Chapter 2
It had been two long years for Kasumi and Naruto. They had both improved leaps and bounds since starting to use chakra twenty months. Both Minato and Kushina had been surprised that it only took one more hour for Naruto to access his chakra then Kasumi, as they assumed that the Kyuubi inside of her would have made the accessing of chakra much easier. They remembered the fact that Naruto had the excess chakra of the Kyuubi's unsuccessful Bijudama, and attributed his own easy access to his chakra to that. It pleased them that he was able to successfully do the same as Kasumi without much time difference. It meant that he would not end up jealous of his sister, and he seemed to be a once in a lifetime prodigy as well. With the benefit of slightly larger reserves of chakra, Kasumi was ever so slightly naturally more gifted then Naruto, however he just used that as motivation to work harder. As a result, he was stronger then Kasumi for the moment, although that might well have changed by the time she started to access the Kyuubi's chakra. Still, there was no telling who was going to become the stronger shinobi when the time came.
Most of the twins training was based on chakra control and taijutsu, and they had yet to start a single genjutsu. Kushina felt that it would be best to leave genjutsu alone until the twins were about ten. Genjutsu required a lot of imagination and understanding of the theory of chakra manipulation, the sort of things that a six year old could simply not be expected to be able to grasp.
At the moment, the twins were in a spar, one that they had once every week in order to give them some combat experience. As always, they were watched over by Kushina.
Naruto ducked underneath a punch from his sister before he jumped away, backwards. After he put a small amount of distance between him and her, he ran towards her, preparing to punch her in the chest. Kasumi was always stronger and had more endurance, however he was far faster then she was. Ducking underneath her roundhouse kick, he punched her in the back before tripping her. Kasumi fell to the floor with a grunt. Not surprising, he had won every spar they ever had. It was bound to get annoying after a while.
He offered his hand to Kasumi and pulled her up.
"Well done, both of you. You're so much better then we thought you would be at this age." Kushina said with a huge smile on her face. "Come on, I'll take the two of you out to see you're father at his work. I know that he'll love to see the two of you today."
The two children yelled out in joy before running to get their shoes. Kushina's grin never once left her face, hoping sincerely that Kasumi and Naruto would always remain this close to each other. She was even more proud of Naruto then ever after he had extended his hand for Kasumi to be given a lift up. He was turning into such a gentleman.
When the two kids came back after putting on their shoes, she opened the door and began a leisurely walk towards the Hokage tower. Everybody in the streets would say hello, smiling at them all the while. A couple of chunin that Kushina had never seen before even bowed to the three of them. Kushina inclined her head back, the smile still not having left her face for more than a single second. This was truly a perfect day. Nothing could, nor would, go wrong.
-PoV change-
Mizuki had just received his orders from Orochimaru earlier that month, and it would be incredibly tricky. He didn't have a clue about why this was Orochimaru's great plan. It seemed rather far-fetched to him, and for a seemingly small prize as well. However, he had been given explicit orders, along with three teams of Oto shinobi to command for this purpose, and he would do exactly as was asked of him.
He saw the signal, two chunin bowing at the Hokage's wife for precisely ten seconds. And that was when he struck. Two of the three teams from Oto created a distraction over in the main district area, three streets away. As expected, almost all the shinobi nearby rushed towards the street, with the exception being himself and the two disguised chunin that Orochimaru had sent.
The Hokage's wife had her back towards him as he raced through hand seals in order to create the Dokugiri (Poison Mist). He had spent over four hours learning the technique to force it only to knock out as opposed to killing, however Orochimaru had absolutely demanded that he not kill anybody, and only capture one person. Such a waste, in his opinion. The Hokage's wife was one of the best looking kunoichi out there. However there was no use crying over spilt milk. Orochimaru's orders were explicit, and the last person who had kidnapped somebody that Orochimaru hadn't commanded them to for their own pleasure was experimented upon for months before he was finally killed. No-one was daring to go against Orochimaru again after that.
In all of the confusion, with the poison cloud, it was pathetically easy for him to grab the boy Orochimaru wanted. He started to run as quickly as possible in order to avoid ANBU for as long as possible.
Oh how Orochimaru would be pleased.
-PoV Change-
Orochimaru hated Konoha.
It was the simple truth, and there was no two ways around it. One could go on and on about why for days if they tried hard enough, however the main reason was because of Namikaze Minato. The Yondaime Hokage.
Orochimaru had fought in several of Konoha's wars; he had been servicing Konoha for years under his sensei, the Sandaime Hokage. He had been a shoe in for the position Minato held for over ten years, when some up-and-coming apprentice of Jiraiya came and snatched it all away from him. It had made him feel as if all of his years of service had been thrown away, pointless. So he started experimenting for immortality, to prove that he was truly the strongest ninja in the world.
Things had deteriorated from there. He had begun by experimenting upon various civilians and weak ninja that he stumbled across that nobody would miss or even notice missing. However, he had entirely too few people for his experiments, and the mortality rate was always incredibly high.
So he had taken others as well. Citizens of Konoha, the ones that nobody would care greatly over their disappearance. The homeless, in other words. However, he had stumbled across a truth with his earlier experiments. Shinobi bodies were far stronger then any civilians'. Not just physically, however even the weakest of shinobi could outwrestle a professional wrestler, such was the effect of chakra on their bodies. However, more useful knowledge of this came with the realization that chakra greatly increased the metabolic rate along with the immune system. Put simply, shinobi had ten times greater chance of living through his experiments then civilians. Unfortunately, the war was over, and so he could kidnap very few of other countries shinobi alive for his experiments to take place. So drastic measures were needed. He needed to capture shinobi from his own village.
It was an audacious process, not to mention difficult. A few sabotaged missions here and there and he could gather about a dozen shinobi of various strengths, however the mortality rate was still undeniably huge with even the simplest of experiments. After a little while, he had to resort to more desperate measures. He attacked various shinobi throughout the village, and of varying rank. However, he had been doomed at the Kyuubi attack. Doomed by his own arrogance. He had thought that with the mayhem that the village was in, nobody would miss a couple dozen shinobi here and there. And with the Yondaime unconscious, nobody in the village was powerful enough to stop him.
Aside from his teacher.
Sarutobi had caught him, and to this day, Orochimaru had no idea how. However, he realized that night, as he fled from Konoha, that he survived only because of his sensei's compassion. His sensei could have stopped him if he tried.
Orochimaru hated that.
The Sandaime could not bring himself to strike Orochimaru down, and so had allowed him to live, to flee from him. And Orochimaru realized why so many that had seen him in combat had called him God of Shinobi. True, he was always head and shoulders above everybody else, including the other kage, and yet, he was by no means powerful enough to be called God. But to civilians, genin, chunin and jounin, Sarutobi's feats could be considered nothing less then the actions of a God. None of them were Kage level shinobi. But even with himself, the strongest of the Sannin, Orochimaru felt as if his power paled in comparison to the power Sarutobi commanded effortlessly.
Which was exactly why he was trying to gain the ultimate body, so even Sarutobi and the Yondaime would fear his power.
"Orochimaru-sama!" one of the few Sound shinobi that he had recruited yelled from outside the door of the room he was currently inside of, resting.
"What is it?" He hissed, displeased for having being interrupted in his thoughts.
"Mizuki has arrived with the package. We were told to notify you im-"
"I know perfectly well what you were told to do, I told you to do that. Leave. Now." He said in an eerie tone that the guard knew too well.
"As you wish, Orochimaru-sama."
As he left from the room to the experimenting room, he had only one thought in his head.
Perfect.
-PoV change-
"No you blundering moron! If we do that then we will risk the complete degeneration of all the cells in his left arm! We cannot afford to do any more than five infusions."
"Says who, you? Ha! If I remember correctly, you recommended a way to create the cursed seal that would have taken years to get right, I was the one correct then, and I am correct now as well. Seven infusions is perfectly fine so long as we do not force them into his body more then one every eight or so months."
"Be quiet you blundering morons. Tell me here and now in simple terms, how many infusions could his body take before there was an immediate risk to him?" whispered a cold voice, filled to the brim with impatience.
The two scientists bowed their heads together and started to whisper angrily at each other. This continued for a couple of minutes until the scientists that had spoken first stood up straight and said in a far calmer voice that before,
"We can guarantee that he will remain perfectly healthy after four infusions, however any more then that would cause a minor risk in his wellbeing, and would reduce his likelihood of producing offspring."
Orochimaru nodded, hearing all that he had any need to. He quickly turned from the room and strode down the long hallways. Despite the fact that they all looked the exact same, he still seemed to know exactly where he was going. Ten minutes later, on practically the opposite side of the house, he walked in a different room and gazed upon it's only inhabitant.
The room was filled with equipment that looked as if it should be in the hospital. Scalpels were on a small desk, all of varying sizes, along with a cabinet full of syringes and test tubes with various labels on them. And in the center of the room, on a large desk, was a small blonde child that appeared to be being kept unconscious purposefully.
Orochimaru chuckled, before walking over to the large cabinet and took out four test tubes, with the labels '3,K,I', '2,K,K', '3,K,R' and '2,K,K'. Again, he started to chuckle, before taking out an empty syringe, and advancing upon Naruto.
A/N. Hello everybody! Sorry about both the long wait and the short chapter. I wont go into a pity party, so lets just leave it at "I didn't have any time to write." Fortunately, I have a lot more time now, so updates should both be longer and more frequent.
I also have a larger summary on my profile, right underneath my challenge.
Thank you if you reviewed!