Chapter 11: Faustian deals

The room was dark and windowless. A room fashioned of cold stone and easily mistaken for a prison cell save for the subtle beeping and hum of machinery. The hum came from the numerous machines which surrounded a single hospital bed on which a figure could be seen. His features hidden as they were by bandages was indecipherable. What skin and that could be seen on the rest of his body was pale from lack of sunlight for over two decades. A place which would have had no relevance in the grand scheme of things. A place with an equally irrelevant occupant whose passing would have gone unnoticed.

That was how things should have been had destiny played out as it should have. However...this was no longer the case.

For in a flash this forgotten place was suddenly flooded with light. Light which just as quickly vanished as it came with a pop. In it's place...the form of a familiar looking book which seemed to hover there above the still form before a green light began to flow out from the book to descend upon the figure.

'Hm...as I thought. His brain is a mess. No way he'd ever wake up under normal circumstances. Other than that most of his injuries are long since healed...and his soul is still very much trapped inside Perfect! Now to make contact'

Once more the book began to glow but this time it was far more ominous. Then with a sound like a crash of thunder a bolt of energy shot out to slam into the still form.

And the images began to flow.


Years ago….

Five years. Five long miserable years had the second shinobi world war raged and many had been the casualties. Already Amegakure had been devastated its various waterways and marshes choked with the bodies of both sides and many who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Far from there the Land of sky with its revolutionary means of chakra based flight was being ironically enough blasted out of the very sky that was its namesake.

But none of that mattered to the red haired man as he stood his ground before his opponents.

SO close! They had nearly made it to the border with Konoha along with the survivors of the village. They only had to cross this last mountain pass and they would have been in friendly territory All that time all that effort and for what!

The death of the very people he had sworn to protect at the hands of a rockslide courtesy of these Iwa savages and him penned in with his back literally against the wall.

And where the hell had been the escort Konoha was supposed to provide?!

"You know I have to hand it to you." Smirked his opponent. "We almost didn't track you folks down...emphasis on almost. Unfortunately for you, almost doesn't count."

His mind was screaming at him to run. To just turn tail and haul ass out of there.

His heart and body on the other hand had a different idea and they were winning the battle.

"Shut the fuck up you miserable dirt eating bastard!" he raged brandishing his wakizashi.

"Ooooh. Big words. Looks like the rubble you dug your way out of didn't crush your balls like I thought it had. Not like it did to your friends...well along with everything else about them. Names Toshiro, Suzuki Toshiro What's your name kid?"

The young Uzumaki glared at his opponent but then softly he muttered it out.

"Yataro...Uzumaki Yataro"

"Thank you, I'll be sure to carve it on your grave! Thunder funeral: Feast of lightning!" As the words left his lips huge gouts of lightning burst forth ready to consume the seemingly defenseless opponent. However...

"Uzumaki style: shield of the raiju!" He was not as defenseless as his opponent thought for as the energy descended a yellow glow suddenly erupted from the ground in the shape of writing of a sort before a whole series of chains suddenly burst forth from the ground and interlinked together to form a protective cage around the man. Suddenly faced with an obstacle the lightning did as physics suggested it should and took the path of least resistance. Namely straight down into the earth where it was grounded. Then almost as immediately as they came they vanished. Before the young Uzumaki had a chance to think though his opponent was attacking once again.

"Earth release: star fall!" Instantly a whole series of stones launched into to the air like mortar shells and began to descend upon the battlefield like meteors rocking it and setting up huge plumes of dust. Before they could reach their true target though he backflipped, dodged and rolled out of the way before crying out:

"Fire style: Pheonix flower jutsu!" At once a whole series of small burning projectiles launched forth from the Uzumaki's mouth countering the still remaining stones and blasting them out of the sky. The iwa shinobi moved to shield his eyes from the dust thrown up by the collision of the two techniques only to find them widening as three blades came screaming out at him from different directions.

"Leaf style: Dance of the Crescent moon!"

But before the blades could reach his opponent the man smirked.

"Earth Release: Subterranean Voyage!" Around the man the earth seemed to change colors before the man just seemed to descend into it like he had just stepped into a swimming pool causing the Uzumaki and his shadow clones to totally miss the man. A few feet away the ground suddenly shifted colors and the Iwa nin climbed out of the earth.

"Not bad kid, not bad at all. Should have seen that one coming given your nation and those treehuggers were allies and all. Anyway this has been fun and all but I don't have all day."

Before the young Uzumaki could retort he felt it…

The feeling of a fist being driven into his face. And the image of the man he was speaking to previously crumbling into stone.

'A Decoy?!'

"Explosion release: Landmine fist!"

And then everything went white.


The memories ended there but it was pretty obvious given the images and the injuries on the man what happened next. Clearly the young man had been blasted over the edge of the cliff face he had been fighting on into the valley below where presumably he had been found by Konoha forces and brought back here, though judging by the man's hospital chart other than knowing he was from Uzugakure thanks to his headband they knew nothing of who the man was other than an ally. And ever since then his mind trapped in an endless loop reliving the last moments of consciousness…

At least until now.

'Hello Yataro'

At these words the image before him seemed to freeze before shattering like a pane of glass. In its place was a dark empty nothingness. Like a piece of the void had been carved out into a room or box. In it floated the image of the red headed boy turned man in the intervening years.

For a moment the man seemed confused at what was going on, the head of his image widely swinging back and forth in a desperate attempt to find something to focus on.

'Who are you? Hell, where are you?'

'Both excellent questions. Allow me to clarify'

At that the void like space began to shift to become a homy traditional sitting room complete with table and tatami mats. Across from where he sat Yataro saw a hooded shape of what he presumed was a man of some sort.

'Greeting, I am Xy.'

'Xy? What kind of name is Xy? And where are we'

'One very old and once very widely known and feared. As to where we are we are in a spiritual landscape of sorts I've created for the two of us to communicate soul to soul.'

'Soul to soul? What do you mean by that?'

'It means my young friend that you are not really here, nor am I. You are in fact lying in a hospital bed being kept alive by machines.'

'What! For how long?!'

'Best guess a couple of decades. You're not a kid anymore, you're a physically a grown ass man or at least you would be if you could actually do anything besides lie there like a discarded chew toy, which is sort of what you look like now. No offense.

'Some taken I assure you, but seriously. Decades are you sure? What about the war?'

'If you mean the second one that one ended a long time ago. In fact while you've been lying there a whole new war was waged and won.'

'People never change do they?'

'Oh they do but not to any great degree or anything like that.'

'And my clan?'

'That's actually something I wanted to talk to you about. See as luck would have it I happen to be allied with a member of your clan. One of the few remaining ones actually.

'Few remaining!?'

'...yeah sorry to break it to you but the intervening years have not been kind to the survivors of the Uzumaki clan.

'...sorry. Anyway while you've been all comatose and everything I ran into this kid. Nice one by the name of Naruto and well he's been having a rather shit life. You know the Kyuubi and how it used to rampage about?'

'I know that it was sealed inside Mito-sama for quite some time'

'Yeah...well that's not the case anymore. Nowadays it's inside the kid and well since he's not that well connected and the fact Konoha is filled with idiots (oh by the way the hospital your in is in Konoha) his life has been sucking something fierce.'

'Fascinating but what does this have to do with me'

'Just this, would you be willing to help him if you could?'

'What sort of question is that! Of course I would! He's part of my clan How could you even ask something like that?'

'Because what i'm about to ask of you is a rather heavy request one I wouldn't fault you for refusing under the circumstances.

'And that is?'

'Give unto me control of your body and soul to do with as I see fit'

'What?!'

'I said...'

'I heard you the first time! J-just give me a second to think.

'Of course of course. Time has no meaning here so take as much time as you need I am in no rush.'

For who knows home many timeless moments, whether they be ten thousand years or 10 seconds each there was silence in the place before it was at last broken.

'What do you intend?'

'Hm?'

'What do you intend to do with my body and soul?'

'Well your soul I would force out and replace with my own whereupon I would take your body as my own form as the one I am using in the material world currently is quite limited in usefulness. Having a body that is without a doubt related to my ward would allow me a ready means by which to aid him.'

'And what would happen to me? Hell if you can take command of my body why can you not simply heal me up so I may aid him myself?'

'Unfortunately that is not an option. Your brain was basically liquified by the explosion going off at that close range. Your literally only being kept alive by a combination of your clan's freakish vitality and the machinery your tied into. Without that you'd be dead my powers for all their greatness can't do anything about that. Replacing your mind with my own though, well that's a different much easier story.'

'And what would happen to me?'

'That I would leave up to you. I could simply have your soul pass onto the afterlife...'

'Or?'

'Or I could simply hold onto it until such time as I find a use for it. Perhaps at some point I might even find a way to have the boy be able to communicate with you.

'I think I'd prefer that honestly. If the boy is one of the last of my clan I would like to get to know him if at all possible.'

'So, does that mean what I think it means?

'Yes.. I agree to your plan.'

'Wonderful!'


The room was dark and windowless. A room fashioned of cold stone and easily mistaken for a prison cell save for the beeping and hum of machinery. The beeping came from the numerous machines which surrounded a single hospital bed.

A single empty hospital bed.


Some hours later, somewhere over a thousand miles away at a small shoreside village a man approached a dockworker. There was something off about the man's appearance, maybe it was his outfit which was of a style nobody recognized, maybe it was bandages covering most of his visage so none could see it, but whatever it was it was something that should have sent alarm bells ringing...at least until the dockworker looked into his eyes and froze as his mind went blank and the man walked passed him and onto a boat. The captain looked upon him and was about to say something until the man suddenly threw a bag on deck. Hesitantly the man reached down and opened to find a wad of cash. He looked up…

And right into the most terrifying set of eyes he had ever seen into his whole life.

"Good day good sir, I wish to charter your boat."


A/N: Would you please kindly review?