Author's Note: Welcome back, everyone! I meant to have this chapter out over the weekend, but it took even longer to write than I thought it would.
Disclaimer: Naruto and Inuyasha belong to their respective owners.
Dialogue Legend:
"Unforgivable" – Normal dialogue
'Unforgivable' – character's thoughts/speaking to Inner Demon/Inner Spirit
"Unforgivable" – Jutsu name
'Unforgivable' – Inner Demon/Inner Spirit/Supernatural Being speaking
Review Corner:
God of Wind 200: Thank you for clarifying! I could have done that, sure, but it goes a little too far into breaking the established rules of the series for my liking. To my knowledge, no one has been born with more than 2 Chakra Affinities unless they have a Nature-Transformation-based Kekkei Genkai (or Kekkei Tota in Onoki's case). Those who are born with one have an affinity with the Kekkei Genkai itself and the Nature Transformations that were combined to create it. Some fanfics I've read give Naruto a third one, but in those that's usually something derived from either having Kurama sealed inside him or the result of Kurama's Chakra influencing the development of his Chakra Network while he was still in the womb.
As for letting Hinata stand out, I daresay I've already achieved that by having her one-shot the Demon Brothers – which in canon was Sasuke's feat – and having her overpower one of Zabuza's water dragons, if only because he was dedicating most of his Chakra towards killing Kakashi and Tazuna at the time.
Chapter 16 – Snakes and Rockmen
"The seventy-eight of you still here have passed the first stage of the Chuunin Exams!" Upon hearing Ibiki's declaration, many of the teams that were on the verge of quitting before Sasuke's speech sighed in relief. Before anyone in the room could express their incredulity regarding the "tenth question", something wrapped in a dark brown banner broke through one of the exam room windows. As the banner unfurled to reveal the woman within it, two kunai attached to its upper corners were embedded in the ceiling, holding it in place. "Newly Arrived Second Chief Command Officer" was written on the banner.
"Now, now brats, don't relax yet! It's far too early for any of you to be celebrating!" Anko glared at the Genin in the room, her trench coat flared open revealing the tantalizing garments she wore beneath it. Several of the Genin, man and women alike, blushed at the display. "IBIKI! Have you gone soft in the head?! Why are twenty-six teams still in this in this room?" Konoha's most infamous torturer turned her glare upon her commanding officer.
"This year's crop is exceptionally potent." Ibiki met his subordinate's gaze without flinching.
"Hmph! Not to worry; my exam will weed out the truly worthy from the lucky shits! Just thinking about it gets me moist! Follow me, maggots! I'll explain exactly how fucked you all are when we reach the site of the exam!"
'Did she have to out herself as a sadist in front of all of us?' Naruto cringed as his team led the way out of the exam room. The trio was flanked by two Iwa teams; the six foreign Shinobi didn't even attempt to conceal their murderous intent.
"Oh, my, that's some absolutely lovely bloodlust displayed by our guests from Iwa!" Anko cackled without stopping. "KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS, ROCKFUCKERS! Attacking each other is a no-no until your exam proctors say otherwise." The Iwa Shinobi's eyes flashed with rage, but they heeded Anko's order.
"Fantastic! Looks like Iwa's coffin seller will have twenty-four more caskets to make once the Exams are done!" Sasuke's Sharingan flickered in anticipation. Eight Iwa teams had applied for the Chuunin Exams, and all of them had passed.
"Yup!" Naruto popped the "p". "Good thing I didn't have much time to practice my Jutsu since we got back from the Land of Waves. I wouldn't want things to be too easy." The Last Uchiha and the Namikaze Lord had not been quiet while taunting the Iwa, but Anko let their insults slide since they controlled their bloodlust while speaking.
"Alright, kiddies! This Konoha's 44th Training Ground: the Forest of Death!" Anko halted her examinees when they reached a circular gate surrounding a gargantuan forest.
"Oooooohh, 'the Forest of Death'. Quit tryin' to scare us, ya Sage-damned psycho!" Kiba yelled. Akamaru's bark was the only warning she received in response before Anko retaliated by throwing a kunai at her face! Barely dodging in time, the Inuzuka heiress earned a scratch on her left cheek for her remark.
"Kiba-chan, you shouldn't proposition a woman at a time like this! What would your mother say?" Anko licked the blood off her victim's face while wearing a shit-eating grin.
"Noble proctor: your kunai." A woman wearing a headband with Kusagakure's emblem reached out with her right hand and Anko's kunai rose from the ground. With a simple gesture, the woman slowly levitated the knife towards Anko.
"Thank you." Anko plucked the kunai out of the air. "Now, if there are no other interruptions, I will now explain the rules for your second Exam!"
25 Minutes Later
"Naruto, we have received a Heaven Scroll; I would prefer not to engage our fellow Konoha teams in battle for the Earth Scroll." Hinata's Byakugan was already active.
"I'm with you on that one," Sasuke replied. "Doesn't feel right to go after our friends for the scroll we need. That said, if they attack us first, all bets are off!"
"Damn right!" Naruto slammed a fist into his other hand. "But I highly doubt we'll need to worry about that."
"No, I suppose not." Hinata mused as she recalled what occurred when they left the room where the first Exam was held. A high-pitched noise screeched through the speakers placed above the gate as it opened.
"That's the signal; Team 7, let's kick ass!" Naruto roared before leaping into the Forest of Death. His teammates followed closely behind. Soon, they reached a large clearing and had to dodge several kunai.
"You're getting a little too popular for the good of the team, dobe! Five minutes into this exam and Iwa's already trying to ambush us." Sasuke threw several bomb kunai into the trees at the edge of the clearing.
"Blame Danzo's bullshit and my dad being way too good at his job, teme!" Naruto retorted before drawing Tenseiga and throwing it at the nearest of the three Iwa Genin that emerged from their hiding place. With telekinesis, Naruto made the heavenly blade spin end over end with so much speed that it gained the appearance of a buzz saw flying through the air. It impacted the first would-be assassin with enough force to cave his skull in. The second of Naruto's three targets met the same fate, but the final mark had enough time to draw a kunai with a seal unknown to Naruto etched into the blade. The third Iwa threw the strange kunai at Naruto, who dodged it while watching Tenseiga claim her third kill.
'I must say, being able to kill in his manner is quite exhilarating.' Tenseiga sighed with delight as Naruto levitated her back into her sheath. 'I'll never have the passion for it that Lord Sesshomaru's other blades possess, but being able to do more than simply block incoming damage during battle pleases me greatly!' While the Youkai blade basked in her newfound pleasure, Hinata shrieked in terror.
"What's wrong?" Naruto leaped to his fiancé's side. Too shocked to speak, the Hyuuga heiress pointed towards a tree that Naruto had been standing in front of moments before. Said tree had been struck by the third Iwa's kunai and was now disintegrating before the trio's very eyes. In mere seconds, the 300-foot-tall tree was reduced to dust.
"By the fucking Sage, what kind of bullshit is that?!" Sasuke yelled.
"An Iwa Kekkei Genkai or Kinjutsu, most likely." Naruto created two Kage Bushin to search the first two Iwa he had killed. Sure enough, they had each been armed with one of the disintegration-Jutsu-imbued kunai. The baleful knives disintegrated as soon as they were touched by the Kage Bushin, and clones perished with them.
"There are seven Iwa teams remaining. Thus, we have, at the very least, twenty-one more of those accursed weapons to be wary of." Hinata shivered. "We also cannot discount the possibility that our enemies are capable of using the same concealment Jutsu that the Iwa Jonin utilized on the Great Naruto Bridge to render themselves undetectable, even to my Byakugan."
"I also wouldn't bet on us running into the remaining Iwa teams one by one." Sasuke grimaced. "We should assume that they have a way of tracking each other's positions, even in a forest as huge as this one."
"All that's the bad news; the good news is that this team had the Earth Scroll we need!" Another set of Naruto's Kage Bushin had been searching the three corpses. "We can head straight to the central tower now. Anko-chan and the other exam proctors will be there. If Iwa's remaining teams pull anything right in front of them, it'll give Konoha all the ammo they need to declare war without any sanctions."
"'Anko-chan'?" Hinata's eyes narrowed. "Naruto, my love, I would be most appreciative if you refrained from using affectionate honorifics when addressing prospective members of your harem until after I have interviewed them."
"Duly noted," Naruto met his fiancé's gaze without a flinch, "but I won't apologize for a necessary distraction."
"Whatever do you me –" Hinata's eyes widened as she realized what her future husband had done.
"Genius, dobe," Sasuke snickered, "but we really should get going."
"LEAVING SO SOON, CHILDREN? THAT SIMPLY WILL NOT DO!" A voice drenched with murderous intent thundered through the clearing. In the distance, several trees were flattened in a straight line.
"Fuuton: Daitoppa!" Naruto poured as much Chakra as he dared into his wind blast. As his Jutsu clashed against a much stronger variant of the same technique, he weathered the onslaught to the best of his ability. But a gale, no matter how ferocious, can never rival a hurricane. Naruto was blown at least a mile away from his position. Sasuke and Hinata, having taken cover behind Naruto, were somewhat shielded from the worst of the windstorm by Naruto's body and Jutsu. Consequentially, they were only blasted roughly a thousand feet from their starting point.
"KAMI-DAMN IT!" Naruto shifted into his Daiyoukai form and tried to halt his flight through the air with telekinesis. He succeeded only in ensuring that he did not crash face-first into the ground. As he waited for the massive wind blast to dissipate, a giant snake emerged right behind him! Naruto leaped into the serpent's open mouth, snapped off its fangs with his bare hands, jumped out of the reptile's maw, and stabbed one fang into each of its eyes. The serpent shrieked in pain, but Naruto knew he wasn't out of danger yet. He had only blinded his adversary; the snake could still smell him and he had only broken its fangs.
Naruto drew two kunai, channeled Youki into them, and charged towards his opponent at supersonic speed. The shockwave resulting from Naruto breaking the sound barrier displaced enough air to temporarily conceal his scent, allowing him to make several passes at the snake without fear of counterattack. By the time the serpent was able to discern Naruto's location once more, it bore several deep lacerations and the ground was flooding with its blood. Too injured to move its body, the reptile angled its head towards Naruto and waited for the inevitable.
"It may have seemed like an easy win for me, but I expended a considerable amount of Youki just now. Snake-san, you are a powerful warrior worthy of a quick death." Naruto shifted out of his Daiyoukai form and threw a bomb kunai into the snake's left eye. Using Chakra to drastically enhance his running speed, Naruto raced back toward his teammates, leaving the explosion that claimed the serpent's life in his dust.
"You're teammate's mastery of Fuuton is most impressive, for a Genin. Under different circumstances, I might have been tempted to collect him, as well. Unfortunately, my little greeting just now is bound to attract all manner of pests, so our time together is limited today, Sasuke-kun." The man before them had pale skin, black hair, and golden snake eyes. His killing intent radiated off of him like heat from the sun: endless and all but irresistible. Hinata, despite her sincerest efforts, had been rendered immobile and was on the verge of losing consciousness.
"You're not part of the Exams? What do you want!?" Sasuke wasn't fairing much better; he could barely move, and his breathing was labored.
"Oh, nothing much; I merely wished to see how well my old village has been raising the last Uchiha." The snake-man walked blissfully towards his target. "So far, I'm not impressed; if it only takes this much bloodlust to incapacitate you, then you'll never be able to kill Itachi-san."
'OH, HE DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!' Child-Sasuke howled from the depths of Sasuke's mind. 'Kick his ass, Current-me!'
'With pleasure, Child-me!' Sasuke accepted the gift of rage from his child persona. When coupled with his own fury, it was more than enough to shatter the fear holding him in place. The Sharingan blazed to life within the Last Uchiha's orbs.
"Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!" (Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Flower Technique) With his Chakra reserves bolstered by his anger, Sasuke was able to exhale nearly one hundred miniature fireballs.
"Useless!" The snake-man exhaled another wind blast, and the disparity in power between the two combatants invalidated the elemental advantage Katon typically enjoys over Fuuton. Sasuke's fireballs were extinguished and the shuriken concealed within them were deflected. Hinata recovered from the surge of killing intent just in time to evade several of the wayward projectiles.
"Is that all, b – " Team 7's assailant was interrupted by ten spools of ninja wire wrapping around his body, nearly mummifying him. Ten Kage Bushin surrounded the serpentine Shinobi in a circle, each one with wire in their mouth. 'Incredible! Even with his power amplified by his rage, a Genin should not be able to make ten stable Kage Bushin without dying or losing consciousness!'
"Today I'll learn what deep-fried snake tastes like!" Sasuke, and all of his clones, flashed through a series of hand seals. "Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu!" Eleven fire dragons hurled towards the snake-man. The Kage Bushin, having poured all their Chakra into their attacks, dissipated immediately after their dragons were launched. The original Sasuke poured all of the additional Chakra his wrath had granted him into his dragon and now watched as his opponent was devoured by the inferno. To his shock, the snake-man was unharmed behind a circular wall of water; the barrier was the same aquatic defense that Kakashi had used during the Bell Test.
"To force me to use a defensive Jutsu; it seems my initial assessment of your abilities was most inaccurate, Sasuke-kun. Remember my name: Orochimaru!" With a single hand seal, the Sannin's neck elongated to an unnatural degree and darted towards Sasuke like a snake. Hinata tried to intercept Orochimaru's head but the unprecedented Jutsu had caught her off-guard. Her counterattack was too slow, and Sasuke's neck was bitten.
"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Naruto flung several bomb kunai at Orochimaru's body, which he promptly evaded with a Shunshin. The young Daiyoukai rushed towards Sasuke and noticed the triple-tomoe seal manifesting on his best friend's neck.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" Naruto roared.
"Nothing that concerns you, Kyuubi brat!" Orochimaru enjoyed the surprise spreading across Naruto's face. "Oh, yes, I know what you are, boy. I may have left the village years before you were born, but certain associates of mine have kept me well-informed of recent events."
"Danzo!" Naruto swore.
"Indeed; Root and I collaborated on many ventures. I care not for the man himself, but the loss of his research facilities, and the data contained therein, pains me greatly."
"YOU BASTARD!" Naruto tried to shift into his Daiyoukai form, but Orochimaru gave him no quarter. Eight serpents as wide as one of Naruto's thighs wrapped around his limbs and bit into them. The toxin they injected was hallucinogenic, meant to disorient the victim's mind and make it impossible for them to focus on the task at hand. As a descendant of Sesshomaru, Naruto was resistant to poisons, but his human form relied on his Youki to neutralize the effects of any toxin it was exposed to. The venom was so potent that all of Naruto's Youki was needed to fight it, leaving nothing to fuel his Daiyoukai transformation.
"As expected of an Uzumaki; your vitality is virulent enough to nullify even this much mind-altering venom. However, the effort seems to have diverted much of your Chakra, meaning you've nothing left to defend you from this! Orochimaru's right hand glowed with purple flames. "Gogyou Fuuin!" (Five Elements Seal) The Snake Sannin's fingers impaled Naruto's chest through his armor. Though he could not see the boy's flesh, or the seal keeping Kurama contained within him, he had invested years of research into this moment and had long since memorized the area he needed to strike. Naruto screamed as felt a sinful cage snap shut within his soul.
"I believe there are a great many Iwa Shinobi that wish to see you, brat. If you survive against them in your current state, I'll acknowledge your value as a test subject!" Orochimaru tore his hand out of Naruto's chest. The wicked flames poured out from the seal he had just placed on Naruto and destroyed much of the cuirass and undergarment protecting his torso. The serpents restraining Naruto flung him into the air, and Orochimaru exhaled a third wind blast to send the crippled Daiyoukai to his doom.
"NARUTOOOOOO!" Hinata's cry echoed through the forest, but she knew that her only hope was to take Sasuke and flee. Many a Hyuuga elder had bemoaned the talent of the Sannin, as their existence compromised the clan's image as Konoha's strongest military asset. Orochimaru, in a rare moment of "mercy", left the Hyuuga heiress to her grief.
Forest of Death – Outer Perimeter
"Terrible news, Anko-dono! A team from Kusagakure has been found dead!" An Intelligence Division Shinobi doubling as an Exam proctor gave his report. "What are the circumstances of the team's death?" Anko knew her team would not report such a mundane occurrence unless there was something amiss. "Ma'am! The bodies have been calcified; the faces of each victim show signs of extreme calcification." The proctor explained.
"Calcified? What manner of Jutsu – oh, no!" Anko remembered the Kusaga woman who levitated her kunai back to her and recalled one of her former master's war stories. "Report your findings to Hokage-sama at once! Tell him that I've requested twelve Anbu regiments to be deployed into the Forest of Death ASAP!"
"T-twelve full regiments, Anko-dono?" The proctor nearly collapsed in shock. "What's going on?"
"There's no time to explain; all Konoha Genin currently undertaking the exam are in extreme danger! You have your orders, go!" Anko didn't bother waiting for her subordinate's reply before leaping into the Forest of Death. She tried contacting the numerous snake summons she kept scattered throughout the forest to ascertain the location and status of her charges, but none of them were responding. "Damn it! How could they even know about my summons, let alone kill them all!?"
"Oh, my poor dear, is that what you think happened?" Anko's Cursed Seal activated for the first time in years; she nearly collapsed from the sudden onslaught of pain. She barely managed to use one of her own serpentine Jutsu to counter her treacherous ex-Sensei's tongue. "Orochimaru. That explains it, those summons would listen to you before me. After all, you're the one who made me sign the Summoning Contract." Anko fought through her pain and drew a kunai.
"Even after all these years, you continue to disappoint me. Rushing headlong into hostile territory without any contingencies arranged in case your initial plan failed? I know I trained you better than that!" Orochimaru took a few steps toward his former test subject, and Anko's pain exploded by orders of magnitude with each one. Her kunai fell from trembling fingers. "You're an embarrassment, a near-total waste of time and resources on my part. The only value you ever provided me was the data regarding the Cursed Seal of Heaven, which I have just granted to Sasuke. For that alone, I thank you; the experiments I conducted upon your flesh and soul allowed me to drastically increase the survival rate of my Cursed Seals. Typically, I wish them to have consistently fatal consequences, but there are times when I want the subject to live."
Orochimaru was now inches away from Anko, and her pain had long since exceeded unbearable parameters. Staying conscious was an act of absolute willpower; moving and speaking were commands her body was no longer capable of comprehending, let alone obeying. "For your contribution to my research, I grant you the slowest, most agonizing death I can inflict on short notice. Savor it for eternity, failure!" Anko's Cursed Seal spread across her body like a virus, injecting Senjutsu into her being at a rate beyond her existence's capacity to filter it.
Forest of Death – Northwestern Quadrant
'Not good; VERY not good!' Naruto had nearly lost consciousness after the Gogyou Fuuin was applied to his body. Whether by intent or happenstance, Orochimaru's brutal method of delivering Naruto into the laps of those who sought his life had kept him awake. As such, he was able to land with enough grace to preserve the majority of his body's structural integrity. Those two bits were the only good news regarding his current predicament. His Youki reserves had been almost completely drained in the effort of purging the hallucinogenic venom from his body. The miniscule amount that was left was desperately trying to erode the new seal decorating his chest, but such efforts were futile. Even with full reserves, it would have taken a month, at least, for Naruto's Youki to erode the seal.
The defensive symbiosis Naruto's Youki had with his Chakra Network now worked against him, as all Youki generated by his Youki core would be diverted into destroying the Gogyou Fuuin. This also meant that his armor, which was designed to repair itself by feeding on its owners Youki, would remain in its damaged state. The Kami-damned seal had crippled his Chakra Network, making it three times harder to manipulate his Chakra than normal. The cherry on this shit Sundae was that Naruto's Shinobi tool pouch, in which he had kept the Heaven and Earth Scrolls, had been ripped open by the latest wind blast. The Scrolls had been torn to shreds, and over half his kunai and shuriken were lost in transit.
A Youki-drained, Chakra-crippled, and supply-depleted Naruto now faced twenty-one fully rested Iwa Genin armed with disintegration-Jutsu kunai. "All right, you Iwa fucks! I'm more than a little handicapped at the moment, but you've got another thing coming if you think I can't take you all down. Your disintegration toys don't mean SHIT to me!" Naruto leaped into the air just as ten of his twenty-one victims combined their Doton Jutsu to weaponize the ground beneath his feet. Another three Iwa threw their disintegration kunai at Naruto.
"Tajuu Kage Bushin no Jutsu!" One hundred Kage Bushin materialized around Naruto in a spherical formation, protecting him from the lethal kunai. The ninety-seven that survived fell towards the Iwa like a tidal wave. Most of the Iwa used their Jutsu to sink underground in time, but two weren't fast enough and were killed by Naruto's clones. 'Damn it, with my Chakra Network crippled my Kage Bushin take more Chakra to create and are much less stable!' Naruto grimaced as he swiped another disintegration-kunai out of the air with Tenseiga. The only silver lining in this scenario was that, while his Chakra Network was a mess, his Chakra reserves were not.
His encounter with Orochimaru had done nothing to erode the inner peace Naruto gained from his numerous conversations with Jiraiya. This was now a battle of attrition; with his massive reserves, Naruto could play the quantity-over-quality game just as well as his enemies. His hellish training in the Land of Waves enabled him to weave through the trees in ways impossible for the Iwa Genin to predict. They tried to compensate by using their Doton Jutsu to collapse the trees, but the roots of the massive plants ran far too deep for such efforts to be feasible unless considerable time was invested.
Time Naruto's Kage Bushin did not allow them to have. They attacked from above; the Iwa retreated and attempted to counterattack from beneath the ground, turning the solid earth to sand or fluid with various techniques. Over the next hour, one by one, the Iwa fell. Eventually, only one Iwa remained standing. Both he and Naruto were physically exhausted and drained of Chakra. Naruto rushed his last opponent, his last kunai held in his left hand. The final Iwa met Naruto's charge with his own and batted Naruto's kunai away with his free hand. The Namikaze lord recovered but saw that his adversary's weapon would find its mark a second before his!
'I think not!' Tenseiga's barrier snapped into existence; though it had the thickness of paper, its resilience exceeded that of a mountain's. The Iwa's weapon bounced harmlessly against the barrier and the Jutsu contained within it was neutralized by Tenseiga's Youki. In the few seconds it took for the barrier to dissipate, the battle was over.
"HA! TAKE THAT YOU IWA ROCKFUCKERS!" Naruto bellowed.
'A most splendid victory, especially given your handicap – EVADE NOW!' Tenseiga's warning came a half-second too late. Her barrier, once deactivated, needed a ten-second cooldown before it could be used again. It had only been seven seconds, and Naruto's extreme exhaustion rendered him incapable of dodging the disintegration-kunai now lodged in his stomach. Two more of the Kami-damned weapons streaked through the air. These came late enough for Tenseiga to deflect with her barrier, but the damage was done.
'Lord Naruto, no please no!' Tenseiga wept. In desperation, the heavenly blade channeled her Youki into Naruto. She thought that, as a blade of purification, she might be able to purge the effects of the Jutsu from her master's body. Deep down, she knew she was grasping at straws; Tenseiga's purifying properties were meant to cleanse the dead of their sins, not the living of their ailments. The latter was what her power of resurrection was for, and she knew – all too well – that her ability to revive the dead could not be self-activated; it could only be wielded by a living Youkai. Even so, the Youki she channeled into Naruto's body was successful in delaying the progress of his disintegration.
'Damn, this sucks.' Naruto mused 'If Kurama was awake, I bet she could have fixed this by flooding my Chakra Network with her power, but, not only is her consciousness still being suppressed by Hiruzen's seal, the new seal Orochimaru just put on me is probably meant to stop me from using her Chakra at all!' Naruto could only glare at the three Iwa Chuunin who had morphed their anatomical structure to resemble the Kusaga Genin. The trio placed an overwhelming amount of bomb kunai on the ground, and then their leader used the same Jutsu he used earlier with Anko's kunai to magnetize the bomb kunai, levitating them into the air.
"Raiton: Gian!" (Lightning Release: False Darkness) A wide spear of lightning emerged from the trees and annihilated all three Iwa Chuunin. Its creator, a young woman wearing a Kumo headband, rushed towards Naruto. "HURRY UP, OMOI-KUN! Naruto-sama is dying!" "Here it is, Karui-chan!" The woman's teammate produced a storage scroll from his pouch and activated it, revealing a tree leaf that had all the colors of the rainbow pulsing through its veins. It was also larger than Naruto's entire body. The two Kumo Genin held the enormous leaf above Naruto's torso; its tip was positioned directly above the ever-widening hole in Naruto's stomach.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Karui channeled all of her Chakra into the massive leaf; Omoi silently did the same. The aurora-like pulsations of the leaf soon doubled, then tripled, in frequency. After roughly a minute, a single pure-white dew drop fell from the leaf into Naruto's body. The effect was instantaneous; Naruto's body was healed, all trace of the disintegration erased from his very being. His Youki was fully replenished, the Gogyou Fuuin vanished from his chest, and his armor was flawlessly repaired.
"Amazing, it's like my body was reset to a prior state of existence." Naruto stared in awe at his saviors.
"That is precisely what has happened, Naruto-sama. Yggdrasil – The Heavenly Tree – supports all that is, all that has been, and all that will be upon and within its branches. Even the most pitiful leaf permitted by the gods for mortal use wields immense power over causality." Omoi had to stop his explanation to cough up a large amount of blood. Naruto rushed to help his new ally but was stopped by Karui.
"My teammate will be fine, eventually. Yggdrasil's Leaf eats up Chakra like a swarm of locusts, and Omoi here tends to puke up blood when he runs low." Karui sighed before glancing at the surrounding trees. "You Konoha kids can come out now! We just saved your friend, and we have neither the means nor the desire to fight you! Not sure if you noticed, but we're fresh out of Chakra!" Team 8, Team 10, and Team Guy all came into the open. The three teams had arrived in the brief interim between Naruto's victory against his initial twenty-one opponents and the death of the Iwa Chuunin. All of them suspected that the final Iwa squad was out of their league, and they knew that the two Kumo Shinobi had been before they exhausted themselves to restore Naruto.
"We're quitting this exam." Omoi said ruefully. "I can no longer fight, and my teammate is almost as diminished as I am. Naruto-sama, we humbly offer you our Heaven Scroll. The rest of you are more than welcome to take any Scrolls you may need from the fallen Iwa."
"Wait!" Naruto yelled, "What have I done to earn such respect from you? Last I heard, Kumo and Konoha were still enemies!"
'That's a good question, Naruto-kun.' Shikamaru mentally applauded his classmate.
"You've done nothing to earn our respect before today, though, I gotta say, your performance in that battle was badass!" Karui replied.
"While you have done little to earn our respect, our nation owes your clan an enormous debt. This intervention repays a sliver of that balance." Omoi managed to clarify his teammate's statement before vomiting blood once more.
"And that's our cue to get out of here! See ya around, Naruto-sama!" Karui picked up her comrade and fled as quickly as her diminished state allowed. Naruto looked at his fellow Konoha Genin and made a decision that he hoped he wouldn't regret later. "I had both a Heaven and an Earth Scroll earlier, but they were destroyed. I've already gotten a Scroll out of this battle, so you all can search the Iwa for the Scrolls you need first. It's only fair."
"Understood." Neji grunted before leading his Team in search of an Earth Scroll.
"Generous – perhaps too generous – but also logical, given the circumstances." Shino's team sought a Heaven Scroll.
Ino wanted to ask Naruto how Sasuke was doing, but her conflicted heart stilled her tongue long enough for Shikamaru to find an Earth Scroll. Sad that she missed her chance, she followed her team out of the battlefield.
"Damn it all!" Naruto swore after taking his turn to search the Iwa corpses. Of the eight teams, five had Heaven Scrolls. The last of the three Earth Scrolls in the bunch had been carried by the illegal Iwa Chuunin team; only a sliver of orange among its ashen remains informed Naruto of the type of Scroll it had once been. 'Well, best regroup with my team ASAP! It's only the first day of the five-day time limit; we can find another Team with an Earth Scroll!' Naruto reassured himself as he retraced his earlier trajectory.
With Hinata and Sasuke After Naruto had been blown away (again) by Orochimaru, Hinata had done her best to secure a strong defensive position from which to await Naruto's return. 'He's not dead. He's NOT DEAD!' The Hyuuga heiress knew she was likely fooling herself, but the issue was moot until Sasuke regained consciousness. She would not leave a teammate defenseless to search for her fiancé. Naruto had been conscious, barely, when he was blasted away. It would have to be enough, for now. The Chakra worming its way through Sasuke's Chakra Network from the strange mark felt profoundly wrong in ways Hinata couldn't put into words. She had placed the Last Uchiha beneath a massive tree whose roots were slightly raised off the ground.
She knew they were not alone; her Byakugan had detected a Shinobi Team that was lying in wait approximately one hundred yards from her position. Hinata entered a meditative pose to reduce physical strain but simply stared forward instead of beginning to meditate.
"Clever girl," Dosu praised, "sitting like that will help conserve her Chakra, to a certain degree."
"I hate waiting! It's three against one; we can take her now!" Zaku licked his lips in anticipation, but was distracted enough by his lust that he failed to dodge Kin's kick to the family jewels! "oooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" Zaku clasped a hand to his mouth to reduce the noise of his scream.
"Next time you say something that disgusting, I'm chopping them off!" Kin pulled out a senbon and began channeling Fuuton to make it vibrate at an incredibly high frequency. Zaku retreated several yards in terror.
"Enough, you two!" Dosu commanded. "The plan remains unchanged; we attack at dawn."
'I'm really dying, aren't I?' Anko mused as she "felt" her body breaking down. Orochimaru's sadism had backfired. The pain he inflicted on her was so intense that most of her sensory nerves had died. She still retained the senses of sight and hearing, albeit in diminished capacities, but touch, taste, and smell were beyond her now. She was aware of her body's abysmal state but she could no longer feel the agony her former master had wished upon her.
"ANKO-SAN!" Naruto had barely seen the kunoichi's purple hair as he rushed to get back to his team, but the smell of something profoundly wrong got his attention.
"Naruto-kun, how ya doing, kiddo?" Anko coughed as her newest friend approached.
"What happened to you? Those markings, they look just like the seal Orochimaru put on Sasuke!"
"It's a Cursed Seal, the most powerful variant my ex-Sensei ever developed." Anko relaxed in Naruto's arms. "It binds his servants to his will, anyone with one who tries to go against him ends up like how I am now."
"You're dying?" Naruto recoiled in shock.
"Fraid so, no way to avoid it now. Do me a favor and stay with me til the end, would ya Naruto-kun? It won't be long now, and I'd prefer some friendly company as I die." Anko's eyes closed, and her breathing began to slow down.
Naruto heeded Anko's request, lay her down on the ground, and readied Tenseiga.
'It will not work, Lord Naruto. I have examined Anko's body and she is in near-total organ failure. That she has lasted this long is a miracle. Her body has deteriorated far too much for me to restore. However, there is something you can do to save her.'
"What?! NO! I can't do that, she would be reviled even more than she already is!" Naruto nearly threw Tenseiga to the ground in anger.
'She is your friend; does Lord Naruto abandon his friends when he can do something save them?'
"No, he does not, but I never even tried invoking the ritual! If any part of it goes wrong - "
' - Nothing of the sort shall occur while I am here to guide your steps. Let my memories of your ancestors fill the gaps in your confidence.' Naruto's mind flashed with the images of hundreds of his predecessors across the ages doing what Tenseiga had suggested. After the memories subsided he nudged Anko awake.
"Whassup, Naruto-kun? Looking for a last-minute confession of love before I kick the bucket?" Anko did her best to smirk, but her facial muscles failed her.
"I can save you." Naruto said with absolute conviction. "My clan has a ritual that many would consider a Kinjutsu. It will restore you to life, even get rid of that Cursed Seal, but you won't be human anymore. You'll be a Youkai, a demon."
Anko did her best to narrow her eyes. "You can't possibly be ser-"
"I would never joke or lie about something like this, Anko-san. The choice is yours: die a human, or be reborn as a Youkai." Naruto gave Anko a thousand-yard stare.
"Will I still be me?" Anko asked.
"Yes." Naruto promised.
"Then do it!" Anko cried.
Naruto's jade-green Youki formed a large circle around himself and Anko. Ancient Kanji filled the interior of the circle, leaving just enough space for the two living beings within it. The Kanji flared and swirled around Naruto and Anko before coalescing into hundreds of golf ball-sized spheres. Anko's current state was actually beneficial to Naruto's efforts. Her body was in near-total organ failure, meaning he would have to completely replace her organs with his spell instead of altering them. The former process required more Youki, but the latter process required a degree of mastery over his Youki that Naruto did not yet possess. Furthermore, Anko's soul had been ravaged by Senjutsu, and was unable to mount the resistance to Naruto's spell that it would have been capable of had it been in pristine condition.
Naruto could not have asked for a better set of conditions under which to convert a human – body and soul – to a Youkai.
'Lord Naruto, the Cursed Seal will almost certainly disrupt the ritual. You will need to suppress it first.'
Naruto's Youki poured over Anko's body, forcing the Cursed Seal back into its dormant state. With that done, the ritual could begin in earnest.
The first step was to destroy Anko's failing organs and recreate them from scratch. Any Medical-Nin would have told him that such a thing was doomed to failure unless he had memorized the entirety of Anko's genome. He did not need to do so; Anko's soul remembered the form of its mortal shell, and Naruto could data-mine it with impunity. With his Youki fully restored by Yggdrasil's Leaf, regrowing most of Anko's organs – while not effortless – was within his abilities. The only issue was the brain. The physical and spiritual layout of the brain must remain unchanged during the conversion process. Otherwise, Anko's memories, her personality, her mannerisms, and her morals would be completely different once the conversion was complete.
Fortunately, Anko was a healthy young woman, and – psychological trauma notwithstanding – her brain was in excellent condition. Once her body had been renewed, Naruto got to work on Anko's soul. At this point, the Youki spheres began phasing into Anko's body. To turn a human's soul into a Youkai soul, it must first be isolated from their Chakra Network. Complete isolation is not possible without killing the human, but at least 95% of the soul must be isolated for analysis. Once the analysis is complete, a "copy" of the soul composed of Youki can be generated and implanted into the subject's body, at which point it becomes their Youki core.
'Soul Analysis: Complete'
'Youki Core Generation: Complete; Commencing Integration.' This was the most critical stage of the conversion process. If at least 95% of the subject's soul had not been successfully analyzed, the soul would view the Youki Core as a Foreign Spiritual Entity and reject it just like the immune system would reject a blood transfusion if the wrong blood type was used. If successful, Anko would be "reborn" as a Youkai. Otherwise, her soul would attempt to purge the Youki Core, which would damage it to the point it could no longer maintain its Spiritual Integrity. Anko's soul would break down, erasing her from existence entirely. This outcome was what Naruto was most worried about.
Fortunately, the process was a complete success. Naruto's Youki was drained by two-thirds, but Anko was resting peacefully on the ground. Naruto created four sturdy Kage Bushin to surround the sleeping Kunoichi.
"Make sure nothing gets to her until she wakes up. Once that happens, answer any questions she has about being a Youkai." His orders given, Naruto rushed toward his team's last known location. He invested most of his remaining Chakra into his speed and quickly reached the site of his encounter with Orochimaru. Of course, they were no longer there, but Naruto smelled his fiancé's blood. Not in a large, spontaneous quantity, but in small, measured amounts.
'A blood trail! Thanks, Hinata!' Naruto redoubled his efforts, reaching his teammate's position in just under thirty minutes. Hinata did not rise from her meditative pose, but she did momentarily flick her eyes away from Naruto. 'Enemies nearby, got it!' Naruto approached Sasuke and pondered his next course of action. Converting Sasuke to a Youkai was out; he was nowhere near ready to attempt the conversion process on a body in near-perfect physical health with a soul more than capable of resisting his efforts to analyze it. Even if he was skilled enough to attempt such a feat, he knew Sasuke would never forgive him for turning him into something many people would fear as a monster. He knew what that was like, and would never willingly inflict it upon anyone while another option was available.
'But what else can I do? Leaving the Cursed Seal alone can only lead to disaster if Anko's situation means anything. If doing nothing won't work and converting him into a Youkai can't be done then what's left?'
'Lord Naruto, you have outlined the two extremes that form the range of your options. What other avenue remains unexplored?' Tenseiga asked with the demeanor of a school teacher mentoring her favorite student.
'A middle ground. HA! THAT'S IT!' Naruto realized the answer was a literal half-measure. He didn't need to turn Sasuke into a Youkai.
Converting him into a Hanyou would work just fine.
Border of the Afterlife
When Anko awoke, she found herself on the back of a skeletal bird flying through the mists of a mountainous region. 'Naruto-kun's ritual must have failed; well, it was too good to be true anyways." Anko sighed. The bird flew past giant skeletons, the largest of which wore Samurai armor and had numerous holes blasted in it.
'Wow, was someone fighting inside that thing? That's too freaky for me; no thanks!' Finally, the bird reached its destination: a titanic, fossilized dog. Unlike the other corpses Anko had passed, the dog had not decomposed. The bird landed in the dog's open mouth. Once Anko disembarked, the bird flew away and the dog's mouth closed.
'No going back, eh? Then all I can do is march forward!' Anko walked into the gargantuan beast's gullet. The path downward was a staircase lined on both sides by hundreds of statues. 'The farther down I go, the more these statutes start looking like Naruto! What's going on here?!' Anko began to run, her need for answers overruling her sense of caution. The staircase emptied into an enormous throne room. Occupying the throne was a being with silver hair, elven ears, golden eyes, and a violet crescent moon on his forehead.
'Anko Mitarashi. My descendent risked much to claw you from Death's embrace. More than he knows. If not for Tenseiga's tutelage, his Youki core would have been permanently damaged. Unlike Orochimaru's eyes, which – while also gold in color – were somewhat muted in their brightness, this entity's eyes shone like the sun.
"Youki? Is that some afterlife term for Chakra?" Anko asked.
'It is the power and life-force of demons, of Youkai. While not wholly incompatible with Chakra, great care must be taken to ensure that they do not damage each other when they interact. Nearly all of my descendants have rejected their Youkai heritage and fought as humans, or have fully embraced their Youkai lineage. With Naruto, a third option has manifested: he has the potential to wield the energies in harmony.' A rare half-smile adorned Sesshomaru's face; in his twelve years of life, Naruto had done much that filled his progenitor with pride.
"What makes Naruto different? And why tell me any of this?! I'm dead after all!" Anko's shout was followed by tears.
'On the contrary: you are very much alive. I have brought your soul here, to the Border of the Afterlife, to confirm that you are deserving of the second chance at life Naruto has given you.' The Daiyoukai's eyes glowed red and Anko felt a searing pain in her skull as Sesshomaru delved into the darkest depths of her mind. No memory was spared his gaze. 'As I suspected, you have endured much, and yet, you have persevered. You are worthy.' Sesshomaru's eyes reverted to their golden hue. 'Naruto's potential is partially derived from his Uzumaki lineage. Youki is inherently more destructive than Chakra, so most mortal bloodlines are too weak to produce Chakra capable of merging with Youki. The much greater reason, however, stems from what Naruto has been forced to become.'
"The Kyuubi." Anko said sadly.
'The only Daiyoukai whose power exceeds my own; a being who has existed since the birth of this world, perhaps even longer. Her Chakra is Old, its properties unfathomable even to me. The Kitsune's power ridicules established law and principle.' Sesshomaru half-closed his eyes, remembering how close he had once come to slaying Kurama. If not for her inexplicable immunity to Bakusaiga, things would have ended differently. 'Time grows short; the longer a living soul remains here, the harder it becomes for them to return.' Sesshomaru's eyes glowed red again, and the searing pain in Anko's skull returned. The skills and instincts of snake Youkai were burned into her soul. 'Now, you are merely a Youkai, yet power and intellect are all that distinguish Daiyoukai from their inferiors. You have the potential to ascend, as do all others who accept the conversion.' Anko's world went white. Seconds later, she was waking up in the mortal world.
Forest of Death – Team 7's Location
The ritual needed to convert a human to a Hanyou is much more subtle than the Youkai spell Naruto used with Anko. To most observers, it would seem that the Namikaze Lord was using some kind of Medical Ninjutsu on his teammate. Naruto lacked the Byakugan, so he couldn't see Sasuke's Tenketsu, but Hinata – with Hiashi's permission – had copied a Hyuuga training manual that described their locations. The young Daiyoukai had practiced channeling his Youki into Hinata's Tenketsu; now, he did the same with Sasuke. The last Uchiha's unconscious state made things easier for Naruto. He was channeling his Youki through the Tenketsu on Sasuke's hands and knew from his experiments with Hinata that this was a painful experience. The last thing Naruto needed was for Sasuke to jerk his hands out of Naruto's grasp.
'Thank Kami he's an Uchiha; this would have no chance of working if Sasuke's Chakra was less potent!' Bit by painful bit, Naruto fed his Youki into his best friend's Chakra Network. He had already applied a Youki seal to Sasuke's Cursed Seal to ensure it would not activate during the ritual. Sasuke's Chakra tried to reject the Youki but there was no danger. The Uchiha's Chakra was powerful enough to safely interact with Naruto's Youki; instead of being destroyed, it was displaced – forced deeper into the Chakra Network.
Under normal circumstances, such a disruption in the natural flow of Chakra through the body was incredibly dangerous. If too much Chakra was forced to remain stagnant in the network, the pathways would be torn apart by the strain. However, Naruto's spell altered the nature of his Youki to semi-permeable. The mass of demonic energy invading Sasuke's Chakra Network assimilated a percentage of his Chakra as it progressed. This percentage increased exponentially as the Chakra pushed back against it.
Halfway through the process, Naruto's Youki core flashed rapidly, a warning that he was nearly out of Youki.
"Damn it, not now!" Naruto resolved to save his best friend or die trying.
'That is enough! You have performed admirably, but what you attempt is beyond you.' Naruto's world went white. He recognized that voice from the first time he had spoken with Tenseiga.
'Lord Sesshomaru?' Naruto asked solemnly.
'I vowed upon my deathbed that the Namikaze would thrive or perish by their own merit. However, the horror of being unable to do nothing but watch as a loved one dies before your eyes is known to me. Thus, once only, I shall assist.
Naruto's Youki core flared to full capacity and the agonizingly slow process reached a breakneck pace. Before Naruto could thank his progenitor, Sesshomaru broke the connection. Naruto his attention back toward's Sasuke.
'Almost 70% of Sasuke's Chakra Network has been now saturated with my Youki. That's more than double where I was at before!' Naruto had been using another Youki spell to gauge his progress. 'Purging the Youki is no longer possible; now, his Chakra can only accept the Youki it's been imbued with or be destroyed in the process, and it's too powerful for the latter possibility to occur.' Naruto released Sasuke's hands and fell to the ground, drenched with sweat. The pushback against his Youki had caused him unbelievable pain, and his Youki core was drained of power.
'With the Youkai Conversion Ritual, I can choose what type Youkai the recipient will become; I went with a Snake Youkai since I thought it would be best if Anko became something she was familar with.' Naruto shifted on the ground to rest right next to his closest friend. 'The Hanyou Conversion is the opposite, Sasuke. Whatever creature is held closest to your heart at the moment the assimilation process is complete will determine what type of Hanyou you become. Hopefully, you like what you get, 'cause you're stuck with it now.' Naruto couldn't stop his eyes from closing. 'I'm so dead when he wakes up.'
As dawn broke the next morning, Hinata rose from her meditative pose and threw a kunai at the squirrel darting towards her. "Are all Oto-nin so cruel?" Hinata turned her head to face Team Dosu's hiding place.
"Noticed the bomb tag we put the critter's back, did ya?" Zaku smirked as he emerged from the trees.
"No, there's something else at play here; stay focused." Dosu chided his teammate and stepped in front of him. "Would you be so kind as to wake Sasuke up, girl? We've come a long way to fight him, you see."
"Do you take me for a fool?" Hinata drew eight shuriken, four in each hand. "First, we are assaulted by Orochimaru-san – a Shinobi well-known for his control over snakes. Now, a team wearing serpentine attire seeks to fight the only member of my team afflicted by one of Orochimaru-san's seals!"
'A seal placed by Orochimaru-sama would only be a Cursed Seal. Why would he order us to kill someone afflicted by such a thing?' While Dosu questioned his master's motives, Kin drew three senbon and Zaku stretched his arms towards Hinata, revealing his implanted tubes.
"You're too smart for your own good, girlie. We can't leave anyone alive who knows Orochimaru-sama sent us! Zankuuha!" (Decapitating Airwaves) Highly condensed airwaves shot out from Zaku's palms. In answer, Hinata flung her shuriken, which sparked with lightning and immediately achieved near-supersonic speeds.
Kakashi was quite upset after discovering that two of his students would be unable to train during the 3-month grace period given to them before the Chuunin Exams began. He could forgive Naruto's refusal – those conversations with Jiraiya were long overdue – but Hinata's temporary ambassador status with the Land of Waves was a bitter pill for the Copy Ninja to swallow. He had informed the Hyuuga heiress in no uncertain terms that she would be forbidden from taking the Chuunin Exams if she could not use the Denshuriken no Jutsu without hand seals by the time she returned. For additional motivation, he divulged that, since the Exams required the presence of all three members of a Genin team, her inability to take the Exams would prevent Naruto and Sasuke from doing so as well. Hinata had put herself through as much hell as her ambassadorial duties allowed and fully mastered the Jutsu.
"AAARRRGGGHH! " Zaku's Jutsu weaponized the air, but it relied on his implants to do so. It was not a proper Fuuton Jutsu, so it held no elemental advantage over Hinata's Raiton technique. Her shuriken, flying nearly fast enough to break the sound barrier, had far too much momentum to be stopped by Zaku's air blast and decimated their target. Four had been aimed at the boy's upper torso, two at his neck, and the last two targeted his arms. All but one – half the pair aimed at Zaku's neck – struck true. If the damage to his lungs and right jugular vein didn't kill him, the shock-induced cardiac arrest certainly would.
"Impossible! Aside from the Byakugan, the Hyuuga don't use Ninjutsu for combat!' Kin nearly dropped her senbon in surprise.
"Every rule has an exception. The loss of Zaku-san is unfortunate, but the effort of killing him has cost our opponent dearly." Dosu's theory was confirmed when Hinata did not retaliate as he moved closer.
'They've noticed, then. Between staying up all night with my Byakugan active and ensuring my Jutsu would be powerful enough to kill its target, over three-quarters of my Chakra is gone. I must end this as swiftly as possible! The Oto kunoichi seems to be a long-range combatant, while her surviving comrade favors close-range encounters. The gauntlet on his right arm must augment his Taijutsu, but in what way?' Hinata's speculations were performed while she threw several non-electrified shuriken at Dosu.
"It seems you've exhausted yourself completely, Hyuuga!" Dosu blocked the projectiles with his speaker and rushed Hinata. After getting within ten feet, a Raiton trap activated and froze him in place! It took all of his willpower to stop from falling to the ground.
"That's why she stopped the squirrel earlier," Kin realized, "to prevent it from triggering her trap!"
'Making copies of the traps Kakashi-sensei used for Naruto's training was an ideal method to master Raiton manipulation!' Hinata brought the memory of her first successful copy of one of the few remaining traps from those days to the forefront of her mind. The joy associated with the occasion banished the fear of failure from her thoughts, allowing her to focus fully on the task at hand. Dosu was still standing, but the electricity surging through his muscles made moving his limbs nearly impossible. Hinata darted inwards, seeking to strike a series of Tenketsu that would induce cardiac arrest, but had to retreat when Kin launched a volley of Senbon at her! The Byakugan warned Hinata of the Fuuton Chakra infused into the needles. When they hit a nearby tree, they drilled holes nearly all the way through its thick trunk.
"Much obliged, Kin-san!" Dosu had recovered from his momentary paralysis and now leaped at Hinata. Wary of the Byakugan's capacity to detect Chakra, he refrained from activating his Kyoumeisen (Resonating Echo Drill) until the last possible moment. Hinata evaded the Oto Genin's strike, but she had no context for how far should have positioned herself to avoid the accompanying sound wave and was caught in the Jutsu. Her right semicircular canal was ruptured, leaving her vulnerable to a gut-punch from Dosu.
"Ack!" The Hyuuga heiress coughed up blood as she collapsed at Dosu's feet. Before he could finish her off, a howl of unbridled fury tore through the air.
Sasuke's Mindscape
'This has got to be the dobe's handiwork!' Sasuke spat. His mind was already cluttered enough with the ebon flames representing the trauma inflicted by Itachi and the scale embodying his heart's deepest desire. Recently, a humongous, white snake with purple stripes had taken up residence within the mindscape and had spent the majority of the time since Sasuke was bitten by Orochimaru trying to eat the young man's mental projection. Child-Sasuke has run interference as best he could, but the pseudo-dissociate persona could do little to stall the invasion of Orochimaru's Chakra. Just as Current-Sasuke was about to be claimed by the astral serpent, a tide of jade-green energy washed it away!
'That sounds about right; you never could analyze his Youki with your Sharingan, but this looks just like it!' Child-Sasuke readied himself for battle once more as the snake righted itself, but he soon realized there was no need. The Youki tide coalesced into a sphere that flew high into the "ceiling" of the mindscape and suffused it in a light that soothed both Sasukes but caused unbearable agony to the snake.
'This is goodbye, Current-me. Whatever Naruto's done to us is purging all non-dominant mental and spiritual influences from your being.' The remnant of a far happier time felt no pain as he began to dissolve.
'That's a shame, but we both knew you couldn't cling to my psyche forever without crippling its growth. I've carried you for nearly six years, remember how much more expansive those black flames were when first manifested?' Current-Sasuke shivered.
'It was horrible; your entire mind was burning away! I still can't believe how quickly you're mental health counseling was stopped. If not for Naruto befriending us, I don't even want to think about what your mental state would be now! My only regret is that I couldn't smother the flames completely before today.' Child-Sasuke lamented.
'You've contained them to the darkest reaches of our mind, and being at the old house with Ino has extinguished most of what's left. Only one thing can quench the remaining flames.' Current-Sasuke's Sharingan flared with vengeance.
'Indeed; one last thing remains. The Youki is demanding that we choose an animal, it's not saying why, just that we need to do it now!' Child-Sasuke was almost completely dissolved now.
'We wanted a pet wolf when I was younger, didn't we?' Current-Sasuke smirked.
'Yeah, we did!' With that final confirmation, Child-Sasuke ceased to exist. The Youki sphere's color shifted from jade-green to crimson and exploded like a star going supernova.
Sasuke was forced awake as the anatomical changes that finalized his conversion to a Hanyou occurred in an instant. The process was painless, but the realization of Hinata's plight was anything but. The howl that shocked Dosu into halting his deathblow was followed by a brutal punch. He barely managed to block it with his left arm, and the limb was shattered as Dosu flew through the air.
"S-Sasuke!?" Hinata couldn't believe her eyes. The young man in front of her looked like Sasuke; same height, same build, same Sharingan eyes. But the Byakugan told a different story. "You're Chakra – what happened? Did the seal inflicted by Orochimaru-san do this?" Hinata had not allowed herself to observe whatever Naruto had done to Sasuke when he arrived, so focused was she on their enemies.
"That disgusting thing? It was burned away by this!" Sasuke called forth his Chakra – now permanently imbued with Youki – and a crimson aura blazed around him. His retractable claws and fangs surged from their dormant positions, and his hair doubled in length.
"Bullshit! Nothing can dispel Orochimaru-sama's Cursed Seal!" Kin yelled.
"Katon: Gokyaku no Jutsu!" An enormous fireball hurled through the air. Kin leaped out of the away, but the fireball exploded on impact and flung Kin through the air with bone-shattering speed. Her fall, along with the majority of her skeleton, was broken by a tree branch.
"Damn it," Sasuke swore, "I was going for a condensed blast, not a fireball! My Chakra control is fucked!"
"Is that really an observation you should be vocalizing in the presence of an enemy Shinobi?" Dosu charged at Sasuke, his good arm almost overflowing with Chakra.
"Don't worry; I have no intention of wasting my Jutsu on trash like you! Sankon Ensou!" (Soul-Scattering Blazing Claws) Sasuke rushed at Dosu, the claws on his left hand surging with power. When the two clashed, Dosu's right arm was slashed to ribbons. Blood didn't even get the chance to flood out of the shredded limb before demonic flames erupted from the points of contact and consumed Dosu – body and soul. In the split-second before the flames engulfed Dosu completely, Sasuke grabbed the Oto Genin's Shinobi pouch and retrieved an Earth Scroll from it. Having gained his prize, the newly-christened wolf-Hanyou hurled the pouch onto the still-blazing corpse of its owner.
"Hinata, great job keeping us safe until I woke up." Sasuke relaxed his Chakra-Youki, and his claws and fangs retracted while his hair shrunk to its original length. "Remind me to burn Naruto's balls off later for turning me into a Hanyou without permission!"
"Not a chance; as you very well know, I'll need those in the future!" Hinata was overjoyed; if Sasuke could tell jokes, he was fine.
"Right, almost forgot about that." Sasuke sighed while rummaging through Naruto's Shinobi pouch. "We still have a Heaven Scroll, so the Earth Scroll I just acquired gives us a complete set! As soon as the dobe wakes up, we're off to the tower!"
Chapter End
And that was the entire Forest of Death mini-arc in one chapter! No wonder it took me two extra days to finish it. Orochimaru still has a few hideouts in and around Konoha that weren't found by Hiruzen or used by Root, so he didn't need to disguise himself as one of the Genin taking the Chuunin Exams to infiltrate Konoha. On the other hand, I didn't want to abandon the concept of the Kusaga team being killed/replaced, so Iwa did that here instead of Orochimaru. Regarding the fight with Sasuke, he absolutely could have tanked those fire dragons without a defensive Jutsu, but not even Orochimaru would be completely unharmed after taking direct hits from eleven rage-amplified fire dragons. He's always been known more for his stamina/regeneration than his durability. In canon, just one rage-amped fire dragon was enough to partially burn off the skin of the Kusaga team's leader, so 10 more of those hitting him at once is not something he'd be able to just shrug off.
The disintegration Jutsu the Iwa kunai were imbued with is Dust Release, I didn't call it that in this chapter because Team 7 doesn't know about that Nature Transformation and they were only used in their presence. As you can imagine, sealing one of the most OP Kekkei Genkai of all time into a kunai is very difficult. Plus, each Dust Release-kunai had a blood seal that only permitted the Shinobi who received it to hold them safely, so the Iwa Genin/Chuunin only had one each.
The Jutsu used by the leader of the Iwa Chuunin team was not derived from Magnet Release. That Kekkei Genkai is unique to Gaara's family and Shukaku and I'm not changing that. Magnet Release allows the user to generate their own magnetic field to manipulate their weapon of choice (Gaara's normal sand, Rasa's gold dust, the 3rd Kazekage's iron sand, etc.) The Jutsu used here amplifies the planet's preexisting magnetic field in a localized area, allowing the user to manipulate magnetism within the affected space. I didn't name it here because I'm not sure if it will be used later (it probably will!") If/When it's used again, I'll give it a name.
"Raiton: Gian!" was the Jutsu used by Kakazu's Raiton mask. Since all of his Chakra affinities except for Douton were derived from the hearts he took from his victims, that Jutsu likely came from a Kumo Shinobi he fought at some point. Since Karui's either Tokebetsu Jonin level or very close to it now, there's no reason she can't put enough power into it to insta-kill three Iwa Chuunin.
Youki's capacity to negate seals or other attempts to suppress or otherwise manipulate someone's Chakra Network was something I hinted at in Chapter 2. All Youki not contained in the Youki core surrounds the Chakra Network like a cocoon, so any attempts to screw with a human-turned-Youkai's Chakra Network has to get through that barrier first. Even on a success, the Youki will endlessly attack the source of the disruption until the Chakra Network can function at its normal capacity.
In canon, Tenseiga's never blocked multiple attacks in quick succession. Given that it also never failed to save Sesshomaru's life after activating, having a cooldown seems reasonable. While its maximum durability is unknown, it has to be at least mountain-level since it blocked the Kaze no Kizu, which is a mountain-level attack. The barrier's shape seems to change depending on the type of attack it's blocking; it was a huge, fang shape when it blocked the Kaze no Kizu but took a much smaller shape when blocking Souonga's Dragon Twister.
Deciding on which type of Hanyou to turn Sasuke into was hard. It couldn't be a snake Youkai since his affinity with snakes comes from his training with Orochimaru. If I was staying as close to canon as possible, it should have been a hawk Youkai since he can summon those as well, but the main reason I wanted him to be Hanyou was to provide a much more believable explanation for the speed he demonstrates in his fight with Gaara. The canon explanation we get for that is complete bullshit; supposedly, he gained it by copying Rock Lee's taijutsu, but Lee didn't drop his weights when fighting Sasuke! The Sharingan can only analyze and mimic what the user sees. Furthermore, the fight with Lee demonstrates a key weakness of the Sharingan: the user can only copy movements and Jutsu that they're already capable of performing. Otherwise, Sasuke wouldn't have gotten his ass handed to him after he started using the Sharingan.
Even if we grant that Sasuke was able to copy Lee's movements and only needed to train his body to the point that he became capable of replicating them, it took years for Lee to cultivate that level of speed. Sasuke achieving the same in 1 month is preposterous. So instead of that nonsense happening, he became a wolf Hanyou, a being that can be expected to have superhuman speed as a natural trait. His Youki makes his Jutsu more powerful, but his Chakra control has now been reset to the point it was at before he mastered the tree-climbing exercise. Not a huge loss, since it won't take that long for him to reacquire his former level of control, but it's enough to nerf him like the Cursed Seal did before Kakashi suppressed it.
Having his Youki blended into his Chakra also negates the "times of weakness" Hanyou suffer from in Inuyasha since losing all of your Chakra is potentially fatal in Naruto and the times of weakness were never meant to be fatal by themselves, only to make it much easier to kill a Hanyou if they ran into danger during those times.
The Preliminaries will be split into two chapters, thank you for reading!
Sankon Ensou: Soul-Scattering Blazing Claws – A wolf Hanyou variant of Inuyasha's Sankon Tessou technique. The user coats one or both hands in Youki, drastically enhancing the cutting power of their claws. Once the target is struck, demonic flames erupt from wounds inflicted, destroying the target on a physical and spiritual level. Since the flames only manifest once the wound is inflicted, beings that are too durable to be injured by the user's claws cannot be burned by this technique.