Rain and death

Kneeling, Sasuke looked at his master, raising a submissive gaze. He had given up his usual clothes and was now dressed in a new uniform, consisting of black trousers, the same dark turtleneck, and a gray vest, lighter than the standard jonin vest, but reliably protecting the torso from enemy attacks. Behind the shoulder of the Uchiha, the handle of the tanto, fixed behind his back in a special scabbard, could be guessed. In the guy's hand was a mask with blue patterns and a painted beak, making it look vaguely like a bird's head. The only thing that Sasuke left unchanged in his appearance beside the hairstyle was the protector on the headband.

An old man in a black and white robe, sitting on something resembling a throne, rather banged his cane on the floor, giving a sign that Uchiha could get up. The sound reverberated through the entire hall and beyond, through the dimly lit corridors of the underground ANBU Root complex. Following the newcomer, other uniformed Shinobi who were present here rose from their knees to greet the new member of their organization.

— I am glad to welcome you to our ranks, Sasuke. I was quite surprised by your eagerness to join us. And so soon," he said. — Are you ready to swear allegiance to me and protect Konoha from the shadows?

— Thank you, Danzo-sama. I won't let you down," Sasuke replied. — And I swear allegiance.

— Fine. Then from now on, you will use the code name Hawk," Danzo said. — From now on, you are a member of the Roku squad, start training immediately.

Uchiha nodded, noting that none of those presents said anything to congratulate him and did not try to applaud. Discipline was fundamentally ironclad.

— The third Hokage informed me of his intention to address the people today. I do not know what exactly he wants to say, but since Hiruzen-dono decided to do such a thing, it must be serious," Shimura said, tapping the floor with his cane once again to attract the attention of everyone present.

He looked around at his soldiers and continued:

— I will be there personally and count on the support of the Ichi squad. We must ensure the protection of Hiruzen-dono.

"That's probably how it always happens. Every time a Third Person does something, he is guarded not only by the ANBU personal guard, but also by these Shinobi, whom none of the residents probably saw," flashed through Uchiha's head, who realized that he really liked this order.

Sooner or later he will become the same. Not just a shinobi, but an invisible shadow, ready to strike anytime and from anywhere.

"Itachi, be ready for a new meeting. This time, you won't have time to blink an eye before I'll slit your throat!" Sasuke thought, putting on his mask at the same time as a smile spread across his face.

A sunny morning turned into a gloomy and overcast day, when crowds of people gathered in the square near the Hokage Residence and the streets leading to it. It's been a long time since the Third One made a speech in front of such a huge audience. But since he decided to take such a step, he probably really needed to say something important.

— Thank you for coming, — Hiruzen, dressed in traditional Hokage attire, addressed the people from a balcony protruding from the roof of the tower. This was the podium for Hokage performances, but due to its infrequent use of it for its intended purpose, people began to ignore this element of the building, not noticing it when they passed by. — I won't take up much of your time. But I want everyone to hear the words I'm going to say now.

People from below began to whisper and exchange glances. Mikoto, Choji, and even Shikamaru, who was discharged from the hospital early, looked up.

Standing behind the Third Danzo, boring into his back with an expressionless gaze, pondered what Hiruzen was planning to say. ANBU from the personal guard of the Third were here and listened to what their master would say, not letting the crowd out of their sight, in which intruders could appear.

— All of you have heard about the attacks on three of the five great villages. This thought keeps you awake at night. And all of you are probably waiting for Konoha's turn to come. I am ready to answer here and now. Never.

People made a noise in surprise.

— I don't believe my ears. Did he gather everyone to report Naruto's death? Shikamaru squeezed out. It seems that even Nara did not foresee such a turn of events.

Mikoto looked around, seeing the members of Guy's team, Kurenai's team, even the new students of the Academy led by Iruka-sensei. But one person wasn't here.

— Have you seen Sasuke? "What is it?" she asked.

—No," Choji shook his head, reaching into a bag of chips. — I wouldn't be surprised if he deliberately didn't come to the speech dedicated to Naruto. He doesn't care about everyone now.

Shikamaru looked at Akimichi reproachfully but said nothing. It seems that the incident in the hospital hurt his friend more than himself and sowed a seed of deep resentment in Choji's heart.

— I recently attended the Five Kage Summit, where I discussed the attacks with the heads of other villages. Akatsuki, the criminal organization that is responsible for these attacks, was hunting for jinchuriki. And she got what she wanted. And Konoha is no longer interested in her. And she got it... Naruto Uzumaki," the Third continued.

— What is jinchuriki, Iruka-sensei? — Mikoto noticed how one of the kids was pulling Umino's sleeve to ask a question.

— Are you saying Naruto was a jinchuriki? Kiba was surprised.

"The demon is gone?"

"Was he murdered?" Finally killed?

The third could not knock with a cane and restore the iron silence that always reigned during Danzo's performances at the Root. So he had to wait for the cheers and noise to die down.

— You all know Naruto Uzumaki. But not all of you know that he was the one with the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside. And this is not a curse, but a worthy burden that Naruto endured for so many years, saving us from the demon. He died like a hero, and today, I think, the moment has come when everyone should know the truth about him.

Danzo's hand tightened on the handle of his cane.

"What are you doing, Hiruzen?"

— There was nothing demonic about Naruto Uzumaki. He had a kind and pure soul. He was the son of Uzumaki Kushina and the Fourth Hokage. And fate decreed that it was he who had to become a vessel for the Nine-Tailed," Sarutobi said.

"Nothing demonic?" Remember how he chopped up a man in the park!

"Serves him right.

— The Son of the Fourth? What kind of nonsense is this?

— Has the old man completely said goodbye to the roof? What's he talking about?

Danzo stepped forward, standing right behind Sarutobi and leaning over, whispered in his ear:

"That's enough, Hiruzen. You said everything you had to say. It's time to finish.

Sarutobi nodded almost imperceptibly and fixed his gaze on the crowd, in which people, without embarrassment, exchanged opinions.

— Naruto is no more. Konoha is safe now. That's all I wanted to say," Hiruzen finished. And he added to himself: "Thank you for that, Naruto. And forgive me for everything..."

That day, dark clouds gathered over Konoha. The sky shone with lightning bolts, and the endless rain, like an endless queue of shurikens, watered the exhausted earth. All the Shinobi hid at home, alone with their families and dissolved into the comfort of home, and only Mikoto, lonely as the sun, hidden behind armies of black clouds, could not find peace. Her mind was occupied with restless thoughts. Sitting on the windowsill, she looked out of the window, watching the flashes sparkle in the sky, and listening to the thunder.

Today, the Third made a speech, which he decided to honor the memory of Naruto, the hero who saved Konoha from the Nine-Tailed all this time, and announced the truth of the origin of the son of the Fourth Hokage. The people may have been shocked by the news about the noble origin of the deceased genin, but no one grieved about the death of jinchuriki. Many residents could hardly contain their joyful smiles, because now Konoha was free from the Nine-Tailed Fox, and nothing threatened her. Uchiha, whose sharingan allowed her to see the truth, was bitter and disgusted by what she understood. The one she loved and who was no longer around was hated by everyone. And no one cared where he came from. It still wouldn't change the village's attitude towards Naruto Uzumaki.

The girl was wearing a snow-white housecoat with the symbol of the Uchiha clan on her back. In her hand was a card with a torn edge, a black joker, one of those cards in which Naruto never managed to seal any technique. Tired of looking out the window, she periodically shifted her gaze to the black image of the fool, who smiled at her from the map.

Suddenly, a shadow that flashed through the twilight of the night streets made Mikoto shudder. She leaned against the glass to see a figure in a black rain-soaked raincoat rushing down the street. In the flashes of lightning, Uchiha saw how the man stopped for a moment before finally dissolving into the rain and darkness, and it seemed to her as a red light flashed from under the hood turned towards her. Then the stranger continued on his way, disappearing as quickly as he appeared. Mikoto didn't know who he was or where he came from, but judging by the direction in which the wanderer was moving, he was heading towards the Hokage Residence.

"It's definitely not Sasuke. But what it was... Sharingan?! It can't be Itachi!" flashed through the head of Uchiha, who jumped off the windowsill and, throwing off her robe and remaining completely naked, rushed to the wardrobe with clothes.

Her graceful figure, which had not yet reached the height of its splendor, did not please the empty room for long. Dressed in short shorts and a black T-shirt and grabbing a pouch with shinobi accessories, the young Uchiha, without ceremony with the door, left the house through the window, after which, hastily fastening the belt of the bag on her belt, rushed after the stranger.

"Even if I'm wrong, it's better to warn the Third about what I saw!"

It took her a few minutes to get to the tower-like building, splashing through puddles. However, the mysterious stranger, whose origin and good intentions Uchiha doubted, did it even faster. Who else but he could have left the bleeding corpses of masked Shinobi standing in his way?

— What's going on? — whispered the girl, looking up at the window of the Hokage's office, in which the light went out abruptly and there was a pop as if the lamp suddenly burst.

In the next moment, the bright light of a real flame lit up the room, as if someone inside was using a powerful fire technique.

"The third is in trouble!" — Mikoto flashed through her head, and she took off from her seat and rushed headlong up the stairs surrounding the tower.

She heard the sound of breaking glass and the sound with which a human body could crash into the ground. But, without slowing down and cherishing the hope that the body did not belong to the Hokage, but to a stranger who had attempted to kill him, Mikoto burst inside and flashed down the corridor littered with the bodies of several more ninjas from ANBU III. The detail that caught her eye was the many scalpels with which one ninja was crucified on the wall, down which blood flowed in streams. Mikoto swallowed, armed herself with a kunai on the move and, not knowing fear, flew into the office of the head of the village, of which there was little left. She coughed from the smoke and winced at the bright flames that engulfed the floor, walls, ceiling, bookshelves, and an overturned table.

But the next moment she was able to see a man standing half-turned towards her against the background of a broken window. Under the hood, a pale face was visible, disfigured by terrible scars, whose age was not possible to identify. Around the right eye, metal staples holding the flesh together glittered in the firelight. The red eyes, on the iris of which there was a drawing in the form of a ball and three curved lines coming out of it, stopped at the uninvited guest. The man in the raincoat barely moved, and his cloak moved with him, which allowed Mikoto to assess the killer's physique and notice the absence of one hand.

Without hesitation, she threw a kunai, aiming straight at the enemy's head. The next moment, sharingan also lit up in her eyes.

Shinobi reacted quickly even for the owner of the sharingan. One of the scalpels sticking out of the flaming wall suddenly flew out of there, as if something had jerked it and, hitting the flying blade, knocked it aside. But at the same time, Mikoto did not notice any movement of the hand, nor the threads of the chakra that would allow the intruder to do such a thing.

— Who are you? "I'm sorry," she said.

"I'm more interested in who you are," she heard a voice piercing to the very bones. — And whether your eyes will suit me.

A moment later, the girl instinctively jumped back, because this time all the scalpels sticking out of the walls, furniture and books, blazing tongues of fire on the floor, whistled towards her.

She ran out the door, slamming it behind her, and many blades pierced the wood. Once in the corridor, Mikoto immediately folded the seals, then touched the wall with her hand. The next moment, the door flew out.

— Lightning Element: Electric Waltz!

A lot of lightning bolts passed right along the wall, crashed into the man in the raincoat just at the moment when he completely appeared in the opening. He was shaken so that the hood fell off the killer's head, and he himself was well hit against the door jamb. However, the unknown recovered surprisingly quickly and, straightening up to his full height, stepped into the light of the lamp flashing from voltage fluctuations illuminating the corridor.

— I think he won't be angry if I take liberty. I completed the mission. And I have to evolve...

Mikoto was able to see the bald head of a deathly pale man and was horrified, because human eyes, sharingans capable of moving, were implanted into it. The man moved his hand, and a huge three-edged kunai appeared from his sleeve. On the back of her hand, peeking out from under the black cloth at that moment, the girl saw another eye, the pupil of which widened as soon as she came into his field of vision.

— Who are you?! — she screamed already scared, realizing that now the Shinobi will finish her off, and, as in the previous case, an opponent of this level is too tough for her.

"I am the future of the Uchiha clan,— he muttered, about to step forward again. However, he could not lift his foot off the floor, because something held it. Looking down, Mikoto saw a hand sticking out of the floor, the fingers of which tightly closed on the shins of the mysterious mutant.

The next moment, the floor cracked, and her savior appeared from under it, stabbing the enemy's kunai right in the stomach and sending him on a long flight to the opposite end of the corridor.

— Kakashi-sensei?! Uchiha exhaled, recognizing the teacher in Shinobi.

"Are you hurt?" Apparently, his blades are poisoned," Kakashi looked around to make sure that everything was all right with the student, and turned back to the enemy who had risen to his feet.

— One more sharingan will make me even more perfect, — he straightened up and unceremoniously tore the kunai from his stomach, throwing it on the floor. However, the sudden appearance of help in the person of Shinobi Root ANBU, led by Danzo, forced him to stop.

Mikoto turned around, looking at the old man who suddenly appeared behind her with a whole squad of shinobi in black uniforms and masks. He leaned on his cane and looked at the uninvited guest with malice, but without any surprise. At least, these were the emotions Mikoto was able to recognize with the help of her eyes on Shimura's stone face.

"You won't lay a finger on them," the adviser of the Third said. — Take him!

The stranger grinned.

— Not this time.

The next moment he found himself in a circular barrier, which at the same moment slammed shut, pulling in part of the ceiling, walls, and floor. The killer disappeared into him in the blink of an eye.

— He's gone... Kakashi whispered, startled by such a sudden disappearance. He turned to Mikoto and walked up to her, put his hand on her shoulder, and looked into her eyes. — Are you okay?

She nodded quickly.

— Comb the neighborhood. Maybe he's still around somewhere. Do not wake people up and do not sow panic! Danzo ordered and made his retinue disappear with a wave of his hand. Then he turned to Hatake. — It's good that you were here before us, otherwise the girl would have suffered a sad fate.

— How's the Third One? — Kakashi lifted the slightly lowered mask, hiding his sharingan under it. — Hiruzen-sama is dead?

— Alas, yes. We're too late, there's no help for Hiruzen," came the reply. — But who this person is and what he really needed, we still have to find out.

It seemed to Mikoto that the old man's voice sounded somehow strange. As if he knew something about the attacker.

— It seemed to me that he needed my eyes. He said something about evolution," she said.

Danzo gave her a cold look and nodded.

— Interesting... I must say, you are very brave to fight such an enemy alone. Would you like to follow Sasuke and join the ranks of the Root? Your abilities can be put to better use...

Kakashi's face was hidden behind a mask. But one eye showed that he was hurt by these words.

— The girl made her choice, Danzo-sama. She stays on my team. And the attacker, apparently, belongs to the Uchiha clan," Hatake abruptly interrupted him.

—Yes, it looks like it," the adviser replied and added mournfully. — The village was left without Hokage. Kakashi, help me collect the Jonins as soon as possible. And find the venerable advisors Koharu and Homura. And you, Mikoto, urgently undergo an examination in the Hospital. Maybe one of the blades hit you after all, and you're already under the influence of poison.

— Yes, — after a pause, the Copying Ninja nodded. The Uchiha did the same, although she was one hundred percent sure that she was absolutely unharmed.

Rain... Endless rain and a city made of metal. That's where he got to when he got out of the morgue, where his body was waiting for its turn in the oven. He was completely naked and helpless. He was drained, squeezed out like a lemon and sucked through a straw. At first it was hard to remember who he was and how he got here. My head was a mess. And even this mess was played in a mixer, leaving only a few fragmentary memories, among which was the scene of the massacre of Sakura's killer, some other terrible misunderstanding with digging in the guts of some girl and female and male voices that he heard in the dark, returning to this world. However, an hour later, memories began to gradually return, and blurry images of people closest to Naruto appeared in his head. Mikoto, Shikamaru, Sasuke, Kakashi, Iruka and the Third. And he also began to slowly remember about the others. But, what was more important now, he remembered his abilities. Or rather, about the actual lack of talent for manipulating the chakra. The sealing technique was now, alas, useless.

The blond man had no cards, no faithful kukri, only fatigue and pain that spread throughout his body. The only thing he managed to find were autopsy tools, from which the former jinchuriki chose a curved knife with small notches, which was obviously intended for opening the skull. It turned out to be very easy to leave the building without attracting attention. At such a late hour, this place was empty, the only problem could be the Shinobi guard on duty, who stood on the way to freedom. Or rather, he was sitting watching some sad program on TV and throwing a tennis ball at the wall and catching it. He was so engrossed in his routine that he did not notice how Naruto slipped into the room and was about to use the found tool, but the thought that the ninja form might be useful to him stopped him. It's a little big, but it'll do. The guard was young, probably chunin, a couple of years older than Uzumaki.

Uzumaki silently crept up from behind and, waiting for the moment when the Shinobi would throw his hand with the ball forward again, grabbed his head and twisted with all his might, breaking his victim's neck. The characteristic crunch meant that the young Shinobi who had returned from the other world had succeeded. Lowering the limp body back onto the chair, Naruto watched the ball bounce somewhere and went to the table, thinking that it would still be possible to borrow. To his surprise, a deck of cards turned out to be very handy in the drawer among some papers. A few minutes later, our hero, dressed in greenish military trousers, a light T-shirt with long sleeves, a blue vest and black shoes, left the building, found himself under a canopy and saw that rain was drumming on the city from metal pipes and skyscrapers. As a premonition suggested, it was better not to fall under this rain. In the glare of the lantern on his forehead, a protector with the Amegakure symbol flashed. Uzumaki opened a wide umbrella borrowed from the same place as everything else and went wherever his eyes looked.

"It's too early for me to leave the village. We need to find a place where we can settle down for a while," Naruto thought and, looking down at the vest pocket bulging from a deck of playing cards, added. — And it would be nice to stock up on technicians, money, and something to eat. I'm starving!"