Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't, have never or will never own Naruto, as much as I'd like to.

Naruto glanced behind him. It was October 10th, his 8th birthday, and he was spending it like all previous birthdays, running for dear life. He didn't understand why he was so hated, but he had noticed that people treated him like trash. They overcharged him or simply refused to sell him anything, they would take their children away when he approached a playground, they muttered curses and insults whenever he was near, and what hurt Naruto the most, they looked at him as if he were some sort of freak. No, what really hurt the most was the annual mob that gathered and chased him through the village to beat him to a pulp.

By now, he knew Konoha like the back of his hand and used every trick in the book to escape, usually with success. He'd then return in the evening, clean up his trashed apartment and life would go on. But first, he had to escape.

Usually, he didn't have to do much, he'd simply run through alleys, squeezing his body through holes that were too small for adults to fit through. But this time, they were more stubborn. There was a man with strange white eyes who always seemed to see him, no matter where he hid. The only way Naruto could explain it was that the man knew the alleys just as well as he did. This would make escape difficult. But he wasn't a prankster for nothing.

In the next few minutes, he shook most of his pursuers with an array of basically harmless traps. Garbage dropped on them when they tripped over wires, a short tug on a hidden string loosed a avalanche of empty plastic-bottles. The most nasty one was a hive of bees in a barrel that he rolled towards the pursuers, followed by a few doses of itching powder. Eventually, he ran around a corner, then hid behind a dumpster while the remaining twenty mob-members ran past it. He sighed in relief and crawled out behind the dumpster, only to look the white-eyed man and two friends. Naruto noticed that the other two wore Konoha-headbands, and his heart sank. He knew he wasn't good enough to escape those for long, but he could at least try!

He had just jumped up when white-eyes slapped three spots on his body and Naruto felt his legs buckle beneath him. He couldn't move his legs! And he had trouble breathing as well. He was so screwed.

White-eyes looked at the others. "I have to return to the compound. Do whatever you want with the demon."

The other two nodded. "Sure, thanks for your help, we'll keep him entertained."

Then white-eyes was gone, and the other two gave dark chuckles. Naruto desperately tried to stand, but it was no use. The men started by kicking him in the ribs with enough force to slam him against the wall.

Kabuto pushed up his glasses. He was not a tracker, or a sensory-type for that matter. He should have asked to bring that new girl Orochimaru found, Karin was her name, to accompany him. While she didn't have a sample of his chakra that would normally be needed for a sensor to look for a person, it couldn't be that hard to find a child with more chakra than an ANBU that had traces of demonic energy to boot. But Orochimaru had been in a miserable mood because of the repeated failures, and Kabuto had decided it was best not to test his master's patience. And just calling out for him wouldn't be smart, since he would have a bit of trouble explaining to anyone who heard him what he wanted with a boy he had never met, and the boy wouldn't have shown up, not today. The boy wasn't brain-dead, so if he heard anyone call his name on October 10th, the last thing he'd do was answer. No, he'd probably look for a better hiding spot. Frustrated, Kabuto gave the wagon he was dragging behind him a kick.

Suddenly a peculiar smell reached Kabuto's nose. He'd smelled it for a while now, but had ignored it since he was used to it. But now he remembered that he wasn't with Orochimaru but in Konoha, and Konoha didn't smell like blood, and neither did the wagon he was carrying. Well, at least not that strong. He followed the scent into an alley, and nearly panicked at what he saw.

There was the kid he'd been looking for, nailed to the wall by a number of blades. His limbs were carved open, and there were a few kunai shoved into his neck to keep him from screaming. The two men had obviously used him as a target for their shuriken-practice. But what alarmed Kabuto was not that they had cut him open and stabbed his innards, but that they seemingly prepared to finish him off, as one had pulled a dagger and aimed at Naruto's heart. Kabuto's eye twitched in anger. He would so not go back to Orochimaru empty-handed! Before either man had a chance to react, he had pulled out two scalpels and sliced the first man's throat while he rammed the second one into the other guy's brains though the eye. Then he carefully removed the blades that nailed Naruto up first, before pulling out the other ones. He was fascinated when he saw that the boy's internals started to heal as soon as the objects were gone.

Kabuto decided that while the boy would probably be completely healed in a minute, it couldn't hurt if he sped things up. After all, he really didn't want to be seen with two corpses. Then again, he might have a use for them. He sealed up the first body, then unceremoniously pulled out the scalpel out of the other man's head. He didn't flinch when the eye came out with the blade, and Kabuto simply flicked it into the dumpster before sealing the second body away. Then he focused on healing Naruto.

Naruto opened his eyes, and looked into a pair of other eyes that blinked in surprise. Naruto jumped back, but immediately felt wobbly and went down to one knee. The boy pushed up his glasses and raised his open hands, the universal gesture for 'See, I don't have a weapon.' Then he spoke. "I didn't think you'd wake up this fast. After what you've been through, I honestly expected you to be out cold for at least half a week."

Naaruto blinked, what was this guy talking about? Then he remembered the two men and looked around with a panicked expression. The boy noticed that.

"Don't worry, those men are gone. By the way, my name is Kabuto."

Naruto nodded. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki. So, you convinced the men to leave me alone?"

Kabuto blinked and scratched his cheek. "Uh, sure, let's go with that. How do you feel?"

Naruto looked down at himself. "A little shaky, but otherwise fine. Did you heal me?"

Kabuto nodded. "Yes I did, but you seem to heal pretty good on your own."

Naruto scratched his head. He had always healed fast. "I guess I do. Thanks for helping me."

Kabuto smiled. "You're probably exhausted and hungry. Here, it's not much, but have a bento." He pulled out a half-eaten lunchbox.

Naruto nodded and started eating. It was pretty good, and Naruto finished it in under fifteen seconds. He grinned at Kabuto. "Thanks. Nobody ever gave me something just to be nice."

Kabuto's smile suddenly looked a bit sad. "Sadly, that didn't change, since I didn't either. Sorry kid, but better you than me."

Naruto looked at him. "What are... you..." He noticed that everything turned dark. His last thought that he shouldn't have dropped his guard and judged the meal as safe just because it looked like someone had been eating it. Then he was gone.

Kabuto almost felt bad for the kid, but he had no choice. And besides, he was excited to find out what would happen in the experiments. Now he had to smuggle Naruto out of Konoha, which was pretty easy. That's why he had brought the corpse-wagon.

The corpse-wagon was a peculiarity of Konoha. Konoha didn't bury its dead inside of the walls, but outside beneath trees, so that the dead may become part of the forest that protects their village. The corpse-wagon Kabuto was pulling belonged to the hospital, and they sent it out when patients died in operations or were simply brought here for autopsies before they were buried. That was true for everyone but the Hokage, who was laid to rest in a special shrine with his predecessors by a few trustworthy shinobi who never even whispered the place to outsiders. It had taken Orochimaru years to find the place, since the two trustworthys that he had caught had refused to speak, even under torture. But that wasn't important right now. Fortunately for Kabuto, a old man had recently breathed his last breath in the hospital, and Kabuto had volunteered for the job.

Nobody had been suspicious, since while the work was something so harsh that it was used as punishment, the younger generations saw it as a fantastic dare. All alone in a dark forest filled with wild animals. The only companion a corpse. So everyone had simply thought that Kabuto had been dared to do it.

Getting out was easy enough, the patrols checked his ID and let him go. Nobody expected him to be back for a few days, since the corpse would have to be buried at least five-to-ten miles away, and the wagon wasn't fast. Also there were a few ceremonies that had to be done. Kabuto waited until he was far away from the village, then he loaded the unconscious Naruto out of the cart, put him in a sack and sealed up the whole wagon. Now he could run with the unconscious bundle over his shoulders and quickly reached the meeting-point. From there, he would use a few underground shortcuts to quickly reach Orochimaru before the tranquilizer wore off.

Orochimaru was impatiently waiting for Kabuto. The test-solution with Kimimaro's DNA was ready and waiting for the test-subject, and so was Orochimaru. Finally, the door opened and Kabuto stepped in, a promising bundle on his shoulders. "Did you succeed?"

Kabuto dropped the bundle, pulled off the sack and a unconscious Naruto Uzumaki dropped to the floor. "Of course Orochimaru-sama."

Said Sannin nodded. "Good. Then let's begin the experiment."

Kabuto nodded, removed Naruto's clothes, placed a oxygen-mask on his face, stuck a heart-rate-detector to his chest, placed a catheter into his arm that was long enough for him and Orochimaru to inject the solutions and nourishment from the outside and tossed him into the prepared tank filled with a clear liquid. Then he injected the first solution. Now all they could do is wait. From their past experiments, Kabuto deduced that they would have to wait half an hour before something happened. Usually then the subjects croaked, but Kabuto was hoping that that didn't happen here, or he'd be in a lot of trouble and a world of hurt. They left long before Naruto's body started to thrash.

Kabuto had decided to wait an hour, so that the changes had more time to take place. When he entered, the first thing he heard was the calming peeping of the machine, telling Kabuto that Naruto's heart was still beating. But he decided to take a blood-sample and checked if Naruto now had the Shikotsumyaku or if the fox had chosen the easy way out and simply burned the solution out of the boy's system. That had been his greatest worry, especially since he didn't share it with Orochimaru beforehand. If this went wrong, then Kabuto would have put Konoha on high alert for nothing.

"Come on Naruto, don't let me down now." He muttered as he took the blood. He immediately started to analyze it, while repeatedly muttering "Please have it, please have it, please have it, please..."

Then he got the result. "YES!"

Sarutobi had called a full council-meeting. The clan-heads and civilians had gathered, albeit reluctantly. Hiashi spoke first. "Hokage-sama, why have you called us?"

Sarutobi looked at him. "I sent my ANBU out to make sure that this is correct, and they have confirmed my suspicion. Naruto Uzumaki is no longer inside of Konoha."

The only ones who looked thunderstruck were Ichiraku and Danzo. The clan-heads took the situation neutrally, while the civilians openly smiled. One merchant spoke up. "Thank you for bringing us the good news Hokage-sama, but you could have just publicly declared it."

Another shop-owner nodded. "True. Eight years ago, the demon was sealed and now it has left for good."

Danzo face-palmed. Then he looked at Sarutobi. "Could we have details?"

Sarutobi nodded. "Of course, that's why I called the meeting. One of our ANBU-patrols noticed a large amount of fresh blood in a side-road in the third district. He took samples and they showed to be of three different people. The majority of the blood was from Naruto Uzumaki, but there were two others. We have made a head-count and found that two of our chunin are missing. We have determined that the blood is theirs."

The first merchant jumped up. "So the demon murdered them and hid their bodies?!"

Sarutobi shook his head. "From the clotting of the blood, we have determined that Naruto bled first. By the time that the former chunin's blood was spilled, he would have been far to weak to do anything. And you've insulted every ninja in this room and their clans, by suggesting that they would not be able to notice that they would not be able to notice if a sufficient amount of demonic energy to defeat two chunin were released."

The merchant looked around and noticed that all clan-heads were indeed glaring at him, especially the ones who prided themselves as trackers. He gulped. "So those honorable chunin tried to purge the demon and were killed by one of his demonic servants."

Hiashi looked at him, something akin to pity in his eyes. "You're making a fool out of yourself. If the boy had demonic servants, why did he never use them in the eight years that he lived here? According to some reports, he can barely keep his apartment clean, and he has been beaten every year."

Danzo bit his lip. "I find the most likely scenario that those two chunin attacked Uzumaki and tortured him, which is not unheard of. Then someone else appeared, killed the chunin, got rid of their bodies and abducted Uzumaki. I suggest we send a group of our hunter-nin as a search-party, seeing that whoever took him obviously has the skill to take out two chunin without anyone noticing."

Sakuya Haruno jumped up. "We are trying to get the d-" She noticed Sarutobi's gaze, which had grown very cold and corrected herself mid-sentence "damned boy back? After we're finally rid of him? Why?"

Sarutobi's old teammates nodded, but Danzo rose from his seat. "Stupid woman. That child holds the strongest bijuu in existence. Do you even understand the concept behind jinchuuriki? You take a demon of uncontrollable power and seal him inside a human. The difference between sealing it in a human or sealing it in an object is simple. An object locks the power away. A human gives you the possibility to control the demon's power. Just because the boy can't control the demon yet, doesn't mean he won't learn it in the future. And now an enemy has him, and can train him to serve him. That means he could train him to destroy Konoha. If that doesn't work, he could simply bring Uzumaki close to Konoha and break the Yondaime's seal. Then the Kyuubi would be free and I doubt it has forgotten us. Do you really wish for a repeat of what happened eight years ago?"

Sakuya shivered, but she remained strong. "We have the Hokage and Jiraya, our greatest seal-master and teacher of the Yondaime. Now that it has been done once, it would be easy for the two of them to seal it away once more."

Shibi Aburame spoke, for the first time. "Presuming it were possible, we have already learned that the Kyuubi can only be sealed into a child. Where would we find such a child?"

Shikaku snorted. "He's right. After what happened to Naruto Uzumaki, nobody will offer their child for such a sealing. Why should they? So that they can see their child beaten and be shunned for giving birth to a demon? Or perhaps we mistook Sakuya and she was volunteering her child for such a sealing should the Kyuubi show up in front of our gate right now?"

Sakuya paled. She would never give Sakura away to have the demon sealed inside of her. But she understood one thing. Why should any parent feel other than she did? They were right, even if they could get the seal, they wouldn't have a vessel. Not even orphans were an option, since the orphanages had the right to deny usage of the children under their supervision.

Shikaku took her silence as an answer. "I didn't think so. Hokage-sama, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I support Danzo's suggestion."

Sarutobi nodded. "Any objections?" There were none. Everyone was far too frightened by the idea of Kyuubi appearing again to object. Sarutobi looked around. "Very well, the hunter-nin will be dispatched immediately."

Orochimaru looked at Kabuto, expecting positive news. "And?" He asked.

Kabuto smiled. "He survived. I checked his blood, just in case, and the results are positive. He has the bloodline."

Orochimaru smiled. "Excellent. We'll give him a day to recover, then we'll inject the first sample."

Kabuto nodded. "Which sample will we use first? Hidan's?"

Orochimaru frowned. "No. The Kyuubi helps our procedure because he might die with his host otherwise. If we make him immortal now, it might not support any further changes, choosing to wait it out instead. We'll begin with that Iwa-nin's, Deidara was his name I believe, sample. By the way, have you found out anything about that clay he used?"

Kabuto shrugged. "I analyzed it, but honestly, I was wasting my time. It's ordinary sculpting clay, although a very expensive one, nothing special about it. I'd theorize that any clay or even simple mud would work as well, but I really can't say without further research."

Orochimaru nodded. "If you were correct, that would be even better, since it would mean that I'd have an unlimited supply of explosives. But you have to be patient for your experiments, I don't plan on pulling Naruto out of that tank anytime soon. He'll get out when we train him, not sooner. In any case, return to Konoha so that nobody catches suspicion, return once it's safe for you to do so."

Kabuto bowed. "Understood."

Sarutobi looked outside his window. It had been a week, and there was still no news about Naruto. The hunter-nins had swarmed, but they had to return empty-handed. There were no traces of the boy, and nobody had seen a blonde child with whisker-marks. The reaction of his village had been a disappointment as well. They had started an extended celebration in response to Naruto's disappearance, setting his apartment on fire and destroying anything that belonged to him.

The Ichiraku's, Konoha's best ramen-shop, had closed for the duration of the celebration and openly refused to serve those who celebrated. One of the men who had tried to get served on the first day of celebration had openly stated that on such a happy day, they deserved some good ramen to celebrate the demon's disappearance. Ichiraku's daughter Ayame had swiftly reacted by taking a pot with still hot oil and poured its content over the man's head, before grabbing a hot frying pan and ordering everybody to leave within ten seconds, or else.

While that reaction warmed Sarutobi's old heart, he was still bitterly disappointed. Reactions like that should have been the rule, not the exception. Even Kakashi had taken the information with a shrug, although he had started to drink more, and seemed a lot more willing to punch people in the face. Everyone had their own way of dealing with grief.

The only other person to truly miss the blond was Hinata Hyuuga. The young heir had liked the boy for a while, ever since he actually managed to prank the entire Hyuuga-clan and taken his punishment with a smile. She had locked herself up in her room and refused to open it for anyone.

Perhaps it was time to send Kushina a long-overdue letter, asking her for forgiveness for lying to her about her son. The results of that action would probably be ugly, but he couldn't take the guilt of lying to her any longer. He had kept quiet because at the time, Kushina's mental state after hearing about her husband's death had been questionable, and she might have been a danger to her child. Although he seriously doubted that Kushina would see it that way.

Sarutobi grabbed for his pipe. God knew he needed it right now.

It had taken almost a month for Kabuto to return to Orochimaru. In the meantime, the Sannin had injected three more samples into Naruto. The next time Kabuto saw him in his tank, the boy had mouths on his hands, his closed eyes were now rippled, and his flesh consisted of a number of black threads.

Contrary to his former comments, Orochimaru had taken Naruto out of his tank a few times, after every procedure to be exact, to analyze him. He had also brought Karin, who had started to gain interest in medical research, to better evaluate his chakra-flow. Orochimaru had discovered that while Naruto seemed to consist of nothing but threads, eyes, a heart, a brain and the two mouths on his palms, he still had a skeleton, which was much tougher than a normal human's. He deduced that it had something to do with the formally injected bloodline of Kimimaro. The Kyuubi's seal had wandered to the boy's heart and engraved itself there, probably to avoid being destabilized by the constant mutations.

The girl, Karin, had noted that Naruto's chakra flowed in completely different patterns every time they injected something new. At first, new chakra-coils had developed in his arms, hands and palms to support the required energy for the new mouths. Then the coils around his eyes had thickened, to allow the Rinnegan to function. And now that he consisted of threads, the chakra in his body seemed unpredictable, sine there no longer were real coils. Karin had found it fascinating.

Kabuto on the other hand was worried. This was all proceeding too fast for his likes. They had no idea what exactly was happening, and Kabuto was honestly worried that Naruto's body would eventually be unable to keep up with the required mutations at this pace. He had shared that worry with Orochimaru, asking him to slow the pace of new injections, but the Sannin waved him off. Apparently, he could hardly wait to have the perfect body, since he wanted to train the boy a bit before he claimed him as his own.

Still, Kabuto had a bad feeling. And he would be proven right.

They had injected Konan's sample into him two hours ago, and Kabuto came to check on Naruto. The moment he entered, he felt that something was not right. The machine showed that the boy's heart-rate was much higher than it should be, but still within acceptable bounds. Still, Kabuto felt that something was wrong and he looked into the tank. At first sight, he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary and turned to take a blood sample, when he noticed a anomaly. The liquid around Naruto's right knee was a bit murky. Since that knee was facing away from Kabuto, he walked around the tank to see what was wrong... and he froze.

A portion of skin on the knee, as big as Kabuto's palm, was missing. A few threads were in the water, showing the naked bone. But what shocked Kabuto was that both the threads and the bone looked to be decomposing! And unlike any previous experiments, the wound was not instantly shrinking. Kabuto suspected that it was in fact getting bigger, just too slow to see it with the naked eye. He ran towards Orochimaru's chambers.

Orochimaru was currently discussing medical ideas with Karin, who showed a remarkable talent in that field of expertise, when Kabuto barged into the room, clearly agitated. Orochimaru frowned at him. "What is it Kabuto?"

Kabuto took a second to take a breath, then he answered, panic in his voice. "Orochimaru-sama, it's... Naruto. He's... decomposing!"

Orochimaru's eyes widened. "WHAT?!"

Kabuto's hunch had been correct. In his short absence, the hole in Naruto's knee had widened half a millimeter. A short calculation gave him the result that they had roughly four days until he had completely decomposed, and only two days to save his life. Orochimaru was fuming.

"What is going on?" He shouted.

Kabuto shrugged. "I don't know yet, I informed you as soon as I saw the damage. Karin, what is going on in him chakra-wise?"

Karin focused, and shuddered at the demonic feeling. "An enormous amount of Kyuubi's chakra is flowing into his knee. As far as I can tell, it's trying to repair the damage. But the chakra of the cells is too chaotic for me to tell clearly what's wrong, but it feels like the internal chakra is shredding the cells, and doing it faster than Kyuubi can heal. Without that healing factor, he'd probably be dead by now, and nothing but a murky cloud in the tank in ten minutes, tops."

Orochimaru let loose killing intent that left the other two on the floor. "How and especially why is this happening? And how can we fix it?"

Kabuto focused. "Orochimaru-sama, we have to take samples and analyze before we can make a deduction. With the current speed of decomposition, we have two days to save Naruto."

The killing intent vanished and Kabuto and Karin could stand. "Then you two better not waste any time. I want results!"

Kabuto and Karin glanced at each other, then they hurried to pull Naruto out of the tank to take samples.

"Karin, have a look at this!" Kabuto said, looking up from a microscope. Karin, who despite all her talent simply didn't have the experience to discover the problem and was literally in tears, wiped her face clean and hurried to the bespectacled boy. She looked into the microscope.

The cells were twisting, bending, contracting and stretching, all at the same time. Eventually the individual cells couldn't resist the strain and popped. She looked at Kabuto. "It looks like they're trying to do too many different things at once without being able to handle the strain. What could have caused it?"

Kabuto scratched his head. "Let's see. He was fine the last time we checked, so what changed between then and now?"

Karin frowned. "We injected a new sample into him. Do you think his body couldn't adapt to it?"

Kabuto shook his head. "No. if he can survive having the kekkei genkai of the Kaguya, that alters the entire body, injected, there's no reason why he wouldn't be able to adapt to any other one."

Karin sighed in frustration. "We injected a sample that should turn his body into paper. At which step is the problem?" She drew a few sketches of how a body's transformation to paper would probably work, how his skin and internals dissolved into thin sheets. Kabuto glanced at her sketching with modest interest, then he froze. His eyes widened.

"That's it!" He stated.

Karin looked at him. "What's what?"

Kabuto pointed at her sketches. "The mistake you made in those sketches are probably the reason for our problem!"

Karin frowned. "Mistake? I find my work plausible."

Kabuto nodded. "Yes, on a normal person, it would probably look like that. But Naruto is not a normal person!"

Karin looked at her sketches, then her eyes widened. "Naruto doesn't have internal organs and flesh. His body transformed it into black threads." She whispered.

Kabuto eagerly nodded. "Yes, and now his cells are getting contradicting orders. 'Transform into thread.' is met by 'Transform into sheets of paper.' The cells are trying to do both, but they can't, so they destroy themselves while trying."

Karin nodded. "That sounds correct. But that leaves one question."

"How are you going to fix it?" Orochimaru asked. Kabuto and Karin glanced at each other.

Finally Karin spoke. "We went through multiple scenarios, but most didn't work since it's impossible to extract the solution to undo the damage. After much debate, we came up with a solution that might work."

Orochimaru raised a brow. "And what would that be?"

Kabuto gulped. "We inject him with Juugo's DNA."

Orochimaru frowned. "You say the problem is that the cells can't mutate into multiple things, and your solution is to add one more thing to turn into?"

Karin swallowed her fear. "Let us explain, Orochimaru-sama. Juugo is unique since his flesh can constantly mutate into anything he wants. If we add that as a buffer, then Naruto's flesh should be able to change into threads, then into the mutating flesh and then into paper. He would not be able to transform completely into both at the same time, but it should work."

Orochimaru nodded. "We have the genetic material, but it will take a day to change it into a solution we can inject. Let us start immediately."

They had work as fast as they could, and Juugo's samples had been surprisingly unwilling to turn into the desperately needed solution, but in the end they had managed. Now they were in the room with Naruto's tank.

The boy had decomposed all the way to the hip, the decomposition on his left side reaching the three lowest ribs. His fingers had also halfway eroded away by now. Kabuto injected the solution, since the arm with the catheter was thankfully still intact.

Karin frowned. "Nothing's happening."

Kabuto took a deep breath. "It takes a while for the solution to spread through the body. In an hour or two, we should be able to see results." 'Good ones or bad ones.' Kabuto mentally added, but was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

An hour later, when he entered the room again, Kabuto was greeted with a most fortunate sight. Naruto was peacefully floating in his tank, completely intact. Kabuto felt utterly relieved. His head was safe.

Orochimaru had learned from that near-disaster, and said he would wait with the next solution for at least two months. In the meantime, they would study the samples they took to see if there was anything unusual that might endanger his future host. But everything seemed in order, Juugo's samples actually improving the entire design. Naruto now had internals and chakra-coils once again, though they were not desperately needed, and his chakra had actually calmed some. That had actually solved a potential problem Orochimaru had seen with Hidan's gift. The man reflected damage to his opponents, how would Orochimaru damage the opponent's internals if he himself had none? But now Naruto had internals when he needed them, so that was no longer an issue.

Two months had passed without any sort of problem, so Orochimaru decided it was time for the next shot. But just to be careful, he had chosen the sample of the only Akatsuki-member that had no physical anomalies, Sasori. The process had gone without a hitch, and Karin confirmed that something had changed. Naruto's chakra was now completely calm, flowing through his body like a strong current, but without a single obstruction or chakra-spike. His control would most likely be light-years above what it was before. Orochimaru smirked.

"Since we will make longer breaks between giving him the injections, we should begin to train him. Puppetry is not a kekkei genkai, so I want him to master it as soon as possible. They learn better when they start young."

Kabuto nodded. Honestly, he was itching to find out what the boy could do. They had already organized a number of puppets, and materials for human-puppets, together with a few corpses of mid-class shinobi. They wouldn't give away a precious corpse until they knew that it would be a success.

Kabuto looked at Karin, who had been ordered to take care of Naruto together with him. "This will probably be quite tiring."

Karin raised a brow. "Why? All we have to do is teach him how to form chakra-strings, and give him motivation for figuring the rest out."

Kabuto sighed. "That would work, right up to the point where we want him to make a human-puppet."

Karin tilted her head. "Why, we give him the scroll and wait till self-preservation makes him overcome any morals of cutting up corpses."

Kabuto face-palmed. "The boy was a pariah in his village, what on earth makes you think he can read?"

Karin gaped. "The kid is nine, and he can't read?"

"He was eight when he was awake the last time." Kabuto reminded her.

She groaned. "Great, so we have to teach him how to read?"

Kabuto shrugged. "Looks like it. But for now, we have to get him out and wake him up."

They pulled him out of the tank, removed the mask that had supplied oxygen and a tranquilizer. Kabuto grimaced. "Remind me to request that this thing is cleaned more often. It hasn't been off once since we originally put it on. A few more months, and the airhole would probably have grown shut." He dropped it.

Karin took five steps back. "Eew. Kabuto, please clean his face. Without the Kyuubi, he probably would have died from infection by now. I'll wait for you in his designated training-room. Looks like I'll have to get some books too. Some stuff for beginners, but the majority will be medical texts, they'll be better when he reads the scroll anyways."

Kabuto waved his acknowledgment and carried Naruto to get washed and dressed.

When he brought Naruto, now dressed in a simple shirt and pants, into the designated room, Karin was already waiting for him. Kabuto dropped Naruto on the makeshift bed, a pile of hay. Then they started discussing what they'd do with the boy. Orochimaru wanted results, but he wouldn't get those if the boy couldn't read the instructions.

They're thoughts were interrupted by a groan. They turned their heads and saw Naruto twitch. Then, for the first time in over a year, Naruto Uzumaki opened his eyes.

Chapter 2 is done. Didn't take as long as I thought it would, but I'm not complaining.

And yes, Naruto will learn puppetry, an make good use of that skill, but it won't be all he uses, nor will it be his first weapon of choice. He goes up close and personal, and if he feels that doesn't work the way he wants to, he pulls out the support. He'll also need a while to turn his human-puppets into true combat-puppets, as Orochimaru is not dumb enough to let Naruto build puppets with all the little gadgets and traps, just so the boy uses them for a jail-break.

About the two additions to Naruto's gene-pool, I find it only logical that Orochimaru would first use Kimimaro's DNA, since he wanted his bloodline anyways, before using up precious and limited Akatsuki-materials. And while I firmly believe that Juugo's mutating flesh is necessary to combine all of Akatsuki's powers in one host, that doesn't mean he'll fight like Juugo, permanently changing his form. To this point, I have no plan of making any mutation on Naruto that is not caused by Akatsuki- or in rare cases Kimimaro-DNA.

And one think that wasn't clear in the first chapter. What I wrote was Orochimaru's plan, not necessarily what will happen. I'll say this much, Naruto will not be grateful to Orochimaru or even remotely like the man. And since some mentioned Hinata going to Orochimaru for Naruto, how the hell is she supposed to find him? It's not like Orochimaru stampedes into Konoha in the middle of rush-hour, grabs Naruto from the crowded street and runs. Nobody knows where Naruto is, and those that do remain silent.

And to those wondering, I still haven't decided on any pairings, but I'm always open for suggestion.

Not that much to say right now, so onto my reviewers.

To dracohalo117: I truly respect you, but Orochimaru stealing 'objects of great power' from all nine Akatsuki within the span of a few moths or even years seems even more unlikely to me. The people are S-rank Missing-nin, don't you think they would have noticed their stuff was gone? And the culprit would be pretty obvious if there's only one person in their merry round that hasn't lost anything precious. And if these objects were really that powerful, don't you think the Akatsuki would have tried to get their stuff back, especially if they know that Orochimaru the mad has it? The only reason my Sasori didn't go after his scroll was that he doesn't think it'll do Orochimaru any good, since he's too old to truly master puppetry, and would waste a lot of time trying to learn it, time which he can't use to plot or put evil plans in motion.

To Jnottle: I agree. The Akatsuki may be good, courtesy of yours truly and dracohalo117's instructions, but I have no intention of making them lovey-dovey tree-huggers. In my opinion, goodish would be more precise than actually good.

To crazymexican: You'll see.

To noshadowone: Sorry, Naruto will have the mouths, since I have some plans with them that actually go a bit beyond the clay-eating part, but Naruto will keep it closed most of the time, and with a few tricks, nobody will notice them if Naruto doesn't want them to.

To ^ ^: Technically yes, Hidan's immortally is due to his religion, but even in Narutopedia, they say that not every Jashinist is immortal, and that Hidan is special. They also say he looses his immortality if he goes on a certain time without killing, but that will not be so in my fic.

To Gallantmon of the Hazard: I haven't decided on any pairings yet, so it's possible.

To matrice: Yes, Orochimaru loves scemes, although he is willing to instantly change his plans if new circumstances arrise, adapting to the envirement, so to say. So he is both careful scemer and spontanious, depending on the situation.

For now I said all I wanted to, so

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