Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Prologue – Arc 1: The Soul Robber

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Prologue: How it goes on

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"Perhaps... that's what it means to be a ninja".

These are the words that recall in Sasuke's mind as he's laying on a tree branch in the south of the land of fire. These words are the last that came to his mind, when he saw Naruto for the last time. His travels brought him back to his native land once again. And now, he wonders whether he should or not go once again visit his friends in Konoha.

Even though he was in the village only weeks ago when Naruto wasn't there to protect it, he only blitzed through really fast and didn't come back later. He heard of Naruto's exploits on the moon and wonders if asking about the threat he faced was a reasonable motive for coming back… Probably not, there's other ways to get these information and he's already busy with his space-time training.

But, does he really need a good reason? Konoha is his home after all. It is where he'll go to once his quest for peace is over, and it is the place where his loved ones, actually just his best friend and his woman, are waiting for him. The real reason he feels like he needs a really good reason to be allowed there is because of the rest of the villagers.

For them, he's still Sasuke Uchiha: the nukenin who wanted to destroy the village and who almost killed their hero, the world's savior. Maybe that's what his quest is all about, he thinks. He needs to get the people's trust if he wants to be able to stand next to Naruto as a partner.

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Laying there on a tree branch, looking at the sky, his thoughts are suddenly interrupted by an immense chakra he feels a few village distances away. Such powerful chakra... Incredible! Even Hashirama Senju, the first Hokage renowned as the God of Shinobi, didn't have such power.

Sasuke decides to go check where this feeling comes from, calmly as no danger seems to be around. But soon enough he realizes this chakra feels way more like his than like Naruto's, and even more like Kaguya's. As he thinks of the unique sensation he gets from this chakra, a woman's voice screaming interrupts his thoughts. Sasuke, understanding the source of this chakra is currently threatening somebody's life, hurries to the place.

When he arrives there, he sees a young girl who fell on her butt, sitting on the ground. probably the one he heard screaming. But she isn't the only person there. A man in a brown hooded cape is holding a really tall black haired man by the hair. It looks like a fight is taking place, and the winner is already decided.

Does Sasuke need to get involved? Is there life at sake? Definitely. The caped man isn't only holding his opponent down. He is slowly tearing something out of his body, as if he grabbed the black haired man's soul with his hand and is separating it from his physical form.

This jutsu, Sasuke recognizes it. He never saw anyone use it but he knows it is one of his left eye's abilities: Ningendo, the Human Path. How is this person capable of using it? Plus if he succeeds, it will inevitably result in the tall man's death. Sasuke has to interfere.

Ameno Tejikara

Sasuke uses this ability of his Rinnegan to switch places with the tall man and tries to strike the caped opponent with a Chidori…

He's fast. He managed to dodge it even from this close. But his hood got teared apart by the lightning, revealing his face. A very pale face with two red eyes, that are a pair of Rinnegan, gray hair long on the left side and short on the right, but most importantly, a pair of long pointy hollow horns. They resemble those of Kaguya, but going from his forehead and the same color as his skin.

One of his horns is broken, like it was cut in half, while the other one is in good condition. "That's it!" thinks Sasuke, this guy looks way too much like any of the Juubi related people. But he doesn't sense such a great power coming from this person. His chakra feels enormous for sure, but not as much as Kaguya's.

"A Rinnegan? You must be one of the old princess' heirs." says the mysterious man.

Sasuke, now fully aware of the danger this man represents, pulls out his sword from his scabbard and tries to attack once again, aiming directly for his enemy's neck. This time, a shadow stops his blade. Not a silhouette, but an actual shadow emerging from the ground. Must be a jutsu similar to The Nara clan's shadow control.

"Who are you? Where did you get these eyes? How do you know this jutsu?" Sasuke, face to face with the mysterious man, just throws at him every question that comes to his mind, while his blade is still colliding with a shadow tentacle.

"Me? I don't know that jutsu." answers the intriguing being, about the shadow jutsu.

At this answer, Sasuke quickly understands that the man isn't alone. But who is using this thing to protect him? As he looks around, he sees a black silhouette with 2 tails in the back jumping out of the man's shadow and attempting to strike him with large shadow claws. Sasuke deflects the attack with his sword and jumps away. But he feels himself being directly pulled back to the mysterious man's held out hand.

Bansho Ten'in

The brown-caped man uses this jutsu to bring Sasuke closer to the two-tailed shadow, so it can pierce through him with its claws. Even though his eyes have a different color, they seem to have the exact same abilities as Sasuke's.

"If he can do everything my left eye can, let's surprise him with something ho doesn't know." he thinks. To block the claws, Sasuke summons the Susanoo's rib cage around him. "Those claws are real tough." thinks the Uchiha as he sees the claws slowly breaking through his armor.

A skeleton arm comes additionally to the rib cage to grab that shadowy thing, only for it to vanish before he can tighten the Susanoo's hand around it and squash it down.

"What was that?" he asks, after leaping away.

"I only want the Minamoto's soul to be mine, Rinnegan owner." answers the man, ignoring Sasuke's question. "Don't interfere, or I'll have to take yours too."

"Can't let you do that. Actually you're going down now." answers the Uchiha before activating another power of his left eye.

Amaterasu

His left eye starts to bleed as the man's coat catches fire, but the black flames are completely absorbed by the man's red Rinnegan. Anyway, it's just what he needed. Sasuke takes advantage of this small diversion and uses his left eye, first to teleport behind the man, and then to rip his soul out by mimicking the jutsu he saw him use earlier.

It's the first time he uses this ability. He knows that by doing so, he will access all of this guy's knowledge and memory and he won't need him alive anymore. Since his target is unable to react, he successfully grabs his soul and tears it apart from the body. But oddly, even once confusion wears out, the pale horned being still lets go and leaves his soul to be ripped away. Before if completely does, he whispers something:

Umashi Ashikabi Hikoji

Those are the words the man pronounces before his ripped out soul begins to move on its own and tries to grab Sasuke in return. It is now the Uchiha's soul that's being ripped out by a bodyless form. Sasuke, in urge to save his life, pushes the opponent back with a small repulsion in his direction.

Shinra Tensei

The flying soul immediately regains its body that wakes up again as if nothing happened, and a black rift appears behind him;

"You're tough. I'll come back later. But I'll have to kill you." says the man before falling through the rift.

The portal closes and completely disappears with all that went through it. He's gone. Sasuke stands still on the ground after witnessing this, and sighs. He however noticed something else strange. This space-time rift this man just used to escape. He recognized it. These are the same as the ones he can barely open with his Rinnegan.

Since the fourth war, he's been thinking of ways to reach Kaguya's dimensions again in order to explore them and understand them. By trying to establish a way back to them, he discovered this ability of his Rinnegan but doesn't know how to control the destination of this portals properly for now. They also cost a lot of chakra, as he can't open more than three without wasting away almost all his chakra.

This man must be able to use this same jutsu also thanks to his Rinnegan, except he actually knows how to do it safely.

Who is this man? Why does he look so much like Kaguya? Since when is he around? What is that huge two-tailed beast that tried to kill him? And finally, Umashi Ashikabi Hikoji? Is that the name of the jutsu he used to survive the Ningendo's pull? So many questions pop in Sasuke's head as he realizes his journey just took a complete different turn.

But more important at the moment, what happened to the tall black haired man and the young girl? Sasuke turns around and sees the man and the girl, both sitting on the ground and looking at him. Once she feels safe, the girl stands up first.

"Thank you!", she says. "You saved us!"

Sasuke turns his eyes to see the man who gladly doesn't seem to be injured.

"Are you his target? What is the Minamoto?"

"Uh… That's just my last name." answers the man as he stands up. "I have no damn idea how this dude knows it or who he even is. He just came outta nowhere and said he wanted my powers and soul as a slave. T'was damn creepy."

"Powers? What powers do you have that he could be after?"

"No damn idea. I'm not even a ninja, I just know a little Fire release and some of the basics because of my clan's teaching. But nothing more."

Sasuke takes a moment to think about the situation. The man he just fought. He has to find out who he really is and what he wants.

"… What are your names?" he asks to the two strangers. "I can't let you on the loose with such a threat after you."

"Me? I'm Tsubai. Tsubai Minamoto. And she's Himari Sakazawa, a friend of mine. We're just traveling around the country because staying in our home village is damn boring."

"And you?", asks Himari, "Judging by your skills and all you must be a ninja. Are you from Konoha?"

"My name… is Sasuke Uchiha. I'm just a wandering ninja traveling to find inner peace."

"Uchiha? You mean THE Uchiha?" asks the girl in a euphoric tone. "You're the man who helped Uzumaki Naruto to save the world, am I right? "

"Sigh… This idiot really became famous" thinks Sasuke. That's not a bad thing though. If he's known and trusted in other countries like he seems to be here, it probably helps to maintain peace across the world. If this can stop ninjas from going against each other again, then he better keep this reputation. Now that the five great nations are united, they should keep it this way.

As things like the moon falling apart and the guy with rinnegan he just ran into probably are just one of many similar threats, the nations should do their best to stay as one. Facing this kind of enemies all together worked 2 years ago during the fourth great ninja war, and Naruto believes it will keep working. He better be right.

"Well, Thank you for saving me, mister shinobi." says Tsubai Minamoto. "But if you're capable of saving the world from a damn giant demigod monster, how could you let this ugly dude escape?"

"How?... I don't know."

Sasuke doesn't find it relevant to tell the truth. It could only make this guy lose the faith he may have in him.

"Hey, Tsubai!" exclaims Himari, in reaction to Tsubai's rude question. "Seriously, you saw it, didn't you? He really tried to get him. It's just that the other guy seemed really strong too. They just were both so fast I couldn't understand anything that was happening."

"Well no, I did not see that. You know I kinda almost fucking died right there so I was more focused on my damn soul leaving my body than on these two onion-eyes guys fighting."

"Stop kidding around for a moment. Are you good now?"

"He maybe killed half of my soul just now, but the other half is still fine, so no problem!"

Himari looks at him with a serious and worried face. Seeing her like that, Tsubai becomes serious too and says: "Don't worry, I'm okay. My soul is still in one piece."

"This girl…" thinks Sasuke. She's good with observation. It seems like he won't need to keep anything secret with her around. He can be himself.

"Could you please keep going on the road with us for a while?" Himari asks to Sasuke. "If this guy ever comes back, we won't be able to fight back or do anything."

"That's what I intended to do." answers the Uchiha. "ut the other way around. You'll have to follow me around."

"Really? That's great! Thank you a lot!" she exclaims. "We weren't going anywhere anyway, so it's fine."

"Yeah, we're just going anywhere but home." says Tsubai.

Sasuke raises an eyebrow, while looking at Tsubai. This man is just expressing the opposite feeling of what he was telling himself 10 minutes ago. While he is looking of a reason to go home, this guy right here, Tsubai, is trying to avoid his hometown? Why?... He'll probably ask this question later.

"And where is your hometown? So I know where we shouldn't go."

"It's a small village on the east border of the country. So just don't go around there… Don't you have a plan of where we could go?"

Where they could go? Of course he knows. This horned man is just the reason he was looking for. Kakashi and Naruto have to be warned about this. Them, Sakura and him are the only one who saw Madara but also Kaguya and the Rikudo-Sennin in action. They're all other Rinnegan users with horns. His former teammates are the only people who could understand what kind of threat this mysterious man represents. Sasuke looks back at the 2 travelers waiting for his answer and firmly says.

"Yes. To Konoha, it is."

The horned man with red Rinnegan, and Tsubai Minamoto. Sasuke Uchiha's encounter with this two people is, for him and for all of the ninja world, the beginning of a new era. In this new world, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and every other shinobi for the next generations will have to resist and fight through events and encounters with forces that greatly surpass everything that they thought they knew until now.

This story is about how a world trying to prosper in peace, will enter a new age of conflict and discover their real place in the whole that is the creation.

Me? For now, I am just the one who'll narrate this story to you. What is my place in this world? I don't even know myself, for now.

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End of Chapter 0 – Next Chapter: Home