Previously on Path of Shadows, Path of Lights...
"Naruto-kun, will you please come with us?" Itami Uchiha, the genius, prodigy, and perhaps most importantly, clan-killer, asked the orange clad boy.
The Dawn had arrived. Akatsuki had taken center stage.
On a nearby rooftop, a man clad in well-worn black armor and a burlap cloak sat, watching the proceedings, face unseen behind his porcelain animal mask and red ribbon. The mystery man known only as "Sparrow" remained watchful, uncertain as to whether or not he should interfere...
Back in the hotel room, Naruto still stared in stunned silence at the Clan-Killer, Sharingan no Itami, as her shark-like partner walked up to the door and regarded the small, orange-clad child in front of them. "Honestly, who'd think this guy contained the Kyuubi?" Kisame asked, and a feeling like ice water flowed down Naruto's spine. "They know about the Kyuubi?"
Itami knelt down in front of Naruto and reached out a hand to ruffle the boy's hair. "Naruto-kun, would you please come with us?" she asked politely, once again. Kisame scoffed. "We need to get started, Itami. Should I cut off an arm or a leg for the sake of making him lighter?" the Kiri Missing-Nin asked his partner, who resisted the urge to sigh at the shark-man's bloodthirstiness.
Then, the window down the hall exploded, as a dark-haired projectile landed in the hallway, red eyes glaring with hatred.
The elder Uchiha got to her feet and looked down the hallway. "Long time no see, foolish imouto" she said, as Satsuki glared at her. "You! I...I will kill you!" the younger ravenette roared. "I've spent every day since you killed our clan hating you and becoming stronger just to kill you!" Forming a series of hand seals, lightning chakra crackled around Satsuki's left hand as the Chidori formed.
"Prepare to face your judgement, Itami Uchiha!" she shouted, racing forwards. The Chidori left a long trench in the wall next to her as she ran towards her target, whose red Sharingan eyes remained as impassive as ever. On the street outside, several passerby were startled by the second-story wall of the hotel exploding, a few flashes of lightning illuminating the resulting dust cloud.
Satsuki pulled her arm out of the broken wall, while Naruto stared at the remains of he and Jiraiya's hotel room, noticing that his noodles had been destroyed in the explosion. Itami grabbed Satsuki's left arm, and in one deft movement, broke her younger sister's wrist. "Leave her alone, dammit!" Naruto growled, as his five remaining shadow clones rushed forwards, intent on rescuing his teammate.
Reaching down into Kurama's chakra reserves, Naruto bit his thumb and began weaving hand seals. "Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram! Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" he shouted. In a puff of smoke, Gamakichi appeared on the floor, and Naruto sweatdropped. "Seriously? I thought I had enough for someone bigger!" he groaned, before realizing that all the Bijuu chakra had vanished.
Kisame chuckled. "Samehada says that your chakra is tasty" the shark-man stated, before the wrapped package on his back growled a little, and he sweatdropped. "Let me revise that: Samehada says that your chakra is downright delicious." Naruto gawked momentarily in awe. "You can talk to your sword? That's so badass!" "Right?!" Kisame agreed, before a loud thump and a groan of agony alerted Naruto to Satsuki getting her ass beaten by her elder sister.
"Shit!" the boy cursed internally, slipping past the surprised Kiri Missing-Nin as he formed the Shadow Clone seal. Kisame made to pursue, but was interrupted by a green blur kicking him in the face. "DYNAMIC ENTRY!" shouted Might Gai, the Beautiful Blue Beast of Konohagakure. "Thank you, Gai-sensei!" Naruto said mentally, as his clone gathered chakra in his right palm, forming a swirling ball of sheer force.
Itami held her younger sister against the wall in a chokehold, eyes morphing from the three tomoe of a matured Sharingan to a three-pointed pinwheel. "Your issue, imouto, is that you lack the hatred needed to beat me. Maybe this will help you hate me more...Tsukuyomi." The sky turned red, and the world turned dark, as the younger Uchiha stood in an all-too familiar room. On the floor in front of her knelt five figures. Her mother, Mikoto, her father, Fugaku, and...her teammates and sensei?
A shadow loomed behind them as Itami stepped into the moonlight, looking just as she did on that terrible night, wearing her old ANBU uniform and holding her tanto in hand. "Relive that day, and the days to come, for the next three days..." the specter said, raising her sword. "No...no, no, no, no! Please don't do it!" Satsuki pleaded, but it was no use. "Let your hatred grow, or this dream shall become reality."
In the outside world, the younger Uchiha screamed after a quarter second of eye contact, before falling unconscious. Itami let go of her younger sister just in time to avoid Naruto's Rasengan, which destroyed another wall on the opposite side of the hotel from the first one. "What the hell are you doing to her?!" the blonde growled, attempting to attack Itami again. "Interesting. You care for her? This won't do, not at all..." the Clan-Killer commented, drawing out a kunai and slashing it down towards Naruto.
In a puff of smoke, a large, armored toad appeared in front of Naruto, blocking Itami's strike with its' bracers as Jiraiya entered the scene. "A transformed Shadow Clone? Seriously? I thought you knew me better than that, Uchiha" the Toad Sage said, taking in the scene. "This isn't good. I wasted too much time out there..." "Do I though?" the Uchiha responded, as Jiraiya wove seven hand seals and slammed his hands on the ground. "Kuchiyose: Toad Mouth Bind!"
The interior of the hallway transformed from wood and plaster into flesh and blood. "What the heck is this?" Kisame asked, ducking another blow from Gai. "I'm glad you asked! You're now inside the esophagus of one of the Giant Fire Toads of Mount Myoboku! You two wanted criminals will make excellent food for it!" Jiraiya said, as Itami's red eyes widened slightly. "Kisame, we're getting out of here!" she said, as her partner blocked another of Gai's strikes with Samehada, before turning and running, followed by tendrils of flesh.
Rounding a corner, the two Akatsuki members found themselves at a dead end. "I didn't want to use it today, but...Amaterasu!" Itami said, as her right eye bled slightly. Jiraiya, Gai and Naruto went around the same corner to find a hole in the toad's esophagus, with black flames burning around it. "Stay back! Those are the unquenchable black flames of Amaterasu!" the Toad Sage barked, as he pulled out a spare sealing scroll and began to write on it, before making a hand seal.
"Fuinjutsu: Flame Binding" The black fire was all sucked into the scroll, forming the kanji for "Flame" on the paper. Jiraiya wrapped the scroll up in twine and sealed it in another scroll. "I'll save that for a rainy day..." he muttered, before turning to look at Satsuki's prone form.
Naruto knelt down beside his raven-haired teammate and attempted to wake her. "It's no good...she won't wake up..." he said. "Whatever Itami did, it rendered enough mental damage to put her in a coma" Jiraiya murmured, before turning to Gai. "Thank you for the assistance, Gai-san. Could you please make sure that Uchiha-san receives medical attention as soon as possible?" Gai nodded and went over to pick up the Uchiha.
Before the green-clad Jonin could take Satsuki, Naruto wiped some of the blood off her face and rubbed it between his fingers. "Itami Uchiha...I swear that I will not let you harm my teammate like this again" he growled, staring with slit, foxlike pupils in the direction that the two Akatsuki members had fled.
A day later, Naruto and Jiraiya had made it to Tanzaku Quarters, and were currently wandering from bar to bar looking for Tsunade. "Oh, the Legendary Sucker? I heard that she was in town, yeah" a drunk old man said at one of the bars. "She was last seen hanging out at the Lucky 38, about 700 meters thataways" he continued, gesturing south down the main drag.
"Thank you, kind stranger!" Jiraiya said, before turning to the bartender and handing him 200 ryo. "Add this as credit to that man's tab, I owe him" he said, gesturing to the old man, who continued drinking as if nothing had happened. "C'mon Naruto, we're almost there!"
Rushing down the street, Naruto and Jiraiya found a small but fairly nice-looking gambling den with a sign saying "Lucky 38 Casino - Tanzaku's best since 50 SG!" over the door. As Jiraiya turned to enter, however, he ran headlong into someone else, as they both fell to the ground rubbing their heads.
"Owwww! What the hell?!" he growled. An all too familiar voice growled back at him. "What's wrong with you! I'm in a hurry, dammit!" The two finished rubbing their heads and sat up, looking into each other's eyes with a mixture of surprise and regret. "H-Hime?" Jiraiya stammered. "Jiraiya? The hell are you doing here?" asked the blonde bombshell he had run into, who was none other than Tsunade Senju, the Slug Sannin.