Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and I make no profit from writing this fanfic.
(AN) Wow. It's been longer than a year. Which is absolutely pathetic. I should get a beta for this fic. Not only so they can go back and fix the little errors, but also so that I have someone to nag me into writing more often. How about it? Anyone want to be my cute kouhai?
"Sharks start out as eggs, but incubate and hatch in the womb. Sometimes the number of pups is less than the number of eggs that were fertilised. Do you know why? Cannibalism. The pups start eating each other within the mother's womb the moment they hatch. They start killing their siblings the moment they enter the world, viewing everything they see as nothing more than prey. As of today you and I are fellow members of Akatsuki. So be careful… of me." - Hoshigaki Kisame
"Nagato."
Pale grey eyes ringed in concentric circles stared at her unblinkingly out of Yahiko's face, and Konan repressed a shudder. How Nagato could stand to wear the skin of his dead friend at all; making him dance like a grotesque marionette, much less do it for years - the Ame kunoichi would never know.
"Here; in this place, I am Pein, Konan." Yahiko's lips moved, barbell piercings shivering dull light in the gloom, and the blue haired woman stepped forward. Stroking her hands over Yahiko's cold and dead flesh, she traced his cold and dead mouth with all the gentle reminiscence and old aching love she could muster. Her thumbs stilled over Nagato's burning eyes, the only life that burned in Yahiko like fire under water.
"I would look upon your face."
A beat of painful silence, and the animated corpse's lips curled up. "As you will."
Dropping her hands to her sides, she stepped around the Deva Path. Konan slipped between the gaggle of corpses that always clustered around Yahiko's body, revulsion rising in her gorge at the press of chill flesh. The other five paths turned their gazes out; ignoring her, guarding against some unseen threat.
For all his desecration of the dead, Nagato cared for Yahiko's body with fervor bordering on obsession. None were allowed to touch or damage it, and he kept it from decay meticulously. A twisted form of atonement and wish fulfillment that employed all his power to build Yahiko's dreams with Yahiko's body.
She wasn't sure who had loved the orange haired boy more - Nagato or her.
The stone wall slid open before her; sprung by a hidden latch, and Konan rushed inside before it could shut her out.
Nagato's real burning eyes watched her. Glittering without their usual mad passion or righteous. Rings lit only by the light of... resignation?
Grasping his hands, Konan squeezed the only warm body Nagato had.
"Something troubles you, old friend." she whispered, slate grey eyes searching desperately. Nagato was all that remained for her in the world, and Konan would give anything for his sake.
Breath hisses out from his nostrils, his emaciated chest shrinking as the air left his lungs. The rods impaled in his back twitched, and his torso rose again.
"Ah Konan." He smiled, aged lips in a face too old for its time. "My angel, there is little to fear. The world is coming, and Yahiko's dream will be fulfilled soon."
"You lie Nagato, or you're not telling me the whole truth." the blue haired woman scowled. "Remember who I am Nagato. I am not a grunt. I am not any of those deluded fools that do your bidding for whatever petty reason they've dreamt up. I am your friend, standing by you for years, and I'd appreciate not being lied to."
Nagato frowned, stringy muscles tensing under his skin in agitation. His legendary Rinnegan glazed over, and he seemed to look into her, and through her.
She shivered.
"Fate..." he began slowly, tasting each word carefully as it rolled off his tongue. "The strings of fate have become tangled. Things are not as they were. Something or someone has turned destiny on its ear. The straight road has become bent, and my eyes are finding it difficult to see the road we must travel."
The Amegakure no Tenshi felt her blood chill in her veins. "So what does this mean for us, Nagato?"
Smiling wearily at her, his eyes slipped into a less devastating stare. "What it means dear Angel of mine, is that you must trust no one. Things may become clear again to me in time, but until then none of our enemies, and certainly non of our allies are to be trusted. That masked man the least of all. But never fear. Fate will have its due before it ends."
A severed head sit on the ground before him, twitching at the dirty pair of socks stuffed in its mouth with pure indignation. Detailed threats of death and dismemberment would bubbled up in the nukenin's throat – if Hidan still had a throat for them to bubble up in. And they would have spewed out with pure rancor – if Chouji's sweaty old socks weren't balled in his mouth, the rancid taste the most disgusting thing the silver haired man had ever tasted.
Shikamaru sat before him, inhaling the choking smoke of burning tobacco against all the protests of his young lungs. Thoughts percolated in the pineapple haired man's head, twisting the information Shino had relayed regarding the man he hated the most in the world.
He was a child no longer.
"The second to last message my kikaichu related to me was the termination of their target. The last message was the relocation of a heart that was stored in another part of his body in place of the disabled organ. We can theorize that the nature of Kakuzu's immortality lies in spare hearts at the least, if not more spare organs of other functions as well."
Multiple fucking hearts. At least he'd get to kill the bastard a few times over.
Asuma's lighter bounced in his hand, beating a tattoo against his palm in time with his planning.
The Hyuuga heiress was on the trail back to Konoha with her broken arm and Asuma's body in tow. Kiba had accompanied her, since it wouldn't do to leave the girl unprotected and let the Byagukan fall into enemy hands – or much worse, a Byakugan breeder. The Aburame heir would have gone, if Shikamaru hadn't ordered him to stay.
The only one to do any real damage to the nukenin had been Shino and his kikaichu, even though the chance of the same trick working twice was highly unlikely.
No one had protested that he'd seized command of the squad before his sensei's blood was even dry on the ground. Perhaps it was that none of the others were willing, or that they were in too much shock to try.
Or perhaps it was the murderous, mad darkness floating under his skin like methane under the surface of the Earth, waiting for the spark of mayhem...
Shadows flickered with violence.
Shadowbinder.
Chouji had his back, he knew. In between the Akimichi comforting Ino and the brown haired shinobi's own crying, the large boy regarded Shikamaru with a desperate and hungry look.
The Nara remembered black fire and mad laughter he'd witnessed on camera what seemed like an eternity in the past, a past in which Asuma had laughed and breathed with him.
Snorting with bitter amusement"I could really use you right now Sasuke, if for nothing else than for some good old torture and murder." Shikamaru cocked his head at the dissembled flesh before him. Bloody chunks and broken bones and an especially gnawed arm.
"You know, I'm having the thought that it might have been for the best if we'd left the arm for the dog." he told the gagged head absently, kicking it between his feet when it glared hatefully.
Squatting in the grass, the Nara stared back at Hidan before carefully pulling the sock out of his mouth. He had no desire to loose a finger to a severed head.
"Gah. You fucking piece of shit!" the priest shouting, snapping his jaws like a rabid dog.
Shikamaru stood, folding his arms and leaning his back into a tree. Here, out in the woods away from prying civilians and out in the night away from his own team, he felt more comfortable.
More willing to be perfectly violent.
The campfire threw his face in relief, dark eyes vanished within the cavity of his brow as he listened to the Akatsuki shinobi rant.
"And that worthless beard cocksucking fuck of your's deserved everything he got."
"If you say one more word about him, I swear to all the fucking Kami I will piss right in your mouth."
The threat hung in the air, and for the first time since they'd met, Hidan blanched. The undead man didn't fear pain or blood exhaustion.
That didn't mean he'd want to have some guy take a leak on his fucking face.
"Yeah, alright." the silver haired man muttered grudgingly.
Shikamaru grunted tonelessly."Tell me about Kakuzu."
With the threat of being an unwilling participant in a disgusting act, Hidan spat at Shikamaru's feet and spilled.
"That greedy fuck doesn't know anything about the glory of Jashin-sama." His voice a low hiss, the priest switched tracks at the unimpressed look the Nara gave. "All he cares about is money and living to spend it. Keeps himself alive by taking in the bits of the worthless enemies he's defeated. He's got five hearts, one for each element."
Humming in acknowledgment, the Nara rolled his eyes up to the starlight filtering through the forest canopy. Five hearts to kill. And it stood to reason that the more they destroyed, the weaker their enemy would become.
Dark eyes tracked down to stare into Hidan's violent purple eyes.
He smiled and starting throwing pieces of bodily gristle into the flames.
"What the fuck? Get the fuck out of here!" the swearing took a tinge of panic "You sick fuck! You said you wouldn't do that!"
"First of all." Shikamaru declared coldly as he went about his business. "I never promised you anything. And second – even if I had, I would've lied."
"You fucking..."
The severed head sputtered as the Nara pulled it up by the hair.
"You don't seem to understand that your pathetic Kashin-sama or whatever isn't your God anymore. I am. The only one handing out vengeance here is me."
The scent of burning flesh had never smelt so good before.
And the screams were like music to his ears.
He lit another cigarette.
It was only the self-loathing in his stomach that ruined the event of Hidan's burning.
"Asuma would be fucking ashamed of me."
"These tracks are old, Kakashi."
The gruff voice belied the tiny pug nose that lowered to the forest loam and inhaled noisily. Pakkun snuffled about, taking in the mix of teenage boy and pup and fish. "Which one are you looking for Kakashi?" the pug asked. "The hormonal teen, the rutting dog, or the stinky fish?"
"The stinky fish." the last Hatake grinned.
Naruto groaned. "Are you seriously gonna tell me this bastard smells like stinky fish? That's fucking gross." The expression on Sakura's face twinned that of Naruto's instinctive revulsion.
"Of course not, dobe." the Uchiha interjected, crossing his arms as he waited. "I'm sure he'll smell like a rich and delicious sashimi."
Driving an elbow into his side, the blond grinned at the pained look that flashed across his face. "Don't even get cocky with me ya bastard."
Kakashi's hand darted up and motioned a patrolling Gai down from the trees for a huddled conversation with the pug over the faded old tracks in the dirt. The expression on the taijutsu master's face was purely professional, with an absence of his traditional exuberance. The quiet conference ended with twin nods, and the pair of Jounin rose to their feet.
"Come." Kakashi ordered as Gai leapt back into the leafy cover, and joined his comrade in short order, Pakkun perched on his shoulder. "We're burning daylight."
"Yosh!"Lee shouted, fire burning in his eyes as he cleared the leap in a single bound. His two teammates merely shook their heads silently and followed him.
Naruto gave a shrug to Sakura and clambered the nearest tree, followed by the pink-haired girl.
Sasuke ascended last, red eyes narrowed thoughtfully on the two oldest members of their team.
Wind howled over the desert, white sand dunes shifting ever so slightly, shaped by the current like they had been over the centuries. Teal eyes scanned across the horizon, dark rings tightening as they settled on the moon.
Gaara didn't even pretend to understand what the century and a half dead leader of the Uchiha clan that had helped found Konohagakure had to do with anything. Yet it seemed all Shukaku was able to cry whenever he submerged to pry information from it. Bloody oceans of memories and the name Madara over and over and over.
Bandaged fingers settled on his shoulder, and the Kazekage turned to stare at his older brother. Kankuro smiled tremulously. Attempting to master the use of Sasori's puppets and Chiyo's techniques left him tired and bleeding every night, fingers cramping with pain.
Gaara hoped it was worth it.
"Our records here of the one called Uchiha Madara are woefully inadequate." The red-haired teen sighed. "I have an urge to make my way to Konoha and peruse their library instead, but the village needs my attention now."
The Kazekage looked at his brother. "I will be sending you and Temari in my stead. Take care to find out everything you can."
Purple war paint twisted as Kankuro gave a frantic look. "But if I'm off at Konoha, how am I going to find time to study with Chiyo-baa-sama?"
Regarding him with a raised brow, Gaara said nothing.
"Like, come on Gaara! This is my life's work right here."
"You're whining, Kankuro."
"I'm not!" the brown-haired male hissed.
"Oh?" Gaara tilted his head. "So why is it then that you're using the same tone of voice you do when Temari throws out your pornographic magazines?"
Kankuro went read and sputtered incoherently as his brother walked off.
"You and our sister are going to Konoha." the Kazekage threw over a thin shoulder. "Take your old lady with you to practice dolls if you must."
Hanabi tensed, pale eyes tracking one of the Hyuuga elders as he waddled on by down the corridor. Automatically shrinking against the wall, she boldly met his gaze as the man frowned down at her through his meticulously kept beard and folded his hands over his ponderous stomach.
The hall was light and airy, frequent windows and doors opening into indoor gardens gave the whole main family compound a sense of enfolding forth from nature. A house of quiet contemplation and inner balance to better complement that Jyuuken taijutsu style the clan had become famous for.
After a moment of dark stares, the rotund elder turned away and tottered off. No doubt to present more complaints to her father about the troubling rumours that were abound in the clan. Whispers of insurrection and freedom, as it were.
Or perhaps he was off to complain again about how Hiashi was a failure in adhering to their precious family traditions. That Hiashi had not marked Hanabi with the Hyuuga Juinjutsu after her birth had been scandal enough. That he'd persisted for a decade after that without doing so was even more so.
Hanabi knew well enough that the only thing holding the other Main Family Lines from adhering the brand of slavery by force had been the quiet assurances from her father that he was carefully weighing his children to see who would be the stronger heir.
Safety had been a given of her life so long as she'd outstripped Hinata in regards to shinobi skills and took to heiress training far better than her sister ever had. The clan had been balanced between settling with the younger but clearly stronger daughter, or the older and weaker but heir by tradition.
Slipping carefully out a side door with a flex of her doujutsu, the girl inhaled the sweet scent of the garden. For such a colourless and dour people, the gardens of the Hyuuga were possessed of vibrancy. As if the bright yellow aconite and the deep red amaryllis nestled in twisting cherry blossoms had taken in all the life and colour in residency.
Hinata was not the weak daughter any longer. Something had changed in her, three years ago, and turned to pure steel.
"I can no longer afford to be a weakling."
"Truly, it is the innocent who suffer while we with power play the strings."
A deep voice sighed out behind her, low and melodious like ripples over a dark lake. Hanabi spun, doujutsu flaring in panic as the first spurts of blue streamers lit off her fingertips.
Twisting red eyes stared back into white, and the tall man made a small smile with a weary mouth. It softened the stress lines around his face, easing years off the pale skin.
A Konohagakure hitai-ate reflected the sun in her eyes, polished and unmarred, and her throbbing heart eased slightly. Konoha-nin, and not a nukenin.
"Each of us, none too innocent, none too guilty." Hanabi countered, tracking the nearest of the branch house guards.
If she screamed, it would be three seconds for the protector to come. Three heart-wrenching seconds in which the man before her would have more than ample opportunity to slay her and flee.
The hitai-ate around her throat bobbed as she inhaled. "Save those babes in their mothers' arms, to young yet to take up the art of murder."
Wheeling eyes considered her carefully even as a pale hand slipped inside the man's thick black cloak, patterned red clouds shifting with the movement.
"That is an unfortunate view on life."
"Life is unfortunate."
Something like shock mingled with amusement rippled over his face even as he bent, pulling a letter from the voluminous cloth.
"Out of the mouth of babes." he breathed a chuckle.
Paper pressed into her hands, and the pale-eyed girl noted with pride her hands never trembled as she took it.
"You will give this to your sister for me." he ordered her, dulcet and dark.
"Will I?" she wondered impertinently, a spark of rebellion in her eyes.
Fingers with nails tipped blue traced over her forehead, silent impression and implication.
"You will." the dark shinobi confirmed, feet melting away into squawking crows and fading into feathers.
Set a-tremble again, Hanabi knew.
She would.
A blue-skinned hand wrapped bandages over scales with something approaching tenderness even as Sharingan melted out of the forest's midday gloom. Twitching his gills with something approaching agitation, Kisame ignored his visitor until his last winding stroke of cloth.
Then he lay Samehada in the grass with care and threaded his fingers together before fixing dark eyes on the intruder.
Sinking down onto his haunches, Itachi breathed as soft sigh as his Sharingan swirled and faded to black. The Uchiha set a bold stare at his former partner, drowning his own confused mix of emotions in the back of his mind. Time for digust at Kisame's violence, the fish-man's cruelty, the nukenin's nihilism would come later.
It was the time for respect.
"You've been gone a long time, Itachi." Deep blue lips peeled back into a shark's smile, all white edges and rending. "I've been hearing some very interesting things about you. " Kisame's laugh was brittle. "I'd almost think that you'd gone soft."
Itachi's eyes narrowed, and his thin brow rose. "Somehow, I don't share the feeling that killing my entire family and torturing my brother to make myself the villain and preserve his position in the village was the soft thing, but perhaps we can disagree on that."
Resignation flipped in Kisame's stomach, and the Akatsuki-nin draw a knee up to his chest as he cast his beady gaze into the flickering green light around them. Wind ruffled through the leaves, carrying the faint scent of loam.
"No, Itachi." Kisame decided, tasting the words between his teeth. "I think we can agree on it. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, what your convictions demand you do."
Scales scratched faintly with the twist of the nukenin's neck as he brought his eyes back to his former partner. "I'm sure I told you a hundred times how I killed my entire squad back in the Cipher Division to prevent their information falling into Konoha's hands, as per my orders, only to find it meant nothing at all because of that fat bastard Fuguki selling it for some cash."
A slow blink over sharp eyes.
"People talk all kinds of shit. Loyalty, duty, honor. It's all bullshit." The shark smirked bitterly. "Shinobi live a life full of shadows and lies. Lies to themselves most of all. It doesn't mean a damn thing. But conviction. A world of truth. That's worth fighting for." Flexing his hands, Kisame paused at the popping of his joints. "You fight for conviction; Itachi, and I can respect that."
Seconds ticked by. Red shot through black orbs and swirled into triple tomoe.
"For what it is worth, Kisame, I would not be disappointed if you had chosen a different side in this conflict. Find your peace before the end." The Uchiha turned to leave.
"Fate's a bitch. And for what it's worth Itachi, I'll kill you quickly. I'll see you in person next time."
Crows screeched and burst forth from the infirm Uchiha's body as Samehada stabbed through him.
Pink petals fluttered from his palm, scattering like a handful of so much lurid snow to mingle among the carpet of ivory chrysanthemums. The last gasping tribute to a life given gasping as poison melted veins, sending blood gushing freely through the inner cavities of the body.
Haruno Sakura died with red filling her lungs and congealing to a scabby mess. The casket of her funeral had remained closed out of necessity as the force that built under the young woman's skin bruised her epidermis black and split the flesh like an overripe fruit.
The death would have been agonizing.
Shifting beside him, Kakashi favoured his last student with a blank look out of a glazed dark eye. Silvery strands shifted in the breeze, their faint shimmer revealing the man's natural colour from the streaks of white that shocked through the mop.
Sasuke can't help but run a hand down his face, shielding his eyes from the world as he drew shuddering breaths and hot tears seeped between his fingers. A curse lay over Team Seven, striking them down one after another with impunity and pain like the most vengeful of devils.
Failure rode high in his chest, and the last Uchiha couldn't prevent himself from peeling away his justifications and roasting himself in the flame of guilt.
"I'd give you some advice about how we keep our comrades alive in memory and honour them through making the right choices, but I think between you and me Sasuke, that I can drop that." the older man broke in, turning his frozen face up to the sky. "You and I both know that it's going to do neither of us any good."
The air tasted like futility.
"If you need to drown yourself in the bottom of a bottle, let me know."
That night Sasuke and Kakashi drank themselves into oblivion, swallowing numbness into their veins that they never released. Neither claimed to be sane.
The world didn't expect them to be.
"I'm going to be honest with you guys." Shikamaru grunted as he wandered back into camp, squinting against the slant of dusk that cut through the grove. "He's got five hearts, and we're going to have to kill him five times over before we can put that son of a bitch in the ground. I don't know if we can do it without reinforcements."
Chouji shifted on age-dried stump, cherry red armour coating hammy fists creaking with stress as the large young man clenched with simmering rage. "You're the brains here, Shika, you know I'll follow any plan you think up. I've got your back."
Twisting her blonde ponytail with an idle hand, Ino gave a bloodthirsty grin, ignoring her stinging reddened eyes to laugh "He's not going to know what hit him."
Shikamaru smirked back, bloodlust beginning to boil in the air.
"You're being foolish." Cut across the mood. Shino readjusted his dark lens with a glint, voice cool as ice. "I understand your grief, but rushing headlong after an S-ranked bounty hunter is asking for trouble. Wait for reinforcements." Pausing to gauge the dark-eyed shadowbinder's expressionless face, the Aburame cut deep. "Or do you not remember the results of the last missions you led us on without proper strength and clarity of mind?"
Chouji lying on a stretcher, skin hanging dangerously loose on the boy's emaciated frame as the Akimichi heir was shuffled into emergency care. Another bed bustled past, lurid green seal emblazoned on Neji's too pale face with golden steel arrows embedded in the Branch member's flesh. The chuunin vest didn't feel like a distinction, it felt like a mockery. But Shikamaru had a report to give to the Hokage on the failure to retrieve Sasuke and prevent the Uchiha from defecting to Orichimaru by any means necessary.
Asuma's bones were parchment dry in his hands as he joined the other members of Team Ten in laying their sensei's remains carefully out on a scroll. Team Eight hung over them at a respectful distance, but Shikamaru could feel Hinata's concerned gaze digging between his shoulder blades. The Nara would have given his arms to have Asuma back again – to hear the bearded Sandaime's son crack a jovial laugh or blow an amused cloud of smoke.
But he'd never see Asuma again. They'd wasted the time they had together. Wasted the elder man's life for a chance to capture a foul mouthed heathen.
The memories had all the effect of a bucket of ice-water poured down the pineapple-haired young man's back, and Shino was both pleased and guilty to see the sharp inhale Shikamaru gave as his face tightened and expression went dark.
Dirt ground beneath Shikamaru's sandle, shockingly loud in the tense camp. The apple of his throat bobbed as the Nara swallowed dryly before agreeing in a tone as dark as the far side of the moon "You're right of course. We ought to retreat in good order now that we've obtained the information from Hidan. No point in getting the rest of Team Ten obliterated."
Forming a unit in short order, Shikamaru gave one long glance in the distance behind them – the direction their enemy had retreated in – before fleeing in the direction of Konoha.
It was only when the Nara heir's dark eyes were faced in the opposite direction that Shino was able to shrug off the chill that had built between his shoulder blades, generated by the black stare Shikamaru had given him. A look burning somewhere between despair and hate.
Her arm ached.
Every leap and crouch sent a jolt through Hinata's body, grinding the two halves of her broken ulna against one another. The Hyuuga found that she didn't truly mind the pain, since it brought her the peace of mind she could only find when she was being punished.
Hinata was tired of failing. Weary of not being strong enough or not being smart enough or not being swift enough. Because of her personal ineptitude, she was going to face her sensei with a bag of bones instead of victory in hand. If only she'd been a better kunoichi. Perhaps even the clan would have been happy for her existence.
"ANBU patrol right!" Kiba barked, startling his lavender haired teammate from her depressed spiral. Veins swelled around Hinata's eyes, white orbs gaining the sheen associated with active Byakugan usage. Confirming that the soldiers flickering through the distant trees were Konoha nin and not imposters, Hinata released the flow of ocular chakra.
Giving the Inuzuka heir a sharp nod, Hinata curved the path of travel to ensure contact with the allied soldiers. The moment they met the squad led by a jounin in a pig mask was short and fleeting, barely a few seconds of crossed paths wordless confirmation of identity. Passing through the foilage in a blur, two-thirds of Team Eight pressed for home, satisfied that their wounded condition would serve to alert the patrol about possible enemy pursuit.
Kiba was silent for quarter of an hour after the sight of the allied shinobi, waiting for the scent wafting in the wind to confirm that he and Hinata were alone. Landing on a branch and springing ahead in a burst of effort, the Inuzuka drew even with his squad mate, looked at her through the corner of one slitted eye, and murmured.
"You're too hard on yourself."
Only the slight narrowing of pale eyes responded to his statement, flaring briefly into Byakugan to survey the area and fading at the lack of threat. Hinata knew she needed to conserve chakra, and energy. Which was why she had set such an easy pace in the return to Konoha.
"Distracting yourself won't fix things." Kiba cut in again, familiar enough to know that Hinata would obscurate and pretend to be considering other problems in an attempt to deny the ones that bothered her. "Shit happens, ain't nothing you can do but pick yourself up and keep going." the Inuzuka pressed mercilessly, brushing back an overhanging branch.
Akamaru whined and panted, sniffing loudly and pressing as close to Hinata's other side as the wolfdog realistically could while they traveled. Twitching her lips in distant affection, the Hyuuga sighed before turning a cool look back on her talkative teammate.
"I'm aware Kiba-kun. But it's easy to say something like that." Absently reaching her unbroken left limb back to stroke over rough canvas, Hinata drew in a shaky breath at the faint rattle of bone. "People say things like that all the time. 'Never give up' and 'Don't back down' and 'Get up'. And I don't know if I can keep doing that anymore. I'm not Naruto, and even if I try I don't know if I have enough courage to be like her. I'm not strong enough."
Kiba's grip on her bicep was warm and unyielding, jerking the two ninja to a stop. Akamaru touched down quietly several stride away, watching his owner through one dark eye as the dog waited to move on.
"Don't even begin to think about yourself that way." the Inuzuka growled, giving the girl a sharp shake the had the Hyuuga biting her lip in surprise. "We're not all perfect. Hell, a lot of the time I've fucked things up royally. But I keep going, and you should too. Because even if shit hits the fan and you or Shino or I die, at least I'll go to the grave with no regrets about if I'd done what I should have been doing."
Red tear shaped tattoos rippled as Kiba gave a sharp toothed grin. "Maybe we'll fuck it up, but at least the fuck up won't be because we were such pussies that we rolled over at the first sight of trouble. Work your ass off, and if you still don't make it at least you know you gave it all you got."
Pale lips quirked up as Hinata pushed off grief and the tinge of failure. Tension rolled away, straightening her frame in a way that would have been imperceptible to anyone not well acquainted with the Hyuuga heiress.
Kiba knew her well enough to see his words hitting home, winking as he let her bicep drop away. "Hell yeah, right?"
"Hell yeah."
Juugo could faintly recall the first time he met a shinobi. A warm summer day following three days of rain had left the ground a warm mud. As a boy, Juugo had enjoyed the soft mush squeezing through his toes as he worked in the fields harvesting rice. Even years after he'd left the village, the orange-haired still yearned for a return to the quiet days of his youth among rice paddies.
That shinobi was also the first man Juugo killed. Stumbling about stinking of blood and violence and desperation, the Kumo-nin had beaten the village elder bloody in an attempt to extract as much food and money as he could from the village. Perhaps it was simply the stress of a bad mission, or perhaps it was a fear of death, or maybe the Kumo-nin had considered himself a monster capable of cruelty. Regardless of the reason, Juugo had seen real violence spilling out into the mud in the form of blood and an old man's teeth.
Leeching hot and dark, the world had faded away and only returned to greet the boy with the sight of a mangled corpse, a bent hitae-ate, and his neighbours cowering away from him. Juugo had known he killed the shinobi, known it better than he knew that his fists were covered in crimson, because he was always afraid and full of hate.
Hate for himself, because Juugo was sure despite protesting it as an accident, he'd wanted to kill the foreign ninja. A boy of six full of devouring hunger had crushed a man under his bare heel, because he was the real monster.
Kimimaro had shown him a new truth, years after the first man he'd killed and months after Juugo had fled the village he'd grown in and reduced to corpses. A light the flickered and turned regardless of how dark his path became.
Even if he was a monster, he could still be a man. And men can always redeem themselves.
Which was why Juugo found himself standing outside Konoha's Ninja Academy, closing his eyes and allowing the faint breeze to carry to him the sound of children playing in the grounds. The bipolar man had never really been able to want to be around children, who were too small and too breakable for him to want to expose himself to. But the orange seal curling over his skin and beating like a second pulse was a promise to him and to the world.
He would leash the monster inside, and finally allow himself to care for people again.
"Can I help you?" A voice broke into his thoughts, drawing Juugo's attention to a faintly smiling brown haired chuunin standing before him. A scar stretched across a kind tanned face, contrary to the subtle tension coiled in the older man's body.
"Er, I'm looking for Umino Iruka." Juugo muttered, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. Feeling like a bit of a fool for standing around in the streets watching children like a strange pervert, Juugo pressed on "I was told to come here for an apprenticeship?"
Blinking in recognition, Iruka's smile grew more genuine. "Ahh, Juugo right? I was told you'd be coming in today." Turning about with a motion to follow, the chuunin led the way across the playground. "I've always loved children." Iruka rambled. "The Shinobi World is an ugly one, and it has a way of destroying people. But in a place like this, you can see them still innocent and at play."
A brunette boy with spectacles tripped on an attempt at throwing shuriken, tangling his feet up and staining his white t-shirt with dirt. Juugo raised an orange brow at the sight, motioning with his chin. "Wouldn't that make it all the more depressing?" he disagreed gravely. "You're training them to be killers and directly contributing to that death of innocence."
Iruka was silent for a long moment, leading his younger charge into the academy building. "That might be so." the chuunin mused, voice loud in the empty room as he directed Juugo through the hallway and into an office at the end. "But these are the children of a shinobi village. And if it wasn't me, it would be some other chuunin teaching them. And they might not treat them as anything more than human weapons."
"Those children," Iruka waved at a window as he sank behind a desk, Juugo gingerly sitting opposite. "Have dreams and hopes like anyone else. I want them to hang on to them as long as they can, and hopefully survive out in the real world after they graduate – maybe even fulfilling those dreams they had."
Fishing a booklet of sheets stapled together from a drawer, the chuunin pushed it across the desk towards Juugo. "The shinobi world is cruel and bloody, and that's the world they're going into. But I have dreams too, and I hope one day one of my students is strong and brave enough to change that. And until then, I want to protect what they have here."
"I see." Juugo muttered, flipping through the booklet of policies and waivers. "I never liked children," the bipolar man begin absently, swiping a pen from its stand and slowly signing his signatures to dotted lines. "I was always worried about going out of control and breaking them. They're such little things."
The pen paused, halfway through the last signature on the last page. "I never wanted to be a shinobi, and I rarely wanted to hurt people. I was always worried about going out of control and finding a bloody smear when I came back. Even if Jiraiya-sama is helping me with it, that doesn't explain why I would have agreed to this particular job."
Golden light slanted through the window, setting dust motes into sharp relief as they swirled through the office. Perhaps it was the way his voice was welcoming, or the way the sun seemed to bring life, but Iruka's face was warm. "Then perhaps there is something you wanted to protect, even if you don't know what it is."
Juugo thought back to a childhood among fields, mud underneath and sky overhead. And the laughter of children in memory and in reality mingling. His lips curved in a true smile, and the orange haired man hummed.
"Perhaps so."
The signature finished, and Juugo tied his new hitae-ate around his neck.
Naruto was never quite sure what was more embarrassing after the tree branch she landed on exploded underneath her feet. The following girlish squeal and thump as she landed on her ass, or the knowledge that Hoshigaki Kisame could have ended her life in an instant and she wouldn't even have been aware of it.
The air buzzed with a sound of panicked voices, wriggling through the ringing her ears were filled with like water through molasses. A flash of white bandages curved through the air, and Naruto rolled in. Almost any other ninja would have scrambled away from the bloodthirsty shark man, eager for distance and a chance to avoid being maimed.
The blonde Uzumaki was not any other ninja, and consequently dove in rather than out. Swirling blue chakra hummed in her hands, driving up and through a black cloak as Naruto came to her feet inside the nukenin's guard.
Kisame's form turned liquid and burst in water, soaking the forest loam. Stepping away from the puddle, Naruto turned and stared through the trees. Her gaze passed over three Sharingan spinning and a Lee trembling with energy to take in the forest.
Quiet. No ninja burst through the foliage like murdering oni. Nothing exploded. The trees didn't rustle in the wind. Not even the birds chirped merrily.
"It's too quiet." she growled as she ascended back into the canopy she'd been so rudely thrown from. Tension hung in the din thick and stifling as the silent seconds turned into monotonous minutes. "Where the hell are you shitty bastard!" Naruto roared into the trees, glaring back at Sasuke when the Uchiha gave her a dirty look.
"He is not in the range of my Byakugan." Neji returned evenly after a pause. Veins strained along his temples as the brown-haired Hyuuga stretched his kekkai genkai to the limit before releasing it with a sigh.
Tenten shifted, the creak of the limb under her moving weight outrageously loud in the quiet. "Do you think that was a distraction?" the kunoichi murmured, shaking her bun-laden head. "Something to just throw us off?"
"Well in any case he certainly knows we're onto him." Kakashi shrugged, turning a sharp eye on Sasuke as the Uchiha descended to the ground in a huff.
There was an off feeling about the whole situation Sasuke realized as he carefully swept across the loam with a red gaze. All the pieces didn't seem to fit. Sasuke knew of Kisame, having only met the nukenin briefly. But the avoidance didn't fit his decade and a half old memory. It didn't match up with the bloodthirsty and violent personality he'd known about.
"Sasuke?" Sakura's voice was slightly needling, and the Uchiha ignored her with a huff. Too busy rolling old memories and written observations he seen as Rokudaime about mentally, Sasuke didn't notice the shared look of annoyance the members of Team Seven exchanged.
A sharp crack along the back of his head pulled Sasuke away from his considerations about the Akatsuki member's motivations, and he turned about to scowl. Naruto scowled right back at him, motioning wordlessly to the rest of the squad waiting anxiously to depart.
Nodding in resignation, Sasuke grabbed the blonde girl's forearm and leapt back into the trees. After the short moment that Pakkun required to recapture the nukenin's scent trail, the squad moved on. Trees rustled and then fell silent as the formation of ninja passed.
Unconsidered were the few crow feathers crushed in the dirt, black as night and just as joyful a sign.
Spitting a mouthful of blood to the side, Killer B winced and pressed a hand to throbbing ribs. The jinchuuriki was sure at least one of his ribs had snapped inward to puncture a lung. A rattling sound with every laboured breath and the froth of blood constantly bubbling in his throat seemed like a good indicator that something was quite wrong. Normally the Kumo shinobi would be glad to ignore the feeling, confident in the ability of Gyuki's demonic chakra to heal any wound in short order given time.
But there was no time to do anything but fight. Leaping to the side to avoid a stringing tongue of fire, Killer B struck out with a lance of corrosive bijuu chakra. The rapper expected Tobi to dispel his strike with contemptuous ease and a lazy flash of the Rinnegan. Which is why he cut short the masked man's taunt by stepping in behind the chakra, lashing out as the dark red energy winked to nothingness with a lightning covered fist.
Killer B relished in the widened look of shock that crossed the visible eye behind the swirled mask. Too close and too fast and too hard to dodge completely, the jinchuuriki felt the strike of wood against his knuckles the split second before he passed entirely through Tobi's suddenly incorporeal body.
A burst of red and black chakra regained the dark-skinned shinobi's distance, putting space between himself and the odd gravity manipulating techniques of the ripple eye. It wasn't enough to give him full protection against the Rinnegan's techniques, but enough to make dodging possible. Weaving a slow circle around Tobi, Killer B watched with a smirk as the orange spiral mask cracked down the middle.
With a crunch, the wood split in half to reveal a face half youthful and half horrifically scarred. And nothing at all like the statue of the Uchiha founder of Konoha guarding the Valley of the End. "Ahh." was the only noise the not-Madara made, turning a mismatched Rinnegan and Sharingan gaze on the rapper.
"Well I suppose I have no choice but to stop playing with you now". Tobi mused in a tone of sarcastic geniality, covering his face with a second lavender mask with two-eyeholes. The scars were hid again from the world. Gloved hands made a quick seal, forming into the familiar shape of the ram.
Roots burst from the ground, cutting through Killer B's shroud of demonic chakra like butter. Then there was only the smell of earth, and blood, and the hot burn of pain through his body. Chakra exploded, Gyuki shouting in his mind like a wounded animal.
And then – darkness.
Fire raced in his veins, coiling through every tissue and along his mind. He was being melted alive. Every stuttering breath was agony. Every tremble was suffering. And beneath it all, he felt.
Felt the wrench and shift of his skin and muscles. Evolving into a newer, higher form greater than the weak body he'd had. Or was it an older, lower form? He was evolution, and adaption, and reconstruction. Or was it regression, and stagnation, and destruction?
It was beyond his ability to tell what he was becoming – only that he was no longer as he was. He could see more – his eyes bending and slitting and glowing gold in the dark. He could feel less – his skin whitening and hardening and growing scales.
The fire went out for a time, fleeing and leaving his mind a lonely ghost. Perhaps it was simply the lack of searing pain. Or perhaps he was just growing colder.
He craved the sun.
Slowly, he shifted. Throwing dead limbs forward to struggle along the ground on his stomach. Dragging his body along bonelessly like a worm.
Or a snake.
Medical equipment hummed, faint and familiar in his ears. It was comforting, and terrifying. Clutch. Drag. He moved faster.
The floor was metal, bored flat and slightly rough through disuse in the years. But he could see the faint dings and scratches that revealed a more storied history. At some time, people had survived here. He would survive.
Scents drifting into his nose. Old blood, rot, mud. Faint lingerings of human presence, human suffering. Written into the dark bowed walls and ancient torches burning in the walls. He'd never been able to notice such things before. Was he more than a human now?
He could remember before, angling through broken glass and lonely years without purpose or melody. Faint whisperings echoed around the inside of his mind, growing strong with a taste of memory and identity.
Ringing sounded through the empty halls, the iron of the floor giving his presence a loud announcement underneath his heels. Perhaps that was the purpose of the design? Iron for floor was not terribly practical otherwise. He didn't remember getting to his feet.
He didn't remember running, which he certainly was doing. Air whistled through his hair, tangling unkempt white strands. His breath heaved in the dark, resounding wet through his lungs. Not warm though, never warm. Coldness lived in his bones. He could feel it flowing sluggishly through his veins.
He craved the sun.
A handle jiggled, trembling with his frantic grasp. It took four tries before he could muster the necessary strength and coordination to properly turn it. 'Three tries too long' some absent scientific part of his mind noted.
Red light spilled into his eyes as he stumbled outside, sending them into painful contraction and adjustment. Slitted gold eyes narrowed, and he crumbled to his knees to behold the dusk. Night was coming, with all its proprietary chill and stolen heat. But for now the sun held over the moon, and he was warmed.
Warmth brought back confusion, and fire. Who was he? And what was he doing?
Needle tracks dotted along his arms, contrasting a corpse white scaled limb on the left with a warmer and more human one on the right. Dark black claws sprouted from his fingers. His legs gave him a more splotchy transformation, fading in between pink scales and corpse white human flesh. Fangs poked into his gums, requiring an adjusted posture to his jaw that he absently assumed.
He was the scent of formaldehyde and old snake skin. He was the touch of healing and murder. He was the sound of hissing and heartbeats. He was the taste of venom and cotton.
He was the sight of a scientist.
He was Orochi-
No, the world glinted off glasses and refracted through inherited frames.
He was Kabuto.
Moonlight sang, shining white and cold with the crescent over the graveyard. Tombstone after tombstone thrust in the air, vines climbing over and covering unforgiving edges. Name after name written in stone called out in judgment. Waiting for the test of time to wear away into a place where even death may die.
Wordlessly lighting a spark with chakra at the end of bony fingertips, Itachi touched the tip of incense and folded his hands in prayer. Lavender burned, filling the air with thick cloying smoke and curling up to the starry night sky. Sending a message to the heavens.
Love and reconciliation with the dead. Itachi knew that it would be impossible to make peace with many of his ancestors who surely prowled the river of the dead and waited for him to cross to the other side. There was too much rage and injustice to quiet some ghosts. But Itachi only needed with desperation to convey grief to a select few.
"Cousin Shisui." he sighed, and then smiled. "Do you see the village now? So many things have happened – I wonder if you have regrets about having died for this village?" Red swirled into Itachi's eyes, forming four thin curved sickles. "I've protected the village the best I could, but it seems that Sasuke has other plans for our Uchiha name." The shinobi reached out to brush a finger over the gravestone, painstakingly brushing away the plants that had grown over it through the years.
"I wonder what you would have done in my stead." Itachi wondered at the empty grave. "Sasuke has called me many things. Brother, traitor, murderer, and fool." Humour shone in red eyes. "The last most of all lately. But I can't disagree." Twisting his expression with pain, Itachi shook with silent guilt. "I should have asked more questions. Instead of being blind and trusting and selfish of my brother." the shinobi whispered. "I should have protected the children".
Breath hissed out into quiet, and Itachi spoke no more words as lavender burned away and the scent faded.
Rising to his feet with a grimace at slightly stiff muscles, Itachi turned and wandered to a single headstone set only a short distance away from his cousin and collapsed back to his knees. This one was more kept, only slight growth showing from a few short years of neglect.
It made it all the easier to reach out trembling hands and wrap his fingers along the bared edges. Digging into the palms of his hands as he clutched at the stone, Itachi entrusted himself to leaning into the grave. His Sharingan eyes grew hot and wet, liquid dripping out clear and salty and not the blood he was so familiar with. Blades flashed in his mind and Itachi gave into remorse with a low keen.
"Tou-san. Kaa-san."
Tears were strange. It'd been so very long since he'd permitted himself to have them. They were a good strange though Itachi decided as he soaked the grass with them. Pain without an outlet built inside and made him a harder man than he ever would have been – but he would recall his father's last words every day for the rest of his life.
"You truly are a gentle child."
One sucking breath later Itachi leaned back to stare up at the moon, wiping his tears away with a sleeve before mechanically lighting another stick of lavender. The Uchiha pondered for a long moment, before smiling unsteadily and reaching back out to the gravestone.
"Kaa-san. It's been a long time. Sasuke's grown now, into a man very much like our father. He still loves tomato, and still hates natto. He's just as stubborn as he ever was." Itachi's voice grew fond and his hands steadied. "He has a girlfriend, who I've ensured he's teased about frequently. He's doing well."
"Tou-san. Sasuke is someone you can be proud of – he's become wise, and I'm sure he'll be a good clan leader. A better heir than I would have been." Itachi struggled to find better words for his father, who'd been relentless in life and death. "I wish we'd had more time with you as a father and not our clan leader. Thank you for everything you taught us."
Again Itachi fell silent, allowing the sacrificial incense to burn out and scatter as ash in the wind. He was slower climbing to his feet a second time, rebuilding the mask of indifference he was accustomed to.
The Mangekyou Sharingen spun idly as Itachi turned and left the graveyard. Crossing through the gates from the realm of quiet dead to the noisy living, the Uchiha breathed deep and then cast a bloody red gaze to the side.
"You have been patient with my grief, Kisame".
Grunting wordlessly in reply, the nukenin tightened his grip around Samehada and hefted the legendary sword.
Itachi blinked, stretching out a hand and crooked his fingers. "Come then".
Exploding into action with a lunge and swing, Kisame brought down the bandaged Samehada and cleaved the Uchiha in half. Itachi faded away with a shimmer, leaving only a quickly distorted after image. Heat flickered over the nukenin's skin, motivating him to roll back and bring his blade into a block.
Flames lit the night, casting long shadows over the field and roasting grass to ash. Samehada shivered in gluttonous delight, consuming the chakra fueling Itachi's Katon technique in a slurp. The field fell back into shadow, barely lit by natural light and the distant electric lamps of Konoha at the other fringe of the Uchiha clan's ancestral land.
Red eyes glowed malevolently in the darkness, flickering down from the more chakra intensive Mangekyou to three tomoe. Old habits died hard, Itachi realized with a grimace. So many years drawing on the power of the Mangekyou Sharingan to overcome the weakness of his dimming eyes left the Uchiha in the habit of wasting chakra when he no longer needed to rely on the advanced dojutsu simply to see in a battle.
Narrowing his eyes at the telltale twitch of the nukenin's hands, Itachi's flew into hand seals at the same moment as Kisame. A strained moment existed as the two former partners raced through forming their techniques, Itachi finishing a split second ahead and bringing curled fingers to his mouth.
"Katon: Goukakyou no Jutsu!" Rang out as flames flew forth from the Uchiha's lungs. Chakra condensed the flames into a massive ball of light and heat that loomed across the field like a meteor.
"Suiton: Bakusui Shoha!" Answered in a low growl as a tidal wave burst forth and collided with the fireball. Steam hissed in a shriek as the two elements struggled against one another, and then gushed out in a cloud over the field as the water consumed the fire and raced on.
Itachi moved through the mist at a silent dash, spinning eyes tracking the movement of Kisame's chakra through the night. The former Kiri-nin was fast and powerful, with a strong scent for blood. But Itachi was not bleeding yet, and his trained eyes saw more.
Squishing over the ground and pulverizing it into mud was shockingly loud in the rolling steam, giving further testament beyond the flow of chakra to Kisame's movements. The Uchiha danced over with a light coating of chakra along the soles of his zori, the buoyancy granted soundless steps.
Hands flowed into another set of seals before Itachi faintly tapped the ground, "Doton: Ganchuso" escaping quietly between his lips. Rock thrust out of the earth, flesh rending spikes lancing at Kisame only to be pulverized in a sneering swing from the nukenin.
"This is boring, Itachi!" barked from the fading steam. The Uchiha frowned at the sudden surge of chakra, quickly retreating to the edge of the field and launching into a tree.
The rush began as a river's murmur, growing into a roaring crash of waves as more water rushed through the mist. Slapping of mud and water echoed, giving testament a further beating of the field into a muddy swamp.
Itachi allowed himself a humourless smirk. "If the Uchiha had not died at my hand, you would have made some poor farmer very upset Kisame. I hope you keep track of how much you owe when you ruin someone's crops."
"Who's gonna collect?" Kisame grunted back, darting through the air and shattering the tree next to Itachi's in a blind swing. "You?"
"I could." the sick Uchiha agreed, leaping from the branches and curving under Kisame's rushed backhand. Coming to his feet a small distance away from his former partner, Itachi held up a sack to his ear and shook it. Coins jingled within the bag, followed by the Uchiha giving a long look with a single raised brow over his shoulder.
The nukenin's stolen purse absently found its way into Itachi's pocket as the Uchiha was forced to leap back from Kisame's rush. Air rushed past his face following every close dodge, coming closer and closer to maiming Itachi.
A single spinning red eye fixed on Kisame, and the former Kiri-nin's world swirled away in a rush of purple stars and sweet scents. The second pause it took for the Hoshigaki to break down Itachi's genjutsu gained the Uchiha valuable time to put more distance between them and retreat to the other end of the field.
Frowning in annoyance, Itachi contemplated his former partner. The nukenin had both greater physical strength and greater chakra reserves than him. Further, most conventional techniques would do little damage to the so-called bijuu without a tail.
Burning was already building in his lungs, the faint exertion of what had almost been a mock battle between the two already straining Itachi's sick body. Without the pain-numbing cocktail to hide the strain of his body from his mind, the Uchiha was all too aware of the agony that would slowly grow over the course of the battle.
Especially if Itachi decided that he needed more chakra intensive techniques to slay his former partner.
There was no choice.
Three tomoe melted and spun out into four curved prongs, gobbling at Itachi's precious chakra reserve with renewed fervor. Taking a breath of resolve and dashing forward through the mud, the Uchiha took in the sudden look of surprise that crossed Kisame's rapidly approaching face with an expression of dogged determination.
Blood curled from his right eye like a single dripping tear, chakra lancing through his coils and from his socket in a frenzied rush.
"Amaterasu."
Black fire swallowed light with an unholy crackle, searing the ground in an instant and flash drying it from soft mud to hard clay. A pained grunt followed by the stench of cooked flesh moved to the left, rolling across the ground in a tatter of following black flames and desperately shed clothes.
Kisame stood, barechested in the moonlight and clad only in a pair of dark pants. Scales seethed along Samehada, the blade no longer clad in wrapped bandages. A dark smirk curled over the nukenin's face and he heaved the blade up with one hand. "Now that's more like it."
Reaching a trembling hand to covered his twinging right socket, Itachi pulled back from Kisame and kept distance between them. Giving into the instinct to rest his body, the Uchiha allowed the Sharingan to fade entirely to black.
Even with only regular eyesight, Itachi could still perceive Kisame's fish white body in the night. Only a few Mangekyou techniques remained to him before his body would give out and he could no longer continue the fight. Efficiency counted for everything now.
A blink later and Kisame was within five steps, closing the distance in a flash and bloodthirsty grin. Black burst back into red, and the world regained the peculiar hyper-clarity and premonition of the Uchiha's legendary doujutsu.
Sliding around the nukenin's flesh grating blade was an exercise in simplicity, giving himself entirely over to instincts ingrained over the years. Blood bubbled from a nostril, quickly wiped away in a movement that flung a pack of shuriken at Kisame.
Itachi's lungs burned fiercer and hotter than they had in years, and he clenched his teeth at the pain.
It was questionable how much more his ill body could endure.
(AN 1): That's it for that chapter at 10,070 words. Now on for a massive AN to address issues both story related and personal.
On writing – I realized that even though I said it, the long time for this chapter makes it seem unlikely. But I was serious when I said that if I start something I really want to finish it. Maybe I lose the muse entirely and rush through something just to get the barebones out if I did. But I'd at least tell you I'm doing that if I did. Other than that, assume that everything I have begun will be finished. Eventually. And if it's not going to be, I'll tell you all that it won't be. On that note, I've taken up the chapter progress on my profile again, where you can thus locate the progress I'm having regarding a particular chapter of a particular story. As of right now, it stands at 0/7000 words for Chapter 21 of this fic. I started working a little bit on first chapters for The White Snake and The General at the same time I began this, and newer chapters of other fics already posted. But they're absolutely on the back burner, and I won't touch them unless I have a desperate urge to write them. They can come after this fic.
On Highever and Dragon of Beauty: If you are following either of these, they're basically on hiatus. They will be written concurrently after I finish this some time because they require a playthrough of Dragon Age.
On Enkindle: Not hiatus per se, but a priority after most of my other work. I know people say they see similarities between that and this, but that's not a fair assumption. Sharing the time travel plot idea is quite common, and a tragic future is common in time travel. If the future was good, there'd be no reason to go to the past. Regardless, Enkindle will differ substantially from this. It will probably more closely resemble S'Tarkan Nightmares of Futures Past.
On Risen: Basically my lowest priority work. It's essentially a messiah twist on Talos, which I always thought of. And because it's Elder Scrolls, it will almost certainly be a lot of "self-insert" like most in that section are. I want it to have a different feel from that, but it almost always ends that way in that fandom.
On Betas: If not for the constant nagging of Qoheleth to finish the Leo sabinus one shot I promised for his challenge, it likely would have never been finished. And if not for being nagged into writing that, I would not have felt inspired to come back and write this. Hench it would have gone months more before I seriously touched it. As it was, I came back every couple of months to plug a scene or so in, and that was taking forever. I accomplished more writing the past few days than I have the past year. 60% of this chapter was written in the last three days. So evidently I need a nagger to nag me into writing more :P. Therefore I'm looking for a determined beta – someone that will be online frequently to talk to, that I can bounce ideas off and preferably someone with skype to hound me when I end up not signing into this site for a week. If any of you would like that, please apply in PM. I'll announce it on my profile when someone has been found, so check there first to see if one is found. As an aside, you will be expected to beta the whole fic. Which is an annoying assignment I know, but that's part of the job and I'm looking forward to it. I may rewrite certain portions myself after we talk about it. But ultimately it's your job to go through and pick things that need fixing out. And if you want to beta other fics of mine too, go right ahead if you're up to nagging me to write multiple works.
(AN 2):
On Fanart and other fanworks: You all have permission to draw or write whatever you want. If you want to fanfic or fanart a fanfic, I'll not stop you and I'll probably be flattered. Unless you write something deliberately mocking, in which case I might mention it in the wall of shame when I post a chapter.
The teams after Hidan/Kakuzu is much weaker than the one after Kisame: I'm aware, but keep in mind that even in canon Tsunade decided to send out Team Ten plus two career chuunin (read unmotivated/unskilled bums) to hunt down Akatsuki in general. It's not a stretch for her to send them after two members in specific and underestimate them. Kisame on the other hand is pure legend, and they're sending a powerful team after a man often compared to a tailed beast.
Do you hate Asuma?: No, I don't really hate anyone in Naruto. It's just a gruesome death for the gruesome factor, and to drive it home that even if Sasuke comes back from the future he can still fuck it up royally and fail to protect people. He died perhaps "easily", but I've always felt that Asuma isn't really a good shinobi in a conventional way. He's a good guy, but he's lazy and rebellious and that shows in his ninja skills. Remember, he's no legend like Kakashi or Gai.
Orochimaru and the cursed seal: He can theoretically be called back from the grave through Anko with a proper technique, but he's technically dead and as such the seal was able to be tampered with in Sasuke's case. Further, the argument could be that Anko has an unstable prototype that may not be alterable to the level Sasuke's is.
On future memories: The exact way that'll work out is a spoiler for each character, but no. Jiraiya and Tsunade have no future memories. I don't know why someone thought they did.
Writing from Akatsuki: Well I did ;). And Kabuto too.
The Itachi-Kisame friendship: I think friendship is a strong word for it. Perhaps respect is better. But even then, it was only grudging because Itachi was always disgusted with Kisame's violent tendencies. That being said, I hope that I touched their relationship a little better and the friction betweent them caused by ideology here.
Good guy side is having too much success: I agree in principle because I realize that it's a section of "too good to be true" right now. Which is what I mean, it's only right now. Sasuke has a certain momentum from his past memories and knowledge, but that momentum is going to peter out over the course of the fic. Because he has changed things so early and so drastically, he's reaping short term benefit at the cost of long term uncertainty.
"That is not true, the Akimichi clan is to serve and protect the Nara Clan (true facts) and the Yamanaka are a noble clan, thus, all three are noble clans (Facts). : According to the first Naruto Databook, the four noble clans are the Uchiha, the Akimichi, the Aburame, and the Hyuuga. Further, the oath of the Akimichi references nothing of serving anyone. Only "In order to protect both the Yamanaka and the Nara clans and to protect Konoha, ", which only implies protection, not service.
Moar SasuNaru scenes!: I like the romance just as much as anyone, but this is a bigger fic than pure romance between them. As such, the other viewpoints and other characters are almost as important and need their time to shine too.
Why does Sasuke kill so many people?: Because arguably deep down he has a very weak sense of morality. Things are not good and bad because they're good and bad, but good things are that which benefit that people he allows himself to care about, and bad are those that do not. Letting potential future enemies live is something that could harm those people, and Sasuke is ruthless enough to simply kill based on that possibility.
First, why didn't Sasuke ask Tsunade for permission to bring along Suigetsu on the mission?: Because Suigetsu is not a Konoha nin, and Tsunade is not willing to trust someone so loyal to a different and non-allied village with a sensitive and important mission like that. Assuming she's willing to give him any at all.
Sasuke is a gary stu: Arguably, I think that Sasuke has serious and glaring weaknesses. Both as a person and as a shinobi. He can be charming when he wants to, but he's close to amoral, dangerously unstable, prone to murder and mayhem, ect. Logic goes entirely out the window when the topic is something he's emotionally involved in.
Further, as a shinobi he's not suited for a lot of things. Which is why I could see him being taken down by a group of weaker ninja if he didn't want to kill them. Sasuke is the kind of ninja you'd send to commit genocide – he'd kill everyone and everything, because he's exceedingly lethal. If you want to capture a castle, you send Naruto. If you want to capture a man, you send Hinata. If you want to destroy a nation, you send Sasuke. Gentle is not in his nature. You wouldn't send him to capture a high profile enemy target.
He's smart, and canonically he's called an actual genius and I'm not going to make him stupid to give him fake flaws. Sasuke's flaws that will come to bite his ass later on will also return in the fact that he cares about little but Naruto, and as such things regarding people he doesn't care about can easily slip his mind. I.e the death of Asuma.
Cha cha until next time. Looking forward to a betafriend to keep me on track.