Chapter 19: Chapter 24
The votes are in, massively favouring Akari.
As such, the story is changing the MC's name again. Last time though, I swear, Akari is a name I quite like.
This one deals with a few harsh topics. Only talking about them, nothing extremely happens to Akari or anyone, but some unpleasant things are spoken about, that's why I bumped this story up to M-rated, for safety. It's only like two or so sentences, but for a topic as uncomfortable as that makes me feel, I think a warning is prudent.
Meh, whatever, probably me being over-sensitive to shit again.
Chapter 24
Stepping up onto the porch of the house, Akari knelt down, placing Hinata gently on the ground before rapping her knuckles on the door.
Her feelings of ill-ease about the entire situation weren't dissuaded at all when the door slid open to reveal the implacable face of Hyuuga Hiashi, who glanced between her and his daughter before turning around and re-entering his house wordlessly. Akari looked down at Hinata, who had a forlorn expression marring her face. On a whim, she reached down to ruffle her hair, bringing the young girl to look up at her with tear-filled eyes.
Akari looked into the house with a frown. He didn't even ask what was going on, he just...left her standing on the porch like so much trash. Of course, with the strained-at-best relationship between Uchiha and Hyuuga, she wasn't surprised to be treated as such, but the fact that he even turned his back on his own daughter like that...after looking after Naruto for so long, she knew how important presence and love was during the formulating years of young children.
It explained why Hinata seemed so shy and closed-off, if her father regularly acted like that around her then her self-confidence would be completely thrown in the dumpster. Unfortunately, without due reason, there wasn't really much Akari could do. This world didn't have child protective services or any equivalent. In extreme circumstances, the Hokage could step in and force those in question to behave better, but simple mistreatment, involving a Clan Head and his heiress daughter to boot, was not something that Hiruzen could stick his nose in, not without repercussions.
She gave one final rub to the young girls head, spoke a quiet goodbye, then even as she wanted to just pick the girl up, take her to the Hokage and demand that something be done, she left her on that porch alone. Or at least, she tried. The girl clamped her arms around Akari's leg, stopping her from moving, the fabric of her skirt being dampened as the girl cried into her leg. "P-please d-don't go!" Akari knelt down, taking the girls hands into her own.
"Oh sweetheart, I'm sorry. I don't want you to go in there, it feels so...cold." Rubbing her thumb across her cheeks, she brushed the falling tears away. "But there's nothing I can do. Your father is a very...important man. Even if I tried to tell people about how he acts around you, nobody would care, some wouldn't even believe me, thinking me to be trying to ruin his good name." The girl was bawling now, repeatedly begging Akari to just take her away, she hated it there.
Sighing softly to herself, she slipped a small seal from her inventory, wrapping her arms around the young girl even as she murmured another apology, then placed the sleep-inducing tag onto the young girl, who fell unconscious quickly, leaving Akari to lift her up and walk into the house, wiping her boots down i the Genkan even if she didn't remove them, not intending to stay long. She noted that there was no sign of an adult female presence in the home, only things a man would use, and even those were not common. In all, the home felt barely lived-in, like a place people slept, but not much else.
Akari spotted a room with a very faintly pink-tinted paint coating it, quickly peering inside after gently knocking to see that it was a girls room, presumably Hinata's. She walked over to the bed and laid her down, quickly rolling her covers up over the young girl, then exiting and making for the door quickly. A voice called out clearly as she passed one door.
"I see you have taken the liberty of putting my daughter to sleep." She resisted the urge to growl at the emotionless tone that Hiashi spoke at, walking into the room his voice came from to see him seated seiza-style on a zabuton, sipping some kind of drink from a cup, then gesturing towards another cushion with his free hand. "Sit, so you may explain your presence in my compound."
It was official, Akari really hated this man.
After explaining as much of the situation as she could be bothered to, without taking a seat, she departed from the room quickly, then the compound, her fists clenched.
The man was...words didn't describe how much she wanted to punch him in the face. The only things stopping her were the facts that he was the Hyuuga Clan head, and that she'd observed him. The man was a level 68. Considering the Hyuuga were primarily hand-to-hand fighters using the Gentle Fist, he didn't need anything to whoop her ass. She doubted that even channelling Kurama's chakra would change the outcome of her getting her Tenketsu closed off one by one, or much faster if he deigned to use the Eight Trigrams 64 Palms, which would seal every Tenketsu point on her body.
Or at least, enough Tenketsu that channelling Chakra to any point of her body would be impossible. Because of those two things, she stayed her hand, instead leaving the absolutely infuriating man behind in his home
But, as she leapt onto a rooftop, she glanced back at the compound, unfurling her fingers to feel them cracking from the force she'd clenched with. No matter how much she loathed how that man treated his daughter, there was practically nothing she could do to change that fact. Even if she had a good reason, it was her word against the word of a Clan Head, by extension the word of the entire Clan. For all she knew, that was how all young Hyuuga were brought up, which went a long way to explaining why they all had sticks longer than the Hokage's Adamantine Staff lodged up their collective asses.
Shaking her head to remove the bizarre mental image, she leapt across the village before coming to a stop in front of her apartment, her knives dropping from seals as her lips pulled back into a feral snarl.
Her seals were offline, and the door was wide-open.
She activated her Sharingan, careful to avoid disturbing anything which could be evidence, quickly clearing the apartment and ascertaining that Naruto was, in fact, gone. The door was wide-open, as was the kitchen window. Growling lowly, she exited the window, hopping across to the next building along and all but lighting the ground on fire with the force of her glare as she searched for tracks, but found nothing, leaving her to switch her Sharingan off, glaring around but with nothing to chase.
She briefly considered dragging Kakashi and his ninken out here to track Naruto, but decided that would take too long. She didn't have any spectres off the top of her head who could track effectively. Minato might be able to, but it was a big might, and very risky to suddenly have the Fourth Hokage run through his village. Perhaps...she bit her thumb, swiping the blood on the ground after forming the hand-seals for..."Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
Black Fuinjutsu appeared, poofing into existence a single Red Panda, having been summoned thanks to the strong sense of smell a red panda possessed. "No time to explain, kidnapped child, get the scent from this-" She pulled one of Naruto's shirts from her inventory, having never gotten the chance to wash it. "-and find him. Do it quickly, and I'll give you a wagon-full of bamboo shoots." The panda nodded, pawing at the shirt and sniffing a few times, then jerking its head up and bolting off across rooftops at top speed, whilst Akari replaced the shirt in her inventory and gave pursuit, keeping pace with the small panda, her eyes scanning rooftops.
The panda led her right to the Konoha wall, then running straight into it, but instead of bouncing off the giant wall, instead went straight through what appeared to be solid matter. Akari didn't let it phase her, running straight into the same section, but made sure to glimpse the location with her Sharingan, just so she could tell the Hokage what she had found. They quickly emerged on the other side of the wall, hurtling through the treeline at a breakneck pace.
Then, the panda she summoned stopped dead, tilting its head and looking around. "Akari-sama...we are surrounded." As the panda spoke, several dozen blank-masked individuals appeared, each dressed as ANBU but clearly hostile in their postures and the fact that nearly all of then had drawn their blades. Those who didn't had their hands ready to form seals for Jutsu.
"I know." She said softly, sending the summon away in a puff of smoke. Then, in front of everyone, she closed her eyes. A few tense moments passed, nobody moving, before she snapped her lids open again, the spiralling pinwheels of the Uchiha Dojutsu plain for all to see as Akari pushed half of her entire Chakra reserves into the Jutsu she was using, the one unique to her, unseen by any still-breathing human. Even if she didn't have to call out its name, it seemed fitting to announce the technique which would annihilate all these bastards.
"Megami no Mon!"
Two white forms appeared from the ground, solidifying first merely as two pairs of shoes, then legs, waist, torsos, before the rest of their bodies fully formed, leaving two individuals standing on either side of Akari, who both blinked once and looked around curiously. Akari granted the two individuals free will, immediately having a pair of arms wrapped around her neck from one side. "Kushina-san, please, we're in a situation here!" On her other side, Minato merely looked at her with a grin, completely unwilling to help her.
"Oh, those masked bastards? Don't worry Akari-chan, I've got an Adamantine Sealing Chain for each and every one of them if they attacked you." Akari sweat-dropped at Kushina's blunt declaration, then grinned as she remembered something, whispering into her ear something which made her release Akari, her fists balling up. "They WHAT?" Even separated from her Bijuu, Kushina still possessed a deadly level of Killing Intent it seemed, the very air itself heavy with the pure fury rolling off the red-headed woman, golden chains sprouting from the small of her back, even as her face was a tightly-controlled mask.
"So Akari, would you mind explaining what's going on now?" Kushina's face snapped to Minato's in surprise, then at Akari's, said girl facepalming.
"Okay fine, Naruto got kidnapped, my summons animal tracked him this way, and these guys appeared to stop me. There's no fucking way I'm letting them get between me and Naruto though, so instead of waiting to reveal you, I brought you both out early. Well, now we can kick these pricks to the dirt, get Naruto back, then head back to Konoha before you two run out of Chakra."
Kushina flipped her hair over her shoulder, clad in her Jonin vest, which was something Akari had never seen before. Minato palmed one of his Kunai, wearing the familiar flame-emblazoned Haori as always. "You didn't even have to ask Akari." With those short words, Minato released his Kunai, pressing his fingers together into a cross. "Taju Kunai Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" His one Hiraishin-tagged Kunai erupted into several hundred. While none injured any of the assorted nin, they scattered heavily over the area.
Before any of the nin could retreat, Minato was already flashing around, every time a hostile nin got too close to a Kunai he appeared with two more Kunai ready, slashing out throats, cutting across tendons, and truly living up to his name as the Yellow Flash. Kushina was also busily stabbing through hostiles with her Chakra chains, occasionally delving into Taijutsu when one approached her. Those years spent in the Pure Lands certainly hadn't made her any weaker.
Akari was stood in the centre of this carnage, not seeing an opportunity to really help the pair of extremely experienced Shinobi in their combat. Minato could probably single-handedly deal with every foe, and Kushina was certainly not a pushover by any stretch, both worthy of the titles they'd earned.
Perhaps, if the matchup was more even allowing for her to aid the other two rather than staying idle and stationary, or maybe if Akari hadn't held back her spare points, she might have avoided the surprise attack from her side. It wasn't a physical attack though, far from it. Hidden carefully in the trees, all it took was an unhindered look at her face, and a Jutsu was cast. Barely audible, and without even realizing it, Akari was spoken to. "Dispel your technique." The order said.
Without even questioning it, Akari brought her hands up into a cross, forcibly sending Minato and Kushina away again. Surprised to feel the chakra lent to him vanishing into nothingness, he turned just in time to see a bandaged figure step out from the tree-line, but vanished before he could get anywhere near, Kushina having already disappeared entirely with no Kurama supporting her in terms of Chakra.
"Kneel." Akari followed the order despite her confusion. She didn't know why she listened to that order, nor the order before, just that she absolutely had to do so. "So, even after all this time, you still have more secrets." Her eyes tracked the bandaged old man as he approached, her hand twitching to throw a Kunai at him. "Do not attack me." Then, her hostility towards him vanished like the wind, as if she couldn't even consider attacking the man.
How? How did he hold such power over her? Was she a sleeper agent or something? But she didn't remember anything like that...maybe Genjutsu, or a Yamanaka technique, something to suppress memories? All she knew was that some deeply-ingrained part of her psyche followed his order implicitly, over-riding any other considerations she had. "Hmm, I suppose this would be the time a lesser Shinobi would mock their opponent. Suffice to say, that is unnecessary. Follow me. Do not try to flee, or contact anybody else. Do not use a Jutsu of any kind."
As her head unwillingly bobbed in accordance, she felt herself, or rather her mind, be pulled backwards into her own head.
"Kit, you get what's going on yet?"
Akari blinked up at Kurama, who's snout was close to the bars, peering down at her. She shook her head, looking up further to where she could see the outside world, her body moving of its own will to follow the bandaged man, Danzo, she recalled. "You got caught in a Genjutsu. This one though...it's nastier than any I've seen before. It doesn't force you into anything, it tricks your own head into doing it, believing it to be your own idea. You're lucky your head's so fucked up, otherwise, you wouldn't even be aware of what you were doing differently. But being aware that you aren't doing something willingly and being able to stop yourself are two different things, Kit."
Frowning, Akari tipped her head. "So, I'm being fucked with inside my own head, which makes it so that I listen to what Danzo says implicitly, but because it's my own brain making those decisions, breaking out is pretty much impossible?" The fox nodded, planting his head on his paws.
"Look, brat, do you trust me? Because I have a plan, but you have to trust me completely for it." Akari hummed. On one hand, he was a giant fox made up of chakra. But on the other, he'd helped her when she was about to die, he was funny, and...he was like a permanent companion. Her own little foxy-devil sat on one shoulder. She grinned and nodded quickly. "Okay, here's my plan. I'm going to need you to tear this seal off." He tapped the metal back of the cage where the seal was located whilst Akari frowned.
"But that would let all of your Chakra flow into me. My body can only handle one tail right now, using two left me dead-on-my-feet after a minute, remember?" The giant fox grimaced at the memory. Akari's skin had literally been flayed off, exposing the subcutaneous bone and muscle of her body as his caustic Chakra literally burned her skin off, leaving her bleeding from practically every point over her body. She only survived thanks to the fact that she could heal herself to effectively, alongside himself granting her enhanced regeneration by pouring an extra-large trickle of his Chakra into her coils, not enough to become an issue, but enough to fuel her healing.
"Yes, it will hurt. There's a good chance your body will quite literally explode from Chakra overload, or your coils will rupture permanently, leaving you unable to contain Chakra. But what it'll also do is give me access to your body, replacing you as...well, to put it simply, as the driver of your body. You'll be in here, and I'll be out there. This is why you have to trust me." The mindscape rumbled, drawing bot their eyes skyward, where her body had just been jostled as she entered a doorway hidden in stone, similar to the hole in Konoha's wall. "Because, and I'm telling you this because I trust you as well, if I chose to, I'd be able to tear myself out of your body, reforming near-instantly. The downside to this would be that it would literally burn out your Chakra network completely releasing that much energy...it would guarantee your death."
Akari bit her lip. She did trust Kurama, really, but something niggled her mind. It was probably the fact that to give up control of her body felt so...wrong. Then again, right now she wasn't in control of her physical body anyway. Looking up at the giant fox, she finally decided, smiling softly at him. "Just promise you bring us both back in one piece, yeah?" Without waiting for him to respond, she threw herself skyward, one hand slamming straight into the diminutive black seal, tearing it clean away from the cage
Then, her body exploded in pain.
Danzo was having a very good evening.
With the Kumo Head Ninja captured, he could leisurely decide when to kill the imprisoned man using one of his planted ROOT agents, thus sparking a renewed war between Konoha and Kumo thanks to the cold-hearted murder of one of their best, at the same time depriving them of a valuable asset. That would be extremely useful, as Hiruzen would be forced to allow him to officially re-instate ROOT thanks to the fact that, with his careful actions, Konoha wasn't strong enough to deal with Kumo as it stood, meaning no longer would he have to hide his organization from the weak-willed Kage.
But the real cherry on the evening was the young Uchiha marching along behind him. It was certainly worth the risk, the capturing of Uchiha Shisui and stealing of his eyes. Even since the foolish boy revealed that he had such a powerful unique Dojutsu, Danzo itched to get his hands on those eyes, and now he had them. Or rather, they only managed to obtain one before he broke free and fled, but a single eye was enough to enthrall one person, and who better than the Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails?
He knew, from notes submitted by Shisui himself who also mentioned that he simply knew it intuitively when he unlocked his Mangekyo, much like how the Uchiha behind him knew how to use her own ability, that the Kotoamatsukami he had just used was only usable once every decade, a crippling deficiency. But, there were extremely few targets better than the container of the strongest Bijuu for this single use Genjutsu.
The attack by Kumo attempting to kidnap several various clan members of Konoha was excellent for his plans, forcing her away from her one true weakness, giving a vast opening for his ROOT to capture Uzumaki Naruto, thus baiting her away from the village. If she hadn't followed as she did, she would have lost the boy in the forest. It would have been a lesser prize, but being in control of one of the few remaining Uzumaki meant that he could breed the next generation of ROOT at his leisure to be stronger than before, a backbone of specially-bred Uzumaki descendants with their high vitality and tenacity, alongside their Fuinjutsu affinity.
But he was getting off track. Uchiha Akari, the Crimson Medic, Sannin-slayer, Jinchuriki of the Nine-tailed fox, was under his thrall. He could have attempted to bait her in another way, but killing three, or possibly more, birds with a single stone was an extremely good outcome from this Kumo situation. With this outcome, he could spin how she and her adopted son had disappeared any number of ways, making Konoha believe anything from the pair fleeing the village to find a new life elsewhere, or dying from some cause or another, it didn't matter, he had her right where he wanted her, under his control.
Perfect to be moulded into a weapon against Konoha's enemies. She couldn't disobey, Kotoamatsukami was too powerful for that. It left her helpless against his orders, which would allow him to train her in any number of ways. If he told her to practice push-ups until her fingers broke, she would be compelled to do so. Or if he ordered her to kill a dozen children, she would do so without hesitation. If only he could use the ability on all of Konoha, but alas, he had to make do with a single perfectly-obedient thrall.
He strode straight into the large rocky outcropping, passing through the illusionary technique carelessly, then descending downwards into one of the many entrances ROOT had. They all networked across Konoha, and all were easily defendable or collapsible, meaning that even if one were to be found, they could simply seal that tunnel up entirely, making it impossible to find the true heart of ROOT, which was located deep underneath the Hokage Mountain.
He could hear the monotonous footsteps of the Uchiha follow him in, not even stuttering in her pace to follow his orders. Idly, he realized that somehow, he didn't have a single Uchiha in his ROOT. He resolved to correct this oversight, momentarily considering perhaps even using the obedient Uchiha to produce more, but shook his head. Putting her out of fighting shape for that long would only be worth the effort when she was incapable of fighting, something he would likely never be around to see, barring extreme injury that was.
No, there were plenty of Uchiha he could attempt to obtain, Uchiha far less valuable who he could trap within the ROOT of Konoha, producing him young, easily-malleable Uchiha to form into the perfect soldiers. There was only one Uchiha Akari. "Alright, you shall be stayin-" He had come to a stop, barely beginning to give the girl her new orders and living quarters, when a wave of Bijuu-tainted chakra washed over him. The girl had closed his eyes when he wasn't looking, and as they re-opened a pair of slitted eyes stared back at him. The voice that came out of her lips sent a shiver down even his hardened spine.
"Well hello there, Ningen." 'Akari' growled, Danzo taking only a moment to realize that the girl was no longer in control. Before he could speak, another wave of pure Chakra blasted out, knocking him back by sheer volume alone. Around the possessed girl, a cloak of pure Chakra began forming, yellow in colour, making the girl look as though she'd been lit on fire.
As he glared, the girl vanished. For a brief moment, her entire Chakra presence disappeared, an impossible feat for so much Chakra, before blasting into his back, sending him flying forwards. He choked up blood, having felt her knuckles digging deep into his spine. He waited a few moments, enduring the agonizing pain before, as she came for another punch to finish him off, he used Izanagi, making the wound that appeared on his body disappeared entirely, as well as positioning himself to avoid the second punch. As this happened, his left eye closed behind clean white bandages, now useless.
"ROOT, capture her!" He yelled, backing away from her as those red-slit eyes burned into him. As several blank-masked nin swarmed in towards her, she roared, a bestial thing, before speckles of blue and red began coalescing together in front of her mouth at an incredible speed, a ball of tainted purple Chakra quickly forming before her face. He only had those few brief moments to identify the attack before it was unleashed, erupting in a giant wave of purple which engulfed the traitorous old man instantly.
The central ROOT base was almost completely vaporized in the attack, ending the life of he and many of his brainwashed ninja in a single instant.
Panting in the giant underground sphere he'd just made with his final attack, Kurama turned his attention inward.
Akari was sat cross-legged within their shared mind-scape, feverishly working away at a complicated Fuinjutsu seal that boggled even his ancient mind to look at. "Are you almost done Akari? Your body won't handle more than another minute of this." The body he was using then reflexively choked up a large glob of blood, spitting it out on the floor with a grimace. "Scratch that, twenty seconds at most."
Seeming to almost ignore his words, Akari swirled another line of ink, never before so grateful of her inventory allowing her to bring items into her Mindscape. Without it, she would have been absolutely fucked. She swiped another line across the scroll, then bit her thumb, quickly rubbing her blood out over her digit before planting it firmly in the centre of the seal, binding the whole thing together. "Okay, push your Chakra through the seal, then on the other side, reconnect it to my Chakra network." The large Bijuu did so, Akari watching carefully as the extremely potent Chakra receded from her system, being held back and only filtered through based on how much the pair currently wanted.
It was a very stop-gap solution, one she would have to fix in future, but as evidenced by his words, if she'd tried for anything more, her body would have given out. Speaking of which..."Kurama, are you ready to swap again?" She asked. Right now...they were hanging in the balance. The giant Bijuu had all the control. She didn't have the knowledge to force him back out of her body, so she could only hope that her trust wasn't misplaced.
"You know, I loathe Uchiha. I only attacked Konoha because an Uchiha forced me. And before that, I was used as a weapon against your First Hokage by the traitorous Madara. The Uchiha always let themselves fall to the curse of hatred, making them unworthy of my care." Akari's fingers began twitching in nervousness. "And to then be sealed into that...that witch! Mito Uzumaki, bah, always preaching to me about how I should just lay dormant within her seal, that only hatred can come of my power."
Akari rubbed her hair, her mind trying to think of what Kurama was getting at. if he was going to go back on their deal, then he might as well just fucking come out and say it. "Then Kushina. Kushina. She...wasn't so bad honestly." That surprised Akari, Kurama always spoke about how he'd been literally stabbed through by several giant wooden spikes, with chains pinning him sideways to a rock, so for him to say that was odd. "She wasn't a hypocrite. She spoke honestly, she acknowledged that just as I keep the World at bay, she kept me at bay from Konoha. While misdirected, my actions definitely didn't give me lee-way to complain."
Akari then felt his gaze turn towards her. "And then, finally, we come to you. Akari Uchiha. A member of the Clan who for generations have been nothing but hate-filled scum, not even worth dirtying my paws with to exterminate like the rodents they are. Part of a small group of Dojutsu wielders able to control even the Bijuu, including myself!"
She winced, Akari figured he would never just submit like that, not again. Well, at least she got revenge against Danzo for kidnapping Naruto. "And yet, you never succumbed to the curse of hatred." Her head snapped up as she felt Kurama's chakra recede, regaining feeling in her physical body. "You found something you wanted to protect, and when it was taken away, you didn't snap. You continued trundling on, having been given something even more precious to protect. So...-" Kurama stuck his gigantic paw through the wide-open bars of what used to be a cage, clenching a fist. "-let's go find that Kit, eh Akari?" Holding back her tears at hearing him actually say her name, Akari nodded, pressing her own fist forwards in a gentle bump.
"Yeah...I'd like that."
Omigodthatwassofuckinggoodtowriteholyshit!
Seriously, that scene just came out of fucking NOWHERE! I wrote a quarter of this chapter, then came up with the whole 'Kyuubi gets her to open the seal then plays at maybe leaving her to die but ends up staying with her', but holy shit, writing that end scene...I fucking loved writing that.
I really, REALLY hope you enjoyed that!
And NO, I'm not forgetting the EXP for wiping out ROOT, I'm just going to deal with all that shit next time, since it's 2:30AM, and I have an induction to be at tomorrow, so I really don't want to get stuck calculating shit for three hours.
Also, I ret-conned the poison resistance, an absolutely lovely person pointed out how my calculation was incorrect, so I changed it to a far simpler system.
Please, review, and if you have friends who also read fanfiction, maybe spread the world if you enjoyed this and think they would, it'd help me so much!
Name: Akari Uchiha
Level: 53
Age: 16
Experience: 46,445/53,000
To Next Level: 6,555
Title: Sannin-slayer - Defeating one of the three legendary sannin is no easy feat, but you managed it. Future opportunities unlocked.
Secondary Title: Tokubetsu Jonin - +25% experience gained during solo missions.
Health Points: 11,030 - (100 Base + (Vit x End)) x 5
Regeneration Rate - 2106/m - 35.1/s - Vit x End - Halted when afflicted with bleed status.
Chakra Points: 32,620 - (100 Base + (Int x Wis)) x 5
Regeneration Rate - 6424/m - 107/s - Int x Wis - Halted when continuous chakra drain Jutsu in use.
Strength - 66
Vitality - 54
Endurance - 39
Intelligence - 73
Agility - 65
Wisdom - 88
Luck - 41
35 Skill Points Available
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone