Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Prologue – Arc 1: The Soul Robber

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Prologue: How it goes on

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"Perhaps... that's what it means to be a ninja".

These are the words that recall in Sasuke's mind as he's laying on a tree branch in the south of the land of fire. These words are the last that came to his mind, when he saw Naruto for the last time. His travels brought him back to his native land once again and now he wonders whether he should or not go once again visit his friends in Konoha. Even though he was in the village only weeks ago, when Naruto wasn't there to protect it, he only blitzed through the village really fast and didn't come back later. He had heard of Naruto's exploits on the moon and was wondering if asking about the threat he faced was a reasonable motive for going back... No, there's other ways to get these information and he's already busy with his space-time training. But, does he really need a good reason. Konoha is his home after all. It's where he'll go once his quest for peace is over, and it's the place where his loved ones, actually just his best friend and his woman, are waiting for him. The real reason he wanted a good reason to go there is because of the rest of the villagers. For them, he's still Sasuke Uchiha: the nukenin who wanted to destroy the village and who almost killed their hero, the world's savior. Maybe that's what his quest is all about, he thought. He needs to get people's trust if he wants to be able to stand next to Naruto as a partner.

Laying there, looking at the sky, his thoughts are suddenly interrupted by an immense chakra he feels a few village distances away. Such powerful chakra... Incredible. Even Hashirama Senju, the first Hokage renowned as the God of Shinobi, didn't have such power. Sasuke decided to go check where this feeling came from, calmly as no danger seemed to be around. But soon enough he realized this chakra felt way more like his than like Naruto's, and even more like Kaguya's. As he thought of the singularity of this chakra, a woman's voice screaming interrupted his thoughts. Sasuke, understanding the source of this chakra was currently threatening somebody's life, hurried to the place.

Arriving on the place, he sees was a young girl on the ground, probably the one he heard screaming. But she isn't the only person there. A man in a brown hooded cape is holding a really tall black haired man's head. Some fight was probably up. Did he need to get involved? Is there life at sake? Definitely. The caped man wasn't only holding the other guy. He was tearing something out of him, as if he grabbed the black haired man's soul with his hand and was separating it from his body.

This jutsu, Sasuke recognized it. He never saw anyone use it but he knows it is one of his left eye's abilities: Ningendo, the human path. How was this person capable of such a power? Plus if he succeeded it would inevitably result in the tall man's death. He had to get involved.

Ameno Tejikara

Sasuke uses this ability of his Rinnegan to switch places with the tall man and tries to strike the caped opponent with a Chidori... He's fast. He managed to dodge it even from this close. But his hood got teared apart by the lightning, revealing his face. A very pale face with two red eyes, a pair of Rinnegan, grey hairs long on the left side and short on the right, and most importantly, a pair of long pointy horns resembling those of Kaguya, but going from his forehead, the same color as his skin. One of his horn was broken, like it was cutted in half, the other one was complete. That's it, thought Sasuke, this guy really looks like any of the Juubi related people. But he wasn't feeling such a great power coming from this person. His chakra feels enormous for sure, but not as much as Kaguya's.

"A Rinnegan? You must be one of the old Kaguya's heirs." says the mysterious man.

Sasuke, now fully aware of the danger this man represented, pulls out his sword and tries to attack him once again, aiming directly for his enemy's neck. But this time, a shadow stops his sword. Not a silhouette, but a real shadow coming from the ground. Must be a jutsu similar to The Nara clan's shadow control.

"Who are you? Where did you get this eyes? How do you know this jutsu?" asks Sasuke, face to face with the mysterious man, just throws at him every question that come to his mind.

"Me? I don't know that jutsu." answers the intriguing being.

At this answer Sasuke quickly understands that the man isn't alone. But who is using this shadow thing? As he looks around, he sees a black silhouette with 2 tails in the back jumping out of the man's shadow and attempting to strike him with large shadow claws. Sasuke deflects the attack with his sword and jumps away, but is directly pulled back to the mysterious man.

Bansho Ten'in

The caped man uses this jutsu to bring Sasuke closer to the two-tailed shadow, so it can pierce through him with its claws. Even though his eyes have a different color than his, it seems to have the exact same abilities.

"If he got everything my left eye can do, let's surprise him with something he can't", he thinks. To block the claws, Sasuke summons the Susanoo's rib cage around him. "Those claws are real tough." thought Sasuke as he sees the claws slowly breaking through the protection.

A skeleton arm comes additionally to the rib cage to grab that shadowy thing, only for it to vanish before he can tighten the Susanoo's hand around it.

"What was that?" he asks.

"I only want the Minamoto's soul to be mine, Rinnegan owner. Don't interfere or I'll have to take yours too", answers the man, ignoring Sasuke's question.

"Can't let you do that. Actually you're going down now."

Amaterasu

Sasuke's left eye starts to bleed as the man's coat catches fire, but the black flames are completely absorbed by the Red Rinnegan. Anyway, it's just what he needed. Sasuke takes advantage of this small diversion and teleports behind the man to grab his soul out by mimicking the jutsu he saw him use earlier. It's the first time he uses this ability. He knows that by doing so, he will access all of this guy's knowledge and memory, so he won't need him alive anymore. Since his target is unable to react, he successfully grabs his soul, but oddly, even once he understood what was happening, the pale horned being still lets go.

Umashi Ashikabi Hikoji

Those are the words the man pronounced before his ripped out soul tries to grab Sasuke in return. It is now Sasuke's soul who's being ripped out by a bodyless soul.

Shinra Tensei

Sasuke in urge to save his life, pushes the opponent back with a small repulsion in his direction. The flying soul immediately regains its body and a black rift appears behind him.

"You're tough. I'll come back later. But I'll have to kill you."

The rift closes and completely disappears with all that went through it. He's gone. This space-time rift this man used to escape. Sasuke recognized it. These are the same as the ones he can barely open with his Rinnegan. Since the frouth wat, he's been thinking of ways to reach Kaguya's dimensions again in order to explore and understand them. By trying to establish a way back to them, he discovered this ability he had but doesn't know how to control the destination of this portals properly for now.

This man must be able to use this same jutsu also thanks to his Rinnegan, except he actually knows how to do it.

Who was he? Why was he looking so much like Kaguya? Since when is he around? What was that huge two-tailed beast that tried to kill him? Umashi Ashikabi Hikoji? Is that the name of the jutsu he used to survive the Ningendo's pull? So many questions popped in Sasuke's head as he realized his journey just took a complete different turn.

But more important, what happened to the tall black haired man? Looking behind him, Sasuke sees the man and the girl, both sitting on the ground and looking at him.

"Thank you!", says the girl, "You saved us!"

Sasuke turns his eyes to the man who doesn't seem to be injured.

"Are you his target? What does it mean, the Minamoto?"

"Uh… That's just my last name." answers the man. "I have no damn idea how this dude knows it or who he even is. He just came outta nowhere and said he wanted my powers and soul as a slave. T'was damn creepy."

"Powers? What powers do you have that he could be after?"

"No damn idea. I'm not even a shinobi, I just know a few fire release and some of the basics because of my clan's teaching. But nothing more."

"… What are your names? I can't let you on the loose with such a threat being after you."

"Me? I'm Tsubai. Tsubai Minamoto. And she's Himari Sakazawa, a friend of mine. We're just traveling around the country because staying in our home village is damn boring."

"And you?", asked Himari, "Judging by your skills and all you must be a shinobi. Are you from Konoha?"

"My name… is Sasuke Uchiha. I'm just a wandering ninja traveling to find inner peace."

"Uchiha? You mean THE Uchiha?" asks the girl in a euphoric tone. "You're the man who helped Uzumaki Naruto save the world, am I right? "

*Sigh. This idiot really became famous, thought Sasuke. That's not a bad thing though. If he's known and trusted in other countries like he seems to be here, it probably helps to maintain peace across the world. If this can stop shinobis from going against each other again, then he better keep this reputation. Now that the five great nations are united, they should keep it this way. As things like the moon falling apart and the guy with the rinnegans he just saw probably are just one of many similar threats, the nations should do their best to stay as one. Facing this kind of enemies all together worked 2 years ago during the fourth great ninja war, and Naruto believes it will keep working. He better be right.

"Well, Thank you for saving me, mister shinobi.", says Tsubai Minamoto, "But if you're capable of saving the world from a damn giant tailed demigod monster, how did this guy still manage to escape?"

"How?... I don't know."

Sasuke didn't thought relevant to say the truth. It could only make this guy lose the faith he may have in him, and he wasn't sure the man with horns was worth this consideration yet.

"Hey, Tsubai!" exclaims Himari, in reaction to Tsubai's rude question. "Seriously, you saw it didn't you? He really tried to get him. It's just that the other guy really seemed strong. They just were both so fast I couldn't understand anything that was happening."

"Well no, I did not see that. You know I kinda almost fucking died right now so I was more worried about my damn soul leaving my body than about these onion-eye guys fighting."

"Stop joking for a moment. Are you good now?"

"He maybe killed half of my soul just now, but the other half is still fine so no problem!"

Himari looks at him with a serious and worried face. Seeing her like that, Tsubai becomes serious too and says: "Don't worry, I'm okay".

"This girl…", thinks Sasuke. She's good with observation. It seems like he won't need to keep anything secret with her around.

"Could you please keep going on the road with us for a while?" she asks Sasuke. "If this guy ever comes back, we won't be able to fight back or do anything."

"That's what I intended to do."

"Really? That's great! Thank you a lot!"

"Where were you going?"

"Anywhere but home." says Tsubai.

"?"

Sasuke stands there looking at Tsubai. He is just expressing the opposite feeling of what he was thinking 10 minutes ago. He is right now thinking of a reason to go home, and this guy right here, Tsubai, is trying to avoid his hometown? Why?... He'll probably ask this questions later.

"And where is your hometown? So I know where we shouldn't go."

"It's a small village on the east border of the country. Don't you have a plan of where we could go?"

Where they could go? Of course he knows. This horned man is just the reason he needs. Kakashi and Naruto have to be warned about this. Them, Sakura and him are the only one who saw Madara but also Kaguya and the Rikudo-Sennin, three other Rinnegan users with horns. They are the only people who could understand what kind of threat this man represents. Sasuke turns back to the 2 travelers waiting for his answer and firmly says.

"Yes. To Konoha It is."

The horned man with red rinnegans, and Tsubai Minamoto. Sasuke Uchiha's encounter with this two people is, for him and for all of the shinobi world, the beginning of a new era. In this new world, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and every other shinobi for the next generations will have to resist and fight through events and encounters with forces that greatly surpass everything that they thought they knew until now.

This story is about how a world trying to prosper in peace, will enter a new age of conflict and discover their real place in the whole that is the creation.

Me? For now, I am just the one who'll narrate this story to you. What is my place in this world? I don't even know myself, for now.

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End of chapter 0. Next Chapter: Home