The Pathless Sage
A/R: Okay, I know I said I wouldn't do long, long A/Rs anymore, but bear with me just for this chapter. And please do read all of it, if you could be so kind.
Apologies for the delay in getting the chapter out, but I had things to do. It was Eid ul Adha this Friday, so understandably, I was not able to write. Sorry, but that's life for ya. Anyhow, thanks for all the reviews, it never ceases to amaze me how many reviews per chapter an established Naruto fic can get. On that note, YAY! Over 400 reviews and over 100k hits in the same chapter! I think, anyway. The story has 115k hits and 427 reviews now, never thought I would get this far this early on. Nice!
Zaraki poll is still up, just letting ya know.
PLEASE READ! Seeing as you are reading chapter 23 of this story, I assume you like my writing. I have recently written a one shot named Trick or Treat and it is up on the Team Dragon Star account. It's a group I write for and I submitted a story for a Halloween competition they are running. If you are interested, please go read it. Reviews are appreciated, as they count towards deciding the overall winner.
www . fanfiction s / 8646580 / 1 / Trick-or-Treat
Copy/Paste that into the URL bar and take out all the spaces. Thank you in advance.
Also, I decided I will use Jutsu names in Japanese and in English. Whatever sounds cooler, will be used. As for the weights Naruto was wearing, I realised that Lee's weights left some large craters when they were dropped, and roughly 300 KG wouldn't be nearly enough to cause that. So, for the sake of ... I don't know what, Naruto's current weights shall magically be multiplied by ten. So now, Naruto is wearing 3 tonnes in total, rather than 300 KG. Thinking back on it, that was a bad idea ... even a normal human can pick that up. Okay ... maybe not normal, but some of the strongest people can.
On with the story!
In a laboratory, far away from Konohagakure, a mad scientist sat, staring at the results of his most recent experiment. He was disturbed by it. Not many people knew him, but those that did would say that if it was something that disturbed this mad scientist, then it must be disturbing indeed. This mad scientist, you see, had a name that he was known far and wide by. It was a name that struck fear into the heart of the feeble and made the strong quake in their boots.
Orochimaru was his name.
A few days ago, one of his pawns had run into his hide out with a Jutsu scroll that she had found. Guren, unknown to all but Orochimaru, had a habit of grave robbing and treasure hunting. Her latest escapade had brought some rather unexpected results. Rather than shiny bits of metal that she usually walked in with, Guren came into his current rat hole with an old and tattered looking scroll. Orochimaru had taken it from her, thanked her profusely and told her to go rest. She didn't realise what a groundbreaking theory was contained in the scroll.
He had to admit, he was skeptical at first about whether the thing would actually work. Something like raising the dead was an unfathomable concept, even to one as knowledgeable in Kinjutsu as himself. But what was even more difficult to believe was that the Nidaime Hokage was one to dabble in necromancy. It almost made him scoff.
His initial skepticism was blown out of the window with the help of a bazooka wielding Itachi Uchiha (figuratively) when the results of his first tests came in. Rather than the mutilated pounds of flesh that he was expecting, what he got was a living organism that he was sure he killed off last year. Well, at least that meant that he could actually revive people from the dead. There was a high cost involved, though.
At least, that's what normal people would think.
To Orochimaru, acquiring DNA of a dead person was no matter. Even if it amounted to grave robbing or whatever, he had no morals. Next, a living person was required to be used as a vessel. While normal people would opt out at this stage, Orochimaru was more than happy to kill a person or two to see if a Kinjutsu as amazing as this actually worked.
Orochimaru's surprise increased when he found out that he could actually control the people that he revived. To an extent, anyway. The people he revived, in essence, became his slaves, without their own will.
He had to experiment more, with more powerful and willful people. He still had DNA samples of the Yondaime Hokage, so he tried to revive him next. Imagine his surprise when the Shinigami himself, black cape and unwieldy scythe and all, materialised out of thin air in front of him.
What's more, the Shinigami was growling at him. Oh boy, this would not end well.
Either for the world, or himself.
-TT-
Naruto sat in the oppressive silence of his living room, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows twitching away like they had a mind of their own. Normally, the house was loud and rowdy, thanks to Naruto and Kisame's constant bickering, but now that Kisame was replaced by someone much quieter, the silence was defeaning.
"Itachi-nii ..." Naruto started, looking over to the older male to his right.
"It's alright," Itachi cut him off, not wanting to hear apologies. He had much more important matters to deal with, more so than a stupid student that went and babbled about a supposed S Rank missing nin being in the village again. "If you don't mind, can you leave the two of us alone for a while?"
"Well, I got groceries to stock up on," with that answer, Naruto high tailed from his own house, wanting to get the heck away from the thick atmosphere. It was starting to get under his skin, sitting with the two newly reunited brothers. Though, before he left the door, he turned back and shouted: "Let him have the whole story, Itachi-nii, you owe him that much!"
"I owe him much more than an explanation," Itachi thought sadly, looking at the murderous looking Sasuke before him. He hadn't said anything to his older brother yet, fearing that he would lose his composure and attack Itachi if he so much as spoke. He knew he was no match for the older man, not yet anyway, but he knew that wouldn't have stopped him from trying.
"What do you want to hear first, my foolish little brother?" Sasuke didn't expect that. Despite leaving on such a sour note, Itachi didn't seem any different. He still had that stoic, amused aura about him, as if viewing the world from a detached point of view and laughing at them. He hadn't heard Itachi laugh in a long time, though.
"Why did you kill my clan?" He wasn't referring it to as their clan, as a collective anymore. He had ruled Itachi out as a member of the Uchiha clan. He refused to believe someone could do something to their own family. Itachi wasn't part of the Uchiha anymore, never was, that was his answer.
"Our clan, foolish little brother," Itachi ignored the increase of anger on his brother's visage. "It's quite simple, I was given orders to eliminate the Uchiha clan."
If Sasuke was shocked, he didn't show it. Yet. "By the Hokage?"
"No, by Danzo, one of the elders," Itachi said, shaking his head.
"Why?" It was a simple question, but such anguish behind the word surprised Itachi. He knew Sasuke would have been grieving, but not to this level.
"The Uchiha clan were planning a coup d'etat ..."
It took Itachi the better part of an hour to finish his tale. By the end of it, a reeling Sasuke was left sitting on his new friend's couch, Kisame had come and gone, and Naruto was now standing in the corner of the room. He had come in half way through the retelling to make sure no murderous acts were being carried out in his house. He had Sasuke's word, but he couldn't be too sure. After all, Uchihas were known to be traitors ... in one form or other.
Sasuke turned to Naruto in anger. "You knew all of this?"
"Not all of it, but I learned most of the story by following Itachi-nii during that time," Naruto replied, somehow hanging onto his calm visage. He didn't look troubled at all, despite the modest amount of killing intent Sasuke was directing at him.
"How did you tail Itachi without found?" Sasuke asked, opting to act confused rather than angry. Well, he was confused. How does a 7 or 8 year old follow around an ANBU captain for so long without being found?
"I was under a Henge," Naruto said, not moving from his spot in the corner of the room. Sitting on the couch would be more comfortable, but he didn't want to be in the blast zone if Sasuke lost his temper.
"Henges are just illusionary changes in appearance, how did that help you to follow someone trained to spot Henges?" Sasuke wasn't buying Naruto's story just yet. Henge wasn't designed to fool high ranking ninjas like Itachi.
"My Chakra is far, far more potent than normal people, even without the presence of Kyubi, his presence only amplifies it. It makes my Henges completely solid, so I actually change appearance," seeing the other boy's confused look upon the explanation of Chakra potency, Naruto decided to explain. "Chakra potency is how powerful your Chakra is. The more potent it is, the less Chakra you will need for any Jutsu. And unlike control and reserves, Chakra potency can't be trained, it's something you're born with."
"So, why didn't you tell me? About the reason Itachi-nii killed our clan?" Itachi noted, with no small amount of satisfaction, that his foolish little brother was back to calling him his older brother again, and was acknowledging him as a part of the Uchiha clan. It was far more than he could have hoped for, and a far better start than he expected.
"Like I said in Wave, it wasn't my story to tell," Naruto's voice rang with a sense of finality. He looked to the window, noticing that it was later than he first thought. "It's turning night, so get out. I'm tired and I need my sleep."
For once, Sasuke actually showed a genuine expression of surprise. He wasn't expecting something like that. "What about Itachi-nii?"
"Until further notice, he is hiding out in my house and is a part of ANBU," Naruto said dismissively. Then, seeing that Sasuke wasn't moving from his spot on the couch, went over and picked the boy up by the back of the collar.
"If you didn't get what I meant, I was kicking you out of my house," he punctuated that by literally punting the other boy out of the window. He was satisfied to hear a loud thump from the outside. Itachi blinked at him stupidly for a second, before succumbing to a fit of laughter. By normal people standards, not Itachi standards. Naruto joined in after he heard grumblings of 'idiotic dobes' from outside his window.
-TT-
Naruto stood in his usual training ground, waiting for his sensei to arrive. Normally, he would be doing a hoard of missions by now, but Kisame had told him not to go off today, saying something about having to tell Naruto about some important stuff. Naruto didn't particularly care about doing even more D Ranks, so he complied.
Exactly eleven minutes and fifty nine seconds later, Naruto was surprised to see both Kisame and Itachi coming in through the entrance of the training field, walking towards him. Itachi was garbed in the normal outfit of an ANBU, complete with white, flowing cloak to cover his armour and a ceramic weasel mask to conceal his face. Kisame was wearing the standard uniform for a Konoha Jounin, having no personal preference in clothing. Plus, ninja uniforms were comfortable and easy to move around in.
Kisame and Itachi stopped in front of him, and looked at him as if sizing him up as an opponent. Then, after almost a fully minute of inspection, they both nodded in unison.
"Seems like we have succeeded in building a solid body to withstand the backlash from Ninjutsu," Itachi said, crossing his arms over his chest. Hearing the comment, Naruto looked thoroughly confused. What on Earth were they talking about?
"Some explanation, please?" Naruto had learned, many months ago, that asking for things politely got better results than simply demanding. Whatever small difference it made, it wasn't costing him anything, so he deemed politeness to be worth the effort.
"I'm sure you noticed that for as long as we have been training you, all you have been doing nothing other than physical exercises," Naruto nodded, not seeing where this was going. "Yet we did not train you in any actual Taijutsu style. It was all because we were making you build a strong body so that you could withstand the backlash from using powerful Ninjutsu. Usually, people start with using small and weak Jutsu, so that they could slowly build up their bodies, but we dropped in the deep end so that we could teach you some decent B to S rank Jutsu."
Kisame almost burst out laughing after seeing the starry eyed look on Naruto's face. "Did you actually think we would make you a Taijutsu expert, with the potency of your Chakra and the amount you have?"
Naruto rubbed the back of his head in an embarrassed manner. "Well, I have a few Jutsu I want to learn first, so would you mind supervising me while I do that?" Naruto was directing his question at Kisame.
"Hell no!" Naruto's face almost fell through the ground at hearing that. "I'm pawning you off to Itachi for the Ninjutsu portion of your training." With that, Kisame left the scene, but not before doing one more thing to infuriate his single student.
"Kisame ... I SWEAR I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Naruto seethed, seeing his teacher vanish slowly in that agonising, overdramatic Shunshin his. "Someday, I'm gonna find a way to seal you so that if you try to use that bastarded move, you end up in your grave."
For the second time in the week, Itachi succumbed to a fit of raucous laughter.
"You're going weird Itachi-nii, I never knew you could laugh," hearing that only made him laugh harder. Just because he didn't do it in front of them, didn't mean he didn't regularly laugh at people.
"What Jutsu do you want to practice first?" Itachi asked, still giggling a little. Naruto was slowly edging away from him. He was sure the older man had gone senile.
"Hmm ... Raiton: Raijin should be a good start." Naruto ran through the handsigns and focused Lighning Chakra to his palm, only to yell a moment later.
"OOOOWWWW! THAT HURTS!" He screamed, hopping on one foot and cradling his singed arm. It seemed like the Jutsu had misfired and burned him instead.
"Oh Naruto-kun," Itachi said in a singsong voice, completely uncharacteristic of someone as stoic as him. Something told him that Itachi was enjoying his pain immensely, knowing that he would heal up in minutes. "Return to the basics for you!"
Naruto tried to run away, only to be dragged back by Itachi and forced to start on the exercises.
"And no Shadow Clones." Seeing the confused look on Naruto's face, Itachi explained: "We recently theorised that using them to train was a bad idea. Since the Kyubi has to constantly heal you, the repeated damage and repair cycle will slowly whittle away at your lifespan. What is done is done, but we don't want to make your life any shorter than it already is."
Naruto shrugged, and went back to cutting the leaf with his Lightning Chakra.
A/R: CUUUT! That is a wrap, and I thought that was a rather nice chapter. Sorry if the Uchiha reunion wasn't up to snuff, but there will be some more of the effects in a later chapter. Sorry if there are some spacing errors in the chapter, but my keyboard is being a total bitch.
Please review, it helps me motivate myself to write. If the review count goes higher than a certain number, I might add an extra rant in there next chapter. I plan on doing one anyway, but an extra might be done!