Green Sun Hokage (Exalted/Naruto)
- Thread starter vali
- Start date
You saw nothing.
Sidereals, sidereals everywhere!
Or are you telling me that the first world war didn't go wrong, and that they didn't do it a second time?
Or are you telling me that the first world war didn't go wrong, and that they didn't do it a second time?
A brief preview for the next chapter. Not sure I'll actually use this one, but it's funny, so here you go:
I'm On A Boat
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Crowned With Fury
Sometimes Malfeas is on a boat. It would seem that, banished from the world, laid low, wrongfully imprisoned and mutilated, that the sea, and the rocks, and the ships have forgotten his dominion over them. They would attempt to keep him from being on a boat. But so long as there is a drop of Essence left in Malfeas, the Devil Tyrant will not concede. He is, in fact, on a boat, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Whenever some event would inflict a penalty on the continued operation of a sailing vessel that the Infernal is currently on, they may activate this charm to make the penalty inapplicable so long as he remains upon the vessel in question. In doing so, he must shout at the source of the penalty, some kind of proclamation of his spacial existence upon the boat.
For example, were an iceberg to tear a hole into the side of the Infernal's vessel, he could shout "I'm on this boat, ************!" at the iceberg, and while the boat would still bear a crippling hole on its side, it would not impair the function of the boat so long as the Infernal remained upon it. It would remain buoyant, and maneuver correctly, and so forth.
It is possible for an Infernal to dock a perfectly operational ship, now composed entirely of a half dozen splintered planks and a scrap of torn cloth, held together only by his spite and stubbornness, only to step off of it, and have its remains collapse into nothing.
A second purchase at Essence 4+ allows the Infernal to convince everyone and everything around him that he is on a boat, even if he isn't. This adds an 8 mote surcharge onto the regular cost of this charm, and requires that they be committed. So long as they remain so, the Infernal is, for all intents and purposes, sailing on a Large Yacht (see the Scroll of Kings). He may even store cargo in this mostly fictional vessel, and bring others with him, as his authority convinces them that they too are also on the boat that the Infernal is clearly on as well.
(Charm source: Here)
I'm On A Boat
Cost: 1m; Mins: Essence 3; Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Combo-OK, Obvious
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Crowned With Fury
Sometimes Malfeas is on a boat. It would seem that, banished from the world, laid low, wrongfully imprisoned and mutilated, that the sea, and the rocks, and the ships have forgotten his dominion over them. They would attempt to keep him from being on a boat. But so long as there is a drop of Essence left in Malfeas, the Devil Tyrant will not concede. He is, in fact, on a boat, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Whenever some event would inflict a penalty on the continued operation of a sailing vessel that the Infernal is currently on, they may activate this charm to make the penalty inapplicable so long as he remains upon the vessel in question. In doing so, he must shout at the source of the penalty, some kind of proclamation of his spacial existence upon the boat.
For example, were an iceberg to tear a hole into the side of the Infernal's vessel, he could shout "I'm on this boat, ************!" at the iceberg, and while the boat would still bear a crippling hole on its side, it would not impair the function of the boat so long as the Infernal remained upon it. It would remain buoyant, and maneuver correctly, and so forth.
It is possible for an Infernal to dock a perfectly operational ship, now composed entirely of a half dozen splintered planks and a scrap of torn cloth, held together only by his spite and stubbornness, only to step off of it, and have its remains collapse into nothing.
A second purchase at Essence 4+ allows the Infernal to convince everyone and everything around him that he is on a boat, even if he isn't. This adds an 8 mote surcharge onto the regular cost of this charm, and requires that they be committed. So long as they remain so, the Infernal is, for all intents and purposes, sailing on a Large Yacht (see the Scroll of Kings). He may even store cargo in this mostly fictional vessel, and bring others with him, as his authority convinces them that they too are also on the boat that the Infernal is clearly on as well.
(Charm source: Here)
I'm never quite sure how obvious all these references I make are. For example, someone caught that Shadowman made the garden of Eden. But I've put bible references all over the place, and yet this is the first time someone has mentioned catching them. Same thing for all the foreshadowing. I keep expecting someone to guess the ending, because honestly at this point all the clues are there, but it hasn't happened yet. Really, it all seems gratuitous to me.
Thanks for the feedback though. If I do use that charm, I'll make sure to keep it subtle.
Damn it Vali, why must you make such an utterly stupid, hilarious, and strangely useful charm?
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
So, is Sasori one of Autobot's Exalted?
Emerald Oracle
Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force
- Location
- The Else
I want that charm. I'm almost always more in favor of pure Solars as opposed to other solaroids but damn if I wouldn't play an Infernal JUST FOR THAT CHARM.
Chapter 26: Where Gods Die
Chapter 26: Where Gods Die
I know it seems this story has left the reservation, plot-wise, but we're actually just doing a very Exalted take on the Sasuke Retrieval arc. We'll return to a more standard Naruto fare soon enough.
————————————
The first thing noticed by a visitor to the city of Cinder, by the Sea of Coals, was that it was hot.
Wave had been hot, but that was a wet heat, the heat of sunlight and marshes, a heat that clung to the skin. This heat was the heat of the desert; pitiless, arid, unrelenting. There was no night here to leech away the heat, no ocean breeze, only an oven of burning sand and cinder.
The houses lived in by the ghosts of Konoha were superfluous. Though ghosts in the Underworld possessed physical bodies, such bodies took no damage from the elements. Houses were things of convenience, the leftover habits of the once-living. But not here, for here, the many cinder-block houses and high walls were a necessity.
A wind blew here, steadily and endlessly, lifting up specks of black sand that glowed cherry-red with heat, scouring the earth. Those ghosts that walked about in the open did so wearing vests of bone, which they wore from the moment they left their houses until the moment they returned. Naruto and Neji stood at the edge of the mushroom-line, where the sand and wind were still weak enough for the sturdy fungi to grow.
"I can protect myself from the heat," Neji said. A bead of sweat trickled down from his forehead, evaporating before it reached his cheek. "A moment."
He knelt beside the river of black sand, his face turned aside so that no specks could burn him. Then he plunged the index finger of his left hand, glowing red with chakra, into the flow.
Oh spirit of the flame, he wrote with the glowing tip of his finger, This humble servant of heaven beseeches you. Take this pain, and this chakra, as my offering. In return, I ask only that you spare me your strength.
His anima of red light wrapped itself around him, then folded inward again. And though he held his left hand apart, and in obvious pain, he breathed in the burning air deeply and without issue.
Do you have some charm for traveling the desert, or dealing with heat?
~Sure do.~
Will you teach it to me?
~Nope.~
"One moment," Naruto said to Neji. "Something I need to do."
Neji sat down beneath a giant mushroom, the tension and exhaustion easing from his face. "Not a problem," he muttered.
Naruto drank deeply from his water bottle, then settled down into a lotus position and looked out across the scoured plain.
~Nope. Not going to happen.~
Watch me.
He could feel the hot wind beating against him. The occasional pinprick of fire, extinguishing itself against his skin. And before him, there stretched the greatest desert he had ever seen, an expanse of black, above which floated a haze of red sparks, all flowing, spinning, endlessly clock-wise, like the burning wheel of the Sharingan.
He could feel the power of this place. The immensity of it, pinning him against the black stone. He closed his eyes, and sank into meditation, feeling his chakra inside him, the pitiless darkness resonating with the burning immensity outside of him.
~What are you doing? How are you doing this?~
It reminded him of the words of the Hokage, when he spoke of what it meant to belong to Konoha. To surrender his fear, his selfishness, and become part of something greater, something more than just the sum of its parts. He let the heat of the wind sink into him, and rather than burn it felt right, like a scouring flame that burnt away weakness and frailty, a furnace that devoured all impurity. He could feel something inside him stir, a seed of the infinite, rising up to fill him.
~Oh FUCK NO. You are NOT cluttering up your soul with HER shit.~
He felt Shadowman trying, and failing, to obstruct him. This was different than anything he had grasped before, and Shadowman, for all his power, could not even conceive of what he did. He let the storm of chakra fill him, burn him, purify him, uplift him into something transcendent, the desolation that surrounded him mirrored in his soul.
Nothing to say?
~…~
I grow stronger. You grow weaker. Get used to it.
The heat meant nothing to him now, and the wind-blown sand was no obstruction to his vision. He opened his eyes and stood. "I'm ready now, Neji." He glanced over at Neji's hand, and said in surprise "It's better already?"
"You spent several hours meditating," Neji said. "And I am proficient with the mystic palm jutsu."
"Oh! Sorry about that. Hope you weren't bored."
Neji blinked. "It is no time at all, Naruto. Not all ninja share your driving conviction."
"Oh that's right. Hey, if you ever need a break, just let me know."
"Go as fast as you please," Neji said. "I do not wish you to be held back on my account."
"You sure?"
"I am… fanning the flames of my Youthfulness," Neji said stiffly. And with that he set off at a brisk jog.
…
The first thing noticed by a Naruto when he came to the city of Cinder, by the Sea of Coals, was the sand-skiff.
It was a long, snake-like boat, over fifty meters from bow to stern, and a mere four meters wide. It had two keels, like a catamaran, and each keel was made from the spinal column of some titanic snake or worm. Both keel-spines were armored, with segments of black jade pounded into the bone to protect it from the elements. The boat that sat atop these keels was a thing of patchwork and tinkering, a cannibal that must have consumed parts from have a dozen other boats. It had ribs of black and red jade, every inch of which had been cracked and poorly-repaired at some point in the past, such that no rib looked like any other. In several places the ribs were missing entirely, and had been replaced with fused bone.
Instead of planks, the ships hull was formed from more flexible spinal bones, around which were wrapped necrotic, un-living flesh. Huge, serrated crystalline teeth protruded from behind the hull, such that the ship looked like the bottom-half of a snake, crossed with a hedgehog. Three masts rose from the ship, from which sails woven from the leaves of the red vine that grew on the ceiling had been used. The majority of the leaves continued to glow, casting a baleful light across the whole of the ship. Perhaps forty or so ghosts could be seen on deck, moving listlessly about.
Naruto marched straight up the bone gangplank and onto the black, undead flesh that formed the ships deck. A few ghosts took notice of him, and one crew member armed with a spear of bone and crystal tooth started towards him.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted. "Where's the captain?"
The whole crew of the ship slowed to a halt, every man turning to watch.
"I want to hire you guys," Naruto shouted. "Who do I talk to for that?" He turned to Neji, who had walked up behind him, and in a quieter voice said "Hey Neji, you ever hired a boat or something before? How does this work?"
"The Pearl is not a passenger vessel," one of the crew said quietly as he stepped forward. He was a tall, thin ghost, with skin like boiled leather over knotted muscles, and penetrating eyes. He looked more like a mummy than a man, fittingly enough. "We go where the hunt leads us."
"You guys hunt giant snake monsters with crystal teeth?"
"The boat has no passengers," he said insistently.
"We can pay," Naruto told him, and he shifted his form to that of a living man. Instantly every ghost on the ship perked up in attention. "We pay in blood. In return, take us to the Mote. You know where that is?" Naruto fumbled at his pocket, and pulled out a map.
"I know of the Mote," the ghost said mournfully. "But we can take no passengers. The sea is no place for the living, and this hunt is our fate alone."
Naruto gave Neji a nudge.
"I know much of fate," Neji said, even as he dropped his own disguise. He flared his chakra, and the glowing red sign of his order appeared on his forehead. "If any should bear your fate alongside you for a while, it is us."
The ghost stared at them both for a long moment, at a loss for words. At last, he said "Fare is seven drops apiece. I will tell captain Jones. We cast off at the end of the hour." Then he turned, and walked slowly back down below decks.
…
The ship did not sail so much as swim like a titanic undead snake through the sea of sand. The many long spinal columns undulated from side to side, driven by the undead muscles that made up the majority of the ship. The crew were all strapped to the sides of the ship, holding harpoons of bone and crystal and staring out across the endless expanse of black dunes. They were moving fast, the long segmented ship-body whipping across the sea of sand, leaving huge billowing clouds of burning-black in its wake.
Though Neji had lashed himself to the boat with every rope he could get a hand on, he was still clutching the ship in a white-knuckled grip. "Only three hours or so," he shouted over the roar of the wind. A moment later he spat back out a mouthful of black sand. "Three hours!"
Naruto leaned over the railing, eyes alight, hair a wild mess, staring out across the expanse. "It's so fast!" he shouted. "This is the second fastest I've ever gone."
A loud cracking noise came from deeper in the Pearl, and Neji swore.
"Don't worry about it," Naruto shouted. He looked down on Neji, grinning from ear to ear. "Whatever happens, we'll be fine."
They topped a dune, and in the distance, a simply monstrous worm could be seen. It was several hundred meters from end to end and big enough to swallow the whole of the ship they were on, with coal-black skin and teeth of glittering crystal. Though it could not see the vessel, it must have sensed them somehow, for it forced its head down into the sand, and burrowed down into the burning sand.
Neji swore again.
…
"Hey Neji, you sure you don't want to look?"
Neji muttered something under his breath. He slowly straightened, clutching the edge of the boat as it whipped from side to side, and peered out across the desert.
"I think that's the Mote," Naruto said. "Not much further."
The desert here was perfectly flat, stretching out to unseen horizons in every direction. The wind here was so strong that the ship, despite abandoning its muscular movements for its sails, was moving faster than ever. A white pillar could be seen in the distance, falling all the way from the distant ceiling to strike the floor of the black desert. It looked like someone had shoved a lance of burning light all the way from Creation, a single sunbeam that pierced the grey roof of the Underworld, and the brilliance of that light put the red sparks of the sea and the ocher glow of the vines to shame.
"The worm" A ghost shouted, and half a dozen others took up the cry.
They'd seen several other worms in their voyage so far. Great, hulking masses of black flesh lying atop the desert, resting like maggots grown weary from their feasting. But where those worms had flesh of ebon-darkness, this one was pale as new-fallen snow, and it was big, over a hundred meters long, a thing that swallowed whales like a snake swallowed mice. It turned towards them, the mass of its pale head questing blindly, then reared up and screamed.
And then for a single moment, the furnace winds were silenced, and every sand-spark that saturated the air jerked in unison, and the whole surface of the deserted lifted upward, and the scream of the worm struck them like a slap, drove from them the hearing of any other sound.
~You should have asked what their cursed fate was BEFORE you joined the crew. Dobe.~
Neji's lips moved, shaping out a resounding fuck.
And at last, Captain Jones emerged. The ancient, grizzled, peg-legged ghost raised an Orichalcum harpoon, shaking it at the white-worm. In response, the huge white worm opened its jaws wide, baring a circle of crystal teeth surrounding the hungry void of its mouth.
And then the echo of the worm's scream, having bounced off the roof of the cavern and returned a dozen long seconds later, hit them, and Naruto realized he could hear again, however faintly.
"Faster!" Jones roared, and the ship heard his voice and obeyed, the great undead muscles of the deck twisted and knotting with new strength beneath their feet. The passive, slack gazes of the ghostly crew were gone, for they stared across the expanse of sand and sparks towards the pale worm with the eager anticipation of hounds.
"Faster!" he said again, as he mounted the helm and seized the wheel. The ship reared up like a snake, the crystal teeth embedded in its sides extending out-wards, then lunged forward.. The worm did the same, racing down-wind to meet them, and the sound of its coming was that of a living landslide, a mountain falling across the forge of god. Hills of burning sand were uprooted into the sky, then flung into their faced by the wind. The captain had time for one last shake of his harpoon, then they passed into the cloud of darkness, red-hot sand peeling away the flesh of the ghosts, stripping the ship's flesh, smoothing the pale bone and sharpening the crystal teeth, pouring over Naruto and Neji like boiling water.
"TURN ASIDE!" Neji shouted, and Naruto could feel the chakra laced into his words, tugging at his soul.
There was no response. The furnace-wind howled. The sailors stared down the glittering cavern of the worm's mouth with religious awe. Crystal teeth rattled and rang like bells, emitting flashes of light as they struck each other. He could see the blind worm-head through the black storm, with its scar tissue like crushed ice, and from that churned flesh grew a thicket of shattered harpoons, shafts thick like a fur of bone.
Neji just vanished, the ropes that had bound him falling slack when he spontaneously ceased to exist. A body-flicker, and emerged from the storm to stand behind the captain, kunai in hand, darting in faster than thought, and the captain was flung backwards, his ghostly flesh in tatters.
Then Neji was at the wheel, and the ship was turning, long writhing coils digging deep into the sand, so deep that the whole ship was listing to the side, turning until the deck was orthogonal the ground.
There was a scream, as the many crystal teeth bound into the ship dug into the flesh of the giant worm, and the hole ship shook. Then with an almost violent contraction it sat upright again.
Naruto opened his Sharingan eyes, and saw everything. He saw every mote of chakra, the spiritual nature of the ghosts that surrounded them, whether it was the embers of the crew or the raging pyre-flames of the captain, saw even a slivered fraction of the future, all laid out before him. Every mystery was carved away, until he knew exactly what he needed to do.
Jones raised his hand to drive his harpoon into Neji's unprotected back, but Naruto was there a moment later, driving his own kunai into Jones. The spirit screamed once, as black fire consumed it, then vanished, the harpoon falling down to rest at Naruto's feet.
"How do you sail this thing!" Neji screamed over the wind, clutching the wheel with both hands.
"Fuck if I know!"
There was a flicker, and Jones reappeared at the front of the ship, his face twisted in a snarl. The whole crew untied their bindings, and raised weapons.
From behind them, there came another roar.
"The Lethe cannot hold me!" Jones roared. "I have slain my worm a thousand times, and it has slain me a thousand more. Our struggle is eternal, and unending! We-"
One of Naruto's shuriken, burning with black fire, struck the captain in the neck. He staggered back, fire burning from inside his eyes, only to be hit by two more shuriken. He gave no cry as the fire consumed him, only stood still as a sentinel, watching them as he burned up from within.
Neji ducked, barely missing a harpoon thrown by one of the crew. Naruto clutched the rail of the ship with one hand, and threw shuriken with the other.
"Spirit killing jutsu's!" Neji screamed. "The captain is too strong to die from anything less!"
~Now would be a good time to learn Life Denying Hate, now wouldn't it? Too bad I won't teach you that.~
Another harpoon wedged itself between the spokes of the wheel, and Neji only barely tore it away in time.
The captain reappeared again, the thin sheen of Lethe-water that clung like dew to his regenerated flesh boiling instantly into a searing white steam. The captain stretched out his arms, and his flesh boiled as a storm of obsidian butterflies poured out. Glass wings, ranging in size from a thump-print to an arms-span across, leaped from his body and took to the air, razor-sharp wings of scarlet-black glass moving hummingbird fast, tearing the whole of the ship apart, slaughtering any crew between Naruto and Neji.
"Behind me!" Neji screamed, and with his one free hand he made a sign.
Naruto clung to Neji's back, even as clouds of obsidian butterflies tore into Neji. But instead of dicing his flesh to ribbons it was Jones who screamed in agony, and was torn to nothing by invisible knives, vanishing again.
There came a second scream of agony, and turning around Naruto watched as the cloud of butterflies passed through worm-flesh like a knife through butter, only for the mass of shattered, razor-sharp magical glass to become caught in the worms flesh. Black ichor poured from the worm, staining its pale flesh, and it raced towards them with a keening cry.
"The ship's coming apart!" Neji shouted, pointing down to the fleshy parts of the ship, where muscles shredded by Jone's magic twitched spasmodically. The whole ship began to shake, as it pulled itself apart from the inside-out.
Jones appeared directly before them. With a burst of speed Naruto seized the captain bodily and flung him into the mouth of the rapidly approaching worm.
"What do I do!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs.
"I don't know!" Neji screamed back. "I don't know!"
Naruto dodged beneath the blow of another crew member, then tore the ghost to pieces with his kunai and fire. A moment later the whole boat lurched, and he was nearly thrown overboard, as the worm bit off the rear-half of the vessel.
There was no question in Naruto's mind now that the ship could feel both fear and pain, for it was going faster somehow, forcing every last bit of power possible from its tortured, ruined flesh.
"I"ll kill the worm!" Naruto shouted. He grabbed the harpoon and leaped from the back of the ship, towards the approaching worm.
~This voyage was probably the best decision you've made in a long time. I can't wait to see how this ends.~
The wind howled about him, black sparks parting around him like water. His anima rose above him and into the sky, a towering inferno of black fire visible for miles around. The harpoon in his hand burned with searing light.
He landed atop the worm, using his chakra to affix his feet to its pale flesh, and plunged the harpoon down. Black fire poured into the worm, eating down into its wounds, devouring the worm and filling Naruto with strength and glee. He drove down deeper, the wound vomiting a black smoke that coated his skin and burned his lungs, deeper, until he hit bone.
The worm bucked, rising high in the air, then plunged downward, swimming down into the black sand. Naruto plunged the harpoon into its flesh one last time, and body-flickered back to the ship.
"The Mote!" Neji shouted, laughing in relief. "We're almost there!" He clutched the wheel with manic intensity, as though to will the ship to hold together for just a little longer.
He could see the tower of white ahead of them, a slender tower like a lighthouse in the sea of sand. He could see the archway that had been carved in the vast structure, and the beginning of the staircase they would take down into the Labyrinth.
Then Jones reappeared yet again, and with a single blow he shattered the ship's wheel.
The red light of Neji's anima exploded around him, as he drove his fist into the captain's form, unmaking him once more.
The ship continued to move forward, but it was without direction, the deck twisting and buckling. And now he could see the worm again, rising out of the sand behind them at the crest of a tsunami, gliding up into the air, its jaw growing to block the whole of the land behind them.
"Body-flicker into the archway," Neji snapped. "Now!"
The jaws of the worm were stretching out above him, encompassing the ship. The fire of his anima poured across crystal teeth, filling the mouth of the monster. His hands moved through the proper seals with desperate haste.
Then the jaws bit down, cutting the ship in half, but he was standing beneath the archway, Neji behind him, safe and sound.
"Fuck!" Naruto gasped.
The broken ship and worm struck the Mote, kicking up a spray of black sand, pulverized flesh, and shards of tooth and bone. The whole Mote rang like a chime with the blow.
Then the wind snatched the debris away, and looking down Naruto could see the worm, dead at their feet, its spine broken by the force of its impact against the Mote.
Neji leaned against the wall, running his hand over the cool white walls, catching his breath. Naruto paced back and forth across the narrow entrance, grinning wildly.
"Stupid worm!" he crowed. "Tried so hard to get us, and what did that get you?" He spun around, and perched at the edge of the archway, looking down on the remains of the worm and ship. "We win again!"
~See how the worm's asshole is kinda orange? You can get high on that shit. It's pretty trippy.~
Captain Jones appeared once more, standing atop the burning sand, the white steam of the Lethe pouring from his immortal flesh. Neji straightened, drawing his kunai, but if the captain noticed them he gave no sign.
"Who the fuck is this guy," Naruto muttered.
"Ghosts are bound to their un-life with fetters," Neji said. "Obsessions that drive them past the bounds of life itself. Most take a week or two to reform though. That he can recover in the space of minutes is rare indeed."
Jones raised his hands, and the shattered, broken pieces of his ship began to reform. The half of the ship swallowed by the worm tore itself free, and was united with the wreckage outside. Then even as they watched, the ship reformed before their eyes.
"Isn't the worm his fetter?" Naruto said. "If it's dead, how can he still be obsessed by it?"
The worm twitched. Then clouds of Lethe steam began to rise from it, as its flesh began knitting back together.
"Oh, fuck this place!" Naruto said. He turned around into the Mote, where a long staircase led down deeper into the Underworld, and began taking the stairs four at a time, Neji right behind him.
…
"So, what is the Labyrinth anyways?" Naruto asked.
They stood at the bottom the great staircase, where even the Mote came to an end, looking out at the cavern of striated black and red stone that lay further on.
Neji shrugged.
~Everything dies, in the end. Even the Sun himself shall die one day, and it is in the Underworld where his soul shall come to rest. Can you guess whose corpse we stand within now? I will give you a clue; this place is the rotting remains of one of my kind. A Yozi.~
The black and red stone seemed to swim before their eyes, swirling round and round. Occasionally, the stone would catch fire and burn, thin wisps of fire igniting and dying.
Naruto glanced over at Neji, then said "We can stop here for a bit, and eat."
"That would be a good idea," Neji said, a touch relieved.
~It is the nature of my kind that we were not born, for we fashioned ourselves before death was first conceived, and so we can never die. Not truly. If slain, we change our names, leave behind a corpse, and are presented with a choice. Some, on tasting death for the first time, embrace it. They fall here, becoming the Neverborn, doomed to spend the rest of eternity sucking at the teat of Oblivion. Longing to die, but unable to pass on. Others, such as myself, or Orobolis, leave behind a corpse, but instead of being mastered by our fear of death we are remade into something different and new. With each death, we grow, either weaker or stronger, according to our nature. The demon whose corpse we stand within is one called Sacheverell, the Lidless Eye That Sees the Shape of Things to Come. When Oblivion came to him, he choose to be reborn. His new body, that of a great eye forever closed, is bound within Mafleas, and they call him the Abhorrent Prophet Unimagined, for he has turned his gaze from the future. But his old corpse remains here, where it fell long ago, pierced by the spear of the Sage of the Six Paths.~
Red and black basalt steamed, flames pouring from a crack in the swimming rock. Then the stone parted, peeling open, and he saw within an eye, a burning eye as big around as a man is tall, its sclera a field of fire as deep as the sky, and inside that fire there grew a fractal darkness, a thing of infinite complexity and depth, for it held worlds in its gaze, a thousand futures that never were caught like flies in that web of burning darkness. And the whole of the thing was spinning, a Sharingan big enough for a man to stand inside, spinning, and Naruto felt the beginning of a vision seize him-
~Turn aside you fool!~
-black chakra surging within, black venom leaking from his own, burning Sharingan eyes, as he forced himself into blindness.
"Holy shit!" he gasped.
"I see," Neji said, for his eyes were hidden behind the prayer-strip. "Oh Sol, what is this place?"
The stone shivered closed again, with a sound like a coal tossed into water.
"Holy shit," Naruto whispered, as he slowly opened his eyes.
"We needn't go far," Neji said, staring out at the shifting chamber before them. "Ten minutes, perhaps." He placed his partially eaten handful of jerky back into a pouch. "But we should not tarry here."
"Can you imagine what the Hokage would say if we showed up with a Sharingan that size?" Naruto said. He laughed. "Just… dragged it in on a cart, and dropped it at his feet?"
The walls blinked again, the beginnings of a dinner-plate sized Sharingan appearing, and Naruto turned aside his gaze.
"I would not take a single eye from this place," Neji whispered. "Even Orochimaru would not dare."
"Shikamaru told me all the bloodline abilities were demonic corruptions," Naruto said. "Stuff like the Nara clan getting their power over shadows from the Ebon Dragon, and such. Should have know the Uchiha were no exception." He gave a nervous chuckle. "You ready?"
Neji nodded, the red light of his anima gathering about him. "I know the path. Come."
The basalt floor was soft, almost spongy, beneath their feet, and it rose and fell and moved to hidden rhythms. Swirling patterns of red jade bloomed through the stone, flickering past them, to be swallowed up again in the black. All around them, Sharingan eyes opened and closed, but Neji wore his prayer strip, and Naruto's Sharingan eyes warned him of the future, so that he always looked aside the moment before it became too late.
Time stretched out, and grew strange. A single step seemed to take a lifetime, while endless miles slipped disappeared beneath unthinking feet in an instant.
The narrow caves they ran through widened, becoming a pit big enough around to swallow Konoha whole, falling down to pits of endless fire, rising to hidden heights. They ran straight down the wall of the cavern, chakra-coated feet clinging to the stone, while all around them thousands and thousands of burning eyes opened and closed, twisted in their sockets of stone, opened and closed.
Sometimes he looked ahead, and remembered running the path before him. Other times, it seemed he had spent the whole of his life in this place.
And then they turned, so that they ran upside down, along a great ceiling, and looking down Naruto could see a ruined city, where Cyclops with great burning Sharingans walked, or knelt in worship before the many pyres that filled the ruined city. And he saw elementals of black smoke and red fire, growing wings that they might rise and slay him, and he saw something rising.
Flickers, like lightning in the deep. He crossed the ceiling of the cavern in a blur of hand seals, so that each step was that of a hundred, for the floor of the city far below breathed, and he saw, from the corner of his eye, in the flickering fragments of the future, a great graven seal, with veins of fractal dark wrapped around sanguine fire, turning round and round as it rose.
Then the city was behind them, the seal a thing of the past, and they were rising again, running up the walls, while everywhere eyes bloomed and withered away.
They climbed higher, and the air cooled. The red jade grew rare, then was gone entirely, and the shifting stone grew still. The last eye closed, and was gone.
"Quiet," Neji whispered. "We're close."
The cavern they were running up the side of came to an end up ahead, the wide open space choked shut with innumerable massive boulders. They climbed upward, hands and feet clinging to the undersides of the huge black stones, creeping and crawling in the cracks between.
There was water here, dripping down from above, and in places the stone grew slick with ice. Here and there fragments of black jade lay, partially embedded in the fallen boulders, splintered by whatever catastrophe had torn them down to this place.
There was a light up ahead, filtering down through the masses of boulders. Thin and wane, but pure. They shimmied upwards to the sound of water dripping, moving ever slower and quieter the closer they got.
"We made it," Neji said at last, with a quiet awe.
Naruto wrapped himself in shadows, and peered over the rock and into Orochimaru's cavern.
From the roof of the cavern there grew a massive tree of black jade and Soulsteel. Roots the size of villages plunged deep into the cavern's vaulted ceiling, holding the tree there, upside down. The trunk of the tree was as big around as the whole of the Uchiha compound, and from it there grew branches the size of city blocks, spreading great leaves of black jade and Soulsteel through the open air of the cavern. And finally, on the floor of the cavern, there could be seen a lake, glowing with silver moonlight.
Great houses could be seen, nestled in the branches of the tree, and slaves and ghosts marched from branch to branch, performing whatever tasks Orochimaru wished.
"Found that fucker's tree-house," Naruto whispered. "Finally!"
Neji nodded. "Now what?" he whispered.
Naruto hesitated.
~It was nice in Konoha, wasn't it? Always people there, telling you what to do. Making up for your unwillingness to plan ahead by doing it for you. Carefully guiding every step of your life. Tell me, Naruto, have you ever made a decision of your own? Formed some sort of plan, worked through every step necessary to bring it to fruition? You are like an honored pet who, catching a glimpse of the open world beyond the door, flings himself outward without care or thought. Only the outrageous power I have granted you, and whatever whim of the Maidens saw to it that Neji should join you, has kept your sorry hide alive. 'I'm gonna wreck Orochimaru's shit.' You spoiled, ignorant, petulant little child.~
I may have made a lot of mistakes, but you know what? At least I'm still free, and alive, to make them. Unlike you.
"Follow me." Naruto gathered the shadows around them both close, then began to walk up the cavern wall, towards the nameless lair of Orochimaru.
————————————
Water and Fire Treaty
The Sidereal buys protection from one element through a sacrifice of pain to one of that element's gods. Despite the name, a Seer can gain protection from any one element at a time, not just water or fire. To activate this Charm, the Sidereal must touch a sample of the chosen element, such as a hearth-fire, a bucket of water, a tree, the ground or a passing breeze. As long as the character keeps Essence committed to the Charm, that element cannot harm her. Water cannot drown, freeze or boil her; fire cannot burn her, nor desert heat give her sunstroke; plants do not hinder her, poison her or tear her flesh with their thorns; and so on.
Transcendent Desert Creature
Cecelyne is always home within herself, finding sanctuary in her eternal wastes. An Infernal who learns this Charm gains the following powers as permanent enhancements to his competence:
• He suffers no negative effects from exposure to a place of desolation, including penalties, environmental damage and even visual impairment.
• All foraging rolls that would normally have a difficulty of 4+ have a difficulty of 1 instead (see Exalted, p. 139). This does not make impossible rolls possible in a place where the Storyteller determines absolutely nothing edible can be found.
• The total penalty for starvation or thirst cannot rise above -3 within a place of desolation. The Exalt's perfected metabolism no longer produces waste of any kind, including sweat.
• All mundane attempts to track the character automatically fail with zero successes unless the character allows himself to be tracked. Magically assisted tracking efforts suffer an external penalty of the Infernal's Essence rating instead.
• He adds his Essence rating to the difficulty of all efforts to notice him with an Awareness roll in a place of physical desolation (spiritually desolate places as defined by Withered Soul Wastes don't count for characters who know that Charm). This benefit may be turned on and off at will.
(The Underworld does not automatically qualify as a place of desolation. However, a desert in the Underworld does qualify. Or at least it does in this story.)
(I'll update the character sheet later.)
I know it seems this story has left the reservation, plot-wise, but we're actually just doing a very Exalted take on the Sasuke Retrieval arc. We'll return to a more standard Naruto fare soon enough.
————————————
The first thing noticed by a visitor to the city of Cinder, by the Sea of Coals, was that it was hot.
Wave had been hot, but that was a wet heat, the heat of sunlight and marshes, a heat that clung to the skin. This heat was the heat of the desert; pitiless, arid, unrelenting. There was no night here to leech away the heat, no ocean breeze, only an oven of burning sand and cinder.
The houses lived in by the ghosts of Konoha were superfluous. Though ghosts in the Underworld possessed physical bodies, such bodies took no damage from the elements. Houses were things of convenience, the leftover habits of the once-living. But not here, for here, the many cinder-block houses and high walls were a necessity.
A wind blew here, steadily and endlessly, lifting up specks of black sand that glowed cherry-red with heat, scouring the earth. Those ghosts that walked about in the open did so wearing vests of bone, which they wore from the moment they left their houses until the moment they returned. Naruto and Neji stood at the edge of the mushroom-line, where the sand and wind were still weak enough for the sturdy fungi to grow.
"I can protect myself from the heat," Neji said. A bead of sweat trickled down from his forehead, evaporating before it reached his cheek. "A moment."
He knelt beside the river of black sand, his face turned aside so that no specks could burn him. Then he plunged the index finger of his left hand, glowing red with chakra, into the flow.
Oh spirit of the flame, he wrote with the glowing tip of his finger, This humble servant of heaven beseeches you. Take this pain, and this chakra, as my offering. In return, I ask only that you spare me your strength.
His anima of red light wrapped itself around him, then folded inward again. And though he held his left hand apart, and in obvious pain, he breathed in the burning air deeply and without issue.
Do you have some charm for traveling the desert, or dealing with heat?
~Sure do.~
Will you teach it to me?
~Nope.~
"One moment," Naruto said to Neji. "Something I need to do."
Neji sat down beneath a giant mushroom, the tension and exhaustion easing from his face. "Not a problem," he muttered.
Naruto drank deeply from his water bottle, then settled down into a lotus position and looked out across the scoured plain.
~Nope. Not going to happen.~
Watch me.
He could feel the hot wind beating against him. The occasional pinprick of fire, extinguishing itself against his skin. And before him, there stretched the greatest desert he had ever seen, an expanse of black, above which floated a haze of red sparks, all flowing, spinning, endlessly clock-wise, like the burning wheel of the Sharingan.
He could feel the power of this place. The immensity of it, pinning him against the black stone. He closed his eyes, and sank into meditation, feeling his chakra inside him, the pitiless darkness resonating with the burning immensity outside of him.
~What are you doing? How are you doing this?~
It reminded him of the words of the Hokage, when he spoke of what it meant to belong to Konoha. To surrender his fear, his selfishness, and become part of something greater, something more than just the sum of its parts. He let the heat of the wind sink into him, and rather than burn it felt right, like a scouring flame that burnt away weakness and frailty, a furnace that devoured all impurity. He could feel something inside him stir, a seed of the infinite, rising up to fill him.
~Oh FUCK NO. You are NOT cluttering up your soul with HER shit.~
He felt Shadowman trying, and failing, to obstruct him. This was different than anything he had grasped before, and Shadowman, for all his power, could not even conceive of what he did. He let the storm of chakra fill him, burn him, purify him, uplift him into something transcendent, the desolation that surrounded him mirrored in his soul.
Nothing to say?
~…~
I grow stronger. You grow weaker. Get used to it.
The heat meant nothing to him now, and the wind-blown sand was no obstruction to his vision. He opened his eyes and stood. "I'm ready now, Neji." He glanced over at Neji's hand, and said in surprise "It's better already?"
"You spent several hours meditating," Neji said. "And I am proficient with the mystic palm jutsu."
"Oh! Sorry about that. Hope you weren't bored."
Neji blinked. "It is no time at all, Naruto. Not all ninja share your driving conviction."
"Oh that's right. Hey, if you ever need a break, just let me know."
"Go as fast as you please," Neji said. "I do not wish you to be held back on my account."
"You sure?"
"I am… fanning the flames of my Youthfulness," Neji said stiffly. And with that he set off at a brisk jog.
…
The first thing noticed by a Naruto when he came to the city of Cinder, by the Sea of Coals, was the sand-skiff.
It was a long, snake-like boat, over fifty meters from bow to stern, and a mere four meters wide. It had two keels, like a catamaran, and each keel was made from the spinal column of some titanic snake or worm. Both keel-spines were armored, with segments of black jade pounded into the bone to protect it from the elements. The boat that sat atop these keels was a thing of patchwork and tinkering, a cannibal that must have consumed parts from have a dozen other boats. It had ribs of black and red jade, every inch of which had been cracked and poorly-repaired at some point in the past, such that no rib looked like any other. In several places the ribs were missing entirely, and had been replaced with fused bone.
Instead of planks, the ships hull was formed from more flexible spinal bones, around which were wrapped necrotic, un-living flesh. Huge, serrated crystalline teeth protruded from behind the hull, such that the ship looked like the bottom-half of a snake, crossed with a hedgehog. Three masts rose from the ship, from which sails woven from the leaves of the red vine that grew on the ceiling had been used. The majority of the leaves continued to glow, casting a baleful light across the whole of the ship. Perhaps forty or so ghosts could be seen on deck, moving listlessly about.
Naruto marched straight up the bone gangplank and onto the black, undead flesh that formed the ships deck. A few ghosts took notice of him, and one crew member armed with a spear of bone and crystal tooth started towards him.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted. "Where's the captain?"
The whole crew of the ship slowed to a halt, every man turning to watch.
"I want to hire you guys," Naruto shouted. "Who do I talk to for that?" He turned to Neji, who had walked up behind him, and in a quieter voice said "Hey Neji, you ever hired a boat or something before? How does this work?"
"The Pearl is not a passenger vessel," one of the crew said quietly as he stepped forward. He was a tall, thin ghost, with skin like boiled leather over knotted muscles, and penetrating eyes. He looked more like a mummy than a man, fittingly enough. "We go where the hunt leads us."
"You guys hunt giant snake monsters with crystal teeth?"
"The boat has no passengers," he said insistently.
"We can pay," Naruto told him, and he shifted his form to that of a living man. Instantly every ghost on the ship perked up in attention. "We pay in blood. In return, take us to the Mote. You know where that is?" Naruto fumbled at his pocket, and pulled out a map.
"I know of the Mote," the ghost said mournfully. "But we can take no passengers. The sea is no place for the living, and this hunt is our fate alone."
Naruto gave Neji a nudge.
"I know much of fate," Neji said, even as he dropped his own disguise. He flared his chakra, and the glowing red sign of his order appeared on his forehead. "If any should bear your fate alongside you for a while, it is us."
The ghost stared at them both for a long moment, at a loss for words. At last, he said "Fare is seven drops apiece. I will tell captain Jones. We cast off at the end of the hour." Then he turned, and walked slowly back down below decks.
…
The ship did not sail so much as swim like a titanic undead snake through the sea of sand. The many long spinal columns undulated from side to side, driven by the undead muscles that made up the majority of the ship. The crew were all strapped to the sides of the ship, holding harpoons of bone and crystal and staring out across the endless expanse of black dunes. They were moving fast, the long segmented ship-body whipping across the sea of sand, leaving huge billowing clouds of burning-black in its wake.
Though Neji had lashed himself to the boat with every rope he could get a hand on, he was still clutching the ship in a white-knuckled grip. "Only three hours or so," he shouted over the roar of the wind. A moment later he spat back out a mouthful of black sand. "Three hours!"
Naruto leaned over the railing, eyes alight, hair a wild mess, staring out across the expanse. "It's so fast!" he shouted. "This is the second fastest I've ever gone."
A loud cracking noise came from deeper in the Pearl, and Neji swore.
"Don't worry about it," Naruto shouted. He looked down on Neji, grinning from ear to ear. "Whatever happens, we'll be fine."
They topped a dune, and in the distance, a simply monstrous worm could be seen. It was several hundred meters from end to end and big enough to swallow the whole of the ship they were on, with coal-black skin and teeth of glittering crystal. Though it could not see the vessel, it must have sensed them somehow, for it forced its head down into the sand, and burrowed down into the burning sand.
Neji swore again.
…
"Hey Neji, you sure you don't want to look?"
Neji muttered something under his breath. He slowly straightened, clutching the edge of the boat as it whipped from side to side, and peered out across the desert.
"I think that's the Mote," Naruto said. "Not much further."
The desert here was perfectly flat, stretching out to unseen horizons in every direction. The wind here was so strong that the ship, despite abandoning its muscular movements for its sails, was moving faster than ever. A white pillar could be seen in the distance, falling all the way from the distant ceiling to strike the floor of the black desert. It looked like someone had shoved a lance of burning light all the way from Creation, a single sunbeam that pierced the grey roof of the Underworld, and the brilliance of that light put the red sparks of the sea and the ocher glow of the vines to shame.
"The worm" A ghost shouted, and half a dozen others took up the cry.
They'd seen several other worms in their voyage so far. Great, hulking masses of black flesh lying atop the desert, resting like maggots grown weary from their feasting. But where those worms had flesh of ebon-darkness, this one was pale as new-fallen snow, and it was big, over a hundred meters long, a thing that swallowed whales like a snake swallowed mice. It turned towards them, the mass of its pale head questing blindly, then reared up and screamed.
And then for a single moment, the furnace winds were silenced, and every sand-spark that saturated the air jerked in unison, and the whole surface of the deserted lifted upward, and the scream of the worm struck them like a slap, drove from them the hearing of any other sound.
~You should have asked what their cursed fate was BEFORE you joined the crew. Dobe.~
Neji's lips moved, shaping out a resounding fuck.
And at last, Captain Jones emerged. The ancient, grizzled, peg-legged ghost raised an Orichalcum harpoon, shaking it at the white-worm. In response, the huge white worm opened its jaws wide, baring a circle of crystal teeth surrounding the hungry void of its mouth.
And then the echo of the worm's scream, having bounced off the roof of the cavern and returned a dozen long seconds later, hit them, and Naruto realized he could hear again, however faintly.
"Faster!" Jones roared, and the ship heard his voice and obeyed, the great undead muscles of the deck twisted and knotting with new strength beneath their feet. The passive, slack gazes of the ghostly crew were gone, for they stared across the expanse of sand and sparks towards the pale worm with the eager anticipation of hounds.
"Faster!" he said again, as he mounted the helm and seized the wheel. The ship reared up like a snake, the crystal teeth embedded in its sides extending out-wards, then lunged forward.. The worm did the same, racing down-wind to meet them, and the sound of its coming was that of a living landslide, a mountain falling across the forge of god. Hills of burning sand were uprooted into the sky, then flung into their faced by the wind. The captain had time for one last shake of his harpoon, then they passed into the cloud of darkness, red-hot sand peeling away the flesh of the ghosts, stripping the ship's flesh, smoothing the pale bone and sharpening the crystal teeth, pouring over Naruto and Neji like boiling water.
"TURN ASIDE!" Neji shouted, and Naruto could feel the chakra laced into his words, tugging at his soul.
There was no response. The furnace-wind howled. The sailors stared down the glittering cavern of the worm's mouth with religious awe. Crystal teeth rattled and rang like bells, emitting flashes of light as they struck each other. He could see the blind worm-head through the black storm, with its scar tissue like crushed ice, and from that churned flesh grew a thicket of shattered harpoons, shafts thick like a fur of bone.
Neji just vanished, the ropes that had bound him falling slack when he spontaneously ceased to exist. A body-flicker, and emerged from the storm to stand behind the captain, kunai in hand, darting in faster than thought, and the captain was flung backwards, his ghostly flesh in tatters.
Then Neji was at the wheel, and the ship was turning, long writhing coils digging deep into the sand, so deep that the whole ship was listing to the side, turning until the deck was orthogonal the ground.
There was a scream, as the many crystal teeth bound into the ship dug into the flesh of the giant worm, and the hole ship shook. Then with an almost violent contraction it sat upright again.
Naruto opened his Sharingan eyes, and saw everything. He saw every mote of chakra, the spiritual nature of the ghosts that surrounded them, whether it was the embers of the crew or the raging pyre-flames of the captain, saw even a slivered fraction of the future, all laid out before him. Every mystery was carved away, until he knew exactly what he needed to do.
Jones raised his hand to drive his harpoon into Neji's unprotected back, but Naruto was there a moment later, driving his own kunai into Jones. The spirit screamed once, as black fire consumed it, then vanished, the harpoon falling down to rest at Naruto's feet.
"How do you sail this thing!" Neji screamed over the wind, clutching the wheel with both hands.
"Fuck if I know!"
There was a flicker, and Jones reappeared at the front of the ship, his face twisted in a snarl. The whole crew untied their bindings, and raised weapons.
From behind them, there came another roar.
"The Lethe cannot hold me!" Jones roared. "I have slain my worm a thousand times, and it has slain me a thousand more. Our struggle is eternal, and unending! We-"
One of Naruto's shuriken, burning with black fire, struck the captain in the neck. He staggered back, fire burning from inside his eyes, only to be hit by two more shuriken. He gave no cry as the fire consumed him, only stood still as a sentinel, watching them as he burned up from within.
Neji ducked, barely missing a harpoon thrown by one of the crew. Naruto clutched the rail of the ship with one hand, and threw shuriken with the other.
"Spirit killing jutsu's!" Neji screamed. "The captain is too strong to die from anything less!"
~Now would be a good time to learn Life Denying Hate, now wouldn't it? Too bad I won't teach you that.~
Another harpoon wedged itself between the spokes of the wheel, and Neji only barely tore it away in time.
The captain reappeared again, the thin sheen of Lethe-water that clung like dew to his regenerated flesh boiling instantly into a searing white steam. The captain stretched out his arms, and his flesh boiled as a storm of obsidian butterflies poured out. Glass wings, ranging in size from a thump-print to an arms-span across, leaped from his body and took to the air, razor-sharp wings of scarlet-black glass moving hummingbird fast, tearing the whole of the ship apart, slaughtering any crew between Naruto and Neji.
"Behind me!" Neji screamed, and with his one free hand he made a sign.
Naruto clung to Neji's back, even as clouds of obsidian butterflies tore into Neji. But instead of dicing his flesh to ribbons it was Jones who screamed in agony, and was torn to nothing by invisible knives, vanishing again.
There came a second scream of agony, and turning around Naruto watched as the cloud of butterflies passed through worm-flesh like a knife through butter, only for the mass of shattered, razor-sharp magical glass to become caught in the worms flesh. Black ichor poured from the worm, staining its pale flesh, and it raced towards them with a keening cry.
"The ship's coming apart!" Neji shouted, pointing down to the fleshy parts of the ship, where muscles shredded by Jone's magic twitched spasmodically. The whole ship began to shake, as it pulled itself apart from the inside-out.
Jones appeared directly before them. With a burst of speed Naruto seized the captain bodily and flung him into the mouth of the rapidly approaching worm.
"What do I do!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs.
"I don't know!" Neji screamed back. "I don't know!"
Naruto dodged beneath the blow of another crew member, then tore the ghost to pieces with his kunai and fire. A moment later the whole boat lurched, and he was nearly thrown overboard, as the worm bit off the rear-half of the vessel.
There was no question in Naruto's mind now that the ship could feel both fear and pain, for it was going faster somehow, forcing every last bit of power possible from its tortured, ruined flesh.
"I"ll kill the worm!" Naruto shouted. He grabbed the harpoon and leaped from the back of the ship, towards the approaching worm.
~This voyage was probably the best decision you've made in a long time. I can't wait to see how this ends.~
The wind howled about him, black sparks parting around him like water. His anima rose above him and into the sky, a towering inferno of black fire visible for miles around. The harpoon in his hand burned with searing light.
He landed atop the worm, using his chakra to affix his feet to its pale flesh, and plunged the harpoon down. Black fire poured into the worm, eating down into its wounds, devouring the worm and filling Naruto with strength and glee. He drove down deeper, the wound vomiting a black smoke that coated his skin and burned his lungs, deeper, until he hit bone.
The worm bucked, rising high in the air, then plunged downward, swimming down into the black sand. Naruto plunged the harpoon into its flesh one last time, and body-flickered back to the ship.
"The Mote!" Neji shouted, laughing in relief. "We're almost there!" He clutched the wheel with manic intensity, as though to will the ship to hold together for just a little longer.
He could see the tower of white ahead of them, a slender tower like a lighthouse in the sea of sand. He could see the archway that had been carved in the vast structure, and the beginning of the staircase they would take down into the Labyrinth.
Then Jones reappeared yet again, and with a single blow he shattered the ship's wheel.
The red light of Neji's anima exploded around him, as he drove his fist into the captain's form, unmaking him once more.
The ship continued to move forward, but it was without direction, the deck twisting and buckling. And now he could see the worm again, rising out of the sand behind them at the crest of a tsunami, gliding up into the air, its jaw growing to block the whole of the land behind them.
"Body-flicker into the archway," Neji snapped. "Now!"
The jaws of the worm were stretching out above him, encompassing the ship. The fire of his anima poured across crystal teeth, filling the mouth of the monster. His hands moved through the proper seals with desperate haste.
Then the jaws bit down, cutting the ship in half, but he was standing beneath the archway, Neji behind him, safe and sound.
"Fuck!" Naruto gasped.
The broken ship and worm struck the Mote, kicking up a spray of black sand, pulverized flesh, and shards of tooth and bone. The whole Mote rang like a chime with the blow.
Then the wind snatched the debris away, and looking down Naruto could see the worm, dead at their feet, its spine broken by the force of its impact against the Mote.
Neji leaned against the wall, running his hand over the cool white walls, catching his breath. Naruto paced back and forth across the narrow entrance, grinning wildly.
"Stupid worm!" he crowed. "Tried so hard to get us, and what did that get you?" He spun around, and perched at the edge of the archway, looking down on the remains of the worm and ship. "We win again!"
~See how the worm's asshole is kinda orange? You can get high on that shit. It's pretty trippy.~
Captain Jones appeared once more, standing atop the burning sand, the white steam of the Lethe pouring from his immortal flesh. Neji straightened, drawing his kunai, but if the captain noticed them he gave no sign.
"Who the fuck is this guy," Naruto muttered.
"Ghosts are bound to their un-life with fetters," Neji said. "Obsessions that drive them past the bounds of life itself. Most take a week or two to reform though. That he can recover in the space of minutes is rare indeed."
Jones raised his hands, and the shattered, broken pieces of his ship began to reform. The half of the ship swallowed by the worm tore itself free, and was united with the wreckage outside. Then even as they watched, the ship reformed before their eyes.
"Isn't the worm his fetter?" Naruto said. "If it's dead, how can he still be obsessed by it?"
The worm twitched. Then clouds of Lethe steam began to rise from it, as its flesh began knitting back together.
"Oh, fuck this place!" Naruto said. He turned around into the Mote, where a long staircase led down deeper into the Underworld, and began taking the stairs four at a time, Neji right behind him.
…
"So, what is the Labyrinth anyways?" Naruto asked.
They stood at the bottom the great staircase, where even the Mote came to an end, looking out at the cavern of striated black and red stone that lay further on.
Neji shrugged.
~Everything dies, in the end. Even the Sun himself shall die one day, and it is in the Underworld where his soul shall come to rest. Can you guess whose corpse we stand within now? I will give you a clue; this place is the rotting remains of one of my kind. A Yozi.~
The black and red stone seemed to swim before their eyes, swirling round and round. Occasionally, the stone would catch fire and burn, thin wisps of fire igniting and dying.
Naruto glanced over at Neji, then said "We can stop here for a bit, and eat."
"That would be a good idea," Neji said, a touch relieved.
~It is the nature of my kind that we were not born, for we fashioned ourselves before death was first conceived, and so we can never die. Not truly. If slain, we change our names, leave behind a corpse, and are presented with a choice. Some, on tasting death for the first time, embrace it. They fall here, becoming the Neverborn, doomed to spend the rest of eternity sucking at the teat of Oblivion. Longing to die, but unable to pass on. Others, such as myself, or Orobolis, leave behind a corpse, but instead of being mastered by our fear of death we are remade into something different and new. With each death, we grow, either weaker or stronger, according to our nature. The demon whose corpse we stand within is one called Sacheverell, the Lidless Eye That Sees the Shape of Things to Come. When Oblivion came to him, he choose to be reborn. His new body, that of a great eye forever closed, is bound within Mafleas, and they call him the Abhorrent Prophet Unimagined, for he has turned his gaze from the future. But his old corpse remains here, where it fell long ago, pierced by the spear of the Sage of the Six Paths.~
Red and black basalt steamed, flames pouring from a crack in the swimming rock. Then the stone parted, peeling open, and he saw within an eye, a burning eye as big around as a man is tall, its sclera a field of fire as deep as the sky, and inside that fire there grew a fractal darkness, a thing of infinite complexity and depth, for it held worlds in its gaze, a thousand futures that never were caught like flies in that web of burning darkness. And the whole of the thing was spinning, a Sharingan big enough for a man to stand inside, spinning, and Naruto felt the beginning of a vision seize him-
~Turn aside you fool!~
-black chakra surging within, black venom leaking from his own, burning Sharingan eyes, as he forced himself into blindness.
"Holy shit!" he gasped.
"I see," Neji said, for his eyes were hidden behind the prayer-strip. "Oh Sol, what is this place?"
The stone shivered closed again, with a sound like a coal tossed into water.
"Holy shit," Naruto whispered, as he slowly opened his eyes.
"We needn't go far," Neji said, staring out at the shifting chamber before them. "Ten minutes, perhaps." He placed his partially eaten handful of jerky back into a pouch. "But we should not tarry here."
"Can you imagine what the Hokage would say if we showed up with a Sharingan that size?" Naruto said. He laughed. "Just… dragged it in on a cart, and dropped it at his feet?"
The walls blinked again, the beginnings of a dinner-plate sized Sharingan appearing, and Naruto turned aside his gaze.
"I would not take a single eye from this place," Neji whispered. "Even Orochimaru would not dare."
"Shikamaru told me all the bloodline abilities were demonic corruptions," Naruto said. "Stuff like the Nara clan getting their power over shadows from the Ebon Dragon, and such. Should have know the Uchiha were no exception." He gave a nervous chuckle. "You ready?"
Neji nodded, the red light of his anima gathering about him. "I know the path. Come."
The basalt floor was soft, almost spongy, beneath their feet, and it rose and fell and moved to hidden rhythms. Swirling patterns of red jade bloomed through the stone, flickering past them, to be swallowed up again in the black. All around them, Sharingan eyes opened and closed, but Neji wore his prayer strip, and Naruto's Sharingan eyes warned him of the future, so that he always looked aside the moment before it became too late.
Time stretched out, and grew strange. A single step seemed to take a lifetime, while endless miles slipped disappeared beneath unthinking feet in an instant.
The narrow caves they ran through widened, becoming a pit big enough around to swallow Konoha whole, falling down to pits of endless fire, rising to hidden heights. They ran straight down the wall of the cavern, chakra-coated feet clinging to the stone, while all around them thousands and thousands of burning eyes opened and closed, twisted in their sockets of stone, opened and closed.
Sometimes he looked ahead, and remembered running the path before him. Other times, it seemed he had spent the whole of his life in this place.
And then they turned, so that they ran upside down, along a great ceiling, and looking down Naruto could see a ruined city, where Cyclops with great burning Sharingans walked, or knelt in worship before the many pyres that filled the ruined city. And he saw elementals of black smoke and red fire, growing wings that they might rise and slay him, and he saw something rising.
Flickers, like lightning in the deep. He crossed the ceiling of the cavern in a blur of hand seals, so that each step was that of a hundred, for the floor of the city far below breathed, and he saw, from the corner of his eye, in the flickering fragments of the future, a great graven seal, with veins of fractal dark wrapped around sanguine fire, turning round and round as it rose.
Then the city was behind them, the seal a thing of the past, and they were rising again, running up the walls, while everywhere eyes bloomed and withered away.
They climbed higher, and the air cooled. The red jade grew rare, then was gone entirely, and the shifting stone grew still. The last eye closed, and was gone.
"Quiet," Neji whispered. "We're close."
The cavern they were running up the side of came to an end up ahead, the wide open space choked shut with innumerable massive boulders. They climbed upward, hands and feet clinging to the undersides of the huge black stones, creeping and crawling in the cracks between.
There was water here, dripping down from above, and in places the stone grew slick with ice. Here and there fragments of black jade lay, partially embedded in the fallen boulders, splintered by whatever catastrophe had torn them down to this place.
There was a light up ahead, filtering down through the masses of boulders. Thin and wane, but pure. They shimmied upwards to the sound of water dripping, moving ever slower and quieter the closer they got.
"We made it," Neji said at last, with a quiet awe.
Naruto wrapped himself in shadows, and peered over the rock and into Orochimaru's cavern.
From the roof of the cavern there grew a massive tree of black jade and Soulsteel. Roots the size of villages plunged deep into the cavern's vaulted ceiling, holding the tree there, upside down. The trunk of the tree was as big around as the whole of the Uchiha compound, and from it there grew branches the size of city blocks, spreading great leaves of black jade and Soulsteel through the open air of the cavern. And finally, on the floor of the cavern, there could be seen a lake, glowing with silver moonlight.
Great houses could be seen, nestled in the branches of the tree, and slaves and ghosts marched from branch to branch, performing whatever tasks Orochimaru wished.
"Found that fucker's tree-house," Naruto whispered. "Finally!"
Neji nodded. "Now what?" he whispered.
Naruto hesitated.
~It was nice in Konoha, wasn't it? Always people there, telling you what to do. Making up for your unwillingness to plan ahead by doing it for you. Carefully guiding every step of your life. Tell me, Naruto, have you ever made a decision of your own? Formed some sort of plan, worked through every step necessary to bring it to fruition? You are like an honored pet who, catching a glimpse of the open world beyond the door, flings himself outward without care or thought. Only the outrageous power I have granted you, and whatever whim of the Maidens saw to it that Neji should join you, has kept your sorry hide alive. 'I'm gonna wreck Orochimaru's shit.' You spoiled, ignorant, petulant little child.~
I may have made a lot of mistakes, but you know what? At least I'm still free, and alive, to make them. Unlike you.
"Follow me." Naruto gathered the shadows around them both close, then began to walk up the cavern wall, towards the nameless lair of Orochimaru.
————————————
Water and Fire Treaty
The Sidereal buys protection from one element through a sacrifice of pain to one of that element's gods. Despite the name, a Seer can gain protection from any one element at a time, not just water or fire. To activate this Charm, the Sidereal must touch a sample of the chosen element, such as a hearth-fire, a bucket of water, a tree, the ground or a passing breeze. As long as the character keeps Essence committed to the Charm, that element cannot harm her. Water cannot drown, freeze or boil her; fire cannot burn her, nor desert heat give her sunstroke; plants do not hinder her, poison her or tear her flesh with their thorns; and so on.
Transcendent Desert Creature
Cecelyne is always home within herself, finding sanctuary in her eternal wastes. An Infernal who learns this Charm gains the following powers as permanent enhancements to his competence:
• He suffers no negative effects from exposure to a place of desolation, including penalties, environmental damage and even visual impairment.
• All foraging rolls that would normally have a difficulty of 4+ have a difficulty of 1 instead (see Exalted, p. 139). This does not make impossible rolls possible in a place where the Storyteller determines absolutely nothing edible can be found.
• The total penalty for starvation or thirst cannot rise above -3 within a place of desolation. The Exalt's perfected metabolism no longer produces waste of any kind, including sweat.
• All mundane attempts to track the character automatically fail with zero successes unless the character allows himself to be tracked. Magically assisted tracking efforts suffer an external penalty of the Infernal's Essence rating instead.
• He adds his Essence rating to the difficulty of all efforts to notice him with an Awareness roll in a place of physical desolation (spiritually desolate places as defined by Withered Soul Wastes don't count for characters who know that Charm). This benefit may be turned on and off at will.
(The Underworld does not automatically qualify as a place of desolation. However, a desert in the Underworld does qualify. Or at least it does in this story.)
(I'll update the character sheet later.)
Geeze Neji, get a room
So the Lidless Eye got shanked? "The Abhorrent Prophet Unimagined" sounds much more like a Neverborn name than a Yozi, though. I think Shadowman is pulling Naruto's leg.
Sometimes I get confused about Shadowman's intentions... and no, not his ultimate plan, I know that's supposed to be hidden. I'm talking about needing Naruto alive, yet refusing to help him with things like giant worms or desolate lands.
And I give Shadowman some credit at the end. Naruto, indeed, did not plan this out.
And I give Shadowman some credit at the end. Naruto, indeed, did not plan this out.
Emerald Oracle
Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force
- Location
- The Else
This talk of Youth, it makes me wonder what freakish confluence of events caused Gai not to exalt as a Dawn Caste Solar? There is no way on Gaia's Green Earth that his sheer devotion to Taijutsu is not deserving of one.
Also, @vali, are you perhaps some kind of machine that produces awesome? Perhaps powered by Albino English Dragons? Inquiring minds want to know!
Also, @vali, are you perhaps some kind of machine that produces awesome? Perhaps powered by Albino English Dragons? Inquiring minds want to know!
Dynamesmouse
Bzzzzzz
Oh Shadowman, you will never cease to amuse, regardless of whether or not I could ever tell if you are lying.
SkySkimmer
I use hugs for evil.
Naruto didn't die, so it gets results.
He taught Naruto Reincarnation. Naruto can't die; if killed, he gains some limit and respawns like some kind of video game character. He can only be permanently killed during N̶i̶n̶e̶-̶T̶a̶i̶l̶s̶ ̶C̶h̶a̶k̶r̶a̶ ̶M̶o̶d̶e̶ Limit Break, which is also when he's strongest. He was hoping that Naruto would lose during that fight, because that would mean that Neji would die and Naruto would be stranded in the desert surrounded by giant hungry sandworms, while captain Davy Jones of the ghost ship The Black Pearl ignored him to continue his endless, eternal battle against the White Sandworm that ate his leg. And that would be funny to watch. Just... days and days, tramping across the desert, going nowhere, failing at everything he set out to accomplish, and being eaten over and over again by giant angry sandworms.
I actually almost wrote something like that story. In my first draft, the ship gets wrecked, the worm dies, and Naruto and Neji accidentally get high off melange, which is the name of the orange spice the giant worms shit out. It causes them to see visions of the future in the flickering desert flames and swirling black sand, and in the visions they spend days and days walking across the desert, fighting worms and getting lost. And both are terrified that's going to be what happens. Only they passed out after the vision ended, and once they've woken up Jones and the worm regenerated. So seeing visions of the future invalidated those very visions. Then Naruto hijacks the ship, and they sail off while the worm watches, looking really confused and disappointed they don't want to fight it, because it and Jones have been fighting for a couple thousand years now, and neither one has ever left the fight early before. Usually they just fight until the worm wins, in which case it burrows down and naps for a bit, or Jones wins, in which case he sails back to Cinder, hires more mooks with magic spice (most ghosts return permanently to the Lethe after just a couple voyages), then sails back out to fight again.
These guys fighting is just part of the natural ecosystem of the Underworld, helping to remove especially stupid or greedy ghosts from the general supply. Orochimaru lets them continue their little game because sometimes, when he's bored, he turns into a giant White Sandworm himself and double-teams the captain with the real White Worm. He tells himself it's for practice, but really, sometimes you just gotta smash something, and the captain and his ship are an always available and well-deserving target.
...
In other news, halfway done rewriting chapter 23. I'm hoping to finish it before I post the next chapter.
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RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
- I take it Maito Gai is, in this fic, a stupidly powerful Enlightened Mortal?
- Awww, Neji misses his sensei. Poor bastard
- Captain Not!Ahab, huh? Shouldn't he have had a Japanese name?
- what anti-desert charm would Shadowman have given Naruto? Anyone?
- or would he have just let him Reincarnate over and over again?
- Probably. Seems like the more dicktastic option
- Awww, Neji misses his sensei. Poor bastard
- Captain Not!Ahab, huh? Shouldn't he have had a Japanese name?
- what anti-desert charm would Shadowman have given Naruto? Anyone?
- or would he have just let him Reincarnate over and over again?
- Probably. Seems like the more dicktastic option
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Reference game was hella on point in this update.
Chapter 27: Death’s Judge
Chapter 27: Death's Judge
Some info for people who don't know anything about Exalted:
Neji is what is called a Sidereal. His magic kung-fu gives him powers over fate, but causes him to be forgotten or ignored by basically everyone around him. You know the Mysterious Old Man with Mystical Fate Powers who shows up to guide the Farmboy of Destiny in his quest to Defeat Evil and Get Laid By The Princess? The Sidereal is the Mysterious Old Man. See TV Tropes for more info.
Not everyone forgets Sidereals. Very old and strong-willed beings like Orochimaru, Hokages and the god Yama would remember Neji, but only if he gave them cause to remember. Other Sidereals will always remember him but all the other Sidereals appear to be dead. Lastly, there are some beings so unnatural, so inhuman, so inimical to Creation that they can somehow exist despite being utterly Other to all existence, and therefore immune to fate. To such a being, the vagarious of fate would be meaningless. Only Naruto counts for this.
Also: The demon Sacheverell mentioned in the previous chapter is kept asleep by another demon named Lucien. You can learn more about these dudes here.
——————————————————
Naruto and Neji sat halfway down inside the rockpile, safely hidden from Orochimaru's guards.
"I've changed my mind," Naruto said. "Let's go hom- somewhere else."
Neji wearily raised his head, and gave him a hard look.
"Look, I just… you know how I do my pranks?" Naruto said, sinking back against the stone, shadows reflexively gathering themselves around him. "I get an idea, and then I just go."
Neji shook his head. "I did not come on this journey just to turn back."
"It's a dumb idea," Naruto said. "Okay? I'm not a kid anymore, playing pranks. Only I guess I didn't realize that until just now."
"No," Neji said grimly. "We go forward. Have you no conviction for your cause?"
"Fuck no! If something's dumb, I stop doing it."
"We are not mere mortals, who give up at the first sign of trouble," Neji said harshly. "A ninja is guided by his virtue. Compassion, for those who suffer. Temperance, to remain calm and do what is right in the face of rage or temptation. Valor, to stand strong even when you are afraid. And Conviction, to fight for your cause, even when all hope seems lost. That is the way of the ninja."
"I'm not running away!" he said, his voice rising. "You've seen me! I'm not afraid! It's just that I don't know if I'm doing the right thing anymore." He sighed. "I just want my team back."
"You are running away," Neji said. "Listen to your virtues, and finish what you started."
"I'd rather listen to my common sense."
"You do not understand." Neji bowed, eyes half-closed in remembrance. "A virtuous man does not cast aside his common sense; rather, he ennobles it, and is uplifted in turn, for to be virtuous is to do what is right in the eyes of the gods, and to live in accordance with your fate. A man may be granted the modest fate of a farmer, and yet, by acting with virtue, in the eyes of the gods he may stand as their equals, in demeanor if not deeds."
"That's bullshit. It's all bullshit." Naruto scowled. "If you let other people tell you what the right thing is, they'll just tell you to do what suits them the best. Immaculates will tell you to give them money, the Hokage will tell you to fight and die for him, gods will tell you to worship them because being worshiped feels really good, stuff like that. The only true virtue of the Shinobi is power, and that's why the Hokage can whip the ass of anyone in Konoha. Now give me a real reason we shouldn't turn around."
"The strength of the Hokage is not his own, for everything he does, he does in the service of the village. But I see you do not believe." Neji reached into his pocket, and drew out a single coin. "We will allow fate to decide what is the wise choice. On heads, our journey will continue. On tails, we shall turn around. Is this agreeable?"
"That's a really dumb way to make decisions."
~I agree.~
"Such is the fate of all decisions made without the guidance of the virtues." And Neji flipped the coin.
It spun through the air, the silver coin gleaming red from the light of Neji's anima. He caught it easily.
"We continue," he said as he looked on the coin.
"I didn't agree," Naruto said firmly.
"I did not join you on a whim," Neji said in a flat monotone. "You may be content to remain indecisive, but I have performed certain divinations, and I have searched the stars, and I know what my path is. The world may have forgotten me, and my own clan, my father, may look on me as a stranger, and yet I know I am not lost, for I am a part of something greater. The consequences of the actions I take now shall echo down through the ages."
"Wow. All that, just from flipping a coin."
"All that was, and is, and is yet to come, has been ordained," Neji said. "The fates speak of a meeting. I have seen the sign of the Hanged Man, and on his brow is a mark, a thing of death and immortality, for he has slain his own brother. I do not know what it means, but it must be made to come to pass."
"I guess," he said reluctantly. "I mean, if you really think it's the right thing to do."
"It is."
"Sure." He let the shadows flow around him, and when they drew back away he looked like one of Orochimaru's demons. "Let's do this."
…
There were several guards watching the rockpile from which they emerged, but they were no match for Naruto, who hid both himself and Neji in shadows. From then on they walked through the hidden kingdom of Orochimaru openly, in the guise of messengers.
Even doing something as simple as reaching the great tree in which the heart of Orochimaru's kingdom lay was a journey of several hours. The whole of the land around the silver lake was a patchwork quilt of great fences, where strange and wondrous beasts lived. Chimera's, with flesh from beasts both living and dead, feasted on great slabs of fresh, twitching meat. A herd of griffins, their wings clipped, tearing at great slabs of living flesh with golden beaks. Worms from the black desert held in chains, while what looked like a powdery orange dust was being harvested from their anuses. There were unicorns, though their horns held no chakra that he could see, and a small family of giants with a crying baby the size of a horse, and a small village of gleaming brass from which came the sound of chimes, and what looked like a dragon, though it was weak and sickly, with crooked legs and half-rotted scales.
There was a marsh filled with slender vines, watered by blood, with leaves of flesh and vines that ended in hungry mouths, and everything with the marsh was grey and colorless. There was a forest filled with silver trees, with leaves like mirrors. There was what looked like a giant bee-hive, and yet when they passed, he could see thumb-sized people with translucent wings and cloths of leaves darting in and out of the hives.
And there were horrors as well. A great pile of necromantic flesh, incapable of moving and thus trapped in its own excrement. Though it was covered in mouths it had not a single ear. Only a few mouths were bothering to speak, a few lamenting their loneliness, others begging for death, and one singing the praises of something called "The Speaker of the Final Silence".
There was more, things undreamed of in the world above, but they did not linger in that place.
They followed a long staircase up the sides of the cavern, and into the great tree itself. Inside lay long, wide hallways hewn from the black jade of the tree, with doors leading to laboritories where hairless, beautiful lilac-skinned demons spoke in husky, androgynous voices, or doors that led to cells where things human and once human languished in darkness.
Always, Neji led, walking with unshakable certainty towards some unknowable destination. Though they passed many demons, none questioned their place in there. There were no guards to be seen, no walls to keep them out. And when they came to a door of wood, engraved with the symbol of the Caduceus, they found it unlocked.
"It is here," Neji said softly. "Go on ahead."
He passed into what looked like a temple, with a high ceiling of black jade and beaten gold, and a floor of pure marble. All about could be seen motifs of the Caduceus and of the moon. And in the distance, echoing through the whole of the temple, there came the husky voice of one of the lilac-skinned demons.
"The nature of the void, and of oblivion, is not just destruction." Her voice was the only sound in the temple, and in that vast, echoing emptiness, it was made holy with reverence. "There were those who worshiped oblivion, and who sought to bring about the end of all things, but master Orochimaru slew all such beings. Their madness and suicidal bent were not conductive to wielding the power they possessed, and so it was taken from them and given to those more worthy. You have been granted master over the passage of all things, so that those things which are not worthy of existence can be made to pass beyond the final veil, while that which is worth saving may be preserved until the end of time. In this place walk the lost sages of past centuries, those beasts that have gone extinct in the lands of the living, treasures lost to time. In the end, all that passes from Creation comes here, to be judged useful and saved, or allowed to fall into the mouth of Oblivion. To be the master of death is to be a judge, separating the worthy from the unworthy."
"That's nice, but I don't see how this will make me better at killing," a voice said. A familiar voice. Naruto ran forward, heedless of discovery, into the heart of the temple.
Three thrones sat at the head of the temple. The first was a thing of pure silver, carved with a Caduceus set beneath the dark circle of a new moon. To the right of that throne was a smaller throne of silver and marble, set with the symbol of a scalpel. The last throne was black, a hulking mass of black jade set with tortured Soulsteel. And sprawled across this throne, looking down in boredom on the lilac-skinned demon who knelt below, was-
"Sasuke?" he said in shock.
He was paler than the Sasuke Naruto had known, with black marbles in the place of eyes and a strange looseness to his limbs. The clothing he wore was of ancient design, shades of black and silver, tailored to his frame. He looked up, both relieved and irritated at the interruption. "Where did you hear that name, messenger? I am the Orphan."
"You're alive?"
"That's your message?" he said, a touch irritated. "But anyways, no, I"m not. Or so I'm told. It's all rather technical, and-"
Naruto's form shifted to shadow, as he shed his disguise and reformed as himself. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"… Orochimaru?" He straightened. "Is this another test?"
The lilac demon took one look between the two of them, then fled.
"I'm not the fucking shapeshifter!" Naruto shouted, striding forward across the cool marble floor. "And you! Stay put!"
The demon immediately flung herself to the ground and lay still.
"You died!" Naruto shouted. "I saw your soul burn away to nothing! I saw you take your last breath! What the fuck are you doing down here in Orochimaru's lair?"
"Well, this is where dead things go," Sasuke said sardonically.
"Cut the shit!" Naruto came to a halt directly in front of Sasuke's throne. "It was that orb thing, wasn't it? It really did give you more powers. But it had to kill you first."
"It worked as advertised." Sasuke smiled, his pale, bloodless face happier and more relaxed than Naruto had ever seen it before. He leaned back against his throne, peering down at Naruto with the unfathomable pits of blackness that lay where his eyes had been. "So what brings you here, to my kingdom?"
"You're still on my team, dumbass!"
"Your team? It was never your team."
"You died! And left us!"
"So? We were only together for a couple weeks." He shrugged. "Not sure why you're so hung up on this. It was just a job. Something to keep me fed."
They looked on each other, Sasuke sprawled across his throne, Naruto on his feet, hands clenched.
"And besides, you left Konoha as well," Sasuke said. "They would never allow you to come here. Have you come to swear allegiance to Orochimaru?"
"No!"
"He is a better master than the Hokage ever was," Sasuke said. "Unafraid to do what must be done. I have learned more about Itachi in one day than I did in my whole life back in Konoha. Do you want to know the true reason he killed my clan?"
Naruto hesitated. "Well… okay. I did wonder."
Sasuke settled back onto his throne. "The official story is that Itachi sold his soul to hell for power, and his new masters ordered him to destroy his clan as proof of his allegiance, and to showcase their power. But that is not the whole story. The Uchiha were planning to revolt, you see. When Itachi learned this, he was horrified, for he thought his clan an honorable one, and not a pack of back-stabbing assholes. He could not tell his clan to stop, for if he revealed what he knew, he would be thrown into the Uchiha dungeons and kept there until the revolt had succeeded. And he dared not tell Danzo, or the Hokage, for they would slaughter the whole of his clan for their treachery, and leave only him alive, as a reward for betraying those he loved. No matter what he did, there would be war."
"The right thing to do, then, was obvious," Sasuke said. "He knew he must make himself strong enough to command the whole of his clan. If he was clan leader, he could force his unruly family to remain at peace. To gain this power, he went to hell, to speak with the demon who patronizes our clan."
"Only when he came to the pavilion of the demon, he found it a ruin. A new demon stood there, one named Lucien, tall and gaunt, with skin pale as a ghost and covered with a thousand toothed maws, and he looked down on Itachi and asked him what his purpose was in that place. Itachi told him what he planned, and Lucian said that though there was a new order in hell, for a great war had been fought and won, still the agreement would be honored. And Itachi was taken through the streets of Malfeas and beyond, to the endless desert that surrounds hell. He knelt there, and a voice cried out from the wilderness."
"Itachi asked for the strength to bring peace to his clan. In return, he would command his clan to do as his new master pleased. The voice agreed, and a great power was invested in him. Then he stood, the voice commanded him to slay the whole of his clan, sparing none, then to kill himself as well, and so bring peace eternal. And he would have done this, but Madara learned of the slaughter, and even as Itachi prepared to kill himself, Madara commanded him with the Rinnegan to cease, and serve him instead. The eye grants the power to command demons, and Itachi was practically a demon himself at that point, so it worked. And ever since that day, Itachi has been a slave of Madara, and Akatsuki."
Naruto's anger had drained away, replaced with sadness. "He must have really loved you, if he could defy all the powers of hell to save you."
Sasuke leaped up from his throne, his face twisted in rage. "He killed everyone I loved!" he roared. "All of them." A great blade of light-drinking Soulsteel appeared in his hand, and though the blade was almost as big as he was, he held it as though it was as light as a feather.
Naruto looked on Sasuke, unafraid. "I think Itachi died in that moment, when he saved you. That was the last thing he did, the last thing before he became nothing more than the pawn of Madara."
Sasuke noticed his sword for the first time, and it vanished again with a wink. "He was a fool," Sasuke said, his voice cold and hollow. "He killed his whole clan the moment he agreed to be granted that power."
"Is this what he would want for you?" Naruto asked. "For you to sell your soul for power, the same way he did? To abandon your team and serve some new master?"
"I don't give a fuck what he thinks," Sasuke said. He stood atop the dais, his back to his throne. "I'm just going to kill him."
"Okay. Hey, wanna ditch this place and do something else?" He gave a small, hopeless smile. "We could go travel, if you wanted. Explore the world. "
"Don't be ridiculous," Sasuke said. "Orochimaru knows many secret techniques. In a single day, I learned more than Kakashi ever taught me. You have nothing that I want."
Naruto's eyes faded to shadow, and when they reformed, there spun the black and red wheel of the Sharingan. "I can give you your eyes back," he said. "But you must swear to leave this place."
Sasuke reeled back as if struck. "You were the one who took my eyes?" he said in disbelief. "I thought it had been Danzo. Fucking vultures."
"You were dead," Naruto said. "And I needed the power to keep the people I care about safe."
"The people you care about?" Sasuke shook his head. "Naruto, everyone hates you. The whole village hates you. Even I just tolerated you, and only because it was my job. You have no one. Now give me my eyes back."
"Only if you swear," Naruto said. "An oath. To never use these eyes for evil. To leave Orochimaru, and his monstrous experiments, behind."
"The eyes are mine," Sasuke ground out. "Mine. You cannot withhold from me what is mine."
"All of Konoha is mine," Naruto said. "I will not allow you to harm it."
"Kabuto told me to perform the ritual somewhere solitary," Sasuke said. "He told me that otherwise, my so-called friends would take advantage of my temporary weakness. I thought he was a liar. I trusted you, Naruto. That our friendship would be stronger than your need for power. Give me my eyes, and prove Kabuto a liar. Or admit that you love the power you stole more than me."
"I trusted you too," Naruto told him quietly. "I never dreamed you would abandon me like this. But I will keep the eyes, because you are right. I choose to be strong enough to protect the things I love. To keep Konoha, and Kakashi, and Sakura, safe. I will give you the eyes only if you swear to do the same."
"This is your last warning," Sasuke said, and in his voice there was the whisper of something else, something deeper. A hollow echo that promised pain unending, the endless patience of the grave. The sword reappeared in his hand. "Give to me my eyes, or sacrifice forever any hope of friendship."
"So be it," Naruto said.
An umbral deepness swallowed Sasuke, so that he looked up from a deep pit. Two eyes, that swallowed any light that came near. A face like a mask of white bone, as frail as glass, laid over-top a hungry darkness.
Naruto looked upon him, unafraid. "Will you allow me to leave in peace?"
"NO!"
Sasuke crossed the space between them in an instant, like an owl falling upon a mouse, but Naruto turned to shadow and was gone.
"No power is free," Naruto said, his voice echoing through the vast temple. Sasuke spun around in a fury, searching for him. "You know the price paid by Itachi. Tell me, what does Orochimaru wish of you?"
Sasuke stalked across the marble floor, his anima sinking into the white stone like a bruise. "Guard!" he roared, and the force of his shout sent a rain of dust falling down from the ceiling. "Capture for me the intruder. I want him alive!"
There came the smell of fetid blood and rotting flesh. Then dozens of great hulking apes, with blood-red fur and horny bone protrusions, materialized all through the temple.
"So you command slaves as well," Naruto hissed, his voice winding between the high marble columns, and his chakra-laden words fell on Sasuke like barbed arrows, sinking deep. "Demons, bound to obey your every command. Just like Itachi is bound to obey Madara. And you send them to kill for you. Very brave."
"You should be grateful for my mercy," Sasuke said back, the chakra he had laid within his words giving them an ancient majesty. "Throw yourself at my feet, and I will spare you, and grant you new eyes as well. The Sharingan may have no equal, but I have many lesser wonders here."
A pure, cold darkness spread out from Sasuke, and by its fell light the temple was transformed, profaned. "Face me!" he commanded, and Creation itself bent at his command, shadows falling away to reveal Naruto standing upside down on the ceiling.
They met in the air, Naruto falling, Sasuke rising, a storm of black and gold. They fell to the ground together, marble cracking beneath them, moving in flickering bursts of speed and unearthly grace. And every blow seemed a final masterstroke of inevitability, and every dodge was a thing of fluid perfection, perfect in it's execution.
The golden flames of Naruto's anima stretched out, washing through the whole of the temple, and the heat was so great that the gold leaf melted from the ceiling and fell about them in a shining rain. And the dark of Sasuke's anima was a hollow space eaten through the fabric of the world, a void that swallowed all flame and heat, a mouth that had eaten through the substance of the world, and now opened wide jaws of madness, a hunger so great it devoured all light, all substance, all matter, devoured even itself.
They tore through the wall like rice-paper. Through richly appointed rooms, and where Naruto passed thousand year old tapestries caught flame and burned away to nothing, and where Sasuke passed there was only emptiness. They passed through another wall, leaping and flying, flickering and striking, blurs of light and dark, and through a library of glass, stocked with crystal tomes and scrolls. They left behind a ruin, the knowledge of a thousand years melted and re-frozen into hideous, twisted shapes.
They passed through the wall of the great tree, and stood atop one of it's branches. Sasuke wielded his sword, and he fought with a hideous strength, such that all he struck was broken and devoured. And as for Naruto, he burned, and all he touched burned as well, devoured from the inside out.
They fought there, equally matched, the silver light of the lake lost in the all-consuming brilliance and stygian darkness, and the whole of the cavern could see and hear their battle.
Then Naruto was over matched, and with the last of his power he wrapped all the shadows of the night about him and turned to flee. But he was too slow; a blow to the head, made with strength that could crack steel, and he was sent flying.
The world was a blur. What had he been doing, anyways? Why wasn't he in Konoha?
A soldier pill was forced down his throat, and the world swam slowly back into focus.
He lay in the temple, his back against the cool marble, great chains wrapped around his limbs. Sasuke was looking down on him, cold and dispassionate. Though his clothes were rent and stained with blood from their fight, his wounds had already closed without scars.
"Your eyes," Sasuke rasped. "Give them to me."
"No."
Sasuke knelt, fingers black with chakra caressing Naruto's orbs. "Then I shall take them."
"But wouldn't it be better to kill him first," another voice said. And Orochimaru entered, gliding across the floor of the ruined temple like a swan swimming across a lake, halting across from Sasuke.
"I meant to spare him," Sasuke said. "I will take what is mine, and let him go. So long as he does not hold me back, I have no quarrel with him."
"But you are wrong," Orochimaru said. He shifted, skin running like quicksilver, and a beautiful woman stood there, as delicate as a flower, as bright and fey as the moon. She smiled at Sasuke, and the whole of the world caught its breath, and was still. "Sasuke died. You are the Orphan now, and nothing of your past remains. As for him, he is my enemy, and you are of me, so he is your enemy as well." She stretched out her arms, as though longing to embrace him, held back only by the still form of Naruto that lay between them. "Kill him. This is the final test of your loyalty."
"But what of the demon inside him?" Sasuke asked.
"I can contain it," she said. "Kill him."
"Kill me," Naruto said, his words heavy with chakra, hard like blows, "And become your brother."
"No, not your brother," Orochimaru said, her bright eyes never leaving Sasuke's face. "I will make you far stronger than that fool. Finish this."
And Naruto lay on the marbled floor, watching Sasuke, watching as Sasuke turned his face aside, watching, unmoving, as Sasuke plunged the blade into his heart.
…
A moment of utmost agony, as his soul passed from his flesh, and he beheld the mouth of Oblivion itself, yawning wide. Then he Reincarnated a short distance away, atop one of the branches of the tree. Neji was already there, waiting.
~It has been a long time since I saw so many lives so beautifully broken and ruined. And Naruto, you have played your part to perfection.~
"I can't believe he did that," Naruto gasped, trembling with weakness. He felt as though he was coming apart, the agony of the fight and the vision rendering the rest of the world unreal and dream-like. "I come down here to avenge his death, and what happens? He's still alive, or undead, or something, and he runs me through with a giant fucking sword. Asshole."
There came a scream of frustration, echoing through the whole of the cavern, for the Sharingan had left his corpse at the same moment his soul had left his body, traveling to his reincarnated self.
"We should leave," Neji said.
"Yeah. Let's get the fuck out of here."
Naruto shifted his form, disguising himself, while Neji wrapped himself in light and came away changed. Then they began the long walk home.
—————————————————————
WISE CHOICE
When the Sidereal faces a choice between options, she can peek into the future to see which choice would bring her the best outcome in the next month.
Edit: Fixed spelling errors. Thanks doge and mizu.
Some info for people who don't know anything about Exalted:
Neji is what is called a Sidereal. His magic kung-fu gives him powers over fate, but causes him to be forgotten or ignored by basically everyone around him. You know the Mysterious Old Man with Mystical Fate Powers who shows up to guide the Farmboy of Destiny in his quest to Defeat Evil and Get Laid By The Princess? The Sidereal is the Mysterious Old Man. See TV Tropes for more info.
Not everyone forgets Sidereals. Very old and strong-willed beings like Orochimaru, Hokages and the god Yama would remember Neji, but only if he gave them cause to remember. Other Sidereals will always remember him but all the other Sidereals appear to be dead. Lastly, there are some beings so unnatural, so inhuman, so inimical to Creation that they can somehow exist despite being utterly Other to all existence, and therefore immune to fate. To such a being, the vagarious of fate would be meaningless. Only Naruto counts for this.
Also: The demon Sacheverell mentioned in the previous chapter is kept asleep by another demon named Lucien. You can learn more about these dudes here.
——————————————————
Naruto and Neji sat halfway down inside the rockpile, safely hidden from Orochimaru's guards.
"I've changed my mind," Naruto said. "Let's go hom- somewhere else."
Neji wearily raised his head, and gave him a hard look.
"Look, I just… you know how I do my pranks?" Naruto said, sinking back against the stone, shadows reflexively gathering themselves around him. "I get an idea, and then I just go."
Neji shook his head. "I did not come on this journey just to turn back."
"It's a dumb idea," Naruto said. "Okay? I'm not a kid anymore, playing pranks. Only I guess I didn't realize that until just now."
"No," Neji said grimly. "We go forward. Have you no conviction for your cause?"
"Fuck no! If something's dumb, I stop doing it."
"We are not mere mortals, who give up at the first sign of trouble," Neji said harshly. "A ninja is guided by his virtue. Compassion, for those who suffer. Temperance, to remain calm and do what is right in the face of rage or temptation. Valor, to stand strong even when you are afraid. And Conviction, to fight for your cause, even when all hope seems lost. That is the way of the ninja."
"I'm not running away!" he said, his voice rising. "You've seen me! I'm not afraid! It's just that I don't know if I'm doing the right thing anymore." He sighed. "I just want my team back."
"You are running away," Neji said. "Listen to your virtues, and finish what you started."
"I'd rather listen to my common sense."
"You do not understand." Neji bowed, eyes half-closed in remembrance. "A virtuous man does not cast aside his common sense; rather, he ennobles it, and is uplifted in turn, for to be virtuous is to do what is right in the eyes of the gods, and to live in accordance with your fate. A man may be granted the modest fate of a farmer, and yet, by acting with virtue, in the eyes of the gods he may stand as their equals, in demeanor if not deeds."
"That's bullshit. It's all bullshit." Naruto scowled. "If you let other people tell you what the right thing is, they'll just tell you to do what suits them the best. Immaculates will tell you to give them money, the Hokage will tell you to fight and die for him, gods will tell you to worship them because being worshiped feels really good, stuff like that. The only true virtue of the Shinobi is power, and that's why the Hokage can whip the ass of anyone in Konoha. Now give me a real reason we shouldn't turn around."
"The strength of the Hokage is not his own, for everything he does, he does in the service of the village. But I see you do not believe." Neji reached into his pocket, and drew out a single coin. "We will allow fate to decide what is the wise choice. On heads, our journey will continue. On tails, we shall turn around. Is this agreeable?"
"That's a really dumb way to make decisions."
~I agree.~
"Such is the fate of all decisions made without the guidance of the virtues." And Neji flipped the coin.
It spun through the air, the silver coin gleaming red from the light of Neji's anima. He caught it easily.
"We continue," he said as he looked on the coin.
"I didn't agree," Naruto said firmly.
"I did not join you on a whim," Neji said in a flat monotone. "You may be content to remain indecisive, but I have performed certain divinations, and I have searched the stars, and I know what my path is. The world may have forgotten me, and my own clan, my father, may look on me as a stranger, and yet I know I am not lost, for I am a part of something greater. The consequences of the actions I take now shall echo down through the ages."
"Wow. All that, just from flipping a coin."
"All that was, and is, and is yet to come, has been ordained," Neji said. "The fates speak of a meeting. I have seen the sign of the Hanged Man, and on his brow is a mark, a thing of death and immortality, for he has slain his own brother. I do not know what it means, but it must be made to come to pass."
"I guess," he said reluctantly. "I mean, if you really think it's the right thing to do."
"It is."
"Sure." He let the shadows flow around him, and when they drew back away he looked like one of Orochimaru's demons. "Let's do this."
…
There were several guards watching the rockpile from which they emerged, but they were no match for Naruto, who hid both himself and Neji in shadows. From then on they walked through the hidden kingdom of Orochimaru openly, in the guise of messengers.
Even doing something as simple as reaching the great tree in which the heart of Orochimaru's kingdom lay was a journey of several hours. The whole of the land around the silver lake was a patchwork quilt of great fences, where strange and wondrous beasts lived. Chimera's, with flesh from beasts both living and dead, feasted on great slabs of fresh, twitching meat. A herd of griffins, their wings clipped, tearing at great slabs of living flesh with golden beaks. Worms from the black desert held in chains, while what looked like a powdery orange dust was being harvested from their anuses. There were unicorns, though their horns held no chakra that he could see, and a small family of giants with a crying baby the size of a horse, and a small village of gleaming brass from which came the sound of chimes, and what looked like a dragon, though it was weak and sickly, with crooked legs and half-rotted scales.
There was a marsh filled with slender vines, watered by blood, with leaves of flesh and vines that ended in hungry mouths, and everything with the marsh was grey and colorless. There was a forest filled with silver trees, with leaves like mirrors. There was what looked like a giant bee-hive, and yet when they passed, he could see thumb-sized people with translucent wings and cloths of leaves darting in and out of the hives.
And there were horrors as well. A great pile of necromantic flesh, incapable of moving and thus trapped in its own excrement. Though it was covered in mouths it had not a single ear. Only a few mouths were bothering to speak, a few lamenting their loneliness, others begging for death, and one singing the praises of something called "The Speaker of the Final Silence".
There was more, things undreamed of in the world above, but they did not linger in that place.
They followed a long staircase up the sides of the cavern, and into the great tree itself. Inside lay long, wide hallways hewn from the black jade of the tree, with doors leading to laboritories where hairless, beautiful lilac-skinned demons spoke in husky, androgynous voices, or doors that led to cells where things human and once human languished in darkness.
Always, Neji led, walking with unshakable certainty towards some unknowable destination. Though they passed many demons, none questioned their place in there. There were no guards to be seen, no walls to keep them out. And when they came to a door of wood, engraved with the symbol of the Caduceus, they found it unlocked.
"It is here," Neji said softly. "Go on ahead."
He passed into what looked like a temple, with a high ceiling of black jade and beaten gold, and a floor of pure marble. All about could be seen motifs of the Caduceus and of the moon. And in the distance, echoing through the whole of the temple, there came the husky voice of one of the lilac-skinned demons.
"The nature of the void, and of oblivion, is not just destruction." Her voice was the only sound in the temple, and in that vast, echoing emptiness, it was made holy with reverence. "There were those who worshiped oblivion, and who sought to bring about the end of all things, but master Orochimaru slew all such beings. Their madness and suicidal bent were not conductive to wielding the power they possessed, and so it was taken from them and given to those more worthy. You have been granted master over the passage of all things, so that those things which are not worthy of existence can be made to pass beyond the final veil, while that which is worth saving may be preserved until the end of time. In this place walk the lost sages of past centuries, those beasts that have gone extinct in the lands of the living, treasures lost to time. In the end, all that passes from Creation comes here, to be judged useful and saved, or allowed to fall into the mouth of Oblivion. To be the master of death is to be a judge, separating the worthy from the unworthy."
"That's nice, but I don't see how this will make me better at killing," a voice said. A familiar voice. Naruto ran forward, heedless of discovery, into the heart of the temple.
Three thrones sat at the head of the temple. The first was a thing of pure silver, carved with a Caduceus set beneath the dark circle of a new moon. To the right of that throne was a smaller throne of silver and marble, set with the symbol of a scalpel. The last throne was black, a hulking mass of black jade set with tortured Soulsteel. And sprawled across this throne, looking down in boredom on the lilac-skinned demon who knelt below, was-
"Sasuke?" he said in shock.
He was paler than the Sasuke Naruto had known, with black marbles in the place of eyes and a strange looseness to his limbs. The clothing he wore was of ancient design, shades of black and silver, tailored to his frame. He looked up, both relieved and irritated at the interruption. "Where did you hear that name, messenger? I am the Orphan."
"You're alive?"
"That's your message?" he said, a touch irritated. "But anyways, no, I"m not. Or so I'm told. It's all rather technical, and-"
Naruto's form shifted to shadow, as he shed his disguise and reformed as himself. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"… Orochimaru?" He straightened. "Is this another test?"
The lilac demon took one look between the two of them, then fled.
"I'm not the fucking shapeshifter!" Naruto shouted, striding forward across the cool marble floor. "And you! Stay put!"
The demon immediately flung herself to the ground and lay still.
"You died!" Naruto shouted. "I saw your soul burn away to nothing! I saw you take your last breath! What the fuck are you doing down here in Orochimaru's lair?"
"Well, this is where dead things go," Sasuke said sardonically.
"Cut the shit!" Naruto came to a halt directly in front of Sasuke's throne. "It was that orb thing, wasn't it? It really did give you more powers. But it had to kill you first."
"It worked as advertised." Sasuke smiled, his pale, bloodless face happier and more relaxed than Naruto had ever seen it before. He leaned back against his throne, peering down at Naruto with the unfathomable pits of blackness that lay where his eyes had been. "So what brings you here, to my kingdom?"
"You're still on my team, dumbass!"
"Your team? It was never your team."
"You died! And left us!"
"So? We were only together for a couple weeks." He shrugged. "Not sure why you're so hung up on this. It was just a job. Something to keep me fed."
They looked on each other, Sasuke sprawled across his throne, Naruto on his feet, hands clenched.
"And besides, you left Konoha as well," Sasuke said. "They would never allow you to come here. Have you come to swear allegiance to Orochimaru?"
"No!"
"He is a better master than the Hokage ever was," Sasuke said. "Unafraid to do what must be done. I have learned more about Itachi in one day than I did in my whole life back in Konoha. Do you want to know the true reason he killed my clan?"
Naruto hesitated. "Well… okay. I did wonder."
Sasuke settled back onto his throne. "The official story is that Itachi sold his soul to hell for power, and his new masters ordered him to destroy his clan as proof of his allegiance, and to showcase their power. But that is not the whole story. The Uchiha were planning to revolt, you see. When Itachi learned this, he was horrified, for he thought his clan an honorable one, and not a pack of back-stabbing assholes. He could not tell his clan to stop, for if he revealed what he knew, he would be thrown into the Uchiha dungeons and kept there until the revolt had succeeded. And he dared not tell Danzo, or the Hokage, for they would slaughter the whole of his clan for their treachery, and leave only him alive, as a reward for betraying those he loved. No matter what he did, there would be war."
"The right thing to do, then, was obvious," Sasuke said. "He knew he must make himself strong enough to command the whole of his clan. If he was clan leader, he could force his unruly family to remain at peace. To gain this power, he went to hell, to speak with the demon who patronizes our clan."
"Only when he came to the pavilion of the demon, he found it a ruin. A new demon stood there, one named Lucien, tall and gaunt, with skin pale as a ghost and covered with a thousand toothed maws, and he looked down on Itachi and asked him what his purpose was in that place. Itachi told him what he planned, and Lucian said that though there was a new order in hell, for a great war had been fought and won, still the agreement would be honored. And Itachi was taken through the streets of Malfeas and beyond, to the endless desert that surrounds hell. He knelt there, and a voice cried out from the wilderness."
"Itachi asked for the strength to bring peace to his clan. In return, he would command his clan to do as his new master pleased. The voice agreed, and a great power was invested in him. Then he stood, the voice commanded him to slay the whole of his clan, sparing none, then to kill himself as well, and so bring peace eternal. And he would have done this, but Madara learned of the slaughter, and even as Itachi prepared to kill himself, Madara commanded him with the Rinnegan to cease, and serve him instead. The eye grants the power to command demons, and Itachi was practically a demon himself at that point, so it worked. And ever since that day, Itachi has been a slave of Madara, and Akatsuki."
Naruto's anger had drained away, replaced with sadness. "He must have really loved you, if he could defy all the powers of hell to save you."
Sasuke leaped up from his throne, his face twisted in rage. "He killed everyone I loved!" he roared. "All of them." A great blade of light-drinking Soulsteel appeared in his hand, and though the blade was almost as big as he was, he held it as though it was as light as a feather.
Naruto looked on Sasuke, unafraid. "I think Itachi died in that moment, when he saved you. That was the last thing he did, the last thing before he became nothing more than the pawn of Madara."
Sasuke noticed his sword for the first time, and it vanished again with a wink. "He was a fool," Sasuke said, his voice cold and hollow. "He killed his whole clan the moment he agreed to be granted that power."
"Is this what he would want for you?" Naruto asked. "For you to sell your soul for power, the same way he did? To abandon your team and serve some new master?"
"I don't give a fuck what he thinks," Sasuke said. He stood atop the dais, his back to his throne. "I'm just going to kill him."
"Okay. Hey, wanna ditch this place and do something else?" He gave a small, hopeless smile. "We could go travel, if you wanted. Explore the world. "
"Don't be ridiculous," Sasuke said. "Orochimaru knows many secret techniques. In a single day, I learned more than Kakashi ever taught me. You have nothing that I want."
Naruto's eyes faded to shadow, and when they reformed, there spun the black and red wheel of the Sharingan. "I can give you your eyes back," he said. "But you must swear to leave this place."
Sasuke reeled back as if struck. "You were the one who took my eyes?" he said in disbelief. "I thought it had been Danzo. Fucking vultures."
"You were dead," Naruto said. "And I needed the power to keep the people I care about safe."
"The people you care about?" Sasuke shook his head. "Naruto, everyone hates you. The whole village hates you. Even I just tolerated you, and only because it was my job. You have no one. Now give me my eyes back."
"Only if you swear," Naruto said. "An oath. To never use these eyes for evil. To leave Orochimaru, and his monstrous experiments, behind."
"The eyes are mine," Sasuke ground out. "Mine. You cannot withhold from me what is mine."
"All of Konoha is mine," Naruto said. "I will not allow you to harm it."
"Kabuto told me to perform the ritual somewhere solitary," Sasuke said. "He told me that otherwise, my so-called friends would take advantage of my temporary weakness. I thought he was a liar. I trusted you, Naruto. That our friendship would be stronger than your need for power. Give me my eyes, and prove Kabuto a liar. Or admit that you love the power you stole more than me."
"I trusted you too," Naruto told him quietly. "I never dreamed you would abandon me like this. But I will keep the eyes, because you are right. I choose to be strong enough to protect the things I love. To keep Konoha, and Kakashi, and Sakura, safe. I will give you the eyes only if you swear to do the same."
"This is your last warning," Sasuke said, and in his voice there was the whisper of something else, something deeper. A hollow echo that promised pain unending, the endless patience of the grave. The sword reappeared in his hand. "Give to me my eyes, or sacrifice forever any hope of friendship."
"So be it," Naruto said.
An umbral deepness swallowed Sasuke, so that he looked up from a deep pit. Two eyes, that swallowed any light that came near. A face like a mask of white bone, as frail as glass, laid over-top a hungry darkness.
Naruto looked upon him, unafraid. "Will you allow me to leave in peace?"
"NO!"
Sasuke crossed the space between them in an instant, like an owl falling upon a mouse, but Naruto turned to shadow and was gone.
"No power is free," Naruto said, his voice echoing through the vast temple. Sasuke spun around in a fury, searching for him. "You know the price paid by Itachi. Tell me, what does Orochimaru wish of you?"
Sasuke stalked across the marble floor, his anima sinking into the white stone like a bruise. "Guard!" he roared, and the force of his shout sent a rain of dust falling down from the ceiling. "Capture for me the intruder. I want him alive!"
There came the smell of fetid blood and rotting flesh. Then dozens of great hulking apes, with blood-red fur and horny bone protrusions, materialized all through the temple.
"So you command slaves as well," Naruto hissed, his voice winding between the high marble columns, and his chakra-laden words fell on Sasuke like barbed arrows, sinking deep. "Demons, bound to obey your every command. Just like Itachi is bound to obey Madara. And you send them to kill for you. Very brave."
"You should be grateful for my mercy," Sasuke said back, the chakra he had laid within his words giving them an ancient majesty. "Throw yourself at my feet, and I will spare you, and grant you new eyes as well. The Sharingan may have no equal, but I have many lesser wonders here."
A pure, cold darkness spread out from Sasuke, and by its fell light the temple was transformed, profaned. "Face me!" he commanded, and Creation itself bent at his command, shadows falling away to reveal Naruto standing upside down on the ceiling.
They met in the air, Naruto falling, Sasuke rising, a storm of black and gold. They fell to the ground together, marble cracking beneath them, moving in flickering bursts of speed and unearthly grace. And every blow seemed a final masterstroke of inevitability, and every dodge was a thing of fluid perfection, perfect in it's execution.
The golden flames of Naruto's anima stretched out, washing through the whole of the temple, and the heat was so great that the gold leaf melted from the ceiling and fell about them in a shining rain. And the dark of Sasuke's anima was a hollow space eaten through the fabric of the world, a void that swallowed all flame and heat, a mouth that had eaten through the substance of the world, and now opened wide jaws of madness, a hunger so great it devoured all light, all substance, all matter, devoured even itself.
They tore through the wall like rice-paper. Through richly appointed rooms, and where Naruto passed thousand year old tapestries caught flame and burned away to nothing, and where Sasuke passed there was only emptiness. They passed through another wall, leaping and flying, flickering and striking, blurs of light and dark, and through a library of glass, stocked with crystal tomes and scrolls. They left behind a ruin, the knowledge of a thousand years melted and re-frozen into hideous, twisted shapes.
They passed through the wall of the great tree, and stood atop one of it's branches. Sasuke wielded his sword, and he fought with a hideous strength, such that all he struck was broken and devoured. And as for Naruto, he burned, and all he touched burned as well, devoured from the inside out.
They fought there, equally matched, the silver light of the lake lost in the all-consuming brilliance and stygian darkness, and the whole of the cavern could see and hear their battle.
Then Naruto was over matched, and with the last of his power he wrapped all the shadows of the night about him and turned to flee. But he was too slow; a blow to the head, made with strength that could crack steel, and he was sent flying.
The world was a blur. What had he been doing, anyways? Why wasn't he in Konoha?
A soldier pill was forced down his throat, and the world swam slowly back into focus.
He lay in the temple, his back against the cool marble, great chains wrapped around his limbs. Sasuke was looking down on him, cold and dispassionate. Though his clothes were rent and stained with blood from their fight, his wounds had already closed without scars.
"Your eyes," Sasuke rasped. "Give them to me."
"No."
Sasuke knelt, fingers black with chakra caressing Naruto's orbs. "Then I shall take them."
"But wouldn't it be better to kill him first," another voice said. And Orochimaru entered, gliding across the floor of the ruined temple like a swan swimming across a lake, halting across from Sasuke.
"I meant to spare him," Sasuke said. "I will take what is mine, and let him go. So long as he does not hold me back, I have no quarrel with him."
"But you are wrong," Orochimaru said. He shifted, skin running like quicksilver, and a beautiful woman stood there, as delicate as a flower, as bright and fey as the moon. She smiled at Sasuke, and the whole of the world caught its breath, and was still. "Sasuke died. You are the Orphan now, and nothing of your past remains. As for him, he is my enemy, and you are of me, so he is your enemy as well." She stretched out her arms, as though longing to embrace him, held back only by the still form of Naruto that lay between them. "Kill him. This is the final test of your loyalty."
"But what of the demon inside him?" Sasuke asked.
"I can contain it," she said. "Kill him."
"Kill me," Naruto said, his words heavy with chakra, hard like blows, "And become your brother."
"No, not your brother," Orochimaru said, her bright eyes never leaving Sasuke's face. "I will make you far stronger than that fool. Finish this."
And Naruto lay on the marbled floor, watching Sasuke, watching as Sasuke turned his face aside, watching, unmoving, as Sasuke plunged the blade into his heart.
…
A moment of utmost agony, as his soul passed from his flesh, and he beheld the mouth of Oblivion itself, yawning wide. Then he Reincarnated a short distance away, atop one of the branches of the tree. Neji was already there, waiting.
~It has been a long time since I saw so many lives so beautifully broken and ruined. And Naruto, you have played your part to perfection.~
"I can't believe he did that," Naruto gasped, trembling with weakness. He felt as though he was coming apart, the agony of the fight and the vision rendering the rest of the world unreal and dream-like. "I come down here to avenge his death, and what happens? He's still alive, or undead, or something, and he runs me through with a giant fucking sword. Asshole."
There came a scream of frustration, echoing through the whole of the cavern, for the Sharingan had left his corpse at the same moment his soul had left his body, traveling to his reincarnated self.
"We should leave," Neji said.
"Yeah. Let's get the fuck out of here."
Naruto shifted his form, disguising himself, while Neji wrapped himself in light and came away changed. Then they began the long walk home.
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WISE CHOICE
When the Sidereal faces a choice between options, she can peek into the future to see which choice would bring her the best outcome in the next month.
Edit: Fixed spelling errors. Thanks doge and mizu.
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doge
shadow cable management
- Location
- California!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
fed
edit: Thanks.
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Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
A life without Virtue is a coin toss rigged by a Sidereal who thinks he knows everything? I don't really see the parallel. You can have Willpower without Virtue, especially with the Ebon Dragon's "help." And Conviction is what got Naruto and Sasuke the Orphan into this mess.
So, why is that hermaphrodite asshole Orochimaru being female two appearances in a row?
So, why is that hermaphrodite asshole Orochimaru being female two appearances in a row?