Chapter 57
Itachi had never felt so inadequate as he did in that moment, as he faced the might of the four kage. All his life, he had been hailed as a prodigy, and yet now he lay there bleeding out while he could barely make out the silhouettes of the shinobi who had once stood at the pinnacle of the Ninja World.
"You really shouldn't have revealed your hand like this," the masked shinobi whispered as he cut through the four kages and walked up to him while he struggled to stop himself from bleeding out.
"Still, I can say without doubt that you, Itachi Uchiha, are the epitome of what a shinobi is," and the praise meant nothing to him.
"You won't succeed," Itachi whispered, and this was not the end he had envisioned for himself. This was not the death he had desired, but in the end, he was forced to act.
"I have warned them already about your plans," and the masked nin smirked.
"It doesn't matter. My victory is certain," and with that, he picked up a kunai and flung it towards him, as Itachi closed his eyes in subservience to his fate.
"Forgive me, Sasuke," and a tear slid down his half-burnt face, when suddenly an all too familiar voice tore through the cave in an instant.
"Suiton...."
"....Dai Bakusui Shōha!"
0000
NARUTO UZUMAKI
Naruto was quite frustrated with himself, as he found himself trapped in a massive tower once more for his security. He had come back after training under Percy Sage for two years just so he could protect his friends and all those dear to him, yet it seemed like none of it was enough.
"You can't do this to me!" he shouted, and Kakashi-sensei had left with Percy Sage for the Kage council a few days ago, leaving him alone.
"And what exactly are we doing here?" and so now he was stuck here with the chain smoker that was Shikamaru's sensei.
"Keeping me trapped here," Naruto complained, and they were keeping him at a massive tower, at the outskirts of the village, and he was not allowed to leave the building, and it seemed to share his second name.
He had tried to escape a few times, but the building was surrounded by ANBU who refused to let him leave.
"It's for your own good kid, so stop causing us all trouble," and they sat opposite to one another, while he taught him how to play shogi. And the game did not really pique his interest.
"I don't get it," Naruto complained as he looked up at the older shinobi.
"Why are you even keeping me here. I am not asking to leave the village," he complained, and the man looked up from the board and took a deep sigh.
"Did Kakashi explain anything to you at all?" and Naruto shook his head, making the man rub his face, as he whispered something rather quietly.
"…going to kill him," and Naruto frowned.
"Answer me! Why are you keeping me here!" he asked, and the man took a deep breath before he finally gave him an answer.
"So, at least you do know that the Akatsuki are hunting you, right?" and that much he knew.
"Yeah, but that is why I went to train with Pervy Sage so that I can face them," and he seemed struck by his words.
"Pervy Sage? You call Lord Jiraiya Pervy Sage," and Naruto nodded.
"Because that is exactly who he is. He is a Pervert, but he is also a Sage, and that makes him Pervy Sage," and he answered with a wicked smile, making the jounin chuckle, as he shook his head.
"I have heard quite a few rumors about his so-called habits myself. Still to have the audacity to call a Sanin by such a name," and then his face shifted slightly, and Naruto could see that he was thinking about something unpleasant.
"Your generation is quite something indeed," and they were, and while he was that lazy ass's sensei, the man in front of him was also the sensei of Ino, and Hikari-kun.
And just thinking about the blonde girl who had been his classmate made his own mood shift, as Naruto's fists balled up in rage. He had gone out to train with Pervy Sage so that he could protect the village, and yet he had been too late, and Ino-chan had paid the price for his failure.
They were not very close, but Naruto knew that she was engaged to Hinata-chan's cousin, and his friend Hikari, and that they were going to get married. That was until those damned Akatsuki guys had killed her, and injured Hikari-kun and the old Hag.
"Moving on, the reason we brought you here is not just to keep you safe but also to help you get stronger," and that made him raise a brow.
"And how am I supposed to do that?" Naruto asked, for there was no training ground here.
"I was told that you have been trying to master the use of Kyuubi's chakra," and that was right.
"This place can help you with that," and now he was listening closely.
"This tower is called the Uzumaki tower, and it was built by the combined effort of Shodaime-sama and his lady wife Uzumaki Mito-sama," and that could not be a coincidence.
"Uzumaki? Like me," Naruto asked, and he nodded.
"Still, the tower has the special ability to suppress the corrosive properties of a Bijuu's chakra. So, you can use this opportunity to use the Kyuubi's chakra," and Naruto was quite enraged.
"Then why didn't you tell me this before?" and he had wasted all this time.
"I thought Kakashi had told you already," and Naruto groaned, as he thought of his masked sensei.
"I am going to kick his butt once he gets back," and still, he looked around the building as he remembered its name.
"Uzumaki tower," and he was certain that there was more to his second name than he was told, and every time he had asked Pervy Sage about his parents, the man had told him that he was not quite ready yet, and that he would have his answers once day.
"You said that the name of the Shodaime-sama's wife was Mito Uzumaki, right?" and the man nodded, and his expression shifted as he already realised his line of questioning.
"Yes," Asuma-sensei answered.
"Then am I somehow related to her?" he asked, and the man rubbed his chin before he gave him a vague answer.
"A little bit," and he seemed melancholic as he took out his cigarette and asked.
"They still haven't told you about your parents?" and Naruto shook his head.
"Pervy Sage says that he will give me the answer when I am either a jounin or I have mastered the Kyuubi's chakra," and he was yet to make chunin, much less jounin, and mastering that damned fox's chakra was easier said than done.
"Did you know my parents?" he asked, and Naruto knew that it was an S-rank secret and the man could hardly tell him about them.
"I did," still, he had always wanted to know more about them.
"What were they like?" he asked, and Asuma Sarutobi closed his eyes.
"Well, I can't say much about your mother, though I have heard that she was quite a fierce woman. As for your father, he was quite older than me, and the most I saw of him was on a battlefield during the Third Great Ninja War," and so his father had fought in the war.
"My father fought in the war?" Naruto asked, taking in the new information with zeal.
"Yeah, he did," Asuma-sensei answered as he continued to smoke.
"Was he strong? Was he better than Kakashi-sensei?" and the jounin sensei chuckled.
"Strong. Well, let me put it this way, in all my life I have never seen a shinobi as strong as your father," and Naruto was still reeling from the shock of those words, when suddenly he found the seal on his belly heat up, and as he blinked, he found himself in his mindscape, just where the fox was buried.
"What the hell? I was talking to him about my father," he complained to that shitty fox, who seemed rather startled for some reason.
"Shut up, you brat!" and in all their years together, Naruto had never seen it so nervous as it pushed itself up behind those bars.
"Do you not feel it?" the Kyubi asked, making Naruto frown.
"Feel what?" Naruto asked and closed his eyes, and while he was not as good a sensor as Pervy Sage, he had learned a few tricks from him.
"That chakra," the fox answered nervously.
"But it cannot be. He is dead," and unlike him, Naruto sensed nothing; still, he was quite curious about the thing that had made even Kyubi so nervous.
"What the hell are you talking about? Who is here?" and those red eyes met his own, as the Kyubi finally answered his question.
"The man who put me inside you sixteen years ago," and Naruto stilled at those words.
"The Yondaime Hokage…."
0000
SHIKAKU NARA
With Kakashi, Gai, and Jiraiya-sama all out of the village, Konoha had never been more vulnerable than it is currently. Still, with a truce in place any chance of an attack from either Kumo or Iwa was out of the question, yet that did not mean that they were not on high alert.
While Iwa, Kumo, Suna, and Kiri may be bound by the truce, the same could not be said for Akatsuki. So, the intelligence division had activated their war room once as they ran a most sensitive sensing operation that covered nearly all of the village.
As the jounin commander, Shikaku now had command over all of the forces, and despite the late hour, he had come to inspect the setup once more. A dozen shinobi sat around, a giant ball of water as they scanned any and all chakra movements within the village.
It was the most comprehensive sensing setup they had, yet it was extremely hard to maintain.
"Well, everything seems fine here," and the one leading this operation was none other than his own dear friend and former teammate, Inoichi, who stood beside him.
"Yes," he answered, and the pain of losing his daughter was still evident on his face.
"She helped me modify this," Inoichi began as he rubbed his forehead.
"I know," and Ino Yamana had done what no previous shinobi of their village had managed to do, as she replicated the sensing technique of the Nidaime-sama. This entire setup was an extension of his technique, and Ino could replicate perhaps the same setup to some seventy-eighty percent efficiency all by herself.
She was their village's greatest sensor nin, and now she was gone.
"Her death was a great loss for this village," and none could argue against that.
"But don't worry. We will have our revenge," Shikaku was certain of that, for he knew that a certain shinobi would not rest until she was avenged.
"Where is Hikari?" Inoichi questioned, and for more than a month, no one had laid eyes on the boy, including himself.
"He has gone to the Summoning realm to train. He plans to master his Sage mode and improve himself so that he can take on Pain and his allies," and the only thing apart from that he knew was that the boy had gone to visit Gai before leaving for the summing realm.
"When is he going to return then?" and Shikaku shrugged.
"I don't know," and no one did really. But they were all certain that he would return.
"Still, it has been a week since Lord Jiraiya left. The Summit, it should have begun by now," and Shikaku glanced at the clock and nodded his head.
"It should have started some hours ago…" yet before he could finish the sentence, one of the sensors cut in.
"Inoichi-sama. I am sensing a foreign chakra," and everyone immediately was on high alert.
"Where?" Inoichi questioned as he turned towards the other squad.
"Alert the ANBU and have them converge at the location," he ordered.
"Sir. It's not at the border. The foreign chakra. It's right here, within the village," and the entire room came to a standstill at that.
"How many?" he asked.
"One. They are at the Hokage faces. But there is one more thing," and Shikaku's mind was racing as he wondered just how this stranger had managed to infiltrate their village without triggering even a singular seal.
"There is one more thing," the sensor added.
"This chakra. I have sensed it before."
"Who is it?"
"That is the intriguing part. It belongs to the Yondaime-sama," and it took a second for the words to land, and when the implication of those words became clear, Shikaku sprang into action.
"But that is impossible. Minato…."
"ALERT ALL THE ANBU! TELL THEM TO PUT THE VILLAGE ON HIGH ALERT! BEGIN EVACUATIONS!" Shikaku ordered, as he rushed out of the building.
.
.
.
And a minute later, he was on the Hokage faces, along with three entire squads of ANBU, as he found himself staring at that iconic fluttering cape, and that light blonde hair.
"You have gotten slower," and that voice. Shikaku cursed the Nidaime-sama for creating this wretched technique, and while he had created it so that one day it might be used to protect the village, twice now it had been turned against them.
"...Shikaku," and it was him. It really was him. That face, and those blue eyes that had once haunted their enemies, now haunted him.
"What are you doing here, Minato!" Shikaku questioned.
"I have been ordered to retrieve the nine tails," and so that was his plan.
"Well, I am afraid I cannot let you do that," and he nodded.
"I know, and I am going to help you as much as I can, but my body is no longer in my control," and he took his stance, as he took his.
"So, do what you must and stop me, old friend…."
0000
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