It takes nerve to be a Ninja. Naruto had nerve, what else would you call acing the written exam without answering a single question?

This man however had nerve to spare. In a small opening in the forest of death sat a man at a table. He was tall and slender a gust of wind would break his bones. He had comedicly white skin, that was actually what gave away his position a bright light in a dark forest. From his table he was waving Team seven over to him.

They all looked at each other nervously. There was no point in hiding he could obviously see them. Slowly they got out of the brush and shuffled towards him. Naruto's eyes were draw to the dead bodies two of his security guards were disposing of. As they got closer details began to form. His hair was tied up in a tall black ponytail, and he wore a suit, the type that you really shouldn't wear anywhere other than a pent house, other wise you'd have lost a small fortune. Saskue cringed, it suddenly struck him that this man was the ultimate evil, a business man.

"Sorry about the mess, you got here faster than anticipated. I must admit so far team Kakashi is living up to my expectations."

"Why did you kill those people." Naruto asked bluntly.

"Because they wouldn't hand over the Heaven scroll you needed. It would have been the same outcome if you encountered them."

"Who are you?"

He smiled; he liked this part of his job you could tell. "You may call me Maru, I am Founder and CEO of Orochi Corp a multinational conglomerate funded by private investors and a few dozen patents that I personally invented."

"Woah, okay back it up guys." Saskue pulled his team back a few feet.

Naruto tugged himself away from Saskue. "What does Orochi Corp do, other than make money?"

"Secretly we despise justice to evil doers that countries are unable to. I dare say that the world has been saved more than once thanks to our intervention."

"That's what they say, but they are the largest dealer of Forbidden Jutsu Weapons on the planet!"

Maru shook his head. "Actually this is a common misconception. We manufacture only the finest weapons, it just happens they that are too well crafted and become forbidden, and under Article seven of the Free Trade Agreement we are allowed to sell our remaining stock as long as we stop production and burn the blueprints." Naruto's curiosity was peaked. If you had to burn the blueprints of forbidden Jutsu weapons, then why did the Hokage keep and entire scroll filled with them. Naruto rubbed the back of his neck where his clone Projection device was stored. "Of course not everyone keeps to the rules, right Naruto."

Naruto's hand flew off of his neck. "Tell me about some of these weapons."

Orochi-Maru smiled like a snake who'd just eaten a whole family of mice. "It would be a genuine pleasure. My personal favorite is the coil sword, it's a regular sword except that it's made up of tightly coiled wires, so when you stick it into someone the wires uncoil violently and make a fine soup out of your opponent's innards.

"Wow that's…" Naruto paused. "Awesome"

"Horrible!" Sakura shouted.

"Um, yeah horrible."

Maru wasn't slowed down by a little negative feedback. "Evil weapons to kill evil men, the sons of Cain have no right to a peaceful death. But I'm not here to sell you weapons now am I?" He looked at the three of them, each strong in their own way, each different in their own way, each an outcast I their own way. "Orochi Corp also offers a, let's call it a big buddy program to certain outstanding youngsters."

"You want to sponsor us?" Sakura squeaked.

Maru clapped his hands together. "Yes, yes exactly! We give you money, weapons, Italian sports cars, what ever it is you need, and in return you do a task for us once maybe twice a year."

"What kind of tasks?"

"Little things that the history books will never mention but are still integral to securing world peace, picking up a package, giving a client a place to sleep, stuff like that, no killing, or sabotage or anything like that." He gave a smirk. "Yet."

"Alright we're in." Naruto placed his John Hancock on the contract that was resting on the table.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted. "What're you doing?"

"I know you two got more money than you know what to do with, but I'm a poor poor man, and I can't afford the high quality parts for a Jutsu gun."

Maru handed the pen over to Saskue. "Which we can supply by the way, in bulk."

"Saskue what're you doing!"

Saskue had just finished signing the contract himself. "An organization at big as his has to have some information on Itachi.

"Which we do." Maru handed the pen over to Sakura. "I know you think I'm evil." She did you could see it just by looking into his eyes they were like bottomless pits. "But my company has been steering the world in the right direction for years. Sure we've had to crack a few eggs on the way, but we think the end justifies the means. You understand that better than most don't you?" Her heart skipped a beat what did he mean by that, did he know? "Don't you?" he pressed.

She nodded breathlessly and accepted the pen writing her signature down sloppily. It was hard to control the pen with a shaking hand.

"Great day, a great day!" Orochi-Maru tossed the Heaven scroll up into the air, Naruto caught it handily. "Now shake my hand for the first of many bestowments." Saskue held out his hand. It was one of the more horrific hand shakes Naruto had ever seen. Saskue flopped like a fish as Maru curled his hand around Saskue's. Black tattoos quickly covered his entire body, then just as quickly as it had started the handshake ended and Saskue fell to the floor unconscious and tattoo free.

Then on the subject of nerves, he held his hand out to Naruto like nothing had happened. "What did you do to him!" Naruto demanded.

"I just made him more powerful than you could imagine."

"Oh good because it looked like you were torturing him."

"He was just a little overwhelmed with the power. Come on Naruto it would be really interesting with you."

"What do you mean?"

"The mark I gave Saskue Amplifies your chakra, making you faster and stronger. There is a second stage however that turns your body into a spiritual vessel."

"What?"

Sakura didn't like where this was going, they were talking about things they weren't meant to understand.

"Your body isn't meant to use chakra, it's a cruel joke by forces higher than us. It's hard to explain but the second stage of the mark mutates all your cells for a short while, while these mutations occur you can freely control your chakra without the side effects, and you've got enough chakra for ten men."

"Wow that's amazing."

"And Dangerous." To everyone's surprise it was Maru who said this. "I lost everything creating this power, and when I finally had it, I realized what a terrible thing I'd unleashed." He'd finally lost his business man's smile that he'd had on all day.

"Why trust us with this power then?" Sakura wasn't falling for it, was raised by a business man she knew all the tricks.

"Because you can be trusted with it. I haven't seen children like you since..." He paused he was suddenly far away. "…My squad. Three children everyone thought could change the world but didn't, we were too busy fighting our parents wars, too busy fixing their mistakes. Now I finally pass the mantle down to you." He looked over at Sakura. "I give you leave to fix your parents mistakes." He sighed "Our mistakes."

Naruto looked down at Saskue. "Is your mark one of those mistakes?"

Xxx Authors notes xxX

I personally thought that Making Orochimaru a big CEO was a pretty inspired move, but who knows. I tried to make him a little, is he evil is he good, he helping the team, but is it for the right reasons? I think I had them join him a little too easily, but it's not like he wasn't offering a sweet deal. Also when he say 'the sons of Cain' that's a term used for murders it's not another secret society.

Over the next week I'm going to be rapid firing chapters out because I'm going to do each fight of the tournament as a individual Chapter, so that should be fun.

Thanks for reading and I'll catch you all later!