Sai, Sasuke, and Yukimaru rode in silence atop Sai's ink bird. The day had been… enlightening for the two wards of Orochimaru, or rather former wards of Orochimaru considering that he was almost certainly fucking dead. The devastation wrought by Naruto's jutsu dwarfed that of Kirin (which really stuck in Sasuke's craw), and Orochimaru took the full brunt of it without being given any opportunity to escape. There was no shot whatsoever that he survived that explosion, which put Sasuke and Yukimaru at a crossroads. They were no longer bound to Orochimaru and were theoretically free to do or go wherever they wanted, but they could also no longer learn anything from him. Loathe as Sasuke was to admit it, this encounter with Akatsuki didn't inspire a ton of confidence about their readiness to obtain vengeance. At the very least, that pissed Sasuke off enough to hopefully feed the hatred that his brother told him would make him stronger.
Sasuke sent a sidelong glance to Yukimaru, and his bitter glower told Sasuke that they were on the same page. They were now effectively left with two options: take a chance and strike it on their own, or take a chance and stick around with Danzo to see if that decrepit fuckhead could offer any significant power…
Another glance at Yukimaru saw the other boy shooting him a quizzical, almost scolding expression as if he was silently chastising him for even entertaining the thought of sticking around for any longer than necessary, especially with Danzo of all people. Sasuke could only sigh; Yukimaru was right.
"When am I not," Yukimaru chuckled, finally breaking the silence.
"Stop doing that," Sasuke growled, glaring at Yukimaru. "It's weird."
"You're just mad that you're so easy to read once you get beyond all that Uchiha angst," Yukimaru snickered.
"I can literally implant whatever suggestions I want into your mind with my Sharingan," Sasuke deadpanned, his Sharingan blaring to drive in the point.
"It's not as cool, and you know it."
"Bite me-"
Suddenly, the bird slammed into an invisible barrier, dispelling back into a glob of ink as the three teenagers plummeted to the ground. Unfortunately, it seemed no one informed them about the Five-Seal Barrier.
Kabuto didn't have much time left. Every second was crucial as he inched his way toward the smoldering ravine where Orochimaru's remains were certain to be. He bore witness to the awe-inspiring sight of Orochimaru's Eight-Headed Serpent Jutsu, and he subsequently watched it be annihilated by whatever the fuck Naruto Uzumaki pulled out of his ass… or was it more accurate to say whatever the Kyubi pulled out of its ass? He wasn't too sure of the dynamics of their situation, but it was irrelevant. Orochimaru was almost certainly dead; even if he survived that jutsu, they were not going to chance him slipping away when he was dead to rights. The redhead might have been foolish enough to leave him to his fate, but he was certain that Naruto wasn't going to make that same mistake with someone of his master's caliber.
That only made the race to reach his master's body that much more pressing. There needed to be a body for Kabuto to consume if he wanted to make it out of his predicament alive; the snake pills were already kicking off the transformation of his DNA while he worked on keeping his aorta together with his healing jutsu, but neither were working faster than the poison she sprayed him with. Every movement called for exponentially more energy and effort than he had available, and his entire body was howling in excruciating pain, but he could not relent. He grit through every protest his nerves sent him on his trek to salvation.
Eventually, he reached the unbelievably scorched hole in the ground, a remarkable crater the likes of which have not been seen since the legends of the Sage of Six Paths' mother wiping out the dinosaurs. It was a very, very wide crater, so it took him longer than he would ever admit to crawl to the center where a blackened, deformed mass of scales and flesh sat in a lifeless lump. It didn't appear as though it was merely shedded skin, neither could he sense any remnants of his master that could have escaped in the form of a white snake, so this was definitely the real deal.
The burned, lifeless corpse of the grotesque snake monster that once was Orochimaru was a surreal sight to behold. To see the man who so fervently ran from death finally succumb to the Shinigami's ice-cold clutches… it would have been sobering if Kabuto wasn't actively dying.
"Welp, let's get this over with," he grunted before biting down on the flesh of his dead master.
It was shamefully easy for Danzo and his two ROOT operatives to infiltrate Takigakure. The shinobi they had patrolling the cave network underneath the waterfall that led into the center of the village were at best career chunin masquerading as jonin. To add further insult to injury, the occasional ANBU they encountered were just as pathetic, easily being dispatched by his ROOT without Danzo even having to lift a finger. This village's best and brightest would not even sniff a promotion out of genin in Konoha or even Otogakure. It was truly disgraceful what passed as a hidden village these days.
There was no further use dwelling on the medley of mediocrity that was Takigakure, however. They had graced this abomination of a settlement with their arrival for a single purpose: retrieving the Nanabi jinchuriki. His spies reported that the jinchuriki was a young girl who was summarily ostracized and isolated from the rest of the village, and as a result, she didn't hold her village in a particularly favorable light. Her handlers were apparently respected jonin, which did not mean much at this point, and the only relationship she had was with the leader of the village, Shibuki. Danzo suspected that this was done purely to assure the jinchuriki's loyalty, which was the only credit he would afford a cowardly weakling like Shibuki.
Wading through the shadows of the village under the noses of any and every Taki-nin, they eventually reached the outskirts of the village where a tan-skinned, mint-green-haired kunoichi was sitting crosslegged and meditating atop a tree stump. Despite Danzo and co. soundlessly entering the vicinity, she immediately produced a kunai and threw it directly at Danzo without opening her eyes. Danzo, meanwhile, calmly caught the kunai between his fingers and subtly signaled for his ROOT-nin to stay their hands. There was no need to attack just yet.
The jinchuriki, her orange eyes now open and glaring at the three men, carefully slid off the tree stump and onto her feet. "Who are you, and why are you here?"
She was tense and ready to spring into action at the slightest hint of hostility. Good. Constant vigilance kept his weapons sharp.
"You are the Nanabi jinchuriki," Danzo stated rather than asked, and the girl's eyes narrowed a centimeter more.
"What of it?" she pressed, still ready to defend herself at a moment's notice.
"It is my understanding that your village is not terribly fond of you," Danzo continued, ignoring her growing discontent with his dismissal of her questions. "It is truly a shame, though it does not surprise me that a sham of a hidden village such as Takigakure would so cavalierly spit on their most valuable asset."
It was clear to Danzo that his words had sufficiently surprised the jinchuriki, but her wariness and skepticism still remained. It was an essential quality in proper weapons, but it made persuasion a little more difficult. Fortunately, Danzo was a master at persuasion, or rather Shisui Uchiha was a master at persuasion, as Kotoamatsukami had been hard at work under his bandages as soon as she was within eyesight.
"…What do you want?" she warily questioned, her body ever so slowly becoming less tense beyond her notice.
"To remove you from the shackles that this citadel of dreck has imposed upon you," Danzo finally answered. "I wish you take you to a place where your existence and services will not only be welcomed but appreciated, as well."
"Somewhere… away from here?" she hesitantly questioned, a mixture of hope and confusion dressing her voice as she slid her hand across her forehead.
"Far away," Danzo confirmed. "You will no longer be forced to serve a populous that wishes to see you dead at the whim of an agent of averageness such as Shibuki. Instead, you will serve me, and I will sharpen you into the most powerful, most efficient, and most infallible shinobi you could ever fathom. You will be strong. You will prosper."
Her eyes were gleaming, but her fist clenched her hair near her temple. Then, just as quickly, her hand fell back to her side, and she was staring intently back at Danzo. "Yeah, yes, I'll go. I'll serve you. I'll do anything; just please get me out of this hellhole."
Danzo smiled for the first time since entering the cave network beneath the waterfall. The on-the-fly conditioning was a success, and he would be sure to thank Shisui Uchiha for his continued service post-mortem when he finally crossed over into the Pure World, but that would be many, many moons from now. He had fulfilled his end of the bargain with Orochimaru by transforming Otogakure into a proper hidden village, and every great hidden village needed a jinchuriki. A weapon as powerful as the Nanabi was being wasted in some cheap imitation of a hidden village like Takigakure. This would rectify that injustice and expedite his destiny of ridding Konoha of the cancer that Hiruzen left behind.
He wrapped his cane against the ground, and his two ROOT took a knee and bowed their heads. The jinchuriki's curious, orange gaze scanned over the two on either side of him before it met his own gaze directly. Danzo remained silent, and it only took a few more seconds before she got with the program and took a knee, as well. Danzo nodded, taking a few steps toward her to stand directly in front of her as she knelt.
"Tell me, what is your name?" he asked, ignoring his two ROOT silently flickering into the trees to intercept the jinchuriki's two handlers that had arrived. Another brief silence engulfed the area as she brought her head back up to take note of the other two vanishing before looking back at him.
"…Fu," she eventually answered. "My name is Fu."
Danzo stared at her, and then his gaze fell upon the returning Fu Yamanaka by his side who was wiping the blood off of his tanto. Finally, he turned back to the jinchuriki with a deadpan expression.
'This is going to be bothersome; I can already foresee it.'
Unbeknownst to any of them, deep within Fu, Chomei was silently watching the whole scene play out with interest. He never really had a relationship with Fu beyond her swiping some of his chakra when necessary (which was often, he found). This whole "trapped within a human vessel" thing wasn't really for him.
"I could break her out of that genjutsu…" he lowly buzzed to himself, but then he shook his head. "Nah, maybe this will get her killed faster so that I can finally have my freedom."
He was Lucky Seven Chomei, damnit. He was meant to spread his wings, not be cooped up in some metaphysical ant farm.
"You can't be serious," Tsunade snorted while on the couch in the Hokage's office. "Sensei really said that?"
Jiraiya nodded with a laugh, pointing to a page within Hiruzen Sarutobi's old journal that he kept locked up in a vault within another vault in the office. The only reason Jiraiya knew how to access it was because his former sensei shared it with him during the month break before the chunin exam finals.
"And I quote," Jiraiya began. "Danzo may not have been a once-in-a-generation prodigy, but he is most assuredly a once-in-a-generation hater. I fondly remember the days Biwako and I would laugh about Danzo's attempts to woo her and persuade her to leave me for him. Lady Mito once said that the Kyubi called such tactics, 'dirty macking.'"
"Holy shit," Tsunade guffawed. "I knew he was a devious shithead, but I didn't know it went that deep."
"You and me both," Jiraiya agreed, thoroughly enjoying the gems their sensei was dropping in this journal before landing on something else that intrigued him. "Did you know that the Nidaime banned Hi-Chew?"
Tsunade blinked, running that sentence back through her mind to ensure she hadn't misheard him. "Uh, why?"
Jiraiya read on a bit further, and he couldn't fight the childish giggles that slipped out of him. "It was apparently Madara's favorite candy, so when Tobirama took the hat, he banned it village-wide because it was naturally popular amongst the Uchiha Clan. Of course, after he died and Sensei took office, the Uchiha started smuggling it into the village from Tanzaku to sell within the clan district, and Sensei just kinda looked the other way."
"…What the fuck??"
That incredulous thought was halted when a knock at the door snagged both of their attention.
"Enter," Jiraiya called out, and the door opened to reveal his protégé and her best friend who simply looked happy to be back in the village. Trailing behind them, however, was a downcast Sakura Haruno, a haggard Kakashi that was dead on his feet, and an only marginally better-looking Might Guy holding him up.
"Team Guy and Team Kakashi reporting from our mission to Tenchi Bridge," Tenten spoke up.
"I take it from your expressions that the mission didn't go well," Jiraiya probed, looking over the mix of exhaustion and melancholy among them.
Sakura stepped forward. "We were able to locate Orochimaru's base… and Sasuke."
Jiraiya slowly nodded. "And their statuses?"
"Well, if that last series of explosions was Naruto's doing, then I think it's fair to assume that Orochimaru is almost certainly dead," Kakashi answered from Might Guy's side.
Jiraiya's eyes widened at the mention of Naruto before his hands steepled in front of him. "Start from the very beginning."
"Ugh, how much longer Kakuzu?" Hidan bemoaned as the duo climbed a long set of stairs to a set of massive double doors.
"We're literally here, you numbskull," Kakuzu growled as he motioned to the doors of the Fire Temple, the most revered shinobi monastery on the continent.
The doors, in actuality, were two iron walls that were part of a barrier seal formation in conjunction with the two statues of a karasu and a yamabushi tengu on either side of the doors. It was supposed to act as an impenetrable gate to keep intruders from the outside world away from the sanctity of the temple. Fortunately for Kakuzu, barriers were only as powerful as the people who erected them, so a hardened punch courtesy of his Earth Spear Jutsu was more than sufficient to bust the doors down with a thunderous crash.
"None of these ants look like viable candidates to worship Jashin," Hidan muttered as they stepped into the temple amidst the frantically scuttling monks. "Sacrifices are a different story, though."
"Do whatever you want with the rest," Kakuzu shrugged, his gaze locking on to a singular figure standing at the top of another large case of stairs up ahead. "Chiriku is the one worth 30 million. He needs to be recognizable if we're going to get anything for him."
"So, I can go wild and leave you to the big guy?" Hidan asked with a wicked grin.
"That is what I said," Kakuzu annoyedly confirmed. "Let's just get this over with. I don't want to be in this collectivist hellhole for any longer than I have to be."
Jiraiya sat in silent contemplation after being briefed about the mission to Tenchi Bridge and all that happened afterward. Rock Lee, Might Guy, Kakashi, and Sakura had all since left after being dismissed, Tsunade and Sakura literally dragging Kakashi kicking and screaming to the hospital so that he could be forced onto bed rest. That only left Tenten remaining in the room with him, and it was clear from the slight twisting of her face that there was something she wanted to ask him but didn't know how to. Jiraiya allowed her to gather her words, meanwhile, he ran what he was told back in his head a few more times.
Sasori's spy in Orochimaru's ranks was actually Kabuto, and they sprang Orochimaru's trap that was originally meant for him. Kakashi and Guy fought him off, and then they tracked them down to Orochimaru's nearest base where they encountered Sasuke Uchiha. That was when the troubling part came along: Sasuke was so far ahead of them that it was ridiculous. None of them stood a chance against him alone or even together, and the only reason their lives were initially spared was because Orochimaru really wanted his sword back.
Then, Akatsuki showed up, and Naruto apparently treated Orochimaru like such a casual annoyance not worth his time that even Jaraiya felt secondhand indignation. Naruto was already really powerful, but it appeared that these last few years had done even greater wonders for him. And now he could summon Kushina???
"Master Jiraiya…" Tenten finally spoke up, drawing Jiraiya out of his musings. He would ponder those things later.
"What is it, kid?" he asked, already having a hunch as to what was on her mind.
"I'm…" she uttered, but the words began to die on her tongue until she shook her head and grew resolute. "I'm not strong enough. Sasuke embarrassed us. All of us. He wasn't even trying."
That confirmed Jiraiya's suspicions about what she wanted to talk about, and he leaned back in his chair. "What makes you think he wasn't trying?"
"He never once activated his cursed seal," she firmly answered, "at least not until Naruto showed up and treated them all like children. Sasuke was handling us without tapping into his full power. We were nothing to him!"
She stopped herself and took a breath. Jiraiya watched her regain herself and recollect her thoughts, but his mind was also hard at work. "Are you upset that you're lagging so far behind Sasuke after training for the same amount of time?"
Before Tenten could answer, Jiraiya held up his hand to stop her and continued. "Or, are you upset that you're still so far behind Naruto?"
The grimace that appeared on her face told Jiraiya all it needed to.
"…I know I'm not as powerful as you, Lady Tsunade, or Guy-sensei, but you all have so many years on me and so much more experience," Tenten spoke up after a brief silence. "That can't be the case for Naruto, though, so why is the gap between us so massive? Why has it always been so goddamn massive??"
"You two are not the same," Jiraiya pointed out. "He's presumably been training at above a jonin level since he was academy-aged. Everyone's circumstances are different, but everyone is also built differently, too. He not only had a head start on you, but he's also probably just a step or three above you regardless."
He put his hand up again to silence whatever response was prepared to come from her indignant expression. "Just hear me out. I've encountered a lot of different kinds of ninjas in my day. Some people are natural geniuses who take to the shinobi arts like water. Some people are unfathomably intuitive and find or even create vast applications for chakra that others can only dream of. Some people are masters of their craft and drive themselves into the ground to become second to none."
He spun around in his chair, gazing out at the village below before turning back to his apprentice with a wry smile. "Then, there are people like us and your teammate: the losers who have to grind themselves into dust just to eventually find their way."
"I'm not a loser," Tenten grumbled with a crossed-armed pout.
Jiraiya chuckled. "Yeah, you are, but that's okay. When I was your age, so was I."
"Seriously?"
Jiraiya shrugged. "I was still several tiers above you, but in comparison to my teammates, yes, I was."
"That doesn't make me feel any better," she deadpanned.
"It wasn't supposed to," Jiraiya chuckled again before biting his thumb. "I know who can, though."
One quick summoning later, Fukasaku stood on Jiraiya's desk with a look of surprise.
"Jiraiya-boy, you should have let me know ahead of time that you were going to summon me," Fukasaku said to him. "Ma just finished cooking. I could have brought you a bowl."
"That won't be necessary," Jiraiya hastily assured, and then he pointed to Tenten. "My fabulous apprentice here finally received her post-training humbling. You think she's ready?"
Fukasaku turned to her and fixed her with a pointed stare, the same kind that she squirmed under when she was drafted into apprenticeship years prior. It lasted for just as long, too, and Jiraiya would be lying if he said he even tried to hide his amusement from her.
"No, she is not ready," Fukasaku declared, turning back to him and away from Tenten's downcast expression. "However, neither were you when you began. We'll see how quickly she progresses on Mount Myoboku."
Tenten's dismay was swapped out for confusion. "Wait, what?"
"We hear your plea for further training, and we agree," Jiraiya confirmed, and her eyes widened with hope. "You'll be heading to Mount Myoboku to train in the more advanced Toad arts with Pa and Ma. I'll drop by every so often to check up on your progress."
"Seriously?!" she questioned, an amalgamation of surprise, bewilderment, and exponentially growing excitement in her voice.
Jiraiya nodded. "Now's your chance to lift yourself into the echelon of shinobi you're chasing after, kid. Make the most of it."
She needed a moment to regain her composure before bowing to the both of them. "Thank you so much, Master Jiraiya, Great Sage Fukasaku. You won't regret this!"
With that, she damn near sprinted out of the office to meet up with Lee, Neji, and Guy to inform them of the news, leaving a highly amused Jiraiya and an inquisitive Fukasaku remaining.
"Do you truly think it's time for her to endure this kind of training, Jiraiya-boy?" the elder toad asked him. "You know it will not be easy by any stretch. It could very possibly kill her. Are you sure you're willing to take that risk?"
Jiraiya was silent for a long moment. He stared up at the framed picture of Minato on the wall beside his sensei, meeting his late student's cerulean gaze.
"I ain't gonna be around forever, unlike you, and as much as it kills her to admit it, neither will Tsunade," Jiraiya began, a veneer of mirth in his tone attempting to lace the frankness of his words. "The Shinigami has already taken just about everyone that either of us cared about, and sooner or later, it'll come for us, too. So, what then?"
Sensing that Jiraiya wasn't yet finished with his thought, Fukasaku remained silent while Jiraiya continued peering at the photo of the Yellow Flash on the wall.
"Minato isn't around to lead the village into its next glory days, nor is he around to bring peace to this world," he continued. "Meanwhile, Naruto seems like he just might fit the bill for the latter, but so long as he's with Nagato and Konan, he can't do the former. Someone has to be able to keep this village safe when I or Tsunade aren't around anymore."
Fukasaku nodded. "And you believe that person to be her."
"I believe she's more qualified than she or others give her credit for," Jiraiya confirmed. "Kids got heaps of potential that just needs to be brought out and focused more than it already is. The current generation is powerful, but for the most part, they've peaked. The next generation, though? They still have room to develop, and you can do so much with a blank canvas."
"So, you're modeling Tenten-girl after you."
"Ideally, she'll be far better than anything I ever could've been."
"Those are very high hopes, Jiraiya-boy."
"Maybe," Jiraiya conceded with a shrug."Maybe, when it's all said and done, she could give Naruto a run for his money if she's strong enough."
"Bitch, I have no equal," Naruto cackled at the terrified bandit camp, or rather what remained of it that hadn't yet gone up in flames.
When the Uzumaki quartet stumbled on the camp, Naruto wasted no time kidnapping two stragglers and dragging them behind a tree to be interrogated. He could only imagine what sort of horrifying genjutsu Tayuya subjected them to, but they sang like canaries about every sordid thing they had ever done even before joining up with the group. Naruto didn't even bother pressing them about whether the camp had prisoners, instead asking Karin to feel the place out for any distressed chakra signatures no matter how low they were.
She gave him confirmation that there were none, and that was all Naruto needed to hear. He spawned a multitude of shadow clones that promptly retreated underground, and then he leaped to the top of the nearest tree, cleared his throat, and belched a cataclysmic Majestic Demolisher towards the center of the camp. The bandits were caught with their pants down (some literally), and many instinctively fled to the edges of the camp to get away from the attack, only to be absconded by a surprise deluge of chains sprouting from the ground, capturing them in a silvery jungle that caged them in with their impending demise.
"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet," Naruto announced from the treetop, and a stream of fire erupted from his mouth in the shape of a slender dragon. That dragon quickly ballooned in size to become a long, hulking mass of fire looming over the area like it was about to ask them to state their wish. There was no wish-granting to be had, however, only the shrieks and wails of bandits burning to a crisp once the giant, fiery dragon descended upon them.
Tayuya, Karin, and Kushina, meanwhile, observed the carnage from the ground beside their two captives with varying reactions. Tayuya, while confused at why they were wasting their time on a bandit camp, wasn't going to pretend that she wasn't entertained by the massively overkill destruction. Karin and Kushina, on the other hand, were a bit concerned at the random, wanton violence, but Karin couldn't bring herself to be opposed to it after hearing what the gang of degenerates had done to innocent people, whereas Kushina acknowledged that she had done far worse to a bandit camp during a bout of mood swings before finding out that she was pregnant.
When he finally dropped back to the ground Naruto was met with three inquisitive expressions.
"Not that it wasn't kickass or anything, but…" Tayuya began, vaguely motioning to the destroyed bandit camp, "…what exactly was all that for?"
"Just a hunch that I needed to reassert my narrative dominance," Naruto joked, and Tayuya rolled her eyes.
"Every room you've ever lived in was triangular, huh?" Tayuya deadpanned. "That's all they could trust you with, I bet."
"Why spare these two?" Karin asked him while pointing to the two bandits he interrogated, but it was Kushina who answered her question.
"You're bringing them to the mask temple with us," she surmised, to which Naruto nodded in confirmation. "You're really serious about this."
"He made a promise all those years ago, and I intend to see that he keeps it," Naruto said, knocking the two bandits out and hauling them onto his back with his chains. "Besides, you at least deserve to see him before I dispel the Edo Tensei. I wouldn't have brought you back otherwise."
Kushina clearly wasn't expecting that if the way she stumbled and nearly fell was any indication. She knew that getting Minato out of the Shinigami was the goal, but she assumed Naruto was doing it primarily to get the other half of the Kyubi and that her seeing him again was simply a bonus. To learn that she and Minato seeing each other again was part of the whole plan…
Kushina launched herself at Naruto and enveloped him in a warm, bone-crushing hug."You're the best damn son in the world, y'know!"
"I'm well aware," he managed to joke through the strain of being flattened by his mother's iron embrace.
"Was a death grip part of your arsenal or something?" Tayuya quipped to Kushina.
"Sometimes," she replied with a thoughtful expression. "There were times when I'd lock an enemy into a hug when the Kyubi's chakra was getting out of control, and the corrosiveness of the chakra would literally eat them alive until they were barely flesh and bone."
Naruto, Karin, and Tayuya were left staring at her with eyes wider than the indomitable human spirit. Kushina, meanwhile, scratched her scalp and tilted her head. "What?"
The three teenagers slowly turned back around and continued on their way, each choosing to reconcile and move on from that tidbit in their own ways. Naruto's method was retreating inward to the creature he and Kushina had in common.
'…Uh, Kurama?'
"Your mother was a psychopath, yes."
'Right…'
"So, Karin," Naruto said, quickly moving on to a new topic of conversation, "I never got the details of your fight with Kabuto. How'd it go?"
"I baited him with whack-a-mole," she beamed. "Then, I let him squabble with clones that he thought were the real me until he struck a Poison Shadow Clone, and then I severed his aorta."
"Holy shit," Naruto complimented. "Nice work. Let him choose between dying of shock or from the poison."
Karin nodded with a prideful smile. "I wonder which one ended up doing him in. Guess it doesn't really matter at this point."
Naruto blinked. "What do you mean? Weren't you there?"
Karin paused. "Well, yeah, but I figured there was no possible way that he was going to survive that predicament, so I left him for dead to come help you…"
She trailed off under Naruto's intense gaze, a gaze that became scolding the longer she spoke. "Um…"
"You had him dead to rights, and you didn't finish him off??" Naruto scolded, tapping his index fingers on either temple. "Think, Karin, think! No one ever dies unless you witness it! And even if you do see it, that's still no guarantee, as evidenced by why we had to kill Orochimaru twice in the first place. Kabuto could be eating Orochimaru's corpse to gain immortality right now for all we know! Always go for the double-tap!"
Karin quickly looked away and lowered her head, incrementally retreating into her cloak. "I-I'm sorry…"
"Hey, none of that," Naruto said much more gently with a soft hand on her shoulder, and the contact immediately halted her retreat and soothed her out of her cloak. When she was sufficiently assured, Naruto took the opening and ruffled her hair, grinning when she smacked his arm away with a huff.
"It's okay," Naruto assured her once again. "Orochimaru was the goal, and we got him. Anyone else is just icing on the cake. Just be sure to double-tap next time around, okay?"
"I will," she nodded, her smile returning.
"Now, back to our quest to rob the Shinigami."
Sasuke stepped through the door of a convenience store with a scowl. Trailing behind was an exasperated Yukimaru and a blank Sai as Sasuke trudged through the aisles in a clearly foul mood. He had been in one since they collided with that invisible wall, but it was obvious that it went far deeper than that. Yukimaru had opted to let the other boy have his space to ruminate over the conclusions they drew about themselves after the battle (it wasn't like Yukimaru wasn't doing just that, as well), whereas Sai just silently followed along on their trek back to Otogakure's primary stronghold. Danzo would have much to learn about what Sai observed.
Halfway through one of the aisles, though, Sasuke stopped in his tracks. Yukimaru took note of how Sasuke pointedly ignored the Pocky shelves (which were surprisingly pretty barren, almost as if someone had come by and raided them earlier that day), so he was curious as to what caught the Uchiha's attention. To his knowledge, Sasuke wasn't crazy about anything except onigiri and tomatoes, and neither were in this aisle. Hiding the last few boxes of Pocky he could pick up, he checked out what had Sasuke so enraptured-
"Are you fucking serious?" Yukimaru deadpanned when he took a gander at Sasuke staring intently at various packs of Hi-Chew on the shelf.
"I didn't know you had a sweet tooth, Dickless," Sai remarked with a painfully phony smile.
"Hn," was all Sasuke replied with, his focus clearly on the candy in front of him.
Yukimaru sighed; it was obvious that they would be spending the better part of the afternoon waiting on him to decide on whether he wanted to buy a pack or not, not that Yukimaru particularly blamed him. There were dozens of flavors available.
"So, are you gonna…" Yukimaru trailed off, hopefully prompting Sasuke to make a decision sooner rather than later.
It worked, as Sasuke suddenly swiped a bunch of different flavors off of the shelf and into a basket that he almost certainly did not have when they entered the aisle. "Let's go."
"Cool," Yukimaru sighed, following him up to the register and paying for his Pocky after Sasuke left with his Hi-Chew.
When the three were finally outside of the store, Sasuke immediately turned to Sai with his Sharingan blaring, thrusting him into a genjutsu and removing him from the conscious world. Yukimaru blinked, and then he turned a quirked eyebrow to Sasuke.
"So, we're not going back to Otogakure, I take it," Yukimaru remarked, to which Sasuke grunted.
"I'm not running the risk of entertaining whatever Danzo has been plotting now that Orochimaru isn't around for him to worry about," he declared, his Sharingan still blaring. "If we're going to do this, we'll need a bigger team, and I trust Sai about as much as I trust Kabuto."
"Gotcha," Yukimaru nodded. "Who did you have in mind?"
"We'll need a sensor to make hunting them down all the easier," Sasuke began before motioning to Yukimaru. "That would be you. We'll also need competent fighters; these aren't run-of-the-mill shinobi that we're going after. I'd say people that Orochimaru saw fit to keep alive would be a good place to start. Jugo and perhaps Suigetsu would be viable candidates."
"Jugo?" Yukimaru questioned with widened eyes. "Interesting. I imagine you have some way to pacify him if he gets out of control."
"Worst case scenario, I'll use my Sharingan," Sasuke affirmed.
"Alright," Yukimaru nodded. "Suigetsu, Jugo; sounds good. Can I make a suggestion?"
When Sasuke nodded, he continued. "Isaribi from the southern base in Umi."
Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at him. "Why her?"
"Always good to have a medic, and she's a competent one," Yukimaru reasoned. "Plus, she's basically half-fish monster. It's like being in the second stage of the cursed seal all of the time without any of the drawbacks. She can handle herself."
Sasuke took a moment to think it over before shrugging and walking away from the convenience store and Sai's unconscious body. "She's your responsibility."
Yukimaru snorted, catching up to him to begin their trek toward the base that Suigetsu was locked up in. "Anybody ever tell you that you're an unlikeable dickhead?"
"You, every day for the past three years."
Tenzo was not having a good day. In fact, it would be accurate to say that Tenzo was having the worst day.
A frantic messenger from the Fire Temple came to the village to alert the Hokage of an attack at the hands of Tsuki no Me, the same group that attacked Suna and the group believed to be responsible for the disappearance of one of Kumo's jinchuriki (if intel from spies within Kumo was to be believed). Wanting to nip any possible Tsuki no Me incursion in the bud, Lord Godaime deployed a task force of twenty squads to scour the nation for any signs of the terrorist group. Tenzo was in charge of one such squad.
"Was" being the operative word, as the rest of the squad was summarily butchered by a single man garbed in the same black cloak with a purple moon that they were informed to be on the lookout for. The main identifier on him, however, was the orange, spirally mask with a lone eyehole that stared each of them down like a pointed abyss. It was a nightmare unlike anything Tenzo had ever encountered. The masked man arrived out of nowhere, fazed through every single one of their attacks, and then took them apart piece by piece (sometimes literally) with such a casual ease that it truly felt like a grown man toying with children.
Tenzo could have sworn that he saw a faint, red glow coming from the singular eyehole of his mask, but it didn't really matter anymore. His comrades' remains were strewn about the forest floor like discarded trash while he lay in a pathetic, defeated heap. His arms and legs were broken, and his pride as squad leader and as a Konoha shinobi was wounded.
Yes, Tenzo was not having a good day at all.
"Well, that was fun, but it's time to collect what I came for," the masked man mockingly leered over him, and Tenzo was helpless to resist the freakishly odd sensation of being distorted into a literal hole in space.
Obito, on the other hand, was feeling great. Despite the initial snag of failing to collect the Ichibi jinchuriki, the Nibi and Sanbi were in his possession, and he could add the newest White Zetsu battery to that list. Warping the fading ANBU and himself into the Kamui dimension, Obito prepared to take a moment to congratulate himself on another job well done before sending the Faux-shirama to the Mountains' Graveyard to be outfitted with Guruguru.
"SMASH THE FUCKER!"
Well, that was the plan, anyway. Instead, he leaped out of dodge with speed he hadn't needed to use since he fought his late sensei to dodge the gargantuan, flaming paw that slammed into the spot he had just occupied. Only reflexes honed through years of getting smacked around by Madara and Zetsu clones allowed him to evade the armored tail that slammed into the spot he landed mere moments later. Growling down at him were a positively furious Nibi and Sanbi, and Obito wanted nothing to do with any of that if he didn't have to, so the moment he saw that the two monstrosities were gathering chakra for a tandem bijudama, Obito warped himself and Tenzo straight to the Mountains' Graveyard.
"Goddamnit!" Isobu cursed after the chakra in their mouths dissipated. "That slippery, little shit!"
"We'll get him next time, Isobu," Matatabi sighed.
Back on Earth, Obito fell to his knees. The downside of warping biju into the Kamui dimension after manually ripping them out of their hosts was that he now had two royally pissed-off biju trying to kill him whenever he traveled into the Kamui dimension. That was going to get old very soon, but at least he made it out with his target intact.
"You look like crap," White Zetsu observed with a smile as they picked up Tenzo's unconscious body.
"Kiss my half-white ass, Zetsu," Obito grumbled, shooing them away to hook him up already. Right at that moment, two more people entered, and they revealed themselves to be a grinning Kisame with an unconscious and clearly battered man over his shoulder alongside an unusually forlorn-looking Itachi.
"Mission accomplished, boss," Kisame announced as they stepped further into the light. "One Yonbi jinchuriki in mostly decent condition."
"Excellent," Obito remarked shortly before Roshi was dropped to the ground with a thud. "That makes three, soon to be four when Deidara returns with the Nanabi jinchuriki. That one should be far less troublesome than the Ichibi container."
"Should we go collect the Ichibi?" Kisame questioned, his bloodthirsty grin indicating that his battle with Roshi didn't satisfy his itch for a good fight.
"You want to bring an ocean to a fight in the desert?" Obito questioned, placing a hand on his chin. "An interesting prospect, but not necessary at the moment. Instead, I want you two to hunt down the Rokubi jinchuriki. You should be far more familiar with his skillset, Kisame."
"Utakata, huh?" Kisame considered, his smile growing even darker. "Haven't seen him in a while. This should end up being a fun little reunion, eh Itachi?"
When silence was all he received, Kisame glanced at his partner out of the corner of his eye and elbowed him to get his attention.
"Hn? Oh, yeah, whatever," Itachi haphazardly mumbled.
Obito stared at the slouching, downcast Itachi for a solid minute in a mixture of curiosity, amusement, suspicion, but most of all, annoyance. Then, he looked back at Kisame. "What's his problem?"
"They discontinued his favorite flavor," Kisame sighed, rolling his eyes. "He's been like this the entire trip back."
"…Right," Obito muttered, shaking that nonsense out of his head. "The Rokubi was last seen traveling with a companion in the marshlands near the southeastern coast. That would be the best place to begin your search."
"Roger," Kisame nodded before guiding his partner out of the lair. "Come on Itachi, we've got more work to do. You'd think killing your entire clan would've hit you harder than this."
As the two left, Obito turned to the defeated Yonbi jinchuriki in the ground before him, and he sighed. Back to the grind.
Konan was glad to be finished with her mission and on her way back to Ame with her mostly stoic team. Their mission was initially a protection detail for some strange, chakra-emitting star in Hoshigakure that quickly devolved into a convoluted conspiracy plot involving the acting "Hoshikage", the "star" in actuality being a meteorite possessing alien chakra, and the ghost of a genin's dead mother.
So, probably something akin to a dream she'd imagine a younger Naruto telling her about after waking up.
That brought a soft smile to her face. Naruto made her so unbelievably proud, and she was missing him dearly. Keeping herself busy with missions helped at first, but it wasn't until Nagato suggested that she took on a genin team was she finally able to keep her brain away from her absent son for long stretches. She was truly proud of them, as well. They were a quiet but very focused and driven bunch that took no time at all to receive promotions to chunin.
"Tenchi-sensei?" one of her charges, Ajisai spoke up from behind her as they walked down a path towards a nearby tea house to rest.
"You truly do not have to call me that, Ajisai," she responded. "Konan is fine."
It was a losing effort, though, and Konan knew that. Ajisai and her teammates practically worshipped her as "Tenchi," the Angel of Ame. She knew that going by such grandiose monikers would only incite borderline cultish behavior in many Ame-nin, but Nagato thought the idea was funny, and Naruto was on board with it as soon as he heard about it. It only seemed to unnerve her, which was why they continued to encourage it. She hated and loved her two favorite dumbasses so dearly.
"Did you only take on a genin squad because you missed Naruto?" Ajisai asked, cutting Konan out of her fond musings and earning two shocked gazes from her teammates. They had certainly discussed that idea amongst themselves before, but they didn't think she would just outright ask their sensei about it.
"Yes," Konan bluntly confirmed, her tone as steady and unbothered as always.
Now, the widened eyes of Fuyo and Suiren, the teammates in question, were locked onto their sensei. Sensing this, Konan turned and quirked an eyebrow at them. "Did you want me to lie to you?"
"We… just didn't expect you to be so forthcoming about it," Suiren said, her voice slightly muffled under the mask covering the lower half of her face.
"I missed my son," Konan shrugged. "A lot. So, Pain suggested that I take on a genin squad to help 'fill the void,' so to speak. As a bonus, I'd get to evaluate and mold the next generation."
She smiled at the three chunin listening intently. "It was the right decision to make. You three are wonderful, and I'm proud of not only your progress as shinobi, but also your progress as people."
She took pleasure in seeing the smiles of her three charges. Even the mask adorning Suiren did nothing to hide the smile underneath.
"We will continue to do our very best to fill the void, Tenchi-sensei," Ajisai said with a bow, saluting her with her hand over her heart.
Konan's smile flattened into a deadpan glare before she turned around and continued back down the path.
'Please, Naruto, get back home and save my sanity.'
Naruto paused mid-step as the group was approaching their destination, and he looked towards the horizon. Tayuya, noticing him halt, stopped and turned back to look at him.
"You good, shithead?" she asked, looking into the horizon, as well, just in case Naruto noticed something before anyone else had.
"Yeah, I just…" he trailed off, searching for the best words to describe the feeling. "I felt a call."
"…Okay," Tayuya muttered before walking away, spinning her finger near her head to indicate that he was finally going crazy.
Shrugging it off, Naruto continued forward with their approach to the shrine where the Uzumaki Clan stored a collection of oni masks. He remembered reading about this shrine in one of the scrolls they got from the vault in Uzu; it never explicitly outlined what the masks were for beyond their connection with the Shinigami, so he didn't know what each mask was capable of individually. He did know, however, that one mask in particular invoked the Shinigami from the Reaper Death Seal, and that was the one they needed.
He didn't even need to lift a finger to grab it, as Kushina had already done a quick scan of the wall and pointed out the mask almost immediately. When she grabbed it from the wall and handed it to him, Naruto instantly felt dark malevolence emanating from the mask. It wasn't a suffocating presence akin to the chakra of a biju, but it was very reminiscent of the darkness they felt from the slide whistle back at the Uzu vault…
Should they go back and get that?
Questions for later.
"So, now what?" Karin asked, and Naruto dropped the two unconscious bandits that were still chained to his back.
"Put the mask on one of them, and the Shinigami will take care of the rest before we have to cast Edo Tensei," Kushina instructed.
Nodding, Naruto created a shadow clone and handed one of the bandits off to him to prepare the seal matrix for the Edo Tensei while the original smacked the other bandit awake. When the dregs of consciousness began to seep back into the man, Naruto wasted no time putting the mask of the Shinigami onto him. Almost immediately, the man jerked to his feet as if he was being yanked up by invisible puppet strings, and a hideous, visceral scream of agony tore itself from his throat. A burst of deathly cold chakra erupted around him as he convulsed until he was lifted a few inches off of the ground. His arms extended straight out to either side of him, and the translucent avatar of the vaunted Death God emerged before them.
The four Uzumaki watched in awe as the Shinigami removed a tanto from its mouth and carved a deep gash into its stomach. Simultaneously, blood spewed from the bandit as a gash emerged on his abdomen, and several souls (and what looked to be an ethereal pair of arms) emerged from the stomach of the Shinigami. Now free from their incarceration, the spirits flew out of the shrine and into the horizon, riding off into the sunset like they had each done once before.
"Wait, wasn't one of those souls your dad?" Tayuya asked Naruto after watching what they came for appear to fly away to who knows where.
"He won't be getting far," the shadow clone spoke up once the seal matrix was complete, and then he dispelled.
"Summoning Jutsu: Edo Tensei!" Naruto cried, slamming his palm to the matrix.
Within moments, the unconscious bandit was shocked awake when ash began enveloping him from head to toe, and he soon joined his comrade in death as one of the souls was yoinked back into the shrine and plunged right into the ash-covered sacrifice. Seconds later, a tall, spiky-haired blonde wearing a white hoari emerged from the ash.
"…N-Naruto?" Minato asked before taking note of the rest of the room, and his eyes nearly shot out of his skull. "Kushina?!"
"Hi again, Dad," Naruto waved before Minato was literally tackled by Kushina.
Rather than watch and wait for his birth parents to finish reconnecting, Naruto entered his mindscape. Approaching the gargantuan bars of the cage, Naruto walked right through and meandered past the titanic fox napping on the ground beside him. When Kurama heard shuffling and pacing, he cracked a single eye open.
"What are you looking for brat?" Kurama asked as Naruto looked around the expanse for something.
"The remnants of Dad's chakra imprint that we stashed away," Naruto answered while continuing his search. "Y'know, for when I met him in the flesh and wouldn't have to go through that whole conversation a second time."
"Oh," Kurama yawned, closing his eye and pointing one of his tails to the left. "It's over there, by the flat screen."
"Thanks, Kurama-" Naruto began before he stopped in his tracks, those last words finally processing. He looked in the direction that Kurama was pointing, and sure enough, there was a massive flat-screen TV on the wall of the enclosure.
"…Okay, what the fuck??" Naruto questioned.
"What?" Kurama muttered, both eyes open now.
"You have a flat-screen in here??" Naruto asked indignantly. "When? How?? Why???"
"There is literally nothing else to do in here all day," Kurama deadpanned, and Naruto had to concede that point. "As for 'when' and 'how,' about two years ago with my chakra. I am capable of a great many things as the mightiest creature in existence, as I've said before."
"…Fair enough," Naruto begrudgingly accepted. "What do you even watch?"
"All My Shuriken, It's Always Sunny in Kumo, and the Princess Gale movies when they're on demand."
Naruto blinked. He blinked again. Then, he turned right around and silently walked to the indicated spot where a small seal was inscribed on the wall before funneling chakra into it.
Back in the real world, Naruto pushed that conversation with Kurama out of his mind forever and took a quick look around. He saw Karin awkwardly staring at her feet and Tayuya annoyedly tapping hers while shooting him a glare, and then he noticed his…
Oh. His very distracted parents. Cool.
Clearing his throat to get their attention for however long he'd be able to maintain it, he approached his sheepishly flushing father and shamelessly grinning mother with an open palm.
"Sorry, Naruto," Minato began, scratching the back of his head. "It's ju-"
"Don't worry about it," Naruto cut him off and slammed his palm into Minato's gut, feeding him the remnants of the chakra imprint he left all those years ago. "We've had this conversation before."
Minato took a moment to catch his breath (how was that possible as a reanimation?) while Kushina rubbed circles into his back. She was just elated to have the family together once again, no matter the circumstances.
When Minato finally absorbed the information from the imprint, he chuckled. "So we have. I take it you'd like the other half of the Kyubi now?"
"Kurama would thank you," Naruto replied, ignoring the indignant growling from his tenant at sharing his name with the Yellow Flash.
"Consider it done," Minato nodded, brushing off the name drop of the Kyubi.
Placing his palm over Naruto's seal, toxic, red chakra began to flow from Minato's arm directly into Naruto's seal. Naruto could feel an immense but not unfamiliar presence entering him and coalescing behind the bars of the seal. Looking into his mindscape, he was greeted by Kurama pretending to be asleep as a second, darker Kurama took shape beside him. When Minato was finished, there were two fully grown Kyubi existing within the seal. Soon enough, not even the original Kurama could keep up the façade of napping any longer.
"Sup, Yin-me," Kurama lazily greeted.
"Sup, Yang-me," the darker Kurama greeted back.
Naruto could now say that he knew what Konan felt like every single day. Shaking his head and leaving the mindscape without a word, he clapped his hands.
"Okay, well, this was fun," Naruto began in a deceptively chipper tone. "I'm assuming you can still connect with your Hiraishin tags?"
Minato spread his senses and felt around the area, locking onto a tag that was miraculously still remaining on the outskirts of Konoha. Flashing to it, he was now standing in front of the old, decaying rubble of a shack that was likely destroyed dying the Kyubi attack. Then, he felt around even further, and more tags popped up. He felt one in the Hokage's office, one on top of the monument, and even the kunai that he gave Kakashi during the war. He started chuckling, and that chuckle soon developed into a devious laugh. Kushina had truly rubbed off on him, as these were the makings of a fabulous prank to behold.
Flashing back to the shrine, he smiled. "Yep, I can still connect to all of the tags. This should be fun."
"Wonderful," Naruto remarked, and then he grabbed Karin and Tayuya by their shoulders, locking them into a frantic death grip. "You two have a lot of lost time to make up for, so how about I come back for you two in about a week? Do whatever you want until then, you're grown adults, I don't need another sibling-'KAY BYE!"
Without another word, Naruto vanished from the shrine with a shouting Karin and cussing Tayuya in tow.
This Danzo isn't simply evil, nor is he simply a dogmatic extremist. Much worse, in fact: he's an S-tier hater.
I had a bit of trouble deciding which direction I was going to play Fu for this story. What Deidara alludes to about her hating humanity in canon is very different from the friendly, upbeat gender-bent Naruto we see in the filler, so I decided to just split the difference. The hateful version works better for this story, and the bubblier version works better for my other story, so I'm gonna be writing both versions of her regardless.
Thanks for reading.