Chapter 46: The Lie of Uzushiogakure
Sorry for the huge delay. I was horribly ill for over a week. Not Covid thankfully. Be safe and well everyone!
Naruto felt, given the circumstances, he owed an explanation to his father. His issues with the sealing of the Kyubi were there, but seeing his dad's face, and knowing how difficult a choice that must have been, a small bit of his resentment bled away. That he had also forced his dad to watch as he bled out from the stomach and performed a ritual cleansed his resentment enough to be the first to explain himself.
And so, he gave a broad outline of most of what had happened. Minato only occasionally commented to give more context. For example, Naruto learned Minato was unsure if he could handle the whole Fox given his weaker Uzumaki blood. The idea that the imbalance of chakra would harm him as a child had also never occurred to his father.
When the name of his sensei came up, suddenly there was a change. The torchlight flickered.
"Yuki Hisato?!" Minato questioned, taken aback, but forcibly prevented by Orochimaru's jutsu from moving.
"You know of my sensei?" Naruto asked.
"He was your mother's… friend," said Minato, "When we were young. He disappeared a little after the Second Great Ninja War."
"What? He never mentioned that! Are you sure it's the same one?" Naruto couldn't believe it, almost refused to believe it. There were many secrets surrounding his sensei, but Naruto still trusted the man. He never expected for there to be this kind of secret.
"Looked like a girl? Constant poor health?"
"Hisato-sensei… why?" Naruto shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I'll ask him. He never talks about his past."
"It's probably just the seal on his tongue, given to him by his clan as a baby," Minato reassured.
"Baby?" Naruto perked up. Something wasn't adding up, that seal was supposed to be from Uzushiogakure. "Dad, when did you meet my sensei?"
"Hmm…" Minato attempted to move his arm to scratch his chin, but only ended up twitching slightly. "It was during the Academy days, just before your mother's clan fell."
# # #
Sakura fell out of oblivion, her mind feeling like a swollen watermelon. She laid upright in a thick bedroll she did not recognize; in a cave she had never seen. Daylight could just barely be seen around the bend, but she was in complete darkness.
Hesitantly, she almost called out, before a flash of images relayed themselves before her. Memories that told her whoever had put her here, might not be friendly. The pinwheel of the Sharingan especially stood out like a great searing light in her head. Sakura knew anything could have happened. If they had brainwashed her, maybe she could be secretly activated; she'd have to get checked when she got back to Konoha.
Feeling around her body, Sakura was fully clothed and her weapons and equipment on her body had not been touched. Sakura relaxed a little, and then on further thought felt immense fear. Had she been saved? Or was she so weak, they wouldn't bother to disarm her? Either way, there was no escape.
"Hello? Anyone there?"
A pair of red eyes opened within the darkness.
"You are awake, good," said Itachi with a resigned sigh. Upon noticing her glancing around the darkness for the shark man, he further commented, "Kisame is gone. He would only make this more difficult. I intend you no harm."
Once more, Sakura's neck prickled in fear. What had he done? What did he plan to do? Why keep her alive at all? She was only a regular genin who hadn't even gotten to the chunin final. Her biggest concern was Itachi's sharingan, perhaps combined with a brainwashing technique…
"You might think I'm lying, trying to brainwash you?" Itachi guessed at her hidden thoughts, the eyes stood up as Sakura scuttled up to the cave wall. "No, you are naturally resistant to such techniques, even as wielded by the sharingan. My interest was piqued, and so I spared you from being harmed by my façade"
Sakura kept completely quiet, not wanting to anger him by pointing out his murderous nature. He killed his clan, that was a fact, no amount of brainwashing or explanation could take away that stain.
"You are thinking I am a killer, a man who slaughtered his own clan," Itachi once again guessed at her thoughts, "That is irrefutable. The façade, Haruno Sakura, is why and how. I did it for peace, for the village of Konoha, on the Sandaime's orders."
She couldn't hold it in. "Liar! There's no way old man Hokage would order you to kill your whole clan! And if it was a secret, you would never tell a random genin!"
"If it helps you preserve your illusions for a moment longer, it was a last resort," Itachi retorted. Instantly, there was light. He had lit all of the torches in the room in a blink before Sakura could even notice that he was doing anything. "You are not a random genin anymore. I spared you for one reason, and now must keep you for another." Itachi walked until he was standing over her, his face a blank.
"I'm a prisoner then." All of the other things didn't matter. She would push those aside, whether facts or fiction.
"We are going to make a journey to Uzushiogakure together, you have no choice in the matter. I do not care whether or not you consider yourself a prisoner. Now that you know this secret, I will not permit you to escape."
Itachi clearly wasn't bad tempered, if anything he was extremely cold. Sakura decided to just ask everything she wanted. Even if she put things to the side, she should understand her situation better.
"What's there? Isn't it a ruin at this point? What new information? What is the connection?"
"I do not know your connection to the Uzumaki, I only know your blood is capable of discovering the hidden entrance to the ruin."
# # #
Hisato stood in the hidden part of the Uchiha shrine. The cold stone room with Uchiha imagery, was lit up by torches, illuminating the goal before his eyes. The tablet of the Six Paths Sage, altered by the will of Kaguya.
After a little preparation for what was about to come, finally, Hisato looked at the tablet, written in the alien script of that evil clan. He smiled. The Uchiha thought higher level dojutsu was required in order to read the tablet, but luckily Sasuke had remembered Black Zetsu was able to alter it without any such ability. The Otsutsuki's laziness in learning to read had been turned into a security measure. How quaint.
Hisato picked up a hammer and chisel he had stashed in his robes and chuckled. He placed his chisel up to a character he knew Black Zetsu had altered and struck down lightly. The sound of metal hitting stone echoed, but barely a mark was made on the tablet. His weakness might truly prevent him from carrying out his threat.
"I know you're there, whoever you are," he said into the empty room. There was no way Black Zetsu would allow the tablet to be destroyed or altered. He'd wanted for the shadowy man to appear right when he attacked the tablet, anything was better than chiseling stone with his body.
A dark shadow in the corner coalesced into that half-white, half-black venus fly trap of a ninja, wearing red cloud robes.
"Aww, you discovered me? I don't think that's happened before," said the white Zetsu half in a high-pitched whining voice.
"What is that you're doing with the tablet?" asked the black half.
"I'm drawing you here, of course, Zetsu-san," said Hisato, dropping his tools. He squinted his eyes in a friendly manner and put up his hands.
"Oh?" both Zetsu were amused, but Hisato could tell the black Zetsu's grin had some strain to it.
"You see, we both want the same thing. Just not in the same way. Your current method and timeline, well, it doesn't work for me."
"Tch! You don't know what we want," the white half called out, irritation evident on the visible half of face.
"Kaguya," Hisato stated simply with no further explanation. That should be enough to get those who understood to understand.
The black zetsu seemed to expand and takeover from the white one, it appears that he was most in charge when things got serious.
"I have been around for eons human; I am not easily fooled. What about Kaguya?"
Hisato fiddled with his upper lip in concentration. This was life or death. Black Zetsu was the final chess piece, and his movement had to be set exactly right. The Uzumaki could not be allowed to have their way. This was the only alternative.
"She must be freed of course."
# # #
Naruto allowed his eyes to mist in the torchlit chamber, as he watched his father ascend to the afterlife and the temporary body flake away into nothingness. The particles swirled for a small moment before dying down and completely disintegrated, creating a void filled only now by the sound of crackles torches once again.
"Orochimaru, come out. It is time to complete the last ritual," said Naruto finally. His discussion with his father had relieved some stresses, and replaced them with others.
"How did you know I was nearby?" Orochimaru asked rhetorically as he walked in steadily, flickering his tongue like a snake.
Naruto rolled his eyes as he met Orochimaru in the middle of the chamber. "This one is simple." He reached into his pack and took out his brush and ink. Right in front of Orochimaru, he began to draw a spiderweb-like complicated sealing pattern on the stone floor. "This will take a bit."
Intricately detailing a sealing pattern while Orochimaru watched with curiosity, Naruto wanted to show off, but the snake man refused to ask questions. After five minutes, a web-like one-meter circle was complete, every centimeter filled to the brim with sealing patterns.
Naruto stood up and brushed himself off. "Take this." He reached behind his neck and took off Tsunade's necklace, placing it in Orochimaru's palm. "Stand in the circle, don't leave it."
"This is the last time you order me around, brat." Orochimaru stepped into the circle with a vein in his head popping.
Naruto ignored him and created a line coming from the circle. A single long line, about six meters across. Then, he sketched out with his brush another sealing circle, twice the diameter of the other. It took thirty minutes of Orochimaru standing perfectly still, unbothered.
"Done."
Instead of giving Orochimaru warning, Naruto slammed his hand into the ground and activated the seal.
The larger circle absorbed into his body and searched momentarily, as if alive and looking for something. Orochimaru's circle remained static with the line connecting them unbroken, going up Naruto's feet.
Naruto focused on his own seal and the Fox within. It took a short time before the web-like sealing pattern, now condensed to be impossibly small, pounced on his original seal. It was completely surrounded now.
"Concentrate on the necklace. Don't let go. Don't leave the circle." Naruto instructed Orochimaru.
Orochimaru stared at the necklace in his hand, not daring to be too casual about his level of concentration. The small seal likewise went up the snake-man's leg until it pounced on the necklace.
After the circles had found their marks, something began to pull at Naruto's consciousness. Like an invisible hand was reaching around in his brain and pulling. Naruto let it happen without complaint, until it stopped.
Right after Naruto's brain had a break, Orochimaru reacted. "The necklace, it feels strange, like it's draining me! Is this a cursed object? It feels like my soul is being pulled again!"
Naruto could only thank the heavens that Orochimaru reacted like this, or he might not give up the necklace. Financial harm and taking the necklace could be considered a part of their vows, but Naruto didn't wish to chance an expensive item like that.
He took out a blade, and threw it at the thread connecting them!
"Goodbye for now, Konoha."
When the blade hit the thread, Naruto's reality shuddered.