Chapter 20

A Shadow Clone, henged to look like a nondescript personage, walked slowly and deliberately up a narrow dirt path into the mountains outside Hidden Cloud. There was a base there, most likely abandoned, that the Akatsuki had used in ages past.

The Shadow Clone had been created for one purpose: to deliver a warning and a promise.

The Clone carried two bags. One held the pieces of a famed ninja sword. The other, the head of a notorious murderer.

Today Naruto had sent his clone to make a statement. A 'Fuck You' unmistakable to anyone who witnessed the gruesome scene Naruto had concocted.

The hardest part had been getting this location. Then breaking Sameheda into pieces (liquid nitrogen and a sledge hammer had just been enough). This final act was nothing in comparison.

In less than an hour, Naruto's clone had pounded the three largest chunks of Sameheda into the stone near to the safehouse. It formed a little niche, one just large enough to house the head of its former master.

It was a macabre shrine. By the time some Akatsuki stumbled upon it, the blue skin would be gone, rotted or eaten. But the pieces of Sameheda were unmistable.

They would know that Uzumaki Naruto had declared war on them and on anyone they sent after him. The message was specifically for Sasori, a calling out.

It was almost samurai-like in its brazen stupidity. But it seemed like the right first step.

The Naruto clone stepped back and looked at the scene. It was correct. He dispersed himself and hoped the real Naruto would be pleased.

It didn't make up for the death of Number Two, but it was a step in the right direction.

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A blinded Uchiha Itachi heard stone moving against stone. It was his tormentor, the nine tail jinchuuriki, returning for some more brutalization. He hadn't fully bought into the scheme engineered by his sensei, Uchiha Madara, to capture all nine of the bijuu, but he wished he could have killed this bastard of a ninja.

Itachi felt revulsion about the other Uchiha he'd killed, but he possessed no small amount of pride in his own accomplishments. He was a powerful ninja, a traitor to the clan but for a good purpose; the greatest genius they'd ever produce. To be so thoroughly unprepared; to think that a mere boy could do nothing against one such as he, foolish. Pride goeth before a fall, the Third Hokage had once said about the Uchiha. So true.

He and Kisame had laid an ambush, so they'd never expected one in return. Itachi didn't even have his Sharingan active. He had no idea what those red blurs were even now. The jinchuuriki certainly wasn't telling.

"Still angry, Itachi?" Naruto's calm voice mocked even now.

Itachi said nothing.

"Fine, if it will help you to answer my questions, I will tell you that I expected no easy victory against you two if my initial attack failed. All swordsmen need a moment or three to get momentum. All ninjutsu users need time to make their handseals. My chosen arts are both faster and slower than yours. I defeated you with seals of my own design; seals it took me twenty-two seconds to prepare. Had you attacked immediately, you would have maintained surprise, you would have had the advantage. Your need to ask me to surrender was pointless…and it cost you your eyes."

Yes, Itachi now realized all that. "There are ninja stronger than you, jinchuuriki."

"Of that, I have no doubt. I am personally preparing to kill Akasuna no Sasori. I expect him to be the greatest challenge I've faced…."

Itachi frowned. "He's nothing compared to…." Here the Uchiha managed to stop himself. This bastard was fishing for information, information Itachi almost volunteered.

"Compared to whom, Itachi-kun?"

"I will say nothing further."

"You will. I have no doubt about it. But now, I need to prepare your body. I think it's highly unlikely you'll ever escape from here, but if you do you could have a medic nin attempt to repair the destroyed tendons in your arms and ankles. The seals I am going to inscribe on your body will ensure…well, my safety from you."

Itachi struggled. He resisted. In his weakened form, it was useless. Half an hour later he could feel his chakra feeding the seals, rather than remaining available for use in ninjutsu.

"Insidious, jinchuuriki. I can feel your seals robbing me of my chakra…."

"A prison for your body that you will never be free of."

"Then you have no leverage to get me to speak," Itachi calmly reasoned. "If you can't tempt me with my freedom, then you have nothing. Your seals prove I will never be free…."

"You no longer have a functional body, that is true. And I will never release you. But a prideful creature like yourself would betray everyone and everything in order to remain alive. You will talk, Itachi, or you will not receive food. I shall return in three or four days to see if you've changed your mind. I think the hunger will bend your opinion my way."

Even after feeling torture at Naruto's hand, Itachi was still surprised by how ruthless this boy really was. He would have to think on this threat and assess whether the jinchuuriki really meant it. If it were a bluff, then Itachi would want to kill himself for falling for it. If it were true, if Naruto could actually let another person starve to death…that was something different.

Yes, this required thought.

Stone groaned against stone. Naruto was gone again. Itachi was left with only his thoughts.

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Three days later, Itachi knew that the jinchuuriki's threat was real. His life had been saved, unlike Kisame's, in order to extract information. If he refused to provide it, Naruto would kill him.

A simple fact.

As the stone stopped moving against stone, Itachi made his decision. He would answer the ninja's questions. He had broken and slipped during torture and gave what little he knew of Sasori's movements and hiding spots…but Itachi expected this calmer jinchuuriki would be even more uncaring. Neglect, fashioned correctly, could be more devastating than physical torture.

"From your body posture it seems you've steeled yourself to collaboration with your captor. I think it the better choice."

"Ask you questions, jinchuuriki."

"I will. Let me be clear, Itachi, about the seals on your body. They do steal nearly every drop of available chakra…but it is for a purpose. Your body is covered in special exploding seals, more than five hundred of them continually fed off your power. If I ever prove you've lied to me, I will show you how well they work. Do we have an understanding?"

"I have no choice."

"You do. Speak truth or die. Again, do you understand?"

"Yes."

"That is fine. My first question: the records I stole from Konoha ordering the Uchiha Massacre differ from what happened according to the popular accounts. Tell me the true story."

"Uchiha Madara had made plans decades ago…."

"Madara? That name sounds familiar…."

"He was a contemporary of the First and Second Hokages…."

"Another one of the immortality-seeking ninja, huh? Why do the powerful ones go that way?"

"He founded the Akatsuki, even if he hides in the shadows. He personally recruited our putative leader, Pain."

Naruto sighed. "So, compare this Madara to Sasori or Orochimaru."

Itachi had never seen Madara fight, but he had heard stories. "Madara beat Pain. Pain could beat Sasori and Orochimaru at the same time."

"Damn. Continue with the story about the massacre."

Naruto stayed long into the night. Sasori was picked over again. Everything Itachi had seen Sasori do…or hints as to how he thought. Then this was repeated for Pain, Madara, and everyone else Itachi knew in the Akatsuki. Especially troubling were the powers Itachi knew Madara possessed.

If Sasori wasn't enough, now there was Madara and Pain, too. Deidara used explosives. Konan could manipulate paper, even turning herself into paper. Zetsu made Naruto's skin crawl, a cannibal and a spy almost without restriction (the previous S-ranked ninja that Grass Country had tossed out for being too powerful). It was the freak show made powerful. Then Pain and his Rin'negan eyes. That would need studying.

Naruto brought Itachi food and watched the former ninja eat with difficulty. He took the tray of food away when he left.

Naruto came to one painful conclusion: if he tried to go up against Sasori now, Naruto would likely die. The unwise sending of Kisame's head to a former Akatsuki safe house would have these ninja on edge. He had tipped his hat without revealing the full strength he wielded…and they would be prepared.

Stupid. Stupid! Pride comes before the fall. Naruto couldn't keep from bragging; couldn't help but return Sasori's gruesome calling card. Now it would just prepare ninjas who were stronger and better trained.

It was time to take the heat off. It was time to retire for a while. It was time to finally begin preparing.

The seals and puppet techniques and poisons Naruto had amassed wouldn't do much against someone like Madara. He had to invent specific Madara-killers and Pain-killers. It would take years.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Jiraiya tumbled out of a storage scroll and blinked a few times before he realized he was outside. It had been a long time, months, since he'd been captured by that Grass ninja.

He got to his feet as gracefully as he could and looked around.

"What's the deal?"

A ninja – that damned Grass ninja who'd stopped wearing his forehead protector – stepped forward, smiling.

"The deal is simple. I have decided to test you to see if you're worth the bother of continuing to feed you, oh awesome Toad Sage."

"What!" Jiraiya felt like he'd been asleep for a week…now this crazy talk.

"A duel to the death." The Grass ninja's voice sounded mocking and cruelly playful.

"It's your funeral."

"Orochimaru said something similar before I killed him." Taro leapt forward and began to rain down blow after blow.

The assertion that Orochimaru was finally dead threw Jiraiya completely off his game – leaving aside the fact that he had been imprisoned for months and hadn't trained in that time. He reacted slowly and felt like he was being battered around by a bevy of women at the hot springs after Jiraiya had been caught peeping.

He pushed himself away from that insane Grass ninja and began forming handseals. Jiraiya needed to collect himself. "Toad Summoning Technique!"

In seconds he was atop Gamabunta…and the boss toad was complaining about being summoned. "Bunta, stop. That 'little squirt' down there claims he killed Orochimaru. I have no reason to doubt him."

"Bullshit," the massive toad shouted. "That snake Manda would have been pissing it about so loudly I would have heard of it. He takes some small pride in how evil his summoner is."

"I will enquire when this pest is gone. The eels are friends to both the toads and the snakes…."

Jiraiya just grunted and cut his summon off. "Give me some oil, Bunta."

A primitive flame thrower came into being and the ground thirty meters in front of the boss toad were scorched. Such a powerful weapon was hard to aim and retarget…so it wasn't too surprising Taro evaded the attack.

"If you're done gossiping, Jiraiya, I came to fight you, not an ancient creature who has much more sense than you do," Taro said. Then he jumped forward and jabbed a long thin knife into the summon.

The boss toad shrieked and dispersed into a huge cloud of smoke. Jiraiya fell and landed awkwardly, but he was still fully mobile.

"How did you do that?" Jiraiya asked.

"There are more things than are dreamt of in your philosophy, old man. This is not a lesson, it's a duel. Show me what you can do. Prove to me I was right to spare your life…."

Fear coursed through Jiraiya's body. "You! You might have kidnapped me, but there is no way you could kill me."

Taro leapt forward and landed two swift kicks to Jiraiya's backside. The Grass ninja moved faster than Jiraiya could clearly see. It was worrying.

Jiraiya took a few seconds to make his decision. He hadn't perfected the Sage Mode technique yet, so he had to get this out of a taijutsu spar. The embarrassing kicks to Jiraiya's ass told the old ninja that his young opponent could have already killed him, had he been serious. He was still playing for some reason. To get this on a better footing, Jiraiya needed an awesome technique.

Or a pair of them.

One hand slammed to the earth as he shouted out, "Swamp of the Underworld." The massive earth technique began to suck everything under. In his other hand, before he managed to stand up, he fashioned a Rasengan. The little Grass ninja would be getting the full treatment.

Jiraiya jumped from where he was to a tree on the edge of his chakra-created swamp. He clung to the trunk with one foot and a hand. He finally located Taro and jumped from spot to spot on his swamp. He had studied the technique for years and knew how to survive momentary brushes with it.

The Grass ninja hadn't seen it before and was trying to pull himself out of it. Serves the cocky bastard right.

Taro pulled himself out of the muck at about the same moment Jiraiya arrived with the Rasengan in hand. A thrust and a dodge.

Again and again, Taro wasn't where Jiraiya thought he'd be. How could he move like that. For a big, tall guy, he moved like the wind. It was almost like he didn't have a proper spine. What a monster of an opponent. Perhaps, in a moment of seriousness, this asshole from Grass really had killed Orochimaru.

"Hold still, damnit."

"I don't think so," Taro said, dodging again. "You want to put that…that ball of chakra through my body."

Jiraiya growled and lunged again. Nothing but air.

"How is this a duel if you won't attack?"

"I am letting the gray old man wear himself out before I bother. I figure you've got another five or ten minutes of stamina left, then we'll see…."

Shit! Jiraiya hadn't been thinking about that.

Taro then pulled out a kunai and began attacking for real. Jiraiya would try to land the Rasengan…and would miss. Taro would pull away at the last second and manage to draw a faint line of blood from Jiraiya's arm or shoulder.

Jiraiya almost dispelled the Rasengan and attempted a Rasenshuriken, one of the unfinished techniques of his most promising student, one likely not to work completely as intended. Instead, he launched himself for another attack. He hand thrust forward…to catch nothing. Instead, Jiraiya began to howl in pain. Taro's kunai was now embedded in the older ninja's pelvis with a crushing amount of force.

"I'd heard that an old pervert like you used your brain too little and your groin too much. I see I failed to end your career as a Peeping Tom…but perhaps you'll think better of it next time."

"I am going to crush you, you little fuck," Jiraiya gasped, in more pain than he'd ever been in. Not even a beat down from Tsunade left him this angry, enraged, and impotent. There was something very odd, very dangerous about this Grass ninja. If Jiraiya didn't figure out his weaknesses soon, the Toad Sage would be dead.

Perhaps taijutsu was his strong suit? Did Jiraiya need to find an elemental weakness? The Toad Sage had, through many years of pain and training, become proficient in the main five elements. Would this younger ninja be invulnerable to all of them?

Jiraiya smelled salt water nearby. He decided to try a combination water and lightning attack to stun the Grass ninja.

"Electric Lashing Mist."

When he exhaled, a salty pressurized mist shot at Taro crackling with electrical energy. It wasn't a wide area attack like the Swamp, but it was effective. Jiraiya had learned it off an asshole ninja from Hidden Cloud who'd attacked him years ago. Jiraiya remembered the technique and buried that asshole in an unmarked grave.

The surprise attack hit the Grass ninja in the shoulder. Blood and bone and flesh dissolved instantly. The ninja's left arm became useless. But it didn't stun him. The young ninja resisted the crackling electricity. It should be enough to stop a heart for a few moments.

Instead of anger, Jiraiya earned laughter from his target. "Finally something new, old man. A good attack. I'm more of a hand-to-hand combat specialist, but I know a few interesting techniques. Let's see how you feel about this one in return…."

Taro knelt and slammed his good right hand and his mostly useless left one on the ground. "Exploding Mountain Perfusion." In all directions, save for a small ring of safety for Taro, jagged pillars erupted from the ground in all directions. More than one slammed in Jiraiya. Taro smiled, lifted his hand off the ground, and the pillars fell away. It was a terribly draining technique.

It became a slugfest again. Neither ninja had enough chakra to continue throwing out high level techniques like that. But Jiraiya's attack had succeeded in making Taro slower and less lethal. A one-armed ninja was disadvantaged against a ninja who was tired but had both arms.

Jiraiya realized he was winning because Taro was losing blood faster than Jiraiya was. Jiraiya landed a good punch into the Grass ninja's good shoulder and that sent the man down.

Jiraiya slammed his hands onto the ground again. "Swamp of the Underworld."

This time Taro did not evade the attack. He seemed almost out of it, unable to respond. The devastating earth technique took hold of Taro and drug him deep underground.

Jiraiya released the technique then, leaving his opponent – and one-time captor – dead under meters and meters of earth and stone.

Jiraiya collapsed on the ground. Why had that crazy ninja held back for so long? He'd played with Jiraiya for most of the battle and only gotten serious in the last few minutes. That bastard could have crushed Jiraiya…and it was only two lucky blows that saved Jiraiya from death.

He tried to calm himself and slow his breathing. He was terribly out of shape right now. Damn! So close, so close to death. Sarutobi-Sensei should thump him a good one for doing so poorly. That Grass ninja was bad news.

Jiraiya got to his feet and began walking. The pain from his hip reminded him he had a kunai lodged in the bone. He knew some medic techniques, but he wasn't sure whether it was better to leave the kunai in or to take it out and try to staunch the blood flow.

Damn. He didn't even have enough chakra left to summon a medium size toad.

He took a step and then almost screamed. He lowered himself to the ground. He'd recover for a bit, summon a toad. He'd find a road. The road would lead him to a village. Then he could get directions back to Fire Country. He needed to inform the Hokage of these happenings. He also needed to summon Gamabunta in a day or three to see if Orochimaru was truly dead.

He was hurt, terribly, but he would survive. He would heal and get strong again. He wouldn't let something like this happen again.

Not ever.

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Naruto was sad to say goodbye to his Taro identity. He'd created and even lived inside many of the fifteen different versions of the Taro puppet he'd created over the years. The last one, created specifically to battle Jiraiya, used real blood and bone and tissue that a few bandits had unwillingly donated to the cause.

Working with dead bodies that way made Naruto feel sick, even weeks after the fact. He would not be attempting such a thing again, not if he could avoid it.

He finished eating breakfast in his small hovel in Earth Country. He was going to spend a few weeks personally establishing his new identity before he turned it over to a Shadow Clone.

Number Three was walking up the path from his cottage a kilometer away. He had insisted on joining Naruto in his training exercise.

"Even if it lasts years?" Naruto had asked.

"Even so."

Number Three walked to the door which Naruto then opened. "Morning," Naruto's student said.

"Ready to plant some trees?"

"Yes. Let's get going?"

"Have you given some thought to a disguise? At least a name? I can't, for safety's sake, continue to call you Number Three."

"I gave my true name up when I left Grass with you, sensei. I am now Number Three, in my mind and my heart. But for the purpose of a disguise, I…I would be called Yama Yaki."

"It means 'Burning the Hills.' Isn't that a touch dramatic?"

"No, I think it's just right."

Naruto, with grey hair and a good deal of a tanning solution making him dark brown, just nodded. If Number Three wished such an obvious name, they could make it work. Many people from the larger villages renamed themselves if they were fleeing the law. Earth Country's farming population was filled with people who were fleeing dark pasts elsewhere.

That's why it was a perfect place to hide for a period of time.

In a few weeks, they'd carve out a new underground bunker to use as a training facility. Then they could resume training.

To kill Sasori.

To deal with Pain and Madara.

To realize Naruto's dream of being the strongest ninja ever…even without a whole body.

As Naruto and his student settled into work, Naruto wondered if that was an adequate goal any longer. Strength and revenge was a young man's work. Eventually he'd age; he'd need a new goal.

Assuming he surived Sasori, Pain, and Madara.

A big assumption.