Naruto: The Unwoven Threads of Fate

"O-Orochimaru-sama!" One of Orochimaru's faithful - or just too scared to go against him - minions stutters out as he knocks on his office door.

"Never a moment's rest." Orochimaru sighs as he looks up from his paperwork. He finally has things at this base sorted out but the eastern hideout desperately needs his presence to clean up their messes. "Yes?"

"We're being invaded!" The nameless minion sputters out.

"Let me guess." Orochimaru dryly looks at the incompetent minion. He has just been moved to the expendable category. Now if only Orochimaru could remember his name. What was it again? "It's from the south east."

"Y-yes!" The minion fearfully, yet with impressed eyes, sputters out to the Sannin. "The Sensory Team has picked up f-forty three unique signatures!"

"It's just Alv- come again?" Orochimaru's gaze sharpens. One moment he was bored, slightly perturbed and was just a tensy bit contemplating how to eviscerate this minion and the next his full attention is focused. "Did you just say forty three?"

"C-correct sir!" The minion stands at attention, straight back and intently staring at a specific part on the wall. He's reverted to this once Orochimaru's mood shifted. "Unfortunately that's not including your s-son! He's right in their p-path!"

"Hm." Orochimaru pauses for a fleeting moment, weighing his options, before asking one more question. "How strong would the Sensory Team rate this force? Mostly jonin? Chunin? Genin? ANBU perhaps? Heaven forbid Kage?"

"We assessed them as an ANBU unit sir!" The minion barks out, glad for an easy question.

"Curious, very curious." Orochimaru knows something that the general public - shinobi and civilian alike - doesn't. He knows that the myth of ANBU being comprised solely of the elite of the elite is just that, a myth. Sure most of them are above average, easily ranking high chunin at the very least, but it's simply impossible for that many extraordinarily talented shinobi to exist.

Of course there are those that truly are extraordinarily talented in ANBU. These are the elite teams sent to fight against highly dangerous targets, they're the teams sent to assassinate the unkillable, they're the teams that garner the untouchable reputation that ANBU has.

That means, statistically speaking of course, that the force approaching is mostly chunin with a decent amount of jonin and perhaps a few truly talented individuals.

"Is Karin on duty?" Orochimaru asks, pulling himself away from his thoughts for a moment.

"Yes sir!" The minion barks out once more.

"And how did she say my child feels about this impending force?" Orochimaru calmly asks the most pivotal question yet.

Orochimaru knows that Alvarcus himself may not have any aptitude for sensing but the Jiongu does. Surely it will warn him about what's coming. Yet Alvarcus hasn't fled from his island, he's remained. Something is off about it. Almost like...

"She said he felt furious." The minion starts to sweat as he recalls Karin's reaction. Her face drained of all blood, she seemed to shrink three sizes and even curled herself into a ball in a corner as if it would shield her from him. "Furious beyond anything she'd felt before."

"That's not entirely unexpected." Orochimaru mutters under his breath, quiet enough that the minion doesn't hear it.

"And that he felt… excited?" The minion attempts to state but it comes out as a question. Why? Simply because he can't comprehend why someone would be excited about facing down forty three people alone.

"Then it will be fine." Orochimaru turns back to his paperwork. "He thinks he can handle it."

A small tremor goes through the base, one that only the best shinobi's heightened senses can pick up.

"On second thought perhaps I should prepare a task force." Orochimaru looks off towards where he knows his child is. "Even if it is only to take a few of them prisoner before Alvarcus slaughters them all."

At The Island, Half an Hour Ago

POOF

"Sup Al?" Shirokumo warmly greets me despite all the shit we've just been through. "How's things?"

It's nice to know that he's still with me. Still my friend.

"Same stuff, different day." I casually respond with a shrug.

"So completely bullshit on so many levels it should be criminally insane?" He dryly asks me with his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Exactly." I snort out in amusement. "So just really quick I've got a question we didn't cover about Sage Mode."

"Ask away." He nods once while taking in the surroundings. "Where are we by the way?"

"Oh, remember that island that I kinda blew up? We're on it." I effortlessly reply and join him in taking in the landscape.

Or lack of.

The once green island is now blackened. It used to be relatively circular from a bird's eye view but now it's broken and jagged. Parts of it are simply gone, as if they were ripped out of the ground while in some areas there's more island than there should be. There's craters littered across the entire ten square kilometer island, some small and others freakishly large. Yet the most impressive change to the island is a crack that splits it in two. It looks like it was cut by a precision laser of all things.

"Damn kid, and this was without Sage Mode?" Shirokumo asks even though he knows the answer already.

"Yep. I'm fucking broken!" I cackle like a madman. Or just cackle. Pretty sure I am a madman at this point. Oh God I'm aware of my own insanity there's no way that's healthy. "Though it wasn't all in one visit, it took a while to ravage it this much. Anyways enough about that, I want to know if you've come up with something to work around having to stand still to gather chakra."

"Nope." And with one measly word he crushes my hopes and dreams. "Never had a need to."

"What the hell do you mean you've never had a need to?" I demand an answer from him. "It's like the only flaw that becoming a Sage has!"

"Because I've absolutely crushed anyone who has opposed me while in Sage Mode." He arrogantly brags to me. "No one has lasted past two minutes when I got serious."

"Huh." That little tiny white spider is actually a badass. Never would have guessed it. "Well, that's fair. Guess I'll have to come up with something on my own then. Like usual."

"Shut up you baby." Shirokumo rolls all eight of his eyes at me. "You're a Sage now. Barely anyone in this world should be able to stand against you."

"That may be true but Sage Mode will be my secret trump card. I will only use it when I have to, when my opponent is so deadly that I simply must or I will die. So basically when I fight against the Akatsuki or someone equivalent to them. Basically anyone S-rank. And Danzo. But that's cuz I want to crush him like an ant beneath my boot. In fact I think I might literally do that. It would feel nice. Place a heel on his skull and simply… push… down…" I absentmindedly start grinding a heel into the ground while a deep rumbling growl resonates out of my throat.

"You have issues." Shirokumo's voice pulls me out of my fantasy.

"Hm? Oh Right. Anyways, like I said it's a secret weapon." I take my eyes off the spider and let them roam around the barren island. "Except for right now. Right now I'm going to spend the next few hours fucking around with my new toy. It's going to be great!"

"In that case I'll be going." Shirokumo seems eager to leave. "Collateral damage and all that. Rather not accidentally get squished beneath your boot because you thought I was Danzo."

"See ya buddy." I wave him off.

"Oh one last thing." Shirokumo cuts in. "Tell the Gatekeeper hello for me, will you? Whenever you see him around. Honestly I'm surprised you haven't met him yet."

POOF

Shirokumo vanishes off the island.

"Uh… Sure?" I say to the smoke as I sit down on the ground cross legged. I plant both my hands on top of my bent knees and go freakishly still. "Who the fuck is the Gatekeeper? Meh, I'll figure it out later. Right now I've got something more important to do. Sureddo, if you would be so kind?"

~Of course, it's time to stretch our legs and see what we can do.~

Seven minutes pass at an excruciatingly slow rate. But eventually they do pass and I open my yellow shadowed eyes.

"Huh." I stare off to the south east, in the opposite direction of where the base is. "You feel that too?"

~A moment please, let me stretch out my senses.~

"I'm new to this whole sensing thing, but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say-"

~That there's forty three shinobi rapidly approaching us?~

"Yeah. That." Sureddo finished my sentence for me. It also confirmed that there is indeed a force quickly closing in on us. "Interesting. Did someone finally figure out where this base is? Pretty sure it's off every map and I sure as hell didn't tip anyone off. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty with this, doubly so when I've rigged this base to blow already."

~Well, we can always ask them. They should be here soon, I'd give them ten minutes. Max.~

"So much for taking it for a test drive." I grumble out as crazy, insane and downright deranged ideas form in my head then get dismissed one after the other. I'm trying to get a semblance of a plan together before they show up that's more than 'kill the idiots charging at me.' I mean it works for just about every scenario but I like to be a little more prepared than that.

"I've really got to stop this trial by fire shit. One day it's going to blow up in my face."

With the Approaching Force, Ten Minutes Later

This specific task forced, dubbed The Blades, is forty three strong. Each member has been hand selected by their commander for this specific mission. Never before has a task force this large been sent out before. Never before has such a strong unit even been crafted.

Yet there is one person that stands at the pinnacle of The Blades. She is the most skilled, the most deadly, the most smart and the most crazy. But of all the people present she is the one who was selected to lead this mission on what would be seen as an impossible task for anyone else.

Because when it boils down to it, everyone gathered is only here to support her. Such a strong force has been sent out solely to keep her alive and at one hundred percent and it's only them who are skilled enough to fight beside her.

Anyone else would simply be in her way.

"Ma'am." One of the members calls out to her. "We're almost at the island."

"Good." A dark smile forms on her mouth. Her face could be called beautiful. Her bright green eyes seem very expressive despite her occupation, her jet black hair falls down to her shoulders and frames her face perfectly and there's a coy smirk dancing across her lips.

But there's one drastic blemish on her face. She's been cut with a kunai. The scar runs from her left ear all the way to her right jaw line, jaggedly cutting her lips on it's trek across her face.

"I'm tired of running."

"Alright Sureddo." I bend down to strike a sprinter's starting pose. My feet dig deep into the ground in preparation for my explosive take off. "We topped off on chakra?"

~Sage Mode at maximum. They're just now arriving at the other side of the island. If they have any sensors they should feel us soon. We're not exactly subtle with this boost.~

"Even the environment is reacting." A crazy grin worms its way across my face as I tense my whole body. "The wind has picked up. It's at our back."

~Well then, shall we?~

"Yes. After all, it would be unbecoming of us to not personally greet our guests." The ground craters as I push off from my stance. The wind tears at my body as I move at impossible speeds, speeds I've never dreamed of reaching before. "It's time to see just what we can do! Let's go play!"

The Base

"It's so sad." Karin stares off to the south east while muttering to herself. She's mindlessly sharpening a kunai, not because it needs to be sharpened but because she wanted an excuse to hold a weapon in her hands. Alvarcus is scaring her that badly. He's kilometers away and she's barely able to keep from shaking.

"What is it Karin?" One of the other sensors asks.

"All those shinobi." She cuts herself on the blade but doesn't take notice. She's too distracted by the feeling of what is about to happen. A single bead of blood rolls down to the tip of the kunai and clings to it for a fleeting moment. "He's going to kill them. All of them. And he's going to enjoy it."

The bead of blood succumbs to gravity and falls to the floor. The first drop of blood has been spilled.

"Contact left!" One of the nameless grunts shouts out to his group. Sadly it's too late for them to react.

"Wind Release." I whisper to myself as I fly through handsigns, fuel the jutsu with just a little bit too much chakra, and let her rip. "Pressure Damage."

Wind Release. It's not even remotely close to describing what tore out of my mouth. A literal gale of tornado strength winds - both in size and in quality - thunders across the island while reaping havoc indiscriminately. What little plants that started to grow back are violently ripped from the ground. Any loose debris from my earlier destruction of the island is lifted skyward and hurled with the ease of a child tossing a ball of paper. Nothing is spared from the outrageous force of wind.

Not even the shinobi.

Some shinobi, those that have a good reaction time, managed to stifle some of the effects. A handful raised up earth or water walls, a few dove underground to completely avoid the wind and one individual stabbed his twin swords into the ground as anchors.

But everyone else is thrown away from me like ragdolls. Countless trained shinobi tumble end over end, bouncing off the ground and each other like a bucket of bouncy balls thrown down a hallway. Except this isn't harmless fun, this is accompanied by the sound of bruises forming. The sound of people shouting in alarm and pain. The sound of bones breaking. The sounds of necks snapping as the poor souls land at the wrong angle. The sound of battle.

"Oh fuck yes." I throatily growl out in appreciation of my single jutsu. "I didn't know how much I need that."

"Who the hell are you?!" One of the shinobi who managed to hide behind a wall asks as he and everyone else who dodged - instead of you know, flying like a bitch - quickly regroup.

"Me?" A coy smirk dances on my face and my entire demeanor mirrors it. I'm acting like this is one big game and it's pissing them off. After all I did just kill six of them with my opening attack. Though I must give them some credit, they've rallied nicely. Already as we speak they're moving to surround me, pinning me in to cut off all hope of escape.

Which is perfectly fine, I don't plan on running away.

"Idiot." A kunoichi brashly says. "Did you completely miss the mission briefing? That's Alvarcus Mar. The Heart Thief. Also known as the Prince of -"

A chakra conductive kunai pumped to the breaking point with earth chakra slams into her chest. She explodes in a shower of gore. Her head soars skyward from the force, her arms fly off and one smacks into another shinobi and her legs share the same fate as her torso. They're simply a liquidy human paste.

"I can't believe that stupid fucking nickname has caught on." I groan out as I slump my shoulders in shame. "The worst part is I'm the one who came up with it!"

No one bothers to respond to me with words, no, that would be too polite. Instead they responded with cold steel. Shuriken, senbon and kunai alike are hurled at me from every angle imaginable.

But in the end they all share in the same fate.

The barrage of metal bends to my will, or rather my chakra strings. Each projectile gets caught then spun around me and released at a new target. And with my enhanced senses and my new sensory capabilities each deadly weapon is aimed at a lethal spot. Even on the shinobi standing behind me. A few of them manage to fully dodge, others simply moved enough to avoid a lethal hit, but four of them died on the spot.

Alright that settles it, Sage Mode is fucking awesome and I've barely scratched the surface.

"Straight to business then." I drop my ashamed aura and don the face of… someone mildly curious. It doesn't fit with the sounds of people moaning out it pain from either my jutsu or being stabbed with shinobi grade weapons but that's not my problem. "Tell me will you, who sent you?"

"No." Someone speaks for everyone. "You do not scare us."

"Really?" I drawl out as I survey the damage so far. "You do know that I've already dealt with eleven of you, right?"

Seemingly out of the blue I jump into the air. Not far or anything truly impressive, barely half a meter at best. It's just enough for me to avoid the pair of black glove wearing hands that burst from beneath me. Without fanfare or any flashy moves I throw another chakra conductive kunai straight down. This one is pumped to the breaking point with lightning chakra. It spears through the feeble earth and goes straight through the shinobi's head and out his left foot. It stops after going another two meters down into the bedrock.

"Sorry." I daintily land on my feet and shift to the side to avoid a squirt of blood that comes out of the kunai sized hole in the ground. "I meant twelve. Now I will ask again, who sent you?"

"Combination jutsu!" A pair of shinobi call out as they fly through hand signs. "Flaming Wind Dragon!"

A blistering hot dragon of bright orange fire roars towards me. It's gaping maw is filled with incredibly sharp wind blades that are capable of shredding the hardest of metals known to man to slivers. A feeble human body is no match for such a magnificent beast.

"Summoning Jutsu." With a bored expression I lazily tap the ground with a palm and a droplet of blood. "Rashomon."

An indomitable hell gate rises up from the ground. The red spiky exterior proudly juts into the air while the demonic visage carved into the doors stares menacingly down at the pathetic attack I summoned it to stop.

And stop it the Rashomon does. The Flaming Wind Dragon slams into the gate and explodes into a torrent of raging elements. Fire and wind are scattered as it bounces off the immovable gate rendering the otherwise daunting jutsu inert.

"What was that you all were saying? That you weren't scared of me?" I raise up to my full height which sadly is still shorter than most of the enemy shinobi. But it's them who suddenly feel small, it's them who suddenly feel a daunting weight pressing down on their backs. "Then I shall teach you to fear me."

In an untraceable blur I rocket towards one of the shinobi. I rear back for a swift punch to his temple and my fist flies true. His head is knocked clean off his shoulders, leaving behind a blood squirting stump of a neck. The head hollowly bounces across the ground while leaving behind a trail of splattered red.

"Pathetic. Didn't even manage to attempt to block or dodge." I narrow my eyes in disdain as the corpse falls down to its knees. "I was hoping for a challenge. I don't even know if I should bother finding out who sent you if you all are this weak."

A trio of shinobi spring into action. One of them openly engages me in an advanced kenjutsu style, he's wielding a short sword reminiscent of a tanto. Over and over again he attempts to hack me to pieces while his back up try and fail to herd me around the battlefield with kunai and shuriken.

"How about we make this interesting." I calmly say as I expertly and effortlessly weave around all of the deadly attacks sent towards me. I smoothly raise up my arms - and smirk as the shinobi jump back to put space between us - and untie my scarf. "I'll give you a handicap."

I wrap the brilliant crimson scarf around my eyes, effectively blindfolding myself.

After a single beat from all five of my hearts the trio reengages.

"Ah, that's better." A tinge of excitement has finally squirmed its way into my voice. I bend backwards as the tanto soars a little too close to my face while simultaneously deflecting a kunai with one of my own. "I have to focus a little bit now."

I let our battle drag on, always seeming to be one step ahead of them. Always contorting just enough to avoid damage. Always just out of their reach.

"You three back off." A female calls out to the trio. "He's obviously better than you."

"What's this?" I turn my head to face the speaker and despite not being able to see it appears as if I'm looking right in her eyes. In a grand flourish I bow deeply to her. "Ah, the leader finally reveals herself. Introductions then, I am the one who has been killing all of your forces. How do you do?"

"Oh you know. I'm pissed off that some punk ass kid is killing all of my men." Despite not being able to see I can feel her glare on me.

"I'm not apologizing." I matter of factly state to her as I rise back up. "Perhaps you could answer me, who was it that sent you?"

"Dead men don't get to ask questions." She pulls out a scroll and unfurls it. Out of the scroll pops two gloves with long blades extending out of each finger tip. They look like claws, long wickedly sharp claws meant to rend flesh from bone. Upon further observation there's a slight green sheen to them. Must be some kind of poison or an acid. "Take off your blindfold."

"Why?" I lazily tilt my head in curiosity.

"I want to watch the life fade from your eyes." She spreads her fingers wide and prepares to rush me.

"Interesting, you want to watch the life fade from my eyes." I pull off my scarf and let the wind rip it from my fingers. "I dig the scar. How'd you get it?"

"Orochimaru." She snarls out.

"Huh." I pause for a moment out of surprise. "Small world. Me too."

No further words are exchanged. We're both standing there, eyeing the other one. Simply waiting for the other to make a move, never blinking. Never faltering. Never acting. Just waiting.

Except I am acting, I'm taking in nature chakra to top off my supply.

"This is the last time I'll ask." My voice breaks the silence. There's no need to wait longer, I have enough chakra now. "Who sent you?"

No one speaks up.

"Such a shame. After all, dead men can't answer questions." I begin to fly through hand signs at an unmatchable pace. One after the other in a seemingly endless string.

But the kunoichi doesn't stand there and wait for me to finish. The moment I started she lunged at me with the full intention of stopping what will be a devastating jutsu. She's furiously attacking me with all the passion of a starved rabid dog attacking the world's best of her attacks connect. Her all out crazed assault yield zero results.

"Make peace with your God." I clasp my hands together in the final sign and a demonic grin blossoms on my face. "You'll be seeing Him soon."