Chapter 18
Anko felt like shit, right now she had the worst hangover of her life and worst of all, she didn’t even remember getting hammered.
“who the- Anko?”, comes Kurenai’s voice, the red-eyed jounin ready to strike whoever crawled into her bed until she notices who was laying there, “when did you get in?”.
“Kure-chan? Why are you in my place?”, Anko asks, still half asleep.
“your place? This is my place!”, Kurenai answers.
“fuck, my head hurts…”, Anko says, sitting up, “when did we got back from the bar?”.
“what are you talking about? I’ve just come back from a mission”, Kurenai says, confused as to why her friend wasn’t making any sense.
“then why do I feel like…”, then realization hits Anko, “oh fuck, I didn’t go out to drink. I was in the forest of death doing my routs then I slipped and hit my head, last thing I remember I was falling down on a river”.
“oh Kami, are you… how did…”, Kurenai’s brain malfunctions for a second, “what the fuck?!”.
That was a reaction Anko also had, how the hell did she ended up here on her best friend’s place and not dead?
That’s when she notices the note sticking from her trench coat.
“I fished your near dead ass out of the water and fixed you, I also got rid of that nasty hickey on your neck, and you’re welcome. Signed: your local necromancer, Naruto”, Anko finishes reading the note aloud.
Her eyes go wide, now she’s fully awaken and jumping from the bed, she runs to the full body mirror she knows Kurenai has next to her closet and stares down her neck.
“it’s gone”, she says with tears building up her eyes.
“what is gone?”, Kurenai asks, her best friend’s sudden sprint snapping her out of the brain fart.
“the curse mark, it’s gone”, Anko says again, her voice trembling.
“what?!”, Kurenai runs to check and sees that indeed the mark was gone, “who… how?!”.
“Naruto…”, Anko whispers.
“Naruto? The same Naruto who caused mass trauma a month ago? The Hokage Killer?”, Kurenai asks, incredulous.
“here!!”, Anko hands her the note, “I don’t know how he did it, but he did and he also saved my life, I own him big time!”.
“unbelievable, not even the Uzumaki were able to remove it”, Kurenai says after in shock, “wait, what was the other thing you said?”.
“he saved my life I…”, Anko says.
“we need to inform the Hokage and also bring you to the hospital”, Kurenai says, putting the note on her pocket and dragging Anko by the wrist.
“this is unbelievable”, is Minato’s answer as he looks down where the cursed mar used to be, “and she’s clean of his chakra too?”.
“Minato, I triple checked, she’s in better health than any of us”, Tsunade says, mightily impressed, “damn I have to ask him how he did it”.
“and the other thing?”, Minato asks, checking the note one more time.
“it checks too”, Inoichi says, as luck would have it, he was visiting the Hokage office just in time to get hooked on this. He was just finishing with his mind walk through Anko’s memories, “her story matchs with what she said, she was doing her routs, slipped, hit her head and fell on a river. There’s a cut and then she woke up on Kurenai’s bed”.
“so it is true, the brat managed to do what we didn’t”, Jiraiya says, with a whistle.
“now that is an interesting development”, comes a new voice of a man that spoke with wisdom and experience.
Walking inside the Hokage office was a man, dressed in traditional Uzushio garb wxhibiting his long hair and beard both white as snow.
“Ashina, I wasn’t expecting you”, Minato says, between teeth.
“I wasn’t planning on visiting, my retinue just stopped by for a quick resupply, I tough it would be polite to come in person to inform the Hokage of our presence”, the old Uzumaki says with no malice in his voice, “so, guess my surprise when a supposedly dead boy had been causing so much ruckus around the village”.
Now that was a problem. The elder leader of the Uzumaki spoke in a soft and collected tone, but his words hid a sharp edge of curiosity and interest.
Meanwhile, Naruto was blissfully unaware of the shit storm he was making his father and godfather go through.
It was a nice summer night, perfect for a walk. The stars were shining, the night breeze was wheezing through the trees and the cicadas where singing.
Indeed, there was no better night for some grave robbing.
“so… whose body are we stealing?”, Mito asks, close following Naruto as they walk through the cemetery.
Cloaked by the night and a presence-erasing spell, they walk unimpeded trough the cemetery, not even bothering with the civilian graves.
“you will know when we reach there”, Naruto says, letting out some puffs of smoke from his pipe as he holds a lantern to illuminate the way.
“if you are going to grave rob my dear husband we should turn left on the Madara Memorial”, Mito says closely watching where they are going, “he insisted on being buried next to his best friend”.
“I wanted to ask this for a while, but why does this young lady refers to Lord Hashirama as her husband?”, Hiruzen asks, inside Naruto’s head.
“because she’s Mito Uzumaki, a version of her from another earth who used to be married to Hashirama”, Naruto explains.
“for the sake of my sanity, I won’t ask any more questions related to that, but why are you sneaking around the cemetery like a common grave robber?”, Hiruzen asks after taking a deep drag of is pipe.
“because I’m going to commit grave robbery, come on gramps, I know you are old but you aren’t senile”, Naruto says.
“why are you desecrating the dead?”, Asura asks, sounding frustrated.
“because I need a very specific corpse so it’s not like I can resort to shank some drunk asshole in a dark alley”, Naruto explains, puffing another smoke ring.
“please, tell me you are joking?”, Hiruzen says.
“pfft, please, if those assholes villagers didn’t wanted me to stab them they shouldn’t have stabbed me first”, Naruto completes.
“ok, I presume you are talking to the voices inside your head, so I’m not going to ask, but exactly what kind of corpse do you need?”, Mito asks, going through a mental list, “do you need someone who died of something specific?”.
“you could say that”, Naruto says, noticing they arrived at their destination, “we are here…”.
They arrived at a humble grave, deep in the shinobi section of the cemetery, in a far corner under a tree.
“let’s see, oh, it’s Sarutobi’s grave”, Mito says, making a surprised face, “oh, I got it! You need someone who died from the reaper death seal. Why?”.
“because if my formulations are correct… I may be able to reverse it”, Naruto says, putting the lantern down.
“wait what?!”, Hiruzen, Mito and Asura exclaim at the same time.
“are you guys deaf?”, Naruto asks in annoyance.
“no. no, I heard you just right but…”, Mito says confused, “why?”.
“because I want to and to get jiji out of my head, as previous stated, I hate having a sentien conscience, besides, can you imagine the chaos that it would be when I graduate from Hokage Killer to Hokage Resurrector?!”, Naruto lets out an evil laugh, “oh it will be glorious!!”.
“that’s a very tall order young man”, Hiruzen says concerned, “let’s ignore the fact you are desecrating my final resting place and focus on the fact you intend to create a counter to one of the if not the greatest Uzumaki sealing jutsu, can’t you see the ramifications such thing will cause?”.
“I’m not an idiot gramps, I know that will throw a huge bucket of shit into the fan, but honestly? What they going to do? Seal me? I’ll be out of whatever shit they lock me in a week tops”, Naruto says with a barking laugh and turning to Mito, “now, is the storing scroll ready?”.
“that’s not my first grave robbing”, Mito says, showing the storage scroll, “I’m ready when you are”.
“good, stand aside and be ready”, Naruto cracks his neck and blows another puff of smoke, “and here we go”.
With a clap of his hands, the earth grumbles as the coffin buried six feet under is pulled out of the earth like a rectangular potato and is kept floating in the air by Naruto.
“gosh, if I wasn’t deeply disturbed by the fact you are grave robbing my own grave I would be amazed”, Hiruzen says with a shaken voice.
“the scroll is ready”, Mito says after unrolling the scroll on the ground.
Naruto places the coffin above the scroll and with a command; it‘s sealed, vanishing into a puff of smoke.
“work’s done, let’s go”, Naruto says, after Mito re-rolls the scroll.
“aren’t you going to, you know, refill the hole?”, Mito asks, pointing to the mess left behind.
“nah, it’ll be funnier this way”, Naruto says, “man, I’m starving form some Ichiraku”.
“me too, so let’s go I want to grab a bowl of the Uzumaki special before it runs out”, Mito says, shrugging off as some chuunin started running to see what caused al that noise.
The merry grave robbers duo make their exit as hell breaks loose.
“Lord Fourth, someone stole the body of Lord Third!!”, comes the exasperated voice of Asuma, worsening the already bad headache Minato was having, “somebody stole my father’s body!!”.
Now there’s a panic a big panic, the whole village is in an uproar, every single shinobi with a rank higher than chuunin are on the streets, searching for any possible clue.
That’s when they see, walking up the main street, still wearing the same garb he was dressed on his funeral, Hiruzen Sarutobi, The Professor walking calmly to the Hokage tower.
Time seemed to come to a halt, as all the shinobi and civilians alike watches in silent horror as their once beloved Hokage once again walk the streets.
“father!”, Asuma is the first one to say something, cautiously walking to his father, “is that you?!”.
“yes it’s me, little monkey”, Hiruzen answers, content in seeing his son once again,
“father!!”, Asuma runs to hug Hiruzen.
When his father in his arms, Asuma breaks down, crying like he had never before.
After a few moments, per his request, Hiruzen is brought to the Hokage’s office, where both Tsunade and Jiraiya proceed to almost kill him by a bone-crushing hug.
“how is this possible, we saw you…”, Tsunade says, running a checkup.
“dead?”, Hiruzen asks softly, “I indeed died and up until a few hours ago, I was in the belly of the shinigami”.
“sensei, what… how?”, Jiraiya tries to aks.
The mere idea of what the implications of what his sensei said where almost unbelievable.
“Naruto, that how”, Is Hiruzen’s answer.
There’s silence, Minato and Kushina eagerly focus on the man while Asuma, Tsunade and Jiraiya’s eyes go wide and the room grows colder at mere mention of Naruto’s name.
“what did he do?”, Asuma asks, with apprehension in his voice.
“before I tell what he had done, I need first to share something”, Hurizen says, now he wished he had his trusted smoking pipe now, “when I used the reaper death seal to seal the soul of the Nine-tails into Naruto, a small fragment of my own soul got sealed inside him. I’ve been with him as a friend and as his teacher this whole time and I’m honestly very disappointed with how the village handled him”.
That stung, they knew they fucked up, but to hear it from the one who sacrificed himself to save them, that was a just adding more salt to the injury.
“after he came back, I was still inside his mind and let me tell you, I don’t know what he had gone through while he was dead, but together with how he spent his last years of life it changed him. Where before was a lovely boy brimming with talent and potential who would have loved nothing else but to be a dutiful shinobi of the leaf. To earn the love and respect from his family and village is now gone, in his place is a man, tired and truly loyal to himself and himself alone”, Hiruzen says with a sad tone, “he’s tired of setting himself on fire to keep others warm”.
There a somber mood after that, the words of the old ninja where ringing true in their ears.
“now as for how Naruto brought me back, he somehow, reversed the reaper death seal and used what he described as a resurrection spell and in the process he extracted the fragment of my soul from his mind and put it together with the rest”, Hiruzen says, “don’t ask me how he did, it was not my place to ask”.
Spell? Not jutsu? Wait, could it be? Jiraiya thinks to himself, his memory going all the way back to one of Orochimaru’s most crazy theories. At the time, all the snake sannin have to show as proof of what he was saying were a few very forgettable footnotes of barely legible tomes that contained tails of something called… yeah, no, that’s impossible right?… right…?
“there’s nothing you can share with us about what he had gone through while he was… gone?”, Kushina asks, her eyes filled with tears.
“he didn’t spoke much of his second life, he didn’t spoke much of what are the limits to what he can do all I can say is, whatever he’s using now, is not chakra, is something else”, Hiruzen says, he remembers what Naruto said what he could or couldn’t say and disclosing the fuel of his magic was something he was allowed to say, “something more powerful, primordial, something he called aether”.
A pin dropping could be heard or in this case, Jiraiya’s eyes widening before he stormed out of the office, running into the night in search of something.
It could not be, it cannot be, but if it is true, then the child of prophecy thing can go to hell, there’s bigger problems in the horizon.