*Chapter 37*: Prologue: Beneath a Dead City

Two years have passed.

Uzumaki was a ghost, a phantom. Akatsuki had slowly, at first, then with increasing alarm and effort attempted to track and catch the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubii, but with ever lessening effectiveness.

And Pein, crippled as he was now, was infuriated by his inability to improve the matter.

"You told me that these eyes were the greatest doujutsu that ever existed." Pein growled angrily at the masked man before him. "That there was nothing that could compare to them, not even the Sharingan."

Madara shrugged. "And they were." He answered. "But things change."

Pein was crippled even more now than when that blasted Sarutobi had sealed away three of his souls, including that of his true body, locking his awareness away into five remaining bodies.

After his encounter with Uzumaki Naruto a mere five months ago, that number was reduced to four, as Uzumaki had murdured the discovering body faster even than it could summon the other bodies to it. A talent that was now lost to him forever, since the body had rotted away to uselessness before the reanimator could travel there on foot.

Uzumaki had dropped completely off the radar, now. No trace of him for months, now, not even a whisper.

"I look eagerly forward to collecting those eyes for myself." Madara added. "A marvelous, wondrous tool to be sure, but no tool can eveer exceed the ability of its user to weild it."

Pein felt a glimmer of frustration, now. Before, it would have been child's play to deal with Madara and his foolish Gedo Mazo plan, but now...

"And," Madara commented offhandedly, "I wonder at the eficacy of the Rinnegan combined with this... Kamigan, as he has called it."

Pein shook his head. Ancients are a deadly trouble that will need to be dealt with. All Ancients, whether tree... or human.

Pein just wasn't sure any longer whether he would have the strength to do so when the time came.

Axenome Presents

Rogue Fox 2: Fox Hunt

Prologue: Beneath a Dead City

"She's incredible," said Ibiki. "Barely two and a half years ago she's a raw genin and now she's one of my best interrogators."

Beside him, watching through the one way glass, Yamanaki Inoichi chuckled and nodded. "You say that like you had no hand in her training."

"You can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear," Ibiki responded with a shrug. "Despite that gentle exterior, deep inside that girl is a collector who gathers bugs so she can watch them squirm helplessly on the pin. When she hauls out that collection to admire it, she's reliving the moments from when the pin pierced the insect's hard shell to the moment when the legs gave their final twitch."

Inoichi's face lost a little of its mirth. "Interesting figure of speech."

"It's not a figure of speech. She's actually shown me the collection."

Inoichi snorted. "Imagine she's popular with the Aburame."

"Not even a little bit." Ibiki snickered, pulling out a stick of string cheese and popping the whole thing in his mouth. The pair of them watched as the girl worked, a muffled crunch audible even here as a molar suddenly gave way to the vise like pressure of a set of ratcheting pliars. The prisoner convulsed slightly, but the paralysis tag that kept him silently likewise prevented him from moving more than an inch or so, a motion that in itself was a rather remarkable feat. Ibiki made a mental note to have the R&D department look into stronger tags.

He finished chewing and swallowed, before adding, "You were out on mission when we gave her SERE training, so you don't fully understand, but without you we had to make do with Yamanaka Komite."

Inoichi's eyes widened slightly, and he turned to face Ibiki with interest. "So she was the one-"

Ibiki's facial scars suddenly stood out in stark relief as his features tightened with a feral grin. "Yes. She was the one whose mindwalk got Komite hospitalized. That's the kind of mess running around in her head."

A particularly loud howl emanated from the room followed by a rasping cough as the subject under questioning was relinquished motor control. The restraining chair rattled heavily as the paralysis tag was removed, the victim thrashing somewhat for a few seconds. The pink haired girl frowned prettily, absently wiping at a spot of blood that had sprayed from his ragged, split lips. "Do we really have to be so stubborn?" She paused, as the man gave a strained groan before gathering himself and glaring defiantly at her. She sighed irritably. "Akagi-kun, really, I don't like having to do all this."

No, Ibiki thought with deep satisfaction as Sakura reapplied the paralysis tag and went back to work, you don't like it. The truth of the matter, is that you love it.

Another crunching noise came from the room, and Sakura smiled brightly. "You know, we have some very good dentists that could take care of that for you here in Konoha. Would you like me to recommend someone for you?"

Shikamaru looked over the data carefully with the Hokage. "I still say we should liquidate him."

Jiraiya shook his head with a smile. "Ah, but you forget. We know that he's compromised, but he doesn't know that we know. As such, the advantage at this point is ours, especially as we know who holds his leash."

"I haven't forgotten, I've already taken that into consideration," Shikamaru grumped. "And the level of information he's already garnered from Konoha before he was discovered will be difficult to emulate, more difficult than it's worth. If we were in position to capitalize on this it would be a different story, but as it stands..."

Jiraiya didn't respond directly to this; he was well aware of how things stood right now. Two years of extremely low numbers of graduates, the direct result of the partial destruction of both academy staff and students during the invasion had stretched Konoha's resources far thinner than would have been thought survivable. Somehow, Konoha was still hanging on, but by the thinnest of threads.

"Besides," continued Shikamaru, "I much prefer to deal with informants that are loyal to safe, dependable money. These religious types are too unpredictable, and this group in particular makes my skin crawl."

The Hokage snorted. "I think the term 'religion' is a mite too generous to use on the so called church of Jashin. Even so, this guy is the closest link we have to Hidan of the Akatsuki., and I intend to exploit this link for all it's worth."

"We'll be expending more resources than it's worth trying to confirm or deny what little useful information we'd get from him, much less anything else. He's a waste of Konoha's-"

There was a knock at the door. Both Hokage and spymaster chose to halt their conversation as Jiraiya looked at the wall clock. Just like clockwork. Jiraiya thought in annoyance. You could set every clock in the village by that kid. "Enter," Jiraiya said.

The door opened, and Chouji walked in. The large boy hesitated fractionally as he passed Shikamaru, who likewise paused momentarily, before both continued on their way, Shikamaru out the door and Chouji to take his place before the Hokage's desk.

Shikamaru ignored the pang he felt at Chouji's lack of greeting, standing outside the door patiently. Ever since the chunin exams so long ago, there had been a rift between them, one which only seemed to grow with the passage of time. The hopes of the parents to recreate the Ino-Shika-Cho formation in the younger generation had been fragmented by the formation of team seven, and shattered utterly now by simple circumstance. Ino had followed Sakura into T&I, Chouji had taken up the mantle of Toad Sage, and Shikamaru had earned jonin after his mandatory fifteen months of ANBU, along with fully entering the role as Konoha's spymaster.

Not for the first time, Shikamaru wished he'd been left on the team with Ino and Chouji back when Naruto had returned from his six week escape.

Not for the first time, Shikamaru wished he could turn back the hands of time and make sure that he and Chouji never drifted apart from best friends.

Not for the first time, Shikamaru wished- even a little- that Naruto hadn't ever come back in the first place.

And not for the first time, he considered, that if Naruto and other elements of Konoha's shinobi forces weren't returned to active duty soon, there wouldn't be a Konoha to return to.

"Whatever happened to living a simple life, with two kids, an average wife, then retiring to enjoy cloud watching and shougi?" He wondered out loud.

Also not for the first time.

Jiraiya made a show of looking at his wristwatch, checking it against the wall clock, with a clear frown and pointed look in Chouji's direction. "Punctual as always. We still need to break you of that habit- punctual is too predictable."

"Hai, Hokage-sama." Chouji replied, embarassed.

Jiraiya would have sighed if he'd not possessed the self control to resist it. Chouji was so incredibly passive; in many ways Jiraiya felt that Chouji really wasn't suited to the role of Gama Sennin.

In other ways, however, Chouji had proven incredibly gifted as well. Chouji had taken well to Toad Summoning- well enough that he'd managed to summon Gamabunta less than a year after he'd first signed the Toad contract. In terms of growth, Chouji had proven himself quite talented, for all that he wasn't a conventional sort of genius. And there was no question that he was physically the strongest of his geneeration, even before his clan jutsus. With them, his strength was phenomonal, eclipsing even that of Chouza, the Akimichi clan head and Chouji's own father.

Two months ago, Chouji had managed to achieve sage mode in the midst of the Baikahu no jutsu.

Ma and Pa toad adored him, of course. But then, Chouji held as great an appreciation for food as they did- and had none of the reservations about grubs and bugs that Jiraiya himself did. Jiraiya had always wondered if Ma and Pa knew how he felt about "having dinner over." Now he knew.

More than anything, however, Chouji was possessed of a natural tranquility, an inner calm and balance that permitted him to master natural chakra faster and with greater ease than any before him. Where Jiraiya was loud and boistrous, Chouji was gentle and humble. Where jiraiya was impulsive, Chouji was contemplative.

Jiraiya suddenly had an epiphany, a realization that made him feel a little ashamed of himself- that in most ways Chouji was better suited to the title of Sage than Jiraiya ever had been or would be. And at some level, Jiraiya had known almost from the start, and had been very jealous of it. There was a sudden knock at the door, and Shikamaru walked in after a moment. Chouji looked up, and watched as Shikamaru walked back to the desk. Jiraiya could see them both glance in one another's direction, clear that each wanted to say something, but then the moment passed, and their mutual separation grew a tiny fraction wider.

A crack that grows a mere inch a day becomes a chasm no man can cross unaided in two years. But Jiraiya had no talent for building bridges, only burning them. Much as he had done every day since the mantle of Hokage had been thrust onto him, Jiraiya wished desperately that he'd never come back to the village for the chunin exams.

Shikamaru cleared his throat. "By the way... Hokage-sama."

Jiraiya mutely arched an eyebrow.

"My network contacts in in Chindogu gave me an update- yesterday, someone came into town that began asking questions about Whirlpool village. Nobody remembers him any conversation with him, nor can anyone who had direct contact with him seem to recall his appearances, or anything else of significance about him." Shikamaru pulled out a pack of gum, slid a piece into his mouth, and began chewing, while offering a piece to Chouji in the process. Chouji considered it for a second, then shook his head. "I think it's him," Shikamaru concluded.

Jiraiya nodded. "Assemble the team. We need to recall him now." Jiraiya opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a scroll he'd held prepared for the last four months.

"Sakura? I'm home." Chouji called out from the front door.

The apartment was already begin the smell of sukiyaki, in amounts that Sakura had come to expect Chouji to eat. An unusually large amount of their mutual budget went to feeding them- at first, mostly Chouji, but over the last three months, Sakura was taking in her share as well. Sakura had gone to see a medic nin to confirm what she was already fairly certain of.

"I'm in the kitchen!" She answered back, already able to feel the growing child as she moved from sink to counter to stove to fridge, and all combinations thereof.

Chouji came up behind her, wrapping one arm around her, while his other hand gently removed hers from the vegetables she was chopping to hold them steady as she sliced. She leaned back into him, pausing in her task to turn her head and kiss him on the cheek before she turned her attention back to dinner. "You're back early." Sakura replied. "I hadn't expected you to be back so soon, or else I would have started dinner earlier."

"I imagine you were at work earlier," Chouji answered, delicately avoiding the topic of exactly what that work entailed, as was their custom.

"I could have left early." She countered lightly. As Chouji stepped back and went to the sink, washing his hands so he could start slicing the meat, Sakura added, "Oh! I have news for you!"

Chouji nodded. "I as well."

"You first, then." Sakura said, sliding sliced cucmber and squash off the chopping board and into the waiting bowl before she started in on the carrots and onions.

"Well," Chouji said, rinsing the soap and reaching for a towel, "I'm part of a retrieval team to reactivate an inactive nin. I leave tomorrow morning. The target area is the former Uzugakure region- duration expected to be two weeks, mostly travel time."

Sakura nodded. "I see."

Chouji laid the boneless rib eye onto the circular slicer, setting the thickness of the slices with barely a thought and flicking on the switch. "What's your news?"

Sakura blinked, waiting for several seconds as she heard the rhythmic swish-clak, whish-thump of the sliding meat back and forth across the circular blade. She set down her knife and folded her hands, turning to watch as he continued slicing until the entire cut of rib eye was finished, stacked onto a plate, and he was reaching for the less expensive cut of beef round. "Chouji-kun, I'm pregnant."

She smiled to herself slyly as the she watched the slicer, the round, and her betrothed all crashed to the floor.

"Neji sama."

Neji nodded. "Yes, Kodenbu?"

The lovely young woman swallowed hard. "Milord, it is my duty to present myself to you."

Neji's jaw tightened. The girl was beautiful, there was no doubt, and they had been married now for almost a year, but she had yet to carry his heir. The newly established father of the seventh House of Hyuuga had been bewildered by his elevation so long ago, and even more so when he was presented his chosen bride. He had made the uncomfortable attempt to sire his line several times, but though the young woman was both comely and his wife, the act itself always felt like he was forcing himself on her, for all that she was the one who offered herself, both the wedding night and the few nights thereafter which he had acted to consumate their marriage.

But tonight, he would not act the part of clan head, nor ancestor of his house. "Kodenbu, are you dissatisfied with me?"

"W-what?" She stammered. "Milord, I could never be-"

"Do not lie to me." Neji said tiredly. "I have no interest in a wife who would deceive me with smiles as though all were right with her."

Kodenbu blushed. "Milord, I have shamed myself," She began.

"Foolishness." Neji said coldly. "You have shamed nobody. But you do harm yourself in claiming a desire where none exists."

Kodenbu's brow furrowed anxiously. "I..." She stopped.

"You were given no choice in the matter of becoming my bride." Neji said. "And I have been a poor husband to you, I think, in merely accepting without concern of what you wished."

"My wishes are unimportant, Neji sama. It is my duty to my clan and the clan head." She answered steadily. "And I feel it to be no misfortune."

As she stood and slid her kimono down her shoulders, Neji knew that his marriage would never bear love. At the most, affection might grow, and they would become accustomed to their roles. His hands reached out and stopped the slide of cloth, pulling it back up to her neck, to rest on those porcelain fine shoulders. "A moment longer, my wife." Neji said. "It is not a matter of misfortune or duty that I speak. Rather, I mean that you take no pleasure from our joining, and I... feel this to be wrong."

She blinked confusedly, then her blush intensified. "I am lucky to be wife to a member of the Main house, and mother to a new line."

Neji shook his head. "I would wish for more than merely lucky, but happy. I know not what pleases you, and I wish to change this."

Kodenbu straightened her posture. "Nothing milord would please me more than to bear your child."

Neji growled suddenly, and swept back the band that hid her caged bird seal. "I wish you did not bear this mark."

Kodenbu seemed to shrink back into herself.

"Not because of you." He said, suddenly tired. "I have borne that mark. I would wish it on nobody."

"If Hinata sama has her way, none will bear it again." She said. Suddenly, as she realized what she'd spoken, he hand flew to her mouth, mortified.

Neji smiled at her. "That is the first honest thing you've spoken to me since we met." He said approvingly.

Kodenbu froze, confused. "Milord, I don't-"

"You have finally shown me an honest face, my wife." Neji said, reaching up and brushing a thumb down her jawline gently.

"Please do not hide it from me again."

Kodenbu bit her lip, searching his face for something- sincerity, he supposed, much as he looked for it in her. After a few long moments, she began to speak.

Hours later, as Neji held Kodenbu to himself, his muscles aching sweetly, sweat still in his hair, watching the flush fade from her face as she began to drift away into sleep, Neji felt a tiny smile creep onto his face.

Perhaps love was not so unattainable after all.

There is, after all, he mused, no fate but what we make.

Tomorrow he would depart with the retrieval team, but for tonight, he would spend tonight with a woman who he would ensure was truly his wife, rather than a glorified concubine.

Every footstep was a sound.

The dull wheeze of air escaping damp, aerated soil, too low in volume for most humans to ever suspect existed, the papery rustle of individual blades of grass pressed together, each of these was a footstep.

Mid-autumn wind echoed off the bark of the surrounding trees, a wind rapidly diminishing with each step closer to the hilltop ahead. His own clothes slid across one another's surface, whispering the miles he'd travelled and hinting at the miles ahead. His robe, brown and grey in neither dirty nor especially clean condition, neither new nor especially worn or ragged. Sandals peeked out from beneath the hem of his robe, and the smoothness of his cheeks was marred by three marks that retreated from his cheekbones back towards the line of his jaw.

Today, for the first time in two years, he was wearing his Hitai-ate. For the first time in two years, he openly wore Kubikiri Houcho slung across his back, looking fiercely intimidating now that he had begun to grow into his height. Before, as a youth, he'd been too disproportionate to the blade to be taken seriously at first glance. Now, he looked like a member of the shinobigatana no nananinshu.

Minus the sharpened teeth of course.

Most of the time.

As he'd been warned by the villager who would never remember him, the forest itself was beginning to give way. As the rising slope gentled out, become more level, fewer trees grew. More and more the grass and shrubbery were becoming the dominant plant life here. As he crested the hilltop, Naruto looked across the valley at his chosen destination. The wind that had blown so spiritedly lower down was completely gone, the air still, silent, and empty.

WE HAVE ARRIVED.

Yeah. Naruto replied in the confines of his mind.

The two surveyed the scene before them with one set of eyes, no bloodlines activated, gazing at the landscape with mortal eyes for a few moments.

It ended suddenly as memory flooded his mind. We're being followed.

ARE YOU SO SURPRISED?

Not especially. We have a few hours, though.

LET US BE ON OUR WAY, THEN.

Naruto nodded absently, but made no move for a few seconds. Two days.

YOUR BIRTHDAY.

Yeah. Naruto repeated unconsciously. He scratched at his chin, then ran his fingers through his newly blonde again hair. His hands avoided contact with his Hitai-ate, having no need to touch it to remember the deep scar that ran across the Konoha leaf.

For a second nostalgia assaulted him, as he remembered Konoha's sights, its sounds, its smells. Its people, with their cheerful smiles and relaxed, easy lives.

Naruto hadn't eaten ramen in two years. Basic academy lesson on pursuit and manhunting: Know your target. Know their tastes and preferences. The hardest person for someone to impersonate is someone who is NOT themself; even if they can somehow alter their height with shoe inserts or slouching, change their posture, change their voice, one of the hardest things to change is one's preferences. People on the run were more often captured by their favorite food or music than anywhere else; fools making the mistake of seeking out traces of their old lives in their new surroundings.

Yet here he was, sentimentally wearing this defaced hitai ate, as if it held meaning for him somehow.

Staying hidden for him had been doubly hard. Not only did he need to remain hidden and a step ahead of the hunter nin squads, but he was following the trail of a man who, despite the words of the slug sennin so long ago, he was growing more and more certain was his birth father: Namikaze Minato, the Yellow Flash of Konohagakure.

Ordinarily, he kept the hitai ate sealed inside of his gear, but today, he'd permitted himself this one indulgence. Today was a special day. Today, he would be learning of what he assumed was his birth family on his mother's side.

Oh he knew the basics, of course. Famed medics and doctors, the majority of them. One well known ninja- Uzumaki Kushina, a woman who was believed to be his mother- and a few lesser known ones. For the most part, the Uzumaki clan were a people of sparse talent for the craft of the ninja.

The boundary at the crest of the hill was quite sharp. On this side, grass and weeds and bushes, a few trees. And on the other side...

Nothing. Nineteen years, and still no plants took hold in this earth, no animals willingly tread its soil. The ground was barren, dry. Not in a cracked, shrivelled sort of way, like an off season lake bed. No. Barren, in something of a dust bowl way. Dry in the way of a place that had not seen measurable rain in a century. Dry in the way of a place that had not seen measurable WEATHER in a century. No wind. No rain. No shade. Only the merciless, relentless pounding of a harsh and unforgiving sun, from rise to set, for days, weeks, months, years...

Naruto took the first step forward almost without thought, and cringed at the small puffs of dust that billowed up to ankle height. He allowed the dust from his footstep to settle, noting the hazy cast it threw across the tops of his sandals. Careless of me, he thought to himself. Even if I brushed that footprint out it would still be obvious that someone came this way. No jutsu in the world can emulate twenty years of entropy.

He internally debated the merits of preempting his trail from this point forward and decided it would probably be worth it. He spent a moment carefully shaping chakra to the soles of his feet and took another step forward, then a third. The dust remained where it lay, unshaken and uncompressed. He nodded to himself. In a few hours, the chakra from his trackless step would dissipate into the environment.

Or would it? Now that he considered it, there was no natural animal or plant life here to soak it up. He'd never heard of anything like this before, a place so utterly ruined that life itself could no longer take hold. Where water would no longer flow, especially given that this place was once famous for it, once named for it.

He gave it a few more moments thought, before he shrugged. "Fuck it," he said out loud in the empty silence.

Naruto continued down the gentle slope into the ruins of what had once been known as Uzugakure- Hidden Whirlpool.

Ahead, beneath the broken ruins of a dead city, a dead power lay dreaming.

End Prologue

AN: Welcome back. Rather than open up a new story for RF2, I decided to tack it onto the end of RF1. Expect a tidying up of the last chapter, which really should count as the epilogue to the first story, but was too long for my tastes to be called such.

Updates will be slow, as I'm writing full time now, having quit my day job to start writing professionally. But I will try to make time for you all, since I wouldn't have been able to do so without you.

Ja mata.

-AXENOME