Chapter 43: Shame of Weakness

The ignorance of this boy is astounding! I do not think an inheritor of the samsara eye has ever sunk to such a low. Some of the Daoist techniques he has shown me are clever, but the inheritance is clearly very shallow. Destiny… I can sense it on him. My technique was drawn to him.

Why now? Hope has already died; the Holy Lands have dried up. Who hid such a talent until such a moment? I will attempt to get more from him tomorrow. For now, he needs protection.

# # #

Naruto used one of the dippers at the Uzumaki Shrine chuzobachi. Carefully taking the long handle, he washed his face and hands. Naruto was required to ritually cleanse himself before attempting any of the Uzumaki practices, if he wanted to minimize the risk to himself. They all dealt with forces that could not be disturbed lightly.

The building blended perfectly into nature, and though time and a lack of maintenance had taken a toll, it was in decent shape. Thick forest surrounded everything, giving it a twilight feel even as it was the middle of the day. Knowing what was ahead, Naruto walked up the steps and into the shrine with a still mind.

"You're here early, Uzumaki Naruto," said Orochimaru who suddenly appeared behind him, leaning against a wall inside. The snake man looked calmly at Naruto, as if appraising him in a new light.

"No plans to abduct me?"

"Are you afraid Naruto-kun?" Orochimaru teased in a babying voice. "Don't concern yourself with last time." Orochimaru licked his lips. "I was worried you'd delay before I could obtain Sasuke… You are a boy of your word, aren't you?"

Naruto breathed through his nose. The cleansing ritual gave him a feeling of unknown power. "I told you, there is no need to trust. Follow me…" His voice echoed out with a quiet but powerful aura which actually caused Orochimaru to silently oblige.

They walked into a small square room that held a fire pit with a large pot hanging over it. Those who did not know, would assume this room's purpose to be very banal. They would be horribly incorrect.

"Am I supposed to wait while you cook a meal? You are trying my patience Uzumaki," said Orochimaru.

"I told you new moon Orochimaru," Naruto responded without hesitation, "If you are early, don't blame the host."

# # #

Naruto walked back into the room, a handful of bamboo in his arms. Steam rose at a constant but slow rate from the large pot over the fire. Orochimaru's arms were crossed impatiently, following behind, watching Naruto's every move.

Naruto made some hand signs and blew fire into the brazier. The brazier glowed white-hot, making the boiling pot bubble more ferociously. When the steam had reached the point where the room filled with it, Naruto nodded and left the room again for another part of the temple.

Orochimaru's shadow acted like his own, the old snake man's suspicious nature could not be helped; looking for loopholes, traps, and anything else that might get in the way of reobtaining his jutsu. Naruto kept his pace the same, both to annoy the snake ninja who had dared to kidnap Hisato-sensei, and because he would not let his mindset be disturbed for the upcoming rituals. Since Orochimaru was here, the first one he could get out of the way.

He stopped, settling in front of a wall of masks. Many of them looked the same, some had slight differences. Hanyas, ogres, and tengus hid the true nature of the masks underneath.

Naruto grabbed a tengu mask from a random corner and carefully shuffled back to the room with the fire pit and boiling pot, now filled with steam.

"Do you have a weapon you are willing to lose on you?" Naruto asked to a surprised Orochimaru, stood at the door. "If so, we can begin."

Orochimaru threw a kunai at Naruto's toes, just missing his foot by an inch. Naruto smiled underneath the tengu mask at the implied threat. "Orochimaru, if you don't listen to instructions, you might die. Pick it up and hand it to me when I request it."

Orochimaru frowned as his arm extended and slithered along the ground to pull out the kunai. "Watch your tone boy."

Naruto ignored him and rubbed his fingers together in the air. Condensation, it should be thick enough. Naruto picked up a piece of bamboo he had cut from the nearby forest. One end had been cut diagonally, the other flat. Like a weapon, he grasped it by the flat end and dipped it into the boiling water.

# # #

Orochimaru rolled his eyes. This boy's insistence on ritual was grating on his nerves. At the same time, something was off. He couldn't put his finger on it. The promises that night, he hadn't taken them seriously, considering Tsunade's healing to be the highest priority.

After it fell through, Orochimaru was panicked. If he obtained Sasuke's body without access to his jutsu, that would be a purgatory almost worse than death. Pain, he had hurt himself more than anyone else ever could. Disgust and reputation, his experiments had thrown those away as well. His pride, it was the only thing outside of his life that he cared about genuinely.

Watching the Uzumaki boy dip a piece of bamboo into the boiling water, he considered maybe it was all to dull his senses with boredom. And yet, every step was so meticulously acted out…

Suddenly, Orochimaru sensed a change in the air. Like the steam in the air was churning, in the direction of the boy. The steam thickened into a more permanent mist, like it would not so easily disperse. The tengu mask faded, leaving some other unrecognizable carved face in its place.

Orochimaru felt his skin prickle, and despite his body modification and the intensely warm room, his heart turned cold. The last time he felt this way was upon seeing the Shinigami's hand grasped around his very soul.

"Orochimaru, you have made oaths to me. Do you now reaffirm them now?"

The Uzumaki child's voice sounded nothing like a child! It was deep and rumbling. Orochimaru panicked; it dawned on him his answer would truly determine his life and death. Damn this child! His oaths had been casual, he quickly ran through what he had said to the best of his ability. He'd kill the… wait, he had said he wouldn't kill the boy. Was that an oath?

"No. I do not acknowledge any oaths to have been made."

"Then I will start the process. I swear to retrieve your arms from the belly of the Shinigami with the intention of restoring your jutsu. I swear that the rituals you help me perform will not bring you any harm, but I take no responsibility for any harm you might cause yourself with what you have obtained-"

"What is this loophole?!" Orochimaru objected. He didn't appreciate being put on the back foot like this. His psychological advantage had been turned around completely, he didn't want to see the boy watch him think too much, not be in control.

"Your use of jutsu to harm yourself is outside of my control. Further, I swear not to do anything to purposefully prevent or delay you until a week after the rituals are done."

Orochimaru was uncertain about the rituals, but he knew jutsu better than this child ever would. That being said, he could see no exploit. Unless there was some benefit to the ritual which was dangerous? He could manage whatever traps Naruto tried. Once he had his jutsu back, there was nothing he couldn't handle.

"I swear to help you perform these rituals, and to not harm you during and for the week after the rituals. I take no responsibility for the harm these rituals might cause you. Further, I swear not to do anything to purposefully prevent or delay you until a week after the rituals." Orochimaru licked his lips, disguising his nervous movement with a creepy gesture to unsettle. Surely the boy would be-

"Swear to help me perform the rituals correctly."

Damn child. Finding his sabotage loophole. "I swear to help you perform the rituals correctly."

Naruto nodded, and shook the bamboo, flicking hot water at Orochimaru and himself. The droplets that hit him were too small and cooled by the air to hurt, but they were still hot when they reached him.

"Your weapon…" Naruto demanded, his hand outstretched.

Orochimaru handed it to him, unsure of where this was going. Did these oaths even mean anything, or was this just a scare tactic?

The wooden mouth of the mask opened wide, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth. Naruto put the kunai up to this mouth, and it chomped down on the kunai without even a sound. Despite the mouth looking large and monstrous, it ate the kunai in three bites! When the last piece of the kunai disappeared, the steam fell out of the air and onto the ground as condensation, and the fire in the pit went out.

Cold water dripped down Orochimaru's neck. It must have been the condensation in the air, it couldn't have been sweat from fear of a boy. No way.

# # #

Yuki Hisato strolled casually through Konoha. Tsunade's use of medical jutsu gave him a new lease on life. For all he could do with his medical knowledge, it would not compare to the use of chakra. He may still decline, but with Tsunade bolstering his body, it would be much more livable. If only Naruto could see.

"The boy will hate me, when he knows the truth," Hisato mumbled to himself. Everything he was asking of Naruto, and the deceit. His interferences, his reluctance…

Before he knew it, Hisato was at the dusty street in Konoha where he had first run into Naruto. This time at the beginning of the evening, the street was full of life, just like it was back then.

"Could I have a shoyu dango please?" asked little Naruto holding out some coins, his cute little blonde mop and blue eyes standing out from the crowd. Hisato found him right away, the second he made it to Konoha.

The dango stall owner pretended not to hear him, and Naruto's shoulders sagged. He immediately gave up, as if this was a normal thing to happen. Had it really been like this for six years? Hisato swallowed a hard lump and walked up to the dango owner in blue robes and a festival mask.

"Don't you think that kid looked like the Fourth?" he said to the dango stall owner. Using his side vision to make sure Naruto was in earshot. "I swear, if you gave him the Fourth's robes, he'd be a shoo-in."

The dango stall owner gave him an angry glance. "If he had the fourth's robes, people would do a lot more than ignore him," he said threateningly. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"No…" Hisato trailed off as he watched little Naruto run off from the corner of his eye, ideas in his head. He only had two shots to fix things if they got out of hand. Two. He needed one for Hiruzen and the other would be survival.

Hisato shook his head at the shameful memory. Before he knew it, he had walked up to an abandoned part of Konoha, the Uchiha District. Parts of it had been reclaimed by Konoha, but the main area was still considered haunted. Even profit-hungry merchants would not disturb the spirits of a whole clan, whether it was superstition or not. Hisato expanded his perception to make sure he hadn't been trailed, and without pause, entered heading south.

With Tsunade in charge, Root wouldn't be following him anymore. His condition might make his body weak, but it made his spiritual energy strong, Hisato always knew when someone was watching him.

The abandoned district slowly returned that quiet feeling as his footsteps echoed, only distant noises of activity from other parts of Konoha could be heard.

His two shots, those were long gone. Naruto had received what he needed. His guidance, the tablet, the Uzumaki rituals, and with his final shot, Hinata would be protected from Sasuke's foolishness regarding his brother.

Hisato stopped his footsteps before the large shrine, Naka Shrine. "Seventh from the far right…"

# # #

Hinata watched as Sasuke escaped from the edges of her vision. He slipped just out of Byakugan range just as she found him hiding behind a stone wearing a Fox ANBU mask. Fast, as fast as her. Even after all her training.

With the slope of the road, and Sasuke's original position, she couldn't see over the crest in the road until she got to the top. Pushing more chakra into her feet, Hinata furrowed her brows and sped up into the mountain path which had been carved with jutsu, smooth rock wall going high up on either side.

"It's like an outdoor tunnel," she remarked, climbing steadily, running her hands along the warm grey stone as she ran. Her gut was uneasy, but her legs moved with surety upwards.

In a short moment, she had reached Sasuke's original position behind a large boulder at the top of the crest. From there she could see everything… Just in time to see the smoke rise in billows over the boulder.

Down at the bottom of the valley was a wagon in flames on the edge of a forest, an old man pulling himself along his belly away from it, legs broken from the wreckage. Unrecognizable bodies, blackened into ash. The late afternoon sun had disappeared behind the mountains, putting everything in shadow except for a lone tree with its branches alight. Around it flitted two figures at high speed.

One of them was Sasuke, his face behind the ANBU mask, but Hinata could see he was under a moderate amount of pressure. The other was a young female Iwa-nin with very long brown hair tied into a ponytail. She wore a grey combat vest over a black shirt, long black pants, with wooden sandals.

Both of them pushed each other back in a final clash, making them pause as they separated.

Hinata gasped when she saw the kunoichi shake the dirt off her hands, they were black and shiny, like obsidian. The only thing marring their surface were some specks of white, where it looked like she had come in contact with Sasuke's blade.

Sasuke's blade was planted in the ground, he had used it to stop his momentum. It was chipped, and in worse shape than the hand by far.

As they went to clash once again, Hinata stopped just watching and ran down the hill as fast as she could. "Who knows what's going on. Is Sasuke the attacker? Or the defender? You don't know Hinata… You don't know… It could be anything."

The two ninjas charged at each other again. Sasuke slashing out with his sword, the kunoichi aiming a fist right for a weak spot in the blade. Hinata saw clearly with her Byakugan, the blade would not survive the hit!

"Sasuke!"

Obsidian hand met sword blade finally making it snap in half, the noise echoed through the valley. The sharp point of the blade spun in the air. The other hand's black fingers pointed like a dagger towards Sasuke's throat.

Both ninjas noticed Hinata's yell with the slightest twitch of their heads in that hundredth of a second. The kunoichi smiled evilly though, her obsidian coated hand reaching ever closer. She wasn't going to make it!

*CLANG* *CLANG*

Sasuke's arm came up to block, also coated in obsidian! Both of his arms had turned black like hers. And with his other hand, he grabbed the spinning naked blade with his bare hand and slashed the wide-eyed kunoichi's throat.

"Hmph, nice trick," he said in an altered voice.

Hinata got there, just in time for the kunoichi's eyes to go blank, bleeding profusely from the neck and collapsing on the ground. Sasuke's dark figure was backlit by the fire of the tree, in the shadow of the mountain.

"S-S-Sasuke! What are you doing?!"

Inside, she was crushed. After all her determination, all she could do was ask him. Didn't she have the right to be furious? Then again, it was all her expectations. What right did she have to force those on him?

"A secret mission, Hinata," said Sasuke, walking slowly towards the old man whose eyes were white with fear. "And now he's seen your face, he has to die."

"N-no!" The man panicked, searching Hinata for sympathy. "You're both children. Don't put this on yourselves. I'm just a merchant from the Land of Waterfall!"

"Hold on Sasuke…" Hinata balled her fists. Finding her inner strength at last after the shock had worn off. Sasuke wanted to kill this man far too easily. She stepped between them. "Tell me what is really going on."

"I'm getting the strength I need to face my brother, Hinata," said Sasuke, still slowly taking steps forward as if she weren't even there. "This is my path. I am an avenger. Now move out of my way."

"This man has done nothing, I can see on his face whether he's lying. Unlike you, I know about the other mask Sasuke. Did you think a facial paralysis jutsu could fool me forever? We've been comrades for months now!"

Sasuke slipped off his fox ANBU mask, revealing a genuine sneer. "Comrades? Comrades are for completing the mission. My mission is to kill my brother, with my own strength. You're a hindrance."

Hinata felt the final stab in her heart. "We stood shoulder to shoulder. We made each other stronger, supported each other," she whispered.

"I validated your newfound confidence, at the cost of my own edge," Sasuke spat, "There is no mutual support, there is the used and the user. A comrade is someone focused on the same goal, and they use each other for that purpose. And you are standing in the way of my goal."

Breakdown, she was going to breakdown. His words were so harsh. Cruel. There was no respect, he looked at her as if she were an insect. Her Byakugan only made the reality more crushing. No hiding from the truth on his face. There was still small hesitation, but he was determined to think like this.

"And what about my goal? I wanted to be a ninja to protect, a shinobi to heal! I was ready to support your vengeance, even if it didn't align exactly with my goal. You can't kill this old man, I won't let you!"

"Thank you, girlie!" The merchant had snot running out of his nose, though he barely had the energy to lift his head.

"Even medic-nin are still shinobi, Hinata! Your goal was just a compromise! Is it even what you really want? Without an edge, with your hesitation, you will always be weak in the shinobi world. Quit, before you get hurt. Consider that my last advice, the last courtesy from Team 7! Don't get in the way of a real shinobi's mission."

Sasuke walked forward, without hesitation. Hinata was frozen, considering his words. Was this the difference between them?