Naruto: The return of the lost child.

Ch-24

A void of silence remained between the group and Nagato before Minato said "A-all are dead? What do you mean by that?". Without saying anything Nagato indicated the group to follow him.

In less than a minute they reached a vast area which radiated of honor, sacrifices, cries, pain....the place in front of them was none other than Akatsuki's graveyard. Ten graves with it's respective name being carved on it left the group shocked and terrified.

"This is where you will have answer to your every question." Itachi continued "These ten graves are all of our ten Akatsuki members. Starting from it's founder Obito.".

Words couldn't describe what all of them were feeling right now. As per their record, none of the Akatsuki was ever found dead, then what were these graves about. Their face asked for a big explanation for it. Tears couldn't stop flowing out of Kakashi's eyes as he could still feel Obito's vibes near the grave.

Kushina and Minato were devastated. Their face was as pale as it could be. "Unlike what everyone of you think Akatsuki is, it was a group to eliminate a catastrophic disaster in future. Madara was the first shinobi who came to know about this" mention of the legendary shinobi Madara from Nagato's mouth took everyone's attention "A seal that if broken would cause elimination of human race,had it's key to open in the same world. That key was none other than Uchihas themselves.

As the population of Uchihas would increase the seal would get weaker. Only solution Madara could think of at that time was to massacre his own clan. But he was stopped by his own friend Hashirama Senju. After his failure he left his ideals behind which were taken by Obito. This lead to formation of the Akatsuki. But, unfortunately he too, was killed by his own friend." As Nagato explained them Minato and Kushina slowly walked in front of Naruto's grave as they fell on their knees.

"Kaa-san! Tou-san!" exclaimed Menma. "N-naruto?" Minato murmered his name in front of his name. "The last member of Akatsuki. Naruto the Key. Even at the age of 19 he was willing to sacrifice his life without any hesitation.".

"Why!!" Kushina screamed with emotion "why did he have to die?".

"By the time Obito knew about the truth it was all too late. Uchihas were populated enough that killing them would mean no effect on the seal. It had already started breaking. The only thing that could stop it was sealing of Tailed-Beasts chakra. Danzo was collecting the Tailed-Beasts chakra for the same reason. So our mission was to get all the chakra scrolls and trap it in the huge statue that you all saw earlier.

But it wouldn't come without any cost. Chakra scroll exists in encrypted form. And to access it we need to first put it in a shinobi's body and then extract it. This extraction would cause the shinobi's life. All of the Akatsuki members died in the same process....due to chakra being extracted from their body and trapped in the statue." Said Nagato.

"But there was an exception" added Itachi "unlike other Tailed-Beasts chakra scroll, Nine Tails chakra scroll was enormous and kind of privileged. Not anyone could access it. Only the chosen one could possess such powers. The reason why in the history of Shinobis it was never used was because no one was simply capable of it. Thus our first priority became to find such person who could possess it. We called him the Key.".

Silently everyone was taking all the information. It was as if they were being introduced to new reality...or The reality. Minato held back his tears as he wanted to know the truth while Kushina kept sobbing. "We strongly believed in Jiraiya sensei's prophecy" the word 'Sensei' coming from Nagato's mouth took Menma and Narumi's attention as Nagato continued "He said that only Minato's son was capable of possessing Nine-Tails chakra. But with my Doujutsu I found that Menma couldn't even store a tenth part of its chakra.

It lead to my biggest confusion as well as obstacle. During that time even Sensei was not alive to answer my question. He was killed by Danzo and his men along with my friend Yahiko-" before Nagato could say further he was interrupted by Menma "Killed by Danzo?!".

"Looks like even his death's blame has been hammered on our head" said Nagato. "Jiraiya Sensei knew the truth about Danzo and strongly acknowledged Obito's ideals. Danzo knew that his influence as legendary sannin was huge which might shatter his plans. So one day, when Jiraiya sensei and Yahiko were having a meeting they both were attacked by Danzo and killed.". This was shocking for Menma and the group.

The fire of revenge which he has been carrying within him against Akatsuki was completely wrong. 'Sometimes the enemy is right in front of you but you can't see him. And before you figure it out a lot of damage is inflicted' Naruto's words ringed in Menma's ears as he understood the meaning behind it. He felt miserable, pathetic and stupid after hearing it that his head went down in shame.

"Coming back to the point" continued Nagato "after I discovered that Menma was not the Key, the whole group of Akatsuki went into despair. Yet we continued to search for the Key. And soon we found him. It was as if the destiny brought him to our doorstep....it was our last Akatsuki member Naruto." Everyone's eyes widened after they heard this.

This brought a single major question in their mind but they let it slide for the moment as Nagato continued "Naruto was more than capable to nest Nine-Tails chakra. Even after storing it's chakra he had more than half of chakra pool remaining I myself being Uzumaki was terrified by this".

We assigned a secret spy in the village of Konoha to keep a track on Danzo. People started calling him The Ghost. And the first Ghost and Crow was not Itachi...it was Shisui Uchiha." Not only it was unexpected to the group but also new. By now they had it clear that Itachi is the Ghost and Crow. But Shisui? They never imagined it.

"Sh-shisui Nii-san?" Sasuke stumbled in his words as tears slipped out of his eyes. "Yeah Sasuke. He was the one who directed me towards the truth and made me to join the Akatsuki." said Itachi.

..........

Flashback

(Hello: Itachi talking in present time)

I was sent to a place as Backup to our main Squad under leadership of Shisui. I was told that their squad had encountered the Crow and is in a big trouble. I rushed there as fast as I could. Danzo said to me that Shisui is in huge trouble and is in a situation of life and death as he fought the Crow.

With the only wish to protect my brother-like friend I rushed without any other thoughts.

As soon I reached there my eyes widened in horror. All my squadmates were dead. Lying on their own pool of blood. Many of them were also Uchihas. Among those dead bodies, there was a person wearing an Akatsuki cloak standing in the middle. He looked, weak, injured, bruised, covered in blood as he tried his best to stand still.

My blood boiled as I saw him. 'One of those corpses is of Shisui-san. And that guy killed him' was what I thought. I took out my shurikens and threw at him . Those were fast and angled Shurikens thrown at his blindspot from his back turned to me. Yet he managed to not only turn back in time but also countered them.

But he was too late. I was too close to him with my Kunai ready to pierce his heart. There was a moment of time before he and I looked in each other's eyes. That person looked towards me with a soft smile which confused me.

I took a better look at him and I realised he was none other than Shisui. But his face wasn't smiling this time. He muttered "Jiraiya" before trails of blood dripped down out of his closed mouth. His Mangekyou Sharingan slowly got faint.

Then I realised that I was too late. My Kunai had long gone pierced dead into his heart. I was left confused, broken and shocked with his body getting cold in my arms. What is this bloodbath?. Why did Shisui-san killed his own men? Why did he smile for a fraction of second right now? Did he expect me to come here? Why did he mention Jiraiya-sama's name?.

I questioned myself sitting there with my friend in my arm...crying crying and crying.

After that I walked up to Jiraiya-sama, asked him about the matters and then understood for what my friend gave his life for. I then, joined Akatsuki and took his job as the Crow and the Ghost...

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