The Inside Story

OK, here it is! : )

Fang Darkblade

Gender: Male(Duh.)

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: hazel sometimes, mostly black other times.

Real Name:It's mysterious and totally not Kyle

Relationship Status: We're floating in the middle.

I'll add more later.

Chapter 1, Discontinued Story

Hey guys!
Sorry, but I have no more inspiration to write this story so as of now, it's discontinued!!!!!!
Feel free to adopt the story and make it unto something better.

The Scorpion's Apprentice

Slowly and carefully, Sasori rose to his feet and inspected the battlefield.

No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t a battlefield so much as a monument to his defeat -- a plain of broken puppets mocking him with its existence. Oh, there was plenty of corpses among the puppets, but these people had never been more than puppets themselves. Their master was still out there, very much alive. Alive and, in all likelihood, laughing at Sasori.

The puppeteer maneuvered throughout the battlefield, inspecting the remains. Most of the puppets were damaged to the point where they weren’t worth repairing and, since one of the downsides to using human puppets was that their parts were not interchangeable, he couldn’t salvage pieces of them either. He would have to start over.

When Sasori finally reached the remains of one of his best works and found it utterly destroyed, his control over his emotions slipped for a moment and he growled. Hiruko was his favorite puppet, second only to the third Kazekage… and now it was gone, along with the rest of his collection. Just like that. He absentmindedly fingered the storage scroll that held his last surviving human puppet. He didn’t know whether it was fortunate or irritating that he didn’t have the opportunity to bring out the Kazekage into the fray. Perhaps the battle would have turned out differently if he did, or maybe he would simply end up losing everything.

Orochimaru was going to pay for this.

Not that he could get back at the man in the foreseeable future -- it would take years to replenish his collection even under ideal conditions. As much as he wanted to track down Orochimaru immediately, he had no choice but to admit he had no chance against the man right now. And besides, the battle nicely illustrated that Sasori’s battle strategy has a major weakness when employed against Orochimaru - an over-reliance on poisons.

Sasori didn’t consider it much of a weakness until now. No one had ever survived the poison he coated his weapons with (even a soul reaper could be effectively neutralized with it), so Sasori’s strategy mostly came down to showering the area with as many attacks as possible, since every hit was lethal. It was a strategy that worked flawlessly.

Until now. Orochimaru was immune. As a being made of flesh and blood Orochimaru should have been affected, but Orochimaru clearly wasn’t human anymore. To add insult to injury, the monster-like samurai that Orochimaru used to distract him were highly resistant to Sasori’s poison as well. It took several minutes for the poison to start seriously affecting them, plenty of time to make an utter nuisance of themselves. Fighting Orochimaru one-on-one would have been challenging enough by itself, so this just cemented the snake-sannin’s (Orochimaru's) victory. If Orochimaru knew Sasori had turned himself into a puppet, Sasori would have probably died in that battle.

Then again, Orochimaru didn’t seem all that interested in making sure Sasori was dead for sure. No matter, the snake summoner would regret his sloppiness eventually, because Sasori would have his revenge, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

The question was, what should he do now, in the short term?

He had no intention of going back to his crew, the Akatsuki. He had allowed his partner, one that Leader specifically instructed him to watch closely for treachery, to defect. Leader was never very understanding of failure so coming before him in this sort of vulnerable state was a big no-no. Before he even thought of going back, he needed to replenish his strength and find some way make up for this debacle. In the meantime, it would best if he ‘stayed dead’ for a while.

He found a suitable looking corpse from among the experiments Orochimaru used, stripped him of anything that might tie him to Orochimaru, and dressed him in clothes from one of the puppets. Hopefully whomever Leader sent wouldn’t look too closely. Most of them were kill-and-smash type of people anyway, not investigators. He took the Akatsuki ring off his finger and put it on the corpse. The ring was technically supposed to be impossible to remove, except in death, but Sasori didn’t have any flesh for the ring to bind to so he could remove it as he pleased. As far as he knew, no one knew this, so this setup should look pretty convincing.

After a moment’s thought he took two other corpses and sealed them away into a storage scroll. If he was going to go after Orochimaru he needed to find out what was the deal with the demonic appearances of his subordinates, and the nature of their strange abilities. It looked almost like a bloodline limit of sorts.

Now all he needed was a place to lie low in. His appearance shouldn’t be much of a problem -- his blade-wings could be sealed away in the storage seals on his back, and moderately heavy clothing should hide other signs of his puppet nature. He felt vulnerable without his armor puppet, but walking around in one would be far too distinctive if he wanted to stay inconspicuous. His best bet was to leverage his spy network, but this was fraught with perils. While his contacts were trustworthy enough for information gathering purposes, he was loath to rely on them in a sensitive time like this. And, of course, Akatsuki would surely try to salvage whatever they could of his spy network for their own purposes, so he couldn’t interact with his contacts as freely as he’d like.

In any case, if he was going to get back on track in a reasonable amount of time he needed access to funds and materials. Funds weren’t that much of a deal, since he had plenty stashed away exactly for these kinds of occasions, but there weren’t many places where he could get the needed amount of materials without raising some eyebrows.

Konoha sounded just about right. In a ninja village, and fairly cosmopolitan one at that, so his mannerisms and activities wouldn’t look too out of place; it was the most civilian-friendly ninja village, so he probably wouldn’t be scrutinized too closely; it’s governance was riddled with convoluted bureaucracies, always a boon when you’re trying to hide shady activities; the village has an ample supply of cheap and quality wood, so he would have no problems getting sufficient supply of puppet materials; and finally, he had a number of contacts there that could help him settle in without problems and were reasonably loyal.

Yes. Konoha it is.

“You are sure of this?” asked Pein.

“We have retrieved Sasori’s ring off one of the corpses,” intoned Itachi emotionlessly.

Pein stared on impassively. No one knew what Sasori looked like beneath that armor puppet he always wore, so it could be a trick of some sort. But he doubted it. The puppeteer would have never have willingly trashed his entire collection, no matter what his goal was.

“And Orochimaru?” asked Pein.

“His currently location is unknown. He cut off his finger to foil the pursuit, so we cannot track him through the ring.”

Pein continued to watch the rain fall over the city, keeping his back turned to Itachi. It was always a possibility, of course, but he had counted on member’s reluctance to maim themselves. Orochimaru is the last person he’s considered capable of it. After all, several hand-seals were now impossible to the snake-sannin, and thus a whole range of techniques as well. It was well known that mastering every jutsu in the world was Orochimaru’s obsession. If he went this far, it meant…

…it meant that Orochimaru had found a way to render the injury irrelevant.

“Damage?” asked Pein more forcefully.

“Orochimaru took a large corpus of research notes with him when he left,” said Itachi, “as well as several important researchers. Many projects will have to start over from scratch.”

Fortunately, Pein had already taken precautions against this happening. He had his reservations against Orochimaru since day one, and had already established parallel teams for all crucial projects. No, there was a lot more serious issue a hand…

“What about Sasori’s spy network?”

The slight hesitation before Itachi started speaking again told Pein immediately it was just as bad as he suspected.

“I’m afraid it will be difficult to assume control of Sasori’s network without his guidance. Whatever means Sasori used to establish and maintain his network were lost along with him. Merely identifying the agents in question is proving to be a difficult and time-consuming process. Additionally, those agents we contacted are almost without fail loyal to Sasori, not Akatsuki as such. Significant efforts will have to be expended into making them accept us as their new employers. We will salvage what we can, but our information gathering effort will be severely restricted in the foreseeable future.”

Pein could help but frown. This was a significant set-back. There was very few spymasters of Sasori’s caliber that weren’t aligned with one of the major villages, and their services were exorbitantly expensive. Somehow, Sasori was able to maintain a spy network as extensive as that of a major ninja village, for a quarter of the cost – a feat that not even Pein could replicate.

“That is all. Leave now.”

Pein listened absentmindedly to Itachi’s receding footsteps as he thought about his next actions. This changes everything. It wasn’t enough to stop him, not by a long shot, but it was aggravating to face such an hurdle nevertheless. Orochimaru would have to be made an example of, of course. Once the new spy network was up and running he would find out everything he could about Orochimaru’s bases and research facilities… and destroy them.

Personally.

“It… it is a pleasure to have you here, Sasori-sama.”

Yakushi Kabuto couldn’t help but stare at the red-headed teenager sitting in front of him. There was no way, absolutely no way, that the terrifying and merciless Sasori of the Red Sands, before whom Kabuto had trembled in fear as a little boy, could be this… young! It went against some basic facts about Sasori that Kabuto knew about. The teenager in front of him was at most 16, and probably younger. Younger than Kabuto, in any case.

Oblivious to Kabuto’s doubts, the boy that claimed to be Sasori didn’t even bother to look up from the documents he was studying. That at least was Sasori-like. Looking at the boy’s face, Kabuto could not see so much as a hint of emotion on it, despite being exceptionally skilled at reading people. There was no unconscious ticks, no frowns or lip-pursing, not even his eyes wandered around. The boy’s face was as lifeless as… as…

Oh. Oh, wow.

“Is there something wrong?” asked Sasori.

“No, no, everything’s fine Sasori-sama,” said Kabuto cheerily. “I just realized something, that’s all. Is the information I gathered satisfactory?”

“More or less,” said Sasori, finally deigning to look Kabuto in the eyes. “Now… can I trust you Kabuto?”

It was in that exact moment that the last doubt that this is really Sasori melted away in Kabuto’s mind. That serene expression filled with unflinching confidence… he could never lie to this man, he just didn’t have the skill. Sasori’s eyes peered into his soul, stripping away any deception he might endeavor to erect and leaving his true nature bare before the puppet master.

“Always, Sasori-sama,” said Kabuto seriously.

“Up until recently,” began Sasori, “I had been a member of a certain organization called Akatsuki. I worked in a two-man cell with a man called Orochimaru.”

“Of the leaf?” asked Kabuto.

“Of the leaf,” confirmed Sasori. “Originally, I had sent you here to get medic-nin training so that you could infiltrate Orochimaru’s inner circle. He is always looking for medic-nins willing to participate in his experiments. However, I am no longer interested in spying on Orochimaru. I intend to destroy him.”

Kabuto could read between the lines – he was a spy, after all – Orochimaru defeated Sasori rather soundly, and now the puppeteer wanted revenge. Not that Kabuto was complaining. While he wasn’t the squeamish type, he didn’t really know how he would put up with a monster like Orochimaru.

“As far as everyone is concerned, I’m dead,” continued Sasori. “And I’d like it to stay that way. I have much in the way of preparations before I can make my move, perhaps years, so I will make Konoha my temporary base of operations till then. You, on the other hand, will have a task of your own to accomplish.”

Sasori took out what was probably a storage scroll and placed it in front of Kabuto.

“The scroll contains two corpses of Orochimaru’s underlings,” said Sasori. “They seemed to have abilities reminiscent of a bloodline limit. I want you to use your medical knowledge and tell me everything you can about them. Do not fail me, Kabuto.”

“I won’t, Sasori-sama. I won’t.”

Uzumaki Naruto walked aimlessly through the streets of Konoha, his orange jumpsuit shining brightly as it reflected the rays of the midday sun. This in itself was nothing unusual - Naruto often walked aimlessly through Konoha. His apartment was really just a place to sleep over and stash what few belongings he had, and he was always outside if he could help it. No, the unusual part was that he was frowning.

He wasn’t really unhappy, just bored. It was a beautiful sunny day and he didn’t have to go to the academy today, which usually meant a fun day for blonde. But not today. He already performed every prank he could think of and, well, that’s as far as his ideas to pass the time went. Oh, he could whip out some lame prank in an eye-blink, but that was below him. No, a master of pranks like him does not go for quantity – if he was going to prank someone it was going to be unique, unexpected, and absolutely hilarious. But he currently had nothing that fit that description. He briefly toyed with the idea of searching out for Sakura-chan, but she was particularly vicious yesterday, so he decided to give her some space for a while. At least until tomorrow. Is her considerate or what? Certainly more than Sasuke. So anyway, now he was thinking about what to do with himself. ‘The frown’ he was wearing was what people who knew him a little better, few as they were, referred to as his ‘thinking expression’. Evidently he found the activity painful.

And so, with his face firmly pointed towards her ground, his eyes squinting and his hands in his pockets, Naruto rounded a corner and collided with a red-headed teenager who was carrying a stack of wooden boards and other supplies that obstructed his vision. Both of them collapsed on their backs, and Naruto yelped as one of the boards fell on his leg.

Naruto scrambled up in the blink of an eye, surveying the situation. The red-head was already up and dusting himself off, so no damage done. That was good, because Naruto just knew it would be his fault if the older boy was injured in the accident. His satisfaction deflated a little when he noticed a spilled bucket of brown paint nearby. The other boy also surveyed the situation, not sparing a single glance on Naruto.

“Well crap,” the boy mumbled under his breath, no doubt thinking Naruto couldn’t hear him. Over the years Naruto had noticed he had a lot better hearing than most people, but that was something he kept to himself. It’s amazing what one can find out when people think you can’t hear them whispering from the other side of the room. Hell, listening in on conversations was the main way he found out anything!

“Um…” Naruto began. “Sorry about that. I was thinking and wasn’t paying attention.”

The red-head shook his head dismissively, still not looking at Naruto, and began picking up boards. Naruto’s blood began to boil – he hated being ignored. He started picking up boards to help the other boy and trying to establish eye-contact along the way. When that didn’t work he started talking.

“Hey Red, what are you doing with these things anyway?” asked Naruto as he handed the last of the boards to the other boy.

“I’m opening a new shop in Konoha,” the other boy said evenly. “The building was in pretty bad shape so I was going to change some floorboards and repaint the place.”

“Oh,” said Naruto. “You know, you look a bit young to be a shop owner. What kind of shop is it anyway?”

“Ninja supplies.”

“Really!? You know, I’m studying to become a ninja!”

“You don’t say,” the older boy said serenely. “I thought ninja are supposed to be aware of their surroundings at all times.”

“What do you…” Naruto stopped when he remembered colliding with the other boy just a few moments ago. “Ah, that. That was a one-time thing. I’m pretty awesome actually. Just you watch, I’m going to be Hokage in a few years, the best Hokage in the history of Konoha in fact, or my name isn’t Uzumaki Naruto! Believe it!”

The red-head finally deigned to look Naruto in the eyes. The older boy had the most serene expression Naruto had seen in a long time, and Naruto had to fight the urge to look away from the soul-penetrating eyes boring into him.

In his life, Naruto only met 3 sorts of people: those who clearly disliked him and were constantly putting him down; people who were uncomfortable around him, like he was going to swallow them whole if they take their eyes off of him; and people who were friendly and supportive his dream. The red-head before him was none of those things – his face portrayed a sort of calm confidence that told Naruto he doesn’t mean a damn thing to the older boy, one way or another.

It was a novel and unsettling feeling.

“That’s a pretty grandiose proclamation,” the red-head said. “What exactly do you base this opinion on?”

“It’s not an opinion!” protested Naruto, regaining his senses. “I am going to be the next Hokage and that’s that!”

“Oh,” said the red-head calmly. “So it’s just unsubstantiated bullshit.”

The sentence was delivered in such a matter-of-factly tone that Naruto was left actually speechless for a second.

Then he got angry.

“Shut up!” he yelled. “You don’t know anything!”

“I know that you’re making assertions with no proof to back them up, insisting that your feelings on the matter should trump any amount of facts or common sense to the contrary. If you can't present your point of view any better than that, than why should I believe you?”

“When I become Hokage, you’ll be sorry for mocking my dream!” tried Naruto again. “You’ll be sorry! Everyone will have to admit they were wrong about me and acknowledge me as… what the hell is so funny!?”

Naruto was fuming. He didn’t know what it was about the red-headed teenager that made his teeth grind, seeing how he had his dream dismissed by plenty of people before, but something about his tone and manner of speaking just made him want to punch the guy in the face! And now he was laughing at him too!

The red-head finally schooled his expression again. “You really are delusional, aren’t you? It takes more than a high position in the official hierarchy to earn people’s respect. A Hokage is instated into the position because they are respected, not the other way around. You’re just a loud brat who talks big. You could proclaim yourself the king of all elemental countries and nobody would give a damn.”

“Oh yeah!? Well you’re just a stupid civilian who don’t know greatness when he sees it!” screamed Naruto. “I’m going to become Hokage and nothing is going to stop me! So there! What do you say now, huh!?”

People around them didn’t even stop to stare, going about their lives as if this was a regular occurrence. And it was. Naruto had to admit it wasn’t the first time he yelled something like that in the middle of the street. The red-headed teen, however, didn’t scoff or sneer at Naruto, or react in a way that the blonde would expect. He didn’t commend him on his ‘will of fire’ like the Old Man would, or wave him off out of annoyance like most civilians. Instead his face suddenly got completely and utterly serious.

“You’re such a petulant child,” the red-head said calmly, and then simply turned and went on his way, leaving Naruto behind.

Naruto had hear a lot of insults in his life. He had been called a failure, an idiot, a no-good brat that will never amount to anything, a dope, dead-last, public disturbance, and worse. And yet, few of those affected him the way this simple sentence did. There was no trace of hostility in the other boy’s voice as he said them, no underlying sense of superiority: it was as if the other boy truly believed Naruto deserved to be told this.

Naruto stared at the can of spilled paint the red-head left behind for a full minute before continuing his aimless wandering, this time with a real frown on his face.

Naruto sat on a swing in one of the many small parks that dotted Konoha, half-heartedly pushing himself from time to time. There was nobody there except him, and the only sound that could be heard was quiet creaking of the swing. It would have probably been a rather eerie scene if he weren’t used to it by now. In fact, he chose this specific swing precisely because it creaked.

Ever since he was a child he found the silence terrifying. His sensitive ears picked up all sorts of creepy sounds when things were quiet. People often spoke mean things to him under their breath when he passed by them in an empty street, thinking he couldn’t hear them, and then denied they did any such thing when he called them on it. Sometimes, he could even hear the soft footsteps of invisible stalkers when things were particularly quiet. It was only years later that he understood that he wasn’t insane and that he simply had better ears than other people.

The stalkers turned out to be ANBU that followed him around for some reason when he was a child. He would occasionally catch glimpses of their stark white masks, with their animal faces and huge black eyes, and it terrified him. These ‘evil spirits’ haunted his childhood nightmares every time he closed his eyes, and it was years before he found out they were just ninja sent to protect him. Even today, he still resented the Old Man somewhat for not telling him about that, and for laughing at him when a particular encounter with ANBU scared him to tears.

Jerk.

In any case, he was no longer terrified of silence, but he didn’t like it. In silence, there was little to do but think, and Naruto didn’t really want to think. Thinking inevitably led to an awful lot of questions that nobody saw fit to answer him. There wasn’t much point to it, really – the way to succeed was to ignore all who wanted to bring him down and press on regardless how convincing their arguments were. ‘The Will of Fire’, as the Old Man would put it. Thinking just made you depressed and cranky. So whenever there was something bothering him, he would come to the swing. The rhythmic creaking sound soothed him, allowing him to focus on the creaking instead of pointlessly dwelling on his problems.

He glanced at the nearby playground. When he first came here, there was a gaggle of children playing there, but they wanted nothing to do with him, and soon left. Naruto wasn’t really bothered – they were stupid anyway. ‘Playing ninja’, yeah right… he was going to be a real ninja, so there. It’s just that he couldn’t help but overhear one boy telling the others that his mother told him to stay away from Naruto, ‘because he was dangerous’. It reminded him of his time at the orphanage, when he would overhear other children spreading all sorts of rubbish about him behind his back. It made him so…

He clenched the chains tighter in his hands and pushed himself more firmly off the ground. As the creaking got louder and the wind started hitting his face, Naruto could feel his anger abating and his thought shifting elsewhere. It doesn’t matter. None of it maters. He was going to become Hokage and marry Sakura-chan, and no one will speak such lies about him again.

‘You’re such a petulant child.’

He pressed his feet firmly into the ground and the swing came to a swift halt.

“This sucks,” stated Naruto to no one in particular.

This was all the red-head’s fault. If he didn’t ridicule his dream like that, he wouldn’t be depressed in the first place, and he wouldn’t give a damn what a bunch of brats think about him. Suddenly his face split into a devious smile and he began chuckling to himself. Didn’t the guy said he was opening a new shop? And he needed it painted too?

Well… surely Naruto could help out a bit in that regard.

End