Chapter 22: The Scientist and the Sun
Mister Sinister did not believe in wasted opportunities.
And this one—this one practically begged to be refined.
With practiced ease, he leaned back from the operating space he had carved into existence with psychic precision. The subject lay suspended in midair, veins glowing faintly with violent, unstable energy. The Juubi-derived infection thrashed inside the man like a furious god trapped in fragile flesh.
Normally, Sinister would have solved this with technology.
Healing pods. Genetic stabilizers. Reality-anchored growth matrices.
Normally.
But this world was… rustic.
"No matter," Sinister hummed pleasantly. "Adaptation is the hallmark of superiority."
He raised a hand—and peeled a copy of himself out of reality.
The clone stepped forward, identical in every way save for one important distinction: expendability.
"Do try not to die too quickly," Sinister told it kindly.
The clone rolled its eyes—also identical—and plunged its hand straight into the man's chest.
There was no blood. No resistance.
The clone's arm phased into the body, flesh and bone becoming suggestion rather than barrier. Instantly, Sinister's consciousness split—his clone now inside the subject, nerves, organs, and genetic pathways laid bare like an open book.
Control achieved.
The virus reacted violently.
Excellent.
Sinister smiled wider as he fed his own bio-energy into the infection—not suppressing it, but provoking it. The Juubi residue responded like a cornered predator, accelerating its assault on the body, forcing evolution through sheer brutality.
The man should have died.
He did—several times.
Each time, the clone corrected the failure.
Heart collapsing? Reinforced.
Cells tearing apart? Restructured mid-death.
DNA unraveling? Rewritten on the fly.
For half an hour, the lab echoed with the soundless scream of forced ascension.
Then—
Sinister stilled.
"Oh," he said softly.
The changes were… beautiful.
The chakra coil had formed where none existed before—raw, oversized, and dangerously potent. Chakra surged through the man's body like a newborn storm, heavier and more concentrated than most trained shinobi could ever hope to manage.
But that wasn't all.
The man's DNA had shifted—subtly, insidiously. Threads of alien code now intertwined with his human genome, origins unknown even to Sinister himself.
Something else.
Something older.
Or perhaps simply angrier.
The brain scans concerned him most.
Self-regulation centers? Gone.
Aggression dampeners? Burned away.
Memory clusters were collapsing—not damaged, but discarded. The mind was actively deleting its former life, as though it found the concept of mortality… embarrassing.
The man twitched.
His eyes snapped open.
They were no longer human.
Sinister watched with academic delight.
"It rejects its past," he noted. "Fascinating. A psychological adaptation to newfound superiority."
The creature snarled, teeth lengthening, chakra leaking from its pores like smoke.
"Oh yes," Sinister said warmly. "You will be magnificent."
He turned, already planning further tests—
And then—
The air screamed.
Sinister's head snapped up as a pressure unlike anything local slammed into the village. Not subtle. Not exploratory.
A presence.
Before even his considerable reflexes could engage, golden light tore through space itself.
A figure appeared in the center of the village—radiant, sharp-eyed, and carrying with it an overwhelming sense of judgment.
Naruto's clone.
It hovered, Sage Mode active, senses flaring like a celestial alarm system.
Its gaze locked instantly onto the underground lab.
Onto him.
------------------------
The moment Naruto's clone descended into the village, the air itself recoiled.
It wasn't fear exactly—fear implied instinct, confusion, panic.
This was something closer to recognition.
Naruto felt it immediately.
Juubi chakra.
Not whole. Not pure. But angry—twisted, stretched thin, howling like a beast forced into a cage too small for its rage. It scraped against his senses like claws on stone, demanding attention.
And beside it—
A man.
That was the strange part.
The presence next to the raging chakra was… small. Fragile. No chakra network worth mentioning. No overwhelming physical strength. No ancient weight like an Ōtsutsuki.
A thinker.
A scientist.
Naruto's mind flicked briefly to Orochimaru—and his jaw tightened.
Within a heartbeat, the clone vanished from the street and reappeared underground, golden chakra flaring as reality folded around him.
The lab was wrong.
Too clean for something grown out of a village. Too deliberate. Walls reshaped with unnatural smoothness. Equipment half-improvised, half-reshaped by psychic force. And at the center—
Nathaniel Essex stood calmly, hands folded behind his back, as if he'd been expecting company.
Naruto's eyes narrowed, the Rinne-Sharingan spinning slowly, curiously, like a storm deciding where to strike.
"What did you do?" Naruto asked, voice steady—but the pressure behind it was unmistakable. "And who are you?"
Sinister's smile was instantaneous.
Oh, this was exquisite.
The golden cloak alone was impressive—radiant, warm, overwhelming. But the eyes… the eyes told a far richer story. Ancient power. Layered power. A bloodline so complex it made Sinister's fingers itch.
Dangerous.
Wonderful.
So this was the guardian.
Sinister inclined his head politely, as if greeting a colleague rather than a god in human form.
"My name," he said smoothly, "is Nathaniel Essex. I am a scientist."
Naruto's gaze flicked briefly to the man suspended nearby—the altered patient. Chakra pulsed through the body in violent, uneven waves, foreign and invasive. The man was alive… but not himself.
Juubi corruption. Stabilized. Encouraged.
Naruto felt a chill.
"This man was dying," Sinister continued, tone conversational, almost cheerful. "An aggressive infection. Quite fascinating, really. I simply helped him survive the process."
Naruto stepped closer, golden chakra licking the floor like living sunlight. "You didn't help him," he said quietly. "You used him."
The altered man twitched, a low growl vibrating from his chest.
Naruto could feel it now—the connection. Not control, not intelligence. More like a limb of the Juubi, ripped away and forced into flesh.
A mindless extension.
A weapon that shouldn't exist.
"It's not a threat to me," Naruto continued, eyes never leaving Sinister. "But life was lost here. On purpose."
For the first time, Sinister's smile sharpened.
"Progress," he replied lightly, "has always required sacrifice."
Naruto exhaled slowly.
Then his attention shifted—upward, outward.
The village.
Every villager above moved with the same vacant calm. Smiling. Obedient. Their wills folded neatly away.
Naruto's eyes hardened.
"You're controlling them," he said. Not a question.
Sinister spread his hands. "Of course. It was… convenient."
That single word landed like a slap.
Convenient.
Naruto felt it then—the old heat in his chest. The memory of cages. Of whispers. Of people deciding what others were allowed to be.
The monster stirring behind his ribs growled.
But Naruto did not let it loose.
He closed his eyes for half a second.
Calm.
Mistakes happen when you rush.
When he opened them again, the sun was still burning—but controlled.
"You don't get to decide that for them," Naruto said, voice low and immovable. "Not here."
Sinister studied him openly now, fascination blazing. This wasn't a tyrant. Not a conqueror.
This was worse.
A man with the power to rule—and the restraint not to.
"How curious," Sinister murmured. "You wield godlike power… and yet you hesitate."
Naruto met his gaze, unwavering.
"And you lack power," he replied, "so you take it from others."
For the first time since arriving in this world, Nathaniel Essex felt something unfamiliar tighten in his chest.
Not fear.
But interest edged with caution.
"Well," Sinister said softly, "this conversation just became educational."
-------------------
Nathaniel Essex had never been a man who resisted temptation.
So when he reached out—soft, precise, curious—to touch Naruto's mind, it wasn't arrogance that drove him.
It was instinct.
The same instinct that had carried him through centuries of experimentation, betrayal, evolution, and survival.
For a fraction of a second, his psychic tendrils brushed Naruto's consciousness.
And then—
It felt as though a mountain-sized nine-tailed fox slammed its paw straight into his skull.
Sinister screamed.
Not aloud—his pride wouldn't allow that—but his mind reeled, his thoughts scattering like glass under a hammer. The psychic backlash tore through him with such violence that his knees buckled and blood ran freely from his nose, ears, and eyes.
Naruto didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't even look surprised.
Golden chakra surged, and a colossal arm of light manifested instantly, wrapping around Sinister's torso and lifting him off the ground as effortlessly as a child lifting a doll.
"Don't," Naruto said calmly, though the word carried the weight of an executioner's blade. "Ever try that again."
The chakra grip tightened—not crushing, but firm enough to make the message unmistakable.
Sinister gasped, his body screaming in protest. The pressure was unreal. It wasn't refined strength like telekinesis or precision force.
This was raw.
Like being held by the Hulk himself.
And yet—
Sinister smiled.
Even as pain lanced through every nerve, excitement ignited in his mind like wildfire.
Extraordinary…
No psychic resistance—this is dominance. Absolute dominance.
The potential made his thoughts race faster than the agony could slow them.
But he was not a fool.
He could feel it now, clearly.
This was no ordinary guardian.
This was a fixed point—a being the world itself leaned on.
To confront such a creature unprepared was suicide.
Which meant—
Preparation was required.
Sinister's eyes flared crimson as he pushed everything he had left beyond its limits. His psychic power detonated outward in a final, desperate assault—an invisible wave meant to pulverize Naruto's mind, a force that would have crushed a mountain into dust.
The air screamed.
Reality bent.
And Naruto—
Didn't feel it.
The attack shattered harmlessly against the golden chakra cloak, dispersing like mist against the sun. Naruto looked down at Sinister, not angry now—just disappointed.
"That won't work," Naruto said simply.
The words landed heavier than the attack ever could have.
Sinister's body began to fail.
Not from Naruto's grip—but by his own design.
Cells unraveled. Structures collapsed. A deliberate cascade of self-destruction raced through his form.
Naruto's eyes widened slightly.
"Wait—"
Too late.
Sinister smiled one last time, satisfied.
His body dissolved into nothingness, disintegrating from the inside out before Naruto could stabilize it.
The chakra arm closed on empty air.
Silence fell.
Naruto stood alone in the ruined lab, golden light dimming slightly as he exhaled.
He stared at the space where the man had been, eyes narrowing.
"…You jumped bodies," he muttered.
It wasn't a question.
This felt familiar.
Too familiar.
Like a snake shedding skin. Like a scientist who refused to die.
"Orochimaru," Naruto said quietly. "Guess the universe has more of your kind."
He turned his gaze upward, toward the village above—toward the world beyond.
The Juubi-tainted man still breathed, unconscious. The villagers remained enslaved by lingering psychic residue.
And somewhere, Nathaniel Essex was alive.
Planning.
Adapting.
Naruto clenched his fist.
"This just got worse," he said softly.
And far away, in another body, Mister Sinister laughed—already imagining the day he would return properly prepared to study the sun that refused to be eclipsed.
-----------------------------------------
Mister Sinister woke with a smile.
Not the strained, furious smile of a man who had lost, but the pleased, almost childlike smile of someone who had just unwrapped a very expensive gift.
The jungle canopy above him filtered pale green light across unfamiliar leaves, insects humming softly as if nothing extraordinary had occurred. His new body lay sprawled against the roots of an ancient tree, breath steady, pulse strong. Another base. Another contingency fulfilled exactly as intended.
Nathaniel Essex never trusted a single vessel.
Death, after all, was merely an inconvenience.
He rose slowly, brushing dirt from his immaculate gloves, crimson eyes gleaming with curiosity rather than anger. If anything, the encounter had exceeded expectations.
"Oh, you are magnificent," he murmured, thinking of Naruto.
The data replayed itself in his mind with crystalline clarity.
Vast chakra reserves—no, not just vast, but dense, refined, almost gravitational in quality. His chakra wasn't merely energy; it behaved like a force of nature, thick and radiant. Physically, the boy—no, the guardian—possessed strength that rivaled Captain Marvel at full output, yet it flowed with none of her rigidity. Speed approaching Quicksilver's upper thresholds. Reaction time absurd. Defensive layers stacked upon defensive layers.
And the eyes.
Sinister's smile widened.
A bloodline of terrifying elegance. Not just mutation, but inheritance, layered atop evolution, atop cosmic meddling. Rinne… something else. A convergence point.
Phoenix-class potential, he decided. Or worse.
He had felt danger—real danger—and it thrilled him.
But Sinister was not reckless. The guardian now knew of him. That changed the game. A public, vigilant protector was far more troublesome than a dormant god.
"Adaptation," Sinister said softly, hands glowing as his DNA began to shift. Bones realigned. Neural pathways rewrote themselves. Psychic signatures dulled and bent, disguising his presence from prying senses.
He could not confront Naruto again—not yet.
First came understanding.
Chakra fascinated him more the longer he considered it. Life force and spiritual energy entwined into a single, obedient system. Ki, mana, psionic biofields—it sat comfortably between all of them, superior in some ways, more honest. The Juubi infection, too, was a revelation. A viral divinity. Destructive, yes—but capable of granting power if shepherded correctly.
And Sinister excelled at shepherding monsters.
"For now," he mused, stepping deeper into the jungle, "discretion."
He would need equipment. Tools. A laboratory worthy of this world's potential. In a place like this, he would have to build from scratch—primitive materials, chakra-enhanced craftsmanship, stolen minds.
How quaint.
How delightful.
Somewhere out there, Naruto Uzumaki stood watch over a frightened world, glowing like a sun that refused to set.
And somewhere else, in shadow and green silence, Mister Sinister began to plan.
After all—
Every sun eventually attracted something that wanted to study how it burned.
----------------------------
Naruto:
By the time the golden light faded, the village had remembered how to breathe.
People blinked, rubbed their eyes, and stared at one another in confusion, as if waking from the same unpleasant dream. Whatever invisible hand had guided their thoughts before was gone now—released as gently as it had been seized.
Naruto stood among them, his golden cloak dimming to a softer glow, the fierce radiance retreating like the tide after a storm.
"It's okay now," he said, raising a hand with an easy, reassuring grin that felt almost absurdly normal after what they had endured. "The problem's been taken care of."
The villagers exchanged uncertain looks. They didn't know his name. They didn't know what he truly was. But they felt it—the quiet certainty that the danger had passed.
Naruto introduced himself simply. No titles. No legends.
Just Naruto.
Gratitude followed him like a warm breeze, hesitant but sincere. Bowed heads. Soft thanks. A few tearful smiles.
But Naruto didn't linger.
His gaze shifted to the man lying bound in golden chakra nearby—a man breathing, alive, yet wrong in a way that made the air around him feel tense.
"I'll be taking him with me," Naruto said gently, though there was no room for argument in his tone. "He's not well. And right now… he's dangerous. But I promise—we'll try to help him."
Hope flickered in his chest as he lifted the man effortlessly, subduing him with nothing more than a look. The corrupted chakra recoiled instinctively, cowed by something far older and far stronger.
A shadow clone appeared beside him, nodding once before vanishing in a flash of light—bearing the man toward Konoha.
Naruto watched the clone go, jaw tight.
Please let there still be a way back for him, he thought.
The Hokage Tower roof was quiet.
Too quiet.
Tsunade sat cross-legged near the edge, shoulders slumped, her jacket discarded beside her. The wind tugged at her blonde hair as she stared out over the village, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion.
For once, the Fifth Hokage looked her age.
When Naruto's clone appeared in a swirl of chakra, she barely flinched.
"Let me guess," she muttered, rubbing her temples. "Another impossible problem."
"Something like that," Naruto replied softly.
The clone laid the man down between them. Tsunade straightened immediately, fatigue forgotten as instinct took over. Her eyes sharpened, pupils narrowing as her chakra vision flared to life.
She saw it.
The altered cellular structure. The unnatural regeneration. The aggressive, alien chakra woven into every fiber of the man's being.
Her hand pressed against his chest.
And she felt it.
"…This is wrong," she said slowly.
Naruto nodded. "Someone named Nathaniel did this. He didn't just keep him alive—he pushed the change through."
Tsunade inhaled sharply, standing now, every trace of weariness replaced by focus. "A civilian," she murmured. "No chakra system. No training. And now—"
She shook her head in disbelief.
"Mid-level shinobi strength," she finished. "At least."
That alone would have shattered every medical principle she knew.
But the real problem was deeper.
The man snarled suddenly, muscles tensing despite the restraints, eyes burning with feral hostility. His words came clearly, coherently—yet every syllable was edged with violence.
Rational speech.
Irrational mind.
"He's lost his emotional regulation," Tsunade said grimly. "Impulse control too. The chakra didn't just enhance him—it overwrote parts of him."
Naruto's hands clenched at his sides. "Can he be saved?"
Tsunade didn't answer immediately.
She stared at the man—at the living proof of how thin the line between miracle and monstrosity truly was.
"…I don't know," she admitted at last. "But if there's even a chance, we'll take it."
Naruto released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Below them, Konoha carried on—unaware that the world had just gained another shadow, another danger, another question with no easy answer.
And far away, somewhere beyond sight and sense, a scientist smiled.
The game had only just begun.