Team eight had been following Naruto's elusive trail for several days now. They could empathize with the original ANBU team that was sent to track him. While his scent was thick and still present (For an Inuzuka or Aburame at least), due to the mixed smell of blood and sweat left behind, it was difficult to follow due to what Shino believed was a clever use of shadow clones rubbing against the original Naruto to leave a lasting scent that wouldn't disappear with the clone.
Luckily though Shino was able to send out his bugs to follow along any excess trails that they couldn't follow to see which was fake or real so they were making fair headway, although the bugs movements were relatively slow (for a ninja at least). After the first 5 or so false trails they realized that Naruto seemed to be heading in the direction of Otogakure and thus followed the path that headed mostly in that direction while sending bugs down the others.
This tactic proved to be the most successful, most of, but not all, of the time. After about a week of travel they arrived outside of Otogakure.
"Who would've thought that baka would have been so good at covering his tracks?" Spoke Kiba to his team mates. Akamaru barked in agreement.
"You need to be more observant in the future Kiba. The signs were all there at the academy." Stated Shino.
"What are you talking about Shino? He scored the lowest out of the whole graduating class." Replied Kiba with an unbelieving look on his face.
"But Kiba-kun, don't you remember when he painted the hokage monument, they took 2 hours to catch him. Or when he glued all the hitai-ates to the heads of all the graduating Genins from his first exam and wasn't found for a day?" Hinata replied timidly due to the talk turning back to the energetic blonde.
"hehe you're right, I am so glad I didn't graduate that year. So Shino are you sure we followed the right scent this time? All your bugs back from their trails? I don't think Naruto would have been dense enough just to run right into Otogakure." Kiba asked.
"Yes all of my Kikai have returned and this is indeed his true path. Naruto could have been forced in this direction by superior nin but my bugs did not discover any other trails. Did you smell anything different Kiba?" Shino asked.
"No I didn't. as far as me and Akamaru can tell it's just been Naruto the entire way." At this Akamaru growled, "oh yeah Akamaru says he could smell the same snake once in awhile. I could too but I just assumed it must be native to this part of land."
".. I see. Please inform me if anything else unusual occurs." Shino demanded. Kiba just nodded his assent, still not being used to getting ordered around by his former team mate.
Kiba had given up trying to be the leader of his team when Shino had reached Jounin rank. In the past Kiba wasn't the leader because he was any better than Shino, it was because his commands could be given to all of his team mates at once whereas Shino's had to be relayed to Akamaru by Kiba and thus it would save time. Also Kiba was more sociable and was able to lead his team together while Shino had a more authoritative style. Finally, while Shino was better at planning, Kiba was better at reacting should they ever be ambushed so it was better if he was the leader so that Hinata would not get confused as to who to listen to.
Kiba was mentally going over all these things in his head while mentally kicking himself for failing the last Jounin exam again.
"Hinata are we close enough to the village that you can check it all to see if Naruto is there?" Shino asked Hinata.
"Hai Shino-kun. I will need a few moments though." Hinata replied softly.
While Hinata's byakugan range was not as impressive as Neji's had become, it was still quite remarkable for someone her age and she could see ahead of her for about a max of 1km to neji's one and a half.
Thus while waiting in silence for their team mate to finish Shino and Kiba had begun laying out traps and preparing a covered shelter that would be easily taken down and moved should their position be compromised. Once this was complete Shino and Kiba sat down and watched Hinata as she continued her search for their target.
After a few more minutes went by they saw Hinata's eyes go wide and heard her gasp right before she jumped up into the trees in the direction of the hidden village of Sound.
'Shit,' thought Kiba 'What the hell has gotten into her! She's never been this reckless before.' After less than a second of surprise Shino, Kiba, and Akamaru were already hot on their team mates heels trying to stop her from getting herself killed.
Knowing just how fast Hinata could move if she wanted to, Kiba knew that the only one in there group who could catch her was Akamaru. With that thought Kiba sent Akamaru to tackle her.
Luckily Akamaru had managed to stop Hinata from running into a clearing that contained some sound nin training, and by the sounds of explosions and Kunai on Kunai, there was quite a few in there. Once Kiba had caught up to Akamaru sitting on top of Hinata he could see she was crying.
'What? Why is she crying? I haven't seen her crying since... hell I've never seen Hinata crying!' Kiba thought back as far as their academy days and could not think of a single moment he had seen the quiet girl crying. What could she have seen that would make her breakdown like this.'
"Hinata what..." Before he could finish his thought he saw it. Inside the clearing had to be about fifty Sound nins all fighting eachother fiercely. This wasn't what was remarkable about them. What was though was the bright blonde hair being held up by their sound Hitai-ate and the Bright cerulean blue eyes visible above his bandit like mask. Even with bandages covering most of his body from his torso to his wrists there was no mistaking those eyes.
It took a few moments before Shino had caught up. His eyebrows disappeared behind his sunglasses as he muttered silently the word "Naruto." Which just made Hinata start to sob quietly.
Kiba couldn't believe his eyes. 'What the hell?' thought Kiba. What the hell indeed. Gone was the usual look that Naruto was reknowned for wearing. In it's place stood a white robe similar to what he had seen the sound four wearing. The only differences being an Orange bow instead of purple on the back and his whole body being covered in bandages. The most striking were the eyes. Kiba couldn't think that it was the mask or the lack of the whisker tattoos (or so he thought), but his eyes just seemed to be more, intense. He had never seen Naruto look like that.
Right at the end of that Hinata whimpered slightly that seemed to go unnoticed by Naruto. Shino knew better as he saw one of the clones had left the battle and not in a puff of smoke. But before he could warn his team mates Naruto stood above them.
"What did you come here for?" He asked quietly.
4 days earlier.
In a secret room of one of Orochimarus labs, Naruto could be found strapped to a bed. Not that he wanted to be strapped to the bed but he knew why he was there. It was because of Kyuubi.
When Orochimaru had started the complicated procedure of fixing Narutos seal, Kyuubi was going to have none of it so it tried forcing all the chakra it could into Narutos system taking Orochimaru by surprise and forcing him to call upon some of his jounins to help put up a barrier to contain him. After that incident Orochimaru took no chances and had Naruto strapped down at all times, under watch by a summoned snake and binded down with chakra dampening seals befroe he would recommence the procedure. While getting the dampening seals applied was painful, compared to the actual procedure they just felt like a slight discomfort.
It would have been mostly painless for Naruto if Orochimaru had used his own chakra to seal the kyuubi, but instead opted to pull out the kyuubis to do it for him instead of being drained of chakra for a few days. Since the nine tails did not want this to happen it felt to Naruto like someone was ripping out his nervous system one piece at a time.
Thankfully halfway through the procedure Naruto passed out and never even felt when Orochimaru attempted to place his own personal curse seal on him. This was consequently rejected by kyuubi. The demon didn't mind someone controlling his host, but the seal itself was a force of corruption, which highly affronted the Kyuubi nature of outright destruction as opposed to corruption. Thus Orochimaru was forced to adapt his own version of the Hyuuga bird in a cage curse seal.
His version was stronger and sustained, albeit minimally, by his own chakra. If it was ever to be activated, or should Orochimaru ever die, then this seal would not only kill Naruto but also undo all of the work Orochimaru had done to fix the seal.
Before Naruto could even open his eyes though, in walked Kabuto.
"Good afternoon Naruto-kun. I hope you're comfortable." Kabuto smirked at this, knowing that Naruto must feel like his skin is on fire from all the kanji tattoos littering his body and face due to his new seals.
"Screw you Kabuto." Naruto rasped out from his parched throat.
Kabuto just smiled calmly at him and handed him a glass of water. "Tch tch, using such words to your superiors, it would make some think you didn't them." Kabuto mocked.
"...what did you come here for." Questioned Naruto.
"Orochimaru wishes to speak with you once I deem you able. It seems the nine tails gets quite paranoid once it's fate is connected to yours. It seems you are almost completely fit again." Kabuto said. "Your new outfit is waiting in that dresser over there."
Upon hearing this Naruto got up and walked over the dresser, still wrapped from ankle to neck in bandages. Opening it up he found a white robe with what seemed to be some heavy orange rope around it, along with his new sound hitai-ate. With his back to him, Kabuto could not tell what Naruto was thinking about. After a few moments Naruto started unravelling the bandages around his arm.
'Well this is gonna be interesting, I wonder what he'll do once he sees it.' Thought Kabuto, finding the whole moment rather amusing.
What Naruto saw when he started unraveling his bandages was alot of kanji with the words "Demon", "Seal" and "Soul". These seemed to glow like a black flame. The others were in a language that he couldn't understand and were a dark red as if they were branded in blood, which they were but Kabuto wasn't going to tell Naruto that. The tattoos coated his skin and Kabuto could not help but notice the similarity, at least in skin covered, to Sasuke's level 1 curse seal. By now Naruto had unwrapped his right arm all the way to his elbow and had started on his ankle when he suddenly stopped. Slowly he stood up from his crouching position and turned to Kabuto with a disbelieving look in his eyes.
"Do... these th-things cover my whole body?" Naruto asked this hesitantly with obvious resentment in his voice.
"Well Naruto-kun, just where the bandages cover and a little bit more..." Upon saying this he handed over the pocket mirror he brought with him so he could be the first to see his reaction.
1 hour later, over by Orochimarus main Lab.
Orochimaru was currently dissecting the body of one of the Uchiha corpses that he had some underlings steal from the Konoha graveyard when Kabuto entered the room.
"Well now, I should assume you have the Kyuubi brat waiting outside the room with you. I take it he did not react favorably when he saw what I did to fix the seal did he." Orochimaru stated with an air of amusement to his voice.
"No he did not. In fact he reacted just as I thought he would. He covered up every part of his body that showed any part of the seals you added. Just as I thought he's ashamed of them because it reminds them of his weakness." Kabuto told Orochimaru while eyeing up his progress on the Uchiha corpse.
"Hm I did not think the boy was capable of shame from the way he acted. Good observations Kabuto. Is he still easily identifiable to any who know him?" Orochimaru asked.
"Perhaps. They will need to know him fairly well and have more than just a general description of him. His hair and eyes are still visible but he has covered up his most identifying features." Kabuto replied.
"Very well send him in for his first mission. I will expect him to be prepared to leave within a month Kabuto, since you were right about his reactions then you will get to oversee his training." Orochimaru said.
Kabuto couldn't have been happier. While Naruto thinks that Orochimaru took him in to be a powerful weapon Orochimaru had other plans. Being an easily bored and sadistic man, Orochimaru likes to have fun in odd ways. Trying to start another great war because he found peace tedious was one of those moments. When he brought Naruto back to the sound it was so that he could screw around with his old team mates.
He knew how attached Tsunade had become to Naruto and how he'd be able to rub it, albeit not literally, in Jiraiyas face that he had stolen his pupil away from him was the two main reasons. The last being having another Shinobi fully under his control that could level a small country was just fun to have around.
This is what made Kabuto happy since his training Naruto would allow him to experiment on and insult the said blonde for the better part of a month whenever he had free time. Naturally he realized that he would never have the amount of enjoyment that Orochimaru would get to have, he would still gain some small satisfaction out of controlling someone that he not only respected as a shinobi, but admired for his strength of character. Yes Kabuto knew he was a sick fuck.
"You may enter now Naruto, Orochimaru is prepared to give you your first mission as a sound shinobi."
Already knowing what laid in store for him, Kabuto couldn't help but grin at the blondes back as he walked through the door as he imagined what the future held for Uzumaki Naruto.
4 days later.
Naruto had been pushing himself to his limit for the past few days now on his own. He hadn't been given a place to stay, not that he asked, so he lived just outside of the village. He slept on the ground and ate whatever he could catch, all the while perpetually training as hard as he could. He could still remember the parting words Kabuto gave him the last time he saw him 2 days ago along with the ninja supplies as well.
"Remember Naruto, if you get stronger, maybe you could do the missions without killing anyone. That's still a goal to work for. I'll see you in a few days once I figure out what I am gonna do with you."
Naruto knew he only said that to him so that they would have a stronger tool, but he was right anyways and he vowed to get strong enough so that he wouldn't have to hurt his friends if it ever came to that. So right now he was fighting in his personal clearing which he had made during his 50 clone brawls he would stage once in awhile to burn off some pent up energy.
He'd been going for little over an hour since noon when he heard a sound in the bush. Thinking it to be a curious sound nin he decided to give him a good scare so he silently left the brawl while leaving his clones fighting as if nothing had happened by using a clever genjutsu he learned from Ero-sennin to make him transparent, though not invisible, to hide his seals for the replacement jutsu.
Coming down from above he could faintly smell dog and wondered why until he landed on a branch slightly above his prey. Thankfully the mask he had taken to wearing nicely hid his slight jaw drop when he saw who it was. Standing just below him was a stunned Kiba, a crying Hinata, Akamaru and Shino whom he couldn't read as more of his face was covered than his own. He couldn't figure out why Hinata was crying but he had a good idea of why they were here so he figured he might as well ask anyways.
"What did you come here for?" Naruto asked quietly.
Author's note: Okay I like this chapter. Always looking to improve so leave a review, I do enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions on the story. Also, could someone translate Mass desert graveyard to japanese? Comp freezes everytime I try to use a website to translate. Yeah it's a spoiler to the future but trust it's pretty far away. If you don't know or didn't notice, Naruto still doesn't know Itachi is dead. Take that as you will.