The Dark Side of Akatsuki. Chapter 1

Ttile: Cavern Underneath The Land of Earth

-Two Years Later-

Silence reigned in the underground cavern. There was no movement of air. Even noise was alien to this place. In nearly a thousand years, the sanctity of its isolation had only been breached once. No water, fungus, or even bacteria lived in the perfect, sterile dust of the cave. There was no light, after all- none whatsoever. In its center sat a dark, stone tablet, etched with numerous strange and indecipherable glyphs.

Then, suddenly, there was a man in the room. The dust, long settled into a motionless retirement, shook itself awake and danced around the room, the air pressure increasing from the sudden arrival of extra matter in the sealed cavern. That air was stale, as if only begrudgingly allowing itself to be breathed. It had had a nice gig, sitting peacefully in the cavern for a thousand years, not being respired by all sorts of organic creatures.

Tobi didn't care for the plight of the air. He breathed grandly and with great fulfillment. In fact, he let out a small fart just because he finally could.

The immense stone slab in the center of the room remained unmoved by these antics.

Tobi, robed in black, approached the stone. He wore a wooden mask that looked like driftwood, warped and twisted on one side, bleached almost white by the sun and salt. A tribute to a departed brother.

After a time, Tobi removed the mask. Though it was completely dark, Tobi's eyes now saw much more than mere light. He could view the etchings on the stone with perfect clarity.

His face was that of the child he had stolen it from. Not only his face was childlike, but the expressions it wore were still filled with innocent and unfiltered emotions. Tobi had discovered early on that the mask he wore was necessary to prevent people from reading him like an open book. A real face was so expressive, and he just hadn't had enough practice yet at concealing his feelings. Besides, the eyes tended to startle people.

Both of his eyes showed the concentric circle pattern of Madara's Rinnegan.

His chakra flowed out from his body, washing in waves over the room, and his eyes picked up all of its reflections, tracing the contours of each surface, and the carvings of the rough stone slab before him. Despite the perfect darkness, he saw the room painted in shades of his own energy.

Tobi scanned the tablet in the center of the room very carefully. There was no doubt that this was what the Stranger had been searching for. It certainly wasn't in any language he was familiar with, but he felt a sort of itching sensation behind his eyeballs as he read it. When he let that feeling go, the Rinnegan started pulsing with chakra and interpreting the tablet on its own, shoving the data back down the optic nerve.

This was almost certainly what Lord Madara had meant when he had spoken of the legendary eyes deciphering the stone tablets of the Uchiha Clan. That meant that this was another, similar relic. Madara and big-brother Black Zetsu had felt these tablets were terribly important, but unfortunately they'd rarely involved him in their plotting.

Tobi read the stone carefully. And read. And read. And continued reading. There really was a lot there.

On the stone was written a strange, almost unbelievable story. It spoke of a Divine Tree, which he knew about already. It spoke of a fruit that grew every thousand years, which he had also known about. He had paid some attention, after all!

It was just… the rest of it that seemed a bit strange.

Tobi stood transfixed by the story for what seemed like hours.

One thing was for certain. Lord Madara hadn't known about any of this. The plan, as it was, had been as such: Gather power, and then use that power to seal away the nine Tailed Beasts inside the Gedo Statue, one-by-one, in the proper order. Once all nine had been captured, use the Rinnegan to resurrect Madara, allowing him to become the Jinchuuriki for the combined being of the Ten-Tails. In doing so, the Ten-Tails would take a form like the legendary Divine Tree. Madara would recover his eyes, and, with the aid of that tree, bind the world in an Eternal Tsukuyomi, an unending illusion that would grant peace and a true heaven to every living being.

Honestly, it had all seemed a little complicated.

This tablet suggested that all of that planning had been a waste. According to this, the real tree was still out there, which was so incredibly strange. Black Zetsu had been absolutely clear that the only way to do this was to hunt down the Tailed-Beasts. If Madara had known that the original Divine Tree was still around, surely he would have tried to find it and use it to implement the Eye of the Moon strategy?

In fact, if he worked the numbers on the tablet a bit, it looked like it had been almost exactly a thousand years since the last time the Divine Tree had bloomed.

This was really heartening. Tobi had really been stressed about getting that whole Tailed-Beast thing worked out. Tobi had already tried to follow the plan, but had gotten a bit confused and gone after the Nine-Tails first, which had been totally the wrong order! People were still pretty angry about that. Doesn't everyone make mistakes? Also, he still wasn't exactly certain why Lord Madara hadn't wanted to be revived from the dead until his plan was nearing completion.

Well, whatever. This new plan seemed like a much better option to him anyway. There was just one problem.

Tobi sighed, his face deepening into an exaggerated frown of sheer sorrow.

He really didn't know where that tree was. The tablet didn't say. He only knew that it wasn't in the Elemental Kingdoms. Since it wasn't here, even searching for it would be nigh impossible. Everyone knew there was no way to leave the island chain that contained the entirety of ninja culture.

"It's not fair!" Tobi shouted, echoing in the cavern. The air, which had been souring rapidly as the visitor overstayed his welcome, vibrated indignantly from the disturbance. "Every time I think I have a good plan there's always some stupid reason it won't work!"

Then he saw it. There was something else carved into the floor beside the tablet. It was so shallow he almost hadn't seen it at all, like the writer had struggled to chisel into the tough-seeming stone.

I knew it was true. The Tree is the source of it all, and the Celestial Dragons keep it safe at their throne of power.

I have come so far for this fragment of the truth, and I will carry this passage with me to the island at the very end of the world.

-Gol D. Roger

What an unusual name, thought Tobi.

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