Assassin's Creed, Naruto 1. The Beginning

Disclaimer: I don't own Assassin's Creed or Naruto.

Author's Notes: Welcome to the prologue.

**Path of the Broken Creed: The Beginning**

Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, was a strange village. First, it was neither hidden nor a village, as it is rather hard to miss the large town, housing more than a ten thousand souls, sticking out from the forest surroundings without even an attempt to blend with nature. Second, it was an entirely militarily run village, and the leader was named the Hokage, the Fire Shadow. The four Hokage's of Konoha's past and present had been immortalized upon a large mountain that towered over the city, faces carved into the rock with such care it appeared as if the mountain had grown that way.

However, today, the awe-inspiring sight of the towering stone faces was somewhat marred by the colorful additions of another oddity of the "village," one Uzumaki Naruto. From a technical standpoint, his work was rather impressive, considering he had no artistic training (or talent, according to many) and that he was currently dangling from a jury rigged suspension cable as he put the last touches on a spiral shape on the First Hokage's cheek.

Ignoring the (in his mind) jealous yells of his Academy class on a nearby rooftop to get down, Naruto flicked the brush with one last flourish, finishing the spiral perfectly.

A familiar demonic voice rose from the crowd. **"What do you think you're doing, you idiot!? Get down from there and get back to class!"** Iruka-sensei was scary when he tried.

"Shit! It's Iruka-sensei! I'm so screwed!" Naruto told himself, even as he struggled with his makeshift scaffold to escape. Another yell from Iruka-sensei encouraged the effort, and with a furious burst of motion he managed to get out of the loop of rope around his waist. Holding onto it with one hand, the other holding his bucket of paint and brush, he could see that, at the top of the monument, there was a small gathering of ninja prepared to capture him once he finished climbing back up to safety.

Naruto grinned maniacally. "See ya later, suckers!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

With that declaration, he let go of the rope, falling beneath the line of rooftops and out of Iruka-sensei's line of sight. It was over eight hundred feet from the First Hokage's cheek to the bottom of the mountain.

Of course, the footpath to the top of the mountain, located conveniently beneath the long dead Hokage's cheek was only a fifteen foot drop, and Naruto bent his knees, rolling forward as he landed to try and absorb the shock. Abandoning the bucket and brush - it was out of paint and he'd "borrowed" them anyway - Naruto set out to give his pursuers (for those on the cliff-top had seen his safe landing) a chase to remember.

In another world, Naruto would have leapt from rooftop to rooftop, eventually losing most of his pursuers by blending in with a wall before being caught by an irate Iruka. However, that preferred dramatic chase was no longer available to Naruto, who had done something wrong when he landed; his ankle hurt like hell. As it was, running was questionable, rooftop leaping impossible.

Ever one to adapt, Naruto shrugged off the pain and switched plans. If he couldn't outrun the ninja followers in a rooftop game of tag, he would have to win in a ground based game of hide and seek. Naruto was good at hide and seek.

-/-/=\-\-

Naruto had first ducked through a busy market square, and had only barely escaped Iruka-sensei, who knew him far too well. Naruto had done that at least three times in the past, and his teacher was becoming wise to that particular trick.

Taking a turn at a random intersection, Naruto continued his flight. He'd been told you were supposed to slow down and blend with the crowd once you'd lost direct line of sight with your pursuers, but that didn't work so well when you wore orange and had bright blond hair.

_'Damnit, where can I go where Iruka-sensei would never find me!?'_ Naruto thought to himself, eyes roving his surroundings hurriedly, even as his feet continued to pound against the pavement, sending shooting sparks of pain up his right leg from his ankle. He wouldn't last much longer at this rate.

His eyes caught on a public library. He'd never been to a library, and from what he'd heard he would never want to. You had to be quiet, couldn't run, the lighting was pretty poor, and it was filled with books.

Perfect! No one would ever look for him in a library.

Naruto limped up to the door, the pain in his ankle catching up to him. He knew from experience that it'd get better in about an hour, as long as he didn't do anything physically active...so, find a corner of the library, take a nap, go home victorious. A good plan, as plans went.

Entering the library, he immediately noticed the librarian, an old lady with horn rimmed glasses and her graying hair pulled into a tight bun, glaring at him silently. His nerve wavered, and he almost went back outside - something about this lady's eyes were worse than the usual crowd of silently glaring villagers.

Then a book clattered to the ground, the noise seemingly echoing and amplified in the enforced quiet of the library. The old librarian immediately turned her gaze upon the man who'd been so clumsy as to disturb the silence, and Naruto immediately made the connection. When she returned her forbidding gaze to him, he adopted a questioning expression and held a finger over his lips.

His answer was tight-lipped smile and a nod before the librarian looked down to her desk, resuming her reading. Naruto nodded, though she wasn't watching, and grinned, extraordinarily pleased with himself. She didn't dislike _him_; she disliked anything that would disturb the solitude of this library, her holy ground. A small, somewhat scruffy kid in bright orange would seem like a likely suspect.

So as long as he was quiet and didn't disturb the sacred, dusty silence of the library, he was fine. The second he did...bad things would happen.

Well, he could hardly disturb the peace if he took a little nap in an out of the way corner, so he didn't even have to change his plan. Walking towards the back corner of the massive library, Naruto let his eyes roam over the seemingly endless shelves of books. There was no order that he could detect, though the numbers and letters on each of the shelves seemed to have ordered the books into _something_...he just couldn't tell what.

Picking an especially dark aisle where the artificial lighting and weak sunlight didn't penetrate into, Naruto began to sit down, back leaning against one of the shelves, his head resting comfortably on the spine of an especially thick book.

He'd just begun to nod off when a book from the top shelf bounced off of his head with a thunk before landing in his lap, face up. Naruto barely managed to hold in his exclamations of surprise and pain, but he did. That librarian was scarier than an angry Iruka-sensei.

Rubbing his head and throwing a dirty look at the book, Naruto was immediately drawn to the symbol on the cover - a dark gray triangle with a strange, curved base with a light blue background. There was no title.

Giving in to his curiosity, Naruto flipped open the book to the first page. There was a picture of a figure, running in the distance. Naruto scratched his head. This didn't seem like any sort of book he'd ever heard of before...

Flipping to the next page, Naruto saw the same figure on the same background, only slightly closer. The next page revealed the same, and Naruto quickly began to grasp the concept of the thing.

Increasing the speed of his page turnings, Naruto quickly had a miniature soundless movie playing out before his very eyes. The drawings were incredibly detailed, and were even in color. He could see the white-hooded figure running through the anonymous crowd, ducking around some, shoving others out of his way. Somewhere along the line, guards began chasing after the man, but he was too quick. Naruto continued flipping, enraptured.

Then the final page came, and it looked as if the white-hooded man, armed to the teeth with assorted knives and swords, was about to jump out of the page. Then the page erupted with bright blue light, and the white hooded figure _did_ leap out of the page.

The man's arm cocked back, and Naruto's eyes widened as a small, hidden blade came out of a hidden wrist sheath an instant before the six inch tall assassin shoved the hidden blade into his eye before disappearing in an even brighter burst of bright blue light.

Naruto's eyes snapped open and he sat up abruptly, a cry of surprise ripping its way out of his mouth. He panted heavily, pulse racing. It took several minutes for him to calm down. _'Damn...what a weird dream.'_

Then his eyes fell to his lap. The book sat there innocently, strange triangle-shaped symbol seemingly taunting him. He shoved the book to the side before a bony hand grabbed him by the shoulder.

Naruto noticed idly that the old librarian was missing the last half of her left ring finger, and shuddered slightly. Creepy old lady.

"You should treat the books with more respect, and be more quiet," she whispered sternly. Her eyes gave him a quick once over before turning to the book. Naruto saw her eyes widen slightly in surprise before she swallowed nervously. "That book is very old," she said quietly, almost to herself.

"Whatever it is, the thing gave me some freaky dream. You can keep it old lady," he muttered in response.

The hand on his shoulder tightened convulsively. "You should check it out," she said, voice rising above the normal quiet tones reserved for the library. Naruto opened his mouth to refuse, and the hand tightened further, bringing an almost painful sensation. The old lady glared into his eyes and was silent for a moment. "You should check it out," she repeated. "I insist."

Naruto nodded dumbly. That lady was scary.

Half an hour later Naruto jiggled the lock open for his apartment, still muttering to himself about stupid libraries and scary ladies and weird books. _This_ was why he never went to the library. Nothing good could come of it.

Throwing the book on the table in his kitchenette, Naruto yawned and shucked off his zori sandals, heading for bed. He threw his jacket on his dresser, but didn't bother changing further. It was late, and despite his nap in the library, he was exhausted. At least his ankle was feeling better.

Closing his eyes, Naruto fell asleep almost instantly, a rare feat for the orange-clad boy. His apartment became strangely still, the book on his table looking extremely out of place. It was the only item of its kind in the entire apartment, though it made no threatening moves. The assassin in the pages stayed within the pages, no lights emanated forth from the book, and to all the world it appeared to be nothing more than a book with a strange cover.

How wrong the world can be.

-/-/=\-\-

Naruto sank into the surreal world of dreams, where the impossible is unquestioned fact. For he was Khalid, technically an unranked member of the Brotherhood. He had yet to receive a true hidden blade, and he knew he never would. Still, the Master had seen fit to give him a traditional name, Khalid, for the "eternal" nature of the Brotherhood nonetheless.

Khalid knew it was the Master's way of apologizing for being unable to grant Khalid the rank of Assassin, and he had always been grateful to the man for that. His unranked status was still a lingering wound in his pride, but the Master acknowledged his skill. Rank meant nothing compared to that. Rank was an empty name, a title. It was the holder of that rank, and their skill, that made the rank worthy of respect, not the other way around.

He tightened his right hand, feeling his fingers close into a fist. He spread his middle and ring fingers, and a moment of thought later, a hidden spike shot out of its sheath, the sharp tip protruding a half dozen inches from between his fingers. It was a comforting little feeling to have it drawn, though he was careful to keep his hand under the table and the spike out of sight. He relaxed his hand into an open palm, and the spring coils that housed the spike retracted the weapon. He was one of the few members of the Brotherhood capable of using chakra, and as such he was incapable of having his ring finger amputated to make way for a true blade; he would never again be able to make hand seals.

It was why he would never be an Assassin. The amputation of the ring finger was more than a necessary measure for the hidden blade to draw, sticking out from its concealed sheath in an Assassin's wrist and between the middle and pinky fingers. It was symbolic: the knife was your wedding ring, and the Brotherhood your spouse. You were together, and had no higher calling, until death parted you from the Brotherhood. Every time the hidden blade was drawn, it was a reaffirmation of that oath, a repetition of marriage vows. Vows Khalid would never be able to take...

Khalid forced the morose thoughts away, knowing that he would never have his finger shortened, that mark of a true Brotherhood member. He should be ashamed of the fact that he regretted it; his personal pride was less important than the Brotherhood. Obtaining a hidden blade would be a direct violation of one the Creed's three tenets: Never do anything that could bring harm to the Brotherhood. And removing a chakra user, himself, from the Brotherhood and making him "just" one more skilled Assassin would harm the Brotherhood.

He pulled his hand out from under the table and raised his drink, taking what appeared to be a long draught. In reality, only a few drops passed his lips. He detested the taste of the stuff the barkeep had given them, and a true Assassin would never drink on the job anyway. Still, it was required to blend with the crowd. The Creed was firm on that: be discreet.

Riyadh tapped him on the shoulder, breaking his train of thought. A short, very loud conversation on the poor quality of the liquor followed. By the end of it, Khalid was frowning in confusion. The target, a small-scale weapons merchant by name of Morita Kenji, was in position. The guards would change shifts in three minutes. Khalid frowned at the thought - their target wasn't exactly rich, just another link in the Templar's supply chain.

So how did he get guards? Hired watchmen weren't exactly free.

A questioning look and a subtle hand signal for "guard" earned him no immediate response. Riyadh pulled a coin out of his pocket and spun it on its side, seemingly enraptured by the flashing piece of silver. It didn't distract Khalid from the nod of confirmation.

They probably could have just leaned closer and spoken outright; it was almost dawn and the place was abandoned. Not many were willing to pay the bartender's prices for the...substance...he called liquor. It wasn't worthy of being called piss, in Khalid's opinion. Another reason for him to avoid the stuff, as if he'd needed one. The fact that the bartender let an obvious minor like Khalid inside to get that tiny bit more of business didn't exactly endear him to the man either.

Still, a job was a job, and this was the role he had to play.

Khalid waved a goodbye to his companion, adopted a drunken stagger and, after a "drunken" fall made it out of the tavern, leaving Riyadh to his own devices for the time being. He knew that in precisely four minutes, Riyadh would leave the table and follow after him.

They'd been forced to leave behind their usual outfits in favor of civilian garb while they scouted the merchant's house, and neither was particularly happy about it. Even if the only real difference was that he'd had to leave some of his larger weapons behind, he still felt naked without the gauntlets, concealing hood, leather vest, and the dagger-strewn belt. There was something to be said for having a hood that kept his blond hair and blue eyes from the prying eyes of guards - his features weren't exactly common, and made him easily identifiable. The short stature that ran in his family didn't exactly help either.

Shrugging off his discomfort, he checked the dark street. Abandoned, except for one unconscious drunk who'd been thrown out for being too rowdy. Khalid frowned at the man, lip curling with distaste before nodding to himself and turning back to the target's house. He didn't have much time left.

Resuming his drunken walk, Khalid stumbled up towards the guard, studying him carefully. The man had a thick, blunt nose and oddly thin, colorless lips. His hair was cut short, though what little there was hanging in dirty brown disarray. Slurring his voice, Khalid called out, "Hey, hey bud! Wha' happen' to yer mushta...musta...lip fur? Ya don' look li' Akira any more..." For good measure, he threw in a hiccup and a stupid grin.

The guard sighed, though Khalid could tell the man was clearly glad to have something to distract him from the monotony of his job. "That's because I'm not Akira, boyo." The guard paused to take an exaggerated whiff in Khalid's direction. "And by the smell of you, you've been to that piss hole Takeda calls a bar."

Khalid took a few steps towards the guard, waving his arms for emphasis the entire time. "O' coursh ye're Akira! Ye got tha' look on yer faysh..." he said, lowering his voice with every word. The guard reflexively leaned closer to hear better.

It was his undoing. Khalid "tripped" towards the guard, who, to his credit, immediately stepped back and reached for a dagger in his belt. Khalid abandoned the drunk act and dashed forward, low to the ground, fist lashing forwards.

He caught the guard high in the stomach, just below the sternum. The dagger clattered to the ground as the guard crumpled around Khalid's deceptively small fist, gasping for breath. A knuckle-punch to the temple later, the man was out cold. Khalid finished his sentence as he dragged the guard into the street and away from the house. "That look that just screams 'sucker.'"

Hurrying now, Khalid pulled out the half empty bottle of cheap wine he'd stolen during his "accidental" fall on the way out of the tavern. Turning the guard on his side, he poured the rest of the contents on the man's shirt and face before tucking it into his limp arms. Leaving the guard in the street, apparently passed out drunk, Khalid turned back to the target's house. Less than a minute left.

Before he did anything else, he brought his hands together. Now came his part of the mission. He reached deep inside himself, feeling that core of energy called chakra. He pulled on it, shaping it with mental fingers before allowing it to flow into his physical fingers. He mentally called out the name of the technique to help himself focus. _'Henge.'_

Khalid, now for all appearances Kenji's soon-to-be-relieved night guard, resumed his post. He didn't have to wait long. But, as with all plans, something went wrong.

The guard took one look at Khalid and waited a moment. That was the only warning he had before the guard's hand flew to the sword at his side. Khalid lunged forward, ducking under the guard's draw. Observant blue eyes saw the mouth open to call out warning, and his decision was made for him. He threw his hand upwards, fingers fisted and slightly spread.

The hidden spike slid out of its sheath, lightning punch adding to the momentum as it caught the guard in the throat. With a thought, the blade retracted,sliding silently back into the concealed holster.

Blood spurted into Naruto's face, the Henge disappearing along with all rational thought. The burly guard collapsed forward, and Naruto was too slow to get out of the way. The two fell to the dirt road with a loud thump, blood still jetting out of the gaping hole in the guard's neck. Naruto beat against the man's chest with weakly fisted hands, jaw trembling in shock as he tried to get away. A wet gurgling noise jerked his attention away from the blood and up to the guard's face, just in time to see wide, pained eyes glaze over in death.

The corpse was rolled to the side, and Naruto found himself staring up at Riyadh.

"You okay?" came the quiet question, a hand outstretched to help him up.

Naruto wanted to say that no, damnit, he wasn't okay! He'd just killed somebody who'd only been doing their job, who he had no personal fight with. A man who probably had a family, a history, a future, which Naruto had just taken.

"Yeah. None of this is mine," Khalid answered, taking the hand. Naruto watched in mute horror, unable to move or speak as the two disposed of the man's body behind a pile of garbage. No words of regret or prayers to the dead were spoken.

The two returned quickly to the house, Khalid still soaked in blood.

"So I'm going in while you play guard?"

Khalid smiled. "It's not time yet. Besides, do you really think I trust you to go off on your own?"

"No, but there's always that chance that one of the guards managed to hit you in the head and addle your brains. So how are you coming with me, exactly? Someone has to play guard."

Khalid chuckled to himself. Typical Riyadh - always ready with a glib response. Bringing his hands together, he focused mental hands into shaping his chakra into a mental image of the guard. The chakra poured outwards from his fingertips, and a slight shimmer of light later, Khalid was disguised as the deceased guard.

Before Riyadh could interrupt him, he realligned his hands and focused inward. Insubstantial hands shaped his chakra into a small image of himself, before he let it flow gently into his physical hands. This time, he directed the flow out in front of him. An insubstantial copy of himself, guard disguise intact, appeared without a whisper of noise.

Silence from Riyadh.

Khalid reached over and clapped him on the shoulder. "That, my friend, is one of many reasons why _I_ have never been caught."

Riyadh shrugged off the shoulder, pouting. "You don't have to bring that up every mission. Besides, the guards thought I was the one who'd been sleeping with their lord's wife - not the one who killed their lord."

"You still got caught."

Naruto felt sickened by the light, joking conversation between the two bloodstained assassins. Had he been able to move, he would have thrown up.

Riyadh threw a weak punch at Khalid, who smirked as it glanced off his shoulder. Reaching for his pocket, Khalid growled with frustration when his fingers met the dirty cloth of the guard's uniform, instead of of the pocket containing his watch. He loved that watch.

"Got a watch?" he asked Riyadh.

His companion blinked for a moment before snickering. "So there is a downside to that disguise." Bringing his wrist up, Riyadh pushed his sleeve back. The two remained quiet for a moment before Riyadh looked up and gave a brief nod of his head. It was time.

Stepping back into their roles as Assassins, the two abandoned the amiable conversation, heading towards the door. Khalid stood, back to the door, keeping watch, while Riyadh greased the hinges and picked the lock. In the relative silence of the night, the metallic tinks of the lockpick seemed loud enough to wake the dead.

Khalid knew it was just adrenaline speaking, that Riyadh was being quiet, and that no one more than a foot away could hear a thing. It still didn't stop the nervous tingle of excitement from running down his spine.

The sounds of the lock being picked stopped. Khalid turned, and Riyadh gave him a silent nod. Khalid would go first. He let go of his transformation first, resuming his normal appearance - the guard's outfit hadn't been designed with stealth in mind.

Placing a hand on the door handle, Khalid closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, held the breath for a moment, and exhaled, letting tension flow out of his body. Snapping his eyes open, he twisted the handle silently and opened the door, quietly stepping into the room. Riyadh followed, shutting the door behind him with a barely audible click.

The house was tiny, and the first floor only had three rooms. Khalid once again questioned why their target had guards. It was extremely out of place for a man of his social standing...but it was too late to do anything but be even more cautious than normal.

Khalid raised a hand, gesturing to the left. Riyadh headed towards that section of the small house, quiet as a ghost. Khalid turned to the right. The two quickly covered the first floor; the house was rather small. They met again at the entrance. Shakes of heads confirmed that the target was not on this floor. Khalid pointed towards the back of the house and then jerked his hand upwards twice. Stairs back that way.

The two turned, and found the indicated staircase a moment later. They ascended, not a word spoken, stepping lightly on the very edges of the boards of the staircase, right where they met the wall. They were less likely to creak that way.

There was a door at the top of the staircase, and after giving the doorknob a brief test, Khalid turned to Riyadh, hand outstretched for the lockpicks. Riyadh was better at it, but they couldn't afford to risk making a noise by swapping positions on the stairs.

Turning back the door after Riyadh had handed him the picks, Khalid crouched down, sliding the picks into the keyhole beneath the doorknob, ear pressed to the door. He could hear the clicks of tumblers locking into place as he slowly tapped away with the picks...

_Clink-Crunch!_

He pulled the set of picks out, knowing he'd triggered one of the tumblers and the entire lock had reset. Examining the picks, he cursed silently; the picks were broken inside the lock, which was now jammed.

_'Fuck it.'_ Positioning his hand, he spread his fingers and sent a touch of chakra to the catch for his hidden weapon. The spike shot out, the thin, yet incredibly strong and sharp piece of metal firing directly into the lock. There was a loud clink as it broke through the tumblers.

Khalid slowly drew his hand back, hidden spike sliding back into its holster beneath his wrist as well-oiled gears did their work. He turned back to Riyadh, who had one eyebrow arched, and handed him the broken set of picks. Riyadh closed his eyes, lips tightening and his chest heaving as he laughed without a sound. Khalid tried not to think about how he would never hear the end of this.

Reaching out, Khalid opened the door silently. He glanced around, taking in the room before stepping up and to the side, making room for Riyadh.

The entire second floor was one bedroom. It still wasn't a very large bedroom, but Khalid tapped Riyadh on the shoulder and motioned for him to investigate the room while he dealt with the target nonetheless. Surprises were never good in the life of an Assassin.

Trusting Riyadh to alert him if anything went wrong, Khalid stepped lightly towards the bed and the sleeping merchant. He raised his hand back, the hidden spike sliding out of its sheath -

and Naruto stood there, arm held back for the kill. He swallowed convulsively, bile rising in his throat. _He was about to kill someone in cold blood._ His breathing became shallow and ragged, and his arm shook. The world around him began to spin and -

He sat up in his bed, panting. His sheets were soaked with sweat. After a moment, he pulled his right arm in front of his face, as if it had betrayed him...but there was no hidden spike. No weapons, no blood.

But he could still taste bitter bile in his throat. Mind in a small haze, Naruto couldn't figure it out.

_'Was that a dream...or was that real?'_

The question only spurred racing heart. Deep down, he knew it was more than a dream, even if he didn't want to admit it. As he went about his morning routine - and brushing his teeth and using deoderant, because variety was the spice of life - he studiously avoided looking at the book on his table.

--------

Taking his seat in the back of the classroom, as the alphabetized seating (thankfully) demanded, Naruto began to zone out, mind falling back to the feel of blood spraying into his face. His hands began to tremble, until he heard something that snapped him out of his nightmare; Iruka's voice. More specifically, just what Iruka was saying.

"...and for your final exam, you must each generate three bunshin. Wait here until your name is called, then come in next door."

For a blissful moment, the knowledge that he'd killed somebody he didn't even know didn't bother him. The Genin Exam, his one stumbling block on the road to Hokage, stood before him once more!

And he sucked at Bunshin. _'Shit.'_

Names were called slowly, by surname. Naruto was lost in frantic thought, trying to figure out a way to perform a bunshin within the next fifteen minutes. He even missed Iruka calling Sakura to the next room.

He did perk up a bit when he heard someone standing up next to him, then returned to scowling when he noticed it was Sasuke. The Uchiha, Naruto, and Ino were the only three left in the room, and Ino's yelled well-wishes did nothing to help his mood.

_'Shit, shit shit.'_ He began to chant it in his head, like a mantra. A minute later...

"Uzumaki Naruto!"

Standing, he did his best to hide the nervous tremble of his legs. He ignored whatever it was Ino said - it probably wasn't encouraging, whatever it was. When he saw his hands shaking, he took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then exhaled, letting all the tension flow out of his body. He took comfort in the now-familiar breathing exercise.

He opened the door to the next room and walked in, facing Iruka, Mizuki, and a desk. Two hitai-ate remained - one for him, one for Ino. Everyone else had passed; there was a hitai-ate made for every student.

He clasped his hands together in the basic Academy hand seal. _'Here goes nothing.'_ He reached out for his chakra...and flashed back to the dream. He couldn't get the mental image of sending ephemeral hands down into the well of his chakra, preparing it for Bunshin, out of his head. _'Could...could that work?'_

There was no reason it should. _'It was just a dream. It was just a dream. None of it was real!'_ he tried to tell himself, not believing a word of it. But...

Naruto shrugged his shoulders. He'd never been one for odds (or logic.) The last thing he saw as he closed his eyes in concentration was Mizuki beginning a yawn.

Instead of opening the mental floodgates to his chakra and letting it roar into his hands, like normal, Naruto reached inwards, shaping it with thought. Then he pulled it outwards, letting it flow into his hands. It felt like it took an aeon.

When he opened his eyes, feeling the chakra flow out of his hands, he whispered, "Bunshin no Jutsu."

Mizuki hadn't done more than start to yawn - the years he'd spent coaxing his chakra had taken less than an instant.

Three perfect clones appeared on each side of him in a loud poof of smoke. Mizuki's yawn turned to a choked gasp of surprise, and Iruka's jaw dropped, mirroring Naruto's own reaction to his ability to perform the technique.

_'It...worked!'_

Iruka closed his mouth, though Mizuki appeared to still be choking on something. Grinning, he reached out and grabbed one of the last two hitai-ate. Flipping it to Naruto, who caught it sheerly out of reflex, he called out, "Congratulations...graduate."

Naruto stared at his reflection in the cool metal of the hitai-ate. But...if he'd learned Bunshin from the assassination last night, that meant it was real, right? Had he really killed that man, or had it been a nightmare?

The reflection in the hitai-ate offered no answers.

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

Closing Comments: Fuck Mizuki and his Scroll of Sealing.

To explain the names...Riyadh means "gardens." Khalid means "eternal." Adel means "just." Seeing as Altair was flying eagle, and he had many themes around that, Riyadh likes to garden, Khalid has a pocketwatch he treasures, and Adel emphasizes justice. The target's name is Japanese because the Brotherhood uses Arabic names as a throwback to the old days and receiving the name is the equivalent of being knighted. (I made that up, obviously. But I'm too lazy to come up with geography appropriate names for the targets, so you'll have to deal.)


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Assassin's Creed.

**Path of the Broken Creed: Chapter One  
**

Naruto stared at the book on his kitchen table. It lay there, motionless, as if taunting him. "Nothing to see here" it seemed to whistle jauntily. Naruto gritted his teeth and scowled at the book, eyes scrunched up in frustration, arms crossed.

Cracking one eye open, he determined that the book hadn't done anything in the brief moment he hadn't been observing it. Sighing, he uncrossed his arms and stood up from his chair, aimlessly wandering in the direction of his refrigerator.

_'Damn book._ He paused in his train of thought to open the refrigerator door and take a quick glance over the limited contents. Not really paying attention, he grabbed a carton of milk and shook it next to his ear for a moment. The milk clunked against the plastic container, noticeably solid.

_'Still mostly liquid.'_

With that thought, Naruto pulled a glass out of the sink where he kept his dirty dishes and began to pour the milk into it, stopping occassionally to pound on the bottom of the carton to get an especially chunky bit through. Once the milk had been poured, he swirled it around in the glass with his finger in an attempt to break up some of the larger pieces of milk.

Preparations completed, he took a careful sip of the milk. Despite the bad taste, he kept drinking. Supposedly it was good for you and helped children grow. At least it didn't taste as bad as vegetables. Turning his eyes back to the book, Naruto grimaced. An observer would have a hard time telling if it was because of an especially chewy bit of milk or because of his thoughts. (Truthfully, it was a combination of both.)

_'Everything happened after that thing showed up. Is it driving me mad? Taking me to another world? Or...am I just having nightmares?'_ His thoughts were optimistic and hopeful for the last, though something told him it wasn't true.

Swirling his latest sip of milk around in his mouth and chewing as chunks presented themselves, Naruto thought back over the...assassination. That assassin...Khalid...performed Bunshin no Jutsu in a way Naruto had never thought of before, never heard of, and then...Naruto could do it.

But first he'd killed, and gone on uncaring.

Naruto held his left hand in front of his face, staring at it as if the hand would solve the paradox of his dream. Of course, it didn't, and he raised the hand behind his head, scratching the back of his hair thoughtfully as he finished the last of his milk. Placing the glass back in the dirty pile in the sink, he groaned in frustration. _'After Khalid made a Bunshin...I could. Are we...? No! I cared when the guard died. I'm not a killer. I'm _not._'_

Shaking his head, Naruto tried to banish the thought. His eyes fell to the book.

Reaching out, he ran his hand over the light blue leather cover. It was a strange color, and the leather had an aged feel to it, but other than that the thing appeared completely normal. He lightly grasped the hard edge of the leather, and braced himself.

He tightened his grip and flipped the book open to a random page. He immediately took a step back, reflexively falling into a defensive posture he'd half-learned at the Academy. Nothing happened.

Feeling somewhat silly, he slowly edged his way back towards his kitchen table, carefully craning his neck to peer down at the book. He swallowed nervously at the too familiar picture: a disguised Khalid forming the seal for Bunshin, Riyadh looking on in confusion. Naruto knew that beneath the Henge, blood coated the two.

_'...how? The book was about somebody running through a crowd!'_

Flipping through the next few pages, he saw Khalid smirking at an amused looking Riyadh as they strode towards the house, leaving behind the clone. Somehow the expressions managed to capture the entire feel of the conversation without actually saying anything.

The misgivings Naruto had felt when living that moment were entirely absent.

The book followed the assassination he'd had in a surreal fashion, as if _this_ was a dream and he'd lived through the real thing. He paused on the page showing a comical cut-away shot of the broken lockpick inside the lock.

Naruto paused. He knew what came next. _'I...I have to know.'_

Gently, almost fearfully flipping through the two Assassin's entrance to the room, Naruto saw Khalid holding his hand above the sleeping merchant, deadly-sharp spike gleaming in the dim light. Naruto closed his eyes as he turned to the next page, an action shot of the hand driving down towards the unsuspecting man, though it seemed...blurry, and distorted.

Trembling hands brought him to the next picture, and he gave a startled yelp of surprise. His own face looked back at him, covered in blood, uncaring eyes staring out from the page. The hair hung downwards and was a shade darker, and the birthmarks on his cheeks were gone...no. Not him. Khalid. Or maybe it was him. Was there a difference?

Naruto shoved the book away from him and stood quickly, knocking over his chair in the process. He stared at the spot where the book had last been on the table before it had clattered to the hardwood floor, breath coming quick and fast.

He stumbled backwards over his chair, backing away slowly from the kitchen. His back hit the wall, and he froze. He edged towards the opening to his bedroom, eyes never leaving the table. Finally his seeking hands met an end to the wall, and he turned to walk into his bedroom, looking nervously over his shoulder all the while.

The mental image of the blood-covered face never left him. He remembered the feel of blood on his face; now he knew how he looked. Like the monster he heard people call him behind his back. His breath became shallow, almost hyperventilating.

His apartment was too hot, and he shucked off his jacket nervously, knocking off the poorly tied hitai-ate he'd received that morning in the process. Naruto blindly stumbled into the bathroom, turning on the sink faucet and immediately shoving his head under the spray of cold water. It wasn't the largest of sinks, but he wasn't the biggest of people either.

He stayed like that until his breath calmed. Closing his eyes, he pulled his head out from under the faucet and took a deep breath, tilting his head back. Water streamed down from his hair and spattered against the already soaked tile floor. Taking a deep breath, he tried to slow his still racing heart.

Opening his eyes, he looked down and twisted the knob for the faucet, shutting off the water. _'Calm down,'_ Naruto thought, idly watching the last of the water go down the drain. _'It's a creepy book that's giving me nightmares. That's _it_.'_

The train of thought was interrupted when he looked up from the sink and into the mirror. His hair, darkened by the water, hung in an eerily familiar fashion. The water managed to blur the whisker marks of his cheeks, and the water_blood_ covered his face, the blood of that guard...

Naruto stepped backwards, hands held up to shield his eyes from the image of himself. His foot slipped on the wet tile, and he floundered backwards. Naruto crashed to the floor, unable to catch himself in time. His head snapped backwards against the tile with a dull crack, and the world went black.

He lay unmoving as the wet tile of the bathroom floor began to pink with blood.

-/-/=\-\-

Naruto tightened his hitai-ate in the small mirror opposite his front door, grinning. He was a ninja, one of the respected Konoha elite. Satisfied with his appearance, he gave himself one last look in the mirror before turning to his door. He twisted the handle and threw the door open in typically exuberant Naruto fashion. He took one rushed step forwards before freezing, hand tightening convulsively on the doorknob.

Hell stood before him.

The faces of the Hokage monument had been reduced to barely recognizable rubble. The only whole fragment of the monument remaining was the left cheek of the Sandaime, still marked by the mocking tear lines Naruto had covered it in a mere day ago. The houses built into the cliff wall beneath the monument were completely gone, the gargantuan stone remnants of the Hokage faces at the base of the moment giving silent testimony to their destruction.

His jaw went slack with shock and his hand fell to his side. He collapsed to his knees, sending up a small poof of soot, dirtying the hitai-ate he'd polished so carefully.

It only got worse the closer he looked. A mile away at the monument, Konoha was in shambles, burned and twisted steel girders sticking into the air in urban parody of a petrified forest. About halfway to the monument, the village still burned, sending acrid clouds of smoke billowing into the sky, seemingly amplifying the hellish chorus of broken, agonized screams.

Everything closer than that was gone. Not one stone stood upon another...except in one place. Naruto's apartment remained alone and whole, the rest of the complex vanished in the cataclysm.

His eyes teared up from shock and the thick ash in the air. His body collapsed backwards, knees bent painfully beneath him as his mind blanked, unable to keep him upright.

The sky was red with reflected flame, smoke and soot obscuring the sun and circling around the town in an infernal spiral, sucking in the flames and embers of fallen Konoha.

Naruto raised a hand to the sky, tears of numb shock leaving clean trails in the soot on his face. No god answered his silent call, and he let the hand fall limply to the ash covered ground. He didn't know how long he lay like that, staring up at the sky. But eventually, even the apocalypse before him could not keep him motionless. Naruto stood slowly, jerkily, mouth open slightly. He inhaled ash with every choking breath, and it burned his lungs.

He wandered through the ruins, a hot wind blowing at his back, pushing him onwards towards the devestation with ephemeral fingers of heat. As he came closer to the monument, the devestation lessened, until eventually there were entire rooms only half-gone and the streets were only choked with rubble instead of covered under a thick layer of ash. The air was infinitesimally clearer, though Naruto was still forced to hold the large white collar of his orange jacket over his mouth to keep breathing.

There was no time in the charred remains of Konoha. There was only burning heat, wind heavy with ash, and monotonous destruction. Naruto kept on through the ruins that were all that remained of his world, looking for someone, something to answer his calls to a world gone eerily silent. What? Why? How?

Something coughed, sounding almost as if it were choking, to his left. Naruto dazedly turned in that direction, expecting to see another body, another ashen outline against the wall.

He didn't expect to see a small bundle of rags, shaking in the lee of the wind provided by an overturned door wedged against a half destroyed wall. Naruto blinked in surprise, before hurrying forward, legs weak with exhaustion.

His knees gave out a few yards from the object, and he crashed to the ground, scattering ash into the air. It took him a moment to muster the energy to pull his face out of the filth, and when he did, the pile of rags had shrunk away from him, edging towards the junction of the door and the ruined wall. Naruto's strained to open his mouth, desperate to call out and reassure the person, but he couldn't muster the energy to shove his head up from the ground and force out speech.

The two remained distant, one huddled and fearful, the other exhausted and confused, for several minutes.

A shaky hand rose from the dirt, once-beloved-orange jacket a dirty black. Another joined it, and with a heroic effort, Naruto managed to push himself up to a kneeling position. He reeled backward, disoriented, and managed to catch himself with a flailing hand. The bundle of rags watched the display in silence.

"Wh-what ha..?" Naruto gasped, free hand rubbing at his throat. Every half-word was a battle against the wind-driven ash that sought to choke him to deathly silence.

The person pressed itself further into the dark corner, seeming to grow smaller with every gesture on Naruto's behalf.

"No! Don't...afraid...I'm...ninja..." The hand moved from his throat to poking at the heavy hitai-ate, the metal plate burning against his skull. Naruto was rewarded with a lack of fearful motion from the other figure. Naruto grinned weakly. This was a triumph.

He rose to shaky feet, stretching out to steady himself against the broken wall. "It's 'kay...'m not gonna hurt ya..." he muttered to the person as he took one wobbly step after another, a broken stream of reassuring nonsense pouring from his mouth, each word scraping a burning trail in his throat as he forced it out.

When he was no more than a foot away, he could see the person's face for the first time. His face fell, and he swallowed nervously. A little girl, no more than three, squatted down in the ash, brown, bandage-like rags the only thing standing between her and the murderous wind. Large green eyes peeked out at him distrustfully from behind the flapping cloth.

Naruto couldn't stand how she looked. Vulnerable and afraid, afraid of him. Shaking hands unzipped his jacket, and after a moment of weak struggle, he held it out to her, ignoring the way the wind burned the now exposed flesh of his arms.

He smiled weakly, trying to overcome the profound wave of sadness the sight of the lone girl's mere existence brought him. "Here."

She remained motionless, though the distrustful green eyes flickered in the direction of the dirty garment, something like hope kindling in the girl's expression. Then the eyes turned back to his face and became guarded once more.

Naruto reflexively brought a hand up, feeling at the object of distrust. Comprehension dawned, and he chuckled, the noise sounding more like a death rattle than anything else. "'s jus' ash."

Naruto dropped his filthy hand a few inches to the neckline of his relatively clean black undershirt before raising the garment up over his eyes and scrubbing furiously against his face, trying to get the worst of the soot off. The movement caused his other hand to jerk, dipping the jacket slightly into the ash of the ground. After a few moments he let his shirt fall back into place, ignoring the discomfort of the dirty soot now on his chest in favor of the little girl's reaction.

A hand slowly stretched out past the rags, and Naruto gave the little girl a congratulatory smile for accepting the jacket -

but the hand kept going past the jacket. The girl stood, slowly edging forward, wide emerald eyes focused on his face, dirty brown hair matted around her head like an angel's halo. She brushed a hand against his cheek, leaving a streak of black filth. Naruto remained motionless, his only response a confused tightening of his eyebrows. The girl turned her face slightly, her eyes drawing him in. Her lip trembled as she opened her mouth, horror beyond the worst things this Hell had shown him shaking her voice.

"Bakemono." Monster.

Naruto's jaw fell slack and his hand balled into a confused fist around the neck of his still outstretched jacket, wide eyes giving silent plea to the girl. The world grew black and shadowed, narrowed down to just the two of them. She shuddered violently, mouth opening to utter a scream...but all that came forth was a trickle of blood. She fell forward, collapsing against his chest, and Naruto could see a cloaked, hooded figure standing behind her, arm outstretched over the broken wall.

A small, thin blade extended from the figure's hand, deep crimson dripping down its length. The figure flicked his arm to the side, blood flying to the ground before the small blade disappeared. Naruto's hands tightened unconsciously on the girl's motionless form, jaw clenching at the sight.

"Why...why did you...?" he growled, teeth grinding.

"Why did I? No, that's not right..." the figure responded in an eerily familiar voice, gloved hands moving slowly to his hood. The figure slowly revealed his face as he said, "The right question is...why did you? Because..."

Naruto looked up at his face in horror, eyes widening, orange jacket falling from numb hands.

Naruto looked down at himself, watched as the jacket slipped into the ash, felt the blood of the still-wet hidden spike trickle down his wrist.

Double-vision spiked into his brain, and he fell to his knees, clutching his head, agony driving everything but an omnipresent voice from the world.

"Because...we are the same."

Something inside Naruto snapped. His body went limp, and the words continued to echo. He couldn't find anything to protest.

Because...was the voice right?

_-blood-_

It couldn't be. He wasn't...but he was.

-/-/=\-\-

At his entrance, silence slowly enveloped the classroom. Heads turned, conversation ceased, and an air of stilted shock permeated the students-cum-genin. He ignored it all, shuffling to his usual seat next to Sasuke.

He collapsed bonelessly down onto the bench, blood-caked blonde hair sticking out at all angles. He'd been there for less than a second before his arms were on the desk. He pitched forward, landing heavily on his pillowed arms, and passed out.

The class continued to stare expectantly at Naruto, as if waiting for the boy to spring to his feet and return to his normal stupidity. Before any of them could muster up the courage to poke him with a stick (standard procedure for confirming that something was dead) the door slammed open, causing them to all reflexively turn to the front of the class.

Iruka barely spared a glance at the assembled students as he strode to the teacher's desk, clipboard in hand. Nothing seemed out of place - Naruto was asleep, the girls were already turning their attention back in the general direction of Sasuke...then his eyes froze in their hasty inspection of the class and he did a brief double take.

Shikamaru was awake? Strange. Oh well, it saved him the trouble of having to wake the boy up and tell him his team assignment. He'd probably be seeing Shikamaru again after he failed his sensei's exam...the boy had no drive.

Trying to banish that morose thought, he turned his attention back to the clipboard, resolutely refusing to look up.

"From now on, you are no longer students, but fully fledged shinobi," he began, mind drifting as he went through the rote speech welcoming the new graduates. "The next step in your career is the assignment of official duties on behalf of Konoha. We will begin by dividing you into three man teams, each of which will be mentored by a jounin who will instruct you as you become more familiar with your various duties. I've divided you all so that the cells would have roughly equal abilities."

That last bit was pure fiction, of course. He'd only controlled the selection of maybe half the graduates; the rest had already been sorted into teams when he'd been assigned the task. He knew better than to ask, but the reasons were obvious. Couldn't have a clan scion fall into disgrace because they failed to become genin, after all.

The first six team assignments went well, with only the occasional moan of frustration. It would be short-lived, as would the teams themselves. None of them were slated to pass this year.

He prepared himself for some sort of exclamation when he announced Team Seven. "Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura..." - the sound of the girl's forehead slamming against her desk was audible clear across the classroom - "and Uchiha Sasuke." Her cheer was deafening from the same distance. Iruka paused in his reading of the teams to give a quick glance up at Naruto, who appeared to still be asleep. On another day, an eraser would have been in the air before one of the students could blink, but this was supposed to be a solemn occasion. Shrugging mental shoulders, he continued on with the team assignments.

Nobody in the classroom noticed blue eyes slit open and carefully study the two who had been placed on his team. Something unreadable gleamed in their icy depths before the lids shut once more.

"...and I'll be introducing your jounin-sensei later this afternoon. Until then, you're dismissed."

-------

Dead blue eyes gazed off blankly into the distance while he slumped lazily against the red brick wall of the side street. All of his attention was centered on his male teammate, eating what appeared to be a rice ball, several stories beneath him. Sasuke finished, oblivious to the other's presence, and leapt off the wall he'd been sitting on, heading in the direction of the Academy. He gave up his pose of apathy and moved to follow, silently bounding along the rooftops.

The pursuit continued for several more minutes, Sasuke oblivious. The blonde had a natural talent for avoiding attention; he just rarely had any inclination to use it.

Finally, Sasuke stopped outside a market stall, eyeing something that was concealed from Naruto by the stall's awning.

It would be a long time before before he got another chance like that.

His hand crept for his kunai pouch and unbuttoned the flap as quietly as he could. There was no chance to be heard at this distance, but stealth was never a bad habit.

The hilt felt comfortable in his hand, and he cocked his arm back, keeping his eyes on Sasuke. It wasn't that far a distance, but one shot was one shot. It would have to hit, and be fatal quickly, or the inevitable deluge of medic-nin would stabilize him.

He turned his arms back and bent his knees slightly, then took a step forward, hurling his arm forwards with lightning speed.

A bony hand clenched around his fist, and before he could react he'd been whirled around and thrown to the ground. He looked up at horn rimmed glasses that shone with reflected light, concealing the grey eyes of the woman who pinned him with almost laughable ease. But he'd never been one to give up, and he twisted his upper body, left hand crossing his waist, going for the kunai pouch at his leg.

_Shink!_

He froze, left eye open wide, futilely attempting to focus on the small blade scratching the tip of his eyelid. With his right eye, he could just manage to make out the holster for the knife inside the woman's sleeve. The entire thing looked to be a mechanical device, some internal mechanism propelling the blade outward...and through the hole in her fist left by an amputated ring finger.

_'A hidden blade!? Is she...?'_

Neither spoke, and he held his breath, fearful that any movement might end with the hidden blade lodged in his skull.

She broke the mutual silence first. "I've been looking for you." This seemed like a rhetorical comment, so he didn't answer. Answering would require movement, and he was deathly afraid of any movement. "I only have one question for you. Blink if you understand."

He could feel his eyelashes brushing against the razor edge of the blade as he blinked, and swallowed unconsciously.

"What is your name?"

His mouth opened, reflexive response from years of answering the question on the tip of his tongue. No words came out, and his head rocked backwards, bumping lightly against the rough bricks, sending a bolt of pain through his still tender scalp wound. Confusion flickered across his features, and his brow tightened as he sought the answer that he _knew_ he should know. Mental gears spun furiously in place, but nothing connected, and his thoughts ran wild, down bright mental paths that were and dark ones that were not.

"Kha...Nar…lito? No...no...that's not..."

The hidden blade and the oppressive presence radiating from the woman disappeared, but he remained motionless on the ground, barely aware of the world around him. A distant voice echoed, and he looked up, trying to focus dazed eyes upon the speaker.

The woman, who he could now clearly see was the librarian, frowned, pale thin lips drawn into a grim line. Her eyes flicked over him, taking in the dirty, unwashed clothes, bloodstained hair, and unevenly dilated pupils. "Worthless. You've already succumbed to the memories."

He reached for the word like a drowning man for a lifeline. "Memories?"

Her grey eyebrows rose above the horned rims of her glasses. "So…there might be a few shreds of sanity left, if you can actually form a coherent thought," she thought aloud. Giving the blond a calculating look, she asked, "Why were you following that boy?"

"He's my…target? No…my rival? I…I think…" he trailed off, mouth moving silently.

She sighed. "You'll never survive if you can't answer those questions. You're too far gone…"

He didn't respond.

She slowly shook her head. "But maybe he knows who you are?" Her voice was quiet, hinting, and unobtrusive. It hit the boy like a brick to the head. She continued on in the same un-ignorable voice. "Follow him." The voice continued on, a misty haze enveloping his mind, and he couldn't help but nod affirmation.

He rose slowly from the bricks, still ignoring the dried blood clumped in his dirty hair. The command completely bypassed the few remaining centers of logical thought he possessed, and went straight into motion.

As he raced off over the rooftops, the librarian frowned silently to herself, rubbing her now aching head.

And everything was going so well, before that meddling kid showed up…

-------  
His disheveled appearance didn't attract more than a briefly upturned eyebrow from his dark haired teammate, though the other spent several minutes loudly telling "Sasuke-kun" how it made "the idiot" look like a madman.

The three were alone in an empty classroom, still waiting on…someone, he'd forgotten who. Or why, only that he was supposed to wait and…follow.

An hour later the door slid open, and a very tall, slim man with impossibly angled silver hair walked into the room. The man's hitai-ate was slung down over his face like an eye patch, and a cloth mask concealed the lower half of his face, leaving only the right eye visible.

The man spent a few moments looking over them, making a show of inspecting each of them closely. The eye closed, and even though he couldn't see the man's face, he knew that there was a smile plastered upon it.

"You must tell me who does your hair. I've never seen something that manages to pull off the 'dropped on my head as a baby' look quite so well."

The blond grinned even as his female teammate gave him a superior look. The other frowned darkly, trying to pierce the stupid look of innocence on the silver haired man's face.

He was right to be suspicious. After all, the silver haired man had been facing all three of them when he'd spoken.

------

The group of four sat on the roof, the silver haired man perched precariously upon a railing over a hundred feet from the ground. The children had taken the simpler option of sitting on the stairs.

The silver haired man carelessly waved an arm at the trio of children, ignoring the way it made him wobble on the railing. "Now, I'd like you all to tell us about yourselves. You know, the usual stuff…what you like the most, hate the most, dreams, ambitions, hobbies...things like that."

The girl hugged her knees close to her chest. "Why don't you go first? We don't know anything about you, either."

An eyebrow rose in mock surprise, disappearing behind the tilted cloth of a hitai-ate. "Me? Well…my name is Hatake Kakashi. I don't feel like talking about my likes or dislikes, my dreams for the future are none of your business…" All three children could see where this was headed, and none of them enjoyed it. "But at least I have a lot of hobbies!" Kakashi finished brightly, his one visible eye closed as he somehow managing to pull off a smiling look.

This would bear further investigation. Was he using some sort of mental projection?

"Now, it's your turn, starting with you on the left."

The girl perked up, hands clenching into girlish fists in front of her face as she cast a sidelong glance at the dark haired boy in the middle. "My name is Haruno Sakura. My favorite thing isn't really a…thing, it's a person. A boy. And that boy is…" she brought her fists up over her face, as if attempting to conceal the deepening of her blush. "Uh…let's move on to my dream."

Her eyes widened briefly, and then she shut them tightly, entire body quivering. Her bright pink hair fell over her face, concealing her expression. He could hear the faintest hint of a squeal come out of her mouth.

Thankfully Kakashi interrupted, head shaking almost imperceptibly to himself. "That…that will be enough. Thank you, Sakura. Now…you in the middle."

Everyone focused closely, Sakura blushing, heart in her eyes, Kakashi with thinly veiled interest. The last, with a strange kind of hope.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke," he began, mouth concealed behind interlaced fingers, giving him an air of the dramatic. "There are plenty of things I hate, but I don't think it matters, considering there is almost nothing I do like. It seems pointless to talk about 'dreams.' That's just a word…but I do have an ambition."

Sasuke's face turned hard as he finished, and, tilting his head upright to stare Kakashi in the eyes, he said, "To restore my clan and…to kill a certain man."

Sakura gasped, and slowly began to outstretch an arm in compassion. Her courage quickly failed her, and she turned the gesture into a nervous brushing of her hair.

_'I wonder if he's talking about me?'_

Kakashi nodded, face...eye…unreadable. "And finally, you on the right."

Silence. Blue eyes clouded over, and he froze. Struggling against himself, he narrowed his eyes, trying to bring up the name that wouldn't come. That disturbing, alien feeling of the wheels of his mind spinning in place returned, and he couldn't -

**_Whack!_**

"Naruto! He's talking to you!" Sakura yelled, chest heaving as she shook her fist at him. "Pay attention!"

Sasuke turned to stare at her, registering emotion for the first time. Sakura blushed and let out something that sounded suspiciously like "meep!" before turning away, as if nothing had happened.

The blond ignored the exchange, mental gears crunching into place. One could almost hear the whirring clicks as his life exploded behind his eyes.

He spoke boldly, as if the declaration would make it more real. "My name…is Uzumaki Naruto!"


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Assassin's Creed or Naruto.

Author's Notes: There was actually a gap of about a year and a half between the time of writing for the last two chapters and this one. But...the trailer vids for AC2 were just so awesome. Had to start it up again. Problem is I lost all my notes in the intervening period, so instead of what I think

**Path of the Broken Creed: Chapter Two**

Kakashi paused for a few minutes, but Naruto was just sitting there, the elation on his face obvious.

"Oooookay," Kakashi said. _'Why do I always get stuck with the Special Ed. Shinobi?'_ He coughed. "Moving on. We'll have a formal training exercise tomorrow. The training theme will be…_survival._" His eyes closed and his voice began to drip with false happiness. "Against me."

The reactions were disappointing. Oh, sure, Sakura seemed a little cowed, but the Uchiha's brooding gaze only intensified slightly, and Naruto was still off in his own world.

Clearly he needed to up the ante.

"This test will determine whether or not you become shinobi." Sakura gasped, and the boys could have been deaf. Kakashi pressed on, "The graduation exam at the Academy is a farce. This will be a true test of your abilities…or more accurately, your lack of them. You see, everyone who graduated is taking a test like this, and two out of every three will fail and be sent back to the Academy."

Naruto's head snapped up; apparently he'd returned to his senses. "Huh?"

Sakura looked ill.

And Sasuke…smirked. Clearly, he'd figured out that of the three members of his team, he was the strongest. Kakashi could practically read the boy's mind: two out of three. Naruto and Sakura were the weak links, and Sasuke would pass.

Kakashi almost laughed at him. _'Doesn't work that way, kid.'_

"I expect you all to be at Training Ground Seven by 6:00 AM. Have a nice day!" He smiled and waved before disappearing in a poof of smoke.

-/-/=\-\-

He didn't show up to the training session until 10 o'clock, but by the looks the kids were giving him, they'd all been on time. Ah, so good to see that the little munchkins were sticklers for the rules. Made it even more likely that he wouldn't have to deal with them for more than one morning.

"Good morning, students!" he called. The assorted glares and yells they responded with gave him a warm fuzzy feeling inside. "I've brought two bells and an alarm clock." He held up both items, then placed the alarm clock on a nearby tree stump and tied the bells to a belt loop on his pants.

"The training is very, very simple." He gave the kids an understanding, sympathetic look. "I'll even use small words. You have until noon to get these two bells from me. If you don't have a bell by noon, you get tied to that tree stump in ignominious defeat and shame."

Naruto frowned and crossed his arms. "What happened to 'no big words'?" he muttered.

Kakashi smiled at him. "I'm an adult, so I don't have to tell the truth." He paused. "There was something else…oh, yeah. If you don't have a bell, you'll fail as a ninja and be sent back to the Academy. That too."

"But…there are only two bells," Sakura noted weakly.

His smile widened, and his eyes crinkled in amusement. "Yep! So one of you will suffer shame and laughter as you repeat classes you should have already mastered no matter what happens!"

This time, their reactions were anything but disappointing. Sasuke hid his nervousness well, but the insecurity at the prospect of failure was still obvious. Sakura had all but collapsed, and Naruto…damn. Still that same expression of frustration and determination. Ah well. Can't win em all.

"You may use whatever weapons you want. Shuriken, kunai, exploding tags, logs, marmosets, dirty looks, bad breath, etc. Come at me as if you intended to kill me, or you'll never stand a chance." He winked his one visible eye at them. "Now…begin!"

They still stood there, nervously. He frowned, and made a shooing gesture. "Go on! Hide, ambush me, run away, attack, wet yourself, or whatever it is kids do these days. Clock's running."

He wasn't sure which one of them dropped a smoke bomb, but when it cleared, nobody was there. Lovely.

Ambushing a jounin who was ready for you was one of the many definitions of futility. Especially since he was in a wide open clearing that provided no cover for an approaching attacker. Chuckling, Kakashi pulled his worn, well used copy of Icha Icha Paradise out of his kunai pouch and flipped it to page 126. He felt like reading about that busty redhead. Shame he didn't know any, but the book would suffice. Ooooh, he'd forgotten about _that._ Yes, this would definitely do. He turned the page, giggling more at the anger he could feel rolling off the kids than the perverted prose.

If they didn't want him to read porn, they shouldn't have hidden in the bushes. Oooh, bushes. Page 77 had a scene in the bushes. He flipped to that one, but quickly moved to another passage. Blondes…eh. Not in the mood.

He caught the kunai that someone (Sasuke?) had thrown at him and discarded it carelessly, then licked his fingers and turned the page. Hrm. There was that one scene in the onsen, but the viewpoint shifted too much for his liking. Maybe the "climactic" ending? _'Nah…I'll just start from the beginning again.'_

A flurry of shuriken came his way, and he batted them aside with the metal plate on the back of his fingerless glove. The Hokage was such an irritating man, making him play with these kids during his porn time. Technically it was always porn time, but that was beside the point. He'd have to give up a few hours of sleep to make up for the time these kids were stealing from him.

Maybe if he moved around as he read, they'd feel more like jumping him and ending this. Couldn't hurt.

He'd reached page three by the time he entered the trees at the edge of the clearing. As he was turning to page nine and the conclusion of the first sex scene, somebody sprung a trap, sending a hail of sharp, pointy objects at him. A simple replacement later, he was standing on a nearby tree branch.

Meh. The first scene had been okay. He kept reading, but kept a part of his attention on the flicker of orange in the next tree.

He skimmed the next few pages, his heart not really in it. The really good stuff was two scenes away, but it _did_ need the setup for the full impact. The bit of orange hadn't moved, and he spared it a closer look.

Ah. Just the jacket then. Which meant the owner would be somewhere nearby…there, behind that tree. The heel of a blue zori sandal was poking out from behind the tree slightly, twitching every few moments. It looked like it was about the right size for Naruto's foot.

The next few pages of the book were boring. Everybody still had their clothes on. He glanced up at the sandal. The movements were slower now, edging closer to the tree trunk. Naruto was probably preparing something.

In a moment of pique, Kakashi closed his book and shifted it to his left hand. If the brats wouldn't attack, he would. There was no reason he had to spend two hours of his day babysitting.

A silent leap later, he stood before the tree on the side opposite Naruto. He drew his fast back and punched the trunk as hard as he could. Kakashi was no Gai, but the blow still split the trunk in half, and it fell to the right with a booming crack of timber. By the squawk from that direction, he'd almost squished Sakura.

He looked down at where a blonde mop of hair should have been, framing eyes staring up in wonder at Kakashi's fearful jounin might. Instead, there was only a squirrel stuck to a shoe, which had been stuck to the ground. Each effect had been achieved with liberal use of duct tape.

_'Huh. Interesting.'_

He leaped forward over the stump, dodging a roundhouse kick from Naruto's one still-shod foot. The boy followed, fist leading.

Kakashi flipped open his book and lazily deflected the blow. It took a true master to hold the book in one hand and simultaneously turn the pages with it, but he did. Here we go, page 16. The second scene was just beginning.

Naruto kept attacking. Most of his blows were directed more with furious energy than any actual skill, and Kakashi fell into an easy rhythm of block-dodge-block-parry-taunt-dodge-repeat. Naruto wasn't compensating well for the way his one shoe off-balanced him; he really should have taken both shoes off.

Something in the air changed, a breath of...heat. Kakashi's nose twitched.

"Naruto, move!"

Naruto looked up in confusion, realization dawning too late. Kakashi lashed out at Naruto with the heel of his hand, knocking the boy out of the radius of Sasuke's fire attack. As the flames rushed down, Kakashi disappeared into the ground, letting the attack cover his retreat.

Once underground and assured that his hair and book remained unsinged, he narrowed his eyes. For the first time since the test had started, he put his book away. What was that child thinking? He slowly dug his way back up, surfacing a few dozen yards away from the burnt circle of earth left from Sasuke's attack and out of the boys' line of sight.

"What the hell, bastard! You could have hit me!"

"I told you to move. Now be quiet; he's got to be around here somewhere. And this time, stay out of my way." The venom in his voice was audible.

Kakashi crouched down, sitting on his heels as he listened.

Naruto muttered something, and Kakashi wished he could hear it. By the sound of it, it had been vicious.

"Don't call me that again, idiot."

Naruto repeated the mutter, but yelped halfway through, and Kakashi heard the sound of foliage rustling as someone bounded through the trees, avoiding something, a shuriken by the whistling noise. Kakashi's frown deepened, and he focused all of his attention on the pair, whose fighting had drawn them even further away. He could follow, but there was always the chance that doing so would draw their attention to him.

"I told you, don't call me - " Sasuke's answer was cut off with what sounded like the impact of a fist. Kakashi heard several more in rapid succession.

It took an effort to restrain his disgust. Fighting each other during an exercise that was a test of teamwork. Worthless.

The slight noise of earth shifting alerted him to a presence behind him. He'd almost forgotten about Sakura. Hm. Sacrificing her teammates as a distraction to get the job done. Almost as contemptible as the boys, but the effort should be rewarded nonetheless.

She reached out for the bells at his waist slowly, very slowly, trying not to make any noise. Kakashi pretended to not hear her, but by the time her fingers closed on the bells he'd been sorely tempted to end the charade. She moved so _slow._. He whirled as if he'd just noticed her, and made a pathetically weak lunge for her. She barely managed to duck underneath his arm. Before he could bother faking another grab, she darted off towards the boys.

He paused, wondering for a moment. Had he been played? Was that fight really just a distraction?

The sound of jingling reached his ears, and the boys' fight ceased. "I, um, got one for you too Sasuke-kun…"

He sighed in disgust, raising his hand to his forehead and squeezing his temples, already feeling a massive headache. No, he hadn't been played. And the three brats he'd been set to watch were an absurd tangle of factions and petty selfishness.

"Hey, what about me?" Naruto called.

Kakashi gave up on ignoring the conflict and rose to his feet. A quick jump took him to the trees, and he stealthily hopped his way to where he could see the brats.

They'd fallen into an awkward sort of silence after Naruto's question. Sakura was still holding the bell out in Sasuke's direction, who was looking at it like a poisonous snake. Naruto himself was staring at Sasuke, jealousy and rage written across his face. His right hand was also spasming in an unusual fashion, his middle and ring fingers spreading away from each other, holding, and then squeezing back together.

Sasuke slowly walked up to Sakura, his hand outstretched. By his posture, Kakashi expected him to slap it away. From what he knew of the boy's pride, it would seem likely.

Except Naruto tackled him from behind before Sasuke could touch the bell, screaming all the while. Sasuke whirled, bringing his knee up into Naruto's gut. Sakura gasped and pulled her hand back, clearly wanting to help Sasuke but not sure how.

Naruto took the blow with a grimace and brought his right hand, the one that had been convulsing, down onto Sasuke's kidney. The blow was light, but by Naruto's somewhat confused expression, he'd expected more of a reaction. Sasuke twisted, throwing Naruto to the side, then rolling on top of him and bringing his fist crashing down onto Naruto's face. The next blow caught only dirt, and while Sasuke was focused on pummeling his foe, Naruto's hand was inching towards his kunai pouch.

Sakura intervened, stomping on his hand. Sasuke snarled at her for interfering, giving Naruto the opportunity to throw Sasuke off of himself. He followed the movement with a sweeping kick that took Sakura's legs out from beneath her. She fell with a startled "Meep!" dropping the bells as she went.

It went on for several more minutes, Kakashi hating them all more each and every second of it. He'd been about to leave them to fight it out when Sasuke began to make the handseals to form a massive fireball.

Kakashi's lip curled up in disgust. _'Enough.'_ He disappeared in a burst of speed.

Before Sasuke could bring his hands together to make the Tiger seal, Kakashi had reappeared behind him. He turned as he chopped at the back of the boy's neck, giving the blow an extra bit of force that sent Sasuke spinning through the air, landing a good ten feet away. Before he hit the ground, Kakashi had dealt with the other two in a similar fashion.

He looked down at their prone, unconscious forms, his anger nowhere near satisfied. He paused, standing there, letting his hands clench and unclench until he knew he wouldn't choke the life out of the next brat he touched.

That done, he picked them up and began dragging them out of the forest and back to the clearing, where the test had begun a mere 45 minutes ago.

-/-/=\-\-

Naruto woke up first. He took in the ropes binding him to the pole, and opened his mouth to ask Kakashi a question. The glare he received shut him up before the first syllable was out of his mouth. Good boy.

Sakura woke up next, tied to the log on Naruto's right.

Sasuke was the last one to regain consciousness. Kakashi had put him on the log to the left of Naruto.

"Good, we're all here." Kakashi's voice could have frozen steel. "I think you all need a little history lesson on this exam. I trust you won't be going anywhere for the next few minutes?"

They wisely remained silent at the rhetorical question.

"This test has been used for four generations of shinobi, and was passed down from sensei to student over the years. The Shodai and Nidaime to their student the Sandaime, to the Sandaime's pupil Jiraiya of the Legendary Sannin, to his student the Yondaime Hokage, to his student, _me._ It's been used to weed out anything but the best of the best. And do you know what the _point_ of this exercise is?"

Sakura opened her mouth as if to guess, then shut it, the sound of her teeth clicking together eerily loud in the sudden silence. "No," she whispered.

Kakashi nodded at her. "No. You don't. The point is something that I value above all else: teamwork." He paused to let that sink in. "The two bells are a trick, designed to keep you from figuring it out. It's a test to see who will sacrifice their own ambitions for the good of the group. But never, **never** have I had a group – group, because you aren't worthy of the title "team" – attack each other to try and get the bells. **Never!**"

His yell faded into the forest, and he glared at them each in turn. "You are all a disgrace to the shinobi tradition, to the ideals I hold dear, and to each other. You are not worthy of being ninja, and when you leave, you will not go back to the Academy for more schooling. It would be a waste of the instructors' time. You are all hopeless failures. You will never be ninja, and I never want to see any of you again. Ever."

With that, he turned and stalked away, leaving the three little bastards tied to the logs. Normally, he'd give them a second chance.

But today, he didn't feel any pity for the brats. Only contempt.


End file.

Assassin's Creed, Naruto, Adventure, Drama