This is a story for those familiar with the events of Naruto Parts 1 and 2.
–
Had it worked? Naruto Uzumaki watched carefully and wondered. A white-and-black shape rose, shielded with floating dust clouds. No, it hadn't.
Flames wreathed Tenchi Bridge, or what was left of it. On either end a fragment of bridge remained, blistered wood glowing in broad daylight, blistered wood railings howling and weakened, blackened planks falling into the darkness of the ravine. Columns of smoke shuddered through the air into the sky and tiny, burnt leaves rode the everchanging wind currents before being swallowed, turning to ash.
Together their eyes focused on one another. Snake-like creatures drizzled from detached limbs. A torn fragment of sleeve sheltered a mass of reattaching skin, curling and splintering beneath the enemy's wrist. Naruto's questioning stopped. He'd done little if any actual damage as the rotten bastard brought his hands together with a dark mutter from his mouth.
Orochimaru glared above the hand-seal. An army of white, lesser snakes tunneled through the earth under his feet. As they freed themselves from the ground they bit into Naruto's ankles, making his legs buckle as he rasped and collapsed. Orochimaru frowned as the Nine-Tails repaired him with vicious tenacity, melting each snake that took a bite then shrinking them into blackened ropes of meat.
As the air around them became volcanic it traveled into dented lungs, a shroud of chakra hugging Naruto's shaking body. The normal functions of his organs were lost to him. He wasn't sure if he'd missed his last few heartbeats or had them all at once. The snake wounds around his bare ankles finished closing, Orochimaru laughing at him as they did so.
"A Jincuriki's power, indeed…" he said, referring to the people acting as vessels for the nine Tailed Beasts, terrible monsters of incredible power. "So much potential wasted on a brat like you."
An arm sprang from the chakra cloak around Naruto's body and tried to smash Orochimaru. Orochimaru slithered his way around it, curving around a huge blast of rubble and dust, his face the picture of amusement.
"A more competent ninja wouldn't have let poor little Yamato die in such an awful, such a preventable manner!" A smear of black and red still colored the Sannin's clothes.
A foul memory attacked Naruto's mind. A few days ago, Yamato had introduced himself as the temporary captain of Team Seven. He'd scared Naruto, frightened him even, but he wasn't that bad of a guy. His dying breaths and pleas for someone else's life to be saved went under Naruto's skin,stayed there and lit a match. His brain threatened a revolt every time he wandered to Sakura, falling over the bridge and…
He glared at Orochimaru.
The new Team 7's mission was to meet an informant at the bridge; someone with information they needed to find Sasuke. The spy, it turned out, was Kabuto Yakushi from all those years ago, a traitor twice over. If he was loyal to anything or anyone other than himself, Naruto didn't know.
Sasori's information got Team 7 the rendezvous they'd wanted – him and Sakura, at least – a chance to track down a missing Hidden Leaf shinobi – a friend. Then, as if called from a higher power, and with a leisurely, deadly stroll, Orochimaru came out of the woods and was behind Kabuto in the time it took for one to blink. Kabuto faked surprise and used the advantage to attack Yamato, having seen through the captain's disguise all along, finally showing his true colors. They were, all of them, neck-deep in a situation that couldn't get any worse as soon as Yamato hand-signaled for them to abandon cover and back him up.
And that was when Sai backstabbed them.
–
Naruto had avoided the swing of Sai's blade and a single question left his mouth. "Why?"
The black-haired, pale-skinned boy had remained silent, blade swinging faster, arm going longer. Naruto saw his teammates in the corners of his vision. Sakura, engaging Kabuto in a malicious exchange of medical ninjutsu, a hammer fighting a scalpel; Yamato evading a tidal wave of blows from Orochimaru, all those years of experience proving the gulf that existed between them with Team 7's captain at clear disadvantage.
"Stop this," Naruto shouted at Sai, veering around another slash. "Have you lost your mind!?"
In response, the speed of Sai's strikes increased.
Naruto grappled him, recognizing the intent to skewer him and hesitating no more. He catapulted Sai over his shoulder and forced him to the ground, stomping on his blade-hand. The bridge's wooden planks squealed from the impact as a cobweb pattern formed.
"What the hell is the matter with you," Naruto shouted again. "We – TRUSTED – you! And all this time I, I-I thought you were just a moron who didn't know how to keep his mouth shut, but I never thought you were a stinkin' traitor!"
The pale face glaring at him squeezed in concentration at first then relaxed. "Orochimaru has an alliance with the Hidden Leaf. This mission was a ruse to ensure he maintained his side of that alliance," Sai said, words ejected from a tape player.
Naruto sat there with confusion before a sandaled foot swung into his midsection. He bowled over, gripping air and dented wood planks as Sai rolled sideways, gripping a wakizashi. Then he went for Naruto's face, stopped short when Naruto caught his arm and locked it with both of his.
"That's bullshit," Naruto spat back at him, feeling his arms wobble against a surprising amount of strength from his opponent.
Sai's eyes narrowed. "You can believe what you want. You and your team are to be eliminated." The words struck in a way that the nick Sai's blade made on his face seconds later tickled. Naruto moved backward to dodge, his opponent advancing too quickly for hand-seals, a Shadow Clone, or a Rasengan. The occasions Naruto had ever found himself losing a fight in close quarters after training with one of the top 3 ninja in the world could be counted on a single hand.
"For the good of the Hidden L–"
"So you were just going to follow us here, sell us out to Orochimaru, and wipe all of us out, huh!? Was that it?" said Naruto, voice rising in leaps, every ounce of hatred he'd had for the teen over the past couple of days validated all at once. "Was – That – It?"
His hand snatched a kunai from his holster and blocked the next strike from Sai. The metal objects exchanged clashes and collisions for a brief moment, gathering speed until Naruto's knife-hand fell. The motion let Sai through his guard as Naruto bent backward, Sai's blade cutting air.
Naruto's upper body bounced up and bashed their foreheads together. Sai's weapon tumbled over the side of the bridge. The sight of bruised ink spilling out of Sai's bruised, cracked face would have filled Naruto with pride days before. The blow had left holes in both of them, consuming everything between.
Then the sides of Sai's mouth dug in two separate directions. "Correct," he said. "None of you were supposed to survive this mission. I was placed on this team to get rid of you all. Naruto, you'll be in the river with a broken neck. Sakura Haruno will be there next to you."
The kunai in Naruto's whitened knuckles vibrated.
Sai didn't hear the Rasengan that drilled into his midsection until it was already too late.
–
The mission had barely started and two human lives were already ended.
Naruto yelled his captain's name helplessly as he watched Yamato make a hand-seal. The snakes enveloping Yamato didn't care about the girthy roots that came to life around his fingers, simply twisting and shaping themselves around the roots. Those snakes found more snakes, bringing their bodies together into a growing mass that piled around the captain, consuming everything but the dark blue pants and the dangling, twitching legs hanging from the bottom of a cocoon, a nest of wriggling lengths.
Just a couple of feet away, Orochimaru waited, letting his work dry with sadistic satisfaction. The wind noise couldn't mask the crunches from within the cocoon of summoned snakes, basting Orochimaru with blood in an instant. The snake cocoon dispersed and allowed a pair of legs to hit the bridge, followed with a headless, armless torso residue they'd stripped of any former trace of life.
Orochimaru faced the remaining members… rather, member of Team Seven with a fixed smile. The eviscerated body of the pale-skinned boy next to him, Naruto's eyes went wide with disbelief.
"Mmmm-hmm, and you're next, brat," Orochimaru started to say.
Naruto hadn't thought about where Sakura or Kabuto were before the wind picked up.
The bridge exploded and the chakra buried in his seal exploded in turn. The only glimpse of his teammate was a pink dot sinking out of view and with no earth beneath her. Naruto's features became intense, changing in response to the scarlet film taking over him. His senses hurt him, knives dug into his vision, and a blazing temperature coursed through him for each second the bastard in front of him stood there, studying him.
Naruto apologized to Sakura as, somewhere in his mind, the last remaining bits of restraint loosened. He begged futilely in his mind for her safety. Then, he launched himself at…
–
Orochimaru waved him forward and Naruto complied, landing with a giant paw made of chakra that opened a huge crater in the earth on impact.
He saw the bastard leaning, almost hugging the side of a distant treeline, one of his arms completely removed from the elbow down. A ladder of snakes grew from his missing arm and reattached it.
Naruto drew closer. Orochimaru's taunts loudened. "My my." He quirked his head sideways, eyes bulging and teeth flashing. "Ha haha… you're not really human, are you? You're just as empty inside as I am, aren't you?" His teeth flashed, his eyes widened. "Aren't you, you brat?"
Naruto grit his teeth and smelled the fire cooking his lungs.
"Let me guess, you came here, thinking you were 'saving poor little Sasuke' from the big, scary Orochimaru? Well well, I'll give you one thing. I spent three years training Sasuke so that the most dangerous people in the world couldn't kill him. To make him into the ultimate warrior, a vessel for yours truly to inhabit. And where did that get me?" The snakes finished repairing the damage to the Sannin's arm. "He walked in my shadow, trying to find a way to kill Itachi. I've seen newborn puppies with more killing intent than dear Sasuke." He gestured with his new hand at the beast in front of him. "...but you? You just eviscerated one of your own, probably killed poor Kabuto, and sent that girl to a watery grave!"
Four tails of chakra rose around Naruto's back and straightened. Specks of skin gathered at his feet. He went prone, hunched over on all fours with a battalion of murderous impulses.
"Ha ha, you've killed more people in the past 5 minutes than I have!"
Orochimaru wore his confidence with practiced, guiltless ease. The body he'd stolen two years ago timbered, as if something deep inside of him rejected human skin and teeth; knowing it wasn't long for this world. Naruto wasn't sure what or why exactly, but a bad feeling grew in the pit of his stomach.
"Naruto." Purple fire fastened to the ends of Orochimaru's fingers. His body coiled when he asked, "Why do you think I desertedthe Hidden Leaf? The Third Hokage was a fool, they're all fools, holding you back, making you play ninja, giving you friends so that a skirmish, a mission, or the next war can take them away!"
The ground cracked and a second shape tore free of it. Orochimaru, still in the tree, speared downward and slipped beneath the earth with the agility of a tree root. The second Orochimaru, an exact duplicate, touched Naruto's stomach with an open palm.
"You could have been so much more than you are now," he heard Orochimaru say before chakra flooded into his seal. "You could have been a living, ultimate weapon!" His voice sliced Naruto's ears. "My weapon, even sharper than Sasuke!"
Naruto remembered Jiraiya discussing this. Orochimaru's curse mark, Jiraiya had called it; responsible for making Naruto's chakra control impossible for almost a month. The exact sensation from back then, doubled, maybe tripled. The chakra that kept him in this fight shrank down to nothing inside him.
Naruto looked into the face of Yamato's killer, Sasuke's kidnapper, and many other terrible things. The person even Naruto's sensei despised. Naruto looked at him and saw fear. A realization of something unnoticed, not in sync with the sinister plans spinning around in his twisted head. Naruto's seal glowed an odd color. Chakra surged through his body, encompassing him. The movement of Orochimaru's arm became frantic and indecisive.
"What is this," said Orochimaru with a growl.
The words Naruto found bottomed out into a wounded scream. Light obscured his vision and soon… they were both gone. This was how it ended for them both, just him and a nasty voice in his head.
"You could have been so much more."
"You've killed more people than I have!"
"You could've been the perfect weapon! My weapon!"
Naruto really, really hoped Orochimaru was dead.
–
Finding Sasuke safe and sound. Bringing him back to Konoha. Yamato and Sakura alive and well, perfectly unharmed. Naruto wanted these three things more than anything.
He got a kick in the ribs followed by another; one for each side, being fair.
"Is he dead?"
Small feet, a bunch of them.
"I think he's dead," said someone else, a boy's voice.
Naruto wheezed and shifted, swatting at the air.
"Bwah!" he heard several voices cry out a gasp. They fled, footsteps barreling away from him.
A cloudless sky and familiar buildings greeted his eyes. He sat up and examined his stomach, clutching it. Somehow, ridiculously, he'd survived. Whether that meant Orochimaru did too, he didn't know.
A small pair of eyes watched him. A boy, who looked exactly like Konohamaru, hands pinching the crease of a street corner., saw him. After a few seconds he realized that it was Konohamaru, only much shorter and using a transformation jutsu no doubt.
"Hey, a-are you ok?" the boy asked in a whisper.
Naruto sat up, still in a daze. "Yeah, I think so."
'Konohamaru' gave a nod. Then, in an apparent show of bravery he stepped closer. His brown hair swished as she searched left and right. The boy smiled and pointed at him.
"Ha ha, I knew it. Those guys are so stupid."
Then Konohamaru pulled shurikens out of his shirt. Naruto blinked.
"Now I'm going to show them how I defeat a Leaf shinobi, and once I do that, I'll be the next Hokage!"
Okay. This was happening. Naruto, tired, nearly ate the tip of the first three shuriken that came in an inch of his head.
"What are you doing?" he shouted.
There were already more shuriken in the boy's hand. "Proving myself," he said, "by defeating an official ninja of the Hidden Leaf, they'll have no choice but to make me the next Hokage!"
A child. Naruto had almost died from a child's shuriken.
"That's not how it works dumbass!" he said, his face livid and hand now a balled fist.
The boy's smile widened. He drew his throwing arm to his chest. "Of course that's how it works, just stand still and I'll show you! Hyah!"
Almost as soon as Konohamaru had tossed them, Naruto deflected them with a kunai. To the little boy it looked as if he had flinched, sending the projectiles scattering in different directions. The kunai was already back in his sleeve before the boy could tell what happened.
Naruto growled at him. "Don't throw weapons at people, you could hurt someone y-!"
'Konohamaru', clearly not expecting his target to survive the first attack, shrieked and fled from him. He was interrupted when he crashed into someone.
"Young master," the man said, peering at Naruto through dark, circular shades.
"S-sensei!" the smaller boy cried.
The man looked from Naruto to Konohamaru and back at him. The shirt and pants were the same color and fit perfectly. It was that pervert, Ebisu. Short, dark hair tucked underneath a reversed bandanna.
"Young master Konohamaru, normally I'd have punished you for sneaking off, but given the situation, I ask that you remain behind me," Ebisu said, facing Naruto directly.
'Konohamaru' scurried behind his sensei, a blue scarf nearly falling off his neck. A gear started to turn in Naruto's head, pounding against the wheels.
"Identify yourself," said Ebisu, darkened eyes fixed on him. "Depending on your answer, I may have to end your life."
Naruto waved his hands in front of himself and pleaded, "No, no, wait, you've got the wrong idea-!"
"You wear the headband of our village, but I've never seen you before."
He genuinely couldn't tell if Ebisu was serious.
"Are you serious?"
The eight or nine senbon needles in Ebisu's hand told Naruto he was serious.
–
Pervy Ebisu had gone from pursuer to temporary sensei. That was the way Naruto remembered things before Pervy Sage got involved. Ebisu truly deserved his rank. Naruto had underestimated him back then. Surely after two years, proving himself a menace to Kakashi-sensei of all people, Naruto was far out of Ebisu's league?
Naruto sprinted in the opposite direction while Ebisu, ready to drive a kunai into his neck with no reservations about murder in front of a child, chased him for three minutes straight. Confused, alarmed looks came from the villagers. Probably not unused to it with all the times Naruto had come screaming his head off after a successful prank.
Naruto leapt onto a roof and ducked a pair of kunai that thudded into someone's gutters. Every footstep of his was matched with another. More joined; in the corner of his peripheral vision there were four shadows, each accurately borrowing the shape of Ebisu.
This was quickly becoming one of the very rare times in his life Naruto found himself panting. He was lucky that Ebisu hadn't contacted anyone else. Naruto made a hand-seal and four copies of himself split off in different directions, dividing the four Ebisu's that hounded him.
Two could play at this game.
Ebisu cursed loudly. "That jutsu is a designated village secret. Now I've got no choice!"
Naruto picked a direction and hastened. Ebisu followed him… and missed the fifth Naruto hiding behind a vending stall. The real one watched Ebisu chase the decoy. Being chased through the village wasn't new to Naruto but even so, it hadn't happened in so long!
How did he even get here? Where was Sakura?
Everything looked familiar, but his unease was clear. He gazed at the Hokage monument far away, the four faces of the Hokage watching over them all like they'd always been. As soon as the coast was clear, Naruto peeled from the stall and took off with a modest sprint.
Then, suddenly, stopping in place. Four?
–
It was just one of the many surprises the village had in store for him. He was definitely back in the village. The same houses, all the same smells and shortcuts for the most part. The people, though. They were different.
And nobody seemed to be aware that the Third Hokage had been murdered, or that there was a fifth. It caused a few passing older women to strike him with their purses, calling him out for wishing ill fortune on their beloved Third Hokage, and telling him to go bother small children.
Not the least surprising was that Old Man Third was alive and in good health. Naruto had almost gone catatonic when the first response to him asking about the Fifth Hokage revealed this. How was that possible? No one had heard of any invasion, or a funeral, or Pervy Sage taking him to go find Granny Tsunade. His quest for the truth ended with a five-fingered slap from an elderly woman for daring to mention the name 'Orochimaru'. His cheek stung with forced acceptance of the facts.
Naruto wanted to run straight to the Hokage's office and see it for himself. Unfortunately the mention of Orochimaru killing Hiruzen Sarutobi made the people talking with him angry. He was told in no small terms to leave the premises, and so, Naruto decided, he would go home instead. There was no sight of Sakura or Kakashi. Along the way he noticed some of the people he knew, but not as he'd known them. Something inside told him to keep his distance as he caught a younger Ino walking down the street with two other girls; he didn't know them and they were carrying flower pots behind Ino with her own. He headed down one street with a restaurant. Shikamaru and Choji were there, having a barbecue together. A boy he knew had to be Kiba walked with Akamaru, now a puppy like Naruto remembered from back in the Chunin Exams.
He saw a boy in a blue shirt headed his way, eyeballing him as they passed each other. Then the boy looked away with disinterest even as Naruto continued to stare. The boy left without verbally acknowledging him, and Naruto stood there in a horrified trance of sudden and violent understanding, recalling the symbol on the back of the boy's shirt. He'd muttered the first two letters of his name… then said nothing, continuing his walk home.
Something was, most definitely, inexorably wrong with this place, wherever this was. It was Konoha and it wasn't; identical save for the things that simply shouldn't be. The same sky, the same ramen shops and landmarks, the same apartments, the same ramen shops, but all of it rewound at least a few years or more. There were more important things for him to do: first, checking to see if Sakura was brought back and doing alright. Second, making sure the village was aware of Sai's treachery and Orochimaru's actions.
But, if someone had rescued him and taken him back here, why leave him in a street for some kids to find? He frowned. Of course. He was used to poor treatment most of his life though, especially as a genin, doing that had to be some sort of crime, didn't it? His teeth clenched just thinking about it.
His decision to go home and the growing pain in his head became linked. The world was caving in on him and he needed to rest, figure things out, wait for someone to come and release him from the genjutsu if nothing else. He'd tried several times to no success, just hoping for a sign of some sort; uneven grass or maybe a jagged cloud, a woman with huge hooters hitting on him out of the blue. Something!
The door to his house brought him some comfort. As he reached into his jacket pocket and found the house key he sensed someone standing directly behind him, staring as he pushed the key into the lock and heard it click.
Another young girl, this one blonde and with arms full of grocery bags, glared at him. She had marks on her cheeks, a blue shirt, orange pants, and a livid look. She wasn't Ino.
"Can I help you!?"
Naruto and the girl flinched at their questions being asked in unison.
Then, she said, "That's my house you're breaking into."
"Excuse me?"
She set her groceries down. "My house."
Naruto desperately needed someone to glue his brain back into reasonable shape. "Kid, I think you must be in the wrong part of town. This is my house, I've lived here my whole life."
A thread went taut. She stamped her foot and it was her turn to say excuse me. "I don't know who you are or where you think this is, but I live here. Always have."
"Who… sigh… who even are you?" he said. Thinking, why am I even arguing with this little girl in front of my place. Unless this for some reason isn't my house now. But then, the key worked, didn't it? The wrong lock would have meant his key shouldn't have still worked.
The girl replied, thumb thrust at her chest, "Naruko Uzumaki, who else!?"
Naruko. Uzumaki.
"I've been here since I could feed myself! And I'm not about to let some hobo or burglar or whatever you are break in and take all of my stuff!"
Naruko Uzumaki. She, with the long, blonde hair and blue eyes, and pants that looked like his old ones that were the best color ever and a shirt that looked an awful lot like the one he used to wear. The girl's face tightened as the impact of her last few words seemed to settle in.
"Oh, are you some kind of burglar? Or some hobo who pickpocketed me when I wasn't looking?"
While Naruto retrieved himself from this dazzling new information, he didn't miss the glint of mischief that appeared in the young girl's eyes.
"That's it, isn't it? Some creepy old-"
"Old? I'm sixtee-"
"-pervert lying in wait, trying to take advantage of a beautiful, precious maiden like me"
Her mouth opened and sucked in a huge breath. It started as a yell then shifted to a wail.
"Somebody help me! A creepy guy is trying to break into my house!"
Naruto was a genin. A skilled ninja trained by a legendary ninja to be fast, deadly, and strong enough to never go back on his word and fight anything that threatened him, his friends, or his village. His hands grabbed her mouth until her screams were muffled blurbs. She was silent for a few moments, eyes darting around as she realized she wasn't going to break his grip. Good. She stopped struggling, and that gave him a chance to finally ask her the real questions.
Interestingly though the nearby villagers who'd heard the girl shouting thought it best not to intervene. The strangeness of that paused him but, oh well. He wasn't going to hurt her of course. He just needed answers.
That didn't help his case when ten ANBU showed up.
–
Ibiki Morino. Too old for his chosen profession yet he'd declined every offer of retirement. The head medical ninja had written him a very nice, almost admirably direct letter to the Hokage, recommending that in his professional opinion Ibiki Morino, forty years old, male, one hundred and ninety three pounds and six feet and four inches tall, be removed from active duty as the village's interrogation leader, and placed in a supervisory role. Then the Head Medical Ninja invited him to dinner to discuss things.
Afterward, a letter was sent to the Hokage declaring Ibiki in perfect health and fit for duty.
Anybody who'd seen the scarring underneath his bandanna knew he'd gone through some terrible, messed-up shit. It was obvious, and a professional Yamanaka could probably pull a few of his more unpleasant memories out and make a case for him to retire. Still, he didn't really see a reason to quit his position. In his line of work being physically fit, even though he maintained a solid and imposing figure in his opinion, wasn't an absolute necessity. There were chunin several years younger than him that would have winded themselves climbing the stairs to his office.
The job was a real hoot too. There was no end to the types of persons you encountered in the career of torturing people. Traitors to the village harboring ill secrets. Enemy ninja captured and brought to her little box, probed for anything they might know before getting shipped to Hozuki Castle. Ciphers from fallen comrades or enemy spies. Mothers that claimed their child was the victim of bandits, and Ibiki or one of his assistants finding three weapons and poison on the mother's person by the end of the day. Small children that came at you, biting and tearing the nearest living thing. He swore that some of the ones that passed through her "office" were actually bear cubs dressed as little humans.
Tonight's entertainment was a teenager with blond hair, ripped and dirty clothes, and a headband that said he was an officially recognized ninja with a registration number that was at least two or three generations ahead of the current one. Ibiki was certain he'd seen the boy's necklace somewhere before, too.
"I'm telling you, I'm Naruto Uzuamki!" the boy shrieked.
Ibiki said nothing and mentally reviewed the items they'd found on the brat. A pouch with shuriken and kunai, explosive tagged seals, a Ramen seasoning packet, several even, a coupon for Ichiraku Ramen's special, a set of keys confirmed to be for the same housing that village resident Naruko Uzumaki stayed at. A copy? Stolen or otherwise, a match for the door.
The boy was spotted earlier. The one who'd botched it was Ebisu, and Ibiki didn't have an ounce of pity for him. Naruko had screamed in the middle of a public space, loud enough that even the people trained and under oath to ignore her paid attention. A passing ANBU luckily had heard the scream, saw the girl restrained, and the ANBU had the teen in irons in a matter of minutes. Children were a resource to any shinobi village; lesser crimes were punished with execution.
Ibiki had studied the teen from behind a glass pane. Their likeness, his and the girl's, was uncanny, Enough that Ibiki thought, in some inexplicable chain of events, the two might be brother and sister. They couldn't be, of course, but the idea brushed his mind more than once. The kid had been through a fight for damn certain and the descriptions of him were that he was roughed up even before the ANBU got to him.
The door closed with an intentional slowness as Ibiki entered the interrogation room. A small table, chairs, and a teenager beginning to crack under surveillance and forced questioning.
Ibiki sat in his chair, an eye twitching as he faced him.
The teen recognized her. She recognized the deception. Might as well just get on with this then, he figured. "We know each other, don't we? You know who I am, at least."
The teen didn't speak and grunted with a nod.
"If you do, you know what happens if I leave this room without believing everything you're about to say to me over the next five minutes," he said and laid a hand on the table, holding a manilla folder.
"I haven't lied to anybody," he replied, head lowered. "I'm not lying."
"That remains to be proven." He took a piece of paper from a folder and read the dossier they'd complied, incomplete as it was. "You say your last name is Uzumaki. Village census counts haven't recorded a member from that clan in several years, and the last one left to the Hidden Grass Village years ago. You stole or obtained a copy of a key to a specific apartment in the residential areas, made your presence known to a number of villagers, and threatened a child.
"The Shadow Clone jutsu is forbidden to all but the most elite ninja." He flipped the page over and looked him in the eyes. "We've confirmed the village's forbidden scrolls weren't stolen or moved."
"I didn't do any of… well, I did but not because-"
"Frankly, I don't know how you did any of this. Village security teams have no idea how you got in without anyone being the wiser, or how you got so close to Naruko Uzumaki, or escaped a jonin-level ninja using jutsu that we don't teach to teenagers like you."
He set down the paper and folded his hands.
"I'm supposed to get these answers one of two ways. The first is I take turns beating you with my coworkers, go have a smoke, and come back and start the process over again, feed you and pour water down your throat until you crack. The second is I have a specialist force the secrets out of your brain through a combination of genjutsu and brain-altering drugs." His hand reached beneath the table.
To say that the blond teen was uncomfortable hearing that would be an understatement. "Can you just take a second to consider what I've said?" he begged. "I'm a genin from this village, and yeah I know the Shadow Clone jutsu! I can't explain why, but I'm not from here! I don't care what you do to me, I'm not changing my story because it's the truth!"
"You're not here, either," he said, finding the kunai. "When the memories go back to the original, understand that I have 12 chunin-level ninja already patrolling the village, going door to door looking for signs of trouble. If they don't find the real you, we report to the Hokage, and have him use a jutsu that lets him focus on faraway people until we find the real one. At that point, it's kill-on-sight.."
The teen protested and was cut off when a kunai cut through his artery.
Ibiki swatted at the cloud of smoke left behind. A Shadow Clone. His men had gone through all of that trouble to bring in a freaking shadow clone, and he'd wasted valuable seconds of his life talking to it.
Sometimes, Ibiki wondered if he should just retire and let someone else deal with this crap.
–
Naruto watched the little girl through her window as she sat down to eat a lonely cup of ramen at the dinner table. She'd called herself Naruko and had the same last name as him.
Coincidence? Prior to spying on her, maybe. Once the ANBU hauled off his clone, he confirmed the coast was clear and studied her from every window possible. Even sneaking inside at one point, he'd managed to do a quick once-over while she showered. Of course he wasn't a pervert, at least not the way Jiraiya was, and he certainly wasn't interested in catching her in the buff.
The rest of the day seemed to be time for the girl's training and nothing else. A kind of training that looked all too similar to the kind he did as a kid. Taking a wooden block dummy, clumsily hurling ninja tools at it, punching and kicking it to build more power into every blow.
Then after a hundred repetitions of this she'd headed off to shower. Naruto glanced around, found money, a supply of ramen that was as respectable as it was large, sandals, an empty sink, and goggles that… goggles he hadn't worn in years.
Creak. The shower door creaked and he was gone, slipping back through a window and shutting it behind him. He waited a couple of minutes and saw her go to the table, dressed in a white shirt with a leaf pattern on the front and orange shorts. She fixed her hair into a pair of ponytails and held a set of chopsticks in her mouth. She was none the wiser it seemed. This girl wasn't a ninja, whoever she really was.
He said that, trying not to imagine her as a diabolical, evil step sister version of himself. Either the genjutsu was designed to make him extremely angry… or this girl was living in an exact copy of the house he'd lived in his entire life. She wasn't eating his food or wearing his clothes.
They were hers. Her food, her clothes.
All of it. The questions of how and why Naruto was here carried on through his sleep. He found a comfortable enough spot next to the girl's front door, plenty of room for him to not be noticed and still get some shut eye. This bizarro version of Konoha and all of its people would be there tomorrow, he told himself, or rather, hopefully not. Maybe this nightmare would end and he'd find himself in the hospital.
–
"You? You again!?"
The angry, loud voice brought Naruto to consciousness as he saw Naruko in an orange jacket standing over him, fists balled at her sides and sandals pressing firmly into the dirt. Naruto rose from his sleeping position and wiped the sleep from his eyes.
A sandaled foot kicked him in the shoulder.
"Ow!"
The girl prepared another kick. "Get out of here you freaking hobo!"
"I told you, I am not a hobo!"
"Then a burglar," she bristled. "Or whatever, I don't care anymore. This isn't funny!"
Naruto rubbed his side. "Neither is getting kicked in the shoulder!" He tried to keep his voice down as eyes started following the sound of their voices. Though, interestingly enough, most of them began pivoting away from them.
"That's what I do to creeps who sleep on my front porch!"
"You mean my-" he wanted to say before throwing in the towel. "Oh forget it, I give up. I'm sorry, really, really sorry. My house looks exactly like this one. I've been away on a really long mission and I just wanted to come home and sleep."
The girl breathed through her nose and blinked. "You weren't trying to rob me then?"
He gave her a nod. "Honest."
Her features softened. "Are you a ninja or a hobo? Some kind of hobo-ninja?"
"Genin," he corrected her, measuring his voice. "I'm a genin."
The girl's head tilted slightly and she asked what that meant. When he told her it was a ninja of low rank in the village she nodded as if she got it instantly.
"So you're… your name is Naruko, right?"
She puffed out her chest, the suspicion briefly gone from her voice. "That's right, future Hokage at your service."
Naruto half-smiled at the statement. After me you mean, he wanted to say, would have said, if he didn't have more pressing matters to deal with. He couldn't rule out the possibility that Konohamaru was just screwing with him.
"What's your name?" she asked him. "Not that I'm not fond of Hobo."
He frowned and said, "Nar…uhm." Then, the first thing that came to mind. "Sai. Sai Uzumaki."
Her eyes widened and her jaw fluttered on his last name. "You can't be… we have the same last name! That's… that's nuts!"
Naruto shook his head. "No, it's a… uh, a coincidence!"
"Hm, yeah, I guess… I mean you kind of dress the way I do and our faces are kind of similar." She squinted and roamed his features, trying to discern differences.
"Speaking of," he said, lifting one of his arms with a torn section underneath the arm and all the way around the forearm. A snake had melted against him there. "Do you have any clothes I could borrow?"
Naruko frowned this time. "First, I thought you weren't a hobo, and second, nothing I have would fit you anyway."
"Oh yeah, I guess you got me there," he said, rubbing the back of his head.
Then, after some thought.
"Hey, I'm hungry, want to go get something to eat? I know this place called Ichiraku's…"
The little girl hung on everything he said after that.
–
An older man, Teuchi, in a white outfit called his daughter, Ayame, to get their latest customers their meal. The old man appeared content when Naruko said her new friend's name. Strange that after a few minutes of avoiding stink eyes from the rest of the village these two didn't mind Naruko's presence at all.
"So, you're a chunin?" Naruko asked as Ayame handed them their orders.
"That's right," he said, embracing his new identity and (apparently) new rank. "Sai Uzumaki, chunin of the Hidden Leaf Village, believe it."
"That's so cool," Naruko said, her awe visible..
He smiled at her. "Yeah, people here probably won't recognize me because my team and I have been out of the village for, eh, two years almost I think." It was just believable enough for a child to accept.
She was more preoccupied with diving straight into her bowl. Naruto mirrored her, at first. His eye went to the outside of the ramen bar before going back to his bowl. The truth was a loud, obnoxious slurping right next to him. Here he was, sitting next to a young girl who was basically him, dressed like him, ordering the same food as him. The same hair, last name, and even the same goals.
She didn't know any of the same people that he did. In fact, she seemed a bit dense and sheltered much the way he was, not so long ago. She'd never left the village or been on a mission. She was still in the academy taking tests so she could graduate and become a proper ninja. She'd explained all of this in a single, run-on sentence.
Ayame and Teuchi kept granting them looks. Teuchi acted busy while Ayame was less subtle, gazing sharply from paperwork and sinks ever so often. It wasn't a look Naruto cherished.
She looked mad, and mad at him specifically.
A pot fell to the ground when he'd mulled it over while they were eating, and Teuchi apologized for being clumsy. Killing intent, Jiraiya had once taught him, could be materialized, felt, and especially weaponized against enemy ninja. Ordinary people sometimes unleashed it without even knowing, or something like that.
He didn't like the name he'd chosen. Every time someone called him by it he balled a fist. If this really was the past, there wasn't a "Sai" anywhere in the village, or so he thought at least. And if there was then the name itself was common enough to stay beneath suspicion. Then again, the "Uzumaki" part would raise some eyebrows.
"So, you're back in the village then?" Naruko said, interrupting his thoughts.
The steam trails over his ramen were thinning. "Uh… yes, for the time being. I'm not on active duty anyway, but I'll have to report back to Gra… the Hokage soon."
"Can you teach me an awesome jutsu?" the girl practically shouted from one barstool over. "Please please please?"
"I don't think-"
"Please please please?"
The turn around in their acquaintance was truly astonishing. "I can't just teach a squirt like you any of the hundred dangerous jutsu I have under my belt."
This only increased the girl's determination. "Give me a couple of days and I'll learn them in no time flat!"
Naruto mulled it over and sighed. "Fine, I'll show you a jutsu, teach it to you, and in exchange you let me squat at your place for the time being. Uhhh until I'm ready to report to, uh, Lord Hokage, yeah."
"DEAL."
They shook on it, much to Teuchi and Ayame's amazement. They weren't entirely okay with little Naruko wandering around a strange man who claimed to be a ninja, and might have called the ANBU in any other circumstance. For some reason they didn't, and Naruto decided not to challenge that.
It took until they were a few seconds away from her door for Naruko to question why a genin needed a place to crash in the first place. He told her it was classified.
–
The slightest hostile twitch and Yugao was ordered to kill the person calling themselves Sai Uzumaki.
They'd heard everything of course and relied on lip-reading for what they couldn't. Not that hard when one of the targets was a blabber mouth and the other appeared homeless. The offer, no, proposal to train the 9-tails girl, made with absolutely no fear or intimidation.
"Should we intervene?" asked Kakashi seriously, crouched next to her. They were perched there on a roof, spying on the older and younger blonds. Naruko Uzumaki, the Hidden Leaf's greatest secret and its greatest victim. The irony was unsettling. She'd made a friend for maybe the first time in her life and they might have to kill him to protect her.
Yugao shook her head. As ANBU captain, she had the final say. "No," she said. "Let's gather as much info as we can, undetected. He's slippery enough to pop a Shadow Clone that took Ibiki minutes to notice."
Kakashi's lone eye enlarged upon hearing that while his mouth remained still.
They threw up a genjutsu to conceal their presence, better this time. The one named "Sai" had almost spotted them at the ramen place when that pot fell.
–
Naruto had access to a bed, a shower, a bathroom, and central heating at last. Well, a spare futon Naruko had in her closet, but a bed nonetheless.
Somehow he didn't sleep and found himself lying down on the roof. The sky was black and starless, and the sleeping shapes of houses outlined against the Hokage. There was the occasional body moving in the dark, but not expertly enough that Naruto feared an ANBU prowling the area.
At least, he hoped so.
Something still bothered him. He lifted his shirt, trying to activate the chakra in his stomach so that the seal would appear. Black lines and markings formed over his skin.
That was weird. So he decided to ignore that for now.
He gathered his chakra… and his eyes closed without his permission. Suddenly he was in that weird yet familiar place, floating and standing at the same time. Somewhere deep inside of himself. The place where the 9-Tails would normally be. Jiraiya-sensei called it a "mindscape" or a "reflection of a person's inner subconscious thoughts." Naruto vowed never to tell him that Naruto's mind resembled a leaky sewer each time he'd gone inside it.
As Naruto explored he discovered the 9-Tails missing. The sewer water murky as it was purchased nine different channels guiding his attention to a set of steel bars. Behind them caged darkness lurched at him, making Naruto shiver in the deepest parts of his brain.
He funneled his courage and brought himself to one of the bars, each constructed to keep him out. When his face got close to the bars, the darkness changed to reveal a moving image. Konoha filled his vision with the softness of a waking dream. He looked around and saw a person who looked exactly like him this time, only shorter and with longer hair. This Naruto didn't appear to see him and continued walking up the street. A group of people came toward him and greeted the other Naruto.
Naruto backed away from the bars and the image left him. "What the?" he muttered.
The next set of bars gave a different view and a different him. Sakura and Kakashi were watching him fawn over a tiny animal. They wore funny-looking clothes and armor. Kakashi even had a hat on along with his usual mask. Sasuke was there… but it wasn't him. He had Sasuke's face, but his ears were longer and funny-looking. Naruto backed away and continued to search.
He saw himself standing between Itachi and Kisame looking much older than he was now, wearing the same robes as the Akatsuki. Then he saw himself in white kabuki makeup holding a strange, cylindrical tool in his hand, ruby lips gleaming as he pointed the cylinder at a head of blue hair.
Grandma Tsunade standing next to Jiraiya and… Orochimaru! The edges of his teeth shook at just the sight of them together. He realized then that warning them was useless. They weren't in danger at all, in fact. They weren't in battle; Naruto noticed bottles of alcohol and half-finished plates of food.
This was a bizarre dream. Why was his brain showing him these things?
He saw Team 7 united once again, himself, Sakura, Kakashi, and Sasuke… and none of them dressed like in their usual clothes, riding on horseback in the middle of a desert, their hands around those metal cylinder things like in the other vision.
Another Team 7, himself, Hinata, and Shino standing in front of a dark-haired woman with red eyes, wearing a shirt with a vine pattern. She was the leader of Hinata's team if he remembered correctly.
Team 7, again, but this time him, Hinata, and Sasuke. Hinata had bandages over her eyes and seemed to be smiling knowingly as Naruto said something to Sasuke. The way her face looked, she could tell that whatever Naruto had said was a lie, and Sasuke had fallen for it.
In another of these strange images he saw Gamabunta's face on the Hokage Monument. Along with three other frogs he didn't recognize.
Naruto pulled away from these images back into the inky night above him. He could see a dozen stars or so now glowering back at him, and he went to sleep wondering what, if anything, this might have meant.
–
Hiruzen Sarutobi stood in front of the window in his office, hands crossed behind him. He lifted his gaze without turning, acknowledging the masked ANBU that was now kneeling down behind him. "What is it, Kakashi?"
The man removed his mask and bowed.
"Lord Hokage," he said, "I'm afraid that we have an intruder."
"A spy from another village?"
"I don't know, but he's masquerading as a Hidden Leaf ninja and seems to be interested in Naruko."
Sarutobi frowned, his right hand curling into a fist. "Tell me everything, immediately."
–
Naruto Mugenden
Chapter 1
END