An AU with elements of Dungeons: The Dragoning
Was glancing over the D:TG sourcebooks on a whim...
Was glancing over the D:TG sourcebooks on a whim...
Exaltation (Naruto AU)
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An AU with elements of Dungeons: The Dragoning
Was glancing over the D:TG sourcebooks on a whim and got the urge to dig this out and clean it up. Criticism or comment is as always appreciated.
"He is a member of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto felt time freeze as Iruka-sensei's words rang in the still night air beneath the trees.
Mizuki's reply was only a blur as blood pounded between the blonde's ears. Someone believed in him. Iruka-sensei believed in him. It was....
The grunt of effort as Mizuki hurled a massive shuriken at Iruka broke Naruto from his fugue, and he found his body moving before he could even think. Iruka-sensei believed in him, trusted him, he couldn't possibly let the man down now. He moved faster than he ever had before, muscles and chakra working together as he'd struggled all his life to achieve, and he made it. He crashed to a halt between the two men.
Just in time for the shuriken to smash his ribcage and destroy his heart and lungs.
Once again, Naruto heard nothing Mizuki was saying, just a soft blurred mumble as cold seeped into him and tears filled his eyes. The world dimmed as he lay there and a crushing guilt welled up. He had failed, lost, and Mizuki would kill Iruka-sensei now. The only person who believed in him would die, and there was nothing he could do.
The world went black.
And then he heard it, the faint whisper in the darkness. Somehow, he was sure that it was saying something, but he couldn't quite hear. He willed himself closer, closer, forcing himself to move despite having no sensation of limb or body--only of being. Gradually, red light began to grow in the far distance, swelling until he could sense what seemed to be the mouth of a tunnel. Naruto stepped out into the light, and saw the cage.
It was massive, iron bars stretching beyond sight to the left and right, and soaring into the shadows of some invisible ceiling. Behind the bars was a sea of fire and blood. In the center of the cage, where an ornate gate broke the infinite sequence of iron, was a massive seal inscribed in gleaming silver ink on pure white paper. Eight spiraling patterns surrounded a larger swirl, and from the center of each poured a tiny trickle of the roiling fire from the other side of the bars. The fire pooled in a shallow depression before the cage, with thin streams of it running off towards the wall Naruto had entered from. He turned and saw that it was lined with other doorways, hundreds of them, most with a thin stream of fire pouring down the middle.
As he turned he realized that he could turn, now, and looked down to see a body. The wounds Mizuki had inflicted were still there, a gaping hole where his chest should be, but he felt no pain.
You are dead, little monkey.
Naruto whirled back to the cage and caught the glimpse of....something in the flames, less a shape than the impression of one, of eyes and teeth and claws crouched in the shadow of nine flickering arcs of darker fire.
You are dead, monkey, and you have failed. But I can give you what you long for.
Images filled Naruto's head. He saw himself, older and stronger, the robes of the Hokage resting on his shoulders as if they'd been made for him, eyes shining as he looked out over a sea of faces turned up in adoration. Sakura stood just behind him, staring at him in rapture with one hand resting on her pregnant belly, and the other twined with that of a young girl with pink hair and sky blue eyes.
He saw Iruka standing with a crowd of children, smiling confidently as he told them of the great Uzumaki Naruto. The man glanced up and caught sight of his leader and beamed, waving at Naruto as if at a beloved son.
He saw faceless ninja with the emblems of a dozen villages falling before him, and more dropping to their knees as he approached. The ceremonial hats marked with Wind, Water, Earth, and Lightning lay in the mud at his feet. He was the greatest Hokage ever, the greatest Ninja ever. Everyone believed in him, and those he loved were safe and happy.
Everything you want is right here, if you are strong enough to take it.
Naruto refused to back down from a challenge.
"I'll take everything and more, believe it!"
The fire coursing from the seal shuddered, then surged, and Naruto heard one last thing before it swept him up and burned what had been away.
I'm counting on it you disgusting flesh-bag.
Within the cage, the formless entity that the mortals of this world called the Kyuubi felt a surge of satisfaction. It wasn't much, limited as he was by this damnable seal, but the willing cooperation of his container had allowed him to slip the smallest fragment of his soul free of the accursed trap. It would merge with the pathetic monkey, strengthen him enough to survive. By its very nature, as a part of what was to be sealed, it would weaken the bindings.
It might take a few centuries before the fragment grew strong enough to destabilize the seal and allow the Kyuubi to leave this bothersome world, but that was nothing to an immortal.
It would be free soon enough.
O0O
"Tch, pathetic. How that demon ever thought it could be a ninja...I guess without its chakra, the fox is just a useless animal."
Iruka stared at the unmoving body that lay on the ground. Naruto had given his life for him, and now he couldn't even get up and avenge his death. He tried to push himself off the ground, but his arms would barely move, he felt weaker by the moment as more blood seeped out of his wounds. He was going to die.
Mizuki casually took out a kunai and strolled forward.
"Well you were a decent partner, even if you were an idiot, so I'll kill you quickly."
"S-Shut up!"
The ash blond man froze in his tracks, slowly turning to the brat who'd been dead seconds before. Iruka could barely see anymore, his vision rimmed in black, but he saw enough.
Naruto climbed to his feet, steam pouring off his body as it warped and twisted. The hole in his chest filled in with a sucking sound, leaving unmarked flesh. His eyes darkened to a blood red that gleamed in the moonlight as if lit with an inner fire. His fingers became claws, his teeth turned to fangs. Strange patterns of ruddy light crept across the exposed skin.
The boy screamed, his voice as warped as his body, with strange under and overtones turning it into an unearthly roar.
"MIZUKI....I'll Kill You!"
Iruka could only watch as the boy who a day ago couldn't have fought off a genin smashed into Mizuki like a battering ram, claws and teeth ripping apart flesh like tissue.
It wasn't enough of course. Traitor or not, Mizuki was still a chuunin, and not a bad one. Surprise had let Naruto get in far more strikes than anyone could have expected, but soon the larger man threw the child flying across the clearing and into the trunk of a thick tree. He followed it up with a half dozen kunai and a handful of shuriken, turning the blond into a pincushion.
Naruto climbed back to his feet. His eyes still burned with rage, but there was something else now. They wandered, as if the boy was tracking something that the other two couldn't see. For a moment, he seemed poised to leap at Mizuki once again, then winced and clutched as his head.
Mizuki bared his teeth in a feral sneer.
"What's the matter, demon? Do you actually care about this loser? Maybe I should make you watch while I kill him, just like I had to watch you kill my family!"
Mizuki started towards Iruka once more, but Naruto's head snapped down to glare at him.
"Shut up, bastard! Now BURN!"
The forest rang like a bell. Hoarfrost covered everything in sight as the plants for yards around Naruto collapsed into rot and decay. The air shimmered, peeled back, and showed glimpses of madness and horror. Every hair on Iruka's head stood straight as the earth trembled beneath him and the dying trees groaned in agony. His chest clenched and he could taste bile spewing into his mouth and freezing as it ran down his chin.
Mizuki disappeared in an explosion of fire and blood.
Then fire burst through Naruto's skin, melting away flesh that healed moments later as the child screamed in agony. He collapsed to the ground sobbing in pain.
The black that had been creeping into Iruka's vision surged up and dragged him down, and he knew no more.
O0O
Hiruzen Sarutobi, Third Hokage of The Village Hidden in the Leaves, the God of Shinobi, frowned as a tiny sliver of his irritation leaked through into his countenance.
Two thirds of the elite ninja securing the scene flinched as a wave of unnatural terror swept through them.
The clearing in training ground eight was a disaster. The grass within it and many of the surrounding trees had rotted away into slop, which had then frozen solid and was now slowly melting to fill the air with the stench of decay. The few trees that remained were covered in cracks and missing half their limbs from the wave of cold that had frozen the water within them.
That wasn't even thinking of the three ninja laid out in various states of damage while the medics attended to them. Though unconscious, Naruto seemed physically unharmed from the affair, whatever healing his status as Jinchuuriki offered apparently offsetting the horrific injuries Sarutobi had seen through his tomegane no jutsu. Iruka would live, though it would take months for the man to regain full function.
Mizuki was a pile of burnt meat that the medics were carefully packing away for transport to a clean room for study.
Beside him, a young ANBU blurred out of a shunshin already kneeling. Sarutobi didn't bother turning around, he'd been tracking the man's chakra for the last ten minutes.
"Report, Tenzo, exactly what sort of chakra did this?"
For the first time in all the years Sarutobi had known the man, Tenzo hesitated before giving his report. It was enough to turn the older shinobi's head.
"I...don't know, Hokage-sama."
Hiruzen stared hard at the ANBU. It had been a formality, having the wood user check the lingering auras of the area for demonic taint. He hadn't been expecting a surprise on that count, for what else but the power of the bijuu would originate from a Jinchuuriki and have effects such as this.
This was...disturbing.
"What have you discovered then?" he asked, turning back to look at the clearing again in light of this new information.
"The Jinchuuriki feels strongly of the demon's chakra, but it is...changed, as if it was blended to the host's power rather than replacing it."
Hiruzen nodded. That was unusual to be sure, but it could easily be a development of the fuuinjutsu Minato had devised. Nobody in the village knew its full set of functions, only that it had been the masterwork of the Yondaime. A blending might mitigate the usually corrosive effects experienced by the host, or perhaps it was even meant to slowly destroy the imprisoned beast.
"But the remainder of the clearing has very little of that mixture. The decay is laced with secondary emissions from space-time techniques."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed as he gave the clearing yet another look. That made a degree of sense. Spatial distortions could cause unintended effects if cast improperly, he still remembered the bills young Minato had run up while developing his Hiraishin. And there was a standing budget for dealing with the fallout of failed Summoning Jutsu. But here…
Space-Time ninjutsu were not toyed with. The slightest mistake could kill the user and everyone around them. Nobody could even begin to access the slightest of them without and countless background checks to ensure they were both capable of using them correctly and mentally stable enough to be trusted with them.
And Naruto had certainly not made use of any such thing. All he had done was yell, and then nearly die.
It was going to be a long week it seemed.
"Tenzo, have the investigators finish up and then secure the scene, transfer the patients to the secure ward of the hospital and have them isolated until we can get individual testimony. And coordinate with the academy, have the recent graduates take a week off while we sort this out and review Mizuki's files, I don't want any potentially compromised students moving into the force."
The young man bowed his head again and blurred into the blinding speed of Shunshin, his parting words hanging behind him.
"Hai, Hokage-sama."
O0O
The Konoha Hospital had been designed with three main concerns.
Foremost, it was designed for security. Its central location buried it behind the full security measures of the village, and its thick, heavily reinforced walls were designed to protect both the wounded Konoha Ninja and the medical research carried out within.
As a side benefit, they also worked to contain any dangerous but wounded prisoners or test subjects.
The second concern had been research. In the constant low grade conflict that served as 'peace' between the villages and the nations they lived in symbiosis with, new techniques and injuries were almost as common as the ever more complex and deadly poisons. The Konoha hospital staff spent much of their time researching new treatments and counters to the steady stream of strange illnesses and injuries that befell ninja in the field.
The third concern had been actual treatment of the injured, which the hospital performed without fuss or ceremony.
Naruto had been left in one of the secure rooms used to treat potentially dangerous patients, not that he knew or cared, and spent the half hour after waking trying to open the door, the window or failing that annoy the staff into letting him out. None of it had done much good.
Then he'd seen his reflection in a mirror and gotten distracted.
His eyes were what first made him pause. They seemed to be lit from within, as if there was a fire behind them. The lines on his face had changed as well, growing dark and thick. He trailed a finger across one and then pulled it back to stare at the blood beading on the now razor nail. Those had scratched up the window frames too, when he got particularly frustrated.
What had happened when he took hold of that power? He closed his eyes and tried to force himself to remember....
He remembered a lot of pain. Whatever the Kyuubi had done had burned worse than anything he'd ever felt before. And he'd seen things, impossible things that made no sense. He shook his head, he remembered the voice, remembered it offering him everything.
And he remembered his promise. The words sprang unbidden to his lips again.
"I'll take everything and more, believe it."
He grinned, revealing teeth noticeably sharper than they'd been the day before. Even if he did look weird he'd make good on that promise.
He turned back to the door. He was the future Hokage of Konohagakure, and some stupid door wasn't going to stop him. He looked speculatively at the bloody fingernail, maybe if he channeled some chakra....
A smirk spread across his face as with a tiny pang of heat, his finger tips and nails flowed together into hard, sharp claws.
Alright you stupid door, he thought, time to move aside, Uzumaki Naruto coming through!
As if in response, the door reached out and smacked him in the face.
O0O
"Oi, what was that Jii-san? That's my face you're hitting!"
Ibiki kept his face carefully blank as he stepped into the room after the Hokage and took two steps to the side. His assistant followed him, stepping to the other side of the doorway before becoming so perfectly still that even Ibiki's eyes wanted to slide off him.
Good, Taro was getting better.
Most of his attention was on the rest of the room of course, cataloging everything and everyone inside it without any need for conscious input. Bed unmade, equipment undamaged, minor damage to the window and door frames from what appeared to be claws.
The claws were easily apparent on what looked like the Jinchuuriki, which they hadn't been a week ago when the last monthly observer had turned in his report. Potentially worrying. Possibly a progression of the Yondaime's Fuuinjutsu, possibly not. Either way, they seemed to melt back into more natural fingers even as he watched.
His eyes flicked over the rest of what might be the boy, most of which was near enough to the reports to be inconsequential. Shorter than average, and showing the potential for a stocky build, but thin, very low body fat and above average muscle for his age and peer group. No shirt, from the reports it had probably been burned after examination. Orange pants that were in decent repair, if not pristine. Standard thick soled sandals. No weapons or equipment pouches, no signs of concealed weapons.
The face though, drew the eye. The cheek marks were darker than the image on file, and thicker, solid bars instead of lines. The eyes seemed to shine unnaturally bright. His eyes also caught the sharp teeth that flashed as what might not be the Jinchuuriki insulted the Hokage.
That insult was in perfect keeping with the psychological profile. Either this was indeed the Jinchuuriki, or the bijuu was smart enough to imitate well.
Ibiki was a pessimist.
He listened carefully as what looked like the Jinchuuriki gave its story to the Hokage. The tone, inflections, vocabulary and pronunciation...it was all in keeping with the files. The gestures too, the subject even seemed surprised when scratching the back of its head resulted in bloody fingers and pain.
It wasn't until the subject began described its supposed meeting with the Kyuubi that anything unexpected happened. The potential child frowned, shook its head, and then suddenly shifted to look at Taro. One finger rose up to point rudely.
"Oi! What's with that face you asshole! You wanna fight, huh? I'm talking here!"
Ibiki split his focus to examine Taro. His assistant remained as stone-faced as he'd been through the entire session, as everyone in the department was trained to. It wasn't a perfect mask, and Ibiki could see the flaws of posture, the lapses of control that showed how much Taro wanted to attack the subject. He'd have to correct that later.
But the subject should not be able to notice. Whether it remained the Jinchuuriki or was the beast, neither should have the knowledge to read those markers. Interesting.
Carefully, Ibiki sculpted his own posture, shifting his face and body into a similarly combative stance and relaxing the rigid control that let eyes slide over him. The subject did not respond, did not even seem to see him as it continued to yell at Taro while the Hokage chuckled.
Ibiki tried a variety of different sets of markers, projecting fear, anger, happiness, even lust. The subject didn't react at all. He was about to try another set, by this point simmering to know what was going on, when the subject's attention suddenly snapped to him.
"What! Where did you come from? You wanna ask something? Speak up!"
Ibiki blinked. He hadn't been projecting curiosity, he'd been about to try jealousy. The subject wasn't reacting to external markers at all.
Before he could explore further, the Hokage finally grew tired of the interruption and spoke up.
"Calm down Naruto, you can yell at my subordinates later. For now, tell me about this offer the demon made."
"Eh? Sure sure Jii-san. So then it said I was..."
Ibiki relaxed back into a default blank posture, carefully memorizing the subject's account for later dissection. He'd have to pull out the records on demonic bargains and summon contracts and check for parallels, but on the surface it sounded plausible.
Plausible but worrying. The subject hadn't described any specific terms, simply an offer of 'everything you want' and a promise of taking 'everything and more'. That was absurdly open ended.
After the subject finished, the Hokage gave it some placating words and told it to go home in the morning. Ibiki itched to remind the older man of the danger, but remembered his place. Before they could leave the room though, the subject spoke up again.
"Hey wait, Jii-san. I learned the technique like that bastard said. Do I pass?"
The Hokage turned, smiling as if he'd been waiting for the question, and told the subject to demonstrate. The subject shoved its hands into a reasonable approximation of the final seal of the taiju kage bunshin technique and frowned in concentration.
Every hair on Ibiki's neck stood up, the air in the room seemed to shimmer, and with a hissing cloud of steam something that was absolutely not a Shadow Clone seemed to twist into reality beside the subject.
"See, see!" The subject said, pointing at the doppelganger as if anyone in the room could have missed it. "Totally better than that stupid regular clone anyway, so do I pass?"
Silence stretched for almost a minute before the Hokage replied with a kindly tone Ibiki could tell was at least half forced.
"Yes, Naruto, you pass."
O0O
Naruto frowned down at the directions scrawled on the scrap of paper Jii-san had given him along with the hitae-ate now looped around his neck. They'd lead him to one of the northern residential districts, not high class but way above the places he usually stayed, and the funny looks he was getting were starting to get annoying. He nearly scratched at his head again before remembering his weird nail problem and stopping.
He still wasn't sure exactly what was going on, Jii-san had said something about how killing that traitor bastard meant he wasn't just a kid anymore, and something else about how Naruto's mom had had a house here or something. He hadn't been very clear though, just given him the directions and told him to take his hari...heri...something seriously.
Naruto hadn't understood much beyond him having a house now, which was awesome. The second he'd realized that was what the old man was talking about he'd suddenly discovered that he wanted it more than he could describe. The sensation had been incredibly distracting, and he'd nearly tried to snatch the paper from Jii-san's hand before he realized what he was doing.
He still felt it, the burning ache of want that seemed to be constantly growing under his skin. It was getting really annoying as he kept going in circles trying to find the place. None of the property codes were sequential, for security reasons, and he'd long since lost the thread of codes listed in the directions, so he simply wandered around the streets checking for the number at the bottom of the list.
"four seven eight nine six three...eight seven nine six two eight...man, I could be training now or something..."
But he couldn't, he knew, that damned itching desire was way too distracting to focus on anything but finding his new house.
Finally he found it, a small property tucked at the outer edge of the district, on the edge of one of the patches of undeveloped forest that bordered the walls.
Mine.
The thought seemed to hit him like a punch in the gut, and he rushed to the door. The directions had said something about a seal...there. He sliced his thumb with a fingernail and pressed it into the little squiggly circle and a key popped out of the wall and into his hand. The key was jammed into the lock and he slammed the sliding door open and rushed inside.
Suddenly, all the need that had burned in him since the night before faded away, and he found himself standing in a plain room, in a plain house. Sure it was his and all, but that was it. The itch was gone.
Weird he thought, and then put it out of his mind. Now he could actually concentrate.
The house, he decided after wandering around a bit, was pretty cool. It wasn't very big, but there was a nice room on one side he could use for training, and another in the back he could sleep in. There was a decent kitchen opposite the training room with plenty of space for ramen, a nice bathroom, and a weird courtyard in the middle where he could put his plants. The courtyard even had a decent sized bathing pool at the foot of some boulders that looked like a hot-spring, though the water was cold. The training room had some weird door in one corner of the floor, and another squiggly seal thing, but it didn't do anything when he put a bloody thumb on it so he'd ask Jii-san about it later.
He squatted on the roof to think. He'd have to ask Jii-san about rent and stuff, and he had to move his things in somehow. It would take a lot of trips to carry everything him...self...
He smacked himself in the face, then made a dozen shadow clones and charged off towards his apartment. He felt like an idiot, forgetting his amazing new jutsu like that. The clones could carry his stuff while he dealt with the stupid landlady hag. He could probably have used them to find the place too. Then he could have been done with this ages ago and gone to the training fields.
He caught a scent in the air and veered off, letting his clones move ahead to the apartment. He could already feel that itch building again, this time calling out for a more familiar desire.
Stupid landlady hag could wait, Uzumaki Naruto had an incredibly important meeting with Ichiraku Ramen.
O0O
Iruka sank gratefully into a chair in the meeting room at the top of the Hokage's residence tower. It was a small room, made smaller by the dozen unattached jounin crowded into the seats and the Hokage and his department heads sitting in a line along one wall. Iruka carefully set the package he'd picked up earlier that morning to the side and hoped the meeting would go quickly and he could go see how Naruto was doing. He thought about trying to make small talk with Yuuhi-san, he'd made her acquaintance years ago, but she was recently promoted to Jounin and seemed caught up talking to Sarutobi Asuma. So instead he sat quietly and waited until Hatake-san finally arrived and the Hokage began the meeting.
"After reviewing Mizuki's files and a closer examination of the students themselves, we have twenty four graduates in need of a team. With Uzumaki Naruto's quick action to terminate the traitor and his acquisition of the kage bunshin no jutsu, I have decided to promote him as well. This gives us twenty five genin for assignment. Now, do any of you have suggestions on team formations?"
Iruka tried to keep quiet as the various jounin around the room started arguing about why they deserved the best of the class. Technically he was here to offer advice based on his understanding of the graduate's abilities, but none of the other ninja in the room seemed particularly interested in the opinion of a mere chuunin. It was annoying, being forced to hobble up the tower stairs on his still injured leg just to be ignored while the various instructors squabbled like children over teams that were obvious disasters in the making.
"Hmm, Umino-san, it seems you'd like to say something?" Said the Hokage. Iruka tried not to flinch at being called out.
"Er..." Damnit, he hated this sort of thing. It was fine to talk to a crowd of children, fun even, but these were his superiors. He doubted they'd be happy to be called out on overlooking things. Still the Hokage had 'suggested' he speak. "Well..."
He took a deep breath.
"Trying to recreate the Ino-Shika-Cho won't work. Not as well as you hope anyway."
There was the expected uproar until the Hokage silenced it with a single glance and a wave of his pipe. "Explain, chuunin."
Iruka scratched at his nose. There had been rebuke in that, but not as much as he'd expected. Still, better to be careful. "Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji are all capable students, and they do well in team sparring using their family arts." He could see a proud grin on Akimichi Chouza's face and smiled back at him, then went on. "What they don't have is cohesion. They can cooperate when pushed, but they don't have any natural synergy."
There was some grumbling by the gathered jounin, but the Hokage just waved his pipe again to quiet them and gave Iruka a level look. "And are there any other issues we should be aware of before committing to any team formations, Umino-san."
"Er..." Iruka thought back through the other teams he'd heard proposed, most seemed workable if not perfect, none of the students would fit together perfectly. But one stood out as particularly troublesome. "Yuuhi-san asked for Kiba, Hinata, and Shino, I don't think that would work well either." At the Hokage's nod he continued. "All three of them are quite advanced in taijutsu and tracking, but none of them have much talent for ninjutsu outside their clan techniques. As a group, they would be very powerful at close range and excellent at retrieval, but they would have no mid or long range abilities to balance that. Also..." He paused for a moment before pushing on. "Hinata is very withdrawn, Kiba is very aggressive, and Shino is almost entirely passive. I don't believe they would be able to maintain a healthy working relationship."
There was more grumbling, but the Hokage was smiling gently, and the discussions went on, this time with the instructor taking an active part.
Eventually, the problem of numbers was brought up. There were twenty five students, which left one student without a team. Several of the department heads spoke up then, pushing for some potential recruits to be assigned to their units directly. Iruka carefully thought about each request, and pointed out the files of various promising students for the fields, but that just caused more problems.
Three students would likely excel in the specialized departments rather than the more general fieldwork, one in the medical corps, one in the cryptanalysis division, and one in the infiltration division.
Which still left one student the odd man out.
Then Iruka saw Morino Ibiki sit forward and felt his blood run cold. That division was no place for children.
"I'll take Uzumaki. He shows promise."
The room exploded in protests, almost evenly divided between protesting any advancement for the blond boy and protesting sending a rookie genin in to the Torture and Interrogation unit.
"Quiet," the Hokage snapped, smoke curling around his wizened face as he turned a frown across the room, "Ibiki, explain."
O0O
Iruka sighed and worked his shoulders. He hadn't been injured this badly in a long time, and if he'd remembered how much of a pain crutches were he wouldn't have tried to track down his student so soon. Still, he was already here and might as well get it over with before some iryonin noticed him and started yelling.
The district number alone had given Iruka a decent idea of what to expect from the house Naruto had apparently inherited from his mysterious parents. From the front it looked like a fairly typical property for a successful ninja with few vices to drain their pay. Well-made and comfortable, but not particularly large.
He hadn't expected to see two dozen Naruto's swarming around it with their arms full of junk, all jabbering excitedly at each-other. He'd heard that the boy had managed to perform the technique, but this sort of casual utility was extremely uncommon.
"Oi! Iruka-Sensei!" called one of the clones as it noticed him standing on the street. And the next thing Iruka knew he was surrounded by a swarm of blond children in a rather painful group hug.
"Ah, Naruto-kun, I'm glad to see you as well but..."
One of the Narutos seemed to realize his discomfort and promptly released him, shoving at a few of the others until they got the idea and sullenly went back to their piles of junk. Iruka was left with what he assumed was the original.
"Thank you, Naruto, It would be pretty silly to get sent to the hospital again eh?" Iruka quickly waved his hand as he saw concern spark in the blonde's eyes. "No, no, I'm fine, really, just a little joke."
He felt his smile grow a bit forced as silence stretched out between them. Iruka honestly wasn't sure how to go on. He'd made his peace with the knowledge that the boy in front of him wasn't the thing that killed his parents, but that didn't make it easier to speak with someone he'd spent so long hating.
At a loss for something to say, he pulled the package from under his arm and held it out, forcing down a wince at the way Naruto's face took on a look of surprise. "Here, I...figured I owed you one, since you lost yours saving me and all." he said as Naruto slit the twine with his fingernail and pulled open the brown paper. The blonde's face blossomed into a gigantic grin and he pulled the orange and black coat over his arms, flailing a bit as he realized it was too big.
Iruka's smile turned genuine, even when Naruto muttered a number of words he probably shouldn't have known. "I figured you'd have to grow into it, since you're going to be Hokage one day eh?"
Naruto had finally managed to find the cord that pulled the sleeves up short enough to free his hands, and Iruka promptly felt himself grabbed into another hug, though this time his ribs didn't start creaking. His hand hovered in the air a moment before he sighed and let it fall onto Naruto's had, ruffling the already messy hair further. For a moment, he considered warning the boy about his new assignment. Ibiki had gotten his way, though once the Hokage had forbidden any talk of dismissing Naruto entirely the protests had all but vanished. Very few people seemed interested in having a Jinchuuriki as a subordinate, especially one with such consistently poor grades.
He decided against it. Even if he did like the kid, he wasn't supposed to show favoritism, and even Ibiki would surely moderate himself if there was a child around.
Right?
O0O
The ruin had been old long before the founding of the Hidden Villages had even been contemplated. The scrolls he had poured over, carefully memorizing each section before it crumbled to dust from the relentless march of centuries had told of fantastical guardian monsters. Strange puppets of bone and porcelain that healed as if alive.
That had...intrigued him.
He had journeyed far, spending months pushing his tireless body forward across wastelands that would kill those still bound by mortal limits. He had found new lands, strange lands where chakra was unheard of and others where seals wreathed great ziggurats that soared above the peasant fields like stairways to the heavens.
Sometimes he had paused to study these strange people, or to collect particularly interesting specimens for later conversion. But always he pushed on eventually, moving for the prize that would allow him to finally achieve the perfection of his art.
And finally, he had found it.
The guardians had been everything the legends claimed and more. Faster than lightning, they danced through the air like a feather in the breeze, strange bladed limbs crackling with some unknown power and lashing filaments that burned to ash whatever they touched whirling about them. They avoided his attacks as if they were wraiths, wraiths of bone.
He had actually found himself pressed, before he destroyed them.
The ruin itself was impregnable, a hulking mass of the same bone white material as the guardians, and every attempt to penetrate it failed, any minor damage he had made simply repairing itself instantly.
But the remains of the guardians...he picked up one of the shards of porcelain that remained of the construct. It was feather light in his hand, but he knew that it was harder than steel, cautiously, he extended a single thread of chakra and touched it to the shard. It seemed to warm, to warp. Slowly, it began to grow.
If he had still possessed the ability, Sasori of the Red Sands would have smiled. With this, he would truly be perfect.
Was glancing over the D:TG sourcebooks on a whim and got the urge to dig this out and clean it up. Criticism or comment is as always appreciated.
"He is a member of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto felt time freeze as Iruka-sensei's words rang in the still night air beneath the trees.
Mizuki's reply was only a blur as blood pounded between the blonde's ears. Someone believed in him. Iruka-sensei believed in him. It was....
The grunt of effort as Mizuki hurled a massive shuriken at Iruka broke Naruto from his fugue, and he found his body moving before he could even think. Iruka-sensei believed in him, trusted him, he couldn't possibly let the man down now. He moved faster than he ever had before, muscles and chakra working together as he'd struggled all his life to achieve, and he made it. He crashed to a halt between the two men.
Just in time for the shuriken to smash his ribcage and destroy his heart and lungs.
Once again, Naruto heard nothing Mizuki was saying, just a soft blurred mumble as cold seeped into him and tears filled his eyes. The world dimmed as he lay there and a crushing guilt welled up. He had failed, lost, and Mizuki would kill Iruka-sensei now. The only person who believed in him would die, and there was nothing he could do.
The world went black.
And then he heard it, the faint whisper in the darkness. Somehow, he was sure that it was saying something, but he couldn't quite hear. He willed himself closer, closer, forcing himself to move despite having no sensation of limb or body--only of being. Gradually, red light began to grow in the far distance, swelling until he could sense what seemed to be the mouth of a tunnel. Naruto stepped out into the light, and saw the cage.
It was massive, iron bars stretching beyond sight to the left and right, and soaring into the shadows of some invisible ceiling. Behind the bars was a sea of fire and blood. In the center of the cage, where an ornate gate broke the infinite sequence of iron, was a massive seal inscribed in gleaming silver ink on pure white paper. Eight spiraling patterns surrounded a larger swirl, and from the center of each poured a tiny trickle of the roiling fire from the other side of the bars. The fire pooled in a shallow depression before the cage, with thin streams of it running off towards the wall Naruto had entered from. He turned and saw that it was lined with other doorways, hundreds of them, most with a thin stream of fire pouring down the middle.
As he turned he realized that he could turn, now, and looked down to see a body. The wounds Mizuki had inflicted were still there, a gaping hole where his chest should be, but he felt no pain.
You are dead, little monkey.
Naruto whirled back to the cage and caught the glimpse of....something in the flames, less a shape than the impression of one, of eyes and teeth and claws crouched in the shadow of nine flickering arcs of darker fire.
You are dead, monkey, and you have failed. But I can give you what you long for.
Images filled Naruto's head. He saw himself, older and stronger, the robes of the Hokage resting on his shoulders as if they'd been made for him, eyes shining as he looked out over a sea of faces turned up in adoration. Sakura stood just behind him, staring at him in rapture with one hand resting on her pregnant belly, and the other twined with that of a young girl with pink hair and sky blue eyes.
He saw Iruka standing with a crowd of children, smiling confidently as he told them of the great Uzumaki Naruto. The man glanced up and caught sight of his leader and beamed, waving at Naruto as if at a beloved son.
He saw faceless ninja with the emblems of a dozen villages falling before him, and more dropping to their knees as he approached. The ceremonial hats marked with Wind, Water, Earth, and Lightning lay in the mud at his feet. He was the greatest Hokage ever, the greatest Ninja ever. Everyone believed in him, and those he loved were safe and happy.
Everything you want is right here, if you are strong enough to take it.
Naruto refused to back down from a challenge.
"I'll take everything and more, believe it!"
The fire coursing from the seal shuddered, then surged, and Naruto heard one last thing before it swept him up and burned what had been away.
I'm counting on it you disgusting flesh-bag.
Within the cage, the formless entity that the mortals of this world called the Kyuubi felt a surge of satisfaction. It wasn't much, limited as he was by this damnable seal, but the willing cooperation of his container had allowed him to slip the smallest fragment of his soul free of the accursed trap. It would merge with the pathetic monkey, strengthen him enough to survive. By its very nature, as a part of what was to be sealed, it would weaken the bindings.
It might take a few centuries before the fragment grew strong enough to destabilize the seal and allow the Kyuubi to leave this bothersome world, but that was nothing to an immortal.
It would be free soon enough.
O0O
"Tch, pathetic. How that demon ever thought it could be a ninja...I guess without its chakra, the fox is just a useless animal."
Iruka stared at the unmoving body that lay on the ground. Naruto had given his life for him, and now he couldn't even get up and avenge his death. He tried to push himself off the ground, but his arms would barely move, he felt weaker by the moment as more blood seeped out of his wounds. He was going to die.
Mizuki casually took out a kunai and strolled forward.
"Well you were a decent partner, even if you were an idiot, so I'll kill you quickly."
"S-Shut up!"
The ash blond man froze in his tracks, slowly turning to the brat who'd been dead seconds before. Iruka could barely see anymore, his vision rimmed in black, but he saw enough.
Naruto climbed to his feet, steam pouring off his body as it warped and twisted. The hole in his chest filled in with a sucking sound, leaving unmarked flesh. His eyes darkened to a blood red that gleamed in the moonlight as if lit with an inner fire. His fingers became claws, his teeth turned to fangs. Strange patterns of ruddy light crept across the exposed skin.
The boy screamed, his voice as warped as his body, with strange under and overtones turning it into an unearthly roar.
"MIZUKI....I'll Kill You!"
Iruka could only watch as the boy who a day ago couldn't have fought off a genin smashed into Mizuki like a battering ram, claws and teeth ripping apart flesh like tissue.
It wasn't enough of course. Traitor or not, Mizuki was still a chuunin, and not a bad one. Surprise had let Naruto get in far more strikes than anyone could have expected, but soon the larger man threw the child flying across the clearing and into the trunk of a thick tree. He followed it up with a half dozen kunai and a handful of shuriken, turning the blond into a pincushion.
Naruto climbed back to his feet. His eyes still burned with rage, but there was something else now. They wandered, as if the boy was tracking something that the other two couldn't see. For a moment, he seemed poised to leap at Mizuki once again, then winced and clutched as his head.
Mizuki bared his teeth in a feral sneer.
"What's the matter, demon? Do you actually care about this loser? Maybe I should make you watch while I kill him, just like I had to watch you kill my family!"
Mizuki started towards Iruka once more, but Naruto's head snapped down to glare at him.
"Shut up, bastard! Now BURN!"
The forest rang like a bell. Hoarfrost covered everything in sight as the plants for yards around Naruto collapsed into rot and decay. The air shimmered, peeled back, and showed glimpses of madness and horror. Every hair on Iruka's head stood straight as the earth trembled beneath him and the dying trees groaned in agony. His chest clenched and he could taste bile spewing into his mouth and freezing as it ran down his chin.
Mizuki disappeared in an explosion of fire and blood.
Then fire burst through Naruto's skin, melting away flesh that healed moments later as the child screamed in agony. He collapsed to the ground sobbing in pain.
The black that had been creeping into Iruka's vision surged up and dragged him down, and he knew no more.
O0O
Hiruzen Sarutobi, Third Hokage of The Village Hidden in the Leaves, the God of Shinobi, frowned as a tiny sliver of his irritation leaked through into his countenance.
Two thirds of the elite ninja securing the scene flinched as a wave of unnatural terror swept through them.
The clearing in training ground eight was a disaster. The grass within it and many of the surrounding trees had rotted away into slop, which had then frozen solid and was now slowly melting to fill the air with the stench of decay. The few trees that remained were covered in cracks and missing half their limbs from the wave of cold that had frozen the water within them.
That wasn't even thinking of the three ninja laid out in various states of damage while the medics attended to them. Though unconscious, Naruto seemed physically unharmed from the affair, whatever healing his status as Jinchuuriki offered apparently offsetting the horrific injuries Sarutobi had seen through his tomegane no jutsu. Iruka would live, though it would take months for the man to regain full function.
Mizuki was a pile of burnt meat that the medics were carefully packing away for transport to a clean room for study.
Beside him, a young ANBU blurred out of a shunshin already kneeling. Sarutobi didn't bother turning around, he'd been tracking the man's chakra for the last ten minutes.
"Report, Tenzo, exactly what sort of chakra did this?"
For the first time in all the years Sarutobi had known the man, Tenzo hesitated before giving his report. It was enough to turn the older shinobi's head.
"I...don't know, Hokage-sama."
Hiruzen stared hard at the ANBU. It had been a formality, having the wood user check the lingering auras of the area for demonic taint. He hadn't been expecting a surprise on that count, for what else but the power of the bijuu would originate from a Jinchuuriki and have effects such as this.
This was...disturbing.
"What have you discovered then?" he asked, turning back to look at the clearing again in light of this new information.
"The Jinchuuriki feels strongly of the demon's chakra, but it is...changed, as if it was blended to the host's power rather than replacing it."
Hiruzen nodded. That was unusual to be sure, but it could easily be a development of the fuuinjutsu Minato had devised. Nobody in the village knew its full set of functions, only that it had been the masterwork of the Yondaime. A blending might mitigate the usually corrosive effects experienced by the host, or perhaps it was even meant to slowly destroy the imprisoned beast.
"But the remainder of the clearing has very little of that mixture. The decay is laced with secondary emissions from space-time techniques."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed as he gave the clearing yet another look. That made a degree of sense. Spatial distortions could cause unintended effects if cast improperly, he still remembered the bills young Minato had run up while developing his Hiraishin. And there was a standing budget for dealing with the fallout of failed Summoning Jutsu. But here…
Space-Time ninjutsu were not toyed with. The slightest mistake could kill the user and everyone around them. Nobody could even begin to access the slightest of them without and countless background checks to ensure they were both capable of using them correctly and mentally stable enough to be trusted with them.
And Naruto had certainly not made use of any such thing. All he had done was yell, and then nearly die.
It was going to be a long week it seemed.
"Tenzo, have the investigators finish up and then secure the scene, transfer the patients to the secure ward of the hospital and have them isolated until we can get individual testimony. And coordinate with the academy, have the recent graduates take a week off while we sort this out and review Mizuki's files, I don't want any potentially compromised students moving into the force."
The young man bowed his head again and blurred into the blinding speed of Shunshin, his parting words hanging behind him.
"Hai, Hokage-sama."
O0O
The Konoha Hospital had been designed with three main concerns.
Foremost, it was designed for security. Its central location buried it behind the full security measures of the village, and its thick, heavily reinforced walls were designed to protect both the wounded Konoha Ninja and the medical research carried out within.
As a side benefit, they also worked to contain any dangerous but wounded prisoners or test subjects.
The second concern had been research. In the constant low grade conflict that served as 'peace' between the villages and the nations they lived in symbiosis with, new techniques and injuries were almost as common as the ever more complex and deadly poisons. The Konoha hospital staff spent much of their time researching new treatments and counters to the steady stream of strange illnesses and injuries that befell ninja in the field.
The third concern had been actual treatment of the injured, which the hospital performed without fuss or ceremony.
Naruto had been left in one of the secure rooms used to treat potentially dangerous patients, not that he knew or cared, and spent the half hour after waking trying to open the door, the window or failing that annoy the staff into letting him out. None of it had done much good.
Then he'd seen his reflection in a mirror and gotten distracted.
His eyes were what first made him pause. They seemed to be lit from within, as if there was a fire behind them. The lines on his face had changed as well, growing dark and thick. He trailed a finger across one and then pulled it back to stare at the blood beading on the now razor nail. Those had scratched up the window frames too, when he got particularly frustrated.
What had happened when he took hold of that power? He closed his eyes and tried to force himself to remember....
He remembered a lot of pain. Whatever the Kyuubi had done had burned worse than anything he'd ever felt before. And he'd seen things, impossible things that made no sense. He shook his head, he remembered the voice, remembered it offering him everything.
And he remembered his promise. The words sprang unbidden to his lips again.
"I'll take everything and more, believe it."
He grinned, revealing teeth noticeably sharper than they'd been the day before. Even if he did look weird he'd make good on that promise.
He turned back to the door. He was the future Hokage of Konohagakure, and some stupid door wasn't going to stop him. He looked speculatively at the bloody fingernail, maybe if he channeled some chakra....
A smirk spread across his face as with a tiny pang of heat, his finger tips and nails flowed together into hard, sharp claws.
Alright you stupid door, he thought, time to move aside, Uzumaki Naruto coming through!
As if in response, the door reached out and smacked him in the face.
O0O
"Oi, what was that Jii-san? That's my face you're hitting!"
Ibiki kept his face carefully blank as he stepped into the room after the Hokage and took two steps to the side. His assistant followed him, stepping to the other side of the doorway before becoming so perfectly still that even Ibiki's eyes wanted to slide off him.
Good, Taro was getting better.
Most of his attention was on the rest of the room of course, cataloging everything and everyone inside it without any need for conscious input. Bed unmade, equipment undamaged, minor damage to the window and door frames from what appeared to be claws.
The claws were easily apparent on what looked like the Jinchuuriki, which they hadn't been a week ago when the last monthly observer had turned in his report. Potentially worrying. Possibly a progression of the Yondaime's Fuuinjutsu, possibly not. Either way, they seemed to melt back into more natural fingers even as he watched.
His eyes flicked over the rest of what might be the boy, most of which was near enough to the reports to be inconsequential. Shorter than average, and showing the potential for a stocky build, but thin, very low body fat and above average muscle for his age and peer group. No shirt, from the reports it had probably been burned after examination. Orange pants that were in decent repair, if not pristine. Standard thick soled sandals. No weapons or equipment pouches, no signs of concealed weapons.
The face though, drew the eye. The cheek marks were darker than the image on file, and thicker, solid bars instead of lines. The eyes seemed to shine unnaturally bright. His eyes also caught the sharp teeth that flashed as what might not be the Jinchuuriki insulted the Hokage.
That insult was in perfect keeping with the psychological profile. Either this was indeed the Jinchuuriki, or the bijuu was smart enough to imitate well.
Ibiki was a pessimist.
He listened carefully as what looked like the Jinchuuriki gave its story to the Hokage. The tone, inflections, vocabulary and pronunciation...it was all in keeping with the files. The gestures too, the subject even seemed surprised when scratching the back of its head resulted in bloody fingers and pain.
It wasn't until the subject began described its supposed meeting with the Kyuubi that anything unexpected happened. The potential child frowned, shook its head, and then suddenly shifted to look at Taro. One finger rose up to point rudely.
"Oi! What's with that face you asshole! You wanna fight, huh? I'm talking here!"
Ibiki split his focus to examine Taro. His assistant remained as stone-faced as he'd been through the entire session, as everyone in the department was trained to. It wasn't a perfect mask, and Ibiki could see the flaws of posture, the lapses of control that showed how much Taro wanted to attack the subject. He'd have to correct that later.
But the subject should not be able to notice. Whether it remained the Jinchuuriki or was the beast, neither should have the knowledge to read those markers. Interesting.
Carefully, Ibiki sculpted his own posture, shifting his face and body into a similarly combative stance and relaxing the rigid control that let eyes slide over him. The subject did not respond, did not even seem to see him as it continued to yell at Taro while the Hokage chuckled.
Ibiki tried a variety of different sets of markers, projecting fear, anger, happiness, even lust. The subject didn't react at all. He was about to try another set, by this point simmering to know what was going on, when the subject's attention suddenly snapped to him.
"What! Where did you come from? You wanna ask something? Speak up!"
Ibiki blinked. He hadn't been projecting curiosity, he'd been about to try jealousy. The subject wasn't reacting to external markers at all.
Before he could explore further, the Hokage finally grew tired of the interruption and spoke up.
"Calm down Naruto, you can yell at my subordinates later. For now, tell me about this offer the demon made."
"Eh? Sure sure Jii-san. So then it said I was..."
Ibiki relaxed back into a default blank posture, carefully memorizing the subject's account for later dissection. He'd have to pull out the records on demonic bargains and summon contracts and check for parallels, but on the surface it sounded plausible.
Plausible but worrying. The subject hadn't described any specific terms, simply an offer of 'everything you want' and a promise of taking 'everything and more'. That was absurdly open ended.
After the subject finished, the Hokage gave it some placating words and told it to go home in the morning. Ibiki itched to remind the older man of the danger, but remembered his place. Before they could leave the room though, the subject spoke up again.
"Hey wait, Jii-san. I learned the technique like that bastard said. Do I pass?"
The Hokage turned, smiling as if he'd been waiting for the question, and told the subject to demonstrate. The subject shoved its hands into a reasonable approximation of the final seal of the taiju kage bunshin technique and frowned in concentration.
Every hair on Ibiki's neck stood up, the air in the room seemed to shimmer, and with a hissing cloud of steam something that was absolutely not a Shadow Clone seemed to twist into reality beside the subject.
"See, see!" The subject said, pointing at the doppelganger as if anyone in the room could have missed it. "Totally better than that stupid regular clone anyway, so do I pass?"
Silence stretched for almost a minute before the Hokage replied with a kindly tone Ibiki could tell was at least half forced.
"Yes, Naruto, you pass."
O0O
Naruto frowned down at the directions scrawled on the scrap of paper Jii-san had given him along with the hitae-ate now looped around his neck. They'd lead him to one of the northern residential districts, not high class but way above the places he usually stayed, and the funny looks he was getting were starting to get annoying. He nearly scratched at his head again before remembering his weird nail problem and stopping.
He still wasn't sure exactly what was going on, Jii-san had said something about how killing that traitor bastard meant he wasn't just a kid anymore, and something else about how Naruto's mom had had a house here or something. He hadn't been very clear though, just given him the directions and told him to take his hari...heri...something seriously.
Naruto hadn't understood much beyond him having a house now, which was awesome. The second he'd realized that was what the old man was talking about he'd suddenly discovered that he wanted it more than he could describe. The sensation had been incredibly distracting, and he'd nearly tried to snatch the paper from Jii-san's hand before he realized what he was doing.
He still felt it, the burning ache of want that seemed to be constantly growing under his skin. It was getting really annoying as he kept going in circles trying to find the place. None of the property codes were sequential, for security reasons, and he'd long since lost the thread of codes listed in the directions, so he simply wandered around the streets checking for the number at the bottom of the list.
"four seven eight nine six three...eight seven nine six two eight...man, I could be training now or something..."
But he couldn't, he knew, that damned itching desire was way too distracting to focus on anything but finding his new house.
Finally he found it, a small property tucked at the outer edge of the district, on the edge of one of the patches of undeveloped forest that bordered the walls.
Mine.
The thought seemed to hit him like a punch in the gut, and he rushed to the door. The directions had said something about a seal...there. He sliced his thumb with a fingernail and pressed it into the little squiggly circle and a key popped out of the wall and into his hand. The key was jammed into the lock and he slammed the sliding door open and rushed inside.
Suddenly, all the need that had burned in him since the night before faded away, and he found himself standing in a plain room, in a plain house. Sure it was his and all, but that was it. The itch was gone.
Weird he thought, and then put it out of his mind. Now he could actually concentrate.
The house, he decided after wandering around a bit, was pretty cool. It wasn't very big, but there was a nice room on one side he could use for training, and another in the back he could sleep in. There was a decent kitchen opposite the training room with plenty of space for ramen, a nice bathroom, and a weird courtyard in the middle where he could put his plants. The courtyard even had a decent sized bathing pool at the foot of some boulders that looked like a hot-spring, though the water was cold. The training room had some weird door in one corner of the floor, and another squiggly seal thing, but it didn't do anything when he put a bloody thumb on it so he'd ask Jii-san about it later.
He squatted on the roof to think. He'd have to ask Jii-san about rent and stuff, and he had to move his things in somehow. It would take a lot of trips to carry everything him...self...
He smacked himself in the face, then made a dozen shadow clones and charged off towards his apartment. He felt like an idiot, forgetting his amazing new jutsu like that. The clones could carry his stuff while he dealt with the stupid landlady hag. He could probably have used them to find the place too. Then he could have been done with this ages ago and gone to the training fields.
He caught a scent in the air and veered off, letting his clones move ahead to the apartment. He could already feel that itch building again, this time calling out for a more familiar desire.
Stupid landlady hag could wait, Uzumaki Naruto had an incredibly important meeting with Ichiraku Ramen.
O0O
Iruka sank gratefully into a chair in the meeting room at the top of the Hokage's residence tower. It was a small room, made smaller by the dozen unattached jounin crowded into the seats and the Hokage and his department heads sitting in a line along one wall. Iruka carefully set the package he'd picked up earlier that morning to the side and hoped the meeting would go quickly and he could go see how Naruto was doing. He thought about trying to make small talk with Yuuhi-san, he'd made her acquaintance years ago, but she was recently promoted to Jounin and seemed caught up talking to Sarutobi Asuma. So instead he sat quietly and waited until Hatake-san finally arrived and the Hokage began the meeting.
"After reviewing Mizuki's files and a closer examination of the students themselves, we have twenty four graduates in need of a team. With Uzumaki Naruto's quick action to terminate the traitor and his acquisition of the kage bunshin no jutsu, I have decided to promote him as well. This gives us twenty five genin for assignment. Now, do any of you have suggestions on team formations?"
Iruka tried to keep quiet as the various jounin around the room started arguing about why they deserved the best of the class. Technically he was here to offer advice based on his understanding of the graduate's abilities, but none of the other ninja in the room seemed particularly interested in the opinion of a mere chuunin. It was annoying, being forced to hobble up the tower stairs on his still injured leg just to be ignored while the various instructors squabbled like children over teams that were obvious disasters in the making.
"Hmm, Umino-san, it seems you'd like to say something?" Said the Hokage. Iruka tried not to flinch at being called out.
"Er..." Damnit, he hated this sort of thing. It was fine to talk to a crowd of children, fun even, but these were his superiors. He doubted they'd be happy to be called out on overlooking things. Still the Hokage had 'suggested' he speak. "Well..."
He took a deep breath.
"Trying to recreate the Ino-Shika-Cho won't work. Not as well as you hope anyway."
There was the expected uproar until the Hokage silenced it with a single glance and a wave of his pipe. "Explain, chuunin."
Iruka scratched at his nose. There had been rebuke in that, but not as much as he'd expected. Still, better to be careful. "Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji are all capable students, and they do well in team sparring using their family arts." He could see a proud grin on Akimichi Chouza's face and smiled back at him, then went on. "What they don't have is cohesion. They can cooperate when pushed, but they don't have any natural synergy."
There was some grumbling by the gathered jounin, but the Hokage just waved his pipe again to quiet them and gave Iruka a level look. "And are there any other issues we should be aware of before committing to any team formations, Umino-san."
"Er..." Iruka thought back through the other teams he'd heard proposed, most seemed workable if not perfect, none of the students would fit together perfectly. But one stood out as particularly troublesome. "Yuuhi-san asked for Kiba, Hinata, and Shino, I don't think that would work well either." At the Hokage's nod he continued. "All three of them are quite advanced in taijutsu and tracking, but none of them have much talent for ninjutsu outside their clan techniques. As a group, they would be very powerful at close range and excellent at retrieval, but they would have no mid or long range abilities to balance that. Also..." He paused for a moment before pushing on. "Hinata is very withdrawn, Kiba is very aggressive, and Shino is almost entirely passive. I don't believe they would be able to maintain a healthy working relationship."
There was more grumbling, but the Hokage was smiling gently, and the discussions went on, this time with the instructor taking an active part.
Eventually, the problem of numbers was brought up. There were twenty five students, which left one student without a team. Several of the department heads spoke up then, pushing for some potential recruits to be assigned to their units directly. Iruka carefully thought about each request, and pointed out the files of various promising students for the fields, but that just caused more problems.
Three students would likely excel in the specialized departments rather than the more general fieldwork, one in the medical corps, one in the cryptanalysis division, and one in the infiltration division.
Which still left one student the odd man out.
Then Iruka saw Morino Ibiki sit forward and felt his blood run cold. That division was no place for children.
"I'll take Uzumaki. He shows promise."
The room exploded in protests, almost evenly divided between protesting any advancement for the blond boy and protesting sending a rookie genin in to the Torture and Interrogation unit.
"Quiet," the Hokage snapped, smoke curling around his wizened face as he turned a frown across the room, "Ibiki, explain."
O0O
Iruka sighed and worked his shoulders. He hadn't been injured this badly in a long time, and if he'd remembered how much of a pain crutches were he wouldn't have tried to track down his student so soon. Still, he was already here and might as well get it over with before some iryonin noticed him and started yelling.
The district number alone had given Iruka a decent idea of what to expect from the house Naruto had apparently inherited from his mysterious parents. From the front it looked like a fairly typical property for a successful ninja with few vices to drain their pay. Well-made and comfortable, but not particularly large.
He hadn't expected to see two dozen Naruto's swarming around it with their arms full of junk, all jabbering excitedly at each-other. He'd heard that the boy had managed to perform the technique, but this sort of casual utility was extremely uncommon.
"Oi! Iruka-Sensei!" called one of the clones as it noticed him standing on the street. And the next thing Iruka knew he was surrounded by a swarm of blond children in a rather painful group hug.
"Ah, Naruto-kun, I'm glad to see you as well but..."
One of the Narutos seemed to realize his discomfort and promptly released him, shoving at a few of the others until they got the idea and sullenly went back to their piles of junk. Iruka was left with what he assumed was the original.
"Thank you, Naruto, It would be pretty silly to get sent to the hospital again eh?" Iruka quickly waved his hand as he saw concern spark in the blonde's eyes. "No, no, I'm fine, really, just a little joke."
He felt his smile grow a bit forced as silence stretched out between them. Iruka honestly wasn't sure how to go on. He'd made his peace with the knowledge that the boy in front of him wasn't the thing that killed his parents, but that didn't make it easier to speak with someone he'd spent so long hating.
At a loss for something to say, he pulled the package from under his arm and held it out, forcing down a wince at the way Naruto's face took on a look of surprise. "Here, I...figured I owed you one, since you lost yours saving me and all." he said as Naruto slit the twine with his fingernail and pulled open the brown paper. The blonde's face blossomed into a gigantic grin and he pulled the orange and black coat over his arms, flailing a bit as he realized it was too big.
Iruka's smile turned genuine, even when Naruto muttered a number of words he probably shouldn't have known. "I figured you'd have to grow into it, since you're going to be Hokage one day eh?"
Naruto had finally managed to find the cord that pulled the sleeves up short enough to free his hands, and Iruka promptly felt himself grabbed into another hug, though this time his ribs didn't start creaking. His hand hovered in the air a moment before he sighed and let it fall onto Naruto's had, ruffling the already messy hair further. For a moment, he considered warning the boy about his new assignment. Ibiki had gotten his way, though once the Hokage had forbidden any talk of dismissing Naruto entirely the protests had all but vanished. Very few people seemed interested in having a Jinchuuriki as a subordinate, especially one with such consistently poor grades.
He decided against it. Even if he did like the kid, he wasn't supposed to show favoritism, and even Ibiki would surely moderate himself if there was a child around.
Right?
O0O
The ruin had been old long before the founding of the Hidden Villages had even been contemplated. The scrolls he had poured over, carefully memorizing each section before it crumbled to dust from the relentless march of centuries had told of fantastical guardian monsters. Strange puppets of bone and porcelain that healed as if alive.
That had...intrigued him.
He had journeyed far, spending months pushing his tireless body forward across wastelands that would kill those still bound by mortal limits. He had found new lands, strange lands where chakra was unheard of and others where seals wreathed great ziggurats that soared above the peasant fields like stairways to the heavens.
Sometimes he had paused to study these strange people, or to collect particularly interesting specimens for later conversion. But always he pushed on eventually, moving for the prize that would allow him to finally achieve the perfection of his art.
And finally, he had found it.
The guardians had been everything the legends claimed and more. Faster than lightning, they danced through the air like a feather in the breeze, strange bladed limbs crackling with some unknown power and lashing filaments that burned to ash whatever they touched whirling about them. They avoided his attacks as if they were wraiths, wraiths of bone.
He had actually found himself pressed, before he destroyed them.
The ruin itself was impregnable, a hulking mass of the same bone white material as the guardians, and every attempt to penetrate it failed, any minor damage he had made simply repairing itself instantly.
But the remains of the guardians...he picked up one of the shards of porcelain that remained of the construct. It was feather light in his hand, but he knew that it was harder than steel, cautiously, he extended a single thread of chakra and touched it to the shard. It seemed to warm, to warp. Slowly, it began to grow.
If he had still possessed the ability, Sasori of the Red Sands would have smiled. With this, he would truly be perfect.