So...I'm sorry for the late update, though "late" is a relative term for this fic. I got into an accident several days back, and my feet got fucked up. I basically destroyed the outside of my right foot, and on my left, I got cut deep enough that an artery opened. I've been out of commission, and only recently managed to unhook myself from pain meds for long enough to stay awake and finish a chapter. I'm gonna pass out in a minute when I publish this.
No review responses this chapter. I know that's been a staple, but...fuck, guys, just take the chapter. I'll try to update soon, but it may be 3-4 days before I get something new out.
Let's get this trainwreck moving.
"Hm...you're certain?" Orochimaru asked.
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto answered.
"Very well. You're dismissed, Kabuto-kun."
Nodding, the medic left the room.
The last living Sannin's serpentine eyes narrowed, plans beginning to formulate in his mind. Jiraiya and Tsunade were both dead, and Danzo's full sweep of Konoha's political frame was imminent. It would be all too easy for Kakashi to be taken in the shadows, for the Council of Clans to become outvoted due to some of his Yamanaka soldiers' techniques...outvoted, and then disbanded, after Danzo proclaimed himself the Rokudaime Hokage. The board had been set up beautifully in the elder's favor, almost too good to be true.
He would go for it. Danzo was patient, but all assassins were opportunists at heart. Orochimaru knew that, he'd killed enough of them that he no longer bothered to hide.
Though the White Snake held no loyalty to his former home, he almost wondered whether or not it would be proper to mount an invasion specifically to eliminate Danzo from the world's stage.
Orochimaru's eyes flicked to the side, where the unnaturally-aged children stayed within their stasis chambers. While it was true that he'd given Danzo the most advanced prosthetic he could make at the time, as well as the most dangerous, he had the tools necessary to counteract that weaponized arm.
Releasing Naruto was a non-option, no matter how willing Naruto might be to annihilate one of their profession's most unrepentant villains. It was true that Danzo hadn't actually done much in the way of destroying the Uzumaki, and Ne operatives had in fact given Oboro protection as she fled to Konoha...but he'd cut down the Nidaime Uzukage without a second thought.
Orochimaru knew Danzo. Any ally that grew too strong, any asset that proved too capable, would be cut down with neither remorse nor hesitation. That was one reason why he didn't mind the fact that his experiments had been discovered and he'd been forced to flee Konoha; Sannin or not, Danzo would have come after him eventually, and that wasn't a battle Orochimaru relished the thought of.
The Sandaime Hokage had an emotional bond with Orochimaru that he'd never quite managed to sever, preventing him from using his full force. Danzo didn't have that problem, let alone something as weighing as a moral compass. He would act in Konoha's interests first, and his own desires second, with no thought to anyone else's thoughts on the matter. It had made him a reliable asset to Konoha, and a thorn in the sides of its enemies.
He watched Karin through a one-way mirror, saw her effectively switch between the data-entry terminal and watching over Naruto. Though she didn't stop the experiments that Orochimaru ran, she was far gentler with him than the White Snake would have been. She would hold his hand and talk to him, and on seeing that, Orochimaru's inhumanly long-fanged grin was sincere...in its twisted, malicious joy.
No...he wouldn't move to attack Konoha, even in their time of weakness. He couldn't trust the shinobi under his thumb to remain complacent with a temporary ruler; he was liable to return to a smoldering heap when he returned. Furthermore, he wasn't entirely willing to stray too far from Naruto.
Orochimaru's great-nephew genuinely intrigued him, beyond the boy's use as a test subject. He was certainly stronger than most people would ever give him credit for, single-handedly defeating two rampaging Biju and the men in whom they were sealed. He was strong enough to stop Sasuke, who'd been corrupted by the Ten no Infuin and its cursed Senjutsu chakra. He'd held his own against Kirabi, Kumogakure's foremost Kenjutsu master and the Hachibi Jinchuriki.
The problem with his status wasn't his strength, it was his intelligence. Naruto was a classic example of someone who was good at his job, and good at following orders, but not at on-the-spot thinking in the middle of a battle. If he'd chosen to use Senjutsu, or even a more sincere pull upon the Kyuubi's chakra, rather than a last-ditch explosion that had nearly killed them both...Naruto would have won the battle, cleanly and clearly.
On top of that, he was honest to a fault in a profession where one wrong word could bring death and ruin to a nation.
Orochimaru laughed to himself, quickly, before he went away to check on someone else.
He wondered what both Jiraiya and Tsunade had seen in Naruto. Why they had decided, even to their deaths, that they should protect and fight for the Konoha that he'd grown up in...but, either way, it would be the same Konoha that he would return to. Naruto wouldn't be the same, either.
In almost three months of near-constant torture, he hadn't broken; he had accepted the pain, and he had resigned himself to his fate, but his mind was still intact.
A blessing. Orochimaru needed as many competent subjects as he could get. He knew, in his heart, that he was running out of time; the snake was cunning, the snake could sense its prey and its hunters when they drew close, and Orochimaru was a snake both preying and hunted.
Kabuto's status as a double-agent for Sasori came in handy. Pein had left Amegakure, joining the children of Konoha, who trained each day as they continued their journey to bring Naruto back to his home. But would there be a home to return to? Konoha's deaths had been relatively minimal, though more than a few high-profile shinobi had been killed. If Iwa and Kumo held an alliance, a mutual strike at Konoha would spell certain doom for any ninja born in Hi no Kuni.
He didn't know how to feel about that. While it was true that Orochimaru had no true loyalty to any village or institution, he was loyal to people. Even to Jiraiya and Tsunade. He had been willing to be cursed at, for others to rue the day he left his mother's womb; he had accepted all the things that could, and did, happen. Orochimaru held no doubt that what many said was true: he was a villain.
What he had always denied, however, was that he was evil. In the lives of ninja, morality was grey at best, and nonexistent at worst. Orochimaru maintained that his experiments were not moral, but they were necessary. Progress was necessary, and stagnation was the enemy. Perfection was supposed to be impossible, and even undesirable...perfection meant that nothing could be improved, which was the antithesis of the shinobi lifestyle.
Orochimaru sought the process to create the perfect body, one that could not be destroyed by illness, jutsu, or blade. He wanted to possess the mind that understood all things, one that was able to see and know all.
He was running out of time.
The notion of his demise was ever-present.
He was running out of time.
Onoki was an old, old man. Older than his Konoha-born counterpart, the Sandaime Hokage, he had seen the last days of the Warring Clans period, and even fought against Uchiha Madara in his later teenage years. Now, not so long after his hundredth birthday, the news that came to greet him was as troubling as it was welcome.
Konoha had started, and ended, its civil war. Their Hokage was dead, and each faction left unsatisfied by the conclusion; such was the nature of compromise, where nobody ever got what they wanted.
Just as the mountains he had been born upon, and raised within, Onoki was a man whose thoughts were carved in stone, and whose judgement was long in coming. He did not burn with the passion of fire, he did not follow the whimsy of the wind. He could not strike with the speed of ligtning, nor adapt to any situation like water. He was the rock upon the mountainside, a fixture that could neither move nor be moved, except by something strong enough to shake the very foundation of the earth.
The earth was shaken. Day was dark, water was dry, and Konoha was in disarray.
He couldn't wait, however.
He wouldn't wait to see if they recovered. If they came back stronger, as Konoha always had.
That was what irritated Onoki the most about Konoha. Though they were mocked as pacifists, 'tree-huggers,' and all the rest of the insults that had cropped up over the last eighty years...Konoha never lost. There was always some pugilistic talent hidden within those leaves, some horrifying power that had yet to be unleashed.
Onoki remembered the Kiiroi Senko. He remembered the Issenjutsu no Meijin. He remembered the Shinobi no Kami. He remembered the Sannin.
Most of all, though, he remembered the piercing, luminescent, blood-red Mangekyou Sharingan of Uchiha Madara.
He remembered pain as the fires of Amaterasu had destroyed his armor, how the Kamui had killed his father in one explosive stroke. The Susano'o, in its ethereal glory, as it cut down the Nidaime Tsuchikage.
Onoki was na slÊibhte, in the tongue of an elder age, from before the gods were born. He was of the mountains, and he would return to the mountains in death.
Konoha...they had allied with Konoha, long ago, before he rose to the position of Tsuchikage. That had changed, one fateful day, when Onoki had been lucky to live after Madara had struck. Ever since, they had been enemies, a blood-oath sworn to the corpses of his fallen brothers and sisters.
His thoughts were carved in stone. His judgement was swift in coming.
Onoki, the ancient lord of dust and ashes that had been burned so long ago, gave his orders.
"Hey, little Rei! Kouga, I know ya! How ya little fools doin', on a day the cows are mooin'?"
"Hello, Kirabi. Your brother's given us leave to stay like we did last time." Oboro said.
"Hm...miss Oboro, you've picked up quite an entourage. Some hotel's gonna get barraged!"
Haku wasn't thinking of anything; that was his first and only mistake. Unbidden, the image came to his mind of Kirabi rapping while Zabuza sang, the two of them sailing into the face of the rising sun. Were it not for his mask, the look of abject horror on his face would have been plain to see.
"Greetings, Kirabi-san. I am Sai, the leader of this mission. As you can see, I have...quite a collection of allies."
"That I do, it's true." Kirabi rhymed. "So, how long are ya stayin' for, should this killer bee give a tour?"
Tayuya looked at Kirabi pointedly.
"Kirabi, do you know why we're here?"
"No."
"Naruto was captured by Orochimaru. We're going to take him back."
"What? That kid got beat?"
"We were asking the Raikage if he would let us operate with help from Kumogakure shinobi, since Orochimaru has two major bases here."
"My bro said no. I know what he thought, to him the Jinchuriki are part of a plot. He'll see this as a sign that he's right to keep me and Yugito out of a fight."
News had reached E, Kirabi, and the rest of Kumogakure's upper echelon, that Konoha's civil war had ended. Political unrest was still prevalent, and there was no unified leader in the village. Just before the children from Konoha had arrived, E had received a letter from the Tsuchikage that asked for one thing: an alliance, born from a century of hate for Konoha, to destroy the ninja who hid in the leaves.
Kirabi knew his brother's answer. He remembered the shame and rage that E had felt after his decisive loss to Namikaze Minato. Their father had been killed by Konoha. The Shodaime and Sandaime Raikage had been killed by Konoha.
He knew that the trees would soon be burning. These children, soon enough, wouldn't have a home to go back to. When that day came, they'd be trapped in Kumo for the rest of their lives, the Hyuuga and Uchiha used as breeding stock to give the village their signature Dojutsu. The others could be integrated, their clan techniques preserved and passed down with a new allegiance to Kumogakure.
He pitied them.
That red-headed man, though...Kirabi could feel, but not dispel, the Genjutsu over those eyes. His gaunt face and frail appearance gave the appearance of a man who couldn't put up much of a fight, but the Hachibi could sense his chakra.
Chakra that had surpassed its own capacity. Chakra that was eerily reminiscent of someone, whose name the Hachibi refused to reveal. It was serene, overflowing with heavenly malice of a kind that was remembered in nothing but dreaming whispers. It was as if the dead gods had poured all of their will into this man, their final champion.
Kirabi was not a man who was frightened easily. The only ninja who'd ever spooked him was Naruto, as he'd screamed in victorious rage after Yagura's death. That had been a fear born from the knowledge that he would never naturally surpass Naruto's talent for battle.
This man before him, who shared his clan name with the blond from Konoha, whose full name was only separated by one syllable...this Uzumaki Nagato, he instilled a primal fear in Kirabi's heart that could not be denied.
Amegakure, strongest of the minor villages, was famous for two things: its enigmatic former leader, Hanzo, and its isolationism after his death. Nagato never spoke without purpose, his eyes were always watching. His eyes were always waiting. He gave off an aura of being in all places at all times, that he knew everything that could be known.
Someone like that couldn't be allowed to live.
Someone like that couldn't be made to die.
"Are you saying that we should just roll over and let you become the Hokage?"
"I don't know that you have much choice, Kakashi. Who else would it be, you?" Danzo scoffed. "Half the village hates you. More than half, if you include the civilians...which I don't. Itachi has returned to his mission in the Akatsuki, Naruto is missing in action, and nobody who's qualified is particularly fond of the job's requirements, though improving upon Tsunade's short-lived reign shouldn't be difficult to achieve."
"He's right, Kakashi." Shikaku said.
The Council of Clans had gathered around a table, informally, though there was no Hyuuga present. Behind Kakashi stood Yugao and Yamato, despite everyone's intention to prevent further violence.
"You killed her. She would have submitted, but you killed her." Tsume growled.
The Inuzuka matron had been struck harshly. Her elder child and presumed heir had been killed, one of the few lethal casualties of the war, and her younger child was still AWOL. She was in no mood for pleasantries or kindness.
"You're a family woman, Tsume." Kakashi countered. "That woman committed more than one crime against her family, and I was disgusted by her."
"What family? Her family is dead. Has been dead, for a long time. Tobirama was childless, and Hashirama only had one child, her father. Her brother died in the Second Great War, and so did her lover."
"Not before she was pregnant with his child, who she abandoned."
"Name it, then!"
"Namikaze Minato."
"He did grow up an orphan, though I remember him making a point, as a child, over the fact that his parents weren't dead. He never did find out who they were, though..."
"Jiraiya and Hiruzen both knew." Danzo said. "Blond shades of hair are abnormal colors in Hi no Kuni, particularly among ninja outside of the Yamanaka clan. The idea wasn't hard to piece together, that he might have been her child, and it's impossible for anyone with eyes to deny that Naruto is Minato's son. Tsunade abandoned Minato to an orphanage, she abandoned Naruto to a life without knowing his last remaining family, and she let her vices control her."
"I'll say it again: are we supposed to just let you waltz in and take the office of Hokage?" Kakashi asked.
"I can't fault you for your distaste, Kakashi. Nor can I say that those who remained loyal to Tsunade were in the wrong. I may not have agreed with many of her policies, but she was still the Hokage, and you killed her."
Kakashi gave no physical reaction, letting his words convey his feelings.
"What should I do, then?" He asked, though the question was rhetorical. "Besides, are we all going to ignore that she killed Hiashi?"
"Hiashi dealt lethal damage to Jiraiya, and he was already dying when Tsunade landed the final blow." Inoichi said. "By anyone's account, that would have been justified...but I guess you wouldn't know what it's like to take revenge for your fallen teammates, since you're the one who killed them."
Before the Yamanaka head could react, he'd been sent to the floor and been pinned by Kakashi, who held a kunai over his throat.
"Say that one more time. I dare you."
"Kakashi!" Yugao yelled, chastising her former captain. "We're trying to prevent more deaths."
"Konoha needs unity." Yamato agreed with his teammate. "We won't get closer to that goal if you keep killing more of its prominent members."
Kakashi stood up, moving away, but the air of the meeting had changed.
"Disrespect their memory one more time, and there won't be time for them to talk me out of killing you." He threatened.
Danzo grimaced. Kakashi had embraced the wolf in his blood, more violent and feral than before the civil war...but the others wouldn't see it that way. To them, he was a mad dog who needed to be put down; he would just be one more casualty of the hatred that governed their world.
Peace in Konoha, and therefore Danzo's attempts to ascend to the position of Rokudaime Hokage, wouldn't be achieved quickly.
