A bit of a mythology lesson:
Fenrir (or Fenris) is a monster (more specifically, a blue wolf) from Norse legend and is the son of the trickster god Loki. Bellow is a short excerpt from his legend, taken from pantheon dot org, an excellent site for anything mythology related.
When he was still a pup they had nothing to fear, but when the gods saw one day how he had grown, they decided to render him harmless. However, none of the gods had enough courage to face the gigantic wolf. Instead, they tried to trick him. They said the wolf was weak and could never break free when he was chained. Fenrir accepted the challenge and let the gods chain him. Unfortunately, he was so immensely strong that he managed to break the strongest fetters as if they were cobwebs.
After that, the gods saw only one alternative left: a magic chain. They ordered the dwarves to make something so strong that it could hold the wolf. The result was a soft, thin ribbon: Gleipnir. It was incredibly strong, despite what its size and appearance might suggest. The ribbon was fashioned of six strange elements: the footstep of a cat; the roots of a mountain; a woman's beard; the breath of fishes; the sinews of a bear; and a bird's spittle.
I'm obviously straying from the legend a great deal for my story, as will be seen in this chapter, but I wanted everyone to know the background.
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Naruto slowly raised his eyes to meet the restrained demon's gaze, "I am in need of a binding jutsu large enough to restrain a full army, and was told the only place I would find one capable of such a feat was here"
The boy was careful to keep his voice polite and neutral, as from the looks of things; he suspected binding jutsus might be a bit of a sore point with this particular monster.
"Ahhh… one could say I have a certain affinity for sealing and binding techniques. I have had, after all, over 2000 years in which study the most powerful of them."
"2000 YEARS!" Naruto and Temari yelled
"Yes indeed, little ones, I was defeated exactly 2378 years ago, my physical body destroyed, and my spirit sealed in this pocket dimension. The jutsu was so powerful; eight people gave their lives to imprison me, each one of them using their very essence to form the chains and attach them to my soul. No sealing technique since could begin to compare, but it was lost sometime around 1200 years ago."
Temari was finding her fear transforming into fascination, and having almost forgotten she was there, Naruto jumped when she spoke, "But why would they go to so much trouble to seal you? Of all the demons I've met, you're by far the nicest."
The great wolf laughed, his semi-solid form straining at his bonds as he shook with amusement, "Centuries of imprisonment tend to change one's outlook on life. Before I was sealed, I was no different than the Nine-tailed whelp, who was the one who sent you here if I'm not mistaken. I haven't seen him in 400 years, but his smell is still the same."
Temari was oddly at ease with the demon, despite the fact that he was older than recorded history. Naruto was for anyone who could call the Kyuubi a whelp and get away with it, so he liked Fenrir too.
"It's true," Naruto said, "that the Kyuubi sent me here, but he gave no indication of what's involved with getting your aid, what I would need to do or what your help would cost me."
"Well," the demon replied, "the first part is easy. I can handle most of the work, but you need to weaken space so I can manifest beyond my pocket dimension. As for what my help costs, it is its own reward, as one of my chains will break"
This, of course, drew Naruto's attention to said chains, 3 of which hung loose from Fenrir's body while the other 5 were still attached to the pegs in the ground, "How could I break something you can't?"
Fenrir growled, "The seal that holds me was cleverly designed. It was decided by the council of eight that there might come a day when my help would be needed, so to account for this, every time I help a human who requires it, one of my chains will break. Think of me as a prisoner whose sentence is reduced for doing community service"
"Oh, so all I need to do is open a gate when the time comes?"
"Not so fast, little man, I haven't actually agreed to anything yet. Nothing annoys me more than rudeness, and you have done something very rude."
The boy picked his brain furiously for what it could be, then almost smacked himself in the head. He grabbed Temari's arm and pulled her down into a bow with him, "I have been remiss, great one. I am delighted to introduce my companion, Sabaku no Temari"
"Much better. I was worried for a second. I once had a nut job bring a girl here who he was going to use as a virgin sacrifice. He seemed perfectly normal until he started yelling about how he would spill blood to appease the ravenous hunger of the demon, in other words, me. I squashed him, which counted as helping the girl, so I broke a chain and ridded the world of an ass."
"You thought I was planning to use Temari as a sacrifice!"
"Nah, it just makes a good story. You didn't strike me as the type of human who would waste such a cute girl"
Temari blushed at the compliment. Fenrir was rather charming for a gigantic blue wolf made of smoke.
"Speaking of which, I was hoping that you might be able to do me a little favor, Temari-san"
Naruto was being ignored, and was having a minor sulking moment, but Temari was flattered, "What can I do to help?"
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Itachi and Kisame stared at the black portal.
"If you had to guess, Itachi, how long would you say they've been in there"
"About an hour and a half so far"
"So what do you feel like doing while we wait, then?"
"I dono…maybe we could play I spy or something"
Kisame looked sideways at his partner, "I Spy?"
"Yeah, the game. You know, where you say 'I spy with my little eye something that is' and a color, then the other person has to try and figure out what the thing is"
"I know how to play, but why off all things would you think of that? Why not train or something?"
Itachi shrugged, "Well, I spy just struck me as the kind of thing people would do for long periods of time"
"………………..Sometimes, I worry about you, Itachi"
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At the precise moment, Fenrir was a very happy wolf demon.
"Yeah…right there……wait, a little higher"
Temari giggled and climbed a bit higher on his neck. Though looking like nothing more than a blue haze, the demon was quite solid, and when climbed on his body felt rather like a huge sponge. She wasn't sure how long she'd been rubbing the demons shoulders, but it was fun.
"Oooh…yes, scratch the ears…"
Far below, Naruto was training, using the demons interlocking network of chains like a jungle gym, vaulting from one to the next. He swung around Fenrir's back leg on one of the loose chains and let go, flying through the air before landing and balancing calmly on the demons back, "We really need to get going soon"
Temari looked up from her ear rubbing, "Do we have to?"
"Yes"
"Sadly, your friend is correct. You have little time left, but I shall be there when my aid is needed."
Temari slid off the wolf's neck and jumped from his back down to the ground. She had discovered an odd sensation of power in rubbing the demons neck, to feel a being of such power react to her every move. But Naruto was right; it was time to go.
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"Hmm…I spy with my little eye, something that is red!"
Kisame's eyes roamed the area carefully; there weren't many things that were red.
"Ha! The clouds on my Akatsuki cloak!"
Itachi narrowed his eyes, "Yes…that's right"
The Uchiha wasn't currently wearing his cloak, and had figured Kisame wouldn't be smart enough to look at himself. It was now the Shark man's turn.
"I spy with my little eye, something that is……Naruto?"
The aforementioned boy stepped out of the portal, followed just seconds after by an unusually happy looking Temari.
Itachi glared, "Where in the nine layers of hell have you two been?"
"Giving a greater demon a massage, but that's beside the point. He agreed to help us, all Naruto needs to do is perform some jutsu that will weaken space enough for Fenrir to manifest from his prison dimension."
While Temari was talking excitedly, the gate was closing and Seirei Kirite emerging. Naruto grabbed the handle of his sword and immediately felt the Kyuubi's discontent. It was just now that it occurred to the boy that the portal had been open this whole time, and therefore Kyuubi had been holding it open the whole time.
Naruto resolved to be nice to the fox for a while.
"So then, we ready to go kick some ass?" Kisame asked
Naruto nodded, "Yeah, we need to move out soon, since security will be insane the last few hours, we need to perform the switch ASAP"
/-/-/-/-/16 Hours Until the Execution/-/-/-/-/
Naruto carefully tried on the ANBU uniform, noting how it stretched to fit his body. He locked the various pieces of armor into place and finally examined the mask. His looked to have been based on a bird of some variety, as uniforms had been distributed based on size.
With Naruto in the hotel room was Itachi, tired from using a powerful genjutsu on a 4 man ANBU team, and Kisame, who was currently amusing himself by arranging the unconscious members of said team into compromising positions on the bed.
Itachi was getting suited up next to Naruto, and Temari was changing in the bathroom. Their plan had gone almost flawlessly so far, they had spotted the ANBU who were assigned to give Sasuke his meals, and once the team split up and each headed home, Itachi, one by one, caught them in a powerful genjutsu and drugged them with enough sedative to keep them asleep for 3 days.
It was a tad bit of hassle, but Naruto had requested there be as little killing as possible. It had been brought up that the ANBU might be missed at home, but Itachi had assured the rest of them it wasn't uncommon for an ANBU to be gone for days at a time without warning.
Naruto clamped his final armguard into place, but burst out laughing as he turned around. All the ANBU had been left in their underwear, but Kisame had successfully placed them on top of and around each other so none of it was visible, and so anyone walking into the room would immediately make incorrect and rather naughty assumptions.
Itachi just rolled his eyes and finished strapping his own armor on as Naruto and Kisame admired the shark man's work.
A few minutes later, Kisame too was in uniform, and Naruto and Itachi were helping him make sure all his skin was covered up, since it really wouldn't do for Kisame to be recognized due to his rather odd shade of skin.
Only when Itachi pulled the hood up over the back of Kisame's head, finishing the disguise, did all three shinobi realize Temari hadn't left the bathroom yet.
Naruto walked over and knocked, "what are you doing in there? We have to go"
The doorknob turned slowly, and the bathroom door swung open equally slowly. When Temari finally did step hesitantly in to the main room, reactions were varied.
Itachi merely arched and eyebrow, Kisame whistled, and Naruto turned a color usually reserved for tomatoes.
All the ANBU they had captured were men, but the uniforms were stretchy, so no one had predicted a problem. The uniform she had chosen did in fact fit Temari, and showed of her curves rather nicely. A bit too nicely in her opinion.
"Do I really have to wear this?"
Naruto just stared blankly at her, and Kisame nodded with a slightly lecherous grin, so she looked to Itachi, who considered for a moment.
"I really think that one would fit you the best, Temari-san. You are the smallest; so I doubt any of us could even fit into that uniform"
"But…I'm really not comfortable…"
Naruto looked up, face blazing; "You look…fine"
Naruto's approval helped, and Temari decided that she could put up with the constricting uniform, if just for the sake of the Uchiha brat. This resolve became harder to maintain as she started to strap her armor on, as she could feel eyes on her. She looked back up and they were all still staring at her.
"Go do something else and let a girl get dressed!" she snapped, and they all (including Itachi) jumped and started to get ready for the exchange.
/-/-/-/-/-/12 Hours Until the Execution/-/-/-/-/-/
The four Nukenin slid their earpieces into place and walked perfectly in step up to the Jounin leader whose team was on guard duty.
It had been decided that being the only one of them to have ever been leaf ANBU, Itachi would do the talking. "We're here for the scheduled prisoner checkup"
Itachi had explained the odd law that Konoha could not execute anyone who was sick, so exactly 12 hours before the execution, he would get a checkup. According the schedule Itachi had taken off the man whose armor he wore, the checkup was to be done by Shizune, so the Nukenin had shown up 20 minutes before Shizune was set to arrive and would have to bluff their way through.
The guard looked up boredly, "Shizune-sama is to perform that task"
Itachi used his best 'ANBU' voice, cool and in control, with just a hint of threat. "The Hokage has ordered us to perform this task so as to relieve Shizune-sama of part of her heavy workload."
The guard looked at Itachi carefully, then shrugged, "Okay then, please pass through the chakra sensor"
Itachi had told them about this, it was a simple ring 10 feet high, but anyone molding any chakra at all would set off an alarm as they passed through it. The device would detect any bunshins among their group or even the weakest of genjutsu. There were very few chakra sensors, and their manufacture was a mystery, so they were only used for the highest security.
Once they had all passed through, the jounin nodded, "You people can go do your thing, but Shizune-sama will probably redo it anyway"
The first obstacle overcome, all four of them fought the urge to break into a run as they walked closer and closer to where Sasuke was being kept. Their arrival was actually rather anticlimactic, as it was just a regular door, and when opened up was just a regular cell. Except for its restrained occupant.
Sasuke blinked and looked up sleepily as four figures surrounded him. He figured it was just a regular visit until one of them leaned close his ear, "Listen up, bastard, we can get you out of here, but you'll need to stay cool"
Recognizing the voice as Naruto's, but not really able to respond, Sasuke just hung limply in a daze as he quickly found himself quickly unbound and on the floor. During this time, Itachi had been quickly undressing, so when Sasuke did come to his senses, the first thing he consciously recognized was his brother in nothing but underwear.
Not really having the energy for a full-blown angsty speech, Sasuke settled for a glare, "What are YOU doing here?"
Itachi sighed, "Saving your ungrateful ass. Now get up and get undressed or I'll do it for you."
Sasuke again sat in a semi-stunned state, and he found his body obeying and starting to undress even though his mind was otherwise occupied.
Itachi had come to save him? Sasuke had friends from the academy, teachers who cared about him, loyal subjects from the sound, and Itachi was the one to come save him? Not only that, from the looks of things, Itachi was going to risk himself. This reality did not compute with the mental image of Itachi that Sasuke held in his mind.
Sasuke was soon also in his underwear, and Naruto helped him put on the ANBU uniform his brother had been wearing while Itachi quickly threw on Sasuke's clothes and Kisame started to strap the older Uchiha into place against the wall.
Within minutes, the exchange was complete, and almost no one would ever be able to tell the difference between the two brothers. Sasuke had grown to look more like his brother as time passed, growing taller and his face thinning out.
Naruto suddenly noticed a problem, and before anyone had time to react, he whipped a Kunai out of his holster and pulled Itachi's hair out of its usual ponytail, and then with one quick swipe, he cut it to look like Sasuke's midlength mop, grabbing the excess hair and shoving it into his pocket.
Itachi glared at him, but they both knew it needed to be done.
Naruto wanted to get Sasuke out of there before he came to his senses and tried to kill the now mostly helpless Itachi, so he grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the room, Temari and Kisame following quickly after.
Once they were outside, Naruto again whispered into Sasuke's ear, "Listen, we are a group of ANBU who have just finished inspecting the health of Uchiha Sasuke, and we found him to be in perfect health, got it?"
Sasuke nodded slowly, and all four of them strode purposefully back out of the prison until they again met the guard. Naruto stepped foreword this time, "Everything is in order, and there are no complications"
The jounin shrugged again, "I figured as much"
With that, the nukenin and ex-prisoner vanished, bouncing from building to building. Naruto was leading them to a their hotel, where they picked up their weapons before moving to another hotel, far away from where they had left the sleeping ANBU.
Only when they were again safely within the boundaries of a private room did Naruto gesture for everyone to remove their masks, and Sasuke spent the first few minutes just examining each face, as he knew all of them.
Kisame was to be expected based on Itachi's presence, and Naruto he had recognized based on voice, but what Gaara's sister was doing here the Uchiha couldn't discern.
He just went on looking for a while, and the other three let him. When Sasuke finally did speak, his voice was low and carefully controlled, "I would like it if someone would tell me what's going on here"
Naruto sighed, "Very long story, which you will hear eventually. Right now, we need to sleep, because we have a major mission tomorrow and unlike you have been busy working all day. If you can't sleep, there should be some reading material in your left pocket."
With that, Naruto leaned his sword against the wall and flopped down on his bed, without even bothering to take off his shoes.
"Ahhhhh…"
Kisame and Temari took a bit more time but were soon also crawling into their first soft beds in a long while.
Sasuke sat in one of corner chairs and observed everyone in their attempts to sleep, "How do you know I won't escape?"
Naruto opened one eye, "Trust me, you won't"
Sitting silently for half an hour, Sasuke soon heard snoring and moving very slowly, he worked his way over to the window. When he was just about to jump out, he felt a hand on his shoulder, "I told you, stupid bastard, don't even bother"
Sasuke hadn't heard the fox boy move. Naruto led Sasuke by the shoulder back to his chair and was soon again snoring happily. Leaving Sasuke to sit and do what Sasuke did best, sulk.
After another 20 minutes of moping the Uchiha grudgingly reached into his pocket and pulled out what Naruto had called 'reading material.' It looked like a normal leather-bound notebook, and Sasuke was curious as he opened it and read the inside of the cover.
"The Personal Diary of Uchiha Ryouske Itachi"
Oddly, his first thought was that he hadn't known Itachi had a middle name. It was the kind of thing one expected to know about ones brother. It was also the kind of thing one expected to know about a person they had devoted their lives to killing, so Sasuke felt he had failed doubly.
Once this rather random thought process worked its way through his mind, he pondered for a moment, and turned to the first page. He really had nothing better to do, and as far as Sasuke was concerned, anything he learned about Itachi would be to his advantage, so he started to read.
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Naruto lay in bed, feigning sleep. He could hear Temari snoring lightly not 10 feet away, and let his minder wander through thoughts of the sand girl.
Between the arrival of Kisame and Itachi the rushing that had followed the discovery of Sasuke's capture, he realized that he and Temari really hadn't had any time together. In fact, the last time he and Temari had a decent conversation without one of the Akatsuki around had been the 'incident' on the rooftop, almost three weeks ago.
This bothered him, and on reflecting, he discovered that he had become oddly adapted to Temari's presence. He immersed himself in memories, remembering the times she smiled, the times she glared, and the times she threatened him with bodily harm.
He remembered the threats fondly, because it was something of a joke between them, seeing as how Temari had as much chance of beating Naruto and Seirei Kirite as Neji had of winning the 'Mr. Personality' contest.
But of everything, Naruto liked it best when she smiled. It was a rare occurrence, but that just made it all the more treasured. He lost himself in the warmth of memory, but suddenly snapped out of it as he opened his eyes with a start. It was at that precise and exact moment that Naruto realized he had a major crush on Temari of the Sand.
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The next morning's dawn found Sasuke still in that same position, reading the final diary entry. In 5 hours he had sifted through all his brothers various experiences and thoughts, and as his eyes washed over the final passage, he felt a great weight settle on him.
If Sasuke took a step back from his prejudice and hate, it frightened him how much sense Itachi made. He had started reading in hopes of learning something about his enigma of an older brother, and now he wished he knew less.
Sasuke had demonized his brother over a span of many years, an image Itachi had done nothing to dispute, but now as he sat in a hotel room surrounded by soon to be waking nukenins, Uchiha Sasuke faced the greatest opponent of his life.
He had come face to face with his brother's humanity.
Sasuke was well aware that he was not one who could lecture about morality, so acknowledging that his brother was human put them on the same level, and though he still hated Itachi fervently, he found his once fanatical obsession fading with the morning's dew.
Naruto started to shift and slowly opened his eyes, "Bleh…it feels like I just got to sleep…what time is it?"
Sasuke looked out the window, "about 9AM"
"Okay then, time to get out of bed…how was your night, by the way?"
"I don't really know…I'll just say it was interesting and leave it at that."
Naruto grinned, "We kinda need your help today, are you up for it?"
The Uchiha snorted, "I am, at the very least, one who pays his debts. Besides, it wouldn't count for anything if Itachi dies because I was too weak to protect myself. That would contradict the point of killing him."
Naruto grinned wider, "alrighty then, the plan goes like this"
/-/-/-/-/-/-/35 Minutes Before the Execution/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Itachi looked up wearily as the pink haired girl walked slowly into his cell carrying a tray of food. He knew from Naruto's stories that this could be no one but Sakura, the girl with the obsessive crush on his brother.
He watched passively as she undid his bindings and set some food before him, and he silently started to eat. Itachi had to say he was annoyed at his brother, because although he liked fried rice as much as the next person, asking for it for a final meal was just lame.
And water? WATER?
If Itachi had to pick a final meal, he would ask for a 30 oz steak marinated in honey taken from the hive at the top of a redwood and gathered by 3 virgins on the night of a full moon. As a side dish, he would demand truffles from Grass country mixed with Escargot from Water Country. Just to be excessive, he would top it all off by demanding red wine aged for at least 150 years.
But his brother had asked for fried rice and water.
It was only after a minute or two of mental grumbling did Itachi pay much attention to his pink haired guest, and he felt a tug on what was left of his heartstrings. Deciding to at least be polite, he looked up at her, "Thank you for this, Sakura"
The reaction he got was rather the opposite from what he expected. She started to cry.
"Don't thank me, Sasuke-kun. Not now."
It looked to Itachi like this girl was even more shaken up than expected at the thought of Sasuke's execution, so the older Uchiha decided she should see the escape.
"I have a request, one final thing I would like you to do for me"
She smiled and wiped the tears from her eyes, "You know I'd do anything for you, Sasuke-kun"
He looked up at the roof his cell; "I want you to be there, at noon today. I want you to promise that, no matter what, you won't look away."
Sakura didn't know what to say, but she couldn't refuse him, so she nodded mutely.
Itachi wasn't sure what came over him at that moment, but somehow the thought of the joy seeing Sasuke's escape would bring the girl in front of him brought a small but rare smile to Itachi's face.
He admonished himself as he went back to eating, it word of this ever got out; someone might mistake him for a good person.
/-/-/-/-/-/7 Minutes Before the Execution/-/-/-/-/-/
Naruto, Kisame, Temari and Shizune stood surrounding Itachi, waiting for the signal to proceed. His three 'guards' all again in full ANBU uniform.
In the trees at the edge of the training field where the execution was to take place, Sasuke sat hidden cradling three oversized weapons in his arms, cursing whoever had decided that when it came to weapons, bigger was better.
They all felt the explosions rock the village, but no one left their posts, and just minutes later Shizune saw the signal and started to lead the Nukenins through the masses of people.
As they walked, Naruto sub vocalized into his communicator, speaking just loud enough for the microphone to pick up on "Ne, Temari, I wanted to apologize for something"
"Is this really the time?"
"Yeah, I need to say this now………I know things have been awkward between us for a while, since the 'incident' on the rooftop, and I'm not really good at this kind of thing…"
Naruto paused and hesitated for a moment
"But I want to say I'm sorry for being so distant and that I really do like you a lot"
It was a good thing Temari was wearing the mask, because she could feel her face heating up, "I like you too Naruto……but I really think we should talk about this later"
"Yeah…later" Naruto agreed, feeling slightly drained. It had taken a lot of courage to say that, far more than he had expected.
At this moment, it should be noted that both Naruto and Temari had forgotten one small fact, that since they were talking over their communicators, Kisame could still hear their every word.
The Shark man wore an evil grin under his mask. If they survived this, he would have enough ammunition to make fun of those two for the next 10 years.
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Itachi stood calmly chewing his stick of Pocky as the huge fireball was bearing down on him. At the last moment, he activated his Mangekyou Sharingan and surrounded his body with the black flames of Ameterasu.
His black flames protected him from the worst of the blast, but keeling over as the fire jutsu finally ended was one of the most painful moments Itachi had ever experienced.
He forced himself to lie calmly and quietly as the Hokage approached, then when she was about to check his pulse, Itachi felt three impacts in the ground around him.
Right on time, foolish little brother, he thought amusedly. He heard the commotion that was most assuredly Naruto, Kisame and Temari revealing themselves, and grabbed the Hokage's wrist while he opened his eyes and pulled himself up.
"That……HURT!" he growled.
Tsunade could only manage a single utterance as her eyes met Itachi's:
"…mangekyou…"
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Author's Notes 2: Well, 2 chapters later and we're finally back where we started.
Ameterasu is one of Itachi's two Mangekyou jutsu (the other being Tsukiyomi) and it creates powerful black flames that don't burn the user.
Next Chapter: Fenrir struts his stuff, some verbal spars between siblings, and actual plot advancement
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