The Chosen One: Hatake SI (Naruto)

Chapter 31

Jiraiya saw the boy grow quiet as he learned about his true heritage. Jiraiya knew well the pains of being an orphan, having suffered them himself, and so he knew of the questions, doubts, and fears that lingered in one’s mind.

One could argue that there was some mercy in being ignorant of one’s true past, but Naruto deserved the truth. He deserved to know, if not for himself, then for Minato and Kushina, who had given their lives for him.

Slowly, he noticed the shaking of the shoulders as the boy failed to hide his tears. The sniffles came second, as he barely eked out a question.

“Why?” Naruto asked, and Jiraiya knew that there was truly no way for them to justify the pains he was forced to bear, yet that did not mean that their caution was without any reason.

“I was against the idea of secrecy, but in the end the decision was made by Hiruzen-sensei, for he wished to protect you,” and Naruto wiped away the tears as he looked up at him.

“Your father was a great shinobi. The man won us the Third Great Ninja War single-handedly, and the entire world feared him and his power. Your mother was a descendant of the Uzumaki clan, and so being a child of such union can be considered a death sentence,” and that was the truth of it.

“The Kyubi incident left the village weak and vulnerable. There was general suspicion that entities from within the village were involved in the whole affair, and so if our enemies were to ever learn that Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki had left behind an issue, it would have put your life in grave danger,” and while this all could help him rationalize the pains, it could not ever heal the scars left behind from a troubling upbringing.

“What about you? Couldn’t you have protected me?” Naruto asked, and now his own heart ached with guilt and rage.

“I am confident of bringing down entire nations, yet even I will admit that I have little talent for raising a child. The village needed me out on the field, projecting strength, and so I took over that duty,” and that was his fault, and he would suffer well for it.

“We tried our best to protect you. Even without the knowledge of your heritage, your status as a jinchuriki put you in grave danger. There were many attempts at your life that were dealt with in the shadows,” and he placed a hand atop his head and ruffled his hair.

“I just want you to know that you are and always were very loved,” and the boy nodded.

“Why now? Why tell me this now?” Naruto asked.

“Because I believe that you are ready to face the Kyubi, and that somewhere in that seal Minato has left behind a vestige of himself just so he could talk to you,” and he had felt it a few months ago, when he was examining the seal while being in Sage Mode, and he had felt a trace of Minato’s chakra that was woven into the seal in a very intricate manner.

Yet it was not regular chakra. It was different from that. It was more potent and dangerous.

“Vestige?” Naruto asked.

“There is a chance that you may get to meet Minato....”

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OROCHIMARU

Orochimaru had known that facing the Akatsuki would not be a simple task. Despite his own advantages, the enemy he faced was one that had been preparing for a war against not just one, but all of the Five Great Nations.

Each and every member of the group was an S-ranked nin, fully capable of bringing a Hidden Village to its knees single-handedly, and now he was set to face them all. Even with the army, the numbers were meaningless, and the Akatsuki members would be able to make quick work of it, especially Pain himself.

He had witnessed the power of the Akatsuki’s leader, and to this day, the only person who could face the man on even footing in his mind was Gojo Hatake and no one else.

The two of them lived in a strata of their own, yet much to his surprise, the man was yet to make an appearance, even as his reanimated shinobi wreaked havoc over the Akatsuki members.

The Third Raikage cut through Hidan’s form in the blink of an eye, as the Undead man’s scythe failed to pierce the Raikage’s shield.

“What the hell!” Hidan screamed, as the four Kage dominated the Akatsuki members who barely clung to their lives, though Orochimaru’s mind was more occupied by the masked man coming for him.

He had always known that there was more to the man behind the mask than he let on, and he was proven right as he literally moved through the Shodaime’s attacks, completely unfazed as he approached the man himself.

Slowly, he was able to reach the man himself, yet just as he was about to grab the man and teleport him away, the Shodaime Hokage shifted as he substituted himself with a wooden clone and jumped back, before launching another attack.

Wooden pikes raced towards the masked man, who was forced to abandon his own attack as he dissipated into nothingness once more.

“You are a persistent bastard,” the man added as he appeared behind him, but once again the Shodaime was after him again, yet his attacks were useless again as they simply passed through his body.

Orochimaru still did not know the technique he was using, but the truth was that it did not matter. The masked man was strong indeed. Far stronger than he had realized, but the simple fact was that this battle would not be decided in the fight between him and Shodaime.

No. It would be decided somewhere else, and from a single glance he could easily tell that despite their numbers the Akatsuki members were being pushed back by the Kages he had summoned.

“You can scurry awake all you want, but I am afraid the others are not so lucky,” and he pointed towards the battle to their side, where the Third Raikage and the Second Tsuchikage were wreaking havoc on the Akatsuki members.

Hidan’s abilities were useless against the reanimated shinobi who refused to die, and despite their numerical advantage, the Kages were simply too powerful to counter, and so the Akatsuki members were clearly on the back foot.

And suddenly he saw it happen, as the Kazekage, Mizukage, and Raikage were able to box in the Akatsuki members while the Tsuchikage prepared his ultimate technique.

“Well, it seems like it's already over,” Orochimaru declared, as he realized that victory was in sight already, as the bandaged Second Tsuchikage flew into the air.

“Jinton:...” and a cube began to glisten in his hands, and this was the famous Particle Style of the Tsuchikage, a Kekkei Tota that only two shinobi ever could use in the history of their world.

“Atomic Dismantling Jutsu!” A ray rushed out of his hands and tore through the entire world, as Orochimaru smiled in triumph. The greatest strength of Particle Style was that it was simply impossible to defend against it, and so with this attack, their victory was all but certain.

“Perhaps, now Pain will decide to grace us with his presence,” yet in that sole eye of the masked man, he saw no fear at all despite the troubling odds he now faced.

“There is no need for Pain to deal with pests like you,” and now Orochimaru’s brows came together, as suddenly he felt the air behind him shift as a bright ray of light cut through the debris covering the other battlefield and tore through the Tsuchikage’s body.

“Impossible,” and that was Particle Style.

“How?” he gasped in worry, and before the Tsuchikage could act, a familiar voice cut through the silence.

“Sasori,” Itachi’s voice cut through the silence, and in the next second, a swarm of puppets came and surrounded the Tsuchikage before a sealing formula erupted around them and sealed up the bandaged man.

A blade cut through the smoke, and Orochimaru’s eyes widened as he saw a skeletal structure surrounding the entire crew of the Akatsuki, while blood dripped down Itachi Uchiha’s face.

“The Susanoo,” and of course, he knew of it, but even then the Susanoo did not have the ability to reflect attacks, and he knew of only one weapon that held such an ability.

“The Yata mirror,” and then he saw Itachi’s Susanoo tear through the flood of Golden Sand, coming for them, and the blade tore through the flood of Golden Sand before it pierced through the Kazekage’s body.

“Indeed,” the masked man added. Then Orochimaru watched as he lost his connection with the seal, and his body began getting pulled into the blade.

“But the Yata Mirror is but one of the treasures possessed by him,” and he knew of this as well.

“I can easily argue that the number of shinobi as blessed with talent as Itachi Uchiha can be counted on one hand. He possesses not only the famed Yata Mirror, but also holds the great Totsuka Blade in him as well,” and these were two of the most famed Spiritual weapons, each possessing a unique ability.

The Yata Mirror allowed one to reflect any attack aimed at its user, and the Totsuka Blade was a sealing instrument that held no equal. It could even seal up a bijuu, and he watched as two of his titans fell in the blink of an eye, all because of the efforts of one singular shinobi.

“Itachi Uchiha,” Orochimaru ground his teeth as he looked at the man who had been his undoing too many times by now.

“In the face of those eyes, you shall always remain nothing more than a pest,” and the masked man rushed at him, and once more, wood shot out of the Shodaime’s hands as he tried to attack the masked man.

But he was relentless, yet now Orochimaru watched how he was applying explosion tags to the wood as he phased through them.

BOOOM! BOOOM!

The tags exploded, and the Shodaime was sent reeling back. For the first time, Orochimaru was forced to jump back, and with two of the four Kages gone, the balance of power was shifting as two of the Akatsuki members jumped towards him and joined the masked man in their attacks.

“Well, if my attacks are useless against those bastards, I can still sacrifice you to Lord Jashin,” Hidan screamed as his scythe whipped through the air.

“To think that you would discredit the God of Shinobi like this,” and four shadowy creatures jumped out of Kakuzu’s back, as the masks all opened their mouths and spewed elemental ninjutsu of every chakra nature towards him.

“You truly are cut,” and while Hashirama Senju was able to face them still, Orochimaru felt the tide of battle shift, as he was forced to join the fray himself.

He fought on for hours and hours. But by the end of the night, the Akatsuki was down three members as Kakuzu, Deidara, and Sasori fell to the might of Hashirama and his armies, but for him, the battle was lost.

Itachi, Kisame, Hidan, and the others toyed with Hashirama, leaving him alone to fend for himself against the masked nin all by himself. In the end, Orochimaru fell to his knees as the plant-like creature of the group rose from the ground and trapped him with his own clones.

“It seems like failure is your destiny,” the masked nin uttered, and Orochimaru would be lying if he said that he was not a bit surprised by his prowess. He was even more powerful than he had imagined.

“You think that you have won?” Orochimaru laughed as he asked him that question, for despite his troubles, he still had one last trump card, and he had hoped to use it against Pain, but now it seemed as if he had no choice.

“I will not lie,” he began.

“Your powers have truly exceeded my expectations,” Orochimaru praised.

“And as always, Itachi-kun has proven himself to be even more special than I thought him to be, but I should have expected nothing less from one of the twin stars of the Uchiha clan,” and he had made a mistake in underestimating them, but the battle was not quite lost yet.

Not at all.

“It was why I always held great admiration for him. But the truth is that even now there is only one Uchiha clan shinobi that I truly ever feared,” and suddenly, the White Zetsu holding him down was cut away in the blink of an eye, as shadows blurred through the air and coalesced into a singular form right in front of him.

“The other part of the twin stars of the Uchiha Clan. A shinobi whose visual genjutsu prowess far exceeded that of even Itachi himself,” and the realization came a bit too late, as the masked man’s body went still as the final trump card of his was revealed.

“The shinobi who could change the world all by himself....”

Much like the masked man, he possessed only a singular eye, and as he used his most powerful technique, the Kotoamatsukami, and as a penance for rewriting the mind itself, he saw his eye slowly turn back into a regular three-tomoe sharingan as Orochimaru smirked with surety of victory.

“...Shisui Uchiha!”

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