Rating: T
Warnings: Still more reunions (and we're done! Um. I think?), language, even more talking, Kakashi being perverted, etc.
Word Count: ~4100
Pairings: Sasuke/Naruto
Cowriter/idea guru: EmeraldBenu (\o/)
Disclaimer: Like I want any part in the midlife-in-the-suburbs horror that was 700? Ha.
Notes: I'm afraid that I come (one week late, I am so sorry) bearing bad news. Last Monday, in protest of recent budget cuts, three of my coworkers quit. Honestly, I admire their resolve and can somewhat sympathize with their indignation, but now beyond just being underfunded my department is understaffed as well, and my line of work is not just something where you can jump into the middle of a colleague's caseload and keep soldiering on. I haven't had a day off since Christmas, and while I'm trying to wrangle some time, there's not much hope for anything at the moment. So updates are going to be sporadic at best for the next couple of weeks. I apologize, but RL is going to have to take priority here. Argh. :/
That said, there are only about 5-ish chapters left, and I'll try my best to write whenever I can find the time. Sorry again!
Stormborn
Chapter Twenty-Nine, Finale: Fathers and Sons, Forte and Staccato
[Forte: A symbol indicating to play loudly and boldly.
Staccato: Short, detached notes, as opposed to legato.]
"Anyone care to tell me why that man looks exactly like Azami?"
Kagami's pointed question is enough to break Naruto's silent contemplation, and he reluctantly drags his eyes away from his father, who is…
Well.
Naruto has never known his parents in either of the lives he's lived. Arashi was an orphan, his mother and father both dead by the time he was a year old. He was told about them, knew shinobi who had known them, but they were never really his in any way that counted. And in this life, in Konoha, people say Namikaze Minato and everyone automatically looks to the mountain. There are few pictures of the Yondaime beyond that, and stone is good for likenesses, but captures almost nothing of the person.
Minato has blue eyes. The very same blue eyes that Naruto himself does, and it's…rather wondrous.
He's met his parents' chakra impressions before, of course—the failsafe in the seal didn't exactly take Kurama's equal partnership into account when it triggered—but they were just that: impressions. Brief moments of time caught and suspended indefinitely, and while the message they carried was welcome, was eagerly heard and readily accepted, Naruto has never quite been able to think of them as his actual parents. He knows how seals function, how such images can be left, and they are…shadows, moving photographs, rather than people.
But here and now, the man standing before him is most definitely his father in every way but having raised him. And perhaps that's a very large part of what a father should be, but—
His father is here, alive, staring right back at him like Naruto is the one who's a miracle, a wonder, and even if Naruto didn't understand Minato's choices, even if he didn't know what it is to be a Kage and make those decisions, he'd forgive a whole hell of a lot, just for that.
Kagami, ever impatient, clears his throat sharply and Naruto gives him a faintly sheepish smile, shifting to give his friend all of his attention. "I'm sorry?"
In the forest below them, another clone detonates like a captured storm exploding, and Naruto winces. One left, then, before Obito comes after him again.
The look Kagami gives him is several miles shy of impressed. "Arashi. That man. Why does he look exactly like Azami?"
Naruto restrains the urge to flinch. Because he knows Kagami, knows his loyalty and his faith and the way he clings to what family he's made, rather than been born into, and this is going to hurt him. And really, Kagami has been hurt so very many times before. Naruto doesn't want to be the one to do it yet again.
With a soft sigh, he plants Sāji's metal-capped butt against the stone of the wall and leans on it. There's no easy way to phrase this, so he grits his teeth for a brief moment before he gives in and says, "Because apparently when Uchiha and Senju genes mix, it's the Senju that come out on top. So rather than looking like a street brawler, your kid ended up looking like the scion of a noble clan. Congratulations."
After spending the majority of his life in Uzushio, Kagami is hardly Uchiha-pale anymore, but when the meaning of the words registers Naruto can see the blood drain from his face, the mix of horror and awe that overtakes his features. "I—Obito?!" he demands, taking a shaky step back. He drags a rough hand through his hair as his knees give out, sending him sinking to the stone with a ragged noise of pain. "He's a part of Akatsuki?"
"How?" Minato demands, as the words finally make him tear his gaze from Naruto. "We all thought Obito died at— And you're his father? He's half Senju?"
Apparently whoever brought them back—and honestly, Naruto has no doubt that it was Orochimaru, because this kind of thing is always his fault—filled them in on at least a little bit of what's going on, but hardly everything. Naruto grimaces, but nods. "I think Madara must have gotten to him at some point after you thought he was killed," he says, sorting the pieces out in his head as he speaks. "He's been calling himself Madara for at least twelve years now, maybe even longer, and he's the leader of Akatsuki. They've been trying to capture all the bijuu and activate Eternal Tsukiyomi."
Sarutobi makes a sharp, angry, almost wounded noise in the back of his throat. "And how many have they taken so far?" he asks grimly, pulling off his helmet to rub at his forehead wearily.
That makes Naruto grin, though, and Kurama echoes the feeling with a low, smug laugh. "Only two—Isobu and Kokuō. B and Yugito are still in Kumo, and Roushi, Fū, Gaara, Utakata, and I have been living in Uzushio, where they couldn't get to us."
Both Sarutobi and Minato blink at that, and look some flavor of conflicted, but Kagami lets out a relieved breath that's halfway to a laugh and shakes his head. "The city's still standing, then?" he asks, meeting Naruto's eyes almost desperately as he struggles back to his feet. "That's true? Kiri didn't level it?"
"We rebuilt," Naruto answers calmly, holding his gaze and trying to keep the guilt he knows is still there at bay. "It's always been the people who have made Uzushio, not buildings and things. And the people survived. Not all of them, but…some. Enough."
There's a flash of black and sea-blue, and with a sharp thud Obito lands on the wall barely ten paces away, the last clone gripped by the throat and dangling from his grasp. There's no viciousness on his face, no hatred, just…determination. Resignation. Old grief and pain and anger, all buried. All given up, because that's what Eternal Tsukiyomi is, at heart—one massive, final surrender to the hardships of reality, and it sets Naruto's teeth on edge.
He's never been even remotely good at giving up.
Obito tosses the clone away, Kamui-propelled kunai flying after it, and the explosion that follows shakes the very wall they're standing on. He glances after it for a moment and then looks away, back to the four standing across from him, and something in his eyes hardens.
"Minato-sensei," he says evenly. "Back to witness your handiwork? Dying to seal the Kyuubi—it was such a noble thing to do, wasn't it? And it made my job easier, as well. No strong Hokage adored by the village, so tensions rose. The Uchiha started to rebel, and because they had no respect for the Sandaime, because they'd never considered him fair-minded when his teacher was so very prejudiced—well. There's no more Uchiha clan now. No one with the ability to control the Kyuubi. No Hokage good enough at seals to bind it. It's the most powerful of the bijuu. When I tear it out of your son and let it loose on your beloved village, how long do you think they'll last?"
Kurama snarls, and it tears its way out of Naruto's throat as the bijuu rises within him, chakra redoubling as the fox's power floods his own. "Kurama isn't some weapon for you to use!" Naruto snaps. "He's my friend, and even if you try to take him over again, the other jinchuuriki will stop you!"
But Obito never looks at him, eyes fixed on Minato and unwavering. The Yondaime takes a short, rough breath and steps forward, holding Obito's gaze.
"Kakashi cried for you, when we thought you died," he says softly, gently. "Obito, we all loved you, and we missed you. We still do. No matter what this is, no matter what you've done, please. Come home. There's no one in the world who can't be redeemed. There's nothing that can't be fixed with enough effort."
Obito laughs, sharp and broken. "You don't understand," he says, and it's completely calm and even. Naruto would almost feel better if it were wild and unbalanced. "None of you understand. This whole world isn't real. Rin isn't Rin unless she's alive. Kakashi isn't Kakashi unless he keeps his promise. Minato-sensei isn't Minato-sensei unless he saves all of us. And if they're not real, none of this is real. But once I activate the Eternal Tsukiyomi, that world will be the true one. The true Rin will be there, and Kakashi, and Minato-sensei. And this awful, broken world will cease to exist."
Minato wavers, expression like someone just scored a killing blow, and steps back. Naruto catches him with a hand on his shoulder, bracing him, and squeezes gently. That was a hit, and worst of all it wasn't even meant to be. Naruto can see in Obito's eyes that he means every word of it. To him, this world is the illusion.
He wonders grimly just how little joy Obito must have had in his life, to be convinced to such a thing.
"Can you find Kakashi?" he asks his father softly, the words for his ears alone. "Can you bring him here? He and Gaara and Fū were facing Pein, in the north. He might be the best one to break whatever Madara brainwashed Obito with."
Minato hesitates, looking torn for a brief heartbeat, and then nods, lips quirking in a faint, wry smile. "He and Kakashi always had a strange relationship," he agrees, sad and amused in equal measure, and then gives Naruto something a little closer to a happy grin. "I'll be back in a flash, Naruto, you can count on it."
Yellow light flares and he's gone, and Naruto doesn't know whether to laugh or smack his head on something hard at the horrible pun.
"Do you know who I am, Obito?" Kagami questions, stepping past Sarutobi to face his son, features set as he plants himself there, a boxer preparing for a match. Verbal, this time, rather than physical, but Naruto has little doubt it will devolve into the latter shortly. They're not going to have a choice at some point. Obito wants to fight, and there's still an army to take care of, still Zetsu to kill unless Sasuke's managed it already.
Obito blinks, clearly startled, and studies him for a long moment, eyes narrowed. There's a pause, a beat, and everything in him goes absolutely, perfectly still.
"I had a picture," he says after a moment. "On my wall. You and a woman, but not an Uchiha, with—"
"With a baby in her arms?" Kagami finishes with a sad smile. "Yeah, that's Azami and me. I kind of thought Hisae would have tossed it out, after I died, but—I'm glad she didn't. Did she…ever tell you about me?"
Sarutobi clears his throat, soft and touched with regret as he watches Obito stiffen. "I am afraid," he says carefully, "that Uchiha Hisae died on a mission about two years after the fall of Uzushio. By that time, Senju Azami had also passed, and there were no other Senju remaining in the village, so her son was taken in by the Uchiha clan as a whole, to the best of my knowledge."
If that doesn't count as an "and everything that can possibly go wrong most certainly did" sort of situation, Naruto doesn't know what would. He studies his friend, watching the slow creep of grief across his face, the regret, the anger. Kagami, despite his bloodline, despite his position, might as well have been an outcast in his own clan as well, though in his case it was by choice. A child born out of wedlock, to a Senju, with all possible parents dead by the time he was three—
Well. That alone would be enough to cause a whole hell of a lot of mental breaks, not even considering what likely happened later, with Madara and Akatsuki.
"…Senju," Obito repeats flatly. "Senju Azami." Comprehension is dawning, building to a head of blazing fury just barely blocked by the ice of Obito's self-control. "That's why they hated me? Not because I couldn't activate the Sharingan, but because my mother was a Senju?"
Then he closes his eyes, takes a breath, and when he opens them again all of that emotion is buried, pushed aside and ignored. Obito draws his gunbai again, grasps the chain with a white-knuckled hand, and calls up his Kamui. The world warps around him, but half a second before he can disappear there's a flash of brilliant yellow light, and a blur of dark blue topped with silver shoots past them and slams into Obito full-on, knocking both of them backwards and into another dimension.
Minato touches down lightly on the wall, cheerful and smiling. "I think," he says, warm and full of faith, "that Kakashi's more than willing to knock some sense into him."
"Well," Fū mutters kicking a stone and sending it skating across the rocky ground, then over the edge and into the surging sea below. "That was kind of…anticlimactic."
Gaara glances at her, then at the six corpses crumpled around them on the top of the small island, and doesn't quite roll his eyes, no matter how he's tempted. In the distance, there's a line of white capped with red—Uzushio, bright beneath the noon sun and untouched by the chaos back in Konoha. "Hm," is all he says.
The ANBU, mask long since cracked off to reveal a dark-eyed man with high cheekbones, coughs a little as he rises to his feet. "You moved us?" he asks, glancing around them. "Where are we?"
"White Rock," Fū answers cheerfully, flashing through a quick set of hand seals that make the earth shake. A pit opens up beneath each of the former Paths, just deep enough to serve as a grave, and she closes them again quickly. Gaara can't say he disagrees with the idea. They've already been reanimated once; he'd very much prefer it doesn't happen again. Maybe, once this is over, they can return and provide a more honorable burial, but for now, this will suffice. "Off the coast of Uzushio. Otherwise known as Training Ground Nine. We mostly use it when we're practicing our more destructive jutsus."
Kakashi eyes the deep, spiral gouges carved into the stone near the edge, unmistakably the product of a Rasengan, and hums softly. "I see," he murmurs. "And is it too much to hope that returning to Konoha will be as simple as getting here?"
Fū scowls at him, dropping her hands on her hips even as her beetle wings flare out in offense. "Simple?" she demands. "Simple? I'd like to see you hop us all the way across Fire Country, Hot Springs Country, Whirlpool Country, and then a good portion of the ocean, too. With, might I add, a seal drawn by someone who doesn't specialize in them, in the heat of battle, while facing the strongest member of the Akatsuki split into six bodies. Damn it, that was hard. Where's my respect, huh?"
Gaara considers debating his supposed lack of familiarity with the transport seal—all of the jinchuuriki know it, as a failsafe to escape the Akatsuki if nothing else—but decides that, given the fairly desperate fight they were just engaged in, and how Fū is correct about the matter being far from simple, he can allow it. For now.
"Maa, I didn't mean it like that," Kakashi protests mildly, raising one hand in surrender even as the other retrieves his little orange book. The former, at least, is a normal reaction to Fū's glare. Suigetsu in particular tends to shy away from it, because Fū has been Naruto's devoted student when it comes to pranks and payback.
With a soft snort, Tenzo reaches for the lone shard of his mask that accompanied them and tucks it into his weapons pouch. "I don't understand how you can be so popular with girls when you're absolutely awful at talking to them, senpai," he informs the other jounin dryly.
"Well, my cute little kouhai, when a man is particularly good with his—"
"OKAY," Fū says loudly and brightly to drown him out. "WE'RE LEAVING. Everybody hang on to your asses, I'm running a bit lower on chakra than I'd like so this might get bumpy."
Tenzo goes a little pale at that, while Kakashi's eyes widen before he can control his expression. Gaara blinks, because as far as he can tell Fū is pretty much fine, what with Chōmei so close to the surface, but when he catches Fū's eye she just throws him a surreptitious wink and brings her hands down on the edge of Gaara's sand-seal. Light flares, blinding for a brief handful of heartbeats before it fades away, leaving them right back where they started and only a little worse for wear.
"You," Kakashi says after a moment of silence, narrowing his eyes at the green-haired girl, "having been living with Naruto for far too long."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Fū answers primly, brushing a bit of sand off her skirt. She is either ignoring or unaware of the streaks of drying blood painted across it, and Gaara truly couldn't say which is more likely. "So. Now what?"
Gaara tips his head, considering. "Nagato will be somewhere nearby, but even if Karin can spare her attention to look for him, she will have little luck, given his ability to alter his chakra signature. However, he is functionally immobile, and with the rest of Akatsuki occupied, he won't be able to find and modify new bodies for his Paths."
Fū nods, features tightening momentarily before they smooth out again. "And he's an Uzumaki," she points out. "If he's not going anywhere, and he's not going to cause any more trouble for the time being, we should leave him for Naruto to deal with, since he's both Clan Head and Uzukage."
Left unsaid is that if anyone can talk the Rinnegan user down, it's Naruto. Gaara inclines his head in agreement, then turns to look where a sea of white clones is slowly being eaten away at by shinobi from several different nations. "Then we should offer our assistance," he says, even as light blooms in the square they originally appeared at, before all of this started. Familiar chakra signatures appear, one after another, and Gaara feels a smile tugging at his mouth entirely against his will.
"Ah," he says. "I would assume that's the cavalry."
Fū laughs, bright and delighted, and leaps into the air, wings buzzing open behind her. "You bet it is!" she crows. "Come on, my lord Jounin Commander, you've got troops to boss around."
Three chakra signatures in particular make Gaara raise one brow, and he calls up his sand, letting it gather beneath his feet. "It seems we're having a family reunion as well," he says dryly. "I wonder how Roushi managed that."
"Ah, I haven't seen Yugito in months with the stupid Akatsuki creeping around." Fū is all but vibrating with excitement, but she hesitates long enough to offer the two Konoha jounin a hand. "Want a ride back to the excitement? I can carry one of you, and Gaara can take the other."
Before either of the jounin can answer, there's a bright flash of yellow, a flicker-flare of unfamiliar chakra, and a blond man in a long white haori edged with a design of flames lands in the middle of their battlefield.
Kakashi drops his book.
"Minato-sensei?" he demands, sharp and disbelieving, taking a quick step back.
Naruto, Gaara wants to say, and judging by the narrowing of her eyes Fū is thinking the same thing. This man looks like Naruto—and moreover, he looks very much like the carving on the mountain above them. That, coupled with the words on the back of his haori and Naruto's status as a jinchuuriki…
Gaara has a feeling he knows what this man is, even if he doesn't quite know who.
"Kakashi," the Yondaime says, warm and fond. "Orochimaru's jutsu brought me back, if only for a while. But we don't have much time. Akatsuki's leader—it's Obito. He survived, but he's been…twisted. We need help to break him out of it."
For a long moment, Kakashi looks like he's been sent reeling, face going even paler, eyes wider, every muscle strung tense and incredulous. Gaara watches him with concern, almost ready to suggest he sit down and put his head between his knees or something similar. But after another moment, the man shakes it off, raising his hands to press over his face.
"Minato-sensei," he says, low and wrecked. "But—I broke my promise to him. I can't—"
"You can," Minato says, implacable but not unkind, crossing the scarred ground to curl a hand around the nape of the Copy-Nin's neck. "It's Obito, Kakashi. Your friend. He needs you, and what you can do. What you can be for him. Don't hesitate. This time, we have the chance to save him."
Kakashi looks up, Sharingan eye and grey eye both firm and set, the roiling emotions underneath just barely held in check, and nods once, firmly. Minato smiles back, encouraging and kind, and grips his arm. They both vanish in another flash of yellow.
There's a long moment of silence, and then Tenzo huffs out a heavy breath. "I think I'll take that ride, if you're still offering," he says dryly, and reaches up. Fū chuckles and swoops down, wrapping her arms around his chest from behind and lifting him off the ground.
"Definitely," she says brightly. "Battlefield, here we come! You're good, Gaara?"
Gaara takes one last look around, half-expecting Nagato to slide out from behind a rock or something, and then inclines his head. "Go," he agrees. "I will see to the distribution of the others and then join you."
Fū manages a halfway decent salute, even with her arms full of jounin, and then swoops towards the White Zetsu army without looking back. Gaara heads in the other direction, already able to hear Anzu's voice rising like the crack of her whip above the din.
Seven jinchuuriki with something to fight for, he thinks, with several villages at their back, against an army of clones with nothing.
And he smiles.
Those are good odds.
