Naruto: The Unwoven Threads of Fate

One Week Later, Orochimaru's Office

"Alvarcus." Orochimaru studies me, taking in my disheveled appearance. Wrinkled clothes, dirt all over me, rips and tears throughout my usual pristine coat, a missing pair of sunglasses and scarf that expose the only two features of mine that I want hidden. And the sticky dried blood that has been splashed all over me. It has splattered on my coat, been sprayed onto my face, it's staining my pants. I look like I've been to war. "What. Happened."

"Shit hit the fan at one hundred kilometers per hour." I say from my chair that has been ruined forever unless Orochimaru has some seriously strong cleaning supplies. "I'm used to cluster fucks. This… this was something else entirely."

"Where are the Sound Three?" Orochimaru asks, he's forced himself to respond calmly. He's almost at freak out level. Seeing your 'child' stroll into your office while covered in blood would do that to anyone.

"Kidomaru is on my left arm." I point to it, or more specifically the blood. "Sakon and Ukon are all over my legs. Jirobo is the only one not on me, he got vaporized. I think? I was a little busy at the time so I didn't see what happened to him."

"My elite bodyguards are dead?" Orochimaru asks for clarification even though the evidence is right before him.

"Very dead." I grimly confirm with one sharp nod of my head.

"Why is it that your chakra levels feel so low?" Orochimaru asks me as concern flashes across his features again. He knows damn well why my chakra levels are low, he just doesn't want it to be true. "Is it because…"

"Because I'm working with a single heart." I bluntly tell him. "I lost the other four. I'm running on the bare minimum."

"You… you lost them?" Orochimaru is staring at me in fear, worry and relief. He's terrified that someone or some group was capable of reducing me to this. He's worried that it could happen again, no doubt training is going to majorly suck. Yet above all of that he's relieved that I came back alive.

"All but water, arguably my worst element." I slouch in the chair to get more comfortable. He's very emotional but I'm not, it is all in the past for me. "It's like giving a katana user a tanto. They're still going to be good with it, but nowhere near their skill with a katana. Which is really fucking annoying might I add."

"Tell me everything that happened to you after I gave you the mission." Orochimaru demands while his fists ball up and fury overtakes his entire body. He's trembling in rage.

"We're going to be here a while."

Flashback, The Morning After Receiving Mission

"So." Sasuke opens up a new conversation as he sits down across from me in the Mess Hall. We're getting breakfast and catching up. Basically he was telling me everything I missed during my month long isolation. Frankly it wasn't much, Oto is surprisingly boring. "You've got a mission with the Sound Three?"

"Yep." I idly poke at my breakfast. It was so good, up until I saw it. It smelled amazing. The hint of eggs, bacon and bread had wafted through the air and made me hungry. But once I got the meal it all changed. The eggs and the bacon I have no problem with, in fact I rather enjoy them. It's the damn muffin that is pissing me off.

Fucking muffins.

"And…?" Sasuke trails off with a roll of his eyes. He wants me to elaborate more. Fine, I will.

"Orochimaru-sama is sending me on a diplomatic mission to -"

"Okay hold up." Sasuke cuts in before I can finish. "You're going on a diplomatic mission? You?"

"Thank you!" I throw my hands up in exasperation in a vain attempt to make myself feel better about being the new face of Oto. Fuck that's terrible, how did it come to this? "But yeah, diplomatic mission to meet a very high ranking Kumo shinobi. Sound Flunkies are my escort."

"Isn't that just a tad excessive?" Sasuke is bringing up all the same points I did to Orochimaru. I'm not even remotely surprised. "Aren't bodyguards supposed to protect their principle? That usually requires that they're stronger than the principle."

"I know! At least now I can make them kill or defeat or whatever-I'm-in-the-mood-for-at-the-time anyone we come across. I'll just kick back and relax as they fight for their lives."

"I suppose that's one way to look at it." Sasuke shrugs off my uniqueness like he has the last thousand times. "Very high ranking Kumo shinobi?"

"Yugito Nii." I fill in the blank for him but he has a vacant expression. "Jonin. Very skilled. Very deadly. Also rumored to be very hot. By that I mean she can light herself on fire. That's the rumor anyways."

"You're going to ask her to teach you that, aren't you?"

"Oh yeah. Wouldn't miss this opportunity for the world." I grin deviously to myself at the idea of yet another way to play with fire.

Present, Orochimaru's Office

"I do not need you to recount everything in such detail. Not until you leave the base." Orochimaru interrupts my storytelling session. "Did anything noteworthy happen before you left?"

"Noteworthy?" I look upwards and tap a finger on my chin as I rack my brain. Jiongu-brain. Sureddo-brain? Whatever, not important. "Let's see, there was the usual stalking by Maiko which should be concerning but she's left me alone lately so, meh, it's not a problem yet. There was a couple more Sasuke and me powwows. Nothing too important, just idle chitchat and a joined training session. Did you know that kid can hit anything with anything? It's freaking crazy how accurate he is, I thought I was good but damn! The dick stole my shoe and used it in training, he made it hit three different targets in one throw! Then he wouldn't give it back and I had to threaten to somehow force him back into the butler suit to get my shoe back and-"

"You're off track." Orochimaru points out.

"Whoops. Oh! This was interesting. It's also something that you might already know though." I scratch the back of my neck.

"Do tell." I've sparked Orochimaru's inquisitive side, he wants to know what kind of carrot I have dangling on my stick.

"Do you know what happens when someone opens up a Rashomon gate?"

"They can open?" Orochimaru asks me in surprise.

"Wait wait wait." I'm staring at him in bafflement. "You've had a summon for a giant gate for years if not decades and you've never tried to open it?"

"It never occurred to me to try." He admits without shame. "The Rashomon is revered for its defensive capabilities, the legend says that Hashirama used them to deflect an attack from a Tailed Beast. I was much more interested in that."

"Fair enough." I shrug in indifference. I get where he's coming from.

"So tell me, what does happen when someone opens a Rashomon gate?"

"Holy shit." Sasuke and I say in unison.

We're hiding on the ceiling off in a corner under a genjutsu that he cast. We're up here for one reason: someone Karin knows told her that they overheard someone else plotting to break into my lab and steal the chakra armor for themselves. Obviously they know how terrible it went for the last person to do that, they're only planning to poke their heads in and observe my lab. Prepping to get a game plan together for when they actually steal the armor.

Too bad Karin told Sasuke, Sasuke told me, and I was curious to experiment with the Rashomon. So here we are, Sasuke and I are staking out the door to my lab that I switched with a mini Rashomon gate.

The offenders showed up just as planned, they checked the hallway for observers as was expected, then they opened up the gate. That's where it all went weird.

"It fucking ate them." I blurt out as Sasuke and I are both staring in shock at the gate. "They opened it and blue tentacles shot out and pulled them inside. My doors eat people. That's fucking AWESOME!"

"The Rashomon… eats people?" Orochimaru sounds skeptical.

"Well not technically." I adjust in the chair, peeling my sticky coat off the back and moving into a new spot. "As far as I can tell it's just that one specific gate that does the whole blue tentacles of death move. The huge big ones that you used as a shield that one time don't do anything fancy, they're just big ass durable gates. It looks like each door might have the potential to do something unique. I haven't played with it enough to figure it all out."

"Interesting. Let me know what you discover."

"Of course." I nod my acceptance. "Oh and sorry about those two shinobi. Totally didn't mean for them to die."

"They were less than pawns. You're a mighty king. I don't even consider it a loss." There's the depraived and cold Orochimaru. I've been wondering where that side of him has been. "Anything else worth mentioning?"

"Uh… nope." I reply after thinking for a moment.

"Then tell me what happened once you left."

Flashback, On the Road

"So where are we going again?" Jirobo asks me as the four of us are running towards our destination. We're in a loose diamond formation, I'm up front by myself. Kidomaru is taking up the rear and Sakon, Ukon and Jirobo are on the sides. "Somewhere in the Land of Hot Springs, right?"

"How did you forget already?" Sakon berates his teammate. "Yes, we're going to the Land of Hot Springs. No, we're not going to the shinobi village in that country. We're meeting the delegation from Kumo at a lesser visited resort town. The shinobi population there should be nonexistent and even if there are shinobi there we're all leagues better than them."

"Not to mention that the Kumo shinobi will certainly be just as deadly as us." Kidomaru chimes in. "Nothing in that country could stand against one of us, not to mention all four plus the Kumo squad. This is going to be a cakewalk. I think that Orochimaru-sama is giving us a vacation!"

"Perhaps." Sakon graciously nods his head to Kidomaru. "It wouldn't surprise me, I am his favorite. You know how he loves to study bloodlines, especially one as unique as mine."

"Bullshit! I'm the favorite! He gave me my curse seal before both of you!" Jirobo angrily shouts at Sakon. "He graced me with his crown achievement first. I'm the favorite!"

"Keep dreaming big guy." Kidomaru lets out a belly laugh full of amusement. "He gave me four more arms. He killed two people for me, I'm totally the favorite."

"Sakon. Jirobo. Kidomaru." I growl out in barely restrained anger. Their pointless arguments have set me on edge since the moment we left. That was an hour ago. "I win."

"Yes." Orochimaru smiles down at me. "You do win. By a considerable margin might I add, even more now that they're dead. When will you be getting to that part?"

"Eventually." I dance around the question. "It'll be best if I tell everything chronologically. Otherwise you might have questions and you would make me stop every five seconds to answer them. This way you'll already know everything."

"Acceptable." Orochimaru is slowly becoming enwrapped in my story. "What happens next? Attacked by bandits on the road?"

"Surprisingly no. We made it to the meeting place without any issues. If you count the Sound Three's usual antics of trying anything and everything to test my patience as not being an issue."

Flashback, A Clearing Just Outside of the Town

"Are we late?" I sarcastically say as the Sound Three and I boldly stroll into the clearing that both parties agreed to meet at. Unfortunately we're not the first ones here despite being half an hour early, the Kumo shinobi are here. "Or are you just that eager to meet me?"

By the looks of things they just got here, they're all still standing and they're hyper alert. Boredom hasn't had a chance to sink in yet or they're much more disciplined than I expected. Honestly I'm surprised none of them threw a kunai at us as we dropped in on them. Maybe they have a sensor that warned them about us?

There's four of them, just as expected. They don't have anyone else hiding around, Sureddo would have told me by now. So it's just this hulking brute of a man who has lost his shirt and seems to be constantly flexing to show off his strength, a bored lady who has been knitting this whole time and has only glanced at the four of us once before deciding to ignore us all, an extremely nervous boy who is very twitchy and his frantic eyes can't seem to pick someone to rest on, and of course Yugito who looks like she'd rather be anywhere but here.

I don't blame Yugito for her obvious distaste for this whole thing, it was probably a slap in the face to get this mission. Who wants to be told to go ask a barely a teenage boy a bunch of questions? Not me, that's for damn sure.

"So I'm going to guess that you're Alvarcus?" Yugito drags out a long sigh as she lethargically pushes herself off the ground to walk over to me. She really doesn't want to be here. Her entire body language is practically screaming 'I've been forced to do this and am hating every second of it.'

"Good to meet you Yugito." I casually stuff my hands into my coat pockets and walk over to her with a pep in my step. "Sound Three why don't you go bother the Kumo shinobi? Us grown ups need to talk."

"Grown ups my ass." Kidomaru grumbles under his breath. "I'm a few years older than you so HA! Take that!"

"Fine, then those that matter need to discuss business away from the petty squabble." I smirk in victory as Kidomaru's anger grows. "Shoo, go bother someone else. I'm busy."

"You're an asshole." Kidomaru turns away from me and Yugito back towards the rest of the shinobi. The Oto shinobi are trying to suppress laughter while the Kumo shinobi are intently analyzing me. Except for the knitting one, she doesn't care in the slightest. "I don't know why I keep trying to rile you up. Oh wait, yes I do. Getting one over on you is so satisfying."

I pointedly ignore him as Yugito and I move away from the other six shinobi. No doubt they're going to do the tried and true method of sizing each other up and attempting to establish dominance. The entire thing is just so pathetic.

"You know." Yugito does a quick once over of me, taking in my rather plain appearance. If you ignore the crimson scarf around my neck even though it's hot outside. And the muted green trench coat that should make me die of heat exhaustion. So yeah, I look weird for where we are in the world. "I thought the Heart Thief would be scarier. You seem… tame."

"That's because you don't know me. We literally just met, I haven't had a chance to show you just how… scary I can be. Not to mention the fact that I was told to play nice with you." I let a sinister smirk dance upon my face. "The Sound Three can personally verify just how malicious I can be. If you don't believe me ask them about the three hundred rubber ducks. Besides, I could say the same thing about you."

"Really now?" Yugito blandly humors me by replying. She must really hate this, having to talk to who she thinks is nothing more than a spoiled brat. Why wouldn't Orochimaru of all people spoil his child rotten?

"Yes really." It's my turn to do a quick once over of her. "Long blonde hair. Dark eyes. Red lipstick? Not to mention your rather unassuming outfit. Slightly modified Kumo jonin gear, you've added some flair to your uniform. You're very inconspicuous for a jinchuuriki."

"So Orochimaru told you about me?" Yugito finally looks at me with a sliver of interest no doubt because I let her know I know she's a jinchuuriki. "Figures."

"He didn't have to." That peaks her interest a little more. "I did a little digging once I was given this mission. I don't particularly enjoy not knowing anything about who I am meeting, doubly so when I'm not supposed to kill them. It was very easy to get basic information about you, you're in the bingo books."

"So are you." She quickly retorts back with a spark of fire in her eyes. She doesn't like the fact that I took the time to research her. "It's one hell of a page, no one is completely certain what you can do. You're rapidly climbing the ranks too, a lot of people expected you to get S-rank for your stunt with the Kusa base. How did it feel to cause so much destruction? What went through your mind when you killed so many people?"

"What went through yours when the Nibi was forcibly sealed into you?" I answer her question with one of my own. "Did you scream in anguish at your own pain? Or did you cry in desperation for poor Matatabi who only wants to live her life free from the chains that humanity has forced upon her? How does it feel to be nothing more than a cage for an entity much stronger, older, and wiser than you? How does that make you feel, to know that you were picked to force another into slavery?"

Yugito reels back from my words, totally shocked at the abrupt turn I made the conversation take. That or me revealing I know her bijuu's name really got to her. Aw shit, does she know Matatabi is the Nibi's name? Hopefully I didn't fuck that up. Oh well, I've got to roll with it now.

"Are we done measuring dicks now?" I bluntly ask her in a bored tone as I pick a speck of dirt out from underneath my fingernail. "Frankly I really don't care whose is bigger."

"You… are not what I expected." Yugito drops the bored air she had about her. I finally have her full attention. No, it's more than that. She's completely changed how she was looking at me. At first it was as a potential non-threatening hostile, someone to be wary of but not one to fear. But now it's changed, she's displaying emotions that don't make sense. She's… sad. So terribly sad. Yet she's also suddenly scared too, it's very small but there's an inkling of fear in her eyes. "Nothing at all like it."

"No shit." I snort out in amusement.