Chapter 1 - The Kaguya Fool

[A take on Peter Parker apperaing in the Shinobi world, with the body and skills of a Kage class Kaguya clan member.
What happens when someone of Peter Parker's moral sensibiltiites arrives in a world where child soldiers are not just comong but the norm?]

Commissioned by [TCJ] on Patreon

Disclaimer - I don’t own or claim to own any Intellectual Property that might appear in this story. I only own the Original Characters. Enjoy!

Hokage Tower, Konoha

–Hiruzen Sarutobi–

“You know,” He said, “I have dreamt of this moment for many years, and now that it has finally come, I feel much more relieved than I ever thought possible.” 

Minato, who was sitting in front of him, smiled at him, “I am sure you have some reservations over someone as young as me handling the village.”

He waved off the young man’s concerns, “That is the old farts talking. They love the structure; it brings them safety in a world full of chaos. But let me tell you a secret, that one can only learn after becoming Hokage, “ He leaned forward as if whispering the secrets of life, “Sometimes, new things can’t come to life without a little chaos, and if you keep clinging onto old and dead things, well then, that’s no different than clinging to a corpse.”

Leaning back, he laughed. Oh, he laughed so heartily, ignoring the look of polite confusion on Minato’s face. He wouldn’t understand. No one alive could understand what he wanted to convey here but that was alright. 

After almost a minute of laughter that made his chest ache but made him feel lighter than the world, he spoke, “Don’t worry about that, I will be here to guide you if you need me. Plus, the village needs people with your thinking. You will make a fine Hokage, believe me,”

Minato looked at him with a smile, full of hope and fear for the future, “If you say so, Hokage-sama.”

He smiled at the man. Jiriaya really chose right. He was not sure if the prophecy was true or not. He didn’t know about the world getting peace due to Minato or not but he was sure that Konoha was about to usher in a whole new era of peace and prosperity, with Minato at the helm.

Taking one last smoke from the pipe and using a single hand seal to get the smoke out of his office, he straightened up, activated a Fuinjutsu sequence on the table, and stood up, as a previously hidden door appeared behind his chair.

“Come,” He beckoned MInato as they entered the Forbidden Archives of the Hokage Tower, accessible only to a select few, with the highest level of access reserved for his eyes only.

“There’s a lot of stuff you will need to learn but all of that can happen once your coronation ceremony is done, but this? This is something you need to understand on day zero so that you can make informed decisions.” He said as the door behind them slid shut, with lights activated all around them, revealing shelves upon shelves of boxes full of folders, housing the deepest and darkest secrets of Konoha.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that having access to this thing would mean having access to Konoha’s beating heart.

He let Minato sit on the main reading table, as he opened lock after lock, to get to the box of files he had reserved for this day. With a giddiness belying someone of his age, he dusted the stuff and slammed it on the table.

“This,” He gestured at the box, “is what I believe you need to know right away. It is stuff hidden from even the other Great Five Villages. Information about Hidden clans, hidden settlements, and nomadic travellers with Kekkei Genkai users. Natural phenomenon that defies any attempt at exploration. Information on Rogue shinobi, Rogue clans, artifacts lost to time. Artifacts kept lost to time to maintain peace and more.”

Minato now looked at the box with reverence and awe, which was understandable because, according to what most of the world liked to believe in, there were no Kekkei Genkai left to be discovered. The Hidden Villages might have some idea but even they knew that no clan worth anything was left by any of the Villages.

He knew better.

“Ah!” Just then, a thought struck him as he  moved through the files and removed  a particular one, “I assume you’ve met this one before.” He opened the file, and showed a particular page to Minato.

Minato took one look at what was displayed on the page before nodding in recognition, “Yes, I have encountered him on the battlefield multiple times.”

“Friend or Foe?” He asked, despite knowing the answer to the question, complex as it was. This was all just theatre to him, the last few moments where he would be able to use his authority as Hokage to shock someone who would anyway understand it a few days later.

Plus, he couldn't do this with just anyone, not even Jiriaya, who knew most of everyone else in the village. Even then, he didn’t know or rather, didn’t want to know, about the darkness in the village that had, more times than he wanted it to, saved the village, often at a cost that he never would have paid.

Which is why he understood Danzo’s role. He wondered what Minato would do with the Foundation. Well, it was not his place to say anything. Counsel will be provided if asked but after the coronation, he would wash his hands off the administration and would only respond in a purely combat capacity.

“Both, actually,” Minato said as he rifled through the pages, moving on from the one rogue shinobi he showed to Mianto to all the other recorded ones, most of whom were dead since shinobi did not tend to survive by themselves, no matter how strong they were.

A fact that made him realise that chakra or not, everyone needed someone else. In the end, human tendencies won out over chakra bullshit.

“An annoyingly resilient shinobi with some kind of precognitive combat sense.” Minato said, with a little annoyance bleeding into his voice.

“Ah, yes, I read that report. I have to confess, I find it equal parts amusing and horrifying to know that he tried to stop you from killing those Iwa shinobi and would have succeeded, if not for your trump card.”

“Yes,” Minato confirmed, looking up from the folder, gaze lost as if he was reliving that memory, “He has a rather naive approach to how things function in the world. He tried to stop me but even if I could not hit him, he was never able to stop me as well. He tried, oh, he tried.”

“Yes,” He confirmed, “It was quite a novel strategy. Realising that he could not stop you from killing them, he instead joined in the fight and began knocking everyone out, in hopes that it would stop you from killing them.”

Minato’s face seemed as if it was set in stone as he said, “He could not have stopped that. No one could have. It was the only way to stop the war from evolving further.”

He sighed at that. The ugly reminder of Shinobi wars and what shinobi do, weighing heavily on Minato’s mind. Minato had already resolved himself to slaughter as many of Iwa’s shinobi as he could, to dissuade the notion of future continuing this war from their minds.

He went into that battle knowing that he would walk out of that one, as a killer of hundreds, maybe thousands of shinobi. 

And yet…

The way that the battle ended was a sight to behold for everyone.

That battle had changed the war and, more importantly, Minato, forever. 

To have gone into battle with the mentality to kill a thousand shinobi aiming for his head and having to kill unarmed, knocked out shinobi just so Iwa would be hit with a tremendous loss.

Even someone like Danzo would agree that it was a messed-up thing to do, something that weighed on Minato’s mind heavily, resulting in him having to pull Minato back from the frontline for weeks.

He was legitimately afraid of losing Minato and his Will of Fire being snuffed out, all because a single rogue shinobi wanted to prevent death on a massive scale.

The aftermath of that fight was something Konoha kept hidden at all costs, even going so far as to permanently ground any shinobi who came upon the scene of battle.

To think that a member of the Kaguya clan, when pushed, could do such things.

“Anyway,” He said, sensing the mood becoming heavy all of a sudden, “Let’s move on.”

Minato nodded, not wanting to discuss one of the defining moments of his life, a time where he had come closest to questioning his actions, his motives, his village, and what he had been doing his entire life.

The file was placed back inside the box, the file being the thickest because this particular rogue shinobi had been encountered by shinobi of all power ranges, from all the Hidden Villages, because of his peculiar nature. A trait that was extinct in any high ranking shinobi.

A luxury that most shinobi could not afford to have. Something that was almost unthinkable in their world.

Jiriaya told him that his Dogma, his principles, could not have come from this world. They were alien to Jiraiya.

To have a rule against killing, of any kind.

A joke amongst shinobi.

The strongest shinobi of the Bloody Mist, gone rogue with a nature so peaceful, it beggared belief.

The Kaguya Fool.