Chapter 4: Ghosts of the Past

Jiraya sat in Morino Ibiki's office. Few would actively seek out the head of torture and interrogation for ANBU, but Jiraya found his tough, no nonsense attitude and absolute loyalty to the village as very desirable traits in a friend right now.

"Jiraya-san, what can I do for you?" the scarred interrogator asked.

"Well, for starters, I need someplace safe to stash someone until we can do a little house-cleaning." The Sennin gestured to a human shaped bundle in the corner.

"And why am I getting into the hospitality business." Ibiki asked wryly.

"Well that brings us to my second request; We have something of a Root infestation, and I need someone to help dig it out. I caught some of Danzo's puppets trying to nab one of the sound four, for who knows what ends. Feel like doing a stint for internal affairs? I'll give you loose reigns, your choice of staff, and you'll report only to me."

Ibiki got an even more sour look on his face than usual. "I. A., huh? we haven't had an active internal intelligence department since the Uchiha took the M. P. with them. Fine, I guess I can't expect anyone else to get this done properly. Besides, I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy some of the interviews. I'll let you know my team by week's end. Now, who's the lucky guest?"

The group had made a leisurely pace towards wave, and had decided to stop for the night within the borders of Fire Country before crossing over into wave the next day. After placing their packs in a clearing off of the main road, Tsunade sent the three gennin off to get camp supplies. Ino was tasked with fetching some water, Hinata with foraging for edible plants and mushrooms, and Naruto with gathering firewood. It seemed no sooner had he moved out of sight of the others that he was suddenly surrounded by four figures in ANBU uniforms. Their masks, however, were blank except for the katakana symbol for NE, utterly lacking the usual animal shapes and decorations. Naruto sank into a horse-stance, preparing for a fight. "Who are you?" he demanded warily.

"Naruto." The apparent leader stated, tonelessly.

"What a coincidence, that's my name too. Now why don't you tell me who you really are."

"Uzumaki Naruto." The leader intoned again.

"I already told you, thats me. Now tell me who you are and what your doing here or I'll..."

"Uzumaki Namikaze Naruto" The leader intoned a third time. This had a pronounced an shocking effect. Naruto's entire body seemed to tense, and his eyes glazed over, losing their inner light. His arms fell to his sides, and his chin fell to his chest as his eyes slipped closed.

"Uzumaki, You will subdue Hyuuga Hinata and Ino Yamanaka without damaging them, and return them to location B. These are your orders. Understood?"

Naruto's head rose and faced the lead 'ANBU'. Eyes still closed Naruto responded in in an equally uninflected voice, "Orders understood... and refused. I do not take orders from you."

"It is as leader-sama feared. The controls have failed." The 'ANBU' on the right voiced

A growling chuckle came from the blond demon container. His blue eyes snapped open, but the pupils were slitted. "Your 'leader' failed more than he realizes. He has practically handed me control of this body, and if I wished it, Konoha would fall with ease."

"Execute Gamma protocol. Dispose of primary asset and rejoin me in completing main objective." With that, the apparent captain of this 'ANBU' squad disappeared in a swirl of leaves while his subordinates drew their ninja-to and moved to encircle him.

Suddenly the two 'ANBU that had maneuvered themselves behind and to each side of him dashed forward and simultaneously swung their swords. Moments before the swords could cut him to pieces, Naruto's hands shot out and grabbed them, one in each hand just a bit above the tang, completely stopping their momentum. Blood dripped from where the blades bit into his palms, but he barely seemed to notice. Nor did his arms seem to move a millimeter as the two enemy ninja pushed with all of the strength in their bodies to break his guard, or at least their swords from his grip. Suddenly, his forearms seemed to bulge and with a sharp snapping sound, both swords broke at the handle, only for their blades to be shoved into the chests of the ones who had wielded them.

The remaining 'ANBU' quickly flipped through handseals, and breathed out a great gout of flame towards his former comrades, hoping to at least take out the bloodied blond demon. Those slitted blue eyes just turned to regard him before the flames hid him from sight. As the jutsu tapered off, He beheld the flaming corpses of his two team-mates, held side by side as a sheild, Even as they fell to the ground, his vision was suddenly filled with blonde hair, blue eyes, and scratched cheeks, the head canted ever so slightly to the side as the demon regarded him. A terrible pain blossomed in his his chest, and the blue, slitted eyes held his as his vision dimmed to blackness. The last thing he heard before dying was the growling voice state, "You are worse than trash, as is your captain."

Releasing the kunai holding up the dead body of the 'ANBU', Naruto sniffed the air before bounding into the trees.

Not far away, Hinata was confronted by a certain blank-masked ANBU

"Hinata Hyuuga, the council has decreed that you and Yamanaka Ino will return to Konoha. Do not resist or you will be branded a traitor and killed."

"With respect, ANBU-san, I am on a mission assigned by the Hokage, the council have no authority to supersede my orders." Hinata said, with more confidence than she felt.

"Resistance is futile. By choice or by force, you will be returned to Konoha." The strange 'ANBU' stated, moving into a fighting stance.

Hinata settled into the Jyuuken ready-stance and activated her Byakugan, only to see that the man before her was a bunshin, and that the real ANBU was already behind her. Spinning, she mannaged to land a blow on her opponent, but not before his fist crashed into her face, sending her flying across the clearing and into unconsciousness. As her Byakugan sight left her, she thought she saw her crush, Naruto, enter the clearing.

"Hinata-chan!" Naruto cried out in a voice the most like his normal one since the start of the whole encounter. "You bastard! I'll KILL YOU!" He roared the last, his already slitted eyes changing from blue to a burning red. His incisors and his fingernails lengthened and sharpened, his whisker-mark scars deepened and darkened, and a massive killer intent exploded from him, pinning the ANBU in place. As Naruto dashed forward, Red chakra exploded from him, forming a shroud. As the enemy stood helpless in the face of certain death, black marks began to spread up the demons chest and neck. Sudenly, less than a foot from his target, Naruto flinched in pain as a vile dark purple chakra began to mix in amongst his red chakra shroud.

In that moment of weakness, the ANBU was freed to strike, and stabbed at him with a kunai. Naruto recovered enough to grab the ANBU's arms but the weapon slowly, seemingly inexorably, inched it's way toward his face.

"Resistance is futile, I will complete my mission." Intoned the ANBU, pressing forward an inch more.

"No, you will die" snarled Naruto. Lunging forward with his torso, Naruto accepted being stabbed in the shoulder with the kunai in order to sink his sharp teeth into the ANBU's neck, and tear out his throat.

As the body slumped lifelessly away from him, the demonic influence began to recede from Naruto. "Oh god..." Naruto managed before bending forward and being violently ill. Finally stopping his dry heaves, Naruto took a few steps backwards, until he tripped and fell on his his ass. Hugging his suddenly freezing limbs to his torso, and drawing in his knees, Naruto rocked backwards and forwards muttering "Oh god." over and over, while tears streamed down his cheeks. Finally, overcome by shock, exhaustion, and pain, he collapsed to the side and into unconsciousness.

Naruto found himself in the sewers that he knew so well, despite having only visited a few times. Strangely, he found that he was not nearly as sore or hysterical as he had been moments ago in the real world. Slogging his way through the darkened hallways, he made his way towards the familiar chamber in his mind.

"OY, Furball." He yelled out to catch his tenant's attention.

"Oh good, the brat's here." Kyuubi rumbled, for once already clearly visible at the front of the seal cage.

"What the hell is going on? Who were those fake ANBU guys, and why the hell did I try and eat one of them?" Naruto demanded, crossing his arms in a mild pout.

"I'll answer your questions soon enough, but at the moment, I'm a little busy." Kyuubi indicated something with one of his tails.

Moving a little closer, Naruto saw a disgusting purple blob pulsing on the floor of the seal-room, from which tubes snaked across the floor and up the cage wall towards the fox's seal, like some sort of horrific cross between vines and blood-vessels. "What the hell is that?" Naruto shouted, panicking a little.

"That is a cursed seal, like the one Orochimaru gave your team-mate. In fact, I think it is a piece of that very seal. It seems it sensed my chakra when we used it and sent out some sort of pseudopod to try and link it's seal to mine. Naturally, I am trying to keep that from happening." The mighty Kyuubi explained even while using it's tails to try and dislodge the weird appendages.

Adopting a thoughtfull look, Naruto nodded, "That makes sense, I guess. Maybe I can help." Finding that he had no kunai on his person, Naruto held out his hand and created a Rasengan (without a clone, but hey, it's all in his mind). Charging forward, he used the destructive sphere of chakra to hack away at the tentacly whatever-they-were.

Finally, between the two of them, they got the last one. "Whew, that was a workout." Naruto wiped imaginary sweat from his brow.

"Brat, watch out!" The kyuubi called out in alarm, but it was too late as a tentacle erupted from the surface of the cursed seal and struck Naruto in the back.

Naruto was five again, facing the shadow obscured figures of the townspeople. all that he could distinguish clearly were those hate-filled eyes.

'Go away', 'we hate you demon', 'Why don't you just die', 'no one wants a demon like you', 'don't come back', the voices began, starting at a whisper and getting louder and louder. One of the figures picked up a rock and threw it at him, striking him in the head. More rocks followed, and then bottles, blows from invisible fists and feet, and the sensation of being stabbed by kunai and shuriken. All the while the voices denigrated him, told him he was unwelcome, worthless, that he should die.

Against this background of noise, a sibilant voice began to speak to him as though from right next to his ear, "This is all that Konoha has given you. They abuse you, curse you. After you strive so hard to protect them, almost die so they can have your team-mate back, they cast you out like trash. They are not worthy of you, Naruto. They are not worthy of your protection. Come to me. I will not reject you. I will help you to pay them back for how they treated you. I will give you revenge. And when you have beaten them, they will have no choice to respect you, to call you Hokage."

The curled up boy that was Naruto began to shake, and then, to chuckle. Soon the chuckle became full blown laughter. "Is that the best you can do, snake teme? Sure, I could go after revenge, but it would destroy everything I have worked for until now. I could have fear, but I would lose the respect of those who already care about me. No, I don't need the village, and I sure as hell don't need you!" Naruto raised his head defiantly.

The shadowy figures coalesced into one. The shadows receded and the figure was revealed to be Orochmaru. "I tried to be nice, to give you what you want, but you are just a stupid boy. Very well. Know this, Uzumaki, you bear my mark, that makes you mine. It is only a matter of time before you are my tool. I will bend you to my will, you will follow my commands, and I will give you nothing in return except the pleasure of serving me." The snake sannin, or his mental construct, glared at the young jinchuriki.

"Wow, you totaly sounded like a pedophile just now. All that talk of tools, bending people and servicing you... you're an even bigger pervert than Ero-sennin." Naruto chuckled

Suddenly the enraged Orochimaru appeared inches from his face and lifted him off his feet by a hand around his throat. "If I didn't have a use for you, I would kill you right now." the snake hissed at him with malice.

Chakra exploded in a corona around Naruto, who suddenly had regained his thirteen year old body. The Sennin managed to resist for only a moment before he was blown several yards away. The pulsating energy slowly lowered the boy to his feet, and he coldly regarded Orochimaru, who was sprawled on his back. "We are done here." Naruto stated, with cold finality.

"We will meet again." countered Orochimaru, before he melted into the shadowy ground. The dreamscape, or whatever it was, faded, and Naruto began to emerge back towards consciousness.

Naruto knelt before a pair of graves marked spartanly with a large, partially buried sword and a cracked mist hunter-mask.

"Zabuza, I want to apologize to you. I hated you for a long time, because I thought you were the reason Haku had to die. I don't know all the details of why you left mist, but I think I understand you a little better. Sometimes ninja get caught in the middle of politics, and all we can do is make the best of it. I still don't agree with you that ninja are weapons first and people second, but I think in the end neither did you. Maybe you never did, and only told yourself that to get by. Anyway, I just want to say, thank you. Although I didn't realize it at the time, you showed me how one can be strong even without a village to protect, as long as you have a few precious people. Well, ok, Haku showed me that more, but, he couldn't have done it without you. I hope your soul finds peace."

"Haku, although we only knew each-other a short while, you changed my life. You helped me find my reason for being a ninja. I need that reason all the more right now. Look out for me, from wherever you are, and wish me luck. I wish you were here to help guide me, but I do have a few friends still, and so I have a purpose. Rest peacefully my friend."

Naruto gave a little bow to the graves, and planted a pair of incense sticks in the earth in front of the markers. Then he stood up, dusted off his knees, and made his way back toward the house. Once sure that he had gone, Hinata stepped out from her place behind the trees. She felt conflicted about whether or not offer support to Naruto as he grieved, or respect his privacy, so naturally she did what she had always done; watch over him from the shadows. Now that he had left, something compelled her to approach the grave site.

Not knowing quite where to begin, Hinata fidgeted. Years of gardening instincts from her youth kicked in, and she began to pluck the more unattractive weeds and generally make the site a little less wild. In a moment of inspiration, she pulled out the sealing scroll of personal items, and unsealed a bulb, one of the ones she had taken from her mother's garden before she left. pulling out a kunai, she began to dig a small hole with it. The rhythmic motions calmed her, and cleared her head, freeing her tongue to speak.

"I am thankful to you for helping Naruto. He has had so few sources of inspiration, and he has been such an inspiration to me, and to many others."

She proceeded to tell of his exploits since he had been in wave, and of all the lives he had touched. "I am glad he met you, even though the memory brings him pain. I just wish you could tell me how to help him. For all that I watch him, I'm starting to feel like I don't actually know him at all, who he really is, behind his brave smile." She had finished planting the bulb, and with luck, a white orchid would grow and make the grave a little less bare. "Mother, look after their souls, as they are precious to someone who is precious to me."

With that Hinata, too, stood and made to go back to the house of Tazuna. Unbeknownst to her, a presence followed her, and in it's wake, a single stalk and flower unfurled and grew from her mother's bulb.

Tazuna, Inari, and Tsunami were all happy to have the blond back with them, and suitably outraged at the reason for his presence. They of course insisted that the hero of wave, and his entourage, join them at the house for the duration of their stay.

Naruto tossed and turned in the throes of a vivid dream. He stood in an underground chamber, not too different to the one in which the seal chamber for the fox resided. Before him floated a ball of flame, which spun around yet stayed contained in a circle or orb. From the voice a flat, emotionless voice spoke to him, telling him that he was a weapon for Konoha, that he would be a tool for it's true Hokage, the Hokage of the Root. Naruto tried to cry out, that he was not a tool but a human, but his voice wouldn't come. Somehow the flame filled his senses, his mind, and stilled his tongue.

"Naruto." a deep voice rumbled.

Naruto felt his senses jolt a little. Sudenly the ball of flame was not a flame at all, but a swirling red wheel with what looked like kunai for spokes. Something about it tugged at the back of his memory, that this was something he had seen before.

"Uzumaki Naruto." the voice growled again.

Again Naruto felt his senses jolt, and now he could make out that the red wheel was actualy the Iris and pupil of an eye; an eye which was affixed in a shadowy figure. The voice which had been speaking to him of subservience to root dulled, and faded out.

"Uzumaki, Namikaze Naruto." The deep voice almost roared.

This time, Naruto felt his whole body jolt, as if waking from sleep. Suddenly, it seemed as though someone had lit a light at his back, illuminating the figure before him. The man, for it was a man, was wrapped in bandages over much of his body, including what apeared to be the stump of his left(?) arm. In his partialy bandaged face, two mismatched eyes stared back at him, one dark, almost black, the other red with a distinctive black markings.

"Mangekyo sharingan. Danzo." Naruto stated in recognition. With that, the scene dissolved, and a familiar one appeared. Once more that day, Naruto found himself standing in front of the Great Fox's cage. "Hello again, Kyuubi."

"Brat, it's time for that talk I promised. You attract people trying to control you with an alarming frequency. You beat back the Snake, for now, But until you find a more permanent solution to that problem, don't even think of trying to access my chakra or that seal will be all over you again." The Kyuubi spoke in rumbling tones, but for once didn't try to intimidate his jailor.

"That... kinda sucks, but it is good to know. What was up with the dream just now? And don't forget about the ANBU guys this afternoon." Naruto, for his part, tried to tone down his energetic tone.

"Well the long and the short of it is, someone, probably that Danzou you mentioned, Put some sort of hypnotic control on you. I'm gonna help you break it, and with any luck, find a way to keep anyone from using that eye on us again." Kyuubi explained.

"Thanks. Why are you being so helpfull to me, anyways?" Naruto asked with only a hint of wariness.

"Well it boils down to shared enemies. I can accept that the death god sealed me into your monkey butt. I don't like it, but I can respect the shinigami's power. But I'll be damned to Makai, again, before I'll accept being ordered around by a human again. I'm not some tamed dog, damn it! I'm a Fox, and I have my pride." Kyuubi almost worked himself up into a frenzy by the end of his rant.

"Again? So, you've been controlled before?" Naruto probed.

'Damn random attention to detail.' Kyuubi mentally grumbled. "Yes, damn it. Let's just say that attacking Konoha the night you were born wasn't exactly my idea. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly care about your monkey town, but I also wouldn't have bothered with it either under normal circumstances."

Naruto, seeing that this was a sore point, let it slide. "So how are we going to do this?"

"Well, now that I know what's going on, I'll use the trigger to suggest you unlock whatever memories you have repressed, along with any abilities that go with them, and then I'll try implanting a comand to resist further suggestions. lastly, I'm going to have you meditate to gain better controll of your subconscious. I'll warn you, your dreams are going to be a bit... intense while your conscious mind integrates your repressed memories. Hopefully, though, the more you go over them, the less they will affect you."

"This is going to hurt, isn't it?" Naruto asked, resignedly.

"It shouldn't kid, well at least not much. The human memory blunts sensation, so that the mind doesn't mistake memory for current reality. The memories may be a bit disturbing, however." Kyuubi grinned a slightly evil grin.

"Oh well, no way out but through. Hit me." Naruto accepted his fate.

Hinata, too, was having a vivid dream. In it, she found herself back in front of the graves from this afternoon, only now a young woman stood before her. "Greetings, Hinata, my name is Haku."

"Ano, but I thought you were dead? Oh, Sorry! I didn't mean offence, I'm just confused.

The young woman chuckled delicately behind one hand. "Oh don't worry, I'm not offended. I'm not sure how, but when Naruto, and then you, came before my grave, I could see you, hear you, as though I was floating there. I heard both of your wishes, and I too wish I could do something for Naruto. I feel a kinship with him, and he was kind to me, even at the end, when he knew I was his enemy. Anyway, I feel like Kami-sama has given me another chance, and I would like to use it to help the two of you."

"I appreciate the offer. How may you help me?" Hinata smiled at the girl before her.

"Well to start with, I would like to be your friend, and, for lack of a better word, hitch a ride in your mind. You would still be in control, but I will be able to speak to you, and offer you advice." Haku explained.

"I would like that. I am happy to have you as a friend." Hinata's small smile blossomed.

A.N. There we go, I managed to move this forward a bit. I have been been stuck trying to figure out how to go forward, largely having to do with whether or not to have Danzo have conditioned Naruto. It also plays in to how the battle at the valley of the end went down, and whether or not Sasuke is a complete and utter bastard or not. He will not be redeemed, but some of his more extreme actions may be explained, if not excused. I don't know when the next one will come out, hopefully not too long. I've got a start on a future chapter, so that is motivation for me to bridge the intervening chapters. Thank you all for reading.