Chapter 11! This actually only took about a week to write… Which sucks, because it took much longer than that to get motivated to write.

Excuses, excuses. Anyway, here you go!

The 'Naruto' Franchise, or any other works by Kishimoto, do not belong to me.


Apartment Complex; 2:25 PM

Naruto gave a long winded, tired sigh as he stepped up the last of the stairs and walked to his door, readying his key. Sticking it into the lock, he turned it, and then opened the door.

As soon as he put the first foot into his apartment, he could tell something was… off? Just a gut feeling really…

It was sort of akin to that weird silence whenever the air conditioner turns off, leaving you without the oddly comforting thrum—actually, no. It was different than that…

Sometimes he felt like this at night, like someone was watching him, but there never was—at least as far as he could tell; this was a hidden village after all. However, it was strange nonetheless.

Naruto shook his head, then adjusted his hat as per habit—attempting to break the unneeded tension that his mind had built up surrounding the weird feeling he was getting. It didn't go away.

The blond sighed, then continued into the sunlit apartment, turning to lock the door behind him.

"I'm paranoid…" he dropped his bag and valued fur hat on his bed laying in the corner, simultaneously scanning the room around him; however he didn't come up with anything out of the ordinary. He poked his head into the bathroom, to the same results.

Nothing.

'…Whatever.' the blond decided to ignore it, walking to his fridge—except that ignoring it was a grave mistake.

He suddenly froze when he felt something cold touch his neck—contrasting the mild warmth of his home—followed by an arm against his upper spine and a terribly familiar voice. Naruto's eyes widened, and a small shiver ran through his body.

"If you even make a sound, I'll cut your tongue out…" the man behind him threatened, a smirk growing across his face. The blade dug deeper.

From this moment forth, the blond knew that the next hours of his life ran the high risk of not existing.


Unknown Location; 3:30~ PM

A candle flickered in the darkness, illuminating a figure and casting shadows as pen scratching on paper was heard, putting ink to page as a note was formed. The scratching gradually slowed.

Naruto steadied his breathing as he lifted the pen off of the page and slowly set it down, inwardly cursing. He was outwardly calm however, despite the current situation. Little emotion was held on his face, dimly lit by the candle in the dark cave he was sitting in. Violet blue eyes glared at the stone wall in silence.

"—Now stand up and put the blindfold back over your eyes. Remember—no sudden movements…" a voice hissed almost gleefully so from behind him, and he felt the kunai being held at his throat press more firmly into his neck, drawing a minuscule amount of blood. Obeying the order, Naruto hesitantly reached out, grabbing the black blindfold. He brought it to his eyes as instructed.

The blond felt a pair of hands grab the two ends of the blindfold from him, and begin to—not so gently—tie it tightly and securely around his head, taking care to not let any vision be had.

This was likely a physical clone, as Naruto could feel that the kunai was still being held to his neck. He had been hoping it wasn't so, but it made sense that a chunin might know one of the physical clone techniques; especially one that's held the rank for quite a few years.

This would make escaping alive much more difficult than it already was…

He could have tried to fight back of course, but there were multiple problems with that. Problems that wouldn't easily be solved.

Another life was tied to his very actions at the moment. The biggest issue with severing this 'tie' were the explosive tags covering the neck of the other, unconscious, captive.

A simple flare of chakra from Mizuki and there wouldn't be much left of Sarutobi Konohamaru. Only a human-composed blotch of gore painted—more correctly, splattered—across the walls, if there were even walls left after the explosion. Bloody graffiti…

In a short summary; he couldn't do anything, anytime soon. He was Helpless.


Once Mizuki finished tying the blindfold, he grabbed the now instructively written letter from the table, letting his earth clone continue to hold the kunai. The silver haired man looked it over several times, examining every word and letter; searching for any hidden code, or anything that seemed out of place.

The demon child was smart, despite what some thought—Mizuki knew this much. He had been observing the kid a lot more since he received this… assignment… and that fact had become increasingly more apparent…

Not smart enough, though.

"Mmph!" the chunin was interrupted, glancing over to the side towards the muffled sound. The annoying Sarutobi kid was awake. Better yet, he could basically tell what was going on.

Wonderful.

The boy continued to try and scream through the cloth wrapped around his mouth.

"Hey, brat! Shut the hell up!" he kicked the boy in the stomach, causing the small child immediately pause in his screaming, and cough violently in pain as sobs and tears started to flow through the blindfold that was on his eyes. This only served to make Mizuki more annoyed.

"Stop fucking crying too, little piece of shit!" the boy either didn't hear him, or didn't care; causing Mizuki to go over the metaphorical boiling point. "You want me to break a few bones!? Huh!? That'll give you something to really cry about!" the silver haired man shouted, as he put his foot on one of the child's legs, applying force.

The boy quickly reduced himself to sniffles, meanwhile Naruto only sat there, his teeth clenched and still at the threat of blade point.

Mizuki calmed down again from his outburst, and continued looking over the letter. It was rather authentic feeling, but only acceptable at most. It didn't quite hit the right vibe for him for what he had been thinking of to force the demon brat to write, but they were on a time limit. Plus, the letter was just a lure, it didn't have to be perfect; just believable enough to get a hostage threat and warning across. For that purpose, he could tell it would do just fine. The seeds of doubt had already been tipped against the blonde's favor too, after all…

Also, when the child in question was already missing, that threat would become several times more believable. Nabbing the Sarutobi kid from Neko had actually been quite easy; it was absolutely amazing what a well planned and well layered genjutsu could do, even if he totally sucked at it. Especially when the ANBU didn't have her guard very high up. She literally walked right into it, and didn't even notice.

'Believably light persuasion to the mind, and it would carry itself the rest of the way'; shinobi 101.

Mizuki took the note and rolled it up, tearing off a piece of the blue scarf the brown haired child had once worn to keep it closed. He slung the large loop he had made in the knot over his shoulder.

"Hey, blondie! Stand up!" he turned his head to order behind him as he pulled a woven potato sack-like bag from the small backpack he was carrying. Directing his sight back and crouching, he slid the bag over the bound boy's head—therefore concealing the many red and white tags lined around his neck—and threw him over his shoulder.

Mizuki watched as his clone finished doing the same to the 'Kyuubi-spawn' before nodding in signal. The real silver haired man walked over to the concealed cave exit and uncovered it, to which both Mizuki's stepped out. The earth clone hefted a reluctantly complaint Naruto in the same fashion as the real was, Konohamaru.

Once out, Mizuki carelessly dropped the Sarutobi boy to the ground causing the child to let out another muffled wheeze of pain. The chunin ignored this and unrolled a scroll he had taken from his waist. He tossed it down and started going through multiple hand signs, before he put his palm to the marking covered scroll.

"Summoning Jutsu!"


Hokage's Office; 5:20 PM

Hiruzen Sarutobi was not having a very good day. In fact, he could say that he wasn't having a good year in general… The death of his oldest son and his wife was an event that had particularly taken a toll on him; as it would with any other caring father.

Now the only blood family he had were his youngest son Asuma, and his grandson Konohamaru.

However it appeared that even after such heartache, this was being challenged as well.

As Tsunade had left the village temporarily; he was—as the previous hokage—left in charge. He had honestly expected it to be just assigning high level missions to shinobi squads and lower level missions to genin cells, with a side of paperwork… Not this.

Less than 15 minutes ago, the body of Namika Mizuki had been found dead in his apartment by his own girlfriend. Multiple slash and stab wounds to the mid-section, chest, and throat. A murder.

This itself was quite worrying. After all, there hadn't actually been any murders—at least, to any shinobi—since the Uchiha Massacre. His infamous veteran-shinobi ingrained danger detecting 'sixth-sense' was tingling—and it only got worse with a more recent report from Neko, the cat masked ANBU.

Unfortunately, this 'sense' wasn't wrong… He was told that his grandson was pretty much declared completely missing just mere moments after he had found out about the murder.

Like, as in 'un-findable' missing. 'Gone without a single trace' kind of missing. Not even his famed crystal ball could find him. It was far beyond unsettling.

At first when he had heard this report from her, he had just brushed it off, thinking that maybe Konohamaru had actually managed to escape and hide from his escort for once in his life. However, what worried him the most was that the boy usually tried this on an everyday basis, but never even came close to fooling her.

So; 'What would make today any different?'

Any ANBU worth one-hundredth his or her pay could most definitely find and catch the child, even if they were blind, deaf, and could only walk on their hands. Hell, any civilian over the age of 6 with a quarter of a brain could find him; the child wasn't stealthy whatsoever.

As such every single moment past only served to bring him more anxiety, more worry.

So it was grating hard on his mind that in between giving updates on the search, and sending others to do the same at frequent intervals—Neko and her squad had been effectively turning the village and surrounding forest upside down, tearing both apart for nearly two whole hours now trying to find Konohamaru.

No success.

After the hour and forty minute mark, Sarutobi Hiruzen almost felt as if the world was trying to play some cruel trick on him, and he would have very well gone out to help the search by now if it wasn't for the fact that person after person kept coming in to meet with or report to him, such as was the case at this very moment. He decided this would absolutely be the last one before he went out himself; yet this wouldn't come to pass either.

…Just for the world to further mess with him, there was now currently a ripped-blue-scarf sealed letter sitting on the desk in front of him. A piece of the very same scarf that Konohamaru always wore. It even had all of the damn stains.

Hiruzen took a few seconds to gaze at it, before he had glanced up from the letter that he had yet to open. "Kakashi…? Where did you find this…?" the words uttered barely came out above a whisper.

The recently promoted Jonin looked up from his Icha-Icha book. "Oh, as I was walking here from after a mission—oh, by the way, mission complete—an ANBU passed it off to me to bring here to you. He told me that it was extremely important, as it was addressed to you, but that he hadn't read it. It's from a crime scene, the murder of an academy teacher's assistant, 'Mizuki'?" Kakashi finished, and then—now fully sensing the emotion that was permeating throughout the room—he wisely decided to store his book away for the time being.

The Sandaime's eyes narrowed at this new evidence/information. 'The crime scene?'

Was it possible… Did the same person that murdered Mizuki… kidnap Konohamaru? No, It couldn't be… could it?

Enemies were always trying to get one over on Konohagakure, so it wasn't impossible. Not in the slightest.

A few seconds of silence ensued, as he stared intently at the scarf wrapped parchment roll. Without wasting any more time than he already had, Hiruzen quickly reached out and started to carefully pull the paper out of its confinement.

The moment his vision landed on the first sentence, a sick feeling arose in his stomach. The kind of sick feeling he hadn't felt since he had effectively assigned a teenager to commit the genocide of his family—something that although it hadn't gone entirely according to plan, he would never forgive himself for. His eyes only grew wider and his breathing only became less rhythmic with each word.


I'm sorry Old Man. I'm the one who kidnapped him. I can't take it anymore; always being mistreated, and glared at. Hated. I really just can't stand to live in this village anymore—the longer I stay, the more I want to lash out; Mizuki-teme is an example of this.

Have Umino Iruka bring me the Forbidden Scroll of Secrets alone and unarmed; only then will I let him go. If anyone else comes, or Iruka doesn't show up, he dieshowever, if all goes well, you can have him back in one piece.

Have him meet me a bit shy of the Forest of Death, in the clearing near the Kame-Bridge at sunset, 7:00.


Once he was finished, he nearly dropped the note, yet prevented himself from doing so. He immediately stood up out of his chair and walked out from behind his desk, to Kakashi. Hiruzen held the letter out for Kakashi, who blinked in confusion, then hesitantly grabbed it.

"What is it?" the mostly masked man asked, wondering what it contained that could make the Sandaime have such a reaction.

"…Just read it." Hiruzen closed his eyes, thinking.

It was only moments later that Kakashi had finished going over the contents of the parchment, a feeling of dread coming over him as well. "My God… Naruto…?" Kakashi breathed out. Even with no name on the letter, both could clearly tell that it was the blond's handwriting. And according to the letter, he had possibly murdered a man, and took Konohamaru hostage. "Mizuki… Your grandson… What?" Kakashi looked up from the note.

Hiruzen only turned a serious eye to the younger man.

There was a large portion of both of their brains that was telling them that maybe Naruto didn't do it; that disagreed. However the handwriting was spot on, and given the murder, the circumstances, and the motive…

It all formed into plausibility. However, Naruto was never known to be a violent boy… So it was just that… Plausibility. This could have been someone just trying to make Naruto take the blame, knowing of his well below average standing in the village; if so, they were doing a very convincing job with going as far as to study the boy for so long as to know that the blond used to call him 'Old man' and learn to forge Naruto's handwriting…

It was hard to believe, but there were people in the world that would go to such lengths.

'Also, how does would he know about the forbidden scroll?' the scroll—guarded by the Hokage him/herself, filled with forbidden techniques; was on a need-to-know basis. Completely secret; hence the 'secret' portion of the name. How would a child—albeit a smart child—even find out about it?

These questioning thoughts didn't linger long as they were soon interrupted.

"Sandaime-sama?" the doors opened and third voice appeared in the room; the desk receptionist. Both men's heads turned to the source, Hiruzen speaking.

"Not now Mai… I'll hear what you must say later, but not right at this moment…" the old man waved the woman off. Mai paused, only to humm awkwardly, before continuing despite the request from her high superior.

"Um… well, you see it has to do with that child." she said uncomfortably, referring to the object of the other two's thoughts, and therefore directing their full attention to her.

Hiruzen widened his eyes his eyes slightly, before talking. "…Continue?"

Mai sighed to herself, pointing downstairs. "There's a man on the trade council down there saying that yesterday… Uzumaki-san… put his son in the hospital with a concussion, fractured skull, and multiple bruises… The son apparently couldn't remember much, but according to the records-" she held up the mentioned documentation.

"-the medics agree that some sort of heavy stone projectile was the cause of the head wound… The man says that Uzumaki-san didn't even bother to take him to the hospital; some passerby did. Apparently he wants the boy to be severely punished, and stripped of the right to become a shinobi; with prison time also…" the woman finished, deciding not to voice her slight agreement on the matter in favor of the councilman's accusations—she knew about the elderly partly-retired Hokage's thoughts on the subject.

"Wait… The black eye…?" Hiruzen whispered under his breath, tightening his fists. It wasn't from a spar. Naruto lied to him? Kakashi picked up on this and took it as a confirmation on what was probably a fight, given that both boys received injury.

Both men turned to each other again, eyes hardened, while the doubts they each had about Naruto's 'violent urges' slowly became fractionally less solid… A fight ending with a fractured skull? That was a serious injury; and if the councilman's accusations were to be believed, Naruto was the one who inflicted it… And didn't even take the boy to the hospital. Did he fear punishment of some sort? Or was it purely because he didn't care?

Just what did they actually know about Uzumaki Naruto?

Hiruzen turned back to the woman, who seemed to be waiting for a response. "That's enough Mai, thank you!" he watched as the woman blinked and nodded in confusion, before closing the door; only then did he continue.

"Kakashi, I want you to go to Naruto's apartment; if he's there, come find me immediately! I'll contact Iruka and inform him about the situation! Go!" the Sandaime ordered, to which Kakashi nodded and disappeared in a shunshin, and Hiruzen followed shortly after.

Time was ticking.


Outside of the Forest of Death; 6:48 PM

"12 minutes." Mizuki counted down, waiting until it reached 7:00 before he would just take both boys and escape. Why kill off a potential future bargaining chip in the Sarutobi boy? Orochimaru wouldn't be displeased—hopefully—if he were to receive an extra besides his main goal. Maybe it would even make up for the possible lack of the scroll?

But that was only if Iruka didn't show. Yet, Mizuki held little doubts that he would. So few doubts, in fact, that he could practically feel the perimeter of ANBU forming around him at about a mile in each direction. Too bad for them it wouldn't help.

"Henge." Mizuki took the form of Naruto, and proceeded to drag Konohamaru into the middle of the clearing in front of him. He proceeded to yank the bag off of his head, revealing most of the boys face, and the explosive tags to the world again.

"Hey! Wake up!" 'Naruto' said to Konohamaru, but when the boy didn't stir, he kicked him in the stomach for a second time. "Kid, wake up! You can't cry for help asleep!"

Konohamaru coughed up a small amount of blood into the gag, signifying his awakening. He turned on his side and curled. The henge'd Mizuki ripped the blindfold off of the boy's face, revealing eyes closed tightly in pain.

"Now listen, and listen closely brat. There's going to be a scarred man coming into this clearing in a few minutes. When he does; you are going to beg for your life—or I'm going to blow you into a thousand bloody pieces…" 'Naruto' threatened, unsheathing the sword he had found in the real Naruto's apartment and pointing it at Konohamaru. "Understood?"

There was no response. 'Naruto' decided to repeat it, this time dropping the sheath of the sword and getting down on one knee, grabbing him by the throat with his now free hand. He forced the boy onto his back and pressed his hold on Konohamaru's neck, making the boy open his eyes to look at him. "I said; understood? Answer me!"

The boy held both confusion and fear in his eyes as he nodded. The henge'd Mizuki released the hold, then got back up. "Good."

Once this demand was sufficiently made clear he walked back over a fair amount into the trees where Naruto was still bound and gagged, sitting against a tree, with the Mizuki clone guarding him on the branch above. He next proceeded to push the real blond's bagged head against the tree, forcing a muffled grunt from Naruto's clothed mouth.

"And you; move or talk, and my clone will introduce your face to the ground until you can't taste your blood over the dirt in your mouth." the henge'd Mizuki didn't wait for a reply this time, letting Naruto go and giving the clone a single hand signal, then simply turning around and walking back to the clearing.

Just in time too. He could just make out Iruka, scroll in hand, no shinobi pouches or weapons whatsoever. Perfect.

Naruto bit down on the cloth in his mouth, feeling the pain in the back of his head, but didn't try anything—he wasn't stupid. The blond simply waited, listening as the henge'd man walked away. He immediately then turned his thoughts to contemplating how he could escape. The blond ignored the rapidly chirping crickets in the background as he observed as much about his current location as possible with the disability of the bag still covering his vision. It wasn't much; as one could likely figure out.

All he had assured was that there was an open clearing a relatively short-run's distance behind him, and an earth clone above him on a tree branch—completely ready to silence him through violent methods if he so much as shifted position; seeing as said clone was holding a sort of leash on him in the form of a long piece of rope that led from his feet. That would be problematic, but it could work in his favor. Mizuki was under a henge of him, judging by the voice, so if the man could play the part well enough and manage to escape with him and the scroll…

He would be the one hunted, until Konohagakure could recover the Kyuubi—at almost any cost. Not Mizuki; who was 'murdered' by him. It was actually quite a clever plan.

But where did he even get a snake summon? Led alone—if his assumption was correct—one that was able to regurgitate replicated dead bodies? Summoning contracts weren't exactly passed around—most summons typically only let one, and at most two, hold the contract at any given time—and especially not the one that the snake sennin that went rogue, took with him.

This was how he had come to the conclusion that Mizuki was essentially working for Orochimaru, of all people… And it suddenly made a lot more sense.

It was quite easy to see now why Mizuki didn't just straight up kill him, or do much more than threaten to hurt him. For all intents and purposes, he was being kidnapped to become a human needle cushion for twisted science. He himself was likely the main prize, not the scroll. The thought of the possibility that Mizuki could just abandon the scroll all together did not escape him.

He had to come up with something. There was no way he would let himself become a chemical-doll, not without a fight.

Without moving his body in any noticeable manner Naruto fidgeted with his wrists binding, to no avail. He needed a knife, as there was no way he could untie them—

—Unless… he could burn it. Electricity? Could that work? Sure it would hurt like hell, and he might even temporarily paralyze his arms but he would be free; and then his only other problem of the minute would be the blindfold, feet binds, and the clone. The first two things he immediately determined as detrimental to his survival in a battle with the third. That was, if he could even win a fight with the clone anyway—without Mizuki finding out and blasting Konohamaru to smithereens as a default course of action.

He wasn't exactly the best at taijutsu—he didn't pack enough punch, or have quite enough technique to come even close to chunin level—and he didn't have any weapons to help him, which was a problem he would have to solve before any serious engagements.

The sword was out of the question then, as Mizuki most definitely had his sword. The man had pretty much ransacked his apartment of any valuables he could find—of which was not many, but his sword definitely happened to be one, along with his hat and ryo savings… He would have to get those back as well, but they were lower on the priority list.

Wait.

'I'm a moron.' Naruto widened his eyes, opening them inside the blindfold. Earth was weak to lightning chakra. If his arms were already going to be paralyzed, then what would pumping a few extra volts into them matter, besides the agonizing pain and nerve damage? Or would his pain receptors give out before that?

Seeing as he was low on time, there wasn't much to reconsider.

'I guess I'll find out in a few seconds…' He took a deep breath and started to charge his hands full of lightning chakra, letting it build up. Again, Naruto bit down hard on the cloth preparing for the pain, and leaned back against the tree trying to conceal as much of what he was doing for as long as possible—though he wasn't sure if it was helping at all, as it was probably dark already—while stray bolts of electricity started to escape from his hands.

They slowly started to become more rapid—more erratic; and more audible with a small noise that sounded like a bunch of magnets coming together all at once, hundreds of times over, only getting louder with each passing second. The rope itself soon started to singe under the current it was being subjected to—

"Oi! What the hell is that?!" he heard a voice coming from the branch above him. The earth clone had caught on, and landing next to him, went to put a kunai to his neck. It was far too late though.

The rope snapped—or more appropriately; frayed and burned—and with a high pitched screech, bright white lightning chakra exploded from his hands in a shower of sparks and electricity, surging outward and finding every surface it could to send voltage into. Without hesitation, Naruto swung his freed arms in the direction of the clone's landing.

"Fuck!" The Mizuki clone must have made the decision that this was dangerous enough to warrant that instead of trying to bring the blond back under submission, he would drop the rope leash; opting to jump back up and cover his face and neck with his arm. This allowed Naruto to accomplish his goal of using the tree to make a blind and clumsy leap away. The blond managed to use his one functional and non-utterly-electrically fried hand—not to say it was in top working condition, but it was good enough—to tear the bag, and blindfold off of his head in one motion.

Naruto hurriedly blinked away the spots in his eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the new conditions.

"Oh no you don't!" It seemed that the clone managed to recover quickly; as the blond now found himself being yanked back by the rope leash on his feet. 'Damnit!' Naruto cursed internally, and started to charge his hand again. He didn't get very far into the process before the clone was directly in front of him. Picking him up by the shirt, the silver haired chakra construct drove him back first into a tree, making the blond cough as the breath was knocked out of him.

"Game over!" Naruto briefly heard, and choked up spit into the gag when a fist impacted his stomach. He nearly slumped against it, but was caught by a hand to his throat. "Didn't we warn you that there would be consequences—?" another fist impacted his stomach making blood leak from his mouth, only to be soaked up by the gag again.

"I mean—," another. "I would have thought—," again. "that you would get the picture!" the clone finished with one solid, final punch. He then held Naruto up to the tree, depriving him of oxygen, and forcing the boy to grab the earth clone's arm with his only useful arm; lest he suffocate to death.

The blond convulsed, then coughed up more blood; now streaming through the cloth and down his chin, neck, and shoulders. It was only a few seconds before Naruto slowly lifted his head and gave the 'man' a venomous, murderous glare.

"Phok… Wuew…" he said through the cloth, making absolutely no sense to the clone. Confused, he pulled the gag out of the boy's mouth. "What are you spewing, freak?"

Naruto tightened the grip on the clone's arm. "I said…" he took a deep breath through the hold, preparing himself for what he was about to do. "—Fuck you."

All in the span of a moment; using the hold the blond had in the form of his left hand on the clone's arm, he pulled his knees to his chest in perfect synch, then pushed out over the chakra constructs shoulder, his ankles dragging the leash across the opposite side of the clone's neck. Naruto dropped his hand, and grabbed the leash, simultaneously pulling both ends.

"Sh—!" This caused the Mizuki clone to let go of the blond's throat in order to counter or block whatever Naruto was attempting to do to him.

This only served to help the boy even further, as reacting in a beneficial manner, Naruto curled his legs over the clone's back, and pulled the rope over the front of it's neck, wrapping it around as many times as he could without allowing the clone any room to stop it—that being twice.

Doing this caused both to fall to the ground—with the help of Naruto using his back to push off from the tree, so that he himself wouldn't hit the unforgivingly hard wood—as the chakra construct was no longer able to stand. Within seconds, the blond had used his left arm like a spool, and spun the rope around it multiple times; therefore tightening it in on the clone's neck so much that it would kill any normal man by entirely cutting off blood circulation and air flow. (1)

And this just happened to be less than a normal man… within less than a second, the clone was reduced to soft earth, and Naruto allowed himself a short time to breathe. The blond didn't have much time though, as he realized that this was just one small win… There bigger fish to be fried. With this thought in mind, Naruto ripped the gag off, and hurriedly got to work on the knots binding his feet. A yell pierced through the air.

"No! Konohamaru—!" "Naruto; I have the scroll here, look!" there was a short pause, before six dreadfully ominous words reached his ears, a scream carrying the latter three. "Wait, hold on!"

"DON'T DO IT!"

'No-no-no!' Naruto's mind repeated in rapid succession. The blond grit his teeth, and his working on the knots became even more frantic than it already was. He was just barely able to get them undone, and he bolted up.

It seemed that the real hostage threat was being carried out to full effect. It didn't seem that Mizuki was bluffing. Not in the slightest. And if that was the case…

Someone was about to die. The hourglass was almost out; and this one couldn't be simply 'flipped back over'.

Naruto absolutely had to stop him. However, an issue pronounced itself above all others…

—It sounded as if he had a negative amount of time to do it.


(1) Similar to that first opening scene in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, for some reason I was thinking about it, and it somehow, I made it fit. (Hopefully)

A/N

Thanks for reading, and putting up with me so far! I do hope this chapter is to your enjoyment. I also hope the story's plot is taking a turn for the better; I feel as if I'm beginning to be less lazy—amazingly enough.

A side note, too. For people who STILL believe that Izumi is an OC or FemItachi… Simply put; No offense, but… what do you not understand? I'm pretty sure I put enough reason to believe she ISN'T Itachi… Although I do understand why some people think she's an OC; her character is pretty obscure. Though I do assure you, she's very much canon, and even makes a debut in the anime… Search her name, and she'll come up on the Naruto Wiki. Hope this cleared some things up for you, and also; feel free to PM me for things you don't understand. I'm pretty sure I've put this down before, but—

If you've made it this far in, and still dislike it, please do explain why! I understand that this story isn't for everyone; heckler it may only be for a miniscule niche… But don't leave me the equivalent of being a fish on dry land!