Uzumaki Naruto's POV
The day after the Isshiki incident, I had the house to myself and was indulging in the purest form of human achievement: doing absolutely nothing. Recovery, officially. Hinata had left for a mission, because no matter how badly the world had been rattled, the Village still had quotas to fill. Sakura was helping her parents with something or other. Karin, despite the declared rest period, had already started ordering reagents for my lab on her own initiative, so that when the break was over, I'd walk back in to find everything prepped and ready.
But wallowing in laziness for too long wasn't in the cards. After lunch, an uninvited guest showed up at my door. Not quite Otsutsuki-tier, though. More like a significant step down.
"...Emperor?" Kakashi asked, uncertain, when I opened the door. He was in his white Kage robes this time.
"It's just Naruto here. Come on in, you're no stranger."
He visibly relaxed, nodded, and a moment later stepped inside.
"Recent events have caused quite a stir in the Village," he began as we made our way to the kitchen. "I've managed to sort out some of the problems. Not all of them, though."
"Come to cry on my shoulder, Hokage-sama?" I asked with a grin, nodding toward the chair by the table as I pulled the loose-leaf tea down from the shelf and put the kettle on.
"To tattle, genin-san," Kakashi corrected with a tired huff. "Speaking of which, any interest in becoming Hokage?"
"Nope. What, do I look stupid? The position I already hold comes with considerably more power and, with the right approach, considerably fewer headaches. Why would I want that deadweight?"
A sigh of pure, bone-deep exhaustion came from Hatake's direction.
"And you're already sighing just like a Hokage," I noted. "So stay one, by all means."
"My life is suffering..." he murmured, shaking his head. "Anyway. There are a couple of problems in the Village..."
A reel of images flashed behind Kakashi's eyes: jolted awake in the dead of night by waves of chakra cold enough to raise the hairs on your spine, flashes tearing across the sky, panic rippling through the streets, and then, somehow worse, hours upon hours of jōnin from the council chewing his ear off. In short, his phrasing just now had been a generous understatement. He continued, choosing his words carefully:
"One is minor, and the other is you. The minor one being brazen spies from the Hidden Cloud. I've been using them as cover for you..."
What followed was an explanation that, as things stood, both he and I had managed to accumulate an opposition of several jōnin who were deeply upset about my conquest of the world and were now demanding someone find a way to rein in this dangerous, unmanageable me. Because how dare I, apparently, reach for the power that rightfully belonged to upstanding people. Meaning them. Kakashi, for his part, had been holding the line, arguing that I was our shinobi, that I meant no harm to the Leaf, that I was by any reasonable metric a sane and functional person. Therefore: no reason for the fuss.
"I mean, I even showed them your certificate... but they simply won't calm down. They say a state cannot submit to one man. And that I need to find leverage over you before it's too late for all of us."
Siiiip. I took a long, contemplative sip of my tea, then set the cup down.
"Right, right." I nodded slowly. "A gathering of half-wits projecting their insecurities onto a ruler. Do they happen to be aware, by the way, that they already answer to one man: the Daimyō?"
"You don't understand, that's different," Hatake started to explain, but I cut him off.
"Yes, yes, indirect levers, technically not obligated to comply, blah blah blah. Fine. Here's what you tell them: if they can't stomach losing face by answering to a mere man, they're welcome to think of me as a god. And if they have grievances to air, they can find the spine to come before the Emperor and say it to my face instead of hiding behind your skirts. Pass that along."
Several expressions cycled across Hatake's face in response to my little speech. The last one landed squarely on universal sorrow made flesh. He sighed, somehow looking even more miserable.
"Still, as Hokage," the man's grimace grew more pitiful still, "I'm obligated to ask: what should Konoha be preparing for?"
A smug grin spread across my lips.
"Preparing to pledge fealty."
"...To swear an oath?"
"No, to listen while I announce that they're my subjects. Not now, though. A bit later."
I laid out the specifics of how I envisioned it, and the picture wasn't all that different from what they'd seen in the Mist. Full subordination, a handful of reforms, though nothing as drastic as what had happened in Kiri, forging much deeper ties on the global scale, a slow restructuring of the existing order, and so on. Kakashi had already anticipated most of it, but hearing the details seemed to ease something in him, the reassurance that I wasn't actually planning to run the Village into the ground or turn it into some kind of Hunger Games scenario. He lodged a complaint, as a formality, that all of this was going to be a massive headache. That's fine, I told him, he'd survive. The silver-haired martyr gave a long-suffering nod and took his leave.
Over the next several days, my humble self indulged in rest: a few restaurant outings with the girls, one trip to the theater, savoring cakes, or simply sleeping. Everything except the last one, unfortunately, had to happen in distant countries, because my recognizable face drew way too much attention back home.
Then, easing back into things gradually, I made my way to the Mist to see how things were holding up. As it turned out, quite well. My governors had proven they weren't just decoration; they didn't need me hovering over their shoulders to maintain order. Unsurprising, given that they'd been maintaining exactly that kind of order through a revolution.
The shinobi of the Land of Water had grown, on the whole, even more compliant, without so much as a flicker of thought toward overthrowing me. Zabuza had fully integrated into the system. The Hōzuki clan, whom I'd suspected might rally behind the executed leader's ideology, chose not to do anything stupid and fell neatly into line. Yagura had settled into his new post, well away from his former revolutionary associates, and was carrying out his duties conscientiously. None of it was particularly surprising, considering they were operating under the authority of an Emperor who moves continents.
Maybe I should have moved all of Konoha a couple of times just to make an impression on the stragglers. But assessed soberly, that pathetic little opposition of mine wasn't worth the theater. Honestly, they weren't worth anything.
A day later, I planted my temple outside Konoha with considerable fanfare and, with equal fanfare, announced to the sound of trumpets that the Land of Fire was now part of the Great Empire. And that they were free to rejoice and take pride in the fact that they now had an Emperor.
Under the crushing weight of my reputation, the shinobi found they could not refuse.
As for my so-called "opposition": inside the council chamber, they were a state unto themselves. But when it came time to actually handle things with their own hands, they stood quietly with everyone else, dissolved into the crowd, and put every effort into pretending they didn't exist.
After the, let's call it, oath, I offered Kakashi the first stage of the body-enhancement procedure, framed around the position of governor. He accepted. That immediately pushed the already near-zero probability of unrest in Konoha against its glorious Emperor even lower and placed Kakashi-Hokage higher and more influential than before.
Shortly after, given the opportunity, I decided to wrap the Leaf even more tightly in my authority. So I offered the body-enhancement to a man who genuinely deserved it, a man of real principle: Might Guy. And this giant of a man, weeping and lamenting that he was not worthy of such an honor, eventually yielded to my persuasion and became the protector of the Land of Fire region. After which, delighted at the prospect of finally being able to give his beloved Kakashi a run for his money again, he started chasing him through the streets of Konoha screaming about the Power of Youth at the top of his lungs.
Leaving my subordinates to sort out their petty squabbles on their own, I moved on via the next temple to the capital, where, once again beneath the crushing weight of my reputation, the Fire Daimyō also bent the knee to the Emperor. To me, that is.
Using Shadow Clones and my ability to sense deception and negative emotions, I swiftly replaced a substantial portion of the upper echelon's personnel, then mapped out the directions I expected them to move in. Fortunately, there was more qualified talent here than there had been in the Land of Water.
Then, for a rather less sweeping objective, I ordered architects to be found, to design a few residences for me. Properly lavish ones. Living in a rented cottage was beneath my dignity at this point. So I allocated land for myself near Konoha, in the capital, and in a few other particularly scenic locations for country estates, and made it clear that the architects were not to constrain their imaginations, because I would be doing the actual construction myself. After all, shinobi and Fire Country officials alike had plenty of other work ahead of them, building up and expanding the country and everything that entailed, so let them spread their efforts across the whole state. And of course, they should be prepared: within a month, key figures would begin submitting regular reports to the Emperor. Or rather, to his Shadow Clones.
Amid all of this, a day passed, and by the time things had quieted I was sitting on the throne in the Leaf's temple. Today I had company; Sakura had decided to join me out of curiosity. We were down to our last appointment for the foreseeable future.
He walked in hunched, with the bearing of a man who hadn't merely been beaten but spat on too. An Uchiha.
"Long time no see, Sasuke. How's life? How's the tomato garden?" I opened pleasantly.
My guest, however, found no joy in that. It was written all over him: being here, inside the temple, asking something of me, was a profoundly humiliating experience.
"The cursed seal. I'm ready," he cut straight to it.
"Hmm. Noted. The deal stands. Keep next Friday open, ten to eleven in the morning. I'll come by and we'll take care of it."
With that, our productive dialogue concluded. He gave a nod, turned, and left.
"Pitiful," Sakura commented from beside me once the Uchiha's back had disappeared through the door. "A man who can't accept the new reality. Can't adapt..."
"Dead weight, from Evolution's perspective." I shrugged. "Do you feel sorry for him? I do. A little."
"Definitely not more than you do." The girl let out a displeased sigh, watching the empty doorway as old memories surfaced. "Then again, let's not dwell on lost causes."
"Yeah..."
I too watched the space where that Uchiha had been and wondered why I was helping him at all. The motivation wasn't sentiment, not the kind you'd feel toward some lesser creature. It was something closer to gratitude for what he'd been able to give me. Even if most of those things weren't strictly to his credit, the Sharingan, the Indra construct, the Uchiha library were all worth a couple of favors that cost me nothing. And I should make a note to myself: arrange a meeting between this Avenger and the object of his Vengeance, to finally close the book on the story of two brothers so it stops flickering at the edges of my mind.
With that, the day's appointments were done. And so I returned at last to my favorite pastime: methodically taking things apart. Specifically, intact corpses. Back in the lab, naturally, I hadn't forgotten about the Otsutsuki's entire carcass. His body was full of mechanics I had no prior frame of reference for, and working through all of it would keep me occupied for months. And that eye of his was interesting too; the underlying principles were worth borrowing.
In addition, my clones were engaged in probing new spectrums of Earth sage chakra. Not just the one I'd accessed through Kurama's chakra, but also from the One-Tail and the Three-Tails. Those carried a distinctive concentrated power and equally potent aggressive properties.
All of it was sparking a flood of new ideas for further physical augmentation. My current level of power, incidentally, was already sufficient to begin studying the Rinnegan, which, as I'd discovered, shared certain fragmented internal characteristics with the new Earth sage chakra spectrums now available to me. That led me to the thought that I should take another look at Sasuke's eyes and Kakashi's eye, and also borrow a pair of already-awakened Rinnegan from my slightly lesser colleague, the one occasionally referred to as a god in the Rain Village. And a look at the Ten-Tails' vessel wouldn't hurt either, given that it processes the entire spectrum of Earth sage chakra simultaneously.
In the midst of these thoughts and experiments, several more days passed, split between the lab and resting at home. But just as I was getting ready to go visit the Akatsuki, as luck would have it, they came to me instead. Or rather, their true leader came.
"Did no one ever teach you to knock?" I lifted my hand from the fūinjutsu Analyzer seal, which promptly went dark, and turned around.
In the vast hall of the laboratory, rising up from the floor, stood a black humanoid figure with fully yellow eyes.
The creature tilted its head.
"I assumed you preferred getting to the point over wasting time on etiquette."
"Hmm. Fair enough."
My eyes swept the room: the bright space, several tanks with human subjects floating inside them, now with Otsutsuki genetic material, and the table behind me wrapped in sealing arrays, with a single tank at the center of the formation where an eye floated. A black sclera with a golden iris, golden triangles converging toward it like rays. The unique dōjutsu of Isshiki.
I covered the tank with my hand, sent it into my personal space, and turned back to Black Zetsu, who had likewise been scanning the laboratory.
"Let's hear your proposition," I said, my face unreadable. My eyes looked right through him, reading his nature down to the core.
"You may call me Black Zetsu."
"Yeah, I know who you are, slick. Don't keep the Emperor waiting."
He twitched, processing the implications of what exactly I might know about him. After a moment, however, he continued:
"You managed to kill an Otsutsuki... And you must be seeking answers. You hold power that humans were never meant to hold... and yet you hold it."
"Recall the beginning of this conversation," I reminded him flatly, prompting him to get to the offer already.
"...The Rabbit Goddess."
"Go on."
"You won't be able to open certain doors without her." Zetsu's voice picked up slightly; he was clearly starting to worry about losing my attention. "There is knowledge that does not belong to humans. There are keys to dimensions that are inaccessible to those who are not... Otsutsuki."
"You're not entirely right. According to Isshiki himself, my jutsu are comparable to his clan's techniques: Shinjutsu."
"Ninjutsu is only a fraction of the true techniques. You had enough of those fragments to build something greater," he continued, heaping on the flattery that, judging by the emotions he was barely suppressing, was utterly and completely insincere. "But my Mother... Kaguya, can offer so much more. The knowledge of the oldest clan, whose history predates even this world... She was betrayed by those she sought to protect. Yet your abilities are sufficient to restore her."
He glanced pointedly at the Otsutsuki clones in the capsules, making his implication clear.
I gave a short hum and folded my arms.
"Smooth pitch. To summarize: you're offering me Kaguya as a knowledge source, and in return you want her brought back. Simple enough. But what do you plan to do after? Say she's not exactly stable, say she decides she'd like to absorb all the chakra in this world? As is customary in her family of parasites."
Zetsu twitched. An entire bonfire of negative emotions erupted inside him directed at me, for having the audacity to insult his mother. None of it showed on his featureless face.
"You are powerful... but you are particular. Pragmatic. You would not kill without reason. And... you are capable of making the right decision."
A smirk appeared on my face.
"'You're not like the others, so do what benefits me.' Did I miss anything? Pathetic attempt." I extended my hand, and Zetsu stumbled backward. The tension in his emotions was unmistakable. "That trick works on Uchiha, play on their martyr complex and watch them dance. Not on me."
Realizing where things were heading, Black Zetsu made a sharp attempt to sink into the ground. But my hand was faster: it closed around his head, and spreading sealing marks pinned him in place.
"No!" A wail of genuine anguish tore out of him as he grasped his situation. "Shinobi were only ever meant for a great purpose! This is the meaning of your existence! You are instruments! How could filth ever manage to—"
I'd already stopped listening to his mounting hysteria. I sent him to a specially prepared frozen-space seal.
"Noisy," I muttered, turning back to the table. I unsealed Isshiki's eye back onto it as though nothing had happened and resumed my research.
The seal I'd used to contain Black Zetsu had been partially derived from the dimensional properties of that remarkable eye. In Isshiki's own version of such a space, he had stored his stakes, his cubes, and various other inventory, all of which I had also gotten around to examining.
As for Zetsu's idea, it wasn't actually bad on its own merits. Resurrecting Kaguya was genuinely viable. But on my terms, extracting the maximum value from the exchange? That had real promise.
Moving on to the Akatsuki. After finishing in the lab, I decided to pay them a visit sooner rather than later. I wasn't about to let them waltz into my measured life uninvited. And my first stop was one particular character in a mask.
I have an old score that it would be rather nice to finally settle.
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