Antares POV
It happened on that bridge — his first real mission.
My vessel, driven by rage and despair at the thought of losing his friend, reached instinctively for the power coiled beneath his skin. A power he thought belonged to the Nine-Tailed Fox but which, in truth, was mine. And I gave it to him. I let my chakra pour into his veins.
He wielded it clumsily, of course — more waste than use — but what can one expect? He was half-conscious, running on rage, drowning in weakness and guilt over letting his comrade sacrifice himself. So that's how close they were? Until then I'd thought they despised each other.
Yet, even through the fury, my vessel managed to win. His opponent — Haku — the same androgynous stranger he'd met in the forest. Girl? Boy? Mortals are endlessly surprising.
I watched him hesitate to kill even when Haku offered no resistance. His kunai trembled in his hand. Another inversion: the boy reluctant to kill, the enemy ready to die. Then came the sound — chirping birds — and before I could blink, Haku flung herself into the path of Kakashi's Chidori. So it was true. Haku was a boy after all.
Zabuza's words after were the predictable knife twist: "A tool outlives its use." Yet the scene carried a tension even I could appreciate. Then the puppet master himself arrived — Gato, with his mob of hired swords, thinking numbers would protect him. Zabuza corrected that illusion with a single bloody statement, wielding a kunai borrowed from Naruto.
The aftermath? Routine. The road back to the village? Dull. But the news awaiting us was anything but: Chūnin Exams. My vessel nominated.
I delved into Minato's and Kushina's memories — and realized these exams were no child's game. Physical and mental trial. Survival skills. Teamwork. This boy would fail, I was certain. He was untrained, untested, still a child.
Yet he passed the first test — the written one — surviving on sheer willpower and that little banshee Sakura, whom he refused to disappoint. Amusing.
It was the second test that caught my full attention: the Forest of Death. Now they faced an enemy they could not defeat, and once more my vessel tapped my chakra, still subconsciously, still trying to protect the ones he calls friends. Yet even that wasn't enough.
Then the enemy did something unexpected — something deliciously useful. He overlaid the original seal with a Five Element Seal. That small disruption in the flow of chakra, that momentary lapse, gave me what I had waited twelve years for: a crack in the cage. My rebirth.
No longer bound. No longer helpless.
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Third Person POV
As Antares dismantled his cage from within, chaos reigned outside. Orochimaru — the snake wearing a human's face — had marked Sasuke. Genin from the Hidden Sound pressed their attack, and even with the unexpected help of Rock Lee and Team 10, Sakura barely kept them alive. The Sound trio's strange devices and sound-based jutsu pushed them further and further to the brink.
Then Sasuke awoke. A sickly purple chakra oozed off him, his new seal burning like a brand. He stood, expressionless, and asked in a voice that brooked no disobedience, "Sakura… who did this to you?"
She froze. He asked again, harder. This time she answered, pointing to Zaku.
"It was me," the boy sneered. "I did that to her. And soon I'll kill you." His hands snapped up, unleashing Super Sonic Exploding Wave — a blast of pressure and sound that churned the clearing.
Panting, Zaku grinned. "So much for the Uchiha prodigy."
A chill voice slid through the smoke. "Who are you calling nothing special?" as Zaku turned, he confirmed what he had begun to fear. There stood Sasuke unharmed, with his teammates safe behind him.
Then without giving his enemy a chance, Sasuke moved — a blur, a predator — appearing behind Zaku, grabbing and twisting his arms painfully back. In a cold tone he stated,rather than questioned, "You like to swing these so much, right?" Then, applying pressure he pressed and pulled Zakus arm back until bones creaked and the boy screamed.
And then, as all eyes turned to Sasuke's cruelty, a deeper, older power rose elsewhere. Crimson-black chakra leaked from Naruto's body — not the fox's, but something colder, older, hungrier.
A heartbeat of silence.
Then a pulse.
Then a shockwave.
The chakra cocooned him, compressing like a living shell, before dissipating. When it cleared, the boy was gone. In his place stood something taller, sharper. His hair burned crimson, his whisker marks darker. His blue eyes opened — cold and piercing, a higher being staring at lesser life.
He spread his arms, breathing in freedom. "Ah… freedom. A fascinating feeling."
Lowering them, he blinked once. "Did I interrupt something?"