Another moonlit night swept across the tiled rooftops of Konoha. As always, the village blissfully slumbered under the ever-watchful eye of the ANBU.
It was also another late night for the Hokage, who was finishing up the day's paperwork. Just as he had scrawled his signature across a trade permit, he paused his pen; he could sense someone heading straight for his office. A moment later, a red-haired ninja using the Body Flicker Technique appeared in the space before him.
From the disheveled appearance and the smell, Naruto looked as though he hadn't bathed in days. More importantly, he was alone, when Hiruzen had received a messenger bird from Kakashi informing him that the whole team was on their way back.
"Naruto, where's the rest of your team?" asked Hiruzen.
"I'm a clone," said Naruto. "I wanted to know why you sent that missive to Team Shirakumo telling us to stay in Wave country."
Alarms started going off in Hiruzen's head. "If such a missive was sent out, it was not under my authority. Naruto, what is going on?"
The hard look in Naruto's eyes told Hiruzen that this had only confirmed the boy's suspicions.
"I'm guessing someone intercepted my messenger birds. They must have also forged your seal on a fake missive to keep our teams in Wave country. I tried getting here as fast as I could, but I had to conserve chakra... I'm going to report back. I - " The clone broke off. His eyes widening, he fell to his knees.
In a cloud of smoke, he disappeared.
...
Slowly, Naruto rose to his feet.
Everything was very still. And larger, as though magnified. Or was it his senses instead?
Taking in his surroundings, he surmised in an instant what had happened. While Naruto had fought the hunter-nin, Shirakumo had died trying to take down Hidan, and to finish the job, Rai had paid with his life. Further out, Naruto could see yet another body—Sai?—but his chest alone moved up and down, breathing.
"Kakuzu, you bastard, where are you! Come back here and bring me my body!"
It was Hidan's head, sitting at least a dozen yards away from its body. Impossibly, Hidan seemed to have survived even a beheading.
The earth shook and in a daze, Naruto looked up. Snow drifted serenely down from the sky as a raging battle played out in the background: Jiraiya faced off against Kakuzu, and what appeared to be four black humanoid masses.
It didn't seem right to Naruto. His teammates were no longer here. And yet the world continued to move.
Some of the snow that had been falling had melted, and the ground shimmered with water. Naruto caught a glimpse of his reflection: Crowning a blank face, his hair burned like fire and his whisker marks stood out starkly. Droplets of blood rolled off his chin and landed in the water, dyeing it red, and his reflection disappeared.
This quiet, burning sensation… He had never felt like this before.
No—that wasn't quite right. He had felt it once before. He could remember now. It had happened years ago and the memory of it had been forcibly taken from him. But it was all coming back.
Everything was fuzzy and dim. He could hear the sound of running water. The back of his head throbbed, where they had struck him. He wondered where his captors were taking him. He wished he had remembered to wear his scarf to cover his face. Maybe all this wouldn't have been happening, then.
There was someone still fighting his captors. He didn't know who it was. They were strong, and several of his captors groaned and fell to the ground. Eventually however, his captors managed to put a sword through their chest. The person collapsed, and their mask fell off.
With a jolt, he saw the face of the woman who slammed bowls of rice down on his table everyday. She had never had a kind word for him before and yet she had fought for him.
Now, she was gone.
Something inside him snapped. Everything he had ever felt in his short life came together into a single, black emotion. It seethed and roiled. It wanted release. His vision was turning red. A guttural sound filled the tunnel, and he soon realized it was coming from him.
The next thing he heard was the sounds of his captors' screaming. Before long, bodies floated facedown at his feet in a river of blood.
Back in the present, Naruto opened his eyes.
An immense metal gate loomed before him. Something huge and dark lurked behind it; a single seal on the gate doors blocked its escape. He knew it was the only thing preventing the demon it held captive from devouring him.
"So you've finally come to me of your own will," A deep voice filled his head. "What changed?"
"There's nothing holding me back anymore," said Naruto.
The demon roared in laughter. "You finally understand."
A wave of dark, tainted chakra surged out from between the bars of the demon's cage and entered Naruto. He felt his depleted chakra reserves fill up to the brim—and then some more, as it overflowed and enveloped his entire body. He had never felt so much chakra before—it almost felt as though it was eating away at his own body.
Naruto was the jinchūriki of the Nine-tails. He had carried its burden in ignorance for many years, and upon his revelation, tried to deny it. Though he hadn't wanted to admit it, he had been afraid of the consequences. But all that was gone. There was nothing he had left to lose.
Now, he decided, it was time to embrace it.
...
"Forget about me!" Tazuna yelled. "Just go!"
Kakashi hesitated. More than anything, he wanted to investigate the source of the ground tremors—he could feel it in his gut that it was linked to his team's disappearance. But after all that he'd done to defend the old bridge-builder from Zabuza, he couldn't leave him there by himself. Nor did it seem like a good idea to bring him along.
After a moment's thought, Kakashi summoned back his ninken pack.
"Take him to safety," he instructed his hounds.
In agitation, Tazuna bobbed his head. "I'll be fine! Your students need you!"
He nodded. With a final look back at Zabuza's still body, he left.
As Kakashi ran alone through the fog, the ghostly image of the masked man who had killed Zabuza floated into his mind. He had disappeared before Kakashi could give chase, leaving behind only questions. The strange thing was, even though it was his first time seeing the man, he had a sinking feeling it wouldn't be their last.
The marshlands passed quickly. As the air grew colder, the tremors grew more pronounced. He knew that he was drawing close. He could only pray that he wasn't too late.
...
Kakuzu couldn't remember the last time he'd had such a bad day, and he had lived a long life. It didn't rank quite as high as the day he'd returned to his village following his failed assassination attempt on the first Hokage—nothing ever would—but it was up there. It didn't help that once again, he was battling for his life against a Leaf-nin.
It rankled that he was even here. While Jiraiya's head would have made an excellent trophy, Kakuzu would have preferred to fight him on a stage of his own choosing. No, the only reason he was here at all was because of the Leader's orders:
Don't lay a hand on the jinchūriki.
Capture the jinchūriki's teammates.
Kill everyone but the jinchūriki.
Easier said than done, when the jinchūriki kept popping up in his vicinity and when 'everyone' included one of the Sannin. Kakuzu knew that the Nine-tails had to be extracted last—so why go after its jinchūriki at all at this time? What was the point?
Nonetheless, he carried out his orders without question, even while that bastard Hidan was talking his ear off with his complaining. He trusted that the Leader always knew what he was doing. Still—he couldn't shake off the sense that there was someone else pulling the strings, pushing around Kakuzu as a pawn in their game.
Suddenly, Kakuzu was yanked out of his thoughts when the sage froze, halting his assault. And then Kakuzu felt it too.
A wave of vile chakra blasted into the air. It was powerful enough that the force of it alone blew away the fog in their vicinity. Kakuzu immediately spotted the source: It was the Nine-tails' jinchūriki, surrounded in a translucent shroud that he recognized as the tailed-beast's chakra. Four tails, made out of the same vile chakra, churned wildly at his back.
The Seven-tails' jinchūriki they had captured had resorted to using this power too, before they overpowered her.
With a stab of annoyance, he wondered whether Hidan had violated the Leader's orders and attacked the jinchūriki. Kakuzu's battle against Jiraiya had not afforded him many chances to check in on how his idiot partner was doing.
Then, he saw the headless body.
"Oi, Kakuzu!" the head howled.
As he watched, two of the jinchūriki's chakra tails picked up the body and ripped it apart with ease. The remaining tails picked up the screaming head and slammed it down with a force that split the ground in two.
Well, there goes another partner.