DISCLAIMER: I Don't Own Naruto

'Betrayal'

CH.3

Tsunade remained lost in thought for a moment. In thought for Konoha, in thought for Naruto, in thought for the world itself.

"how" she began softly as she stared away into space. "how do you know?"

"Sound…" his voice cracked. "Sound is gone…"

Tsunade's mind whirled at the possibilities involved in such a task. Was it truly the Kyuubi ? Was it instead perhaps an experiment gone wrong? She needed to know.

"Jiraiya…" she could tell his mind was still having problems coping with whatever he had seen. "What exactly did you see out there…" she paused to allow him time to speak, praying he had jumped to a false conclusion.

His eyes unfocused as his mind returned to the remnants of Oto. An enormous crater spanning damn near the entirety of Hidden Sound Village. Corpses and debris spread around for miles, singed, and mostly burnt, others torn to pieces. The stench….the stench of death and burning flesh that would not leave his nostrils and could not be washed out….

The messaged tilled into the earth in the center of the crater in trenches so deep Gamabunta's knife would be hard pressed to match just one:

" I HAVE RETURNED "

…and the Nine great rifts filled with blood that spread out from the message itself, announcing without any doubt to whom the message referred.

So it was easy for Jiraiya to sum up what he had seen.

"…Hell…" he whispered out in a short breath. " I saw Hell…"

Tsunade could only wonder about what he spoke of and what had actually happened.

HIDDEN SOUND VILLAGE: 3 MONTHS PRIOR- Zero Hour

Orochimaru was pleased at the progress he and his seal masters were having with the Yondaime's containment Seal. It was difficult work to decipher, decode, and deconstruct it and even he himself, a self-proclaimed master of seals and an acknowledged leader in the field, had to admit that most portions of it were sheer genius .

'Of course' Orochimaru scoffed. 'It would take nothing less than a seal such as this to contain the Demon Lord Kyuubi."

It also galled him to have to admit to it, but there were several smaller, personalized seals and designs within the larger ones that he was completely clueless about, their true purpose eluding him and his subjects entirely. This was especially troublesome since even a minor mistake involving the complicated seals could result in a cataclysmic outcome or the death of the container and consequently the demon he contained.

Naturally, there was a certain allure to being able to snuff out the existence of an ageless demon, but why destroy such perfection when you can meld it to suit your own purposes? He had to admit that the prospect of true and complete immortality being right before him was enticing to the point of near insanity.

It was why he was even willing to chance that the unknown seals were negligible and go ahead with his plans.

So here he stood, along with Kabuto and his other underlings, around a great series of seals spanning the whole of his Lab Zero. The boy, Naruto, lay bare and open to them all in a spread eagle manner in the center of the complicated set up. Orochimaru himself stood in the receptor seal, eagerly awaiting his moment of triumph.

Initially, he had been enraged when Kabuto had returned not with Sasuke, but the demon-brat. In his anger, he had lashed out against the boy and was more than surprised to see the wound heal so quickly before his eyes. Soon, experimentation was put under way and it was discovered that while initially it didn't seem to be as effective as Kabuto's bloodline or Tsunade's genesis seal, it more than surpassed them when it came to critical and mortal wounds.

The perfect test subject it seemed.

And so he was… for a time. All of his most sadistic experiments, many long forgotten for want of an acceptable test subject, were unearthed. But, as he had so often lamented since then, the Kyuubi and apparently the Yondaime's Seal resisted and undid so many, if not all.

Then, it had come to him, when he had been reviewing some of his borrowed research from the Atkatsuki. The Kyuubi as well as the other Biju were chakra based entities with immortal life spans. This was known and acknowledged throughout the five major powers and especially came into play when they were sealed into humans and inanimate objects alike. The beasts were sentient minds whose bodies were literally masses of energy that powered themselves by creating more energy. Summons, the attack beasts of nins, worked on principles much the same except nins provided the limited energy for the mass. When it did come time to seal the biju, however, they had to be sealed as one but a field had to be placed between their minds and energies.

He had actually based his own immortality technique off of his biju extraction and sealing research while being a member of the red dawn. His curse seal created a pathway for his chakra and soul to travel down when they left his body since he lacked the potent presence of chakra to create his own perpetually powered energy construct. Once in his container, his seal further worked to separate the mind of his host from his own energies so that he himself would be master of the body and could take the energies to add to his own. Theoretically, he could've been able to jump from host to host increasing his power exponentially, but alas there were problems.

The most formidable problem was perhaps the fact that for whatever energy he gained via the host and its power, he mostly lost in the effects of hi transfer jutsu. Immediately when his essence, his soul and chakra, leave his host's body it begins decaying in an effort to pass on to the otherworld so a decent portion is lost here. Then, when his soul and chakra do merge into the curse seal, even more is eaten away as fragments are lost during the funneling of the energy into the host. Most of the power of his last host is lost here since it is not in tune with his own chakra and is entirely foreign to the next vessel. The last problem is the matter of the decaying of the host body itself.

Despite his many attempts to synchronize his essence with other host bodies and a myriad of experimentations, decay was an inevitability. Vessel bodies simply could not withstand the prolonged presence and control of a foreign mind and chakra. The only reason the human sacrifices who held the biju did not die within a matter of years was because the foreign entities were sealed as the slave, not the master, and did not have free reign of the host. Granted, there were cases where the mind of the biju was granted more freedom to influence its container, but its chakra was also opened up more to the host as well.

There was a balance.

These facts seemed useless until he had a stray thought while comparing his own situation with that of the Biju. He had a weak essence and relied on his vessels to support him. The Biju had strong essences and were contained and divided by their vessels. Conceivably, if he did eventually refine his seals to the point where he began to gain power with each swap would he not at one point reach the strength of essence that the Biju had? Would he then not also be able to support himself in a perpetual energy construct?

Them IT had occurred to him.

If the container of a particular demon just so happened to be sealed in such a manner that the Biju's mind and chakra were nearly divided save for the situations which the seal and the host would allow, could he not simply claim the power himself in a manner and become immortal in the truest sense? It would be as simple as opening the door, running in, taking what he wished, and leaving .

And so here he stood, awaiting the fruits of a labor over sixty years in the making. He wasn't a man to get emotional, but even he couldn't deny the fact that he was literally shaking somewhat in anticipation. With an unsteady hand raised in signal and a nod to the men surrounding him the process began…

…and almost immediately went wrong.

The first sign that something was wrong was the blood red chakra that erupted out of the Kyuubi-vessel. Granted, he had not known exactly what the chakra would appear to be as it transferred to him, but there was an assured chance it would not be the blood red that was blazing towards him through the air and the seal contruct since it would not have been tainted by the mental presence of the Kyuubi. In fact, it should have appeared to be the same shade of black that was commonly emitted out form his curse seals since this greater design was based on several of its properties for the transfer of power.

Then again, it couldn't be black since the second the ritual was started and the partial unsealing activated, he himself had not had a chance to enter the vessel's soul-scape and achieve any of his objectives. This left him with but one, horrific and awe-inspiring conclusion. The gushing torrent of spiritual force heading towards him was none other than the earthbound manifestation of the Kyuubi no Kitsune.

Orochimaru had but a moment to reconsider whether he should have ignored those mysterious seals before the wave hit him and he knew no more.

When he did wake up it was to a changed world.

Oto, his Sound Village, was no more. There was nothing more to say. It was a wasteland, a burning hell that appeared to stretch on to the horizon.

From what he saw, he appeared to be in the very center of the destruction and for the life of him he could not figure out why he was alive.

"Ahhhhh, You're awake now I see. Good it's been a while…" a dark, rumbling voice chuckled out behind Orochimaru, startling him.

Orochimaru turned around in an instant, preparing to defend himself, no matter how hopeless a gesture it would seem to the force of nature before him. He was not prepared, however, to see the grinning, demonic form of Uzumaki Naruto complete with nine swishing tails, sitting behind a desk, his desk he recognized, and nearly a third of his village populace incapacitated or trapped in a crimson field of energy letting out what appeared to be silent screams of pain and agony.

For once in his long life, he was speechless.

Kyuubi grinned. "Speechless eh?" when Orochimaru couldn't respond the Kyuubi took it upon itself to continue. "Not that I blame you or anything. If I had fucked up as bad as you I'm fairly sure I'd be speechless as well." The Kyuubi simply laughed at Orochimaru's confused expression as he continued to look at the container, his people, and the landscape. "I hope you don't mind." The Kyuubi gestured to the torture of the Oto people and the landscape. "But I only have a short time to enjoy myself before I leave this plane."

"…how?" Orochimaru managed to strangle out as he gripped his hands onto his head in frustration.

The Kyuubi grinned before coming around the desk to actually sit on the top of it in front of the snake-sannin, explaining along the way. "Well, the short answer is…easily." As Orochimaru fell to his knees in a growing frustration and a need to understand, Kyuubi merely shook his shoulders and gestured in a 'What Can You Do?' manner. "What can I say? You were impatient? You didn't check to see what those seals were that you didn't understand?" Kyuubi's grin turned into an angry sneer before he kicked the kneeling sannin in the face and across a thirty foot distance. "BECAUSE YOU UNDERESTIMATED ME!" The incensed fox demon roared as waves of power flew off him punishing the sannin. "BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT YOURSELF WORTHY OF THE POWER ONLY I KNOW!"

The now crumpled sannin coughed up blood from the heavy blow.

"You were a fool to think yourself my equal, human." The Kyuubi accented the fact by materializing near the downed nin and kicking him back to his previous position near the desk.

The Kyuubi phased out of view only to reappear seated looking down on the broken form of Orochimaru with a small smirk that looked totally foreign on Naruto's features.

"However I must commend you on your efforts in the pursuit of greatness." The demon noted with a now bemused look on his face. "It has literally been ages since another has come so close to discovering the secrets of the Biju. I, the oldest of our kind, should know." The Kyuubi leaned back, enjoying the sensation of the leather recliner he had taken from the office before leveling it along with the rest of this pitiful village.

"You've actually been asleep for a day or so, which gave me plenty of time to read through your notes while I …entertained myself. I have to say I've rather enjoyed my last bout out in this world with the destruction, the carnage, and… Tayuya… I believe her name was… was most extraordinary while I slaked my lust with her body, despite its imperfections from combat. She called for you, you know?" the Kyuubi was curious as to how he would react to the news seeing as how the female seemed to have some connection with him. He was pleased when the mortal before him did not even seem stunned in the slightest. Such potential lost because of his impatience. "Yes, well…I'm sure you have no misconceptions about the fact that you're going to die. You and I have both committed ourselves to inescapable actions. The least I can do is at least tell you what you failed to take into account."

"T..the seals…" Orochimaru gurgled out with some effort and blood.

"Yes, the seals…" the Kyuubi nodded. "Those were of my own construction and implementation." The demon noticed the inquisitive look on the human's face. "Ah, how was I able to do such sealing? Well, you have yourself to thank for that. I've always had a certain measure of control over the boy when he uses my power, but only for a very short, very controlled amount of time and manner. I never had the time, access, or ability to do so before, but when you started your live experimentation with dear Naruto-kun here it enabled me to do my own… series of tests as they were."

"Your own?" Orochimaru asked as some of the bleeding lessened.

"Yes." The kitsune nodded. "That was why I burned out your impurities. They were getting in the way of my own experiments."

"But why…" Orochimaru wondered. "Why would you bestow such power on the boy unless you would gain control or could alter the seal. I would say that is what you have done but you speak as though you will soon die." Orochimaru paused in thought for a moment before something stuck out.

"Decay… your own greater essence is eroding away the mortal coils of the boy. If that is the case, why do you not try to merely unseal yourself or wait till the body is gone? Will your perpetual force not allow you to recreate a chakra construct?"

"No." the demon fox gave out, enjoying the even more confused expression on the mortal's face. "I have long since accepted the fact that my life is linked totally and completely to the boy's. I have no great affection for the impudent whelp mind you…I am merely accepting the truth for what it is. While the Shinigami itself would not be able to consume my soul it can certainly anchor it to a force greater than itself. The way that you and I escape the force of the otherside is buoyancy . You create earthly anchors and slip in and out among them. It is as if you cling to driftwood in the sea so as to float. I, however, and the other Biju, have elevated ourselves to the point of power where death would normally have no sway over us.

The Yondaime's seal and deal struck with the Shinigami however has created such an oppressive weight that I have no hope of true escape. While I aid the boy I merely aid myself. Do you understand?"

"Yes… but still. Why will you now die? Why have you even bothered then to augment him?" Orochimaru wondered. Perhaps if he could outlast the demon's speech this force would save him as well as bring the demon's doom.

The demon relaxed with his fingers…claws…steepled. "Yes, why indeed. The answer, in short, is to leave a legacy. I have not fought for so long to have my presence vanish so easily from this world. So, through my container and his line my name will be remembered. I have augmented him as you say, to make him more than what he was or ever could be. The line of my people will stretch forward out into time without end. They will never know disease or weakness in blood. They will know only strength and power… My dear mortal, be very proud, for you have been instrumental in the creation of a bloodline…a bloodline without limit." The Kyuubi ended by standing up and gesturing to himself.

Orochimaru scoffed. "Bloodline without limit? Fah, you are a fool Kyuubi. I see no difference in that body now than from when I tested it other than your influence."

Rather than getting angry the Kyuubi in fact looked more amused than before. "That is quite true my dear mortal." The demon then laughed, a dark laugh that made the snake's from tremble. "It is true that my great gift has not yet activated, but that is because the other half of the key to unlocking it has been asleep."

Orochimaru sneered as he finally regained his footing. "And what makes you think I will help you with unlocking this gift of yours when I, in the end, turn out no better?"

Orochimaru quickly paled as a ghostly form, a form he knew well from his last encounter with the Sandaime, appeared beside the demon fox.

"Because you now have no say in the matter, mortal." Kyuubi laughed uproariously. "I said you helped me create my great achievement, but did you really think it was just the experimenting that opened the door? Oh no, when you actually attempted to touch my essence and steal my power you opened yourself to me as well Orochimaru!" The Kyuubi floated up in a blazing ball of chakra above the ruined city. "You gave me the time and opportunity to do as I pleased, like time to set the triggering effects, and even provided me with the other SOUL I needed to tempt the honorable Shinigami into another contract."

Orochimaru screamed in pain as he felt the hand and knife of the death god enter into his body and lift him high into the air along with the mass of tortured bodies the Kyuubi was levitating.

"Behold Orochimaru…" the Kyuubi first gestured to the wailing snake-sannin and then to the ruined city below. "I will leave you a legacy as well ,as we prepare to embark upon our journey to the pits of hell and beyond!" With that said, the demon gathered all nine of its tail points together and unleashed a directed blast of energy downward that exploded in a titanic mushroom cloud. Quickly, the Kitsune waved its tails and created hurricane force winds that blew the smoke away to reveal a massive crater encompassing the former village. Bringing three of its spectral tails together, it shot out a wide beam of energy that cut deep into the earth as it carved a message and nine lines out into the land.

When it was done, the Kyuubi then gestured to the floating populace and divided them into nine sections. With a twitch of each tail, the people were crushed in a coffin of energy served to fill each scar with crimson paint.

Pleased, the Kyuubi turned back to the ashen faced snake-sannin. "Rejoice, Orochimaru for your land of Sound shall forever be remembered as the sight where the great Kyuubi no Kitsune unleashed its full power, where those who bear his gift were born, and where he did finally pass into the beyond!"

The Kyuubi laughed once last great laugh and then turned specifically to acknowledge the Shinigami. "So it seems I have finally fallen within your power death god. I have expended the bulk of my power here and now so that even were I free of your seal and influence I would still fall into your realm. The deal has been made, the human's soul is yours as will mine soon be, you of course will remove my legacy to a safe location as we discussed." The Death God nodded his head. "Then let us go. I grow weary of the weakness I now feel in this form."

If one had managed to stay alive past the culling of the Demon Fox and the measure of his wrath and actually stood upon the now cursed ground of Sound as the Demon Fox's soul was taken, they would have only seen a bright flash of light in the sky before all was dark.

N – A – R – U – T – O - N – A – R – U – T – O - N – A – R – U – T – O - N – A – R – U – T – O –

A/N: Well people there you go. That's what happened. Without having to worry about any last restrictions and staying alive we were able to see what a completely unchained beast could do. Now that the trigger has been released though, what will happen to Naruto? Where or When has he disappeared to under the protection of the death god himself? How will Konoha react?

Find out in the next thrilling chapter of Betrayal: 'The Chapter that will arrive in a year!'

(Just kidding). Jesus, I have over a hundred and fifty reviews for this beast. All I can say is…

YOU GUYS ARE SEXY BITCHES YEAH! YOU RoXX!

I can't say how great it is to get this much of a response and hopefully I'll start writing more. B/W this and UZU THE WORLD TRAVELLER my fanfic muse is sated.