Killing Off the Blue Uchiha

by Foy the Snooze Button

Living life in the third person, the Blue Uchiha always knew he wasn't the hero of his own story. He was just going along for the ride, until his scars refused to let him forget. Now, his friends see a melting pot of epic proportions. They fear the worst and paranoia takes the place of concern. Something regrettable needs to be done. Uchiha! Naruto, Hunter Ninja! Naruto

8. Chapter 8

Hello

How's it going?

Shout out to everyone!

I'm not feeling so good right now. I'll give shout outs in the next chapter. My apologies.

This chapter was a little bit difficult to write because this is the pivotal PART TWO of this story and also that I tweaked this story's framework (story framework being the complete and summarized version-or versions-of a story, of which I mean this story). I had to change a few things.

I took it as a challenge and I think it ended up ok.

A bit about this chapter; from this point onwards, things will get progressively bad for Minato. We'll ease into his inevitable demise ;)

Enjoy…

CHAPTER 8

Five years later

Uchiha Memorial

Uchiha clan compound

There were clan matters that the Uchiha clan head was forced to abide by the will of his clan mates, else have a revolt on his hands.

One such matter that recently arose was on whether or not to raise a monument in honour of the blue Uchiha.

Fugaku and his wife were of the opinion that Blue deserved no such monument, seeing as he was a traitor that had fled the village with the intention of allying with his missing ninja mother, but the rest of the clan thought differently.

Naruto "Blue" Uchiha was a war veteran, the Uchiha clans first and most successful marksman, an incomprehensibly powerful person and an extremely influential member of the clan.

He deserved a monument.

…Even though no one in the clan believed he was dead.

Young or old, shinobi or civilian, there wasn't an Uchiha in the clan that actually wholeheartedly believed that Blue was dead.

Aside from the fact that no body had been provided as proof of his death, the clan of sharingan users had seen the black-blonde haired Uchiha in action during the war and when he had snapped their clan heads arm; Minato Namikaze couldn't be compared, not by himself and even then it was a stretch.

And, well, there was the creature Blue became that people of the Uchiha clan called the Fire Monster.

It was an unfathomable monster that had crawled up from the inferno of the abyss and burnt any living creature to char with its hellish flames, sending deathly chills down the heart of any unfortunate person it set its demonic gaze upon and petrified those that bore witness to its ear-to-ear, dagger-toothed grin; that was the way it had been described inside the Uchiha clan, as well as to people outside of the clan.

The blue Uchiha had thrown around Kirabi of Kumogakure and incinerated scores more shinobi of the Lightning village.

For an average Uchiha, it was illogical to think that their pansy, yellow haired billionaire Hokage stood a chance against a force that surpassed nature itself.

Yet, Fugaku and Mikoto unquestionably stayed silent when Minato boasted of this to the village.

The monument made for the Uchiha Sniper was meant to commemorate his legacy for future generations, to always be present until Naruto wished to return.

Standing some yards from Madara Uchiha's monument was a grey marble slab that had been carved into a smooth three and a half by three foot rectangle that had been rigorously polished so that the lights if the setting sun glinted off it. It would have looked like a tombstone if not for the fact that there was nothing written on it.

It was a shrine that was meant to display the simple, easy going visage of the blue eyed man it was honouring.

There was an eggshell white mask that had no mouth or nose but black paint ringed around the eyeholes leaning on the grey slab.

Naruto's hunter ninja mask, or at least a replica of it.

Before Blue's monument were numerous bundled flowers, neatly and respectfully placed there. Some of the younger members of the clan regularly came by the shrine and placed rough drawings before it, crayon pictures of their families and how they thought Blue looked, of which their parents accompanied and allowed them to place, paying their respects as they did so.

It made Itachi smile at how venerated and admired his Uncle Blue was.

Five years after his disappearance and the assumption of him being alive was no less strong.

The twelve year old boy sighed and bowed to the monument, then he went down onto his knees, dropped his backpack next to him and placed his bandaged hands together.

"Hello, uncle."

He was silent for a moment, closing his eyes serenely and hearing the far off chatter outside of the Uchiha Memorial's wrought iron gates. It was nearing sunset and the people that had come to pay their respects, leaving hot food and flowers before the grey slab dedicated to the missing blue Uchiha, were departing with their children back to their houses.

Itachi had purposely stayed at the back of the line and the stoic attendants for the Uchiha Memorial gave the man's nephew permission to stay for as long as he wanted.

The boy swallowed.

"I miss you, uncle." Itachi ground his teeth and a slow tear crept down his left eye, angry. "Now…now I have to make do and talk to a stupid rock." The boy trembled with sorrow and he bowed deeper as his heart gave a hard lurch at the stagnant silence that met his words. "I feel like an idiot."

It hurt now as much as did five years ago today.

He opened his eyes and wiped his teary eyes with the back of his hand, digging into his backpack and retrieving a forehead protector.

The boy looked at the steel hitaite with a brief smile.

"I graduated this morning. Rookie of the Year." He tilted his head to the side, looking at the reflection of his coal black eyes from the metal. "Kushina-sensei said I scored better than Kakashi Hatake and that…" he frowned visibly. "And that…my Prodigy Aptitude Test is just as high as the Hokage's."

That wouldn't have meant much to Itachi if Naruto was still with him.

Now, it made him angry .

The Prodigy Aptitude Test (or P.A.T.) was an exam that was taken in the Ninja Academy only twice; at the start of the child's schooling, where they would ascertain the person was a prodigy of some specialization, and at the time of the student's graduation, to evaluate how far along the prodigious person had come since they began.

PATs were all equally challenging, whether they were for kenjutsu prodigies or taijutsu prodigies, so one couldn't say that their experience differed other than the obvious fact that the specializations the prodigies were being tested on differed. These complex tests weren't nearly as commonly administered as one would think, as the occurrence of prodigies wasn't common either.

In Itachi's generation, he was the only known prodigy.

Blue's nephew could have very well graduated after the First Year in the Academy but he felt like his uncle would have wanted him to pass through school normally, without rushing. Experiencing the full four years of the Shinobi School, even if it meant that he was absolutely bored with classes and that he slacked off with his classmates.

Itachi wanted to make Naruto proud, so very much.

The raven haired child was angry he was being compared to Minato Namikaze.

"I hate him." he hissed foully, clenching the hitaite in both of his hands. "H-He's the reason you're not here. That man…" the normally calm boy grit his teeth. "I don't know what he did…but he's nothing against you, uncle." He shook his head adamantly. "There's no way in hell that man could have beaten you." He released hold of the forehead protector when the blue cloth threatened to tear. His face reverted to wearily emotionless and he looked down at the fallen hitaite. "He…he wanted to shake my hand, y'know." Itachi saw the bitter look in his eyes from the steel hitaite. "Arrogant bastard…he wanted to shake my hand, like I was some fanboy." The tears came once again when he saw a single drop fall onto the Leaf hitaite. He spat with disgust, away from his uncles shrine. "I wanted so much to stab him." he came forward onto his hands, his shaggy black hair grazed the replica of the hunter ninja mask Blue wore. Itachi grated furiously. "Cut that stupid grin off his face and make him regret ever making a fool of you." He swallowed and slowly sat back on his knees, his body sagged. "Mother and father yelled at me for not shaking his hand. They say I shouldn't be like you."

Itachi shrugged easily.

"I don't care what they think." He then laughed quietly with his eyes closed. "You're the only role model I have."

This was a truth that Itachi didn't hide from his uncle.

Another truth was that Blue was more of a parent to him than his own combined.

As far as he knew, the man he called his uncle was his parent.

"I…wanted to bring Sasuke here, to get to know you but…mother wouldn't let him out her sight and she doesn't want to come either."

Mikoto didn't permit her oldest son to visit her brothers shrine too but Itachi wasn't one to heed their threats; it was already a chore to prevent Sasuke's mind from being poisoned by his mother harmful opinions of her brother.

The boy placed his right hand on the grey slab, dipped his head down and closed his eyes. "Whatever reason you have for not being here…I don't care. I'll find you." If the cost of finding his uncle was defecting from the village, then so be it. "I miss you, Blue."

He waited, almost seeming to expect the reflexive rebuke he normally got when he didn't refer to his uncle properly, but all he heard was the faint rustle of leaves from the Sakura tree in the yard of the Uchiha Memorial and the sounds of the attendants sweeping the shrine dedicated to Indra Uchiha, their clan's founder.

Not hearing what he wanted to hear, Itachi's face saddened and he sniffed. "…Uncle Blue."

Someone approached the shrine and stood four feet behind Itachi. The person clapped their hands together and bowed, offering their greetings to the missing-but much adored-blue eyed man.

Itachi's eyes opened and he looked over his shoulder at the person.

"Izumi."

The girl named Izumi was the age as Itachi and roughly the same height. She had a healthily tanned skin and cheeks that bore the stubborn pudginess of childhood that couldn't just easily be burned off with training. There was a light scattering of freckles over her small nose, dark brown eyes that slowly opened after she finished greeting the absent Uchiha Sniper and thin lips that screwed to the side when she saw Itachi get off his knees, brush them off and sling his backpack on. She also had straight black hair tied into a long ponytail on the right side of her head. Izumi was wearing black pants and a dark purple short sleeved shirt that had the Uchiha clan symbol on the back with a set of kunai and shuriken on her left thigh and right hip respectively, blue shinobi sandals on her feet and a shortened bow staff on her back, made of a metallic material she couldn't bother to remember.

The girl scrutinized her friend as he casually wiped his eyes with his hands; he was wearing a plain black, featureless short sleeved shirt and black shorts with equally black sandals that protected his bandaged up feet. His shinobi weapons were on the sides of either of his thighs and the boy checked the bandages on each of his hands, winding around his fingers and reaching halfway up his forearms.

Itachi cleared his voice and Izumi smirked, realizing that she hadn't said anything yet.

"I miss him too, you know."

"You barely knew him." Itachi answered lazily, jerking his head towards the entrance of the Uchiha Memorial and she trotted beside him, wearing a small frown at his dismissive statement.

"You're forgetting the sleepovers me, you and Shisui had at his place." she huffed and crossed her arms. "He gave me his extra futon cuz…"

The man's nephew smirked at her light-heartedly. "You wet yours."

"You spilled apple juice on my sleeping bag, dipshit." She snapped, uncharacteristically embarrassed at that blast from the past.

Itachi rolled his eyes. "Uncle did warn us not to drink anything after midnight." He waved to the formally clothed shrine attendants and they waved back, watching the two newly minted genin exit the Uchiha Memorial.

Back then, they were five and their parents had dumped responsibility of looking after them for the night on him barely a month after returning from the front after the war ended.

Itachi's face brightened for a split second, lightening the tired lines on his face and the dark shadows under his eyes, something that made Izumi happy to see, even though it was for just a moment.

"Uncle Blue gave me ice cream to stop me from crying." Izumi admitted, walking with her hands behind her back and a small skip in her step.

"Then he gave me and Shisui ice cream to stop us from crying." Itachi added with a slight smile, lowering his face and pushing his hands into his pockets.

As five year olds, Shisui, Izumi and Itachi cried a lot and yet somehow Blue remained calm, in control and stayed downstairs to watch cartoons with them until they fell asleep on the couch.

"I'm sorry," the nephew tentatively said, the creases on his face, features one his age shouldn't have for any time soon, deepened. "For saying you didn't know him. I'm just…sad."

"I understand." She patted his shoulder sympathetically.

He looked at the hand on his shoulder, then at her, noticing something. "You're not wearing your hitaite?"

"Maybe tomorrow." was her flippant answer. Their idle trek took them outside the clan compound and they ambled down the cobbled roads leading into the village. "Shisui wants us to start looking for an apartment."

"What's the point? We won't be able to get our own place until we're sixteen." The raven haired boy sighed. "The whole 'old enough to kill' thing is confusing."

Especially when they won't be legally recognized as adults until they were sixteen, even though they were genin and authorized by the village to commit murders on its behalf.

Izumi shrugged, stepping past a potbellied man in a fur coat when they made it into the Market Area of the village.

"I already told him that but you know how he is." She shook her head with a frown. "Kami forgot to give him common sense." A smile lit up her face and she jabbed her elbow into Itachi's side, eliciting a frustrated grunt and a raised eyebrow. "Oh hey, I know something that you don't~"

"Try me."

"He's crushin' on you~" she sang, hopping in front of him as they got to the centre of the market, smiling teasingly when Blue's nephew narrowed his eyes. "Shisui likes you~"

"You're reading into it too much, Izumi." Itachi scolded, placing a hand on her shoulder and pushing her aside, continuing his outwardly aimless walk deeper into the village. "Don't get us into your crazy pairing fantasy."

"Oh yeah?" she said with an eyebrow lifted and a slight smirk on her lips. "Let's say he confesses to you, what are you going to say?"

"That I'm not into guys and that I'd like us to stay as friends."

" Ouch." Izumi looked surprised and she halted in her skipping steps, taken aback by Itachi's brutal honesty. "You're straight?"

The Uchiha boy glanced around when some people gave them strange looks. He grasped her by her elbow and dragged her along, turning a corner into another street, specifically staying on the same line of buildings across from the one the Hokage's Tower was on. "You're surprised?"

Izumi shrugged her arm out of his hold; her face was twisted in confusion. "Could've fooled me."

He droned, not amused. "Funny."

The girl tipped her head back and looked at sign on the building they had arrived at. "The Post Office?"

"Yugao told me some time ago that someone sent me a package." The girl sniggered and he glared at her. "Pervert."

She raised her hands in surrender. "Come on, that was a good dick joke!" Shrugging, she said. "A dark dick joke but a dick joke nonetheless!"

The boy rubbed his throbbing forehead, frustrated. "Can you be serious for one minute? That's all I'm asking."

Izumi covered her mouth and closed her eyes, giggling privately with trembling shoulders. The mildly irate boy watched her snicker for a moment, his arms crossed and the heavy bags under his eyes seemed to lighten at her apparent amusement at his unintentional joke. The twelve year old girl wiped a stray tear from her ear and asked, a wide smirk on her face and her dark brown eyes glittered as she waggled her eyebrows. "You need any help carrying your package?"

"Since you're not going to be grown up about this-"

"I can't help it, ok!"

"-See if you can find out our team assignments from Kushina-sensei. I'll head in by myself."

Izumi leaned back coolly, releasing a breath and adjusting the ponytail on the right side of her head. "Killjoy. You know Kushina-sensei's not going to tell me anything."

"A teacher's pet like you should have your ways." He grunted with an invisible smile tickling at the corners of his lips.

"Yeah, I'll catch you later, Scratchy."

They bumped fists. "Later, Zoomi."

She turned around and proceeded towards the Academy, while Itachi pushed open the double glass doors of the Konoha Post Office. There was a long counter in the spacious first room, spanning almost wall-to-wall, though somehow not blocking another set of double doors on the right side of the room, with four uniform wearing Post Office workers sitting behind the counter, spaced far enough for their ends of their fingers to barely touch; they were busily working on letters handed to them to be sent out of the village.

Two more uniformed workers bustled out of the double doors, each hefting a large brown box and stomping out of the Post Office.

"Uchiha Itachi?" a male worker behind the counter said as he looked up, pushing his cap back a bit to properly see the boy that had plodded up to him. The man riffled through some papers, humming and screwing his lips to the side. "Package from Hidden Chill, sent by someone by the name of Shiro Kuro." The workers eyebrows furrowed at the odd and very much suspicious name. "There's a Blood Lock seal on it."

Konoha took its security very seriously; the workers at the Post Office had scanned the strange package with a Bomb Sensor seal, a seal so high level and rare that they could only acquire five for now. There were no bombs or bomb seals inside, hidden or otherwise, even as they had been unable to open the parcel due to the Blood Lock seal.

"Do you know this person?" the man asked sceptically, looking at the obvious Uchiha pre-teen with a slight narrow of his eyes.

Itachi nodded. "I do."

"Who are they?"

"A distant relative."

"I don't know any Uchiha that goes by the name of Shiro Kuro."

"You can't know everyone."

The man frowned at the boys smart mouth. "You're lucky you not being flagged, kid. We heard the stunt you pulled in the Academy, when you didn't shake Lord Yondaime's hand." He shook his head in disapproval, as if the boy even needed his approval. "You're lucky Lord Yondaime is such a forgiving man. For your sake." He then peered around, into the double doors as it opened and a woman with bubblegum pink hair gently walked out, wearing an expensive looking fur coat and holding a few fancy looking letters in her left hand. The short look inside allowed them to see that the other room contained hundreds of mailboxes on the walls. "Do you have your key?"

"Yes." The Uchiha boy showed the single, small key between his pointer and middle finger.

"It's in your box."

The man then went back to what he was doing, bending his head down a little to attend to the freshly dropped pile of letters from the woman from the Haruno clan, different from the set she had carried out of the Mail Room.

"I need these sent quickly." she said with a haughty sniff, eyeing the black eyed child that walked away from her, wrinkling his nose at the waves of perfume pouring off her clothes. "My first cousin wishes to celebrate her wedding in Snow with this dreadful, barbaric samurai and I simply do not approve…"

Itachi didn't care to catch the rest of the pink haired woman's words. He pushed open the double doors to the Mail Room and his feet took him down several shelves of metal mailboxes, until he came to his own; his uncle had pushed him to open it long ago when the boy wanted to order a novel from Hidden Saltwater. Blue didn't want Itachi do depend on him or his mailbox, just in case he wasn't available to open it for him.

Normally, mail, whether they were packages or letters, were delivered to the houses of the owners but Itachi explicitly signed for his to not be sent to his home of residence, seeing as he didn't feel like having his mother peruse through his things. He didn't like staying at his parent's house, that was why he moved about between his friends places.

Yugao too had been a lot of help, allowing him to sleep on her extra futon in the parlour of her and Kureanai's apartment.

Each passing day, Itachi grew to resent his parents.

They had nothing good to say about his missing uncle and their deriding, insulting words jabbed at a sore spot on his composed, pacifistic exterior and gradually unearthing a part of himself he dreaded to see.

His uncle's house had been locked shut since the news of his defection came, but not before he found Blue's map of Networks waiting for him under his desk. Blue's house formerly used to be the place his mail was delivered to, but that wasn't an option after the Yondaime raided the Uchiha Sniper's house. It was for the purpose of hiding the map that the boy learnt how to draw a Storage seal in order to hide the map on his person at all times.

Itachi didn't bear any positive emotions for Minato Namikaze either, less so than his parents.

The boy shook his head of those distracting, destructive thoughts and turned the key to his mailbox that was level height with his upper abdomen. He bent his knees a little and examined the inside with his three tomoe sharingan activated.

Inside the small box was a box wrapped in brown wrapping paper, held together with clear tape that also fastened down a small slip of paper that read the fake address of 'Shiro Kuro', as well as its destination.

Itachi wondered why Orochimaru chose to contact him now, after five years of silence, and through the mail no less.

He took the box out and tore it open, opening the top of the box and pausing at what he saw inside.

A black cloak with a high collar that looked to be made out of a seamless combination of cotton and silk, identifiable as spider silk from Hidden Saltwater.

He dropped the box and lifted the cloak out of the box, his three tomoe doujutsu scanned the clothing and took all the details in; the edges were sewn with red thread and, rubbing the cloak between his fingers, he felt five layers of clothing underneath but the cloak wasn't heavy, thick or cumbersome in any noticeable way. The inner part of the cloak was pitch black, a total blackness that felt as if it absorbed all the light around it, merging the entire cloak with the environment, though not as the boy looked it over with his sharingan.

A letter fell down from inside and he draped the cape over his shoulder.

Hello Itachi,

I hope you're well.

I apologize for not contacting you all these years; I have been-there was a small pause in the Sannin's writing, a noticeable break in the line- busy.

He wanted me to make this for you.

This is a similar version of my sons travelling cloak. I personally made his cloak for him and gave him before he left the village for his first assignment.

I also crafted this myself and it came out excellently, if I do say so myself.

Itachi's eyebrows lifted up when he detected a hint of gloating in the tone of that part of the letter.

It is fireproof-to an extent-, waterproof and cold resistant, and it regulates temperature in the harshest environments. I endeavoured to make it out of materials that made less sound than necessary. There are two layers of spider silk, one layer of cotton and one layer of wool attained from the Seikatu nomadic clan and last is a layer of mesh armour in the very middle made from a portion of chakra metal I stole from Snow country, adding all this with some very difficult seals I etched on the cloak, this light piece of clothing is heavily resistant to bladed attacks but I cannot vouch that it is fully capable of suppressing strikes from blunt objects. Though Fuinjutsu research has not gotten to the point that clothes may have Chakra Absorbing seals , I have been able to give your cloak limited resistance to lightning based attacks; the fire and waterproof features also encompass ninjutsu, but this will not make you invincible.

Take careful note of that.

My spies tell me that you are a genjutsu prodigy.

They also tell me that you burnt the tenketsu of your fingers because of over-training.

Do not push yourself too hard; my son would not have liked that.

Here, Itachi briefly looked at his bandaged hands expressionlessly.

Congratulations on graduating the Academy. One of my son's accountants will be in Konoha by tomorrow and he will want to meet with you.

I'm not sure when I will be able to see you, as I am occupied with personal matters at the moment. If we ever cross paths, let's talk.

Orochimaru paused again in her writing, Itachi noticed, and the Snake Lady's eloquent handwriting wavered, as if her emotions threatened to wash out of her being.

You are like a son to Naruto, his own flesh and blood.

I will see to it that my failure in protecting him will not repeat itself in you.

He is very proud of you, Itachi.

Goodbye.

P.S. I decided to deliver this letter "the proper way" instead of with my summons because I was feeling random today.

The first thing he noticed when he was done reading was that close to the end of the letter, the legendary Sannin used present tense when she referred to her son, hinting that Blue was alive.

Itachi grasped the letter tightly as his eyes swam with emotion. He gingerly folded the letter and tucked it into his front right pocket, peering down into the box and blinking with surprise at the one other thing inside.

It was half of a mask, one that was eggshell white with one black ringed eye, no nose or mouth. It was charred black at the edges, bearing a few cracks here and there from both heat and age, but Itachi recognized Naruto's hunter ninja mask immediately. The left side was completely gone, clearly melted, and the boy gently lifted the mask out of the box, his hands trembling as he did so.

"Uncle…"

This was the mask Blue had used in Zyouki, when he laid waste to Kirabi of Kumogakure.

That story had been told to Itachi by Yugao.

Itachi couldn't recall a time he hadn't idolized his Sniper Uncle, and hearing that story from the person Blue considered his best friend, the man's nephew couldn't help but idolize the man even more.

Mutely staring down at the mask in his possession, willed to him by his uncle, through his surrogate grandmother, Itachi Uchiha made a vow.

He would become the greatest Hunter Ninja the world had ever seen.

And…he would find his uncle, wherever he was, and they would be a family again.

For not only did Blue truly see Itachi as his son, Itachi saw Blue as his father.

This is his test, Itachi thought with grim certainty and his eyes steeled over with resolve.

'I will show you how far I've come, Blue.'

The boy would soon find out that terrible forces were at play all around him, since the moment his surrogate father went missing to the day Konoha fell apart at the seams.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ninja Academy

As the sun casually dipped down the horizon and students and parents found their way out of the Academy in droves, Kushina busied herself with the last leg of paperwork concerning team assignments for her class that was to be submitted to the Hokage's office within the next fifteen minutes.

The vibrant redhead swept her eyes over the growing pile of papers to her right, as her left hand scribbled recommendations and her right hand brought more students files closer, flipping through them shortly before closing them and storing them on a separate pile different from the team recommendations.

Today was the anniversary of Blue going missing.

Kushina did her best to bear other thoughts, so that she wouldn't crumble into a sobbing wreck.

Mourning had taken most of the sheen of light from the beautiful woman's countenance; the roots of her red hair were grey-red and the fang-like bangs that framed her face, going down to her chest, were grey with sorrow and heartbreak.

This did not take away the Uzumaki Princess's natural beauty or lessen the fact that she turned heads all over the village, but within the woman, she only knew grief.

For a whole year after Naruto went missing, she had been unable to do anything with herself. She had shirked her job as a teacher and wallowed in her misery in the secrecy and privacy of her mansion.

Even now, most nights she cried herself to sleep.

Then Itachi came to her mansion, found her lying on her back in the ballroom, sightlessly staring at the ceiling and wondering if she should just spur her grandmother's wishes for her to serve Konoha to the best of her ability, leave the village and search for the love of her life.

…Or kill herself.

Either one, really.

Kushina couldn't imagine a world where Blue wasn't present.

The woman was hurting and Itachi stomped into her mansion, passing the defences with clearance provided him by being related to Fugaku, Mikoto and Blue. He picked her by the scruff of her shirt and called her pathetic.

Her.

Pathetic.

Of course, she socked him clear across the face for the disrespect, but that definitely woke her up from her delirium.

She wasn't the only one affected by Blue's absence.

She wasn't the only one sad and hurting.

She wasn't he only one that was fuming.

Not angry at the missing Uchiha but at the man that had insufferably pushed Blue into vacating the village.

There was a whole army of people enraged, dissatisfied; the Uchiha clan, Yugao, Itachi and who knows how many people outside of the village.

The things Minato had not told her, the things Blue intended to tell her when they met later that day he went missing…it was after returning to society after Itachi insulted her to her face that Yugao laid it all out for her.

Kushina cursed herself for being so blind.

Minato's greed and childishness.

Kushina's stopped abruptly, just as someone knocked on the doorframe of the class. The door was already open and she turned to the blonde man standing there with his hands behind his back, his posture impeccable and his face lit up with a small, friendly smile.

"Evening Kushina." Minato said, casually walking into the class with a dignified stroll, idly eying the empty seats before the teacher's desk and taking in the orange beams of light pouring into the class from the setting sun. The collars of his white with red flames haori and the long sleeved black shirt underneath covered the burn marks around his neck.

The tired Uzumaki teacher rose up from her seat with a smooth flourish, placed her hands together and close to her lower abdomen and she bowed. "Lord Hokage."

Minato chuckled amiably, a slight twitch on his eyebrow as he regarded the breath taking beauty of the Academy teacher. She was in a polka dot knee length dress with pure white leggings and light blue ballet flats with an equally blue scarf around her neck. The Yondaime didn't hide his admiring eyes and the Uzumaki woman barely restrained herself from showing her disgust, feeling the irritated goosebumps run up her arms. Minato smirked. "You don't have to be so formal." He went to the window, casting a long shadow into the dimly lit class, staring at her with the same tiny smile on his face. "Just because we're no longer married doesn't mean we have to be so hostile to each other."

The woman looked at him plainly, retaking her seat and returning to her work. "How may I help you, Lord Hokage?"

Four years ago, when the haze of sorrow from losing her beloved lifted just a little, Kushina filed for divorce against her now ex-husband, Minato Namikaze.

Minato and Kushina's divorce was meant to be a quiet affair; only close friends and family could know and even then they were to have no input in the direction she wanted to take her life, as per Kushina's hopes, but the man had exploded and got the village involved.

He called her an airheaded whore, for wanting divorce just so she could run into the arms of man's who wasn't even alive anymore, even though she had not given Blue as her reason for wanting a separation.

Their friends implored her to reconsider, that whatever problem they were going through could be resolved without a divorce.

No one wanted to support her in her stride to leave her marriage with the Namikaze Hokage.

Minato refused to sign the papers, throwing a fit outside of the rapt watch of the village, when they were alone in his office, and deriding her stride for separation when people were around.

Surprisingly for someone with a reputation for snapping peoples necks and biting heads off, Kushina was level headed in her push and the divorce papers that had been sent to her from the Fire capital were inevitably signed by her now ex-husband, when she told him that she could get their marriage annulled one way or the other if she contacted the Fire Daimyo, a man that had popularly been on the side of the Uzumaki clan. If that was to happen, half of his assets would go to her to compensate for wasting her time and the character damage he had dumped on her, insulting her integrity as a human being and bringing her shame.

Signing instead of getting the Daimyo involved would mean a clean separation; he didn't take anything from her and she wouldn't from him. They would go their different own way.

Kushina's ex-husband now made it a point to "patch things up with her", meeting her out from time to time in hopes that they would at least be friends.

That thought burned her gut and she subtly clenched her teeth.

The man sighed heavily. "I came to check up on you, given what today is." He shrugged, seeing her writing hand freeze and her face harden. "Naruto was a traitor for abandoning his village and a coward for killing himself. It's hard to understand why you blame me, why anyone would blame me, for delivering justice for those he had hurt."

"He was a hero to many people and they still see him as a hero." She said, unashamed. The teacher continued writing her team and sensei recommendations for the students she had taught for four years. She looked to be the perfect epitome of poise and grace, undisturbed by the presence of her ex-husband. "Rightfully so." She carefully dropped the pen in her left hand and placed her hands on the desk, turning to him with a delicately raised eyebrow. "Or are you going to keep lying to yourself?"

Disregarding the thousands of bodies the blue Uchiha stood atop, killed by himself in the defence of his village, but there was still a very human, very humble and very much still living effect to each mission he had gone on during and after the Third Shinobi War.

Villages, towns and cities were restored.

Families were protected.

Lives were saved.

Minato didn't account for the multitude of people that had fought alongside the Uchiha Sniper or those that had seen him in action, bringing down enemies from hundreds of kilometres away as well as crushing skulls of enemies in close quarters.

People were indebted to Blue.

Unfortunately…some of his friends failed to remember this.

A small chunk of Konoha's population-Uchiha clan included-could not believe the words of their Yondaime, as wondrously detailed as they were.

The same couldn't be said for the general masses.

It made Kushina sick.

The greying redhead cleared her throat and got up, smoothing down the front of her dress with steady hands. "I'm done with the team recommendations. I'll submit them to your office now, then I'm going to visit Naruto's shrine," she smiled bitterly, pulling back her venomous purple gaze from the man that brought her so much sorrow. "Even if I'm just talking to a stone, it'll be comfort enough until he comes back."

The Uchiha clan granted just a few outsiders passage into their clan to pay tribute to the missing Uchiha legend, and just for that; they were escorted in, watched at all times, given a time limit and then walked out half an hour later.

Kushina was a regular visitor. The grey marble shrine wouldn't replace the man's presence but the amount of thought and consideration put into it by the people that respected Blue brought her back each day.

Minato's fist closed and the corners of the woman's lips flickered up when she heard it pop, a slight show of enjoyment at the sight of the well-hidden throb on the forehead of the Yondaime Hokage. "How many times do I have to tell you? Naruto is dead."

" Uh huh." She arranged the things on her desk, fluidly sealing the recommendations into the visible storage seal on her inner wrist and moving the notebooks, textbooks and whiteboard markers into different drawers on her desk. "Forgive me if I don't believe you, Lord Hokage."

Her ears twitched as she heard him stomp to her. He grabbed her wrist and forced her to turn to him, he had a hard frown on his face and his cerulean orbs narrowed in a harsh glare. "I'm getting tired of this little 'act' you're doing." he squeezed her wrist, hard. "You are mine, Kushina. You're only able to live your life in the village because I vouch for you." He grit his teeth. "That beast in your gut makes you a ticking time bomb."

The petite woman's nose flared, her blood heated up. "And here I thought I knew just how pathetic you really are."

"Watch your mouth…" he slowly smirked. "Kyuubi."

She ripped her wrist from his hold and stood up tall, pointedly glowering at the Hokage. "What did I ever see in you?" she questioned hotly. "I had my doubts but you really are a child." The redhead scoffed, her repulsion was evident as she looked the man from head to toe, then said as she stared deep into his eyes. "You're just an insecure little boy and I'm ashamed that I was ever married to you." Kushina rolled her neck, easing the stress of Minato's pestering existence out of her pores, and a beauteous smile slid up her face, not just lighting her up but the air around her as well. "Now, Lord Hokage, if you'll excuse me-"

The Princess of Whirlpool turned around with a swish but Minato grabbed her by the back of her neck, flipping her around. "We're not done talking-"

As she was forced to turn around, she came with a bare knuckle punch straight into the Hokage's face, one that blasted him clean off his feet and crashing through the wall of the classroom.

Kushina panted lightly through her grit teeth, her red hair waved about as if it had a life of its own, parted into nine tails and her purple eyes remained on Minato as she stormed to the body shaped hole in the wall, feeling an annoyed throb from a vein on the right side of her forehead and smoke waft off her fist. Minato laid on the ground in another class and the startled teacher there jumped out of his seat to attend to the swirly eyed Kage, wondering why there was a fist print on his face.

Like a switch, Uzumaki Kushina's enraged visage snapped to a half smile when the teacher looked to her from the downed Hokage. She waved cutely and chirped. "Hi, Kaoru-sensei."

The man blushed with a large, cheesy smile, forgetting about the dizzy Namikaze lying on the floor of the classroom, or that his fellow teacher was standing in a man-shaped hole in the wall. He waved back, wiggling his fingers at the magnificently luminous Uzumaki woman. "He-Hello, Kushina-sensei!"

"Help me clean this up, will you?"

"Anything for you, Kushina-sensei!" he flushed deeper. "I-I mean-"

The redhead giggled into her hands. "Thanks. Goodnight, sensei."

"Goodnight, Kushina-sensei!"

Kaoru looked down and jerked back when he didn't see the man that had tumbled through the wall of his classroom.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

An Unknown Location

A hidden ROOT base

Somewhere in Kiriagakure no Sato

Water country

"Patrol every two minutes." Danzo warned, walking with clipped steps to his office at the top floor of the well-hidden building somewhere in the vast forests of Kiri. His walking stick clacked heavily on the wooden floor and a few white masked ninjas trailed behind him in hunched positions. "Guard rotation should be every ten minutes to keep fresh eyes on the surroundings."

One of the plain faced ninjas hesitantly droned. "If I may speak, Lord Danzo."

"You may not." The man answered, harshly emotionless and not so much as looked over his shoulder at the needlessly apologetic ninja.

The Mizukage did not yet know of their presence in Kiri but warning bells had been going off in his head since the start of the year, a perceptible shift in power and the reintroduction of a powerful player.

It couldn't be him.

Danzo denied himself the luxury of believing in ghosts.

"Know that this red alert would last for the foreseeable future." The one eyed man stopped before his door and one of his ninjas rushed before him, holding the door open and flicking on the fluorescent light to show a plain, simple office with one desk and chair, hard wood floor and a window on the right side of the room. No paintings, no significant décor and no semblance of life in the room. "Notify me once the scouts have returned with bounties."

The expressionless war hawk entered his office and his loyal subordinates watched him take his place behind his desk. The ninjas there bowed deeply and closed the door.

Danzo went to work sorting out their next moves, planning out his desired infiltration into Fire country in order to wrest control of Konoha to himself through the Daimyo.

That damnable Hokage had betrayed him.

Mere moments after their joint affair of murdering the blue Uchiha, the Yondaime declared him a criminal and had ANBU come to arrest him, if not for the existence of his ROOT, he feared he would have been executed.

His tools were indeed sharp.

Yes, they had to move about constantly, every two days Danzo travelled to a different ROOT base to keep Minato off his trail. His current hiding place was a recently restored dilapidated building that had been refashioned into a base.

At least it wasn't cramped.

The constant travelling made it difficult to draft a passable plan for conquering the Village Hidden in the Leaf.

Revenge on the Hokage couldn't take a single day; Danzo wanted it to come when the yellow haired brat least expected.

Still…

Someone or some people had been attacking the bases he had left, gradually coming closer and closer to his current travel pattern and location. Those bases he vacated were occupied by a few of his ninjas, training new entrants to be capable tools of his, and they had been subsequently razed down some days after he had gone to a different ROOT base with the intention of keeping Minato off his back.

It couldn't be Minato.

That self-centred brat was too stupid to know where his bases were; if the Sandaime couldn't point out, in certain detail, where he was hiding his ROOT shinobi and what covert missions they were performing, then a dullard like the Yondaime had no hope of finding him, not by himself anyway.

Just like how they killed the blue Uchiha-

Kaw! Kaw!

Danzo's head swivelled to the window of his secret base and he squinted his one eye at the crow that had perched itself on his window sill, joined by a few others on a tall tree outside of his building, one of many that carefully hid the existence of him and his people in what Kiri had designated an abandoned building.

The man grunted and returned to his work, though he clenched his pen harder when the crow on his window pecked the blast proof window twice.

Tap-tap

The beady eyed bird flapped its wings and roosted on his sill, fixedly staring at the wanted war hawk.

The man's wrinkled face scowled lightly; his nerves were getting to him, that was why he was so irritable, was what he told himself.

He pressed a button on the intercom on his desk, lowering his head to it a little and murmuring. "Report."

He released the button and there was a moment of silent static buzzing through the line, until. "Nothing to report, Lord Danzo." Danzo's frown tightened and he cleared his throat, hiding his anxiety with the mastery only an emotionless war hawk could have. "Is there a problem, Lord Danzo?"

The man, feeling the air become thick with tension and his body tighten with the expectation of an attack, rose up from his seat and pressing the intercom button at the same time. "Prepare the tunnels for my departure to our nearest base."

"Hai, Lord-"

Crack!

The old former Konoha adviser swallowed thickly as he heard the distinct sound of a neck being twisted all the way around, snapping violently. He looked down at the hand not pressing down on the intercom, clenching his teeth at the invisible tremble.

The crow on his window sill pecked the blast proof window once again, this time three times.

Tap-tap-tap

The man's eye widened with horror as he saw a vague figure standing on a tree branch, catching sight of the black cloaked thing as the very last rays of the sun retreated back into the horizon, leaving the world around him in the thick Kiri mist and the damnable sway of the leafless trees that were meant to cover his presence, cracking and creaking ominously.

The sun had not yet set in some parts of the continent, but it was horrible timing for the old man hiding in Kiri, as the starless, moonless sky gave no semblance of light from outside, only the mutely humming sound of the fluorescent on the ceiling of his office.

The little light that escaped his office and beamed outside reflected off the eyes of the crows and the injured elder took a small, shaky step back as hundreds of eyes beamed back at him, though not the eyes of the humanoid figure standing on the branch, only serving to give the shadow swaddled figure a bit more of a definite outline; the person stood on the branch of the tall tree at a little over six feet tall, staying in a straight position, shaggy black hair that looked to reach the base of his neck with a yellow strip on the side and a black bang that covered the right side of his face, a face as pale and mark-less are priceless porcelain that was devoid of care or compassion, partly hidden by a high collared black cloak that covered the man's mouth.

Bandages covered his eyes, further hiding his feature alongside the high collar of his pitch black cloak.

At first glance, the person's body and hair merged smoothly into the misty darkness of the forest, seeming to be a disembodied head hovering in the air, but now Danzo couldn't unsee what he was currently seeing.

The intercom on his desk suddenly blared, crackling with the tormented sounds of his shinobi perishing at the hands of a mysterious accomplice.

Lord-gah!

Master Danz-urck!

Ack!

My Master!

One after the other, the voices of his people trying their best to alert their master before they met their demise broke the staunch silence of his office, overcoming the humming sound of the fluorescent light in pained wails.

The blurry person storming through the perimeter of the hidden base grinned savagely, painted in blood that was not her own and displaying her fanged teeth to the last guard outside of the ROOT base.

Master!-

Feet thundered outside his office, recognizably those of his ninjas hurrying to his defence before the deadly assailant got to him sweeping through Danzo's ninjas entered the building.

Danzo's attention went back to the cloaked man standing on the tree branch outside of his temporary office, staggering back when he saw a small upward lift of the corners of his nose, a muted smile hidden under his robe.

Danzo froze.

The one eyed war hawk realized that the crow that had been roosting on his window sill was gone.

The man uttered one word, barely muffled by the high collar of his midnight black cloak. It carried over the silent air, sealing Danzo's fate.

"Katsu."

Then crow comfortably nestled under his desk exploded.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Minato flashed into his office and collapsed onto the couch close to the window. He waved his hand and the ANBU vacated his office, allowing him to grate in solitude.

"First that insolent brat refuses to shake my hand, now that damned bitch thinks she can stand up to me?" he rubbed his temple with the tips of his fingers, breathing out heatedly. The blonde Hokage murmured. "Fuckin' whore." He leaned back in the couch. "She should be glad I still want her back."

It was 06:52PM, he confirmed with a flick of his blue eyes to his wristwatch. He called for his personal secretary.

"Push all my meetings to tomorrow." he relaxed in his chair with his left ankle crossed over his right, bestowing the flustered office lady with a wide smirk. "You can go for a break."

The woman adjusted her black pencil skirt and arranged her button up white dress shirt, swallowing tentatively. "Do you wish for my company, Lord Hokage?"

Her suggestive words drew a dark look from the Yondaime, but he shook his head regrettably. "Maybe later, Mimiko."

Her head dipped as she scampered out of her boss's office to do as he had ordered.

"Now…"

Minato's body lightened and he closed his eyes, and with practised ease, his consciousness fell back into his mindscape.

Minato's mindscape was a grassy field with perpetually blue sky and a pleasantly bright sun hovering in the cloudless sky. There were no trees present, no shrubs to be seen and the grasses were kept at ankle height, swaying about in breeze blowing through the mindscape. There was a tall hill in his mindscape, the only one for thousands of miles around, and on top of that hill was a solid iron gate that gleamed with new with polish, standing fifteen feet tall and fifteen feet wide.

The cage had no entrance, only a piece of paper with the seal for Cage on where the keyhole was meant to be, but there was indeed someone inside.

The person had shaggy black hair with a blonde streak running down the right side and a black bang that covered the right side of his face. He was extremely pale, as pale as he had been when he was alive and complete, and his face was clear of any emotion. He was without a shirt, displaying his defined torso, gotten from years and years of training and suffering, but he had on black shinobi pants with no shoes.

Naruto was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed. His back was straight, rock solid and unwavering, and his leanly muscled-though undoubtedly powerful-arms were crossed.

There were chains wrapped around different parts of his body, connected back to the cage that enclosed him; his wrists, his forearms, his elbows, his upper chest, his abdomen, his knees, his ankles, his mid-thighs, his calves, his neck and his waist. Those chains were gold in colour, populating the cage around the silent Uchiha and rankling quietly with the slow breeze flowing through the grassy landscape. The parts of the chain that actually touched the black-blonde haired shinobi were red hot with blistering heat, a sight that Minato admitted unnerved him, for it looked like any moment, if his concentration slipped just a little, the chains restraining the Uchiha man would fall off as wet, metallic magma.

Even now, as Blue's eyes were peacefully closed and his posture faultless, Minato squinted his eyes at the turgid, palpable waves of chakra washing out of the cave, coming out in the form of heat waves and a few tongues of fire, licking and lapping at the metal bars of the doorless cage.

The corners of the Cage seal sizzled black, displaying a clear sign that it was burning inwards in its pitiful effort at withholding the legendary sniper.

" Hm." Blue grunted lowly, keeping his eyes closed as the Yondaime's mental projection approached him, protected from the toxic hellfire ebbing out of the cage by a constantly deteriorating sheen of blue chakra. Minato needed to keep his mind on maintaining the chakra coating his form, to prevent the trapped Uchiha from burning his consciousness to cinders. Blue cocked his head to the side, a slow motion that made the golden chains restraining him clank noisily. "You're slipping, Minato."

Minato placed his finger on the Cage seal and used his chakra to redraw the seal, doing so five times in a row and resulting in the golden chains tightening their hold on their prisoner, though Blue showed no discomfort and his ethereal flames briefly lowered, then they increased once again. The Namikaze Hokage scoffed. "I'm top of this, Naruto. Don't you worry."

"It's not unmanly to admit you bit off more than you could chew." Blue hummed, a whisper of a smile slipped onto his face.

"Smart ass, I'm not the one in the cage, am I?"

"But for how long?" Blue asked right back, his crossed arms rippled as his own flames harmlessly flowed over his body, heating up the cage. Minato grumbled and placed ten more restraint seals on top of the five he added not two minutes ago, totalling six hundred and twenty five restraint seals already. "I was looking through your memories-"

Minato's eyes widened. "How did you-"

"And I saw Kushina's punch." The smile on Blue's face went up, humoured. " Damn."

The Yondaime sniffed, reeling his thoughts back in order. "She's merely acting out. When she realizes she can't live without me, she'll come crawling back."

"If after four years she hasn't crumbled, I doubt she ever will." Naruto said honestly, shrugging carelessly and never once opening his eyes. "Face it, Minato, you ex is fine on her own."

"You just watch." Minato cracked a wide smirk at the calmly sitting Uchiha shinobi.

"I've been watching." Blue responded casually, cocking his head to the other side. "It's getting sad." The Yondaime's face twisted with displeasure at being insulted by his prisoner, as he drew ten more restraint seals, but before he could open his mouth and reply in kind, Blue said. "I saw some other stuff in your memories."

Minato could guess, what with the large grin that crawled up Blue's face.

"Brick by brick, the empire you built will fall."

The reality that Minato worked so hard to hide was that someone was ruining him, doing so by bringing down the businesses he was investing in and setting fire to his assets.

Valuable assets.

Minato was haemorrhaging money by the day, and not by his own volition.

He didn't know who exactly was doing this or how they knew where to look but his biggest fear was of them finding out what other things he had a hand in.

It had started at the start of the year.

His best guess was Orochimaru of the Sannin as the woman had basically dropped off the map after Blue disappeared, but he couldn't be sure, and even if he was sure and he could pinpoint her location, Orochimaru was of the Three Sannin, a legendary Kunoichi and an infamous genius, she would pose a bigger challenge than Blue.

Not forgetting that he had been assisted by ROOT, high level fuinjutsu and the Shinigami bring down the feral Uchiha Sniper.

"I know who that person is." Blue said, interrupting Minato's thoughts.

"Tell me." the Yondaime commanded and Naruto laughed, a deep rumbling sound that spelt his ill-intentions with each vibration and clanking of the chains.

The cage groaned painfully as the fiery chakra of the blue Uchiha pulsed outwards, charring the grass directly around the cage to ash and shifting the sky above the hill, turning it dark red.

The wind howled ominously and Blue's grin widened ear-to-ear as hypnotically black scales crept down his eyes to his chin and the nails of his fingers and toes elongated at the same time as black scales covered each of his fingers. His black-blonde hair smoothed down into yellow feather-like locks and his grinning teeth sharpened into jagged daggers, displaying a haunting maw of demented inhumanity.

More heat and chakra washed out of the cage as he opened his eyes, Minato held his forearm out and intensified the coat of chakra keeping him from being burned alive, peeking over his arm and looking into the cage with a grim frown at the maniacally laughing fire monster.

They were milky white with blindness but they stared at Minato with full intensity.

"I live."

Authors note

I wanted to end it here, let you guys stew on the closing and leave the madness that is to come to all your imaginations…

BUT

…I felt like putting a side story in here. It's been kicking about in my mind since I first started this story and I'm finally ( finally) putting it out there (concerning the story, that is).

This may be a side story but it's a main, important part of the story.

Let me know what you think!

Side Story

Son of the Snake, Contract of the Crows

Barren-land

Frigid country

Lying on her belly, Orochimaru peered into the pair of binoculars in her hands, paying attention to the thick sheet of white snow that blanketed the landscape of Frigid country. The blizzard had lightened up but large gusts of wind still blew through their Barren-land, a large parcel of land in Frigid country.

The Sannin's golden yellow eyes caught sight of a few noticeable moving lumps in the white out, taking their time to push through the cold wind and thick, knee deep snow and moving inwards towards the small but relatively well-fortified village of Hidden Chill. The Konoha ninjas had been charged with keeping a low profile as they approached, ensuring to not use any flashy jutsus that would draw attention to their in-bound movements by the Chill shinobi.

From her vaulted position on a plateau of ice she had created by way of ninjutsu some twenty kilometres away, she counted up to fifty Leaf ninjas that wore heavy looking white coats, shuffling stealthily closer and closer.

A call for help had come from the village that Kumogakure had seized their village and that they were in need of assistance. Konoha, a non-ally that intended to garner favour from Chill, came to the rescue with just a few ninjas.

"Kumo ninja hiding in a trench." She muttered to the person lying next to her on the plateau of ninjutsu-made ice. She noticed the minute though distinct difference between the bed of snow and a white blanket covering a hole. "Wind is-"

"Ten kilometres per hour." Blue said, and the thirteen year old Uchiha shinobi adjusted his scope in tune with his accurate estimation of the wind speed, keeping a firm hold of the grip of his long range launcher as well as training his three tomoe sharingan on his target. His mind turned with calculations. He inhaled and exhaled, squeezing out a dart from his weapon while at the same time braced for the recoil that met his shoulder. The dart soared through the air, navigating the winds and bending according to his calculations, until it thunked wetly into the top of the head of the unaware Kumo shinobi, not knowing that Konoha was making headway to Chill.

The Snake Lady whistled, impressed. "Headshot. Well done, Naruto."

The boy sniffed, feeling the onset of a cold creeping up on him despite his snow white parka and the single layer of white covering that had been seal reinforced to provide warmth for the duo. The boy hid how uncomfortable he was being so close to the action, though the condition of the heavy wind drove him to push how close he could get.

Frigid country was technically not a country, seeing as it didn't have a Daimyo or a unified national army, but it was referred to as such because it was the collection of lands that were made incredibly difficult to live in by the snow, wind and ice. Hidden Chill was a small village of snow-farers that had made their home in the northernmost region of Frigid country, specializing in medical technology and medical ninjutsu, it was a village the world had struggled for dominance on for years. Their defences laid mostly on the long, unforgiving blizzards that swept through Frigid country and the other natural protections provided by the position, making up for the weakness of their ninjas.

Blue had been called up from a station in the Kirisu coastal line of Waterfall country, providing over-watch for a caravan of traders that were transporting crude oil to Leaf, sniping down bandits and enemy shinobi alike as the rest of the traders guards handled close quarter protection. Waterfall was temperate at that time, and now he was here freezing his ass off while a Legendary Sannin appointed herself to be his spotter.

He didn't even know where she had come from; she just showed up in the Frigid country station Blue had reported to and said she would be his eyes. His sharingan made it difficult for anything to fly past him but the woman insisted.

"You still haven't told my why you're here; you could be making a bigger difference in infiltrating Chill." He muttered, popping out the senbon cartridge and reloading another on. The first of five needles automatically clicked into the barrel, in front of the heat-pressure powered piston, ready to be fired. "Sending Manda in there to eat the Kumo ninjas should get the job done quickly."

The black haired lady hissed laughingly. "Are you serious?"

The boy sniffed again, pushing back the urge to pout. "…No…"

Orochimaru hummed pleasantly. "Is my company really that bad?"

"It's the cold." he sniffed, rubbing his nose into the shoulder that the butt of his long range weapon wasn't placed on. "It's doing something to my mood."

"All the more reason for me to be here." She sang, smiling widely. She turned on her side, watching as the boys right doujutsu churned, looking into the scope while the other was closed. He fired off four more needles in three different directions. She guessed he had gotten more headshots.

He looked so focused with the bugger that threatened to fall down from his nose, placing a large part of his concentration of killing Kumo ninjas and reloading Crystalline.

It made her smile.

She couldn't hold herself back anymore.

Orochimaru beamed proudly, leaning on her side with her head propped up by the palm of her right arm, and she pinched his cheeks familiarly, cooing.

"You're so cute, Naruto."

"The hell?" the boy said, aghast at the sudden action of the woman he had been getting to know for the past six years. "Back off, lady."

The Sannin snickered, pulling his cheek. "Can I tell you something?"

"I'm not going to sleep with you?"

Orochimaru cackled at his apparent discomfort, releasing his red cheek. She didn't seem put off by his accusation of her intention to have sex with him, and she felt tempted to ask. "What have you heard about me, Naruto?"

"That you like little boys to lick your…" he coughed uncomfortably. At the rumour he had heard about Orochimaru of the Sannin. "…Down…there…"

"Well, it's not true. I haven't had any remarkable sex for the past thirteen years." She closed her eyes slyly. "And even then, I prefer my partners to be above eighteen; I don't have the time or the patience to teach some virgin how to please a woman."

Blue flushed with embarrassment, steam basically blasted out of his ears. "Too much information, Orochi. Wayyyy too much."

"That's not want I wanted to tell you." She said. The woman had been putting it off for the past few years after reuniting with her son, intending to steadily ease into his comfort zone with time and casually inform him that she was his birth mother, but being around him and them sending letters to each other fired up her maternal instincts. Blue was opening up to her, so much so that he had once asked her the meaning of "jack off", but the woman wanted him to not see her as a friendly auntie figure but as his mother, someone he could trust and completely confide in.

So she told him.

"I'm your mother."

The boy jumped, missing his shot. He hissed between his teeth and corrected himself, nailing the Kumo ninja by the neck before he could alert his comrades. Willing himself to keep his eye out for hidden shinobi, he whispered. "You're my what?"

"I'm your mother." She repeated firmly. It didn't seem to compute for Blue's genius mind, so she explained. "Thirteen years ago, your dad I had drunk, nasty sex and some months later I pushed you out of my-"

" Gah! No!" he exclaimed. His loud shout was drowned out by the howling winds. "I don't need to know the details!"

The woman rolled her eyes with a scoff. "Anyway…"

"Wait," Ptew-ptew-ptew. Reload. "Can we talk about this later? This really isn't the time."

Orochi shook her head. "It took me this long to gather the courage to tell you."

"If you-" Ptew. "Must." He said, visibly holding the grip of his weapon tighter. "Where were you for the first eight and a half years of my life?"

"That's not something I can answer so easily." The snake lady answered, looking remorsefully at her precious son. "But…I'm sorry."

"…Mhm." The genius inventor grunted dismissively, fighting down the impulse to yell at her for leaving him alone in a family that hated his existence.

He was saving that for later, when she gave him real proof she was his mother.

For now, he killed the last Kumo ninja and his Leaf comrades scaled the walls of Hidden Chill, well out of his visual support. He relaxed his hold on his long range weapon, breathing out slowly to calm his heart down.

"The thing I wanted to tell you is that…you were a stillborn."

He looked at her. "I'm obviously not dead."

"I'm getting to that." snapped, reeling herself back in immediately. "I performed…surgery on you and implanted a piece of the Crow Summoning Contract in your heart."

Finding and retrieving the Crow Summoning Contract wasn't easy, as that particular summons was the Grim Reaper's own summons, as said by Uzumaki scholars that she had spoken to before the destruction of Uzushio as well as by her own Snake Summons, who had said that though crows weren't exactly uncommon to see in their world, they were the messengers of the Shinigami as well as its servants, tasked to bring to it the souls of the dead into its eternal embrace.

At first it had been an Uzumaki myth, that the crows were connected to the Death god, but as Orochimaru dug deeper she found out that the myth was based on fact.

The road to knowing where to find the summoning contract for those birds began when she was a genin:

There was an old saying Hiruzen Sarutobi once told three freshly graduated genin a few moments before he tested their team compatibility.

"With time, history will be lost. Every second of every day, something from and of the past is lost and forgotten."

Hearing the future Sandaime's words afforded three different reactions from his three genin; Tsunade Senju was uninterested, concerned more with sidling up to and cutely batting her eyes at her female teammate, Jiraiya was confused, wondering why a past that could be forgotten was even important in the first place, and Orochimaru-irritably keeping her golden yellow snake-like eyes forward, her eyebrow twitch unseen and trying not to think of the Senju pre-teen hugging her right arm between her enviously ample bosom-was reflective.

It got her thinking.

There were sides to history that were either a childish smear of colour and sound, a blur of life if you will, or a completely blank slate of the unknown.

Orochimaru hated not knowing.

It wasn't a simple thirst for knowledge but a hungered drive to know the answers elders of their world could not provide.

When asked Hiruzen asked her what her ambition was, going round all three of them during their introductions, she provided him a vague, mysterious smile and said. "To know every jutsu in the world."

Somehow suspecting it was only a half-truth, the Sarutobi didn't question it but rather let her now straight away that her ambition was stupid.

Her reply was the same mysterious smile and a slight tilt of her head.

Presently, she didn't know why she hid her true ambition but she was glad she did.

Her ambition, truthfully and honestly, was to know all the secrets of the world. The secrets that had been hidden for humanity's own sake.

It wasn't only the hunger to know, it was the hunger of not knowing.

Research and experiments into the human body was a gateway to the past, Orochimaru discovered from her genin to chunin years, and understanding the biological mechanics of the environment led her to becoming a Sage some days before she turned jounin. She looked inwards, to her herself, and became a master of her own body, but she hit a solid brick wall in her studies and adamant search for knowledge when she discovered that she had learnt all that had to be known about the human body, animals, nature chakra, chakra-engineering and bio-engineering.

She had done operations on herself in order to extend her life; mutations on her chakra reserves that allowed her to store nature chakra within herself without there being any detriment to her health and an unintentional but much welcomed mutation on her body that gave her the rare Regenerative ability , the ability to regrow limbs with time, as long as the head and heart are intact.

Then she managed to acquire some of Hashirama Senju's DNA and she hastily merged it into herself in hopes of attaining the Mukoton kekkai genkai. She didn't get the Wood release or any sort of ability to manifest even the smallest of shrubs but what she did was a much stronger constitution than before, and Orochimaru was already a very powerful woman.

The Mukoton was an entryway to other bloodlines, Orochimaru realized.

During the Second War and when she had ventured off on her own after Hanzo the Salamander had dubbed her and her teammates as The Three Sannin, she began collecting and assimilating bloodlines.

Some worked and some were rejected, though the former were far more than the latter.

It inched her closer to immortality, and immortality would give her plenty of time to know .

She was sixteen and she knew the intimate secrets of the world.

That wasn't enough.

So Orochimaru pushed.

War crime after war crime, undiscovered until several years later, she kidnapped and experimented on fellow human beings with the blood thirstiness and impatient fervour of a snapping wolf, soaking up knowledge like a sponge and building up wisdom that exceeded her elders.

Orochimaru knew.

That was her goal; she knew.

Accumulating all she had gained, she discovered the Crow Summoning Contract in an underwater cave dangerously close to Uzushiogakure no Sato.

Some days after Naruto had been born dead; she dove into the water and only came out months later with the contract in hand.

The small piece of the Crow Summoning Contract had merged with the boy's heart and the main contract crumbled into dust.

"My theory was that, by condition of the Crows closeness to the Shinigami, your soul would be returned to your body and you will live." She gave a half smile, a mix between sadness and gladness. "It worked but…"

The boy's face emptied of emotion and his doujutsu deactivated.

"One of two things could happen if you are to die again. First is that you could become a crow and do the bidding of the Shinigami…or…" her eyes darkened and the boy made sure all his attention was on each word she was saying. "You could become the Crow Summoning Contract."

Both prospects didn't sound so nice.

One would have her son turn into a bird and the other was that he could turn into a scroll.

Orochimaru's eyes sagged.

"It was because of my selfishness that you are alive; I couldn't imagine a world without you in it." Her lips quivered and her eyes glazed over. "I guess you can say my guilt at condemning my only son to an uncertain future kept me away…until I couldn't keep away anymore. I needed to be with you, as close as I could to my son."

"…You decided to dump all of that on me now, huh."

Her face lifted hopefully. "I needed to get it off my chest. You needed to know the truth, Naruto, and as your mother it's my job to tell you the truth."

"Orochi…you're a nice lady, the nicest grown-up I know." His forehead creased, processing and expressing those honest words. "And I want to believe you, I really do-"

He saw her expression fall. "But you need proof."

His lips screwed to the side and he sat up, shivering as the cold hit him as soon as the white and grey camo blanket fell away, exposing them to the elements. He began packing up Crystalline, the empty senbon cartridges and the spare cartridges he was yet to use. He spoke as he did so. "I can't help but think the Sandaime put you up to this, Orochi."

The snake sage sat up on her knees, idly wiping his nose with a handkerchief she had gotten from somewhere under her jounin flak jacket. "Your right to not believe me right off the bat." He allowed her to attend to his leaky nose, unknowingly doting over him in a way only a mother could, slinging his backpack on. "When we've freed Chill from Kumo, we can go and do a blood test." She stood back, leaving the handkerchief with him. The Sannin placed her right hand on her chest and vowed. "If it comes out negative, I'll leave you be."

He scoffed. "Pshhh, let's not go that far." He hopped down from the ice plateau. She landed beside him and the snow crunched underfoot. "You can just stop all this talk about being my mother. We can-" he sneezed into her handkerchief, rubbing his red, leaky nose. "We can still talk, y'know. You're nice company…sometimes."

The woman beamed and slung her arm over his shoulder, pulling him close and using her chakra into increase her core temperature. The heat she generated ebbed from her body and seeped into her son. The mother playfully tapped her sons red nose, her eyes closed and the corners turned up in a smile. "Tell me about your time in Waterfall."

They stomped through the knee deep snow and the Snake Sannin raptly listened to her son describe his time in Waterfall country.

Far into the future, the blue Uchiha found out that he was the latter.

Blue became the Crow Summoning Contract.

Authors note

Hopefully the side story explained why the Crows came for Naruto in the Shinigami's stomach; cuz he's the actual embodiment of their Summoning Contract.

For those that are still confused, Naruto isn't a scroll but he is the physical, humanoid manifestation of their Summoning Contract. I don't want to spoil too much of what that tid-bit of info entails; I'll leave that for the next chapter.

Speaking of…

The next chapter will likely begin with Naruto waking up in Uzushio, and it'll also detail why he was inactive for the four years after his return.

Who wants to read the next chapter?

Let me hear your thoughts and opinions on this chapter and the story so far. Drop a review, would you so kindly. Please and please stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I will see you when I see you.

Foy.