Beyond Ambitions

by thephaw

Chapter 2: Words from a Survivor

Tsunade sat at her desk, her head resting on a stack of papers.  It was clear that she was sleeping since there was a bit of drool leaking down the corner of her mouth. Just then, Genma walked through the door and into her office.

“Hokage-sama!?,” asked Genma, “I need to speak with you on an urgent matter.”

“Huh?” yawned Tsunade who was still dazed after awakening from her short nap.  Genma, realizing the fifth was sleeping on the job again sweat dropped.

“Sorry to disturb you so early in the morning Hokage-sama but I have very urgent news,” explained the Jounin.

Finally fully awake, Tsunade wiped the drool from her mouth and replied, “Yes, please continue.”

“Remember the ANBU you sent five days ago to confirm the rumours that Uchiha Sasuke was seen in the wave country?  Well, one of them was found unconscious at the gates of the village today.”

“What happened?” asked Tsunade

“I’m not exactly sure,” replied Genma, “But his condition is pretty bad.  You should check on him at the hospital.”

“Right, let’s go.”

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Tsunade felt right at home at the hospital.  She often had to come here to help some of the patients with more severe injuries and conditions.

“Hey! Old Lady Tsunade!” she heard as a small flare of anger ignited within her.  She turned around to see Naruto waving to her from across the main hall of the hospital.

“You should be giving more respect to the Hokage, Naruto,” She demanded

“Ha!” he replied, “maybe when you stop pretending to be so young.  Then I’ll start respecting you, Oh-ba-san.”

“Grrrr…, ITS NOT MY FAULT I LOOK YOUNG FOR MY AGE!” she yelled.

“Ya right…, we all know you use some kind of jutsu to make you look younger.  You shouldn’t deceive the people of the village like that,” Naruto said with a smirk.

“Why you little brat…” she threatened as her eye started twitching. She knew Naruto was only joking since they seem to somehow get into this same argument every time they meet. She calmed down and realized that Naruto was wearing hospital clothes. “Anyways, why are you here Naruto? Did you get injured on your mission?”

“Nah…, I just used up too much chakra in training. No big deal. I saw you in the hospital so I decided say hi. Well, gotta go, need train some more now.”

‘Reminds me of the Yondaime,’ she thought to herself.  Tsunade went up to the reception and asked the nurse for the room with the ANBU.

“The ANBU…right, he’s in room 178.  He was just dropped off here this morning.  It looks like he is suffering from severe shock,” answered the nurse.

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Tsunade looked at the patient on the bed.  The ANBU’s mask was at a chair on his side.  His eyes were firmly shut and his whole body was trembling. “Was he like this when you found him, Genma?” asked Tsunade. Genma nodded.  The Hokage hovered her hand above the ANBU’s head.  Green chakra seemed to flow out of her hand and into the ANBU.  The ANBU’s expression finally relaxed and his trembling stopped. “There, that should do it. Are you ok?”

“Where am I?” the ANBU asked to nobody in particular.

“Konoha Hospital,” answered Tsunade, “I want to hear everything important concerning your mission.”

Finally regaining full awareness the ANBU started to explain. “Yes, of course, Hokage-sama.  As you are well aware, you sent us on a mission 5 days ago to confirm the rumours that the missing-nin, Uchiha Sasuke, was seen in the wave country.  Then yesterday, as we were about to give up and dismiss the sightings of the Uchiha as just plain rumours, we felt an unusually strong blast of chakra in the vicinity and decided to investigate.  Upon closer inspection, we confirmed that the person was Uchiha Sasuke.”

“Are you sure it was him?” questioned Tsunade who was still reluctant to believe the kid was still alive.

“Yes, we were positive it was him.  At first, we thought it was Itachi since the resemblance was uncanny.  His eyes were the dead giveaway that he was an Uchiha.  However, the leaf headband on his forehead was still intact and he wore a jacket with the Uchiha symbol on its back.”

“I see…” replied Tsunade, “So… what happened?”

“It was clear the Uchiha knew we were here spying on us when he threw shuriken at us.  He then told us to leave or die.  We showed ourselves and offered him to return with us to the village.  He declined and told us leave again.  That’s when we decided to try and take him by force but…” The ANBU looked down at the last word.

“But…?” asked Tsunade, curious.

“…he beat all three of us,” came the eventual reply.

Tsunade’s eyes widened in surprise.  “How!?” she asked.  The ANBU started explaining.

*Flashback* (Last time I’ll use one. I promise)

“Uchiha… Sasuke, am I correct?” asked one of the three ANBU standing behind a young man.

“Leave now, do not get in my way…,” replied the man as he walked away from the ANBU, “…or I’ll kill you.”

“If you don’t come with us, we’ll be forced to bring you back by force or kill you,” answered the ANBU leader.

The Uchiha stopped, as if considering something, then slowly turned around.  “SHARINGAN,” he yelled as his eyes turned from black to red.  Then after doing several hand seals in the blink of an eye, he yelled, “Katon… Housenka no Jutsu”  3 Fireballs erupted from his mouth and into the sky each attempting to fall on an ANBU member.  The ANBU leader, who was directly facing Sasuke, leapt back performing hand seals of his own while the other two got into positions surrounding Sasuke throwing gas bombs at the same time.  The bombs exploded into a cloud of toxic and inflammatory gas.

“Katon… Goukakyuu no Jutsu,” yelled the ANBU member who just finished making hand seals.  A stream of fire came out of the ANBU’s mouth and upon contacting the cloud of gas, caused it to turn into a raging inferno.  When the inferno died down a few seconds later, all they saw was a smouldering log. “Kawarimi in that situation?!” exclaimed the surprised ANBU. Then the ANBU heard what sounded like birds.

*CHI…CHI…CHI…CHI…* they heard and looked to find Sasuke standing behind one of the ANBU. 

“That must be the chidori we heard about from Kakashi,” noted an ANBU, “…but its different!”  The ANBU was right.  Instead of just one of his hands engulfed in the lightning like chakra, both of his hands and feet were engulfed in the electrical chakra. The ground was being torn apart all around the Uchiha due to the massive amount of chakra.  All of a sudden, the Uchiha disappeared and before the ANBU leader could react, he saw one of his comrades suddenly get lifted off the ground and almost torn apart into a bloody mess by a blur of four blue lights. 

“CHIDORI RENDAN,” he heard the Uchiha say before he saw his comrade flew at an unbelievable speed into the ground, obviously dead.

“ABORT THE MISSION! ESCAPE BACK TO THE VILLAGE!” yelled the leader to his remaining team-mate but it was too late as he helplessly watched his other comrade succumb to the same fate.  Then, the Uchiha appeared right in front of the ANBU leader with his eyes closed.  When he saw the Uchiha’s eyes open, the ANBU leader found himself tied up in a strange room with the Uchiha staring at him and holding shuriken.

“For the next 24 hours, shuriken will be continuously thrown into you,” said the Uchiha calmly.

“AAARRRGHHHH,” screamed the ANBU leader as he came back to the real world. ‘Th-that…w-was…the…Tsukyomi technique…’ he thought to himself.  “Wh-why…did you betray…the leaf?” said the ANBU trying to get a grip on himself.  He looked up only to see a kunai with what looked like an explosive tag attached to it.  ‘This must be the end,’ he thought to himself.  But instead of hearing an explosion, he heard the Uchiha talking.

“Give that message to the Hokage,” said the Uchiha.  The ANBU leader looked up to see that the Uchiha had disappeared.  He then grabbed the kunai and struggled back towards Konoha.

*End Flashback*

“What about Orochimaru?” she asked, “Did you see him around?”

“No, the Uchiha looked like he has been completely alone.”

‘Strange,’ thought Tsunade, ‘if Sasuke was not taken by Orochimaru back then, why would he not want to return to the village?’

“Do you still have the note he gave you?” The ANBU nodded and pointed at a paper wrapped kunai beside his mask.  Tsunade unwrapped the kunai and took a look at the piece of paper.  It read…

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So you’ve found me.

I did not want to deal with the ANBU the way I did but I was left with no choice.  Please do not send anymore or I will be forced to kill them.  I no longer have any dealings with the leaf, I am no longer your concern.

Uchiha Sasuke

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“So, what are we going to do about the Uchiha?” asked Genma, “we still don’t really know if he is in league with Orochimaru.”

“Well, I don’t think we will be able to spare any more ANBU for this mission.  There have already been intelligence reports that the Akatsuki are on the move and we will need to be prepared for them.  For now, I’ll try to think of something”

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Tsunade walked out of the hospital thinking of how she would deal with Sasuke.

‘Hmm…,’ she thought, ‘…maybe Naruto…’

Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Element: Mythical Fire Flower Technique) – A fire element technique where the user blows out multiple fire balls into the air which falls down on opponents like flower petals.

Oh-ba-san – Old Lady