Return and Attack: Chapter 10: Of Paper Work and Saviors
Part III: The Reasons for Being
The man, who identified himself as Kazama Arashi, stared into the faces of nine people he had never seen before in his life. Only the faces of Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Kakashi held any semblance of understanding.
"But…that's impossible…the yondaime died….kyuubi." The jumbled words sprang from Sasuke's mouth as well as Hinata's. Shino was just as surprised but he didn't show it, and Shikamaru was staring at him intensely. Rock Lee was dumbfounded, and on the verge of collapsing onto the ground, while the sand siblings were very confused indeed.
"Well, I can see that some things need clearing up." Arashi said. "All right, this may come as a shock to some of you, but I wasn't able to kill the kyuubi. Not out right at least, you see something like the Kyuubi simply can't be killed, it is too powerful, and its regeneration abilities make it almost immortal. Not even the god of death was able to kill it in the end, despite my hopes that it would. So I was left with only one option, I had to seal it into something."
"Wait, a minute, we don't even know you, and you expect us to believe that you are the fourth Hokage, and you sealed the kyuubi that attacked us into Naruto?" Temari screeched at the blonde boy. "I think you must have taken too many lumps on the head or something."
"I'll explain that." Jiraiya interrupted the conversation going on in the crowd. "I don't know how, but that must be my former student. No one else, not even Naruto could have performed the Hiraishin no jutsu (Flying Thunder God technique). That was what the kunai I threw him was for. He became famous for that technique, and earned his nickname as the 'Yellow Flash of Konoha'. But if you want more proof, just look at his cheeks; the 'whisker' marks are gone, which shows that the kyuubi was removed. My question is, how are you even alive?"
"That's a good one, Jiraiya-sensei. I guess I should explain, you see the story of 'Uzumaki Naruto' is very long and even more complicated than many of you know or realize. If any of you have looked, you would know that there is no Uzumaki clan in Konoha. Not only that, but there never has been, and if any one by that name ever liven in the village, than there are no records to show it. To seal an entity such as the Kyuubi, the vessel must not have developed its chakra pathways in any shape or form. Therefore, a newly born child is needed."
"Oh, that makes sense, so that would explain why you chose Naruto-kun." Hinata stated a bit worried, her boyfriend had suddenly disappeared, and been replaced by the thought to be dead Yondaime Hokage.
"Actually the reason that I 'chose' Naruto isn't nearly that cut and dried. I knew a few things when I prepared to seal the demon away, the first was that this kid would probably be wanted for its power, and therefore would need to be able to defend itself. The easiest way to do that was to use the child of a shinobi family. The only problem, was that the youngest born child at the time, was the Yamanaka's daughter, and I couldn't ask for them to give up their child."
"Wait, are you implying that Naruto is your son?" Asked a startled Shikamaru, partially due to the situation, partially due to the knowledge that had things been a little bit different, Ino could have been the vessel.
"In a way yes, he is my son. But I was never married, never had a wife, or a child. To understand Naruto, what he is, what he's done, you must first know a bit about his favorite technique. The kage bunshin no jutsu, is a kinjutsu, allowing a ninja to create solid clones out of nothing."
"Wait, I'm confused, Kirigakure has its mizu bunshin, and Orochimaru had mud clones, but why is the Kage bunshin on the list of kinjutsu?" Kakashi asked.
"Well, besides the fact that this seems to break the law of chemistry and physics by creating something from nothing, it uses a lot of chakra to perform. That is only part of the reason that it is included in the scroll seals. The second reason is due to what it could be used for." The fourth replied. The origins of the technique are actually from the beginnings of the village, hence why it is first on the scroll. The first Hokage actually created the technique to help him with his paper work, and I must say, it is a live saver."
"Now why didn't I think of that?" Tsunade groaned as she slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand.
"Anyway, since I didn't have any newborn babies from shinobi families, I either had to find one, or come up with another plan. What I ended up doing was improvising. I failed to kill the kyuubi outright, so I had to make a desperation back up plan, and hope that it worked. I created a kage bunshin, and poured enough chakra into it, to give it actual life. I called it Kage Bunshin no jutsu: Sozo or shadow clone: genesis. I used my own DNA and created a physical clone of myself to seal the kyuubi into. However, the clone doesn't have a soul, and had I simply placed the Kyuubi's soul and power into the clone, the Kyuubi would have taken over, and continued its destruction. So I used another kinjutsu, a version of Orochimaru's immortality technique, and transferred my soul into the clone as well. Since two souls cannot occupy the same body, a third soul was created as a mixture of the two. 'Naruto' is actually a mixture of the Kyuubi's personality with my own. That is why we bear such a striking resemblance, and why we share many of the same ideals. Also, it explains why he learns jutsus so fast, a clone automatically knows all the techniques of the original, and since I knew a bunch of them, all it took was some practice."
"Ok, that explains how you got hear, but it doesn't tell us why." Tsunade was rubbing her temples trying to digest all this information.
"Well…" The blonde paused, taking a deep breath before he began his narrative.
Flashback
Naruto was lying in a pool of water, unconscious, as the remaining members of the Akatsuki began to rip the soul of the Kyuubi out of him. Slowly he opened his eyes, to find himself in the familiar mindscape where the Kyuubi was imprisoned. He slowly got up and made his way towards the cell that held the Kyuubi prisoner. What he found wasn't a pleasant sight. The mighty demon was looking pale, and flickering in and out of existence in front of his eyes. Suddenly with a great pulse of chakra, both Naruto and the Kyuubi disappeared.
End Flashback
"So, the Kyuubi was removed from him." Jiraiya summed up.
"Yes, and along with it, 'Naruto'." Arashi explained.
Upon hearing this news, Hinata and many of Naruto's friends began to cry. The loudmouth blonde boy they had once known was no more. Tsunade had indeed lost her brother, again, and Sasuke wasn't any better. Hinata was once again bordering on the edge of shock at the thought of her love being gone for ever, yet having a constant reminder that he was still there. It was more than she could bear to think about.
"Now, I hope that you don't think for one second that I intend to keep things the way they are." Arashi said, when he saw the sad expression on his rescuers faces. "Once I finish this impromptu report to Tsunade, I plan on re-sealing the kyuubi inside of me, and recalling Naruto's soul."
At this, the sad expressions on the faces of many began to brighten and a small smile crept on their faces, despite their watering eyes.
"After the removal of the Kyuubi and Naruto, I was left in sole possession of this body. You should have seen the faces on the leader's face, when I got up and decked him in the face!" Arashi chuckled. "Anyway, it turns out that the leader of this organization was the first body that Orochimaru used his technique on. He had some blood line limit that allowed his soul to remain dormant until Orochimaru left him for another host. In doing so, he actually managed to absorb the snake's soul a bit, and inherited many of his abilities, as well as his ambitions. The goal of the Akatsuki was to create the perfect vessel for the leader, and the powers of the biju would create that body, with Shukaku's defense, the Nibi's ability to heal rapidly, and the Kyuubi's regeneration skills, it would be an invincible vessel, never aging, or growing weaker. But during our, rather anti-climactic fight, Orochimaru himself actually showed up, and re-absorbed his former container's soul, instead of simply containing it. That's why the body over there is dead." He motioned towards the body of the leader of the now defunct organization. "Since the snake bastard didn't know about my soul inhabiting Naruto's body, he thought he was fighting Naruto. Well, let's just say that Kabuto cannot take a rasengan to the head and live to talk about it. The snake still didn't recognize me though, and we fought for a good time, it was almost three hours from the start of our fight, until you guys showed up. It wouldn't have been as long, but I was really low on chakra, and being unconscious for two days doesn't help either."
"Wait, I thought that to drain the chakra of a biju as strong as the Kyuubi would take weeks, but it seems to have taken only a couple of days. What happened?" Jiraiya asked.
"Well, it seems that as a side effect of having three souls, the Kyuubi's soul wasn't as well anchored as it should have been, and when you mix that with the damn fox's want to leave, he was able to get out rather quickly." Arashi explained.
"What was that move that you killed Orochimaru with?" Asked Jiraiya, "I haven't seen you do that one before."
"Oh, that? That's something I just created, the raisengan; it uses the trust from Kakashi's raikiri, along with the Hiraishin."
"I thought that you couldn't perform the trust of the chidori without a sharingan to anticipate the enemy's counter attack." Sasuke said in a confused manner.
"That's true, but with sensei's hiraishin, he is too fast for anyone to counter attack him. So he can do the thrust as long as he uses the hiraishin without worrying." Kakashi explained.
"Wait!" Tsunade interrupted "How can you reseal the Kyuubi, won't you die in the process?"
"Actually, since the Kyuubi's soul is a part of this body, it won't kill the body, and since our souls will inhabit the same container again, Naruto's soul should return." Arashi explained.
Turning towards a large statue in the background, Arashi preformed a large number of hand seals before naming his jutsu.
"Nagasu Kihaku Fuuin no Jutsu! (Draining Soul Seal Technique)"
Suddenly a large amount of red chakra began to seep towards the blonde boy, before connecting with his small form. After a few minutes of stunned silence, two flashes of light descended on the form of Naruto/Yondaime before exploding into a large flash of light. When everyone's eyes readjusted to the scene, they found Naruto's body lying on the ground, unconscious but breathing, and the statue that previously held the soul and energy of the Kyuubi, cracked and falling apart. Tsunade and Hinata rushed forward to check on the fallen boy.
"It's all right; he's just passed out from exhaustion." Tsuande reported.
A wave of relief flooded the remaining members of the rescue party. Lifting Naruto, Tsunade walked over to the group and simply nodded.
"Let's go back. These people can never bother anyone again." She said and began the trek to return to Konoha.
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(A/N: Well, there it is, what I consider to be the greatest plot twist since Citizen Cane. I wasn't actually planning on writing this until next weekend, but my overbearing roommate's double header soccer match bought me the time to do it today. I'm sorry if I left you guys confused after the last chapter, but I thought it would create a better cliff hanger. I cannot take credit for the sealing technique, I used the one from Warrior's Strength, Child's Innocence by Airhead Dude, and I highly recommend you go read this fic, it's awesome. I did however, create Kage bunshin: Sozo. I thought of this idea a while ago, and I have yet to find someone who came up with it as well. As always please review and I'll have the next chapter out soon!)