Chapter 21

About thirty minutes prior to Jiraiya's coming.

Gaara stared at the blond for an uncomfortably long amount of time. For all his deductive reasoning, he couldn't figure him out in the slightest. "You…" Gaara started out, bringing out a fearful and somewhat curious expression unto the face of the Uzumaki being addressed. "Are a Jinchuuriki."

Naruto nodded, shifting his gaze from side to side unsurely. "Yeah. Wait… you were freaking out when I told everyone about that. How do you know?"

"I was told by Temari." Gaara stated.

Naruto sighed into his palm exasperatedly. "I should have told everyone not to repeat that." He mumbled to himself.

"I am also a Jinchuuriki." Gaara stated.

"You don't say?" Naruto said with a huff of laughter. "Anyway, what's wrong? Why do you care whether or not I'm a Jinchuuriki?"

Gaara averted his eyes away from Naruto to the linoleum floors. "Because I need to know." He said intensely. "I need to know how you are able to be so… so… unaffected."

Naruto quirked a brow. "What should I be affected by?"

Gaara clutched at his head. His pupils were dilating and veins were popping up everywhere on his face. "The whispers." Gaara choked out. "How do you remain so sane when mother wishes for blood? How are you able to block out the voices, the hate?"

Naruto looked taken aback. "Woah woah woah. I think you need to see someone. Like a therapist or something."

Gaara's eyes shot to Naruto. "Y-You mean… you can't hear the whispers?"

"There's nobody talking to me inside my head."

"How insulting. Have you forgotten about me so readily?"

"Shut up Kyuubi." Naruto mumbled to the side, prompting Gaara to look up to him with a hopeful gaze on his face. Before the Sand genin could say anything, however, Naruto put forth a statement. "Okay, so I'm not so alone in my head, but I don't have a 'mother' asking for blood, or any whispers. Just a bastard fox that doesn't like me."

Gaara looked hurt. As if he was affronted personally and psychologically by this information. He clutched at his temples and forehead furiously. His pupils began wobbling. Red cracks in the whites of his eyes became more pronounced. He reached an arm forward and made grasping gestures at Naruto, though nothing happened. "Mother wants you blood." Gaara rasped out.

Although this did freak Naruto out something awful, he wasn't going to call the nurse in just yet. There were more important things to handle than a psychologically impaired Jinchuuriki with bloodlust.

Okay, so maybe Naruto might have been underestimating the hurt and rage and sorrow building up within Gaara, but he seemed harmless. He only made grasping motions and choked sounds.

Eventually, he gave up and took in great amounts of air. His arms flopped to the sides and his back fell against the pillow.

For some reason, he looked different to Naruto. He always looked like such a short, infantile kid with that giant sand gourd on his back, but now that it was gone, he looked like just another normal kid with mental issues.

Gaara began cursing to himself silently. "Why did father have to take away the sand? Mother said she would always protect me with the sand. Why is it gone? What have I done wrong? Why do you call still for blood?"

Naruto couldn't handle the situation any longer. He put the sleepy Kashikoi, who had been resting on his chest until then, onto the bed, got up, and walked straight up to the Sand genin, then produced a fist for a bumping. Gaara stared at the gesture for several seconds. His eyes darted up to Naruto, then back to the fist. He didn't know what to do with this new stimulus.

"You bump it." Naruto clarified.

"W-With what?"

"With your own fist, dumbass."

"B-but mother. The blood-"

"If you bump fists with me for like… five minutes, then I'll give you all the blood you want." Naruto said enticingly.

Gaara stared longingly at the skin on Naruto's knuckles and eventually produced his own fist, then pushed it forward and allowed his skin to tap Naruto's.

Suddenly, he wasn't in the hospital anymore. He was in a big room, staring at Naruto and the enormous cage behind him. Piercing red eyes peered through the gates behind him.

Gaara slowly turned around to see the star-shaped pupils of his own bijuu. There was ungodly, beastly, demonic laughter resounding from all around him. He crouched to the ground and covered his ears, tried to block out the horrid, screeching laughter.

"Shukaku. I didn't think I'd ever have to see your ugly face ever again." A deep, resounding voice said from behind Naruto.

"Hehehe. You goddamn fox. Why are you here? Leave before I kill you."

"What's so funny you psychotic tanuki? You couldn't put a scratch on me even if I let you."

Sand washed through the cracks of the seal Shukaku was placed behind. It moved on its own accord and parted around Gaara like a swarm of anchovies avoiding a predator. Naruto took a few steps backwards and fell on his ass. The sand washed over and around him. He was left dumb and shocked at the sight of the sand moving in that way.

The Kyuubi groaned in annoyance and exasperation. "You think your sand is going to hurt me? I'm the Nine-tailed demon fox. You're a thousand years too early to even think of coming up to me."

Shukaku ground his teeth and jaw together. He was getting riled up even more than he usually did. "See, that's the reason every single one of us hates you. You're an arrogant brute who thinks you're so much better than us because of the number of your tails."

The Kyuubi smirked. "That's because I am so much better than you. You're so much weaker than me, it's like swatting a fly away whenever you want to fight."

Shukaku looked like he was about to on a diatribe about Kyuubi being an ass, but was stopped short when Naruto suddenly stood up and shouted with all his might at the giant Ichibi construct. "OOOIII! I didn't come here to hear you two shout at each other! I came to talk!"

Shukaku glanced downwards at Naruto. A booming laughter came from his throat. "Hehehehe. You're pathetic Kyuubi. Have you even made an effort at getting out of your cage? Or has your generations stuck inside petulant humans tamed you? Oh Matatabi and Son are going to get a kick out of this."

Before Kyuubi could retort in a most loud and unstable manner, Naruto shouted up at the Ichibi again. "Are you deaf!? Stop being such a dick and listen to me!"

"See, this is what I hate about humans." Shukaku said, completely ignoring the blond. "They demand attention even if they don't deserve it. They believe them to be our superiors when almost every single one of them wouldn't pose more a challenge then a passing sparrow that might accidentally perch on us."

"Holy shit." Naruto said very audibly. "Would you shut up for one second? We're not here to discuss how much of assholes we humans are! We're here to talk about you!" Naruto shouted, pointing at the Ichibi.

"Your container has balls, I'll give him that much. Okay, insect, what do you want?" Shukaku asked in an uppity tone.

"I want to know why you're 'whispering' to Gaara for blood. That's really weird!"

Shukaku grunted in disgust at Naruto. "Why do you think? I've been trapped in either a cage, or a kettle for hundreds of years. I want to be free. I want to roam the deserts. I want to do as I please and I can't do that in here. Unlike your pet behind you," There was dangerous growling coming from Naruto's side. "I'm making an effort to get out of here."

"How? By driving Gaara crazy? Look at what you did to him." Naruto said, pointing Gaara, who was still in fetal position. "You're making him go psycho!"

Shukaku tapped the bars holding him away from Gaara. "That's the idea, insect."

Naruto nodded in an assuring manner. "You are so getting muted."

Shukaku paused. "What?"

"I'm going to mute you."

"…What?"

Naruto walked up to Gaara and reached a hand out to him. "Let's get out of here. I need to check up on something."

Gaara stared at that hand for the longest of times. Nobody ever tried to touch him. Nobody ever tried to help him. He was alone in this world with nothing but whispers of blood and death by his side. Naruto tired of waiting for Gaara to take hold of the hand for himself, so he reached even further downwards and took it in his hand by force. "Come on, I think I can help you with that problem of yours."

Gaara blinked, then he wasn't in the large room anymore. He was back in the hospital with none other than Naruto Uzumaki.

Naruto looked Gaara up and down a few times. "Where's your seal?"

Gaara tried to answer, but the words got caught up in his throat.

Naruto made cyclical hand gestures. "You know… the thing that keeps that bastard sealed up inside of you."

Gaara silently and slowly tucked his head out of the hospital smock and drifted a hand to where his abdomen and sternum met. A black sealing array popped up and spread around to about a foot in diameter.

Naruto clicked his tongue and stared at the symbols and effects moving and interacting with each other. Luckily for him, Jiraiya mostly taught him about the sealing aspects of sealing. Suffice to say, there was a lot that could be done with sealing. Things like the creation of undetectable proximity mines, the creation of barriers that could keep people out, or just eviscerate anything that came by, things that could dampen sound vibrations, things that could explode on command. But Jiraiya was mostly vested in the sealing and summoning aspects of sealing. So Naruto was taught some basic 'sealing' seals. Like storage seals and other such things.

Really, all bijuu seals were based on the same design of the kunai storage seal, though a fuck ton more complicated. It looked as though the person who made the Ichibi seal only knew what they were doing to a certain extent, not taking in all the parameters and situations that could happen based on the seal they made.

What Naruto was trying to do didn't really require the in-depth knowledge of all the bells and whistles of Gaara's seal, just a good spot to make a little add-on. He wasn't redesigning the wheel, he was just adding a spoke.

Using a chakra engulfed finger, Naruto traced a seal about two feet wide all over Gaara's torso and abdomen, then struck the middle with his palm. The entire thing shrunk inwards and became just a small little addition to his seal.

As the thing was vanishing, Naruto stepped back to look at his work. "How's it feel? Can you still hear him?"

Gaara sat and waited for several seconds. He raised a hand and looked at the palm, turning it over and over to see all the small little details of his hand. He pushed the hand forward at Naruto, fingers extended to the largest possible degree.

Then the hand fell limply to his side. "I… I can't hear the whispers anymore." Gaara said unbelievingly. "I can't… I can't hear them." He looked at Naruto. "I can't hear them." He kept on repeating over and over. "I can't hear them." A smile began to filter into Gaara's expression.

Naruto put his fist out for a bumping. Gaara immediately reciprocated and they were back in the room with two cages.

The one behind Gaara was being beat upon and thrashed about. Shukaku was definitely screaming out obscenities and threats if his mouth movements were to be believed, but no sound was piercing the cage.

Naruto sighed and looked up at the raging Tanuki, then back to Gaara. "If you ever want to talk to him again, just let me know, or something."

"Why would I ever want that?" Gaara whispered. "I'm free now."

"Well… yeah." Naruto looked up at the enraged bijuu. Whatever they were, they were sentient enough to hold idle conversation, and ideological enough to wish for freedom. No matter how much a dick a person is, no one deserves eternity being exploited for someone else. "But still… I think Shukaku is going to learn his lesson eventually. He might come around to the prospect of having a friend. If you're there for him, then I think you could both benefit."

Gaara didn't appear to be listening all too intently. He was mostly just looking around himself, looking for things Naruto wasn't sure would ever be there. Naruto grabbed his hand. "Come on man, your family should be happy to know that you're not hearing voices anymore."

Gaara paused in his search. "Family?"

Naruto gave him a queer look. "Yeah, family. You know, the people that you're related to. Like Temari, or Kankuro, or your dad. People who love you."

"Nobody loves me." Gaara whispered.

Naruto might have facepalmed if the situation really didn't call for it. "Of course people love you." He muttered as he brought Gaara out of the mindscape and back to the living world.

Gaara sat and remained quiet, the happy smile on his face somewhat diminishing. "Nobody loves me. Ever since I was born, I've been scorned and turned away because of what I am. Because of what I might do by accident."

Naruto took a deep breath. "Yeah. Same with me. I'm a Jinchuuriki too, you know. Ever since I was born, I've been trying to get the acceptance of the people around me, but it was like I was invisible to them."

"…What happened? You're surrounded by people who accept you now. Is there… some trick to get people to like you?" Gaara asked quietly.

Naruto stroked his chin thoughtfully. "There's really only one thing that comes to mind. You just can't give up, I guess. If people don't like you, then be nice to them until they're forced to like you in return. But you have it easy. You already have family. I was born an orphan, whereas you have at the very least three people who love you."

"They… love me?"

"Of course they love you; they're your family."

Gaara didn't look too sure. "I… I-" his train of thought was interrupted, however, when the window to the room opened and two ninja with blank face masks hopped in.

"Naruto Uzumaki." One of them said formally. "You are hereby conscripted into the services of Root. Come with us quietly."

Naruto was so shocked by the sudden information that he took a few seconds to answer. "Huh?"

"Danzo-sama wishes to meet you. You have special abilities that could save the village from destruction. We need those abilities."

"Look man, I don't care who sent you. I'm not going with you. I'm injured and having a conversation with a friend of mine."

"If you do not comply, we will be forced to take you using any means necessary."

Naruto's eyes narrowed. Nothing happened for two heartbeats, then Naruto jumped to the side and tried to grab his puppet bo staff that had been with his other personal items. Before he could reach it, he felt something hit his neck and he suddenly couldn't move too well. With the momentum that the sudden jump and the inability to move after making said jump, Naruto impacted the wall face first. If he could have winced, he would have. Not because of the impact with the wall and the blood trickling down his face and chest from the probably broken nose, but because of the sudden blossoming of pain that came from his shoulder.

Kashikoi jumped up from the bed and yipped all around them, biting at their Achilles and calf muscles, tripping up their legs, do her hardest to make sure they didn't take her master.

They paid her no mind. As if she wasn't even there

Strong arms grabbed Naruto by the armpits and hoisted him up onto the back of a still unidentified shinobi.

All through this, Gaara stared with wide eyes. He tried to stop their movements with sand, an automatic reflex, before he remembered the fact that his sand had been forcefully confiscated during his unconsciousness.

Gaara couldn't move either. Going into a forced Jinchuuriki state would be disastrous to any Jinchuuriki, not counting the fact that their normal human reserves aren't all that large. So he couldn't move to stop them as they jumped out the window with the cargo on their back.

Furiously, he pressed the nurse call button as quickly as he could. Kashikoi yipped at the door, trying her hardest to gain attention from others in the hallway.

Seconds passed for Gaara like eternities did for others. He stopped and looked hopefully to the door as he heard furious and heavy footfalls from the hallway. A poorly dressed injured woman of unknown origin slammed through the doors and gave the room a quick once over.

All the energy seemed to leave her upon seeing the open window. Her knees wobbled and collapsed out from under her. Her hands grabbed a hold of the sheets and blanket of the hospital bed, desperately trying their hardest to support her.

There was a strange red pattern flaring up on her neck much like the one that Naruto had, only this one was contained within a circle of seals.

She coughed, spluttered, and rose. Shambling to the window, she fell again and puked a torrid green acid looking substance onto the bed.

The doors opened once more to an imposing man that didn't look like knew what was happening. He immediately went 'game face' and restricted Anko to a bed that wasn't covered in an acidic vomit. When he tried to answers, but no avail, Gaara decided to speak up about the situation.

Jiraiya ran over to his bed and Gaara supplied the man with concise, detailed answers to his question. Jiraiya got a grim look on his face and jumped out the window, probably having an idea as to where Naruto was.

The nurses came into the room next, looking for answers. Gaara supplied them with the answers that he thought they needed to know and they, in turn, restrained Anko even further into her bed and applied a sedative, probably a safety to not exacerbating her wounds. Anko fell unconscious and they wheeled her out of the room.

Gaara was left alone with an agitated fox.

It was a good thing that he was left alone, or at least without conversation worthy company, because he had a lot to think about. Things like his relationship to other human beings, including but not limited to, his family. Now that he was actually alone in his head, he was also able to feel some of the more intellectually stimulated feelings, like fear, or worry, especially towards his new friend Naruto.

That being said, he lived his life until that moment either in pragmatism or joyous ecstasy at the feeling of killing a person. Seeing that he didn't have anybody to kill or any reason to, he reverted to the first feeling, that of pragmatic silence.

He knew that he could do nothing to help Naruto. After all, his body didn't work all too well and he didn't have his sand with him. If he tried to help, he'd be more a hindrance than anything.

So he didn't.

He decided to wait until further stimulus roused him from his thoughts.

And, as it had been previously mentioned, he had a lot to think about.

00000000

Naruto coughed and spluttered as he suddenly found himself back within the waking world. The air was heavy and hard to breathe. Stale, as if he was in an abandoned mine. There was little to no lighting in the room he was in. The minimal amount of light was filtered in through the paper walls, giving everything a grayish glow. As his vision cleared, he propped himself into a sitting position and was immediately mentally drawn to the desk directly in front of him and the man who was sitting there with a patient look on his face. Behind him and all across the walls were adages about being a shinobi. Most of them were strange and warped.

Naruto tried to speak, but there was something clogging his throat. After coughing up the spit and bile stuck in his esophagus onto the floor, he brought his face back up to glare at the man. "Who are you?" Naruto asked, glaring all the way.

"Danzo. Danzo Shimura. Leader of Root, the black ops of the black ops within the walls of Konohagakure." He said slowly and ornately. His speech pattern gave all the pertinent information, none of the implied information. Danzo was there for a conversation, not an ordering.

"Why am I here?" Naruto asked, looking around the room some more. There were a few shinobi in subordinate poses behind him. To his side, there was a chair bolted to the ground, which he sat in.

"You have been conscripted to become a member of Root."

"You can't just take me against my will. I have rights as a human being and as a shinobi."

"I have both the power and the authority to do as I please in this time period."

"And just what time period is that, exactly?"

"War." Danzo said, his serious face turning even more serious.

Naruto gave a humorless laugh. "If we were at war, I think I'd know."

Danzo sighed in exasperation. "Allow me to revise my statement Uzumaki-san. We are about to be at war. Your services will be required, thus the conscription."

"Why my services? I'm the resident Jinchuuriki, remember? Aren't there going to be questions about where I jumped off to?"

"When it comes to protecting the sanctity of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, you will come to know that I hold absolute authority. Even more than the Hokage."

Naruto paused, struck by the information given to him. "The-The black ops of the black ops." Naruto said, bringing up an earlier point in conversation. "Just what is that? Sounds like a weird conspiracy theory joke."

"I can assure you, this is no joke. The ANBU of the Black Ops division are shinobi of all rank and ability who all portray a certain mindset which would make them suitable operatives. The Root shinobi are different. While those in the Black Ops are morally ambivalent, there are times when basic humanity must be discarded for the greater good. That's where I, and the shinobi I control, come in."

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest. "I get that whole 'for the greater good' thing. I don't really like it or anything, but why do you think that I, of all people, lack basic humanity. I love people. I love the people closest to me. I am human. You can't change that."

"You'd be surprised what I'm capable of, Uzumaki-san." Danzo said dangerously.

Naruto unconsciously backed up in his seat. "I don't care what you think you can do to me. I'm not joining your Root. I'm not joining the ANBU. And I'm definitely not listening to you. We're not at war!"

"But we will be." Danzo said simply. "I'm not sure if you've noticed or not, but there's a lot of misplaced and directionless anger being represented on the main stage at the moment. Eventually, the powers are going to decide that this was Konoha's fault for allowing Orochimaru to do as he pleased. Mist might not join because of the rebellion, but you can believe that Sand, Cloud, and Stone are going to be participating in the three-on-one war. Konoha will be dismantled and distributed as the spoils of war. It will be simple for them because even if we're the mightiest village of them all, we can't hope to repel all three of them. That's why we need you."

"Need me for what? I'm not a damn robot. I'm not going to do whatever you say. And how do you know that? They could just let it go and realize that none of this was Konoha's fault."

"Or they could not. We need to act first in a way that eliminates that possibility."

"And how are we going to do that?" Naruto asked derisively.

"…This was all the machinations of a treaty between Taki, Kumo, and Otogakure, the Hidden Sound Village."

Naruto's eyes went wide. "But… wait. No it wasn't. This was all Orochimaru's fault. Kumo and Taki had nothing to do with any of this."

"You've built up a reputation of being shockingly honest and goodhearted amongst the genin of the nations. Annoyingly so. Once the kage hear your testimony about an eavesdropped conversation between the Nanabi Jinchuuriki and the Niibi Jinchuuriki in a plot to undermine the rest of the nations and bring Konoha to its knees, there will be war. But in this scenario, we're going to be the ones winning."

Naruto glared at the man. "You want me to betray one of my best friends? One of the only people who can feel just a little bit of empathy towards me? I. Refuse."

Danzo did a sad little sigh. "Have you not been listening, Uzumaki-san? You will do this whether you want to or not." He made a motion to the other shinobi behind Naruto. They stood up and walked up behind Naruto in his chair. "There's also one other matter to be discussed."

"And what's that?" Naruto asked, losing his patience at all the bullshit being shoved down his throat.

"The fact that you recently acquired a bloodline attribute from a very well respected clan within Konoha… when you previously had no such DNA within your body."

Naruto paused. "I-I… I don't know how I got that."

"You are lying, Uzumaki-san. Either you can tell me now how you got that bloodline, I can inject with a variety of serums to get the truth out of you that way, or we can just move on to the second phase of your training."

"The… second? What about the first?"

Before Naruto's world erupted in sparks and pain, he saw just the grim look of a pragmatist trying his best to protect his country. He also saw a jingoistic asshole that would crush the throat of a small child if it so much as waved a fist Konoha's way. That was what made the character of Danzo Shimura. Protecting Konoha by destroying everything around it. Dualistic identities.

Naruto was sent to the floor, where he did an acrobatic maneuver to right himself and face the two shinobi, one of which was holding a baton-looking stick, which had just been used to club him. He didn't have any time to think as the second shinobi rushed at him and proceeded to do his darndest to beat Naruto within an inch of his life.

As Naruto faced off with the two Root shinobi, Danzo tracked his every movement. If there was even the whiff of anything remarkable happening, any bloodline awakening, anything that might make Naruto even more a military asset than he already was, he'd be there.

00000000

20 minutes later.

Jiraiya ran down the dank, dark, gray, and depressing hallway of the lower sewer system of Konoha. Generally, Danzo only used the one central hub of Root to do his business. Anything from training the new Root recruits to scheming up another shitstorm was done there.

Only he wasn't. And neither were any of the Root. And neither was Naruto.

That gave Jiraiya the credence go with overcaution rather than undercaution. Frogs were generally not used for tracking and reconnaissance, but desperate times called for any desperate measures. One of his chakra sensing summons managed to find a large collection of angry chakra from several hundred feet below Konoha, a place that Jiraiya did not know of.

That led to his current situation, trying his hardest to find a pathway or a secret door that would get him to the area described by the toad. Since he was under Konoha, which was being held up by the support of the underground halls, any destructive technique to get him below could result in a cave-in of the whole city. Something he really didn't want at that moment.

Jiraiya slid to a stop at a nearby wall. To the untrained eye, it would look like any other section of the wall, but to Jiraiya, who was adept in sensing the chakra used in sealing, it was a passageway activated by a blood seal.

Muttering to himself in frustration, annoyance, and fear, he brought out a rubber glove and put it on his right hand. Although he wasn't keyed in to the seal, considering the amount that the passage was probably used and how recently it was probably activated, there could be lingering blood cells not killed off by oxidation. Using a small water jutsu, he sprayed a fine mist on the wall and rubbed it down with his gloved hand.

It flashed white and opened without a sound.

He was about to go in when his ears picked up a sound. From down the hallway, it sounded as if someone was dragging a piece of leather back forth very rapidly on the ground. It picked up speed and distance alarmingly quickly, forcing Jiraiya to take cover in the secret passageway as a large snake summon slithered its way over and suddenly stopped, baring the way for anyone else to get in conventionally. There was a sudden and determined silence as both parties waited for the other to react.

"Anko?" Jiraiya whispered.

There was the sound of a person disembarking off the large summon before it poofed away in smoke. Standing before him was the bedraggled form of Anko Mitarashi. She had her mesh undercoat on at a crooked angle and was wearing sweatpants. Her feet were bare and she looked exhausted beyond belief.

"Anko? How did you get here? You're supposed to be resting in the hospital! You just had major torso surgery!"

"I'm fine." She said breathlessly. "The curse seal was making me go haywire. Once it calmed down, I was able to move."

"How did you get past the nurses? What clothes are you wearing? How did you get here?"

"I'm a ninja, my clothes, snakes are better at sniffing people out than toads. I followed you."

Jiraiya looked like he was about to go off on a philippic, but realized he didn't have the time nor the resources to do so. Danzo had a reputation for doing all he could possibly do in order to protect the walls of Konoha. It was the reason why Hiruzen allowed him to operate. He would do all the things Hiruzen knew was necessary for Konoha, but wouldn't be possible to be accomplished without an army of brainwashed, highly trained shinobi. It was also a reason why Jiraiya didn't want him anywhere near Naruto

His hand lit up in a small fire jutsu, lighting the pathway to the new hidden addition to Root. We walked in and trained his senses as far as they could go. It wasn't unheard of for Danzo to fill up the halls that he worked in with hidden traps. As much as he wanted to, Jiraiya wouldn't let himself go any faster.

The further they walked in, the more they got a picture of what was going on under there. Sounds of steel against steel, the whooshing of fire jutsu, the crackling of lightening, the cracking of wood against flesh. There was a fight going on under there.

But those sounds weren't what disturbed Jiraiya or Anko the most. No, it was the horrid, demented laughter from within.

Their eyes met and both came to a sudden agreement.

Caution to the wind. They had to work fast.

Sprinting down the dark hallway, the only illumination being the fire in Jiraiya's palms, their imaginations running wild at what could be going on in the hidden room Danzo made. Anko and Jiraiya feared for the worst, but hoped for the best.

Eventually, the tunnel opened up into a circular chamber that was self-lit by fluorescent lights. Root shinobi of all rank, age, and creed were crowded around a circular opening. Underneath them, there was a second floor being used as a fighting ring.

Pushing their way past the Root, they saw the extent of what was happening.

Blood, steel, burn marks, torn flesh, dismembered limbs. All those things were in the focal point of the ring. Standing in its center was Naruto Uzumaki, not that either of them could recognize that by sight. Blood coated every portion of his body, there was a red haze of bijuu chakra surrounding his form, the flaming black curse seal ran all around his body. His eyes were swollen shut and had veins popping up from his temples to his eyes. Though it was hard to tell, he was definitely crying tears of blood as he viciously took in rasping breaths of air.

Jiraiya eyed up to everyone watching and immediately found Danzo, who had a no-touch zone of about two feet, in where nobody thought to breach.

Seeing as Naruto was alone in the ring, probably volatile, and not dead for the most part, Jiraiya decided the best course of action would be to beat the shit out of Danzo, wait for Naruto to regain his composure, and take him back to the hospital, but not before giving the warmonger a very stern death threat.

He expected Anko would have the same thoughts as he jumped on the inside of the ring and wall ran to where Danzo was. Though in hindsight, he probably should have realized that Anko wasn't in the right mind space either.

He tackled Danzo to the ground and leveled a kunai to his throat. "Danzo!" he cried. "You went too far this time! You agreed that you wouldn't touch Naruto. He was off-limits!"

"I made that agreement with Hiruzen, who is now dead." Danzo said level-headedly, as if he weren't pinned to the ground with a kunai to his throat. "And I have every right to conscript shinobi of special talent and status into my ranks."

Jiraiya growled at the man. "That's my godson. I won't let you have him." He pressed the kunai further into his neck. "I'm going to walk out of here with him. If I find out you put that god-forsaken seal on his tongue, I swear to god, I'm going to hunt you down and shove a sword up your ass." Jiraiya got off the man and looked down on him as if he were nothing more than dirt. "Now call off your shinobi. We're leaving."

"You would so readily commit treason? We're at war, Jiraiya. We need him if we're going to get out of it."

"We're going to get out of it just fine without your over-the-top readiness to screw everybody over. It's people like you that make the world leaders not want to trust anyone!" Jiraiya turned around and was about to order Anko to follow his lead in restraining Naruto when he realized she wasn't behind him.

Eyes going wide in concern, he ran to the railing and looked into the ring. He arrived just in time to see Anko wrap the still volatile Naruto in a great big hug. She was whispering things in his ears, probably words of apology or sorrow.

"ANKO! GET OUT OF THERE!" Jiraiya shouted at the top of his lungs.

Now if this were one of those happy-dramatic scenes, Naruto's various rage inducing stimuli would vanish at the presence of such heartfelt love and concern. Anko would hug his broken form to her body and maybe plant a kiss on his forehead as he was whisked off to exhausted sleep.

That's not what happened. Naruto growled animalisticly, shoved her away, and buried a tail of pure red chakra in her gut.

This just wasn't her day, was it?

AN/ Hello everybody. Gent here.

You know, I actually kind of like Danzo as a character. He's sort of the gray villain, that teaches the protagonist that nothing is truly good or bad, it's just what you do and what you make of it that colors the perspective of you and those around you.

Anyway, how did I do with Gaara? It's really hard to get his character right, because it's so hard to pin down what may or may not set him off on a rampage, or on a good cry.

So Naruto managed to help Gaara a bit, got conscripted into Root, was tested on how his kekai genkai formed, found by Jiraiya and Anko, and stabbed her in the gut.

Lots of things happening.

Have a gentlemanly day.