"Sakura-chaaaaan~" Naruto sang as he enveloped the pinkette in a bone crushing hug. "Back off you dummy! You're gonna squeeze her to death," Ino screeched as she pried him off her. "Thank you," Sakura wheezed out in relief. "Just our luck! We came to Tokyo to surprise you but decided to visit Karin first. And we meet you at the most unexpected places. Guess we won't have to hunt you down," Naruto practically beamed at her. She had forgotten that Itachi and Shisui had wiped out the memories of their last encounter. Karin sent them a confused look but remained quiet. "What are you doing here anyways?" Ino asked her.
"I wanted to have breakfast before exploring the city," she lied, silently praying that Karin wouldn't rat her out. "That's great. We were thinking of doing the same thing," the blonde said. He snapped his fingers as if remembering something. "Oh, I forgot to introduce you. Karin here, who happens to be the owner of this restaurant," he said as he gestured towards the redhead who rolled her eyes. "She's actually my cousin," he said with a grin. "Nice to meet you Karin," the pinkette spoke politely through gritted teeth. "Nice to meet you too. And who might you be?" the Uzumaki woman's victorious expression grated on Sakura's nerves. "I'm Sakura Haruno, a friend of these two blonde idiots," she said with a forced smile.
"Best friends actually. I'm her guy best friend and Miss Idol here is her girl best friend," Naruto spoke wisely. "I see," Karin said as she adjusted her glasses. "We wanna hang out with Sarada today. Can we pick her up after school?" Naruto asked her, his eyes pleading at her. "You know that I don't want her to stay outside for too long especially after that incident," the redhead said with a frown. That caught Sakura's attention. What incident were they talking about? Perhaps she could understand why Sarada was born at the wrong time with the wrong person.
"Please, just this once. Even Sasuke will be there!" the Uzumaki exclaimed. "What does Sasuke have to do with any of this?" the question was out of Sakura's mouth before she could stop herself. Karin's face burned with embarrassment as Naruto rounded on her immediately. "Karin has a gigantic crush on Sasuke since middle school, even though she's ten years his senior," the reincarnated jinchuriki exclaimed. "It's kinda cute but I ship Sasuke with Sakura. They're my OTP," Ino said as she studied her nails. "No way! Me too, though I'd also ship Sasuke with you for the fun of it," Naruto cheered.
Sakura stared smugly at Karin only to find her looking back at her with a defeated expression. Immediately, guilt filled her. She knew how the redhead felt about Sasuke in their past lives and how accepting she was of Sarada and her relationship with Sasuke. Sakura didn't think she could've done the same if Karin had gotten together with Sasuke instead of her. "Karin can like whoever she wants, no need to be so judgemental. Plus you're hurting her feelings by matching Sasuke with someone else," the pinkette defended. The redhead looked at her in wonder, her mouth slightly agape. She sent her a reassuring smile in return.
"Awwww Sakura, now you're making me feel guilty," Naruto pouted. "You should be. It's not nice to trample on someone's feelings like that. Now apologize, you too Ino," she said as she crossed her arms with a hard face. The two obliged, Ino somewhat begrudgingly.
"So can we pick Sarada after school?" Naruto asked again, sapphire eyes glassy and trying very hard to look adorable but failing miserably. "Okay, just make to come back here when I close at 6," the Uzumaki woman sighed in exasperation, a pointed look directed at Ino. The Yamanaka girl rolled her eyes at that. "We won't go shopping, just ice cream and stuff," she pouted as she met Karin's hard gaze with her own. "Fine, don't set the city on fire."
Shisui had received a text from Sakura saying she was going out with Naruto and Ino to hang out with Sarada. They would also pick Sasuke, Shikamaru and Chouji along the way. They would have to talk to Karin and explain why they needed her since she didn't see eye to eye with Karin at the moment. She would be back by supper.
The curly haired Uchiha pocketed his phone with a sigh. He had zero experience with this Karin except that she was Sasuke's teammate at one point and had a crush on him since their teenage years. She was also an Uzumaki and one heck of a sensor. That's all he knew about her. He looked at Itachi who had a thoughtful expression on his face as he read Sakura's message in their group.
"I had been hoping that Sakura would be the one to do it but it seems the duty falls to us," the loudmouth ninja between the two of them spoke. "It seems so," Itachi agreed quietly.
"Anything particular that we must know about her?" he asked as they began walking to her workplace. "I don't remember much of my last years before I died hence I cannot say that I know anything about her except what Sakura told us," the long haired Uchiha replied. Even though he had left Sasuke in the hands of the Sandaime, who had done a terrible job of taking care of his younger brother and Naruto too, he had not looked after his brother as he ought to. He should've known what type of people his brother had been teammates with. He barely knew what Sakura was like in their past lives except what was written in the Bingo Books. It had been after she defeated Sasori that her name had appeared.
The closest person he knew was Naruto and his knowledge was limited. He felt like a failure of an older brother.
"Don't beat up yourself over it cousin. We all made mistakes in our past lives, what we can make sure to do is to fix them in this life," Shisui spoke without looking at him. Itachi looked at the sky, noting the blueness of it slightly darker than he was used to. Perhaps it were his eyes, he had been having problems with his eyes since he was 13.
"I can't help it Shisui. I regret everything I did in my past life," the younger shinobi told him.
"You know, it's one of those days that I'm really grateful that none of us remembered how we died. Because if I discover that I died by your hand, well, I ought to revenge myself," Shisui joked but Itachi didn't find the humour in it.
The man always prided himself on being one of the most genius, if not THE genius, nin of his time. He hummed a low tune as he mixed his potions, it would only be a matter of time before he recreated Mitsuki.
He knew he had been reincarnated some centuries into the future hence when he recovered the memories of his most important jutsu the previous night, he had been ecstatic. He knew he was described for greatness, he knew he was destined for immortality. Yes, the one thing that no man had ever managed to accomplish. Though he was several Sharingan short, (he couldn't create Shin now), he knew enough that he could create the Sharingan on his own. He would need to send one of his underlings, Kabuto specifically, to harvest some Uchiha DNA.
Though, the entire city of Konoha would be alerted before he was even within a mile distance from the damned city. But it wasn't as if seal work was that hard. Though he was short of an Uzumaki (he silently cursed Karin for being born early), he would make sure that he would accomplish immortality.
The Uchiha were scattered all abroad, he could stumble upon a few strays he could experiment upon.
Orochimaru checked the digital watch on his wrist. His guest would be arriving in a few minutes.
He allowed a smile to stretch on his pale face. Apparently, someone had gotten wind of his (awesome!) abilities and needed help in creating humans with enhanced physical abilities. In return, he would gain access to the history records of what happened during his past life. Perhaps he could trigger his memories to come back all at once.
Golden eyes roamed over his laboratory. He was grateful for the new technology, it made his work easier. He locked his experimentation room and went to another room where he would meet with his guest. He had sent Kabuto on an intel gathering mission in Iwa. He just needed to get the brat out of sight for a few days so that he could meet his guest uninterrupted. The boy had a tendency of running his mount at inappropriate times.
At exactly 2349, the man entered the room. Just as he had said he would. He was dressed in a black suit with slicked back grey hair. Everything about him was pristine and practically screamed money. The Snake Sannin felt giddy with anticipation as the man took a seat in front of him. His features were plain but the eye color caught his attention. He could make out blue, red, green, yellow and purple reflecting in his eyes, like the colors of a rainbow. Was it a special doujutsu? Perhaps he could-
"I can read your mind clearly. Help yourself by forgetting such trivial pursuits. You can't come within an inch of me unless I permit you," his voice was flat but deep. "Of course Furumira-sama, my apologies," he said with a smile.
"Would you like a drink-"
"Show me if you truly live up to your fame. I have a meeting in the next half an hour," his voice cut through.
"Of course."
He took the man to one of his rooms he never showed anyone except himself. He had many rooms like that but he could afford showing the man this one. It was more friendly to people with lesser wills.
Several female bodies were pinned on the walls by their arms with nails. They were naked. There were other bodies on stretchers. To their left, five tanks filled with water with children of different ages inside. Two were females, looking barely past a year. The remaining three were male and looked around five years old.
Furumira looked around the room with a blank expression.
"I heard that you want humans with superhuman abilities. I have harvested reproduction cells from males and females alike with no history of special abilities and have fused them to create a child. I have altered the DNA to have enhanced strength, speed and sight. I have also increased their brain activity to make them very intelligent and added resistance to their skin such that they cannot be injured. With a special serum of my own mixed with chakra, they cannot die."
The Snake Sannin felt the man look at him appraisingly and he brimmed with pride. He was a step closer to attaining immortality. "How long does this process take?" Furumira asked as he looked at the golden watch on his wrist. "Close to six months to have a fully grown child. A year at most to have a teenager," he replied as he ushered him out of the room.
They went back to the first room.
"What do you hope to attain with the information that I will provide you? Information of what happened in the past, the blank period in the history of Japan that no one knows except a select few," Furumira questioned him, rainbow colored eyes looking at him in curiosity. Orochimaru allowed a full minute of silence for a dramatic effect before he replied.
"Immortality. It seems that I was not able to achieve that in another life. As I have been given the another chance to do so, I want to utilize every moment to achieve my goal," he spoke as he nursed his drink.
"I guess just the same as you were back then."
Orochimaru looked at him in confusion. Did he know that he had been reincarnated?
Furumira snapped his fingers and five figures appeared in the room. His eyes were now a dull black. The man stood up to stand beside the men who looked exactly like him except with different eye colors.
"We target people exactly like you who want to tip the balance of the world. You never seem to stop coming back, do you?"
Before Orochimaru could react, he found the men activating unknown seals around the room. "You bastard!" Orochimaru hissed as he stood up, knocking the table in their directions as he attempted to run away. Damn it! He hadn't even gotten a quarter of his power yet. He couldn't fight them, he could only run.
However, he felt himself being drawn towards the men. He fought against the seals but they were too powerful. In a matter of seconds, all that remained of him was a tiny golden scroll with snake eyes.
"Burn everything down," Furumira spoke as he pocketed the scroll and left the room.
Woah! I last updated last year?! Sorry guys, very sorry! I had been very busy but I'll make time to finish this.
I'm adding more flesh to the story as I'm sure you're all wondering what this story is all about. I hope you enjoy the chapter. Sorry for any grammatical errors.
Tozoonana
AfricanFire
