Section: Naruto
Genre: Supernatural, Romance
Pairing: male OC X (Surprise) male
Summary: A normal person from the real world dies and ends up in the world of Naruto or better known as the nightmarish world full of death and destruction.
Or
When a person is cursed to be Naruto's twin only because it turned out that his lover was someone from the Naruto world.
Warning: Slash (Yaoi, Boy X Boy), Mentions of rape, Dark themes, OC with skewed morals and questionable sanity

Chapter Twenty-Six – Puzzling Discoveries

Naruto's homecoming would have been a much happier one if he was not immediately sent on a mission. It was his first mission since leaving for his training trip and the first with Kakashi again. However, this time instead of his brother and Sasuke as his teammates, Hinata, Kiba and Akamaru were coming with them.

It was a strange change and made the absence of his teammates more poignant which of course made him moody the whole journey.

When they arrived in Suna, they were prepared for the worst.

What they were not prepared for was for their mission to have already been completed by someone else.

The Kazekage was saved, the Akatsuki's plan was thwarted and even Kankuro's injuries were treated.

The greatest surprise, however, was who exactly had come to Suna's aid.

Oto.

To say everyone was flabbergasted would be an understatement.

"What happened?" Kakashi immediately asked Temari when she directed him to thee Kazekage's office, leaving behind the rest of the team to see Kankuro.

The young woman gave him a serious and slightly disturbed look before she explained, "Kankuro went after then when Gaara was taken. When we managed to catch up to him, we found him unconscious, poisoned and already given an antidote. We could not track down Gaara so we took Kankuro back to the village. A few hours ago, Gaara just… came back."

"He came back? By himself?"

"I was rescued."

Having reached the Kazekage's office, they found Gaara waiting for them at his desk, a frown on his face. With a quick once-over, Kakashi determined that the young Kage was uninjured and appeared in good health, as if he had not just been kidnapped by a criminal organisation.

"Kazekage-sama," Kakashi greeted the youngster, "Could you clarify?"

"I was unconscious at the time so I don't have all the details," Gaara explained. "When I woke up, I was alone in a cave that showed signs of fighting and… this." What he dropped on his desk was a scroll, the Sound insignia making a stark appearance on the seal.

What it contained was more shocking however. Information about a terrorist organisation and its members, their goal, even their hideouts! Everything Jiraiya had been working years for, handed over to the Kazekage, as if this information was not the goldmine it was.

There was more to it than what it appeared, Kakashi was sure. He did not know what Sound was playing at, what Orochimaru was playing at. The conspicuous absence of Uchiha Itachi's name brought a whole other can of worms to this. His first thought was that it had to do with Sasuke. Since his student had defected, there were plenty of information about him running around but the boy was only sparingly seen around Sound territory and so Kakashi was not sure how involved with that village and its Kage Sasuke was.

However, whatever the reason, they now had the information it would have cost them too much to acquire if not for Orochimaru's strange actions. How accurate the information was, was something else, however.

Either way, this only confirmed their suspicions about Akatsuki being after the Jinchuriki. Why Orochimaru decided to inform them of this was unknown and the information would be treated with appropriate caution. Yet, the Hokage would need to hear of this as soon as possible.

Kakashi had a feeling that things were going to get really complicated, really soon.

Suna was not the only village to get the information. Soon, every village with a Jinchuriki held an exact same scroll as the one Suna got. Meanwhile, Akatsuki found it a lot more difficult to get close to their designated target. Word got around quickly that the information was shared among the villages and that the threat was a serious one. Of course, some of them underestimated the situation to begin with, not trusting the word of a man they all knew as cunning and conniving.

Then their Jinchurki was attacked and if not for Sound ninjas suddenly appearing out of the woodwork to save the day, they would have been less of a Jinchuriki.

They did not know Orochimaru's agenda. They did not know why he would put so much work into helping them. What did he get out of this? Why was he helping them? Was he really helping them or was he planning something else in the background while they were preoccupied with keeping their Jinchuriki safe?

And then came one letter, sent to all villages and signed by Orochimaru himself, summoning them for the first Kage meeting in ages.

They were all more than just apprehensive, especially since the meeting was to take place in Sound territory, Orochimaru's territory. Who was to say this was not a ploy to get them all together so that he could attack them? Then again, even Orochimaru, as talented as he was, could not be so overconfident as to believe that he would be able to take on all the other Kages on his own.

However, despite their wariness, they were more curious about what other information the snake sannin had. If they wanted to know more about what was going on, about Akatsuki and how the Oto nin were always able to come right on time, they could only go. To say they were curious about his information network would be an understatement. It helped that Orochimaru even stipulated that they were free to bring any of their own ninjas to this meeting for their own peace of mind.

Thus, they all left for Oto in spite of their own apprehensions.

They did not expect to see the long dead Hokages there, nor Uchiha Madara of all people. Somehow alive, somehow not under Orochimaru's control and yet still there.

AN: Much shorter than my usual updates. I'm trying to get back into writing but I guess it's a slow process and I wanted this out already anyway.

Hope you like it. Things are getting more complicated and, yes, I will explain that last bit in the next chapter.

Leave behind a review and tell me your thoughts.

Leight