I seem to have a pattern. My chapter word count threshold is 3,000+ before these pre-chapter ANs, and I'm apparently very good at writing ~2,500 words in a short timeframe before coming to a standstill for at least a few days. (In this case, a few weeks.) Finally kicking my own ass into gear to finish this one—taking the cameras off of Naruto and his group for a second.
Let's get this trainwreck moving.
"Motherfucker," Jiraiya said as he let out a long sigh. "Gotta ration this stuff, I guess."
A burst of hot cinnamon coursed through the sage's mouth as his tongue cleaned the area around his lips. Just those few grains were enough to revitalize him, and he felt a sense of rapturous alertness wash over his body. Sitting in the shade of his makeshift tent outside of Sunagakure, he looked between the hidden village and the eastern horizon that Sasuke and Shizune had disappeared into several days ago. He wasn't particularly worried about their safety. Sasuke was strong enough to hold his own against nearly anything the pair would come across, barring the appearance of an A-rank or S-rank nukenin.
That stray thought reminded him of something he'd told the young Uchiha above Takigakure's ruins: he was a second-class ninja, even if he was listed in the S-rank section of the Bingo Book. Reflecting on his brief fight with Naruto, he could only admit the truth of his words—there were some people in the world who existed above all others, no matter how broad or deep another person's heritage might be. Jiraiya knew firsthand how effective hard work and training were, since those practices and principles had elevated him to the same level as his own Genin teammates.
Orochimaru had the most raw talent of their trio, and Tsunade's heritage as a Senju was a natural advantage that put her just as far out of reach, but Jiraiya had worked himself to the bone in order to keep up with them...or surpass them, where he could. No matter how much he trained, though, he would never reach the pinnacle of the shinobi world. He'd seen the kind of talent and work it took to reach that level; there were some gulfs that effort alone couldn't cross. It was why Nagato had surpassed him. It was why Minato had surpassed him. It was why, eventually, even Sasuke might surpass him. The breadth and depth of his skills made Jiraiya a welcome ally and fearsome foe, especially when it came to the esoteric field of Fuinjutsu, but scenes from his younger years still haunted the sage's nightmares. His parents' dying screams, the battle against Sanshouo no Hanzo, Dan dying inches away from him, and so many more...each one was a testament to the idea that he wasn't strong enough. That he was human, with human limitations.
As he forced himself away from that negative train of thought, Jiraiya reminded himself that it also meant he was still devoid of the pitfalls that allowed humans to triumph over those supernatural entities from the age of gods. Even if they labored the most to grow stronger—save for those gods whose records survived, for whom their strength was set on the day they ascended—and even if they were the shortest-lived, humans were still a race to be feared by any gods, demons, and monstrous clans that still walked the earth. No matter how large his ego was, Naruto had to know that.
At the thought of his erstwhile godson, the Gama Sennin focused on Sunagakure's walls again...and beyond them, the white-clay mansion where the demon stayed. He wanted to return to the village, to the hotel where Konoha's forces had stayed; he wanted to mourn with the survivors, bring comfort to the Genin, and aid the Hokage as he prepared to fight Naruto. Even if it meant destroying Minato's legacy, Jiraiya would put the village first. His long-lost student would understand.
Even as he had those thoughts, though, Jiraiya knew he couldn't act on them. What would Itachi say if he returned without Sasuke? What would Itachi do if he returned without Sasuke? Neither thought was particularly enjoyable, so the sage left them where he found them and moved his mind's direction once again. Somewhere on the eastern edge of the desert, they were out there, and he needed to start tracking them back down. In spite of the time, distance, and hot wind twisting through the sand, he knew he could still catch up to them. After all...it wasn't as if the pair would go so far as to completely leave him behind.
Right?
"Are we in Tsuchi no Kuni?" Sasuke's question came as he looked towards the northeast. Rolling hills and red-brown clay stretched out for nearly as far as he could see, with trees interspersed across several of the valleys. After days in the desert, seeing anything else that could constitute solid ground filled him with joy.
"Not yet," Shizune answered. "The border is closer to the end of these hills. Closer to the mountains."
Sasuke nodded affirmatively, looking further ahead. The far horizon painted Tsuchi no Kuni's famous mountain ranges in cool blues and purples, still far too distant to pick out the natural colors they were actually composed of. As he picked up his left leg and set both feet on dirt, a sense of longing briefly overtook the young Uchiha; in the aftermath of the sandworm's death, he'd become attuned to the desert in ways no ordinary human could. Then, as if he'd regained strength after touching the grass under his sandals, his pace quickened.
Shizune was caught by surprise when Sasuke first overtook her, but as she made a move to get even with him, the younger man's hand brushed against hers—and stayed there. Running side by side, Shizune glanced at Sasuke with more confusion than wonder. He was matching her, stride for stride. The bright red irises of his Sharingan were blazing as he used their predictive qualities to keep pace with her, and she was trying to figure out the reason behind his actions. Instead of asking, though, she started verbalizing a plan.
"We'll need disguises," the medic said. "Good ones. Not just some cosmetic jutsu that can be broken or exhausted. We haven't needed them until now because we've been traveling with Jiraiya, but we don't have his strength to act as a deterrent for us anymore. And, as long as we're outside of Konoha, it's still best to act as if we're in enemy territory at all times." It was information that Sasuke was either aware of or could have reasoned through on his own, but reminders didn't hurt.
"The first place we stop won't be where we change," Sasuke added. "We don't want to arrive one way and leave another. Easy to trace."
Half a day later, but still before the mid-spring sun decided to set, the pair finally came across a small civilian town. It wasn't large, but it didn't need to be; it had everything they would need to keep a low profile on a long-term basis. However, it became readily apparent that the people were familiar with hard times—hard lines and sunken cheeks dominated their facial features, even as their skin sagged at corners and their eyes shifted from side to side.
When Sasuke asked the townsfolk for information and goods, he parted with a slightly lighter wallet, and people were all too happy to take the two of them where they wanted to go. If any of those people found it strange that a man and a woman were traveling alone, or that one was twice the other's age, they didn't say anything about it. Shizune might have attributed it to greed, if she stopped to think about it in the first place, but she was preoccupied with choosing dyes and clothing. Sasuke briefly asked a number of people if they'd seen a blonde woman with a diamond mark on her forehead, but none of them knew anything. Even when the money he offered them for the information reached exorbitant heights, they couldn't give him news of any kind.
"You weren't likely to find anything," Shizune said when they met again in the evening. "But...thank you. I bought everything we should need."
"We'll find her eventually. Or maybe she'll find us," Sasuke replied. Seeing the pained smile on his companion's face at those words, the teen stepped in and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Whispering, he added, "I can't make up for the time you lost by traveling with us. But I can make the effort now, even if I didn't know I needed to do it then."
"Don't apologize, it's not your fault. Nobody can say you did something wrong, Sasuke. Now, let's go. We don't need to spend the night here," the medic said. She couldn't quite put a finger on the reason, but something about the town felt far too…occult. Inexplicably so. It was a typical minor hub of civilization, but the few hours they'd spent there had continually set warning bells off in Shizune's head. She knew better than to ignore her sixth sense, even if the details weren't lining up—or, perhaps, because the details weren't lining up.
As the sun trawled the last vestiges of a blue sky behind it, into the night, the two ninja took off in an opposite direction. They weren't quite sure where they were heading—if they had a destination in mind, it had already been lost—but Shizune wanted to keep Jiraiya's eventual pursuit at bay. It was a selfish desire, if not unreasonable, but she wondered: if Sasuke knew that her reasoning for buying disguises was to throw his latest teacher off of their trail, would he have so readily gone along with it? He'd already left the man behind to follow after her, a gesture that meant more than any words he could have said, but she was sure the sage had encouraged that behavior under a belief that he could track them down after he'd fully recovered.
He was a powerful man, and Shizune wouldn't deny that truth. He was also a skilled teacher, capable of bringing out the best in any student who found him. It didn't take a genius to understand that Sasuke's own strength would grow exponentially under the Gama Sennin's tutelage, and the Uchiha clan was known to hunger for that growth. Could Itachi's younger brother, cursed to live forever in the shadow of a better son, really turn down the opportunity to reach and surpass the Hokage's heights?
Shizune could never ask that of him, even if the answer might be "yes." So, from guilt and shame, she never mentioned her reasons to him. And if he was curious about why they needed real disguises, rather than simply removing any trace of their allegiance to Konoha, he didn't show it.
Unknown to any god, beast, or demon that had lived through the period, the foreign Crusader's holy war was not the first of its kind…nor would it be the last. Just as the Crusader and his companions could travel to each of the three thousand universe worlds connected to the World Tree, or the demon in Makai could cross the barriers between those universe worlds at will, so could those entities who existed from outside the boundaries of the World Tree—aberrant, twisted forms of life that had existed since before the World Tree was planted.
If one of them were to brush a world with their consciousness, it would inevitably create some form of fallout. They did not mean to, but could not help it; the Outer Universe was just too small for them, and dying universe worlds were their only nourishment. How could they know that one was ready to be eaten if they didn't check from time to time? And if those thoughts developed form inside a world, if they dreamed the same dream that their progenitors had, would they not seek to devour from the inside out? To spring, fully formed, as a child of the mind? They couldn't change the way they were. They knew no better.
The Crusader's war was endless, as old worlds died and new ones were born, but even the World Tree's mightiest inhabitant couldn't do much against a power that the World Tree could only withstand. Each abomination was nothing but an errant thought, and even his most thorough campaigns might miss something every once in a while. Thoughts, like the people they came from, could die and lay dreaming.
Only Uzumaki Kurama had known the truth in this world, and that knowledge died with him. The nine Biju, in concert, could contend as one force against any of Makai's ancient kings—including their father. That demonic strength had shielded their world from the fallout of the Crusader's war for years uncounted, fueled by unmarked graves from the City of the Dead. With one seal weakened and the other's lodestone destroyed, thoughts and dreams could walk again in the waking world. But for those who knew no better, they could only be described as nightmares...or the same nightmare, when gauged from a distance.
"I think I understand your report," Orochimaru said, "but I'm going to ask some questions. You found no traces of human life around Konoha? None at all? No campfires or tracks, no resting places, nothing?"
"That's correct," Ayame replied. She, and the rest of her team, stood in front of Orochimaru at his base in Otogakure.
"Ridiculous." Orochimaru didn't believe the girl would lie to him, but he listened to the beating of her hearts; the pair remained completely even, their rhythm unchanged. She was telling the truth. "What could make an entire village transform like that? What could make all the traffic disappear? It makes no sense."
"We are aware," Juugo stated, a blank expression on his face as he stared forward. "We wanted you to make a decision on our course."
"Speak for yourself," Suigetsu countered. "I wanted to go in and figure out what the hell was-"
A pale white hand was raised, stopping Suigetsu's words in his throat. Before the Byahebi could speak, though, a voice called his name from the chamber outside. It repeated two more times, and the sound of running feet soon followed. Finally, the chamber door swung open, and a middle-aged man in light attire gasped for breath.
"Lord Orochimaru!" The man could barely talk, but made sure to greet his leader. "News from Sunagakure!"
At those words, Orochimaru retracted his hand and stopped himself from speaking. One thin eyebrow rose, and he nodded in the messenger's direction to let him speak.
"The Mizukage is comatose, several of Konoha's Jounin are dead, and the Hokage's wife was murdered!" The man's words shook all five of the other people in the room, their eyes widened and brows risen in shock.
"Explain." Orochimaru did not phrase the word as a question.
"Sunagakure is hosting its own Chunin Exams as an olive branch to Konoha and Kirigakure over the invasion that interrupted the final round several months ago," the messenger explained. "During the time of the Second Exam, the Hokage publicly attacked the Mizukage and left her in a coma. Then, the demon took his revenge by murdering the Hokage's wife while she slept, and many of Konoha's Jounin who had brought Genin teams to the event."
"The demon…" Orochimaru didn't need to ask who those words referred to, waving a hand to dismiss the messenger. The existence of the Sanjiyan in Itachi's body was a secret that only he and Sai were aware of. The Ichibi was free, but cared little for the affairs of men. The Hachibi was presumably dead. The only realistic option was the Kyuubi—the young one. Uzumaki Naruto was a hard man to kill, and he took every available opportunity to escalate violence. Even if he had abandoned that name and adopted the mantle of a vengeful ghost, it was still the same person in the same body.
Orochimaru had heard the stories of the blond's exploits in Kirigakure, surely fueled to vengeance by the loyalist faction that had killed his sensei and taken his eye. Ayame herself had told him of the young demon's attitude towards the newest Mizukage; it didn't surprise the White Snake in the slightest that Naruto would retaliate for harm dealt to her.
"He's back in Suna?" Ayame's words were directed at the messenger, but her gaze was focused on Orochimaru, who was deep in thought. "Why on earth would he...you don't think he had something to do with Konoha's transformation, do you?"
"I would ask you the same question. You know him much better than I do," Orochimaru replied.
"I used to know him," Ayame said. "Things were different then. He was different, even if he was still the way he is now. When we were children, others looked up to him and called him our leader...now, they look up to him and call him their master."
"Who are we talking about?" Suigetsu asked, his hands clasped behind his back as he waited for the conversation to end.
"The most prolific murderer of your generation," Orochimaru said with a sly grin. "The Kyuubi. Now...I'll leave you four to your devices. Since you left my old village as a puzzle for me to solve, I think I need to take a look at it."
Moments later, Orochimaru simply disappeared from his seat, and the Otoyon wondered if their leader had even been present in the first place. Suigetsu looked at the other three with a soft glare, as if daring them to challenge him, and walked out of the room; Juugo quickly followed suit, leaving the two women of the group to look at one another for several seconds. Eventually, Karin left in the wake of her other teammates, leaving Ayame to stand in the large subterranean room by herself and think about what she was going to do.