Lost Heritage

Prologue

(Izuna's P.O.V)

I woke up in my bed residing within the main building of the Uchiha foretress, and my head is still pounding with a slight pain. It has only been 2 weeks since I sacrificed my eyes to Madara for the betterment of the clan, and 6 days since I obtained my new pair. Out of our recently fallen clansmen, Madara was generous enough to pick me out the next best of our dead brothers besides our eyes. I've been stuck in bed for the past 2 weeks, and I'm quite eager to go spar with Madara again like old times. I'm starting to feel a bit lonely.

Only at 18 I may not look like much, but even with my new inferior eyes I'm still the second best Uchiha, the best being Madara of course. I wonder how things will change? With his new power will we finally be able to overthrow the Senju, or will we negotiate a peace treaty that's been on the table for a couple months? So hard to choose, since they've been our rivals for so long, but I'm honestly getting sick of fighting them. It seems senseless, and I hope Madara will choose the right decision for our clan. That's what being a leader is, being selfless and all-knowing, like I know Madara is. If he wasn't I wouldn't have graced him with my eyes to heal his blindness.

After laying down for so long, I sit up to stretch out my arms in what seems like forever, and I hear a knock at the door. " Enter." I command and a person walks into the room. " How are you feeling?" The soothing voice cooes to me, and I smile toward the sound.

" I'm feeling quite fine Tani, thank you." I reply and I feel a slight breeze of wind blow past me giving the notion she bowed in response. " Thank you Izuna-san. The time has finally come to remove the bandages. You are going to see again." She gently responds back. Tani then starts the process of peeling away the many layers of bandages attached to my skull. Slowly I begin to see the light again, which feels like an eternity since I've lived in darkness for the past couple weeks. Finally with the bandages off I jump out of the bed and begin to stretch out my legs. Besides the occasional walk here and there, they haven't let me go out and spar. Such a pain, but I don't want to damage my new eyes.

" Much appreciated Tani. I'm going to the training feild for a bit, and have you seen Madara?" I ask since I hadn't heard his voice since he checked in on my since my last operation. Tani fiddles with her cloak a little bit and responds, " I'm afraid not. last time I heard he traveled out to go do a mission 2 days ago. He should be back shortly."

We exchange bows and I exit the facillity to the great training ground. On the way to the training ground I find a mirror and gaze upon my new eyes. I quickly activate my sharaingan and everyhting seems to be normal, then I activate my mangekyo which isn't the 3 bars I'm used to seeing. Instead I witness it's not 3 bars, but five bars in a star like configuration. I suppose I too have acheived the eternal mangekyo sharingan, just not as high of quality like Madara.

The Uchiha foretress here is a very castle like structure with instead of a courtyard, a proving ground for all Uchiha to become stronger. As I exit the building I look up to the sun with me new vision and take in the light for the first time in weeks. Sure it may hurt, but it's refreshing nonetheless. Since it's only just passed dawn from the location of the sun, nobody is out on the training feild, which is fine by me. I need to test out my new eyes.

My old sharingan had special abillities that my current ones do not have, but also vice versa. From my knowledge I will no longer be able to summon Susano'o, but I have access to Kotoamatsukami and Kamui while I should still have Ameterasu at my disposal. I test out Ameterasu on a suspended log and it works like a charm, but I feel the pain in my left eye as I usually do when using that jutsu. I was told the Kotoamatsukami had only been used in the other eye of my fallen clansman, so I had been given the unused one. There is no point in wasting a perfect jutsu, so I'll just assume it works.

The last jutsu to try out is Kumai, and after transporting a few objects through the air in about an hour of breaks along with trial and error, it gave me an idea. This jutsu manipulates time and space, so maybe it could work like Izanami or Izanagi if used on myself? It would be perfect as I would be able to excape fate, and I would only have to expend chakra and not lose an eye. I can't wait to see the look on Madara's face when I'm able to use a jutsu like this, it's almost giving me goosebumps.

I stand in the center of the courtyard and I take note of the sun's position. I know this is extremely risky, but if you don't try you'll never know. My plan is to first travel back in time 10 seconds. I activate the jutsu and it encases me. There is a slight feeling of nothingness, but suddenly I'm thrust back into the world where I was standing moments ago. The sun is moved back slightly from when I last saw it, and I smile at my new triumph. The jutsu worked. I can hardly believe it myself, so I try out just transporting myself without time manipulation.

I use the jutsu, and I'm greeted by success once again as I now have placed myself on the other side of the courtyard in a matter of milliseconds. The only problem is this jutsu sucks a ton of chakra and has some load up time. I should only use it if completely neccesary. My last test is to use time and space together, and just to try something new I'll go into the future for a change of pace. I ready myself and I plan to transport myself across the courtyard again, but a minute into the future.

As I'm preparing the jutsu something feels a little off, but I just ignore it. I pump chakra into my eyes and I unleash Kumai. Once i'm swallowed up I'm again in a purgatory like state just being part of nothing, but the jutsu is acting strange opposed to like it did before. Hopefully I didn't over do it. Madara always chides me to be more methodical, but the same could be said about him too.

After what seems like an eternity I reappear into the world again, but I land face first into the ground. Not exactly a good way to land, but this is why there is practice. I stand up to brush the filthy dirt off myself , and I notice something very strange. Where did the courtyard go? Where did the foretress go?!

" Hello?!" I call out to the wild, but it's just me standing alone in the middle of some god forsaken forest. Not even a few hours out of bed rest I manage to fuck up big time. I deactivate my sharingan, and I decide to explore a bit. The area looks foreign but has a very familiar feel to it that's unexplainable. I walk around for about a half hour only getting more frusterated by the minute until I spot a clearing. The sun location hadn't helped me at all, and during the last five minutes I was starting to cuss at the vegataion around me. Not my proudest moment, especially for an Uchiha like myself, and luckily nobody heard me going off.

The clearing is just a simple feild, but at the far end looks to lead to some sort of town. I quickly dash across the feild and I see that the road doesn't go no father than a kilometer or two so I start to hike the small road. Where could I be, or maybe more importantly, When?

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Lost Heritage

A New World

(Izuna's P.O.V)

Traveling through the forest, I finally reach the road and it has begun to rain. I don't have any proper rain gear so using my natural sense of direction, I decide to head north up the road, but it only seems to be getting worse as a continue along. I pick up the pace on this bare road and I see a stream is running adjacent to the road flowing fast toward my current direction.
After about a half an hour of running in the rain, now completely soaked I find myself in sight of a huge city of buildings and metal. I am definately in the future, no mistake about it. I run into the city and I look for somewhere to hunker down, and I quickly spot out a bar of some sorts. I enter in quickly to shelter myself, and I take the first empty seat I see at the bar.

As I sit down I start to wring out my shirt, since the place is wet and filty anyways I doubt they would mind. As I'm draining the water from my clothes the bartender approaches me and asks, " What may I get you sir?"

" Nothing for me, I just need to get out of the rain." I honestly reply, and it's not like I have any money to spend in this bizzare time period. I still have no clue where I am or how far I am in the future. My first priority will be to get some answers, and maybe this bartender can assist me.

" Excuse me sir, can I ask you a something?" I call to the man as he fills up another man's glass. The frail looking middle aged man walks over to me and replies, " What might I do you for?"

" I'm not from around here, and I would like to know a couple things. First off, where am I?"

" You're joking right? You are in Amegakure, part of the Land of Rain. What's with you?"

" I belive I have amnesia, since I woke up a few days ago with limited information."

" Alright, you probably just got caught up in a battle around here. Violence under Hanzo is quite the norm."

" Who is Hanzo?"

" He's the leader of the village, and a ruthless one at that. We are at civil war with a resistance trying to over through him. I don't usually pick sides since it hurts business, you know?"

" Indeed. My last question is, does the name Uchiha mean anything to you? And if so where could I find one?"

" I don't know really, but I don know the clan is based in Konoha from what I heard of last. Ame is quite secluded to the rest of the world."

" Thank you sir, and if it isn't too difficult, could you give me some directions to Konoha?"

" Sure, just head southeast of here and you'll be in Fire Country. From there it shouldn't be too hard."

" Thank you, now I must get going." I say to the kind man as I leave the old bar and run back out into the rain. I look around for a store some kind to snag a coat or robe to help keep the rain of me, and I quickly find a store that is selling exactly what I'm looking for.

I walk into the dimmly lit store, and all I see is an elderly lady at the counter, so stealling this should be quite easy. I pick out a black robe with a hood that seems very water resistant, and it's about my size. I walk over to the lady and tell her, " I'd like to purchase this."

Before she speaks I activate my sharingan and see goes into a trance like state, and just mumbles, " Thank you for shopping here, please come again." and I leave. Jutsu on peasants is almost unfair, but I must do what is needed to get a grasp on my sitiuation. Once I reach Fire Country by travelling southeast, I should get my hands on a map and calender. This town isn't very wealthy by the looks of it, and the rain is quite depressing. I need to get out of here fast as I can.

I leave Ame in my new robe and I hit the road that I arrived on, and I take off at full speed. I still don't encounter anybody, and after a hour straight of running the rain has decipated, and I decide to take a quick break. I wonder how my clan will be after how long I've been gone? How should I introduce myself? What happened to Madara and the others? So many questions, but it seems like there will be more to come. My clan must have flipped out when I dissapeared, especially Madara. He would probably go as far to blame the Senju, but I digress.

In continue to walk and I meet a fork in the road with a sign. The left side says " Fire Country" and the right one says " River Country" so I make the choice for left and I stroll down the nice dirt path. I'm basically passing farmland and the occasional forest and small town as I walk, even into the night. I don't stop for sleep since I don't feel tired due to anxiety and I also don't have anything to keep me warm, so moving is my best bet. Also I will need to get my hands on some food soon.

I walk until dawn, and I see a ranch just up ahead with pear trees all around. Looks like I just found my first meal in the new world. I look around, and nobody is within sight, even with my sharingan I don't see anyone. Just being careful since I don't want to make myself seen just yet by just anybody. I dash up to the first tree and I pluck 2 pears from it, and then I run back to the road and continue walking. I stuff one pear in my left pocket, and I begin to munch on the other.

It's a very sweet pear perfectly ripe that is juicy and succulent. Looks like I'm in either summer or spring from what the pear is telling me. I continue walking and I sense a chakra presence approaching. I quickly hide in the brush on the side of the road opposite to which I sense the presence. Or should I say multiple presences as 4 shinobi hop out of the forest and start to chit chat as the walk down the path. I identify them as 3 children and one adult. I assume it's some sort of training program to create strong warriors by following role models of some sort.

I continue to tail this group making sure to remain undetected as it's one of my specialties, and something I always could hold over Madara. I was always the sneakier one, and that's maybe why I won more games of hide and go seek when we were little. He was always the more straight forward kind of person opposed to me.

It's been about 4 hours of a very boring tailing trip, but I haven't faltered yet. I've done days of tailing enemies before, and even though it's quite boring I'm still very good at it and remaining hidden.

I finally see a large village up ahead with great gate, and I get a very weird tingle in my spine, like I know this place or something. I see there are guards at certain posts around the wall, and trying to sneak in is pointless since I can just pose as a civillian to get in. I put on my hood, and I pass through the main gates after waiting about 15 minutes since I don't want it to seem like I was right behind the group I was following. That'd just be silly. I enter and the city is quite huge by my standerd, and that I've only seen one other the time I've been in this world.

The people look a bit rushed, and a see some it has been destroyed. Something big must have happened. I quickly scout out a villager, grab him by the arm and ask him, " What is going on around here?"

The terrified man quickly replies, " We need to rebuild the city! Orochimaru attacked us and killed the Hokage!" and then he jerks his arm free from my loose grasp and scurries off to somewhere else in the city. Who is this Orochimaru, and what is a Hokage exactly? Looks like I'm going to find out once I meet up with my clan.

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Lost Heritage

Interface

I continue to look around the city and it seems civillians and shinobi alike are working hard to repair the damages sustained from whatever invasion. After a little bit more walking I see a mountain with faces on it. I walk closer toward the mountain to get a better look, and I can clearly identify 2 of them as Tobirama and Hashirama of the Senju. Why are there faces up upon that mountain and not an Uchiha? Maybe my clan resides in another village, but is this Konoha? from what the bartender said my clan would be here? This is making less sense than ever.

I give up and I decide that I should go look for somewhere to sleep for the night, and as I turn aorund some blond kid runs into my knocking both of us over. " Watch where you're going you little whelp!" I grunt at the kid that looks to be in a huge hurry, and a bit emotional.

" Sorry! I have to get to the funeral- wait. You look like someone I know." The kid says while quickly changing his tone. Is he bi-polar or something? I put my hood back on and reply, " Many people look alike in this world, but may I ask who's funeral?" I wonder if this is the Hokage that one man spoke of.

" It's the Hokage's funeral, do you not know that?" The kid shouts out in a very whinny voice. So annoying, yet I've only known him for 15 seconds.

" Care to bring me along? I'm a traveller and I don't have anything to do. Do you mind?" I ask in the nicest tone I can muster and the blondie replys, " Sure. By the way my name is Naruto Uzumaki, what's your's?"

" Just call me Izuna." I bluntly reply, and I give the body language indication that I won't go any deeper into the subject. I then ask him, " Let walk there now, and what was the Hokage's name?"

We start to walk and talk a little but and I learn that the man named Sarutobi Hiruzen died fighting the "evil" Orochimaru to protect the village. I also learned that the Hokage is essentially the leader of the village, and the mountain with faces shows the past Hokages. I'm still a little confused by the fact why Madara wouldn't become Hokage though, I mean it looks to me a deal was struck with the Senju, and since he was a great warrior he should be up there as well, but he's not. Instead it's Hashirama and Tobirama along with Sarutobi, and another unnamed man that didn't resemble an Uchiha. It just doesn't add up.

We reach the funeral and a lot of people are dressed in black, expect for a select few such as my guide who for whatever reason is wearing orange. He must have lost a bet or something since no person in there right mind would do that at a funeral. I fit in easily thanks to the black cloak I got from Ame, and I stand in the ground and listen to some eulogies and then the body is finally incerarated.

Lots of crying went on during the whole ceremony, but I was more interested in observing the people around me. Most looked to be the elite shinobi of the village, and I was scopping people out to see if I could identify anyone from my clan, but no such luck. This is making less sense now that among this elite group I cannot spot a single Uchiha. This is just hurting my head again. What am I missing in this puzzle?

After about an hour people start to clear out and just as I turn away the blond kid pick me out of the crowd and says, " So, what are you doing exactly Izuna?"

" Why are you so interested with me kid?"

" You just look like something is on your mind, that's all."

" You're not the shy type are you."

" You kidding me!" The kid blurts out, and a young girl with pink hair comes from behind him and whacks him in the head and shouts, "Idiot! Why are you bothering people just after something like this Naruto!" she then focuses her attention on me and she looks like she's about to say something but just leaves her mouth a gape and stares at me like I'm some kind of dessert. weird girl.

" Sorry Sakura-chan, I was just met him today and I wanted to get to know him better." Naruto says as he nerviously rubs the back of his head where he got hit. I speak up now to alert the absentminded girl out of her daze and I say, " A painting lasts longer, you don't have to stare."

All this Sakura girl manages to stammer out is, " You l-look so much like someone I know..." Now Naruto pipes in and shouts, " Yeah! I thought the same thing before that he looks kinda like Sasuke too!"

I rub my shin and ask the kids, " Who is this Sasuke you speak of?" and Sakura looks to be lost in her own imagination for a little bit, so Naruto grudgingly says, " He's our other teammate, Sasuke Uchiha. We are all part of team 7, under Kakashi sensei!"

Sakura snaps out of her daze and hits Naruto in the back of the head again and shouts, " You can't just go off daying information like that to strangers Naruto!" and she then just gives me a slightly creepy forced smile. For as young as she is, I already feel sorry for her husband.

Hearing the kids last name is Uchiha and ask, " May I meet this Sasuke Uchiha you speak of?" And both kids seem to like the idea. " Sure thing! Sasuke is going to freak when you meet him! It's almsot like you're related or something." and I just smile at the kids ignorance. Anybody with a brain or wasn't infatutiated with me could figure out I probably am this kids relative just by looks, but it's nice that I can meet up with my clan and remain incognito for a little while longer.

I walk around town with the two kids leading the way calling out for Sasuke, and someone drops down infront of us. " Hello there team, looking for Sasuke I pressume?" The masked grey haired man says while giving a small wave. He has one eye covered by his hi-ate and seems to be in full ninja gear. He acts like there sensei or something, and I have a hunch I'm right.

" Yes Kakashi-sensei, do you know where he's at?" Sakura asks Kakashi who just shrugs and responds, " Not sure, but I'd be sure to check out his house. That was where he was heading after the funeral." and he ends by giving me a hard look over. Apparently I'm a worry of his by what I can make out by his body langauge, but it doesn't bother me too much. it's not like I'm a threat of any sort.

" So, who are you sir?" Kakashi asks me, and Naruto butts in and says, " That's Izuna, and we want him to meet Sasuke since they kinda look alike. I think Sasuke is going to faint or something when he meets his twin!"

I sigh at Naruto's rudeness and high energy, and I still don't know how a perosn like him could be worthy of the title of shinobi when acting like complete child. Kakashi processes the information and asks me, " That true? Just tell me if they give you any trouble, and I can handle it."

" I'll be fine, but thank you." I kindly respond with a bow and the masked man walks off leaving the two of us looking for Sasuke once again. We walk for another 30 minutes until Sakura squeals, " I found him! Sasuke!" and she runs over to him where the kid seems to be buying some food for dinner, and I have to say he does look quite a bit like me. Perhaps one of my sister's decendents or Madara's by the look of him. Sakura drags him over to us and he groans, " What is it Sakura?"

Sakura and Naruto both point at me and Sasuke observes me for a brief second, and he quietly mutters, " Ita- who are you? starting out with fear, but then changing his tone once he got a full look at me once I pulled my hood down. " In private I would like to talk to you. My name is Izuna Uchiha." and once I finish speaking I feel three very confused eyes upon me. Looks like my identity is out in the open now.

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Lost Heritage

Revalations

All the children seemed like they just saw a ghost when I spilt my name. Naruto, or The Loud One, couldn't seem to formulate a word alongside the pink haired girl. Sasuke, who does resemble me slightly seems almost on the verge of anger, sorrow, and confusion all at once, whihc is making me confused. Something is amiss about this whole situation

I queitly ask Sasuke, " Led us to a safe location to talk. We have somethings to discuss." and Sasuke hesitantly nods as he leds me away from his still stunned teammates away from the main strip of the village into a more secluded area. " This used to be the Uchiha district." Sasuke said with a little bit of difficulty, and now I'm really worried. What does he mean by "used to be"?

We enter the district and it seems to be a ghost town, nothing is happening, yet it is almost a silence that is loud. Just by the feel of the breeze and the smell in the air, soemthing must have had to gone on, and Sasuke is acting very strange even though I just met the kid. All the buildings are boarded up and nothing has been kept up in years, and we finally reach the end of the district road to a large house.

" This used to be my home." Sasuke says as he walks up to the porch and sits down on it, and I do the same next to him. I scan the vacant area with my eyes, and then I face Sasuke and ask, " What happend?"

For the next hour Sasuke explains to me his old life, how the Uchiha became excluded from Konoha, and most importantly, the massacre. I'm very much in shock to know that one of the greatest powers the world has ever seen has fallen so low, and left with hardly anything, but since I'm here I can help pick up the peices. Maybe I was sent here to this time for this very reason.

After Sasuke wraps up his story and about 5 minutes of silence between us I say, " All of this is quite unfortunate, but something doesn't add up."

"What is that?"

" No matter how skilled you're brother was, it's the Uchiha clan. He must of had a very skilled accomplice or two to dispose of the entire clan."

" I see you're point, but there is something I also don't understand about you Izuna-san."

" What might that be?"

" From the stories I was told when younger, you are supposed to dead from battle, and they buried you."

" Impossible. I left my time and landed here. Unless you can prove me wrong, it was probably made up to cover up what seemed to be a desertion. Madara probably didn't want his younger brother to be called a traitor or coward."

" I see, but I'm almost certain you're body was buried in the old catacombs."

" Well it won't hurt to check, no would it?" I say as I stand up to stretch my body and take a look at the setting sun. It's been quite an eventful day, and not in the good sense, but I suppose I've found the silver lining in Sasuke, and I atleast I'm caught up on history for the most part.

" I remember where it is. I was shown once by my dad many years ago." Sasuke states as he stands up and walks up to his old house. He jars open the old door and motions for me to follow, and I do so. We walk inside the old musty house and Sasuke quickly leads me to a staircase going into the basement. The basement is very dark, but Sasuke uses a simple fire style technique to light a torch hanging on the wall, and which he takes and leads me down a dark corridor.

At the end of the corridor we encounter a very odd looking door and Sasuke says, " To open the door you need a fully matured sharingan." I get the message and activate my sharingan and some gadgets inside the door churn, and eventually it opens up to a morgue like area.

There are many hallways of shelves with caskets full of old dead bodies wrapped specially to preserve the body as tradition, with the eyes destroyed of course. When our own died we made sure that nobody cuold get there hands on our doujutsu. Sasuke leads me down one of the far left hallways where some of the older clan members reside, and we begin to go down the 2nd to last row on the left side of the very large tomb. There is probably a thousand Uchiha down here or so, and it's quite remarkable.

We find ourselves at the end of the row, and as Sasuke is reading some very faded markers he says quietly, " Found it. Izuna Uchiha." and he points to the casket. I slid the casket of the shelve onto the ground, and it lands with a large bang, but I don't care. I remove the heavy lid with Sasuke's assistance, and I see a mummy like form. When I unwrap the face I'll be able to see who it really is in my casket for about 5 seconds before nature takes it's course and the skin dissolves.

We begin to slowly unwrap the cloth and I'm becoming tenser by the second. Who could by lying inside my casket? We finally get to the last wrapping of thick cloth, and I pull it off to reveal the face of the truly deceased person residing within my casket, and I almsot faint at what I see.

" Oh my..." I gasp as I am face to face with myself. There is no doubt about it at all, that it is infact me inside this coffin with a band across my eyes since they have been poked out, and I can identify that I'm around the same age,but it's hard to tell. What was recognizeable for a few seconds turns into a skeleton, but both Sasuke and I are awe stricken.

" Did...that could have been a henge right?" Sasuke mutters and I shake my head. " No. Henges don't last on the dead, especially for over 80 years." I shakily reply as I still try to comprehend what is going on. That was me for sure, but why am I alive then? This is still all so confusing, and it must have somthing to do with that damn jutsu I used when I time traveled into this horrible future.

After about 10 minutes of sitting in the dark tomb with only a torch as our light source, Sasuke and I place the casket back onto it's spot and exit the tomb just like the way we found it. As we walk back outside it's already night, and I ask Sasuke, " You saw what I saw, right?"

" Yes. I saw it." Sasuke confirms which sets me at a little bit of ease. I'm not insane, that actually was me inside that casket, but my mind still has the booming question of ' Why am I dead, yet still alive!'.

Sasuke puts out the torch and tosses it into the vegatation surronding the building and says, " You can stay with me, since we are family. I wish to hear about the old days." I give him a grim smile and warmly say back, " Sure. Lead the way Sasuke."

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Lost Heritage

New Role

I woke up early in Sasuke's small apartment on the couch, and I feel a bit hungry. I haven't had much to really eat in the past couple days, and some breakfast would by much ablidged. I walk into Sasuke's meal area and I begin to look around until I spot a bowl of fruit. I see a starfruit, and I grab it and I begin to bite into it. It's still fresh and juicy so it should fill me up enough, so I begin to take in the apartment since I didn't really pay attention yesterday, because of seeing myself dead. I'm still freaked out.

After just looking around I spot a few items in his house that I can't identify that are quite interesting, so look slike Sasuke will have something to show me when he gets up.

I can hear him stirring just before sunrise, and I listen to his foot steps as he trudges from his bed to the kitchen and grabs himself a bowl of rice and water to eat. I eats quite slowly since he heated up the rice in one of the strange devices I saw earlier, but it just seems to serve as a special fireplace to cook food. Nothing truly innovative or special.

" So why you up so early?" Sasuke questions as he scoops up another mouthful of rice. " Why are you up late? Besides, I don't sleep much." I reply as I finish off my starfruit, and wipe my mouth, and I go sit down on the couch where I slept.

" So what do you plan to do?" Sasuke asks after he takes the last bite of his rice breakfast, and starts to wash his dish. I think to myself for a moment to truly ponder the question, since I hadn't really thought about it too much. " I suppose I can try to adapt to the village, since this is my new home. I'll just take it day by day I suppose." I honestly reply back, and Sasuke seems a bit indiferent about my response. He does act a bit like father in distant and very emotionally detached kind of way, which bothers me quite a bit. But he is my only family alive right now besides his brother, Itachi Uchiha, so I have to be a bit more tolerant than usual.

" What do you plan to do today?" I ask Sasuke and he seems to be bothered by that particular question. " Team 7 has duty today to help rebuild some of the wreckage from the invasion, so I'll be busy." Sasuke says to me and I ask him, " Where is the library? I want to catch up on some history." I inquire and Sasuke tells me it's just south of downtown, and a little later he packs up his neccesary tools and leaves me alone in the apartment by myself. For the future, it's still boring as it was back in my time. I should probably go find that library.

I rummage though some fo Sasuke's clothes to find a hodded cloak that covers my whole body since I don't want to be recognized as an Uchiha by the public just yet since I still am quite misinformed even though Sasuke has told me a great deal, the way he said some things seemed a bit biased like his attitude toward certain things, so I need some non-fiction to look at. A history of Konoha book or two couldn't hurt at all, along with some other sources, like details on other clans in the village.

I slip on the dark cloak and I head outside into the dawn. The sun has almost peaked out from the horizen, and it's still quite cool outside and I can smell the dew that's still on the grass. I smile from under the hood of the cloak and I walk down the street to find myself the Konoha library. As I appraoch my location my eyes are darting from left to right examining everything going on, and notice a lot of commando type shinobi hidden around keeping an eye on civillians and other shinobi alike, but that's probably natural since their leader has been killed. It's like a beast without a head, and with no head everything else is sent into chaos, which means a replacement is imminent.

I stroll down the quiet streets of an waking up Konoha, and I spot a large building with library posted on the front of it. Easy enough. I wlak up the door and I enter into the warm place to be welcomed a vast collection of knowledge. Everything from historical documents, temporary and classical literature, and even jutsu scrolls seems to be held here, and it looks to be the perfect place to get caught up.

I look for the history section and I quickly find a whole 2 shelves just with books about Konoha's history, the great nations, and Fire Country. I take as amny as I can carry to a nearby table, and I begin to read. from under my hood I subtly activate my sharingan to be able to read faster through my pile of books since I don't want to be stuck here all day.

7 hours fly by fast as I've read about 14 books total; 5 one Konoha's history, 3 on the history of the great nations, 2 one local clans to Konoha, 3 on Fire country's origins and a book about the the Hokage and past canidates. I find all of it very interesting and I decide to return the books to the shelves, and I deactivate my sharingan. Probably the easiest task I've had to use the sharingan for to date since it didn't really chew up much of my chakra thankfully.

As I go to exit the building a maked ninja like the kind I spotted before is waiting at the door and tells me, " You will need to come with me." I nod to the masked man and I follow him to a tower like building where I ask him, " So, what am I wanted for?"

I don't get a response from the masked man, and I am simply led into the building where we bypass the check in area and head straight to one of the middle floors and to a private room. The masked ninja stops outside the door and motions for me to enter, and I do so. From under my hood I spot 3 elderly people across from me, 1 being behind a desk and the other two are standing beside the old man with one eye covered up.

" Why have you requested to see me?" I state in a bland tone to the three elderly people, and they return a focused stare. " My name is Danzo Shimura, to my right is Koharu Utatane and to my left is Homura Mitokado. We are members of Konoha's council, and there have been rumors going around that there is another Uchiha in Konoha that isn't Sasuke or Itachi."

" What is your game Danzo." I boredly reply and it seems my insubordination isn't pleasing them. " We simply want to know who you are, and you will tell us." Danzo states assertively, and I sense chakra building up in his bandaged eye. It must be a doujutsu genjutsu, so I activate my mangekyo sharingan to counter whatever technique he decides to through at me, and my hood comes off in the process.

" Impressive, you can block the Kotoamatsukami, but you have answered our observations nonetheless." Danzo smugly says, to which I glare at him with my still active eternal mangekyo sharingan.

" Peace child, we do not want to fight you." Koharu says and I deactivate my sharingan down to normal sharingan. " using the Kotoamatsukami is asking for a fight, especially if a non-Uchiha bears that jutsu. It is a disgrace." I hiss at the three older people. The tension in the building in high, and to break the ice Homura says, " Let's settle down. Now, what is you're name and how are you here?"

" Izuna Uchiha. I came via a specialized teleportation jutsu I tested out a few days ago." I reply, and I feel being honest will get me farther with them right now rather than lying to their face. " Why did you come?" Koharu asks me and I shrug.

" It was an accident. I had no intention of coming here, and I haven't been able to re-work the jutsu yet to return, so I'm stuck here for now." I respond and the older people seem to be taking in the information and forming some sort of idea.

" My sources spotted you in the library for quite some time, so I assume you're caught up on you're history, so what is it you seek?" Danzo says trying to get me to bite on something, so I decide to mess with him since I read about him earlier as a failed canidate for the sandaime Hokage position.

" Well, I've been thinking that since the sandaime Hokage has passed, I would like to vouch for the position of Godaime Hokage." I state with a unnoticeable smirk at the end, and it seems I caught everyone but Danzo off gaurd. " Impossible! You've only been here for a couple days, and you think you can be Hokage of a village you do not know?" Homura blurts out and Koharu seems to be sharing his exact thoughts.

" I come from the Uchiha clan, one of the founding clans of Konoha and I have learned 99% of it's history in seven hours, so I think I can learn the village soon enough. Besides, who else do you have better?" I ask them with a bit of amusement. Danzo is the first to speak up and say, " Earlier today the Sannin Jiraiya was sent out to bring back Tsunade Senju for the seat of Hokage. If she doesn't come you will be talked about on the council, however it will be quite a shock for most people, you must know."

" Indeed, but I accept that and can explain myself. If this Tsunade does infact come here seeking the seat, I will gladly challenge her for it." I respond to Danzo, hoping to strike a chord since the last challenge was between him and the Sandaime. I just don't like this guy very much.

" We will tell the council of you're presence and desires, and we may ask for you to show up again. You may now leave." States Koharu as the three start to talk amongst themselves, and I show myself the door. As I exit the building I can't but help think to myself that I should actually consider this job. It is a leadership position that Madara never could obtain, and if this Tsunade Senju manages to become Hokage it could ruin my plan to help bring back the Uchiha clan. This is now much less a joke, and an actual need now. I will avenge Madara's defeat to Hashirama (which I read about earlier) and take down Tsunade if I must. I must tip the scales back to a more balenced favor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lost Heritage

Ascension


I walk out of the Hokage tower feeling quite happy with myself. I have managed to reveal myself
Any serious repercussions of any sort, expect that a Senju may possibly want the seat of Hokage. That worries me slightly, as did seeing my own corpse just the other night. Another thing I must get to the bottom of.

I walk around town for a bit with my face still covered up by a hood since I still don't want mass public attention, and I'm trying to figure out what I should do in my spare time before the Senju shows up. I could go find Sasuke, but the kid is troubled and I;m not really in the mood to speak with him. I haven't heard from that Naruto kid all day either, so I think he must have went on a mission or left the town, so there is only one other kid in the group that I've met, which is the pink haired girl unfortunately.

I keep scanning the streets of Konoha until I come across a flower shop where I see the pinkette Sakura argueing with some blond girl roughly the same age, and it looks like there getting pretty into it. I walk over to the two of them and sternly ask, " What seems to be the problem."

They completely ignore and keep using insults like " Ino pig" and " Billboard head", and me not liking to get ignored I shout much louder than last time, but not too loud to draw attention from others to myself, " Shut up, both of you!" and the immedeitly clam up and look down at the ground. Atleast it's quiet now.

Sakura is the first one to speak up and ask, " You're Sasuke's relative right?" and the blond one instantly perks up at her saying that.

" You're what?!" The blond one exclaims and I shoot her a dirty look to silence her once more.

I look back to Sakura and kindly respond, " Yes I am, but must you say it so loud? It's not exactly public information yet."

" Okay, but what are you doing?" Sakura ponders and I boredly respond, " Not sure. I'm not in the mood to talk with Sasuke, so I figured you could help me learn more about Konoha and things."

" Ofcourse I'll help you!" Sakura giddily exclaims and her friend seems to be lost in deep thought. I give her a strange look and ask, " Are you ok?"

" Ino will be fine, just give her a few minutes." Sakura replies as she smacks her upside the head.

" Oww! I was having a good dream!" Ino yells as she rubs her head tenderly.

" So, what do you recommend we do?" I offer hoping I won't get an idea I will regret.

" We can go clothes shopping for you!" Ino exclaims and I glare back at her and say, " Don't say stupid things unless you have a death wish, foolish girl." and Ino looks completely petrified. I guess I'm not supposed to be so striaght forward like back in my time. Oh, I'm learning so much everyday.

" Sorry, I meant no." I apologize to her, yet she still seems quite uneasy about me.

" He's not from around here." Sakura says trying to confort her friend, the asks me, " How about we take you to one of our training feild?" and this is an idea I actually like.

" That sounds lovely, but where to?" I ask, and Ino looks to me and says, " Well... my team has sparring in about an hour, so you can watch us do that?" and I nod, giving her a huge sigh of relief since I didn't threaten to murder her on the spot.

" Alright, so lets get some food in the meantime. Any ideas?" I ask and both girls look at eachother, and then Sakura says, " Umm, were both on a diet so we can't eat right now."

I shake my head and reply, " So? That doesn't change the fact that I'm still hungry, so let's go find a resturant." and both of them don't look very pleased with my response, but don't try to challenge my reasoning. Sometimes it's good to be feared.

Ino and Sakura lead the way to a quiant little dango shop, where we step inside and I order a single kabob, and Ino volunteered to pay. Maybe I was wrong about this one before.

I take my time to enjoy the kabob since I've never had anything like it, and it seems both girls are drooling at the food I'm eating so I ask, " Of you're hungry order soemthing."

" We can't, and besides can you eat faster? You're not making this easy on us." Sakura states as she rests her head on the table in defeat.

" It's like you're torturing us with food..." Ino mumbles as she does the same as Sakura did.

I smile from under my hood and reply, " Sorry but it's very delicious and I like to savor it."

" You've been eating a single kabob for 15 minutes!" Ino shouts as her head rockets of the table, and Sakura just keeps her head there in silence.

" You know that thing about me killing you? That still stands if you want to take that up." I say with a smirk, and Ino frowns at me and slam her head back down into the table in defeat. Atleast I'm halfway through the delicious meat stick.

Once I finish my meal the two girls happily take me away from the dango resturant, even though I wanted another since they were so good, we head towards the training feild.

" So, what do you plan to do?" Sakura asks me and I think about what I will do when at the training feild, which will be mostly to observe if any basic combat has changed since my time and just to observe new things with my sharingan.

" Eh, probably just watch. I might want to join in just to get in a stretch or something." I casually reply back, and they both seem to be content with my answer.

" One last question, what's you're name?" Ino asks and I reply, " Izuna Uchiha."

After about 10 minutes of walking we reach the training feild for team 10 and I see we are not the first ones to arrive as some dark haired boy is laying down in the feild looking at the clouds, and Ino storms off to talk to him or something.

" Shikamaru, must you always be so lazy!" Ino shouts, yet Shikamaru doesn't even appear to be fazed by her ranting. He must have mentally muted her out, which is actually quite impressive. After a good 5 minutes Ino gives up and storms back to us all red-faced and says absolutely nothing.

" What did he do?" I whisper to Sakura, and she whispers back, " Ino is still a bit ticked Shikamaru gave up during the chunin exams so he's been getting an earful the past few training sessions." and I nod. I then sense soemone else approaching and it's some chubby kid munching on a bag of potato chips, and he reminds me of the Akimichi clan and their huge appetites.

" Choji, you're eating before practice again?!" Ino shouts and the chubby boy replies bakc with a full mouth, " What?" and then proceeds to get nagged by Ino some more before an older man shows up, and he looks to be in his early 30's and has an interesting sash aorund his waist.

" Hello team, and others." The man calls out and it seems all the kids shut up and listen to the man, since he seems to be their apparent leader.

" Good, you're all here and ready to go. Hello Sakura, will you be joining us today?" He asks and Sakura replies, " If it is ok with you Asuma-sensei." and he nods he head.

" Oh, and this is Izuna. He his new in town so he will be watching our sparring if that's ok." Sakura says and Asuma replies, " I'm fine with that, now let's get started." and I he fires up a cigarette.

I sit back to watch them work and for the first 10 or so minutes it was warming up the muscles and running, which the Akimichi kid didn't seem to enjoy, and then about the next 20 minutes was 2v2 sparring with Asuma analyzing their actions. After that he gave them all a break and he came over to me and asked, " I already know who you are, the coucil has given out word to all higher up shinobi and officials, and you don't have to try and hide away from me. I'm actually quite interested to learn about you." and him saying this caught me a little of guard since I didn't expect the elders to release this information so quickly, but I can't do anything about it.

I remove my hood and answer back, " Very well, if you wish to learn about me lets have a sparring match. It's the best way to learn about someone, isn't it?" and Asuma shows a smile and says, " Now that's the spirit."

I stand up and follow him to the middle of the trainign ground and as the kids are returning from their break he motions for them to sit back. " Stay back for a bit, Izuna and I are going to show what a real spar is." Asuma delclares and then whispers, " Any restictions?"

" Hmmm, no going for the kill, weapons, or summons. Deal?" and Asuma reponds, " Sure thing, now let's go!" and he takes a battle position.

I activate my sharingan and I stare him down since I want to catch any movement he may set forth, and not to long he starts to charge me. I patiently wait until he is in range of my fireball jutsu, and I unleash it, and to my slight suprise he uses the same jutsu and the cancel eachother out. With smoke everythere I carefully move around, until I feel a fist in my back slam me into the ground, and Asuma shouting, " I have you now!"

He then suddenly stops realizing it was all a genjutsu, and as the smoke clears he spots me on the other side of the feild. " That was a nice trick, but can you handle this?" Asuma asks as he forms some wind style hand signs which I catch with my shraingan and he uses some kind of tornado jutsu against me.

I back up and I prepare my Dragon Fire jutsu to counter it since fire is strong versus wind, and as I unleash it to stop the tornado, I see Asuma out of the corner of my eye running around the tornado to engage me in taijutsu. The tornado was just a distraction to get the jump on me, and if I disengauge the fire jutsu, I'll be hit by the tornado. Good strategy.

As Asuma closes in on me I look him straight in the eyes, and I he sends a punch that knocks me into the tornado and stops my fire jutsu. After the wind disapates, Asuma yet again finds himself in a genjutsu, but this time it is him who is been beat up by the tornado, and I who is unharmed.

" That was impressive. You have complete mastery of genjutsu, Izuna-san." Asuma says as we exchange bows. " If you wish to do this again sometime, just ask. I'm always up for this kind of thing." I reply as I head back to the edge of the feild and the 4 kids walk back to meet up with Asuma, and give me some odd looks. The first genjutsu I used was standerd sharingan illusion, but my last one was Genjutsu: Body Swap Mirage which I can activate without hand signs thanks to my sharingan, and it seems he fell for it since he was already commited to the taijutsu attack. Pretty easy all said and done, and I get to watch the youngsters finish up their practice.

I should probably find Sasuke after this, but looks like I've found myself a new sparring partner, atleast until that Senju shows up. Until then I can train like I used to and maybe get some more information on time-space ninjutsu effects, since there are still a lot of questions I need to have answered. I think tonight might be good to do some solo investigating of the Uchiha district.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lost Heritage

Solstice

It’s getting late, and I haven’t been able to find Sasuke all day, so I head over to the Uchiha district. I need to find some more answers to why I’m here, and more importantly why I’m dead, yet I am alive here thinking. What is this, reality or some sort of genjutsu?

The sun has finally ducked under the horizon as I reach the metal gates of the deserted Uchiha district as it gives off a somewhat foreboding vibe. Against my inner conscious I hop the gates and I make my way steadily to the house Sasuke led me to earlier. There are bound to be more secrets within that tunnel I was in just the other night.

I enter the old house covered in cobwebs that gives off an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach, like someone is watching me. I quickly make my way to the secret passage in the darkness, and I descend into the cavern as I pick up a near by torch and light it with some a simple fire style jutsu.

Walking down the steps of the underground cavern is haunting as I press forward, but it seems there is some ominous force that lies up ahead that wasn’t here before. I continue on through to the morgue, but I take a detour toward a path I spotted earlier tucked away to the left I didn’t mention to Sasuke, and it seems whatever I’m sensing is in this direction.

I press on having my dimly lit torch lead the way, until I see light up ahead at the end of the tunnel. I finally reach the light and I find myself in a shrine of some sort with a tablet in near the center with a cloaked figure standing over it.

He doesn’t even turn around and says, “ So you’re the one I sensed earlier.” He now turns to me and asks, “ How did you fi-“ he cuts off mid sentence, leaving me a bit more confused.

“ I should be asking you the same question. This is Uchiha private ground.” I calmly say right back at the mysterious man who wears an orange swirl mask.

“ What is you’re name?” He asks with a bit of urgency and curiosity from what I sense in his tone.

“ Izuna Uchiha, now state your business.” I reply back slightly irritated he’s avoiding the question at hand.

“ That’s impossible…even if you look the part.” The mysterious man rambles on like he knows something about me.

“ Well I’m here in the flesh, and I possess the sharingan.” I say to him as I activate my mangekyo sharingan. I look into the eyehole of his mask and I see a mangekyo sharingan look directly back at me, which just rises up more questions.

“ Who are you?” I ask sternly, and he replies, “ I am you’re brother, Madara.”

“ Impossible, you were said to be dead long ago.”

“ So were you, yet here we are.”

“ True, but I was sent here via my visual prowess.”

“ How? You gave up you’re eyes to me for the sake of the clan long ago leaving you blind.”

“ I did, but I obtained new ones shortly after.”

“ False…but yet you have the eternal mangekyo sharingan…” Madara trails off.

“ Something doesn’t add up here, especially when I found my own body inside the morgue the just the other night when investigating.”

“ Hmm…I think I may have a possible solution to you’re questioning, but what jutsu did you use?”

“ I used a variation of Kumai on myself.”

“ I see. Kumai is used to transport enemies not across time and space, but dimensionally as well. It is very possible that you in fact placed yourself not in an alternate timeline, but in an alternate existence. The reason you found that Izuna in a coffin is because he did die long ago, but you are from a different world where you simply disappeared, and you could arrive here safely since your other self is dead preventing paradoxes.” Madara explains which seems very plausible.

“ I see, so you’re suggesting I am the same as the Izuna up until I gave up my eyes, then history forked.”

“ Exactly, so your world will have a different history than what you’ve read about most likely, especially since you’ve been dropped out of the equation altogether and sent here. Did you come here on purpose?”

“ Just by whim.”

“ Very well. With that figured out I suppose I’m happy I get to see my younger brother alive once more.” Madara says with audible emotion embedded behind it.

“ I’m glad I stumbled upon you as well, but what are you doing here?”

“ I’m researching more about the rinnegan.”

“ Like the sage of six paths?”

“ Precisely.”

“ But why?”

“ No point in hiding this from you…but I run an organization called the akatsuki, and a member has the rinnegan named Nagato. He is powerful, but I am also looking to see if it is connected to the sharingan.”

“ Interesting. I never thought there would be an actual rinnegan bearer apart from legends. Now, tell me about this organization you run, brother.” I ask in almost a demanding fashion.

“ Very well, but let’s take a seat.” Madara offers as we both sit legs crossed on the floor.

Over about a half an hour Madara explains history through his eyes and the meaning of the bijuu needed for his plans, and a few times we banter back and forth about memories from the old days, proving to me this old man is my brother. I do think his plan is interesting, but it seems flawed to me in some way I can’t explain. Maybe old age and failure has really taken its toll on Madara.

“ Sounds quite intriguing Madara, but what good would this “eye of the moon” plan truly do if you cannot control the juubi? Even with the rinnegan, you will die like everyone else. And that’s said if you can collect them all war since they are the symbols of power among nations.” I say in counter argument to his ideas, but he seems to take it with a grain of salt.

“ I understand you’re concern, but they’re ways to get around certain holes.”

“ I see, although I would have to offer up my services for this to be in effect and restore the Uchiha pride that has been lost thought the generations.” I speak with a bit of a smirk.

“ Ahh, you don’t think I can do this without you’re help, can you?” Madara jokes, but in a challenging way.

“ You’ve always been obsessive in obtaining things where you fail to find details, but luckily you had me for that.”

“ I suppose you’re right brother, it doesn’t look like I have much of a choice to not let you help. I welcome you to achieve a perfect world with me.”

“ Nothing is perfect unless it is flawed, but knowing you you’ll find some way to mess it something up.” I kid with him, and he lets out a chuckle.

“ I haven’t enjoyed myself this much in years…it takes me back to when you and I would be in Haije Uchiha’s compound base and play pranks on him when we were little. I truly do miss those days.” Madara reminisces.

“ As do I, but I think we should leave here.” I sat as we both rise to our feet.’

“ Allow me. I am able to use a transportation technique with my sharingan similar to the one you used, but more reliable and fine-tuned.” Madara explains as we motions for me to come next to him. I stand near him, and he then sucks us into a portal, and we then arrive in some sort of underground room, all with bed and a table.

“ Wait here so I can retrieve you cloak like mine.” Madara says as he points to his black cloak with red clouds upon it. The false leader and rinnegan user has some sort of special connection with these symbols from what I remember Madara talking about earlier. Akatsuki. To bring peace to the world, and I will help that goal be achieved, not for me, but the clan and everyone who must deal with unreasonable strife. A truly noble cause, and as long as I keep my eyes on Madara that will come true.

I sit down on the bed for a few minutes until Madara returns with a cloak, and he begins to fill me in more detail about the requirements, which seem weird, but I can handle them and he tosses me also a ring.

“ That goes on your on your left pinky for the ritual.” Madara explains and then quickly says, “ I’ll leave you now to get some rest.” Before he shuts the door and leaves me alone in the bare room with just a candle providing light. I now have a purpose in this foreign world, and I will find out more, because knowledge is everything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Lost Heritage

Our Purposes and Beliefs

I wake up on the hard cot feeling a bit cold, as the vacant room doesn’t seem to have very good ventilation. I did what Madara told me to do last night in fixing my appearance for the Akatsuki, and even though it felt a bit strange, I managed to pull it off.

The cloak served as a nice extra blanket last night, and is actually a quite good fit. As I’m daydreaming in the cold room, I sense I presence enter the room, and from the floor rises a white and black venus flytrap hybrid human. Not a pleasant sight in the least to wake up to.

“ Madara wishes to speak with you. Follow us.” It says in distorted way, telling me it has a split personality. I follow the strange being out of the door and down a very large hallway with many turns and flights of stairs. Eventually we reach he summit and our destination where I see three figures standing on the balcony type area, and one I can identify as Madara.

I walk towards the group and say, “ So, what shall we discuss?” and the three turn around and place their attention on me. I immediately spot the one with orange hair has the rinnegan, a legendary doujutsu and he appears to have many piercings. The lady on the right has indigo hair and is slightly tall for most women, and pretty nonetheless.

“ Glad Zetsu got you here as fast as he did. We have much to discuss.” Madara states as he motions me over to the group leaving Zetsu to sit back.

“ I am Pein, and I am the unofficial leader of the Akatsuki, but most members recognize me as leader.” Pein states and then the woman says, “ I am Konan of the Akatsuki, and one of its very first members.”

“ Glad to meet both of you.” I respond with a bow.

“ We do have a few things to discuss though, along with our intentions to you. First, I use an alias known as Tobi, which is very out of character for me when around other members. They are not to know Madara Uchiha is still alive. Next, the Akatsuki’s purpose is to collect the nine bijuu, in which right now we possess two, which are the four tails and the seven tails. That leaves seven. Lastly, I need you to stick to the shadows for now. You’re brief presence in Konoha has sent shock through many people, so you must lay low until you are unknown once again.” Madara explains, and I nod in agreement.

“ And how long do you plan to have me sit on the sidelines?” I inquire to not just Madara, but all three.

“ As long as it takes. Right now you’re objective will to help with the sealing of the Bijuu and help retain order here in the Hidden Rain.” Pein elaborates.

“ Understood, and I suppose this will help me catch up on history I suppose as well.” I say out loud to no one in particular.

“ Indeed, and one last thing is you will not reveal yourself to the other members of the Akatsuki yet. It may cause unnecessary tension.” Madara warns and I nod yet again in compliance.

“ Understood, now is that all?” I ask, and I’m starting to get a little fed up with the lecture.

“ I believe so. Now, you are free to go. We will lead you to the sealing chamber once we obtain another bijuu.” Konan says quite softly, and I receive a nod from Pein and Madara. As I walk out from the balcony with Zetsu back to my room, I can hear Pein whisper, “ So can we trust him?” and Madara replies, “ I trust my blood like none other.” Leaving my face with a faint smile.

As I enter my still very cold and vacant room Zetsu says, “ It wasn’t spoken about earlier, but you won’t be stuck in here all the time. In a day or two we plan to have you paired with us to locate and keep tabs on the bijuu, so do you understand?” Zetsu says and I reply, “ Of course, and thanks for the explanation. Now, if you could get me some books to read that’d be most helpful.” And Zetsu bows and disappears into the ground below.

I go to sit on the cot to do a bit of meditation. I finally have reunited with my brother for the first full day, and I’ve also met a real rinnegan bearer. Oh, and I can’t forget that freak Zetsu. Never seen something quite as unique as him before.

Even though I was told a decent chunk of information, I do feel, as they didn’t tell me a few things. I am no simpleton, so why didn’t they tell me what the bijuu are going to be used for? If you’re trying to collect all and recreate the juubi, what do you plan to do with that power? It’s possible this Pein fellow and Madara have two different end games planned out and they are just on friendly terms for now. I must ask Madara later about his true intentions, and besides he doesn’t have much of a choice since I could probably over power him if need be.

I also wonder what will happen with my sudden disappearance from the Hidden Leaf village, as everyone I had come in contact during the few days will probably be in question of my existence, and luckily my identity wasn’t released publicly. I do hate the Senju for taking control over the Uchiha clan and the leaf, but I do feel Sasuke didn’t know the answers and Madara would be my only other outlet, besides tracking down Itachi Uchiha for answers.

After who knows how long, Zetsu arises from the floor holding a scroll that he tosses to me, and without another word leaves silently. I slowly unroll the scroll on the floor and I release the storage seal. Once the small amount of smoke clears I see a stack of books on modern jutsu, past war, a couple bingo books, generic history on all nations, and something on pottery. A look like Zetsu was getting bored and threw that last one in there for fun.

I start with one of the bingo books and I begin to research the other members of the Akatsuki. It doesn’t take long and I quickly find Konan inside the book with a high reward, no sign of Pein or Madara, which is expected considering their secrecy. The first interesting person of the Akatsuki I find is a man named Kisame Hoshigaki from the Hidden Mist. Looks almost shark-like and considered highly dangerous with his sword, Samehada.

Next, I stumble upon Sasori of the red sand and he appears to be inside of some kind of puppet or machine as it gives two pictures and a brief description as highly dangerous. I then come across Kakuzu, who is a former Waterfall-nin with a high price on his head, and interesting enough he is a bounty hunter. Next, and possibly the most interesting, I find Itachi Uchiha of the Hidden Leaf and I finally see what he looks like. He looks very much like Sasuke, and also probably came from some lineage of Madara and I since he has similar features, and he definitely someone who I will talk to in the future.

Lastly I scour the other bingo book and I find Deidara of the Hidden Stone as another member of the Akatsuki, and he appears to be around my age and a nuke-nin. I also find Hidan, who is from the Hidden Steam and appears to be formally apart of some cult called Jashinism, but I’ve never heard of it. That seems to be it for the Akatsuki, and the only other name that I managed to find was Orochimaru, but it seems he was former Akatsuki and went on to form his own village of miscreants named the Hidden Sound.

I give the books a break and lay down on the hard cot to stretch out my arms. With not too many members that really interest me, it shouldn’t matter to how the bijuu are collected, but I will need to know of Madara’s intentions.

After a few hours, Madara walks in the door as I’m reading up on some modern fire ninjutsu and asks, “ Hello Izuna, how are you doing?”

“ Fair, but I do have a question for you brother.”

“ What might that be, brother?”

“ What is you’re end game when all the bijuu are collected, and what is the deal setup with Pein?”

“ My plan is for peace. With the power of the bijuu I can utilize a my eye of the moon plan.” Madara says and for the greater amount of ten minutes he reveals to me all the inner workings of his plan.

“ And Pein is ok with this?”

“ For now, yes. He should be loyal, as I’ve bent him to my way of thinking. Also, has Zetsu informed you of you’re impending task?”

“ Yes, and I’m just happy to get outside once again.”

“ Very well, I’ll leave you be.” Madara states as he leaves the room. I can’t but help think Madara is a bit twisted from when I knew him. His plan is to essentially become the sage of six paths and control everyone under “peaceful” genjutsu. I suppose I have to play along for now, but I was the one that first told him “ Peace is always you’re goal, but is never something you reach” because a world must be imperfectly perfect to function, at least from my understanding as utopias have been known for failure and flaws. I guess next thing I should do is figure out how to have a conversation with either Konan and/or Pein without Madara knowing. I must know everyone’s angle at this to form my own plan since I refuse to be a blind pawn. Power In the wrong person’s hands causes innocent people to die, and the opposite of the goal of peace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Lost Heritage

Something in Common

It had been about a week since the meeting with Pein and Madara, and I forced myself off the hard cot like I had been doing. I still haven’t been able to find an opening to get Pein in private, but I think my chance is coming since Madara is letting me do my own thing without watching me as much, and that Zetsu fellow has a majority of his attention, which makes me wonder what’s so special about that freak.

After a few stretches and eating some bread that Zetsu dropped in my room the other day, I heard a knock on the door and I answered, “ Come in.” already knowing who it is.

Madara steps into the room and says, “ Good morning Izuna. Today I would like to alert you about your first mission as a part of the Akatsuki.” I think to myself this is unusually sudden and very blunt, but I reply, “ Very well, what is it exactly?”

“ Simple really. You will travel with Zetsu to the Hidden Mist to track the movements of the Rokubi, since it’s gone rogue and off our radar. I expect you to be gone by tomorrow morning.” Madara explains.

“ Very well, I’ll be back to my reading in the meantime.” I casually reply as Madara shuts the door with a nod, and disappears. It seems to me Madara was in a bit of a rush, and this is probably my best opportunity to locate Pein and ask some questions. I do love my brother, but I can’t help something fishy is going on, and I want to figure out what the “leader” knows.

I wait about 10 minutes until I presume nobody is near my vicinity, and I create a clone to stay in the room and read, just incase Zetsu drops by and I leave the small musty room. The tower I’m in has hallways and staircases, and since I’m in the underground part I have a ways to walk before I hit the top.

I carefully scale and sneak up through the many stairwells, following the large chakra signature that any capable shinobi could detect emanating from the top of the tower. This Pein fellow does possess the rinnegan, so he is powerful nonetheless, but is he under the control of Madara’s powerful sharingan?

I reach the second to last level before the balcony area and in the hallway I turn around sharply to see Konan a ways behind me and she asks, “ What are you doing?” I’m surprised I didn’t sense her earlier. So much for being careful.

I quickly mull over my options, and I decide to truthfully respond, “ I wish to speak with Pein. Alone.” I emphasize hoping she will take the hint that I don’t want her lurking around, and that she is being a subtle nuisance.

“ I will lead you to him, but it will be his decision if I l eave or not. You only have Madara’s faith, not ours.” Konan says with a pinch of spite as she walks infront of me and leads me to the top.

We reach the top where I see the orange haired piecing man known as Pein looking over the balcony at Amegakure, and Konan says, “ Pein-sama, you have a visitor.”

Pein turns around slowly and eyes me dangerously with his rinnegan and asks, “ What is it you want, Izuna Uchiha?”

“ I was hoping to talk with you in private about some important matters if that’s possible.”

Pein’s eyes quickly dart from me to Konan for a short bit until he replies, “ Fine. Konan, leave us be.” And Konan gives him a deep bow and disassembles into a bunch of origami papers. Strange ability if I do say so myself.

Once Konan’s papers had dispersed Pein refocuses his attention on me and asks, “ So…what is the meaning of this?”

“ I want to know what your goal is.” I state bluntly without missing a beat and Pein seems to be studying me as he cautiously asks, “ Where is Madara right now?”

“ Unsure, but I am here without his knowledge. There are some things I do like kept to myself in private.”

“ Very well, but my goal is very simple, as it is to achieve peace through the use of the nine tailed beasts.”

“ Interesting and what is the endgame with the tailed beasts?” I inquire.

“ To create a weapon using the powers of the tailed beasts and my rinnegan to control the shinobi world and end all war.”

“ I see…” I mutter and Pein raises an eyebrow slightly and curiously asks, “ Is there something wrong, Izuna?”

“ No, but it does seem you and Madara have different ways of reaching this common goal of yours.”

Pein’s eyes narrow as he frowns and whispers in a deadly tone, “ What are you trying to get at exactly?”

“ Nothing, just merely scavenging up information, but I would be wary of Madara if I were you Pein.” I warn in a laid back manner.
I can see Pein is gritting his teeth a little bit due to my intentionally condescending comment and replies, “ Why are you here behind Madara’s back talking to me about this?”

“ Because I frankly don’t completely trust him. Sure he is my brother, but something is amiss and I needed to talk with you to clear that up, so thank you.”

Now Pein has regained his composure and replies, “ Why do you not trust him?”

“ He did take my eyes, and he seems even more so…off.” I coldly reply as I glare at Pein.

“ Interesting…” Pein muses as he crosses his arms and continues by changing subject, “ Did he tell you about your mission tomorrow?”

“ Yes, but I have one request I’d like to change about it.”

I get an intrigued look from Pein as he asks, “ And what might that be?”

“ Instead of Zetsu, send Konan with me instead.”

“ What is the reasoning behind such a demand?”

“ I’d like to talk some of the similar details that we spoke about here with your co-leader, and I don’t want Madara’s pet watching over me the whole time. Think we can arrange this?” I ask and Pein closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath.

After about a minute of silence Pein reopens his eyes and states, “ It will be done. I had the area searched for Madara and Zetsu to see if they were spying on us, and it seems you’ve came here on your own accord and been truthful to my knowledge, so I will grant your request.”

“ Thank you. Now, I don’t want to overstay my welcome, so I will be off to my room before anyone gets suspicious.”

“ Very well.” Pein responds as he returns his attention back to the overcast clouds reigning over the city.

I hurry back down to my room and once I get in there I dispel the clone and return to my books. Learning about history is quite a pain, but is necessary. I almost return to reading my book, but I sense a small change in the air and I look to the far left corner of the ceiling and I see the very tip of a black plant rise into the building. Looks like Zetsu knew I was out, and I hope my gamble didn’t cost me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Lost Heritage

Different Seasons

First thing I feel is the cold air against my skin causing it to prickle up as my eyes snap open. I sit myself up carefully out of the hard cot and stretch my back for a moment as I rub the sleep out of my eyes. Today I finally get to leave this dank place and explore this world a bit.

After stretching and clothing myself in matching black T-shirt and pants I walk over to my desk and grab an apple resting there. It seems Madara came by to give me a little snack for when I woke up.

I pick up the apple and sink my teeth into it and the juices flow into my mouth and I spit out the pulp of the fruit. A bit too sour for my taste. I look around the room for a garbage can, and I realize there is none so I just set the partially eaten apple back down on the wooden table.

I spend the next 10 minutes organizing my weapons, mostly kunai and shurikan across my bed until I hear a knock at my door. I scoop up the few weapons I have into my weapon pouch and as I tie it onto my leg I say, “ Come in.”

The door slowly cracks open and I hear a feminine voice respond, “ Its Konan. I’m ready to leave.”

“ Meet me at the exit. I’ll be just a moment.” I reply as I finish adjusting my weapon pouch as I scour my room for the cloak. I see it’s buried underneath a few books on my wooden table, so I carefully peel it out from underneath the books and give it a little shake. I turn the cloak around me and I fidget with it briefly so it covers my entire body.

I walk towards the still cracked open door to be suddenly greeted by Madara. I remain composed and I ask him, “ What is it brother?”

Madara looks off to the side and nonchalantly replies, “ Just wondering why you didn’t want Zetsu to go with you on the mission. Pein was quite adamant about Konan going with you, so I would like to see what’s your thoughts on this.”

I keep my blank look upon my face and say to the masked man, “ Seems it’s just Pein’s will; perhaps he is suspicious of me?”

“ Perhaps indeed. I’ll be going now, don’t want to delay your mission.” Madara says with a slight ambiguity to his voice that I can’t identify, which worries me slightly. Madara uses his transportation technique and disappears from sight, so I hastily walk down the tower stairs to rendezvous with Konan.

I’m not sure if Zetsu knew I was talking with Pein, even though Pein said he had the perimeter on lockdown, but I have to assume he and Madara know I left my room. I sense he’s already trying to figure this out and if he connects the dots correctly, I’ll be in hot water. I just need to breathe and take this whole situation all in stride, besides if I can gain the trust of the rinnegan user Madara won’t be in a strong position to try anything against me. I do love my brother, as you are supposed to with family, but I really do question his philosophy about the world now that I see him for who he truly is.

I reach the bottom of the tower and I see Konan who greets me by saying, “ You took longer than I expected.”

“ Yes, Madara wished to speak with me.” I respond as Konan hands me a large straw hat that I fit over my head and Rain village headband.

“ What for? Does he suspect something of you?”

“ Not sure. He usually doesn’t stop for chit chat, so I assume he was just speculating.”

“ Very well. The Hidden Mist is about a week from here, and their Jinchuriki was last heard to have gone rogue, but is somewhere in the area.”

Konan begins to walk down the rainy street and I follow her asking, “ How do we intend to find him then?”

“ Just by looking around, and possible interrogation about his whereabouts. Since he’s gone rogue he’s gone off our radar, and now we are going to put him back on.”

“ Is there a chance we may have a confrontation and capture the Rokubi?”

“ Yes, that is if we can find the Jinchuriki in an isolated area. If we we’re to attack with other ninja around it would get exceedingly difficult.’

“Very well, shall we speed up?” I offer and Konan turns to me and nods before taking off at a much faster pace. I follow closely as we exit the Village Hidden in the Rain and off to Water Country. I have to admit I am a little excited to travel around in this world again since it’s all so foreign to me, and book can only tell you so much.

We keep at a fairly quick pace until Amegakure is completely out of site where Konan slows down to a walk and says to me without turning around, “ We’ll have to walk for now so we don’t draw any attention.”

I slow down so I don’t run into her and reply, “ Fine by me.” And we keep our heads down and walk down the dirt path towards Fire Country.

I’m not sure how my sudden disappearance from Konoha affected everything since I was there for such little time, and that none of the elders of the village took a liking to me. Plus, that Senju member is supposed to take up position as Hokage, which still rubs me the wrong way.

We continue on the path for about 2 hours until Konan says to me, “ We’ll have to setup shelter soon and find food. Any ideas for food?”

“ What about shelter?” I inquire and Konan turns back to face me and replies, “ I have that handled. You should find some food though.”

“ Alright…I can either get something from a nearby town, or scavenge the near forests.”

“ There should be a small merchant village coming up on the road soon. I believe you could get something there.”

“ Indeed. I’ll simply walk into a market and grab some food. Money won’t be a problem since I can use my sharingan to manipulate civilians easily.”

“ Good. It’ll be getting dark soon, so let’s hurry.” Konan says as she takes off down the path at a moderate run. She sure isn’t much for small talk, that’s for sure. Or maybe it’s the simple fact she has hardly any trust in me.

Around dusk we can see the village’s gate in sight and Konan turns left into the forest where she intends to setup a camp, and I keep my hat covering my face as I walk into the small village.

Not much to really look at, just a few shops and people on the streets roaming about rushing to finish their errands before nightfall. I tread deeper into the town and I locate an outdoor market selling fruits and vegetables, so I veer to the right side of the street and into the market area. On the few tables setup I see apples, squash, bread, lettuce, corn, and many other foods to choose from. I also see at the back of the market a middle-aged man with a sweaty face behind a counter, where I assume he’s the owner. Nobody else is in the market, so it should be easy to walk out of here with my score.

I walk around the store for a bit and I grab up a loaf of bread and a basket full of apples and bananas and I approach the man at the counter who is eying me suspiciously. I walk up to him with my items and he asks me, “ Hello sir, do you intend to buy all of that and the basket?”

I smile from under my hat, and then I look up to the man with my sharingan active and reply, “ No, I don’t have any money.”

The man blankly staring through me slowly replies, “ That’s fine…take your items and have a good day.”

“ Thank you sir.” I respond happily as I turn around and exit the market with my food. It really is too easy to use jutsu like that on civilians, almost unfair.

As I’m walking out of the town back towards the area Konan left to I see a small figure move along the edge of my eyesight. From its movements I’d say it’s a definitely a shinobi that isn’t a complete rookie, but it does seem the shinobi is trailing me. Must be my akatsuki robes, or perhaps he was spying on me in the market. Either way I’ll be sure to make quick work of him.

I finally get outside the village and I set down my basket of goods as I hear the figure step out into the road behind me. I activate my mangekyo sharingan and say to the figure without turning around, “ Why are you pursuing someone who just bought some groceries?”

The voice replies back in a feminine voice, “ You’re robes signify you’re apart of an organization called the Akatuski. I’ve observed you’re every movement since you’ve stepped inside this village.”

I take off my hat and say to the kuniochi, “ Last chance, girl. If you don’t leave now, you’ll regret it.”

I hear a kunai being drawn out and her respond, “ Don’t you dare mock me, besides you’re outnumbered.” I turn around to see three other masked figures come out from the brush on the road to regroup with the female Leaf ANBU. I did warn them to leave.

“ Well, it’s your funeral.” I say as I face the 4 enemies with a smirk and they all seem a bit taken back.

“ Is that Itachi Uchiha?” I hear the burly tiger masked one on the left say and the bear masked on to his left replies, “ No. I believe this is the one we’ve been searching for though that Danzo spoke of. Izuna Uchiha.

“ Izuna Uchiha?” The female rabbit masked ANBU asks and the bear mask ANBU replies, “ Yes. He appeared back in our village for a short time before suddenly disappearing a while ago., and it seems he joined the Akatsuki.”

“ Why aren’t you the sharp one, but that won’t matter. You’ve all doomed yourselves. My power is like nothing you’ve ever seen.” I smugly reply as I close my right eye. Amaterasu is such a powerful jutsu that they won’t be able to escape.

“ Watch out, he’s going to try so-ahhh!” The tiger masked ANBU wails as he’s consumed by black fire as blood runs down from my left eye. I then look to the other three and they avoid my fire, except the bird masked one that didn’t speak as I catch him with my Amaterasu as well and he falls down the ground wailing in pain as the flames consume him like his comrade.

“ What jutsu is that?” The rabbit ANBU asks her only alive teammate and all he is able to respond with is, “ …I don’t know, but we can’t get hit by it.”

“ That is only the tip of the Iceberg with my power, this next one will be painless, I promise.” I reply as I close my left eye and open my right eye intending to use Kumai on the bear masked man and send him to an unknown place.

I cast out my jutsu and the fabric of realty around the bear mask man warps around him and the only words he is able to mutter to his comrade are, “ Just run.” And he is swallowed up by an unseen vortex.

Kumai doesn’t strain my eyes as much as Amaterasu does, so I might use that in the future as an alternative to not put so much pressure on myself. The rabbit masked women runs off into the woods and I take chase leaving my hat and food behind.

I see her frantically running through the trees to put distance between her and I, but I’m gaining on her. I form the tiger hand sign and I let out my Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu which I land perfectly into her back, sending her into the ground of the forest floor face down.

“ I told you to run when you had the chance.” I say to the ANBU as I walk over to her body, and crouch down to her level turn her over and remove her mask. She can hardly be 23 or 22 with such fair skin and young and scared look in her eyes. I almost pity someone for being in her position, but luckily for her I want her alive. Someone has to be my messenger to Danzo.

“ What do you want from me…” She moans as she coughs.

I look into her eyes with my sharingan and I tell her, “ You’re going to go back to the Leaf and tell Danzo to watch his back, as well as the Senju Hokage. I will not be trifled with.” I sternly instruct her as she blankly stares back at me as my sharingan has done its job in hypnotizing her. She then closes her eyes and falls asleep, and I stand back up. Even though she’s injured, she’ll be able to make it back to the Leaf and deliver my message.

I stand up fully and run back towards the main road where I left my belongings. It’s already starting to get dark, so I hope Konan has shelter already ready. I make my way back to the main road and I notice my stuff is gone.

“ Shit.” I mutter to myself and clench my fists. Some loser bandit must have come by just a minute or two ago and stole my stuff. I guess I’ll just have to tell Konan I got distracted.

I walk down the road and take a right into the woods where I saw Konan head earlier and I see a small fire off in the distance, so I pick up the pace to reach the small glimmering light.

I reach the small fire to see Konan sitting on a rock that seems to be made out of paper with my hat and basket of food next to her, and she’s eating some of the bread. I smirk at her as I take a seat across from her and warm my hands up against the fire.


“ You do have a unique set of skill, very similar to Itachi and Madara, but that is expected I suppose.” Konan remarks as she bites into her apple.

I raise my left eyebrow and reply, “ You saw my little skirmish?”

“ Of course. The charka signature coming from the area couldn’t be ignored. Once you took off after the last one I came out to grab your things that you left.” Konan explains and I nod.

“ Very well. Anyways, where is the shelter?” I ask and she points behind her and replies, “ I made two tents using my origami technique. You may choose which one you desire.”

“ Origami? That is an interesting weapon to use for battle.” I muse and Konan boredly replies, “ No more interesting than one’s eyes.”

“ Fair enough.”

We sit by the fire for a while longer until Konan breaks the ice and asks, “ Why did you choose me over Zetsu for this mission? Do you really trust me that much?”

I lean my head back to look up at the starry sky and I say, “ It’s not so much I trust you, is that I distrust Zetsu. Hopefully we can come to trust one another in time, but I assume you have your own suspicions about me as well, since I am Madara’s brother after all.”

“ You make a good point, Izuna. But trust isn’t something easily earned from me, let you know.” Konan retorts as she tosses the rest of her apple into the fire and stands up.

“ I’ll let you have first watch. Just wake me when you’re tired.” Konan says as she disappears into the left origami tent leaving me alone by the small fire. I sigh to myself as I look up at the stars once more. I really hope putting faith in Konan over Zetsu will pay off for me later on, but I don’t know how I can get her to open up to me without using force. At least I do have a little bit of time to work with for now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``

Lost Heritage

Civil Disobedience

(Izuna’s P.O.V)

Water Country is a very depressing place to say the very least, and in a way reminds me of Amegakure. Since entering the country two days ago it hasn’t let up raining one bit, and the vague atmosphere of the mission just makes the hunt much more frustrating. Konan is the one who has all the details about the Rokubi, while I’ve only seen what the person looks like.

As we continue walking we finally reach the shore of the last island we trekked I ask Konan, “ How much longer until we reach Kiri?”

As she forms a few hand signs to create a boat of origami, and responds, “ Just another island I believe. Why, are you becoming impatient?”

“ No. Just curious since I’ve never laid my eyes upon Kiri.” I calmly reply as I help push the paper raft into the water as Konan creates an oar. Her skills are very impressive with origami as we’ve avoided just about every main dock using our own boats, and even though they’re made of paper they still float like any other boat, which is truly remarkable.

Konan hands me the oar as she delicately situates herself in the raft as I stand knee deep in water, and give it a push into the sea. I hop into the raft and sit across from Konan and I begin to start a smooth paddling pattern. The sky is dark with gray ominous clouds lurking overhead that threaten to send down lighting and rain, and coupled with the rough motion of the deep, dark water it’s a bit unsettling.

Since Konan creates the equipment I get paddling duty, and since she’s the one in charge essentially I don’t have much of a choice, but the choppy waves don’t make my job any easier. As I paddle for roughly an hour I can faintly see a thick fog up ahead and I say to Konan, “ Fog this far out in the ocean is quite unusual.”

“ Not for Kiri. The mist symbolizes we are getting close, but make sure to conceal your chakra the best you can. We don’t need an ANBU patrol to find us. Less attention the better.”

“ Very well.” I reply as I keep my focus on the rowing against the waves.

After what seems to be an eternity I finally see land up ahead, and my arms are really in pain at this point. I finally get the both of us to shore and Konan dissembles the raft and oar. She then motions for me to follow her, so I trudge behind her since rowing the last bit while not using chakra has taken quite the toll on my arms and I see the silhouettes of buildings in the distance.
“ Kirigakure is very disconnected from civilization so things may seem off, but since you’re not exactly accustomed to society yourself you may not notice.” Konan muses and I question back, “ Was that a joke, Konan-san?”

“ Perhaps, but let’s focus. I’ll show you the picture again. This is who we are looking for, but keep a low profile, and by that means remain out of sight from any Mist shinobi. Meet me back here at nightfall.” Konan instructs and I nod in agreement.

We both part ways as we enter Kiri from different directions. There is no main gate really to Kiri, but avoiding the entrance ports is key. On the plus side my identity probably hasn’t reached Kiri if Konoha has released the information regarding my reappearance.

After stealthily avoiding a few patrols I managed to get over the wall and into the heart of the city full of merchants selling fish, some street performers, and some children running about. Keeping my hat low and covering my face as I stick to the shadows nobody immediately seems to fit the description of the Rokubi. I’m looking for a slim male with long straight black hair that carries a pipe and wears blue clothing. Sounds like any random person I might pick off the street to me.

After hours of skulking around the streets of Kiri I notice a butterfly land on my shoulder, except it’s made out paper. I snatch the paper from my shoulder and open it up, revealing a small message reading, “ Meet me at south end of island.” Without another moment to lose I jump into action and head towards the south end of Kiri.

I travel at a fast pace, and as I’m closing in on the general area I’m sensing chakra spikes all over the area, which isn’t a very sign in my opinion. Pushing more chakra into my feet I continue along, but now I don’t bother concealing chakra since I’m assuming we’ve been compromised.

As I reach the south end of the island I see Konan squaring off with about a dozen other Mist shinobi, and one out of the group I can roughly identify as our target. I activate my sharingan to confirm my prediction, and I’m correct. It appears Konan was recognized once she tried to scout them.

“ Kill the criminal! The Akatsuki will pay for what they’ve done to Kiri!” I see one of the jounin shout as a few charge Konan while throwing kunai, and she counters with her own origami. I glance around, and it seems they haven’t noticed me yet so I focus my some chakra into my left eye to perform my Kumai technique, which requires more chakra the father away the target.

One of the jounin is about to perform a water technique, and right before he releases it he is swallowed up into oblivion. The other Mist shinobi attacking Konan regroup to a defensive position, and from the east I see more Mist shinobi flocking in.

“ On guard! Akatsuki travel in pairs. Eri, try and detect the other one.” The obvious jounin captain barks out, as one of the chunin females appears to be a sensory type. A few seconds later she points at me, and suddenly I’m the center of attention, so I run towards Konan to regroup and avoid all the incoming shrapnel.

“ Looks like we’ve got a situation on our hands.” I state as I stare down the enemy with my sharingan.

Konan hangs her head slightly down and replies,” It’s my fault. One of the shinobi there is a sensor type and caught wind of my chakra. The only bright side is I’ve located the Rokubi, but we’re at a stalemate since he’s got back up. We have to retreat.”

“ Not entirely. I could turn the tables on them using a very special technique on the Rokubi.” I reply with a dangerously maniacal grin.

“ We need him alive, so whatever you’re going to do won’t work with all the other shinobi.” Konan counters impatiently.

“ It won’t kill him at all, it’s just a very powerful genjutsu. I just want to know if we really need the Rokubi right now. Decide quick.” I hastily respond as I pull out a kunai to deflect a few being thrown in my general direction.

“ Since we’re here, let’s get him. It will impress Pein-sama. Do what you must.” Konan states and I close my eyes to focus myself. I’ve yet to use this specific technique, but with the power of the mangekyo it should work to it’s full extent. I open both my eyes revealing my mangekyo sharingan and I look right to the jinchuriki. His eyes are shut since it seems he’s been told by his superiors to avoid my sharingan, but that wont save him from Kotoamatsukami.

“ Let’s retreat now.” I state as I turn around and run towards the shore, and Konan chases after me saying, “ I know how the sharingan works. You didn’t make eye contact, so what’s the deal?”

“ Just run. If you need to check behind you do so.” I reply back as Konan glances over her shoulder to see the jinchuriki sprinting after us at full speed and ignoring all his comrades’ pleas and shouts to stay put. The fool will chase me since I gave the simple order “ catch me” through Kotoamatsukami. We reach the shore in no time and continue to run across the water into the ocean, and with the enhanced vision granted by my sharingan I can see an island up ahead that looks suitable to lose the opposition.

It takes awhile, but after a few minutes of what seems to be endless sprinting Konan and I reach the desolate overgrown island. I peak over my shoulder to see the jinchuriki is still after us at full speed, and it seems only a few of his comrades are after him, but they are lagging behind us.

“ Let’s take a brief break up ahead, we’ve separated the Rokubi from the bulk of his comrades.” I suggest to Konan who replies, “ You can if you need to rest your eyes, but I will finish them off and secure him.” I nod to Konan and I disappear deeper into the jungle like island to stop the usage of my sharingan since keeping it in the mangekyo state puts enormous strain on my body and chakra consumption.

After a awhile I’m sitting on a stump with my eyes closed doing some meditation I sense someone approaching my position so I open my left eye with just a normal sharingan to see Konan traversing her way through the jungle like terrain with a human origami shaped like cocoon draped over her shoulder.

“ Take it you succeeded?” I muse already knowing the answer.

“ Indeed, but we mustn’t stay long. Reinforcements are on the way as we speak.” Konan quietly replies and out of the trees we both hear a distinct female reply, “ We’re already here if you didn’t notice.”

I immediately hop of the stump I’m sitting on and motion with my hand to Konan to run deeper into the jungle with me, as a storm of kunai and shurikan reign down on our previous position. Now running away from an unseen enemy I reactivate my sharingan to see if I can locate the enemy chasing us, even though my body still hasn’t fully recovered from the Kotoamatsukami.

After some brief running through the thick vegetation frantically Konan and I enter a large grassy clearing with scattered colorful flowers without much else.

“ Stop here. This is where we’ll finish them off.” Konan orders to me as she makes a huge origami wall over the entrance we used into the clearing. Before I’m able to reply a huge hole is melted in the origami wall forms with smoke coming out of it, almost like an acid of some sort.

“ Quite some chase to get back Utakata?” I hear the same feminine voice from before say to another unknown entity that vaguely grunts with a heavy voice. Looks like our little chase tired someone out.

Out of the hole in the paper wall I see a younger lady dressed in blue with long red hair followed by a pair of Mist ANBU whos’ slightly heavy breathing can be heard through their masks.

“ There’s no point in running Izuna, that women over there is the new Mizukage. We must stand our ground is we wish to successfully bring back the Rokubi. I’ll back you up since my style won’t be strong against the Mizukage’s acid.” Konan instructs to me and I reply, “ Very well, I’ll make short work of them.”

“ You Akatsuki will pay for thinking you can make fools of Kirigakure.” One of the ANBU says to me and I sheepishly smile as I activate my mangekyo sharingan.
“ Careful, Itachi Uchiha is a very dangerous man.” The other ANBU warms to his friends and the Mizukage quickly replies, “ That isn’t Itachi Uchiha, I do believe. He looks similar, but it’s not a match. Who are exactly?”


“ That’s none of your concern, now Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu.” I retort as I unleash a huge ball of fire to separate the shinobi from eachother, which I follow up with my Phoenix Fire Jutsu aimed at one of the ANBU that jump straight up in the air to avoid my fireball, and I get a direct hit burning him severely.

Just as I finish off the ANBU I quickly jump to my left to avoid a plume of acidic mist being blown in my direction from the Mizukage, followed up by jumping up in the air to avoid a barrage of kunai from the remaining ANBU.

“ You’ve left yourself open, now perish.” The Mizukage states as she spits out a large mass of what appears to be lava at me. Being in the air leaves me with no easy option to avoid the attack, so I activate Kumai to teleport me back down to the ground.

I land safely on the ground with the lava passing harmlessly overhead and into another part of the field, where it smolders in the grass. I look back up to my opponents and just for a second I get a case of double vision. I almost stumble as a huge pain runs through my head, mainly felt in my eyes, but fades just as quickly as it came.

I disregard that little hiccup in the jutsu, and I decide I need to end the battle as quickly as possible so I shut both my eyes to prepare an attack that will make the Mizukage’s lava look like bath water. As blood flows down my cheeks I reopen my eyes and the first one I see is the Mist ANBU who initially jumps out of the way of the flames, but keeping focused on him I manage to hit him, and I move my attention to the Mizukage just as I feel another symptom of agonizing pain course through my skull causing me to end my jutsu and close my eyes.

I’m very adept at hiding discomfort, but it’s probably pretty obvious to Konan and the Mizukage something is up, and I just wish I knew what it was. I’ve never had any kind of problems like this in the past when using these kinds of techniques, so what is going on? I believe I rested my eyes enough after using the Kotoamatsukami, but it is still all so strange.

“ Izuna, what’s wrong?” I hear Konan call out from across the field and I wave her off as I open my left eye to see the Mizukage approaching my position hastily so I prepare my right eye for another round of Amaterasu. I open my right eye but nothing happens, and instead everything blurs and goes black and white for a split second before I shut my both my eyes to save myself from any other damage.

“ Konan, cover me. Something is wrong.” I carefully say out to her as I leap backward a decent distance to where I remember she was standing, and to avoid the Mizukage’s attack as well. I can only hear what’s going on at this point but it seems Konan has blocked the Mizukage’s attack for the meantime as I hear the rustling sound of paper whizzing through the air.

“ Izuna, what is the matter? Just a few moments ago you were fine, did you use too much chakra in those attacks?” Konan asks in a hurried tone as she focuses on the battle at hand.

“ Not sure, but there is definitely something up with my eyes.” I reply as I try to listen to the sounds of the battle. I also hear some other ruckus coming from the direction we came from earlier, and then it hits me. Reinforcements of the Mist are already here meaning we took too long.

“ We have to go, but can you see?” Konan asks, as the noise of large amount of bodies looms closer.

“ I’ll try, but don’t expect anything amazing.” I honestly reply as I reopen my eyes expecting the worst, but everything seems normal before, even though I’m not currently using the mangekyo sharingan. First thing I notice is a protective bubble of origami encasing us with Konan constantly using more paper to fill any breaks.

“ I can’t do this for much longer and I don’t have a great escape plan besides running.” Konan hesitantly stares as she narrows her eyes on the origami shield.


“ I’m going to try to teleport use out of here, but be warned I’m unsure how it will end up.” I respond as I reactivate my mangekyo sharingan for one last attempt at Kumai. Even though I’m still quite worried of what may ensue, it’s our only chance of escaping a Mist battalion without any real dire consequences. I focus my chakra into my left eye and everything seems normal as we begin to let the jutsu over take us, and then I feel that strange pain in my head as I try my hardest to complete the jutsu, but after that I don’t remember anything at all as the world goes black around me.

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