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Pushing Through the Limit Chapter 12: Moving Forward
🕑 Added 2024-03-03 05:37:39 +0000 UTCSeveral days had passed since Kurama and I revealed Obito and his plot to resurrect the Jubi to Jiraiya, Kakashi and Sasuke and I had to say... it was incredibly stressful. One of the greatest advantages i had against Obito and the Akatsuki was foreknowledge and the element of surprise. Sharing that foreknowledge with several people created a risk of the information leaking, which would be incredible bad.
If Obito discovered that I knew about him, he might just make me a priority and abduct me first... But, having Jiraiya, Kakashi and Sasuke on my side, it was worth the risk. Each of them had the ability to grow into incredibly powerful Shinobi. Hell, Kakashi was instrumental in my plan in killing Obito, without Kakashi, it would be that much harder to kill him.
There was the additional risk of Sasuke going rogue, but that point was mostly moot.
The problem with Sasuke going rogue was the numerous powerful Shinobi that would seek to use him as their tool, but now that he knew Obito helped massacre the Uchiha, it was incredibly unlikely that he would be joining up with him. Sasuke joining Orochimaru on the other hand... so long as I follow the canon timeline for just a while longer, that will not be an issue.
So far, no one had mentioned any secrets. How did I know? Simple, each secret, if told, was bound to spike some negativity and Kurama had yet to sense any such spikes around Jiraiya, Kakashi or Sasuke.
“Naruto... focus,” Sakura panted as she threw a tired punch towards me.
“Hmmm,” I hummed as I stepped under it. “Sorry, I was just caught up in my thoughts.”
“Well take this seriously,” Sakura grunted, lashing out with a kick.
“I would, but,” I paused to catch her leg. “Even with our speed equalized, it’s too easy. I’m used to fighting much faster opponents and with your speed, it gives me too much time to plan on how to counter.”
“Then take this weight off me and I’ll be able to fight you faster.”
“No can do, Sakura. This is more for your benefit,” I replied truthfully. Sakura had amazing potential, one day she would be trained by and surpass her Tsunade, all I was doing was laying some ground work.
Letting go of her leg, Sakura dropped to the ground, panting heavily. “I... don’t... get it. How do you have this much stamina, you’re under more weight than me.”
“Kyuubi Jinchuriki,” I smirked, patting my stomach. “I heal faster and have a crap ton more chakra and stamina than others.”
“That’s unfair,” Sakura whined. “That’s almost like cheating.”
“Not really, it’s just playing to your strengths,” I replied, sitting down next to her. “Plus, for most Jinchuriki, they have to deal with biju that hate them... not that they don’t also hate their biju. I’m sort of an outlier.”
“You’ve really changed a lot, you know,” Sakura said quietly, unmoving from her spot on the ground.
“I know, ever since the forest of death,” I sighed.
“Not just from then,” Sakura replied, pushing herself into a sitting position. “After the forest you were different, seemingly more mature and even anxious, but then when you were training with Jiraiya... I don’t know, your confidence returned and you were a lot like the old you again... and then your confidence seemed to mature... it’s strange, you’re changing so fast... You’re even training me!”
“I am?” I half asked. Thinking back, before the invasion, I was nervous and focused on my survival, but now... I was confident that I would be ready for whatever the future had in store for me. “I suppose you’re right. I have changed a lot. I’ve been so focused on getting stronger that I didn’t even realize how much I’ve changed.”
“Well you were training for the chunin exam,” Sakura noted.
“Sakura... am I... is this version of me alright?” I asked quietly. “Am... am I living up to the person I was before we entered the chunin exams?”
“Where’d that come from?” Sakura asked.
“It’s just... I’ve been training so hard and I don’t want to lose myself. With my current mindset, I’m worried that I might just be making things worse or not living up to the person I wanted to be.”
“Idiot,” Sakura said as she slowly bonked me on my head. “You can stare down a biju, but then worry about the dumbest of things. Sure you’ve changed a lot in the past month, but you’re still you. You’re a good person, you work hard and never give up.”
“Thanks Sakura, I needed that,” I smiled. I kept thinking of myself as a person that’s stolen Naruto’s body, but that wasn’t right, Naruto and I have merged, I’m technically a whole new person born from two different personalities. “By the way, how’s Ino?”
“She’s doing better,” Sakura replied, before smirking. “She’s actually a little embarrassed with how she acted during the chunin exams.”
“Well she did come face to face with the Kyuubi without being prepared. Being scared is justified.”
“Not that,” Sakura shook her head. “How she acted around you... She told me that she latched onto you and pretty much refused to let go. Perhaps I can expect a pair of blondes that I know getting together, hmmm?”
“That’s unlikely,” I chuckled good-naturedly.
“Huh, why not?”
“For the past month I have had hundreds of clones training for me every day. All of their memories and experiences transfer to me after they dispel, I have quite literally had years of training in a single month and with that, my mental age has also increased. Dating someone our age... it feels a little gross,” I shivered. “It would be like Kakashi trying to get a date with you... or you trying to date Konohamaru.”
That was the excuse I was going with.
Sakura shivered in disgust at the thought of dating Konohamaru. “Wait, so how old are you now? Let’s see, in the second week you had about 500 clones, and you had them training all day for about 12 hours... You’ve trained for about 17 years, minus about 3 years depending on how many clones you formed in the first week.”
“So I was right, that puts me around Kakashi’s age mentally,” I replied. “I think I’ll just wait a few years for everyone else to mature, before I think about dating.”
“But that’s kind of sad though. If you continue training with shadow clones, your mental age will only continue to grow.”
“So you’re saying that I should try and date Kurenai-sensei, or the proctor for the second exam, Anko?” I asked, hiding a small smirk.
“WHAT, NO. They’re way too old for you,” Sakura said abruptly. “I was saying that if you train with shadow clones for long enough, you’ll likely be unable to relate to anyone.”
“That would be true,” I hummed. “But, there does seem to be a cut off point for aging mentally. Look at Jiraiya, he’s in his 50s and he still acts like a teenager.”
“I don’t understand. Earlier you said that you didn’t want to date anyone because you’re mentally older and now you’re saying that people stop aging mentally at a point.”
“Yes,” I smirked.
Sakura puffed up in annoyance, before her exhaustion hit and she slunk back down. “And you were worried that you weren’t acting like your old self.”
Sasuke sat tiredly in the dimly lit room hidden underneath the Naka shrine. He had been like this ever since he heard from the Kyuubi that his brother was likely ordered to massacre his clan. Sasuke wasn’t sure if he believed the Kyuubi, so he decided to dig and what he found was damning.
When he first started, Sasuke had gone through the houses of the now dead members of the Uchiha police, he had gone through death certificates. Everything was too clean, everything had gone too smoothly with the exception of one discrepancy.
From the reports he had read, Sasuke found that the entire Uchiha clan had apparently been handled with care and cremated within a day. There were at least 200 Uchiha and not nearly enough crematoriums that were permitted to handle Shinobi corpses.
More than half of all the dead had been sent to civilian crematoriums. It would have been child’s play to break in and pilfer from the Uchiha corpses. The thought alone made Sasuke feel sick, but he couldn’t stop, so he dug even further and finally found a damning piece of evidence.
The Uchiha clan had been planning a coup. He had found plans for it written in a scroll under the Naka shrine, the information had been encoded, but he was able to decipher it with his Sharingan. It made sense now, Itachi had been ordered by the Sandaime and this Danzo man to wipe out the Uchiha clan, but there was something else happening in the background.
The Uchiha... Obito and his connection to Madara. Looking through several unabridged history books that were stored along with the Uchiha stone tablet, a disturbing pattern appeared. Senju Hashirama had died at the end of the first Shinobi war, his cause of death wasn’t given, but now that he knew Madara was alive, the cause was obvious.
During the second Shinobi war, the Senju clan were heavily targeted, the only survivors being Tsunade and a few Senju that married out of the clan, whose children were now civilians.
The third Shinobi war was by far the longest, it lasted close to three decades and began with the annihilation of the Uzumaki clan. The only known survivor was Uzumaki Kushina, Naruto’s mom who was brought to Konoha a year before its destruction.
The three clans that were once known to be the most powerful in the world had been systematically wiped out in the last 80 years. From one point of view it could just look like bad luck, but now it was obviously the work of a single mastermind, someone that was planning something big and they didn’t want any powerful clans getting in the way.
There was one final piece of evidence that pointed towards Madara. The Uchiha stone tablet. Sasuke’s sharingan had fully matured, but he lacked the Mangekyou, so he was unable to fully read the tablet, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t catch glimpses of a few key words and cross reference it with what other Uchiha had written.
Words like Izanagi, Rinnegan, six paths and Jubi popped up. So far, he had only been able to find information on Izanagi, but that was more than enough to validate the Kyuubi’s claim of Madara being alive. A Genjutsu powerful enough to overwrite reality to what the user wanted it to be, but with the down side of not being able to use it for long and losing vision in one of your eyes.
Out of all this, Sasuke was certain of one thing, he would need to talk to the Kyuubi again.
Kakashi found himself at a loss. Ever since Obito and Rin had died, he often found himself standing at their graves, trying to seek some form of forgiveness for not being strong or fast enough to save them, but now that he learned the truth about Obito, he didn’t know what to do with himself.
At first he had wanted to deny what the Kyuubi had said, write it all off as some form of manipulation, some kind of mind game to torture him for being the student of the man that sealed it, but then he started to think... to remember.
Back at the end of the third Shinobi war, when he had... when Rin had jumped in front of his Chidori, two odd things had happened. He had survived, waking up in a pool of the blood of the Kiri Shinobi and... he had seen himself from an outside perspective.
Then there was the second time that he had seen something not from his perspective. The day the Kyuubi had attacked Konoha and Kakashi had a brief image of someone going through the summoning jutsu.
At first, he had just written it off as a trick of the mind, but now... he wasn’t so sure. The sharingan had never been shared between two people... at least not between two living people. It was possible that on those days, he had been seeing things happen from Obito’s perspective.
A horrible thought had squirmed its way into Kakashi’s head. It was his fault. Obito had seen him kill Rin and now he was getting revenge, not just on him, but the world as well.
Minato, Kushina, the Kyuubi attack, it had all happened because he couldn’t stop himself in time to save Rin, it was all his...
“Yo, Kakashi,” The boisterous voice of Gai greeted him.
“Gai,” Kakashi muttered his own greeting.
“You seem down,” Gai noted, “What’s bothering you?”
Kakashi let out a tired sigh. Once Gai noticed that something was bugging him, there would be no letting it go, he always went above and beyond to either find out what it was or attempt to make it better, it had always been that way ever since his youth. “Just contemplating my many failings and their consequences.”
Gai looked him up and down, he looked around, before his gaze landed on the Hokage monument. “Ah, this is about the Sandaime’s death. You’re reminded of the loss of your own teacher.”
“Something like that,” Kakashi replied.
“Then I should remind you that both the Sandaime and Yondaime died in magnificent ways, fighting to protect this village and those that they loved.”
“It’s not just that,” Kakashi shook his head. “The Sandaime ended up fighting his own student... Do you think there was ever a point where Orochimaru could have been stopped... where the Sandaime or one of his teammates could have prevented him from becoming what he is?”
“Kakashi... the question of what if and what could have been is a slippery slope. We should only be concerning ourselves with what is,” Gai said, placing a hand on Kakashi’s shoulder. “While it is true that Orochimaru could have been stopped in the past, we also have to acknowledge that he chose to become what he is now and that was no failing of ours, his teammates or even his teachers. It was simply his own choice.”
“But what if someone had done something to make him what he is today?”
“Nothing can truly do that, Kakashi, we all choose how we react to things. We choose our own paths and live with the consequences, great or terrible.”
Kakashi let out a sigh as he felt himself relax a tiny bit. “Thanks Gai... I needed to hear that.”
“Anytime Kakashi,” Gai grinned, giving a thumbs up. “Now, how about we have a contest? It’s your turn to choose.”
Obito... he had chosen his own path and that wasn’t Kakashi’s fault. Rin’s death had been a tragedy and it would always haunt him, but that didn’t excuse the terrible things Obito did later, unleashing the Kyuubi on Konoha which led to the deaths of so many people, their sensei and Kushina as well, no... Obito had chosen his own path and Kakashi had chosen to walk another.
“Kakashi... the contest?”
“Hmmm, you say something Gai?” Kakashi hummed.
“Damn you and your hip ways!”
Shinobi are those who endure... It had always been Jiraiya’s mantra, it carried him through 2 Shinobi wars and now... that mantra was going to be tested. The end of the world was coming and secrets of the past had been revealed to him by the one being that he thought would have a hand in ending the world.
Jiraiya chuckled bitterly. The end of the world, orchestrated by Uchiha Madara and executed by Minato’s student, Uchiha Obito. It seemed like a cruel joke or a curse of some kind, something linked to the tragic fate of team 7, the ones from the past.
Orochimaru and Obito, each a member of their generations’ team 7 and each of them were responsible for some of the most terrible thing along with the death of their sensei’s. They would pay for what they’ve done, Jiraiya would see to that personally, but... in the mean time, he had something much more important to do.
Watch after the current team 7. Jiraiya could see it in the young Uchiha, he was being consumed by his hatred and he had all the reason in the world to turn against Konoha. Another, more worrying thought made itself apparent to him.
What if Naruto went rogue?
Jiraiya would admit, it wasn’t the first time he considered that Naruto might go rogue. It was unlikely to ever happen, but just the thought of ‘what if’ horrified Jiraiya. Naruto was talented... nowhere near as talented as Minato, but it was there.
No, the horrifying part about Naruto going rogue was his potential. Through his use of Shadow clone, Naruto was capable of training for multiple lifetimes within the span of a year, coupled with being a perfect Jinchuriki...
By the time Naruto hit 20, there wouldn’t be a single country that would be dumb enough to try and start a fight with him... hell, at 13 he helped stall and drive out an invading force.
On the bright side, Naruto defecting was incredibly unlikely. He wanted to be the Hokage, he was the source of the terrible secrets that Jiraiya now had to bear and he endured them with a smile and determination. More than that, he didn’t solve all his problems through fighting, but rather talking. He befriended the Kyuubi and even talked down the Ichibi.
Jiraiya shook his head. No, so long as Konoha didn’t go out of its way to make an enemy of Uzumaki Naruto, everything would be fine.
But then there was the problem of Konoha trying to make an enemy of Naruto... or at least Danzo trying to manipulate him into being his weapon.
Danzo... Just the thought of him pissed Jiraiya off to no end. Jiraiya had always known Danzo to be someone that did the dirty work for ‘the benefit of’ Konoha. Jiraiya snorted, yeah right, more like the benefit of himself.
Now knowing what to look for, Jiraiya could see that Danzo’s involvement in the Uchiha massacre and even the invasion was obvious. The Uchiha were planning a coup, Danzo got a hold of a mangekyou sharingan tailored for brainwashing and Itachi wipes out the clan at what he assumed was the Hokage’s orders.
Killing the ones who wanted the coup... Jiraiya could agree with that. However, he couldn’t agree with wiping out the entire clan. There were innocent Uchiha. Civilians, elderly, children... babies. What Danzo and Hiruzen had ordered... there was no other term for it, but evil.
Even more damning was Danzo’s involvement with Orochimaru after he became a missing-nin. Implanting sharingan stolen from the dead Uchiha... Desecrating the body of the Shodaime Hokage... Manipulating the Sandaime Hokage and who knows how many others.
No more. Danzo had proven to be an untrustworthy person, someone that should have been put to death for his crimes long ago... But... Jiraiya couldn’t do it on his own. Regardless of his age, Danzo was a powerful Shinobi who was once considered as a candidate for the role of Sandaime Hokage and worse yet... he had a mangekyou sharingan, power from Senju Hashirama and the ability to survive fatal wounds through manipulating reality with the sharingan implanted in his arm.
No, it was too risky fighting Danzo on his own, even with sage mode, Ma and Pa. If he had to fight Danzo on his own, there was a large chance that Danzo might just run away and with that Mangekyou sharingan, who knows what he could get up to.
Everything needed to be handled perfectly, there was no room for mistakes or the world would suffer for it. Danzo, Orochimaru and Obito all needed to die for the betterment of the world.
“Jiraiya,” an old feminine voice announced. “Feeling nostalgic?”
“Koharu... and Homura. What can I do for you two old farts?” Jiraiya asked, collapsing his telescope. He had been peeping on the women’s side of the first hot spring his sensei had ever taken him to, but it had done nothing to stop him from thinking about what he learned from the Kyuubi.
“You should show us more respect, Jiraiya,” Homura replied sternly. “We are the elders of this village after all.”
“That’s just a fancy way of saying old fart,” Jiraiya shrugged. “Now, I’m a little busy, so what did you want?”
“We have been discussing the state of the village and... lacking a Hokage, we have decided to pick one,” Koharu explained.
“So you’ve picked me?” Jiraiya asked.
“Yes,” Koharu replied as Homura nodded.
Jiraiya rubbed his chin in thought. Becoming Hokage had never been something he planned on doing, but... if he turned it down, it was likely that Danzo was their next choice. With the state of the world and the things he needed to do, Jiraiya couldn’t be tied down to the village, he needed to be able to move around freely.
“I have another candidate in mind. Tsunade,” Jiraiya announced.
“You can’t be serious! She hasn’t been in Konoha for nearly two decades,” Homura started. “She would never allow herself to become–“
“Homura,” Koharu said, gesturing for him to be silent.
“I’ll go fetch her myself, along with my student,” Jiraiya continued, ignoring Homura’s outburst. “And if I fail to convince her... I will become Hokage.”
“Very well, then we are in agreement,” Koharu nodded. “You will fetch Tsunade or you will become Hokage. Do not take too long, although things are currently running smoothly, the village still needs a Hokage.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jiraiya waved the elders off. “We’ll be back in no time, with a new Hokage!”
My day had been going relatively well. I had spent most of the morning training with Sakura and then, when the topic of dating came up, as it inevitably did with Sakura, I had come up with a convincing lie about how Shadow clones had increased my mental age.
But then it changed when Sasuke appeared. He had heavy bags under his eyes, his hair was unkempt, his clothes were dirty... in total, he looked like shit.
“Sasuke-kun,” Sakura began. Still under the weight increasing technique, she tried to stand up, but ended up falling back down.
“Naruto, I need to talk to the... with you,” Sasuke glanced at Sakura. “Alone!”
“Oh,” Sakura muttered disappointedly.
“I can already guess what this is about,” I sighed as I pushed myself up. “But I don’t think the ‘talk’ would do you any good.”
“You don’t know that... You don’t know what it’s like,” Sasuke snapped. “All the lies, what I’m going through!”
“Actually, I do,” I replied evenly. “Or have you forgotten who my parents were? Let me give you a hint, the previous Kyuubi Jinchuriki and the fucking fourth Hokage. I’m one of the few people on this planet who could fully understand you. Understand how it feels to be alone and know that I’ve been lied to for most of my life.”
“So what, I should just lie down and accept what’s happened?”
“I didn’t say that,” I chimed. “Sasuke... look at yourself, you’re a mess. You look like you haven’t slept in days, you haven’t been taking care of yourself. You need to rest, as you are right now, you wouldn’t be able to beat pretty much anyone.”
“I see how it is,” Sasuke said, letting out a deranged laugh as his cursed seal momentarily flared. “You think I’m weak... Now that you’re stronger, you think you can order me around.”
“Sa-Sasuke-kun?” Sakura asked as she began to shiver.
“I’M NOT WEAK!!!” Sasuke roared as he dashed forward.
Cancelling my weighted earth technique, I rushed forwards to meet him, blocking his strike.
“Sakura. You should head into the trees for cover. I’ll handle this,” I said, my eyes calmly meeting Sasuke’s madly spinning Sharingan.
“But–“ Sakura began.
Ducking under a kick, I slammed my fist into Sasuke’s gut, sending him flying into the trees.
“He’s being influenced by his curse seal. Hide now,” I snapped. Seeing a large fireball heading towards me, I would have dodged, but seeing as Sakura was still frozen behind me, I instead flashed through several seals and spat a water bullet to cancel it out, creating a thin veil of steam. “GO NOW!!!”
Sakura flinched, before jumping into the forest.
“I see you’ve learned some new tricks, Naruto,” Sasuke said in a mocking tone. “Not that they matter.”
“What can I say... I was training for something bigger than the chunin exams,” I chuckled, before turning serious. “I would ask you to stop this, but I’ve got a feeling you won’t stop until I knock you out.”
“And what makes you think that you can beat me?”
“Simple, I’m going easy on you,” I smirked, feeling confident. “I figured that I should just let you tire yourself out. It shouldn’t be too long, especially with how you’ve handicapped yourself.”
Hearing the sound of a thousand birds chirping, I flashed through several hand seals and waited. It didn’t take long for Sasuke to appear in the clearing, rushing towards me with lightning in his hand.
Slamming my hand into the ground, I flooded the ground with my chakra, softening. Sasuke immediately sank in up to his knees before I hardened it, forcing him to stop and plunge his Chidori into the ground, which hardened around his arm.
“Sooo... you see what I mean. You’re so tired that you didn’t even use chakra to keep yourself from sinking into the ground,” I said as I walked towards him.
Sasuke could do little else but glare up at me. A single moment passed and Sasuke smirked, the curse seal on his neck flaring angrily, before growing across his body. Tearing his body from the earth, Sasuke’s sharingan spun madly.
My eyes widened slightly as Sasuke rushed towards me with the same speed as Rock Lee without his weights. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be much of a problem, but Sasuke’s sharingan was fully matured and allowed him to perfectly counter everything I threw at him.
I wouldn’t be able to beat Sasuke in Taijutsu as he was now, the best I could hope for was to exhaust him. Sure I could use Kurama’s chakra and simply overwhelm him, but... I was actually starting to enjoy myself. The only one that I had sparred with who could match or exceed my unweighted speed was Jiraiya and he was constantly holding back.
Taking a glancing blow to my face, I jumped back with a grin on my face. Despite me still being faster than him, Sasuke was able to land a blow on me.
“Do you still think you have a chance at beating me, Naruto,” Sasuke mocked.
“Well... yeah. I haven’t gone all out, or didn’t you notice that I’m not using the Kyuubi’s chakra,” I shot back, a smug grin on my face.
“Hm, using that chakra is just admitting that you can’t beat me on your own.”
“That seal must really be fucking with your head,” I commented as I rubbed my face embarrassedly. “Have you forgotten that the power you’re using comes from Orochimaru?! By your own logic, you using that chakra is admitting that you’re not strong enough to beat me without it.”
Sasuke blinked in surprise, before his glare came back. “SHUT UP!” he roared as he flashed through several hand seals, charging up another Chidori.
Creating a shadow clone, I whistled as I watched Sasuke’s Chidori form. “You know, that jutsu looks kind of cool. I hope you don’t mind if I borrow it.” Copying Sasuke’s seals, I pumped pure lightning chakra to my hand, creating my own Chidori. It was nowhere near as cost efficient in terms of chakra and it probably wouldn’t be as strong as Sasuke’s, but it served its purpose...
“HOW THE HELL DID YOU COPY MY JUSTU?!”
...Of pissing Sasuke off.
“Oh this?” i asked as I circled Sasuke slowly. “I just copied you. It’s not that difficult to do once you master the lightning element exercises.”
“BASTARD,” Sasuke roared, before smirking darkly. “But you won’t be able to use that. You need a sharingan to be able to use it properly.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I replied cheerfully, pissing Sasuke off more. “But I still have the advantage. I’ve still got most of my chakra and you... you seem to be almost completely out.”
“Like that matters,” Sasuke snarled. “This fight will be decided with the next move.”
“You’re right about that,” I smiled smugly as I brought my Chidori up. “This all ends, right now.”
Sprinting towards Sasuke as Sasuke followed suit, I couldn’t help but wince. While the Chidori was a powerful jutsu, it did have a massive weakness. Besides the large chakra and speed requirement, its brightness made seeing beyond the sparks out of my right eye almost impossible, the chirping was deafening and the speed gave me tunnel vision, it was truly a jutsu that could only be used properly by a doujutsu user.
Sasuke smirked victoriously as we neared each other. There was no doubt that he would win a clash of our Chidori’s, but his victory was short lived. Sasuke had forgotten about the clone that I formed. Within an instant, my clone slammed his palms into Sasuke’s back.
I dodged to the side as Sasuke fell to the floor, his momentum still dragging him forward, his Chidori cutting a trench in the ground. Letting my own Chidori fade, I let out a relieved sigh. “That’s better.”
“Naruto,” Sasuke grunted angrily. His Chidori gone, Sasuke tried to force himself to stand, but found that all he could do was flip himself over onto his back. “What have you done to me?”
“You like it?” I asked, walking closer to him. “It’s a jutsu that I have a lot of experience being under. I’ve just increased the weight of your body by a large amount. Right now, I would estimate you’re under the same weight I was when I was sparring with Sakura earlier today.”
“This fight... isn’t over,” Sasuke grit his teeth as he flailed helplessly.
“It is actually. I literally have you at my mercy... and... I’ve been holding back. A spar ends when either a sensei calls it, or when one side can no longer continue,” I explained simply. “Or... was this more than a simple spar. Were you honestly trying to kill me... were you trying to awaken your mangekyou sharingan?”
“You even know how to awaken the mangekyou,” Sasuke noted.
“Obviously,” I snorted amusedly. “So I take it this was an actual attempt to kill me.”
Sasuke’s silence was damning.
“I thought so,” I sighed. I can’t say it didn’t hurt. Part of me really did think of Sasuke like a brother.
“It didn’t start off as that,” Sasuke answered. “But... when you refused to let me talk to the Kyuubi... when you showed just how much stronger you are than me... I got angry.”
“Sasuke, this... it’s really fucked up,” I spat angrily, before calming myself. “I understand that you’re under a lot of stress. Your worlds been turned upside down, you look like you haven’t slept in days and that fucking mark is influencing you... Today you showed just how weak you are, you acted just like Obito... Just like Danzo.”
“SHUT UP, I’M NOTHING LIKE THEM,” Sasuke roared.
“Really? From where I’m standing, you just tried to kill me to gain more power for what... because I wouldn’t give you answers... BECAUSE I WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU?!” My eyes flashed red, before I took a breath and calmed myself down. “What would have happened if you killed me, Sasuke? You would have gained the mangekyou, but then you would have been labelled a missing-nin.”
“I...” Sasuke began, but the words died in his throat.
“The mangekyou sharingan has a cost beyond the life of a friend, Sasuke. Each time it’s used, the eye loses a little bit of light and the user slowly becomes blind,” I explained. “You would have been a missing-nin... assuming you weren’t just imprisoned from the start... you would no village behind you, constantly hunted by your own village and others that want the sharingan, slowly going blind and you physically can’t keep up with Jonin level Shinobi.”
Sasuke laid there silently. A pained look etched on his face as the cursed seal flowed back into its original form.
Hearing someone approaching, I turned to see Jiraiya walking along with Sakura. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Oh, just from around the point where you said Sasuke tried to kill you,” Jiraiya replied good naturedly. “It looks like every team 7 is cursed to have one Shinobi who goes off the rails and becomes a missing-nin.”
“Yeah... although he is being fucked over by past members of team 7,” I grunted.
“It... it’s not true though... right? Sasuke didn’t really try to kill you?” Sakura asked, before looking towards Sasuke. “Sasuke?”
Sasuke grunted and turned his head. “It’s true.”
“No way,” Sakura gasped, covering her mouth as tears streamed down her face.
“Sakura, the way Sasuke is now... you should be cautious of him. There’s an ability that Uchiha gain when they kill someone close to them,” I explained.
“Sasuke would never–“ Sakura began.
“Sasuke’s not himself, that mark is messing with his head. If one of his parents were alive, he might have tried to kill them too, all in the name of gaining more power.”
“NARUTO,” Sasuke roared as the cursed seal throbbed.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I snapped as I walked over and stared directly into his eyes. “Think about how angry you were, how willing to kill you were with that cursed seal and tell me that you wouldn’t have killed them for power. Really think about it, Sasuke.”
Sasuke’s eyes burned with anger and hatred, but he remained silent. Several seconds passed by, before Sasuke let out a strangled gasp and turned his head. His eyes closed with tears streaming down his face.
“I thought so,” I sighed.
