I do not own any of the characters in this story. DC Comics and Kishimoto do.
The main non-Naruto characters I'm using are Mr. Majestic and the vampiric Euchrastia from the Wildstorm comics (now part of DC).
This was intended to be an expansion of a one-shot into afull story, but the details proved more slippery than an oil-coated snake, so… here's hoping that someone else can pick it up and flesh it out.
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The Librarians
Prologue – The End Of The Universe
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Do not fight, Majestros. Let my probes drink every spark of consciousness within your skull.
There's nothing to be afraid of. I have everything under control. Come here, inside my mind. See for yourself.
Your friends are already here. The pale woman and her fascinating virus.
You are safe with me, Majestic. I'm the ony one. I'm the only one who's worked out what will happen when space dies.
What do you mean?
Where am I? What am I?
You're what you have always been. You're an intelligence. Now calm yourself. The point of final entropy approaches…
That last moment, that I have prepared for all these long and lonely eons.
B-But when total entropy occurs, the universe will reach Absolute Zero.
Yes. It's happening as we speak. And as all things reach zero temperature, what happens to their conductivity; to their ability to pass a current?
They… They become superconductive?
Yes. The entire universe becomes a superconductor where the weakest impusle will be amplified across eternity!
Even the impulse of a single thought, Majestic…
A single thought, reamplified and echoed, could set all the universe ablaze!
Do you now understand, Majestros? At Absolute Zero, the whole superconductive continuum becomes a single living mind.
Our mind!
A-And this web of filaments?
My finest hairs reach into the molecular structure of Space itself. Within the superconductive whole, this mesh provides Cortex and a nervous system.
It's made of living gold.
I had to absorb an entire race of living Golden Symbionts to make it.
Now be still. Zero approaches. Let us hush our very thoughts, until we're sure we have the right thought.
And heat dies. Absolute cold everywhere. Our silent mind spreads out through every particle of the universe.
Everywhere is so empty and so dark. Involuntarily, a thought occurs to us.
It is the right thought.
There really should be light.
And lo, there is.
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Extracts From The Majestros File
(Restricted – Hokage and Adviser level only)
As the usual histories show, Konohagakure was formed when the warring Senju and Uchiha clans finally declared a truce and then allied to protect themselves against those who still wished to promulgate the Age of War. The first true settlement was relatively small, being nestled at the base of a cliff which had a lookout post at the top, a post reachable by a set of stairs within the cliff, a rising tunnel created by judicious use of Doton techniques.
As other clans realized the advantages of allies and a fortified home instead of their previous nomadic existences, the Village Hidden In The Leaves grew Hyuuga clan, despite being neutral towards the Senju and traditional adversaries of the Sharingan-using Uchiha, pledged themselves to the growing village, an act which also brought in their own allies, including the semi-bestial Inuzuka clan, and set the stage for Konoha to become the first among the hidden villages.
Every Hidden Village has secrets, however, and Konoha is no exception. The reason that Konoha is located in its current position has less to do with tactical advantages than the fact that the cliff is where the great heroes Majestros and Eucrastia had chosen to live.
Majestros was one of the Great Warriors, able to fight both Uchiha Madara and Tobirama Senju to a standstill, using techniques unlike any others known to exist. Without the use of Chakra, Majestros could punch through solid stone and fly through the skies faster than a shout could travel, leaving a rippling peal of thunder in his wake.
His life-mate Eucrastia, although preferring to refrain from combat, was also gifted with chakraless techniques which defied duplication. With the strength of ten and reflexes so sharp that many could mistake them for being precognitive, she could flow round any attack to the point that fighting her was seen as being akin to fighting the very air itself. Rumors that she could turn into mist and heal from any injury simply by drinking blood remain unconfirmed, but were too widespread to be without foundation.
Although Majestros could have claimed the position of leadership of Konoha with ease, it is reported that he claimed to have had his fill of commanding armies and besieging cities. Instead, he declared that he would stand alongside the chosen leader as an adviser, equal to the Hokage, yet without the right to command any Shinobi save when the Hokage him- or her-self decreed that he could, and even then, only until the mission was complete.
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When Uchiha Madara decided to unleash the Kyuubi no Kitsune upon Konoha in his rage at his rival Senju Hashirama being chosen as the first Hokage, Majestros was the one who saved the village by literally punching the Biju away from Konoha. The Kyuubi's landing created the feature known as the Valley of the End.
Knowing that he himself could not do more than simply hold off the Kyuubi, Majestros enlisted the help of Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Mito, flying them to where the Kyuubi was recovering with Madara attempting to regain control of it. After Hashirama separated Madara from the Kyuubi with the use of the Chojo Kebutso technique, the Hokage engaged the berserk Uchiha in ferocious combat while Senju Mito managed to seal the Kyuubi within herself, aided by Majestros whose punches kept the Kyuubi dazed and unable to resist.
Upon realizing that his trump card was his no more, Madara attempted to slay Mito in order to release the Kyuubi once again, only to be intercepted by Hashirama. As the duo continued their battle, Majestros flew Mito back to Konoha before returning to find Hashirama victorious, albeit heavily injured. Returned back to Konoha by Majestros, Hashirama was nursed back to health by Mito, whom he later married.
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The vast majority of Konoha's population and virtually everyone outside the village believe the names Majestros and Eucrastia to be titles celebrating the first warriors and passed down to those deemed worthy along with the techniques which seem to use no chakra, a belief that is covertly encouraged by no less than Majestros and Eucrastia themselves. However, the truth is that the Majestros and Eucrastia who walk the streets of Konoha are in fact the original duo, possessing a lifespan measured in the millennia. It is noted that both of them, along with several of their former allies, witnessed the death of a universe and the creation of the one in which we now live, although they had to sacrifice their bodies in order to survive. However, both have admitted that they were unsuited to incorporeal life and so their friend and ally, the being known as Hadrian, eventually restored their physical forms, albeit apparently somewhat upgraded in Eucrastia's case. Careful questions have confirmed that Majestros is more powerful than he shows, but he prefers to not use his abilities if possible since it leads to his enemies underestimating him.
It is noteworthy that Majestros has stated that he currently has no living enemies…
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The Rescue Of The Sannin was the turning point of the Fire/Rain war when Hanzo The Salamander took to the field and was temporarily halted by the efforts of Team Seven, Jiraiya, Orochimaru and Senju Tsunade. As the battle ramped up, Majestros intervened by slamming into the ground at an angle, sending Hanzo flying and dispelling his Summon. Upon realizing that he could not defeat them, but that his forces had achieved most of the tasks he had set out to complete, Hanzo declared that the trio who had delayed him were to be known as the Sannin before withdrawing from the field. A conversation afterwards indicated that Hanzo had encountered Majestros before and been soundly beaten. Further details have yet to be established.
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In the events leading up to the temporary release of the Kyuubi and the death of the Yondaime Hokage, Majestros had taken it upon himself to investigate rumors of a man claiming to be Uchiha Madara. One such rumor took him and Euchrasia to the Land of Rice Paddies, but during his absence, the Kyuubi no Kitsune was forcibly extracted from its host and dispatched to attack Konoha. Although Majestros returned and helped to hold off the Kyuubi, actually ending the attack cost the Yondaime and his wife Uzumaki Kushina their lives and the Kyuubi was sealed into their newborn son. Due to Majestros being distracted by an attack launched by an unknown, mask-wearing teleporting enemy shinobi, he was not in a position to actually witness the ending of the battle.
The knowledge that the Kyuubi had been re-sealed was officially suppressed with rumors that the Yondaime had managed a mutual kill with the Biju being deployed in their place, thus making the other Villages reluctant to deploy their own Jinchuuriki anywhere near the borders of the Land of Fire. Although initilly successful, the plan was placed in jeapardy by rumors that young Naruto was the new host of the Kyuubi. It took the implementation of a law forbidding anyone from discussing the fact that Naruto was a Jinchuuriki with several public executions of those who broke the new law in order to ensure that word of the Kyuubi's fate would not travel outside the walls of the village.
In order to ensure the continued survival of the young Jinchuuriki, those shinobi known to be close to either of his parents were covertly encouraged to keep away from the boy with the explanation being that foreign spies would be watching for any sign that they were trying to protect the child of the Yondaime. Security through obscurity was the best way to prevent the Jinchuuriki from being assassinated or kidnapped, a plan which eventually resulted in the Jinchuuriki living long enough to become an Academy Trainee.
To aid in the plan, Majestros and Euchrastia were not informed as to the survival of the Yondaime's son, but were fed the public explanation that the orphaned Naruto had been granted the clan-name Uzumaki in memory of the officially-extinct clan that had once been Konoha's greatest allies.
Once the damage caused by the Kyuubi Event had started to be repaired, the Sandaime officially resumed control of Konoha, accepting the mantle of Hokage once more. In the ceremony which made the resumption of his role official, Majestros repeated the act he had performed four times previously, placing the Hokage's Hat on the head of the new Hokage.
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The Hyuuga Incident was an unfortunate event orchestrated by Kumo in an attempt to gain a sample of the Byakugan for themselves. The Kumo Ambassador waited until Majestros had departed on a mission, then used the opportunity to kidnap the Hyuuga Heir, Hinata. Unfortunately for the would-be kidnapper, Majestros was returning from his mission as the Ambassador fled and confronted him long enough for Clan-Head Hyuuga Hiashi and his twin brother Hizashi to catch up. Knowing that he was about to be captured, the Ambassador used an area-effect suicide-jutsu to do as much damage as possible while preventing himself from being interrogated as to what his orders had been. Majestros' speed allowed him to rescue Hinata and protect her from the explosion, but Hizashi took significant injuries from the blast as he protected his brother with his own body, forcing him to retire from the Shinobi forces despite the best that the Med-nins could do.
The remains of the Ambassador were taken by Majestros to Kumo along with an official protest. To deliver the protest, Majestros simply flew straight through the wall of the Raikage's office, dropped the Ambassador's remains on the desk and knocked out the Raikage with a single punch, leaving him lying on the ground with the scroll on his chest as a sign that Majestros could easily have killed him if he had deemed it appropriate.
Since that day, the shinobi of Kumo are noted to be almost uniformly polite and non-confrontational when dealing with the Shinobi of the leaf. It is also worth noting that the-then Raikage retired within a week of the message being delivered, the Hat being taken by his son.
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The Uchiha Massacre was another event timed to co-incide with Majestros' absence from Konoha. However, the massacre was partially averted when Eucrastia intervened. Although most of the Uchiha Jonin, Chunin and Genin had been killed by the individual known as Tobi who was utilizing a unique Jutsu that rendered himself immune to attack, Eucrastia was somehow able to fight him to a standstill long enough for Majestros to return. Faced with the Two Heroes, Tobi withdrew via what Majestros identified as the same trans-dimensional time-space technique that had been used by the unknown Shinobi during the Kyuubi Event.
It is very likely that Tobi is either the shinobi who was responsible for the death of the Yondaime, or is linked in some way.
With proof that the orders he had been following were fake, Itachi agreed to take the blame and leave Konoha, becoming a Nukenin and secret operative, funneling information back to Konoha. Sasuke was taken in by Majestros and Eucrastia, both declaring that they had experience with combat trauma and how to overcome it.
Eucrastia has since vouchsafed that Sasuke's Sharingan seems to be active but trauma-locked. As of the time of writing, she has yet to cause it to unlock, but the fact that it has activated means that any children Sasuke sires will have a very high chance of inheriting the Sharingan.
Danzo has gone into hiding after hearing that Majestros had discovered that he was the originator of the faked orders. In addition, operations by his covert group have decreased, now being purely information gathering with the results being delivered via messenger birds…