidden Cloud's Lightning Shadow.
"You're still the best of your year, son," said Sakumo. "But you used to be even better."
"I used to have a Copy Wheel," Kakashi grumbled. He sat up and looked at his father.
"And you still won't use your lightning," Sakumo stated, leaving the actual question unasked.
Kakashi looked down at his lap. At the hand that'd killed Rin. "I wanted to see how far I could go without it," he lied. I don't ever want to see my hand covered in lightning again.
"To truly master something, you need to make it the foundation of everything you do," Sakumo lectured.
"I guess I've mastered letting everyone down, then," Kakashi mumbled, still not looking at his father.
Sakumo frowned, though Kakashi didn't see.
~oOo~
Sakumo was a ninja first, a clan head second, and a father third. But a true ninja forged a path that satisfied all duties. Every action must be true, to uphold every obligation.
Sakumo's son was limited by his one eye. Kakashi wasn't a sensor; he now had a huge blind spot, and unlike before, he had no bloodline to reveal underneath his protector. Before, Kakashi's merely-good (rather than great) performance with one eye had been acceptable, because he'd only needed to lift his protector to instantly become great—even greater than he would've been if he'd still had both his normal eyes.
So he'd get Kakashi a new eye—a special one. He'd help his son. He'd further improve the status of the Hatake. And he'd remove a known threat to Hidden Leaf. All at once. It was the ideal action.
~oOo~
Yahiko approached Rin and Obito as they stood at the mouth of the cave. "The three of us have voted. Welcome to Dawn!"
The three of them. This confirmed Rin's suspicions that Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato formed the core of Dawn. There didn't seem to be an official hierarchy, but everyone still orbited around them.
He flashed his winning smile at Rin. "And for the record, if you want me to hit on you, I'd be more than happy to."
Rin groaned and pulled up her mask. Obito twitched at the loss of secrecy. Yahiko immediately stepped back as his eyes widened.
"Whoa, sorry," he said, waving his hands in front of him. "You're way younger than me. I thought you were just—"
"Short?" Rin said. "Even if we were the same age, Yahiko, I am so far from interested in you I might as well be on the moon."
He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, moving on." He forced himself to look serious. "All right, we trust you enough to let you in. Where's your friend?"
Rin scowled at Obito. She suspected he used illusions to make himself invisible to others, because she sometimes got funny looks from other people when she was talking to him. Like right now, because she was looking pointedly at what was probably empty space to Yahiko.
"Give him a moment, he'll show," she said, still glaring at Obito. "I think I need to talk with him one more time."
Yahiko shrugged. "I'll be waiting with the others. Tell your ghost friend he's welcome too, as long as he doesn't, I dunno, haunt us or anything."
Rin snickered. "Oh, he's not that kind of ghost." She thought she felt Obito glaring at her.
When Yahiko was gone, Obito stepped closer.
"You're much nicer than I am," he said. "If Yahiko had hit on me, I would've threatened to tell Konan about it just to see the fear in his eyes."
Rin didn't like him in the mask; he was meaner with it on. She reached out to pull it off, and because they were alone, he let her.
"If he's that forward about it then she's probably well aware of it, and doesn't care," Rin said. "Besides, he can't hit on you if he doesn't see you. We don't even know if he's attracted to dudes."
"I hope he is. Because I've seen both Nagato and Konan making moon-eyes at him, and Nagato will probably become somehow even angstier if he gets turned down. That's a love triangle that needs to resolve itself fast."
Rin raised an eyebrow at that. "And what would you know about love triangles?"
"I read your books, remember? And I was in one. I had a crush on you, while you liked Kakashi."
Rin sputtered. "What?! Why am I just—why am I just finding out about this now?"
Obito shuffled uncomfortably. "I never told you. I thought... It was easier for me to pretend you maybe liked me back than to ask and... you know."
"Wait, had?"
Obito coughed. Every time he thought it couldn't get more awkward, it did.
"Now I'm not sure if it was really a crush in the first place." He'd been even younger and even stupider than now, so excited to make a friend when he entered the ninja academy that he'd been convinced that meant he was supposed to marry her. Because that's what you were supposed to do with the person you liked most, right?
"Besides," he continued, "I'm basically half plant now. I don't think I'm even really human. I'm missing a lot of—"
"Obito," she interrupted. "Step closer." When he was in hugging range she reached out and flicked his ear.
"What was that for?" he whined.
"Just because you don't wanna fuck me doesn't make you a plant," said Rin. "You're clearly human, even if you're a super-weird one, and you're still my friend. Besides, plants are some of the most absurdly sexual life there is. If how you feel has changed, it has nothing to do with being a plant."
She stepped back and chuckled. "Also, for it to be a proper love triangle, Kakashi would've had to have a crush on you in turn. "
Obito burst out laughing at that. Kakashi, have a crush on him?
Rin just stood there. "I didn't think it was that funny."
Obito gasped out between breathes. "It's just... he was such an asshole."
The idea of Kakashi having a crush on him was honestly the funniest thing he'd heard in a while. It was absurd.
~oOo~
Kakashi had successfully put off filing his report on Obito's attack for over three weeks now. Given that both his parents were hounding him for it, he considered that an accomplishment.
Of course, now that pen and paper were actually in front of him, he had no idea what to write. He jotted down the first thing he could remember that didn't make his hands clammy just thinking about.
Puberty was EXTREMELY kind to Obito, Kakashi wrote, underlining "extremely" three times. And the scars seem scary, but they look good on him.
He tried sketching Obito. With the Copy Wheel, it would've been easy. With it, he'd needed only a couple short lessons in sketching for intelligence reports last year to instantly become a passible sketch artist. Without it guiding his hands, the results were simply awful.
Actually much cuter than this, he wrote beneath it, adding an arrow pointing to Obito's poorly-drawn face.
~oOo~
Author's notes:
Oh Kakashi, you thirsty dog you.
Yes, there are gay ships in this fic, along with polyamorous relationships. Though keep in mind, I don't write sex and I have no idea how to write romance. You know the casual affection Mikoto and Fugaku have shown for each other so far? That's the limit of my writing skill. Consider yourselves lucky that you'll never have to read me try and describe two characters kissing.
Kie and Kyusuke are not OCs, just obscure members of the earliest version of Dawn. In canon, they were killed by Obito and Zetsu to keep them from alerting the rest of Dawn about Hanzo's ambush.
It took a bit of thought, but I've worked out what Danzo's Root actually does. (In my story, not the original series.) What makes Root special, even for black ops, is they're Hidden Leaf's equivalent of the CIA. It's how I write Danzo in this chapter: he's allying with a foreign dictator to crush a rebellion that he sees as a threat to Leaf. He's even providing material aid to said dictator.
Root aggressively meddles in geopolitics. Unlike ordinary black ops, which undertake specific, well-defined tasks against targeted threats to Leaf, Root has broad, nebulous goals of undermining all potential threats—up to and including, say, undermining the political stability of supposed allies just to ensure their dependency on Leaf or, more relevantly, temporarily allying with nominal enemies under the table in order to crush dangerous revolutionaries.
And regarding "They have your skin", I'm writing the Uzumaki and Senju as being noticeably darker-skinned than most people in the Land of Fire. Not quite as dark as people from the Land of Lightning, but still noticeably brown. This is partly to maximize the contrast with their historical enemies the Uchiha, who're pale with (usually) black hair. If the Uchiha have classically upper-class looks, then the Senju and Uzumaki are more salt-of-the-earth types. (FYI, there are a lot of naturally dark-skinned east Asians, they just don't appear in the media much because pale skin is considered more desirable.) It's also partly because there's a clear biracial narrative even in canon. Naruto may pass for Japanese (nobody remarks on his race in canon), but he's also the child of Kushina, who's a foreigner and genocide survivor. Kishimoto, of course, did nothing with this, because he's Kishimoto and Naruto's parentage is a retcon. To me, however, the idea that the ninja world's designated messiah is the son of a genocide survivor is something very important. The biracial theme was always there, I'm just cranking it up to 11.