Disclaimer : I do not own Naruto
Summary : A man declared his message to the world. "I am the one who will establish peace and order." The man have faced pain and survived. The man have died and resurrected. He was both Uzumaki Naruto and Rikudō Sennin.
This chapter has yet to be beta'd. I will post the beta version later.
Reviews Responses:
CelticReaper: Thanks.
uchiha isuke: Not in this story at least. This story is strictly NarutoxTayuya. Maybe in other stories.
Jostanos: Well, I'll be waiting for the Beta version...
RamenKnight: Thanks and sorry about that, I thought that it is not too graphic compared to some others... I'll put a warning if I write something like that again...
jeanpaulreddy93: Well, perhaps in other stories... about Sharingan, I do not want to make it easy for Naruto. Having Sharingan and the Paths would be quite a large advantage. In addition, if I made a Sharingan Naruto, then he would also gain Mokuton before Rinnegan, that would be too powerful. That's why this Naruto will not have Sharingan or Mokuton.
The Paths are enough and I do have some special plans for Rinnegan. His Rinnegan is different and it has some abilities that Nagato did not have. The readers have seen it from Tendō's battles. Ten Sei, Shinra Banshō, Tenjō Tenge, Hachiman and those are not all of them...
EddyxMarvoloxRiddle: Yes, that answer will be revealed soon. Perhaps in the next chapter or the one after it. All I can say is that it will be revealed after the three years time limit end.
pucflek: Yes, I suppose it did end rather abruptly did it not? To tell the truth, I was half asleep while writing the past two chapters...
8Swords: Hmm... we'll see...
Zelga Lim Li: He will appear next chapter. This chapter is focused on Naruto and Tayuya's friendship.
SimFlyer: Well he certainly is better than me too... I am very tempted to just ignore Naruto's character growth and keep slave Hinata but that won't suit this story...
Ouke no Ki: Correct. Heaven Realm had no rights in Outer Realm but, Tendō can control Gedō. That's a clue for their identity. Glad to see someone noticed it.
Battle neurosis: Thanks.
Inuyokai52: Thanks. About Hinata, you have to wait for the next chapter.
Darksilence12: Thanks.
axl88x: Thanks, corrected. Feel free to point out my mistakes. It will help the story...
Thank you for all who follow/favorite this story. I'll try my best to make sure this story reach it's conclusion.
He Who Will Establish Peace and Order: Samsara
Chapter 20 Friendship
"Good job Naruto! Rest for thirty minutes and we'll continue!" Jiraiya shouted as Naruto slammed his Rasengan to a tree.
Naruto stopped and looked around, eyes twitching. All around him were the giant trees of the Forest of Death with black spot marking where he had struck his Rasengan to.
"...Jiraiya-sama..." Naruto muttered. Jiraiya raised an eyebrow as he looked at him questioningly. "It has been a month since we started training. All I have done is striking many trees with Rasengan. Is there any reason for this?"
"Hmm... before I answer that, make a Rasengan as fast as you can." Naruto did without any trouble, spinning blue sphere appeared in his right hand in a second. "I suppose that's fast enough..." Jiraiya muttered. "Now, using your other hand, make another one, as small as you can." Naruto did so and another sphere, far smaller than the other formed in his left hand. Jiraiya nodded thoughtfully.
"...again, is there a point for this?" Naruto asked again, his patience running thin. One month training with Jiraiya, wasted in attacking an immobile tree with the first A-rank technique he had learned since he was a child.
"I suppose your control is good enough," Jiraiya stated. Naruto was puzzled by that statement. What control? His chakra control had been fine since long ago. "Your control over Rasengan," Jiraiya elaborated.
"...Jiraiya-sama, why would I need to train Rasengan control?" Naruto asked. He hoped that the sage had a good explanation for this. He would be annoyed if the answer was not adequate.
"So you can complete your Rasengan," Jiraiya said as if it was obvious.
"...complete my Rasengan?" Naruto echoed. "What do you mean?"
Jiraiya sighed, he wondered how he should approach this subject. He noticed that few years ago, Naruto always avoided any topics related to Minato. Talking about Rasengan would inevitably leads to Minato.
'Well... no way around it...' Jiraiya decided to went through it like how he usually did, bluntly. "As you know, Minato created the Rasengan." Naruto nodded. Jiraiya noted that he did not react at all to the name. "While Rasengan is a powerful technique, it is incomplete. Do you know what is missing from it?"
Naruto closed his eyes, thinking. "...Rasengan is an A-rank jutsu and it is simply a chakra manipulation..." What could make it stronger? The answer was clear to him. He used it all the time. "Elemental manipulation?" he guessed.
"Correct," Jiraiya smiled proudly. "I don't think I need to tell you what to do next, do I?"
Naruto nodded and began to form a Rasengan, adding small amount of water chakra to it.
"Why water?" Jiraiya asked as the Rasengan began to form.
"Becaus-" the Rasengan exploded, splashing water all over the two. "...if that was wind, we would be dead..." Naruto explained.
Jiraiya laughed nervously. "...I didn't expect that..."
Naruto sighed and started to form another Rasengan.
With the same result.
"How's your training, Ruto?" Tayuya asked as she sat on the roof of Naruto's house. Naruto beside her, laying on the roof while watching the 'moon'. Naruto and Tayuya both knew from the tablet that the sphere above them was not the real moon. Naruto wondered whether it was because of his Rinnegan that he felt calm when he watched it.
"...annoying," Naruto answered tersely. Shortly after his third failed attempt of creating an elemental Rasengan, Jiraiya decided that discretion is the better part of valor and watched him from the distance. Watch his failure from far away to be exact. Without his longevity, he would be bedridden by now.
Naruto then turned his head towards Tayuya. "What about your training, Yuya? Tsunade-sama is quite a force to be reckoned with..."
Tayuya winced as the pain she felt from the training returned in her mind, "she is a monster..." that woman did not hesitate at all. Morning until afternoon was filled with chakra control exercise. Afternoon until night, she had to standby in the hospital to help all kinds of patients. For the first few days, she was glad that the Shizune lady was there to assist her.
Well at least until she found out that they both were sadists who took pleasure from her pain. 'Which reminds me, that woman is related to Ruto isn't she?' No way, even though in their first few meetings Ruto acted like a sadist, he seemed to stop acting like that lately. 'There's no way that he is an S...' images of Naruto with his chains came back.
"Yuya," thanks to Naruto's call, Tayuya was snapped out of her wild fantasies. "...it's been quite some time since I last saw you in pain..." Tayuya felt her dread rising. No way... "I do not know of the reason; however, your pain is... delightful..." Naruto tested the word. He nodded to himself, 'yes, delightful seems suitable...'
"...oh god... he is an S..." Tayuya muttered. She felt as if she could cry at any moment. She was surrounded by S all day. 'What if it is a genetic trait? ...wait, then Kushina-san is...' Somehow, the images of Naruto's look-alike, better known as his father, being tortured by his mother, who looked like her, it seemed wrong. 'What if we reverse it?' her traitorous mind offered another image, this time was her being tortured by him. 'It is... glorious...'
Tayuya slapped herself, causing Naruto to look at her with a raised eyebrow. "...would you like a meeting with a Yamanaka, Yuya? I heard that they are the best psychologist in Konoha..." Naruto trailed off as he saw Tayuya glaring at him.
"...let's just go to sleep..." Tayuya said as she laid down beside Naruto. Naruto chuckled and closed his eyes. '...I'm glad that Ruto's mother is a seal master... we can sleep on the roof and no one would dare to attack us...'
Few weeks ago, when they began to stay on the roof, occasionally joined by Gaara (or the Raccoon as Tayuya liked to call him), Naruto explained that the whole house and the area around it was filled with seals. The seals would warn Naruto and Kushina anytime a human entered the area around the house. Jiraiya told him once that the seal covered approximately 200 meters from the house.
"This place is so peaceful..." Tayuya said out loud. Naruto opened his eyes and looked towards her questioningly. Tayuya saw his gaze and sighed, "...this place is completely unlike my old village..." she explained.
"Now that you mention it, we never actually talked about our past with each other..." Naruto sat and motioned her to do the same. She did so and they looked at each other, each waiting for the other to begin speaking. Naruto chuckled. "I will begin, then..."
Tayuya nodded. Now that it came to this, she admit that she was very curious of his past. From her conversation with various people in Konoha, it seemed that most did not expect him to act as he did around her. She wondered what he was like.
"When I was a child, my whole world was limited to my mother, Orochi, Jiraiya and Tsunade. My childhood is filled with training. I had no friends," Naruto stated. Tayuya listened, part of her wondered whether he ever did what other children did. "...you seem to have a question. Ask away."
"So, you never actually played like a normal kid?" she asked bluntly.
Naruto smiled bitterly, "...what is normal to me is to try my hardest to master a jutsu, to try my best to draw a blood from Orochi or Jiraiya, to study, to try to live up their expectation of Namikaze Minato's son. Training and reading are the only games I know."
Tayuya winced. She thought that his obsession with training was because of the Akatsuki but now she wondered whether that was just him trying to act like a child. Or at least, what he knew as a child.
"Do you remember what I told you about my eyes? About when they awaken?" Naruto asked. Tayuya nodded. He stopped a kidnapping by Kumo, which caused that Hyūga girl to be obsessed with him. "Then I will skip that part."
"Approximately two and half years ago, I crushed several boys' dreams to be a shinobi," Tayuya raised an eyebrow. "...they tried to provoke me. I know that they are merely children and therefore they acted without thinking and yet..." Naruto closed his eyes.
He took out a kunai. Tayuya watched as he crushed the kunai with his bare hand. '...Tsunade-sama's super strength...' she realized. Then when Naruto stopped, Tayuya saw his hand bleeding. "...this is a crude form of Tsunade-sama's ability. Chakra control of that level is impossible for an Uzumaki. Rather than using control, I overloaded my hands with chakra, causing it to gain a tremendous amount of strength temporarily." Then he chuckled as the wounds in his hand healed, "of course, it is useless now. When I was a child, the amount of chakra I had allowed me to do this. But now, my chakra reserves is far greater, my control lowered. These two factors increased this technique's backlash."
Tayuya's eyes lighten up in realization. 'if he tried to do it in battle, with his massive chakra reserve and his control, there are chances of his hand exploding.'
"Of course, now I use elemental manipulation. Kakashi-sensei forbid me to use this technique after my battle against Haku."
Tayuya raised an eyebrow. "I will tell you later..." Naruto told her. "To continue from where I left off, I crushed all bones in respective parts of their body with this technique, making it impossible for them to be a ninja. That is except Inuzuka. I left him as an example."
She did not say anything. What could she say? Normal child should not be able to do that. Normal child would not do that.
"...soon after, I graduated from the academy and entered team seven," Naruto continued, "as you know, team seven is a team consisted of Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke, Sakura and I. At first, I consider them as annoyances. Sasuke was a strong genin but a genin nonetheless. Sakura was average..."
Tayuya could imagine him ignoring the two and doing whatever he wanted on his own. Though, if what she seen were any indication, they were now close friends.
"...even after our training and missions, I barely consider them as acquaintances. This changed in our mission to Nami."
"What happened?" Tayuya asked curiously.
"We were tasked to escort a bridge builder to Nami. It was supposed to be a C-rank," Naruto stated, chuckling.
"Supposed to be?" Tayuya had a feeling that this would be an interesting story.
She was not wrong.
On our way to Nami, I noticed that there were two puddles on the road. At first, I recognized it as a trap easily. 'The genjutsu is weak and the weather is clear.' Then I wondered whether this was deliberate or not. 'It is impossible for a shinobi to be that foolish...' and I decided to keep an eye to my surroundings in addition to the puddle. Until now, I still wondered how could two shinobi that foolish reached chūnin rank.
Kakashi walked on the puddle and was attacked by chains and ripped apart. "One down," the two Kiri shinobi who came out from the puddle spoke. I heard Sakura's scream. I sighed, 'how could they be so foolish? It is clearly impossible for a jōnin to be killed that easily.'
Then the two shinobi moved to attack me. "...fools..." 'I' jumped to meet their attack and exploded. Sakura screamed and Sasuke gasped. "...they could not even differentiate between a clone and a real one..." I muttered as I dispelled a genjutsu near me, revealing myself to be beside Tazuna. I have been there ever since we left Konoha.
"...you too, Haruno, Uchiha. Both of you did not notice that the one beside you was a clone," I stated. Then one of the two shinobi attacked again. "...it seems that he avoided most of the explosion..." I noted. Then I watched as Sasuke and Sakura defeated the shinobi. '...the Uchiha's taijutsu is not bad. He is using a standard Uchiha style. Haruno... well, she is above average thanks to Hatake's training. Nothing notable yet. Still not good enough...'
After that, Kakashi revealed himself to be unhurt and he interrogated Tazuna about the assassins.
"And then?" Tayuya asked, her eyes shone in anticipation.
"...Tazuna-san lied. The mission should be placed in an A-rank section." Naruto explained to Tayuya about Gatō and his actions in Nami. "...I suggested that we should continue as with Kakashi-sensei there, we should be safe. Sasuke and Sakura agreed," Naruto told her.
"...I thought that you would advise them to retreat," Tayuya stated.
"...perhaps part of me is simply too stubborn..." Naruto muttered.
"From the story and from our spars, it seems that your favorite trick is to use clone explosion," Tayuya pointed out. "In all spars we had, I never actually faced you directly. It's always clones."
"Clones are useful," Naruto stated.
After we continue our travel, we reached Nami without any trouble. However, suddenly we were attacked by Zabuza.
My delusional sensei told us to fight him while he protect Tazuna. I protested but the Uchiha already charged towards Zabuza.
Needless to say, he was defeated quite soundly. Sakura immediately moved to take care of him while I sent several clones to battle Zabuza.
At first, Zabuza humored me and attacked my clones with his own clones. However, when he noticed that while my clones dispelled in a hit, they were as strong as the original. And so, he stopped playing around. He claimed that anyone who could make that amount of clones would be dangerous.
Zabuza used Kirigakure no jutsu (Hidden Mist technique) and filled the battlefield with mist. As you know, Zabuza's specialty is in silent killing. I do not believe I need to tell anything except that we lost, badly.
Seeing that we were in danger, Kakashi entered the battlefield and 'saved' us from Zabuza, he seemed to have a short term of amnesia as he forgot that he was the one who ordered us to battle Zabuza.
When Zabuza was losing, Haku appeared and saved Zabuza.
"What happened after that?" Tayuya asked.
"After a week or so, our last battle in Nami began," Naruto told her. "This time, Zabuza and Haku both attacked us. Sasuke and I fought Haku while Kakashi fought Zabuza. Sakura was protecting Tazuna."
Sasuke and I looked around us, we were trapped inside a dome of ice mirrors that Haku made.
Haku attacked rapidly from the mirrors, hails of senbons showered us. Now that I thought about it, we were lucky that Haku was too kind to kill us. If she wanted, she could have ended us in instant.
"...Uchiha!" I shouted as I avoided a senbon. "Cover me! I will break the mirror!" Sasuke nodded and I charged my hand with chakra. I punched the mirror. It broke but so did my hand.
Haku, panicked because of her mirror breaking attacked me relentlessly and I lost consciousness as I was made into pincushion.
When I woke up, the bridge was tense. On one side was the people of Nami, my team, Zabuza and Haku. On the other side was the Gatō and his army of mercenaries.
The battle began and fortunately, or unfortunately, I reached Gatō first and killed him.
"...that was your first kill?" Tayuya asked.
Naruto nodded, "...my first conscious kill, yes."
"How was it?" she asked. After her first kill, she had nightmares for a week and was a wreck. Orochimaru said it was normal but she could not imagine Naruto acting that way.
"...I felt nothing. No disgust, hate, fear... I am just annoyed because his death solved nothing..." Naruto told her calmly.
Tayuya wondered whether that was a good thing or not. 'Then again, it's not like he's the type to go berserk and suddenly kill everybody. And he certainly is not the type to go emotional with a kill... Somehow, feeling annoyed is very like him...'
"...well, there is nothing more to be said about the mission to Nami. The bridge was finished and we returned back to Konoha," Naruto stated.
"Then you entered a chūnin exam, right?" Tayuya asked. Naruto blinked, wondering how did she knew that. Nonetheless, he nodded. "Orochimaru-sama actually showed your exam to the people of Oto. He said that he is proud of you," Tayuya laughed as she remembered how the people of Oto reacted when their daily lives were disturbed simply to show a genin entering a chūnin exam.
"...Orochi did? How?" Naruto asked. He knew for sure that there were no one following him and his team.
"He said that he gave you a seal when you met him," Tayuya answered.
Naruto's eyes widened in realization as he remembered his meeting with the man before the exam.
"Here, Naruto-kun," Orochimaru said as he placed a seal on his back.
"What did you put there, Orochi?" Naruto asked. Not that he did not trust his friend. It was just a mere curiosity.
"Just a seal that allowed me to monitor your condition."
Naruto sighed, 'I should have known...'
"I must say that my favorite part is when you declared your nindō. That was dramatic," Tayuya laughed as she heard Naruto groan.
"...I suppose there is nothing more to be said, then. After the exam and invasion, I met you."
Tayuya smiled and turned towards him, "my life is not as eventful as yours. I lived in a small village as an orphan." Naruto nodded, he suspected that as Tayuya never actually talked about her family. "After a bandit attack, I was saved by Orochimaru-sama and was taken to Otogakure."
Tayuya smirked, "I trained and eventually was chosen to be one of the Oto Four."
Naruto raised an eyebrow, "Oto Four? Is that a name of a band?" he asked seriously.
Tayuya smacked his head, "hell no! That's the name of the group I was with. There's Sakon and Ukon, Kidōmaru, and Jirōbō." Naruto looked at her questioningly. She knew what he was about to ask and answered immediately, "Kimimaro is special. He is one of Orochimaru-sama's best shinobi. Sometimes, he would lead us in missions. Which turn us into Oto Five instead of four." Then Naruto remembered that Jiraiya referred them as Oto Five.
Tayuya then continued, "talking about Oto Five reminds me, you never heard my title, right?" Naruto shook his head. He did not even knew that she had a title. "In Oto, people call me, Hokumon no Tayuya," she told him proudly.
"That would be, Tayuya of the North Gate, yes? Why?" Naruto asked.
"Before Kimimaro joined us, the Oto Four had a formation. I'm at the north," Tayuya explained.
Naruto was curious about the formation but decided to allow Tayuya to continue her story. "My life is just a standard shinobi life. Escort mission, protection," then Tayuya's eyes became downcast, "assassination."
"What is your rank?" Naruto asked her, changing the subject as he saw her depression. Though, he was partly curious about her rank. While Kimimaro was strong enough to face Kisame alone, Naruto who was a chūnin managed to match Tayuya. That meant she was not as strong as Kimimaro.
"Officially I am jōnin. But truthfully, I'm a chūnin." Naruto blinked, confused. "Oto doesn't have many shinobi and so most shinobi who was deemed strong enough was moved up in rank."
Naruto nodded, the number of high ranked shinobi was one of the measuring stick of a village's power. Most small villages lowered the standard of their shinobi to increase their number.
"Then as you know, we received a mission to protect you and here I am..." Tayuya trailed off. Naruto looked at her, waiting for her to speak. "...I'm glad that I took this mission. I thought that it would be the same as the others. I will stay around the target and eliminate any threat..." Tayuya's depression returned as she thought about 'eliminating' someone.
"...I envy you, Ruto..." Tayuya suddenly admitted. Naruto said nothing as she continued, "you acted as if you do not care about anything. I wish I could be like that but..."
"You do not wish to be a ninja?" Naruto questioned.
Tayuya shook her head, "it's not that I don't want to be ninja. It's just that I dislike the things we have to do. Lying, stealing, killing..." she closed her eyes as she remembered what she had to do to complete her missions. Her eyes opened when she suddenly felt warmth covering her hand. She looked towards it and found Naruto's hands on her own.
"...I just became a ninja not long ago..." Naruto began, "I have yet to suffer as much as you. I cannot understand your pain. However, you are my friend, perhaps the best I ever had. I promise that I shall be beside you. I will help you anytime you need." Then Naruto gazed at her with a determined face. "If you dislike the path of ninja, then I will change it."
Tayuya smiled, "...that's quite a declaration. Is that some kind of a new confession of love?" she joked.
Naruto chuckled, "no, it is not a joke. It is a promise."
"...a promise..." she muttered. "Then I promise that I will always support you. Even if the world itself is against you, I will be by your side." After declaring that, Tayuya smirked, "you know, I've never heard of someone going that far for a friend..."
"Truly?" Naruto asked, "it does not matter, does it? We both are unaware of how a normal friends act with each other."
Tayuya gave a short laugh, "You're right. It doesn't matter what the world see us as. I know that you're my friend and I'm yours."
Naruto smiled, "in the end, that is what matters." Naruto and Tayuya smiled to each other and laid back down, their hands still entwined.