Disclaimer: Me no own shit

A/N: thanks everyone who took the time to read and especially to everyone who took the time to review.

Chapter 2

Revised: 8/25/12

Naruto lay on the floor of the training room and tried to ignore the constant aching of his body. The last nine hours of his life had been grueling and he frowned as he thought back over the day. Not only had it been a skill check day at the Academy, afterwards he had rushed to the Temple to see if he could get to know the two believers that had participated in his convergence last night but had disappeared before he had regained his senses. Almost as soon as he stepped into the atrium Hidan had stopped him and dragged him into the Temple's large training room. Apparently someone had been observing him at the Academy that afternoon and seen his abysmal skill tests earlier in the day. Of course, Hidan had decided that he was going to take it upon himself to improve Naruto's skills, starting with kunai training and, unfortunately for Naruto, his idea of kunai training was to play dodge ball…with kunai.

Naruto had thought Hidan was joking before he had given Naruto a few tips to improve his accuracy ("Your feet are too far apart dumbass, your releasing too early in your throw, I don't even wanna know what the hell that was supposed to be") and then handed over several freshly sharpened kunai and said "Hope you have some damn good reflexes. 'Cause I'm not going easy on you"

The next two hours were brutal on Naruto's already tired body, he had avoided being skewered on any of Hidan's lightening fast kunai by less than an inch, but had still ended up with scratches and shallow cuts all over his body. He had managed to hit Hidan once however. The priest had twisted his body to avoid one kunai and had been struck in the side by Naruto's hastily thrown follow-up. After trying for several minutes to stem the flow of blood he had decided to use the blood in his afternoon ritual and concluded the training. Which brought Naruto up to the present, lying on the cold stone floor, cuts all over his body, and mentally repeating some of the more colorful swears he had heard Hidan utter over the course of the day.

"Damn runt, you look even worse than you did last night"

Naruto grumbled internally and twisted his head to see the owner of the unfamiliar voice. The speaker was tall and lanky with sorrowful brown eyes and spiky light blue hair. He was wearing a grey jacket, reminiscent of a ship captains, and was grinning down at Naruto, lit cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth.

"Yeah well, you'd look like this too if you spent the last two hours playing kunai dodge ball with Hidan-san" Naruto retorted

"Are you kidding," the older boy chuckled, "I helped sempai invent that game" he grabbed Naruto by the back of his tattered shirt and hefted him to his feet, "I'm Shitai by the way."

"I'm Naruto. And you helped Hidan-san invent that psychotic game? How in the hell do you find that fun?"

"I'm masochistic," he deadpanned and then chuckled as Naruto sweat dropped, "nah, I'm just messin' with you. But seriously you look like you need to eat, you wanna go grab something?"

"Alright, but from where?"

Shitai smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck, (Naruto noticed that a rosary was wrapped around his wrist), "I…have no idea, It's been a couple years since I've been in the village"

"Really? Where have you been? Here in the temple?"

"No not here, I've been searching for—"

"He's been searching for the mythical Saisho no Jiin" a soft and rather androgynous voice broke in.

"It's not mythical, Waruku you damn she-male!" Shitai exclaimed sounding playfully mad

Naruto turned to look at the newcomer whose appearance was even more androgynous than their voice. They were clad in a white kimono and had long brunette hair that covered most of their face (think Samara from The Ring)

"Uh, what is Saisho no Jiin?" Naruto spoke up, disrupting the two's faux argument over whether Waruku was a he or a she.

"Eh, I'll tell you over food, Waruku is gonna show us a place" Shitai said smiling happily

Naruto smiled back, Shitai's good mood was contagious and a welcome change from Hidan's angry temperament or Aijin's passive one.

As it turned out, Waruku and Shitai were actually good friends despite their constant bickering. And as Waruku lead them to the restaurant, a secluded barbeque restaurant on the outskirts of Konoha's red light district, Naruto learned a decent amount about the two. They were both 18 and had both converted around the same time. Even though he learned a lot of miscellaneous info about the two; the one thing Naruto hadn't learned was whether or not Waruku was a boy or a girl, his curious nature had made him ask of course, but the answer he got was…unhelpful at best.

Flashback:

Naruto studied Waruku out of the corner of his eye. The slightly baggy kimono hid most of their figure, so that would be no help. Facial features wouldn't help either since they were mostly covered by hair, voice could be deceiving too. With a sigh Naruto realized he would have to just flat out-ask and hope that Waruku didn't react to questions like Sakura-chan, he really didn't feel like getting hit right now.

"Uh Waruku-san can I ask you a question?

"Sure thing Naru-chan, oh and just call me Waruku"

"HEY DON'T CALL ME NARU-CHAN I'M NOT A GIRL!".

"But your adorable like one" Waruku said chuckling

"Grrr,"

"So what was your question?"

"Are you a boy or a girl?" Naruto asked, quickly stepping back to get out of smacking range in case Waruku tried anything.

"Depends on the day." Waruku said calmly, laughing when Naruto's eyes went wide and he fell over from shock.

End Flashback

After they had sat down in the pleasantly lit back room of the barbeque restaurant and given the waitress their order, Shitai lit a fresh cigarette, blew the smoke out his nose dragon style and asked:

"So, Naruto you still wanna know what Saisho no Jiin is?"

He nodded and Shitai began speaking in a lecture-y voice that reminded him of Iruka-sensei.

"Well back when I was about your age, I had this huge and I mean HUGE crush on Aijin-hime. So I decided to impress her by reading a bunch of stuff in the library since she's always in there, ya know? So I was going through all these books, looking for something obscure, something rare and I found this book called The First Empire, written by this guy called Yogen-sha—

"Who was a mad-man even by our messed up standards"

"Shut up Waruku," Shitai responded absentmindedly and flicked ash from his cigarette, "Anyway this guy was around back when the shinobi villages were formed and he was a historian for the Order, his writings were intriguing. Like I hated reading and I still couldn't put the book down, even though it was 6 inches thick. But according to the book, before the shinobi villages were formed Jashin had an empire, with only one temple, the Saisho no Jiin, the first temple. It was based on this island somewhere off the coast of Water Country. And once the island was secure the Jashinists started to expand, taking over most of the islands and a lot of the countries that now have minor shinobi villages in them. Anyway just after the Villages were formed, the Kages decided that anything that was a threat to their power had to go. They started to take down everyone, non-affiliated shinobi, samurai clans, mercenary nin, and then they started on us. Of course that didn't go over well, and after each village realized that all their failed attacks inevitably were followed by a vicious counter-attack, they banded together and began to carve through our territories, going straight for the coastline. It took them a decade to get there, a decade of slaughter, they killed everyone, soldiers and civilians. As far as they were concerned we were rabid dogs that needed to be put down. By the time they reached the coast half our empire had been razed to the ground. And obviously when they reached the first temple they ran into the High Council and those with Jashin's Great Gift, and for seven years they tried to take the temple, but the Priests, the Elder, and all the believers who were there on pilgrimages were too well established and they cost the Villages countless men. So the Kages decided to seal those blessed with Jashin's Gift inside the temple and sink the island. Without leaders, the empire fell apart. The rest of the believers dispersed to remote places in the world and established sanctuaries so that they could practice in relative safety. But there have always been people searching for that temple"

"It's like Atlantis, Naru-chan it's something they tell new-bloods in the coast sanctuaries to get them interested but it doesn't actually exist." Waruku said, smiling slightly

Shitai scowled slightly and stubbed the smoldering butt into the table top, "Eh, don't listen to Waruku runt, he's just bitter that he looks like chick with a man's body"

"And yet I still get laid more than you"

"…..not okay dude, not okay"

Naruto laughed at their antics, a feeling of contentment spreading through his body as he sat there with a stomach full of warm food and two people that he could call friends.

Kiba Inuzuka was a naturally curious person. So when Naruto-baka came to the Academy and his scent had changed to the smell of dried blood he became slightly curious, when he saw Naruto hit the bullseye nine out of ten times in the morning kunai practice he became officially interested, and when he saw Naruto actually paying attention to Iruka-sensei he became downright alarmed. However, when he brought this up with Naruto-baka he had been told to quote "mind your own damn business dog-breath". This hostility surprised him, normally Naruto only snapped at Sasuke, and more curious than ever he decided to follow Naruto and watch him train to see if he got a tutor or something. He had followed Naruto to the woods but as soon as Naruto got behind the tree line he broke into a run and effectively disappeared, Kiba had searched for an hour but could only find faint traces of his scent. Discouraged and confused, Kiba had returned home.

TIMESKIP

"And team 7 will be made up of Naruto Uzukami, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha."

Naruto sighed and tuned out the rest of Iruka's speech. He had been hoping to get paired up with anyone but Sasuke, he didn't particularly like anyone in the class but even Kiba would have been a better team mate. And he got stuck with Sakura, he had lost his crush on her and didn't have anything against her; he thought she could be a decent shinobi if she ever stopped being a fan-girl, but she still had the habit of hitting him upside the head. That was something he was NOT looking forward to. He sighed once more and leaned back in his chair, fingering his rosary through his shirt.

Almost a year had passed since Naruto had stumbled upon the Temple and he had noticeably changed. He had become more quiet and reserved, Aijin had spent many hours teaching him to keep a tight hold on his emotions; and his sense of humor had become more twisted, courtesy of spending hours with Shitai and Waruku. His choice in clothing had changed as well; the bright oranges had been replaced by grays and blacks that hung loosely on him, hiding the muscles that had been developed from Hidan-sans intense training. Despite the fact he could have easily kept up with Sasuke in both academics and sparring he remained at the bottom of the class out of apathy. Apparently this apathy had come back to bite him in the ass.

"All right guys that's the last squad, come back here to meet your sensei's after lunch. But until then you're dismissed."

Naruto stood up and brushed his hair out of his eyes, before leaving the classroom behind and beginning to weave his way through Konoha's streets to get to Ichiraku. A few blocks out from the Academy a familiar voice stopped him.

"What do you look so down about, runt?"

He turned to see Shitai strolling up to him; a sack full of groceries slung over his chest like a messenger bag.

"Hey Shitai, what's up with the bag? I thought Aijin usually got supplies"

Shitai shrugged and lit a cigarette, "Yeah she does, but the High Priest from the Land of Bears is visiting so she and sempai had to stay there. Oh, that reminds me, you gotta stop by the temple sometime today to meet that guy."

Naruto quirked an eyebrow, "Oh, why? Did I do something wrong?"

"Na, na you're fine. It's an old tradition for another temple's High Priest to meet the new converts. Kind of a trust thing, ya know? Anyway, why do you look so down Naru-chan?"

Naruto just sighed as Ichiraku came into view. Ignoring Shitai's questioning glance he sat down at one of the stools inside the stand.

"Hey Naruto, haven't seen you in a while. Where ya been?" Teuchi said jovially as his best customer took a seat.

"Sorry I haven't been around lately old man, but I've been training like crazy"

"Oh, getting strong I hope! And who's your friend?"

Shitai smiled widely "I'm Hatsumei, I've been helping Naruto with his training"

(Hatsumei means 'invented')

"Good ta meetcha Hatsumei, I'm Teuchi and I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you not to smoke that in here."

Shitai blinked owlishly, it had obviously been a while since anyone had told not to smoke indoors.

"Uh….OK, not a problem" He walked over to the entrance, and seemed to be having a very fierce internal battle with himself before hesitantly flicking the cigarette into the road.

"So what'll you have Naruto?" Teuchi asked still smiling broadly

"Uh, just a couple bowls of miso, I don't have much time before I gotta go back to the academy"

"Coming right up!" With a final wide smile, Teuchi disappeared through a back door into the kitchen.

Shitai retook his seat and huffed moodily at the loss of his nicotine. Naruto ignored the childish behavior and the two sat in silence until Teuchi had brought out the first bowl of ramen. Within minutes the bowl was empty.

"So now that you've demolished that poor bowl of soup are you gonna tell me why you look so down?"

"I got stuck with the two worst possible teammates!" Naruto burst out, glad to finally vent his displeasure

Shitai raised an eyebrow, but before he could respond the second bowl of ramen had been brought out and Naruto began to systematically destroy it.

"A third bowl please, old man!" Naruto said allowing a happy grin to appear on his face.

"Uh Naruto didn't you have to be back at the Academy, like ten minutes ago?"

"Nani?" Naruto shot a glance at the clock and felt his eyes widen in shock. "Oh no! I'm so screwed! I gotta go! I gotta go!" with that last cry he slammed several bills onto the counter and took off at top speed towards the Academy. Shitai chuckled at Naruto's loss of composure, pulled the newest bowl of ramen towards him, and began to eat.

Naruto slammed open the door to his classroom, hoping desperately that his team hadn't left yet. To his relief they hadn't; but to his annoyance it was almost a half an hour before their sensei poked his masked face through the door. He watched them for a minute, as if waiting for something, and then said shortly "meet me on the roof".

The warm afternoon breeze ruffled Naruto's hair as he observed his team's jounin sensei. He was dressed in dark blue pants and a long sleeved shirt of the same color with the standard jounin vest and shinobi sandals. His gravity defying silver hair appeared to be held up by his headband which doubled as a make shift eye-patch. Add a mask that covered his lower face and Naruto thought he looked rather ridiculous. But he was going to show the guy respect, to do any less would violate the sacred tenants.

"Let's see, why don't you introduce yourselves," the jounin said lazily "What you like, hate, your dreams and hobbies. Something like that."

"Why don't you introduce yourself first Sensei" Sakura asked

"Me? I'm Kakashi Hatake, I have no intention of telling you my likes and dislikes. As for my dream… I have a few hobbies."

"All we learned was his name." Sakura muttered.

"Now its your turn, you first blondie"

Naruto grumbled internally at the blondie remark before saying "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, I like training and ramen. I dislike assholes and my dream is to become strong." After that he zoned out, he simply didn't care about whatever fan girl-y thing Sakura would no doubt say and whatever broody and undoubtedly 'cool' things Sasuke would say. He managed to pull himself out of his daze just in time to hear something about survival training at dawn at training ground seven. 'huh, maybe I should stop spacing out so much, I might miss something important next time' He stood up, ran a hand through his hair and set off towards the temple.

As he walked through the Konoha's slowly darkening streets, he looked around marveled at the innocence the village portrayed. It all looked so peaceful, children running in the streets, shinobi gathering at restaurants after an afternoon of training or missions, shopkeepers closing up for the night so they could go home to their family. It all looked so tranquil and it made him feel so damn sick, because he knew what would happen after the bars closed. The drunken civilians and shinobi would stumble onto the street, completely shit-faced and nine times out of ten they would either attempt to beat the shit out of him or burn down his apartment complex. Frowning slightly he stepped into the forest surrounding Konoha and took a deep breath of the air; for some reason the smell of the forest always calmed him. He took another deep breath and allowed the dark thoughts to slip away into the back of his mind. With a grin he set a brisk pace towards the guardian statue and within 20 minutes he was inside the temple.

Timeline clarification: this happened at the same time Naruto was in class receiving team assignments

The song had been echoing in his head ever since he had received his instructions, sending his already precarious grip on reality sliding down a few notches. He had been traversing the coast countries when all of a sudden; the cold presence of his Lord had ripped through his mind, causing a surge of bloodlust to flow through his veins and an image of Konoha's gates to become emblazoned in his mind. No words had been exchanged, but his Lord's the message had been more than clear.

He landed on a thick tree branch at the outskirts of the clearing, crouched and dug his unnaturally sharp nails into the bark; trying to ignore the words that had pounding in his head for the past two weeks. The song was primitive and repetitive, the pounding bass making the inside of his head feel like a prison

"Kill

Kill

Kill

Kill"

He grit his teeth and struggled to keep the angered growl from leaving his throat, it would not do to scare his prey away now that they were so close. There they were, he could smell their weakness like a rancid perfume, and he smiled as one walked directly under his perch, never noticing the predator. Still smiling he fell from the branch like an Olympic diver, both his hands outstretched and latching onto the man's head as soon as they got within range. The moment he was sure of his grip he twisted his hips brutally to the right causing his entire body to rotate and the unfortunate shinobi's head to be turned 180 degrees with a sharp crack. As the shinobi fell bonelessly to the ground, he completed his midair twist and landed on the balls of his feet and the tips of his fingers.

Quickly pulling a kunai from the dead man's leg holster, he set off through the trees, weaving through them as quiet as a shadow. 'Now then, where did the rest of my prey go?' He sniffed, trying to catch the scent of their weakness, 'Ah, there you are' he turned to face the clearing. The two remaining shinobi had obviously realized their companion was dead because they were in the middle of the clearing, each facing a different direction. 'But not back-to-back, they are going to regret that decision' with a smile befitting a demon, he took off at his top speed, slicing through one of the shinobi's Achilles tendon and disappearing into the cover of the trees by the time the unharmed nin had turned around. He would have liked to play with his prey a little more but the blood lust was overwhelming him, causing his vision to be topped with a thin red film. He shook his head, he didn't want to give in just yet, he wanted to retain control long enough to at least finish the wounded prey. With a final, brutal shake of his head to regain marginal control, he took off at top speed once again, using his momentum to slam his kunai hilt deep into the wounded nin's heart. He smiled as he stared into the fast dying eyes and whispered, "I want to see the light leave your eyes" and he chuckled, the sound was like stones grinding together.

He was so focused on his task that he didn't notice the remaining nin pull a kunai from his holster. What he did notice was when said kunai became lodged in his neck, and with an annoyed growl he looked up into the terrified eyes of his assailant

"What kind of monster are you! Why aren't you fucking dead!" the nin demanded, panicked

An inhuman grin was his only answer and before he could register what was happening a hand was slammed flat-palmed into his chest and sent him flying across the clearing, colliding with a tree and falling to the ground. Instinctively he curled up in the fetal position, trying to ease the pain in his chest. He looked up and watched as his assailant sped towards him on all fours like an animal, before grabbing him by the hair and pulling him into a sitting position against the tree. The predator smiled and drug one black-colored claw down the side of his neck, pricking the skin over his pulse hard enough to draw blood. With another inhuman grin the man, if you could call this creature a man, began to speak:

"I am not a monster, whelp, I am merely a predator. And you, my unfortunate friend, are the prey."

The nin could feel the temperature drop several degrees as the insane back light in his attackers golden eyes suddenly disappeared. Something inhuman, something more ancient than words could describe seemed to gaze back at him from those eyes and a voice that was his attackers but also distinctly wasn't came issuing from his throat.

"And I like to play with my prey before I eat it" the monstrous dual-tonal voice said before his head snapped towards the nin's throat.

Screams of anguish ripped through the air, sending birds flying from their perches and into the blue sky.

The man shook his head slowly as the red receded from his eyesight. With a tired grunt he stood from his crouched position and spit several times, trying to expel the coppery taste of blood from his mouth. Wiping blood from his lips, he looked around the clearing and surveyed the damage. It appeared that Kyoju-sha had only fed on the last victim; the other two were in the positions they had been in when he gave into his occupant. He would have to bury them; it would spoil the fun if they were discovered this early in the hunt. He hummed thoughtfully, glad that the accursed song had quieted enough that he could think rationally. Yes, he would have to bury the others if he wished to prolong the hunt, but there was nothing he could really to with the remains of his occupant's meal.

"Always leaves such a mess" he muttered as he dragged his first victim into the clearing to lie next to the others. With a final glance at the mess that had been a human being less than twenty minutes ago, he began to dig a grave deep enough to accommodate the two intact corpses.

Chapters 4,5, and 6 combined.

How do you think the revisions are going? Reviews are welcome.