When the glimmer of a luxurious reward teases you, what risks are you willing to take in order to reap it?

-l-l-l-

She watched him with hard eyes and stoic features, no shred of emotion crossing her face, a near-perfect reflection of his own expression. The only difference was where their gazes were focused; Ino was all too used to the looks her body drew, but Anko had told her that that was one of the greatest assets of a kunoichi, and to not be afraid to use it to her advantage.

Several more seconds lapsed before she leaned forward slightly and said, "So…we know you have accomplices. If you talk now, maybe we can do something for you."

Silence, not that Ino expected anything more. That was fine though; she didn't need words to get the answers she was looking for.

"You know we'll find them, right?" she continued. A brief quirk of his lips, a flicker of arrogance. Ah ha. "Konoha has pretty tight security. There can't be more than, what, two, three of you, tops?" Movement in the cheek, signifying grinding of the teeth. Only two others then.

She laced her fingers together and placed her chin upon them. "Your job was to infiltrate our Intelligence Division. It's not too hard to guess that your accomplices are in different departments to further cripple us. Logistics? Cryptanalysis?" A slight wrinkle of the upper lip, the beginning of a sneer. "Medical Research, Analytics, Defense?" Another tic. Gotcha.

A knock on the door interrupted her next line of questioning. Ino turned to see Ibiki standing in the doorway to the interrogation room. She rose and walked past him; when he shut the door, she turned to face him with crossed arms. Ibiki raised an eyebrow at her. "Any luck?"

"He's got two accomplices, one in Cryptanalysis and one in Defense," she replied. "Given their placement, I think they're trying to sabotage our intel in preparation for an invasion, but why a small village like Amegakure would be interested in attacking us is beyond me. Do they even have the forces?"

"Unlikely," Ibiki mused. "Then again, Ame's been such a black hole of information in recent years that it's anybody's guess what Hanzō's been up to." Their footsteps echoed loudly in the flagstone hallway as they walked away from the prisoner's cell. "Your help is appreciated."

"Just doing my job. If they all have the same traps in their minds that you said this guy does, it'll be difficult to root them out."

"We'll figure something out."

"Hopefully. Anyway, I should be going. Let me know if you need anything else."

-l-l-l-

The tall canopy, the lush foliage, the feel of hundreds of people ambling along, going about their drudgery…how he missed Konoha. Sure, he'd skirted through the edge of the Land of Fire in his more recent travels – it was hard not to, with how big the country was and its location on the continent – but it had been a long time since he'd dared to venture this close to the Hidden Leaf.

It wasn't out of fear; Zetsu didn't really fear anything, considering the powers at his disposal and the inevitable futility of those few who came into contact with him. But with the grudging respect he'd developed for Naruto over the years of their companionship came a strange inkling to retain a distance from the blond's former home. If Naruto didn't want to know what was occurring in his absence, who was Zetsu to dispute that?

The former Konoha-nin had taken Zetsu's ideologies and warped them to fit his own worldview. Zetsu didn't necessarily agree with all the conclusions his pupil had drawn, or even the decisions he'd made, but then again, he didn't have to; that was the beauty of experiential philosophy and adaptation. It was the primary reason the plant-man didn't keep Naruto apprised of anything he found out in the real world that the blond could find out on his own; now that he was independent, it was up to him to fend for himself.

And if the last five years were any indication, he was achieving that goal admirably. It was more regimented – boring, White Zetsu liked to tell the blond – than the former Grass shinobi preferred, but again, that just showed how two individuals with the same core ideology could branch off into different sects.

Where Naruto liked to have plans and goals to keep himself safe, Zetsu didn't mind giving in to chaos and spontaneity.

Which was probably why, despite his respect for the blond's relationship (or lack thereof) with his former home, the plant-man found himself back at the Hidden Leaf's outskirts. The temptation to be there was just too much fun.

"Doesn't seem like much has changed. Did you expect it to? If you lose a part, it's just replaced with another. But Naruto-kun was such a special part! I didn't say the efficiency was retained. I guess that's true. I—"

He paused, head tilting to one side as if trying to hear something in greater detail. Off in the distance was a muted wisp of chakra, barely noticeable amidst the cacophony of shinobi in the village, yet with a vague familiarity that made it stand out like a beacon. "How peculiar. Is that Naruto-kun? Not unless something has drastically changed since we last met."

His two halves in unspoken agreement, Zetsu sank into the Land of Fire's root system with the Mayfly technique, homing in on the location where the chakra source was originating. When he eventually surfaced, concealed within the depths of an oak trunk, it was across from a school playground. Children, too small to even be considered a morsel to the plant-man's palette, were being led outside by a handful of adults to be sent off with individual adults – parents picking up their kids, he assumed, judging by the similarities in the chakra signatures.

Yellow eyes affixed themselves on the chakra signature which had garnered his attention, the nukenin's normal eye widening in disbelief. "Well…this is unexpected. What should we do? Isn't it obvious? Hm, I guess you're right."

As he slipped back through the foliage and moved away, Black Zetsu couldn't help but add, "If nothing else, the fallout should be quite entertaining."

-l-l-l-

"Masao-kun, do you have my—?"

"Right here, Maki-san."

Maki Kimiko, hunched octogenarian, reached for the jar the strawberry blond was holding out to her and tucked it within the folds of her yukata. She smiled at Masao, the crow's feet around her eyes crinkling. "I told you to call me Kimiko-san, Masao-kun. You're the only one who's ever made me medicine which actually works, after all. I think you've earned it."

Masao bowed to her. "It's what I do, Kimiko-san."

"And you're sure you can't tell me—?"

Masao straightened and winked at her with one crystal blue eye. "Trade secret, sorry. I've gotta stay in business somehow."

Kimiko's smile grew a little wider. "Can't blame an old woman for trying. Here," she continued, holding out 200 ryō for Masao to take. "I can't believe you stay in business with such low prices."

"Low overhead and lots of repeat customers," replied the strawberry blond with a grin. It was how all their exchanges ended since Kimiko had first returned for more medication over two years ago, thrilled to find a pain reliever that worked. "Until next time, Kimiko-san," he offered as she limped towards the door, cane thumping against the wooden floor.

He heaved a small sigh as the door closed behind her, though his lips carried an amused smirk. Sometime over the last couple of years, he'd actually managed to build a rapport with a strong clientele who loved his products, and the strangeness of that phenomenon had never quite left.

Of course, it helped that his medicines were some of the best on the market, and at prices that severely undercut any competitors. What he'd told Kimiko was true, after all, and hardly replicable by others.

After locking the main door, he headed to the backroom, where three heads of short blond hair were hard at work on various tasks; hidden from sight in the back, Naruto's shadow clones didn't need to disguise themselves from the prying eyes of the general public. He pulled the mixture of berry dyes from his hair – returning it to its natural color – and stoppered it in a small vial; with minimal applications of natural energy, he'd found he could strengthen or weaken different natural dyes and change his hair color at a whim, useful for blending in without relying on a Henge.

"Done?"

All three clones turned around and tossed him lazy salutes with mocking grins. "Yeah boss," they chorused before dispersing.

Naruto went around and finished cleaning up their workstations, putting the different products they'd been working on away. Between using replicas of himself as employees and either finding all his ingredients in nature or growing them himself, the shop was a great, simple business. And given that the Land of Grass was famous for its plant-based products, living in Katori – the country's second largest city, behind Kusagakure proper – was essentially hiding in plain sight.

Not that he wasn't careful. An array of drugged spies in foreign countries kept him apprised of changes to the continental status quo, while a network of plants he carefully maintained allowed him to remain wary of any threats on his home turf.

He unlocked the door to the loft above his shop and stepped in, taking a deep breath and letting the scent of fresh herbs wash over him. Even after years of getting used to the smell, nothing soothed him quite as much as the green life in his loft. Tendrils from hanging plants drooped around him like beaded curtains, and Naruto touched them as he entered, drawing strength from their nearness. He moved into the kitchen and set a kettle to boil, musing what he should make for dinner.

Thwip thwip!

"That was close! Every time? Really?"

Naruto failed to hide the grin that formed, shooting a furtive glance at the small cactus sitting on his coffee table. With much manipulation, he'd raised the plant to recognize Zetsu's specific chakra signature and shoot out spines wherever the renegade popped up. It was always vindicating when the former Kusa-nin's attempts to surprise him were foiled, and Naruto liked knowing that he'd one-upped his tutor in some form. "If you'd knock like a normal person…" he suggested.

"Normal is overrated. Is it safe now?"

The blond beckoned for his tutor to fully appear, watching as the plant-man finished melding out of the floor as far from the offending cactus as possible. Both yellow eyes were fixated on the small plant, White Zetsu's half-mouth turned down in a frown; neither side seemed to appreciate that Naruto had more control than him over even one plant. "So," he said, picking out a blend of tea leaves and putting them in a cup, "to what do I owe the…pleasure, I guess?"

"Oh, the pleasure is all ours this time. Ooh, ooh, can I tell him? Pretty please?"

Naruto scowled suspiciously at his mentor, hands clenching the countertop. Black Zetsu's mocking sounded far too pleased, and White Zetsu was too eager to divulge whatever information he had. On their own, that was troubling…together? Shit. "Tell me what?"

"You have a son!" White Zetsu blurted.

Naruto felt his fingers go slack, his body seemingly disconnected from his brain. Blankly, he managed, "I…I what?"

"You're a father. Congratulations! Yes, congratulations on this wondrous accomplishment."

He ignored Black Zetsu's dry insincerity, grappling for a semblance of common sense to latch onto. "But…but I don't even…where? How?"

"Well…" drawled White Zetsu, "we were visiting Konoha—"

"Konoha? Ino…" he realized. "She got pregnant from that one time? Un-fucking-believable."

"Hey! You're interrupting my story!"

Now it was White Zetsu's puffed cheeks and pouty expression which went ignored, blue eyes focusing on Black Zetsu's unblinking yellow one. "You're not just screwing with me, are you?"

"As much fun as that would be, the truth is much better."

Naruto watched him for a long moment, scrutinizing his mentor, before demanding, "Take me there."

-l-l-l-

The surrounding foliage gave Naruto a sense of power that he felt he was sorely lacking at the moment. Or maybe it wasn't power he was lacking, but simply control. With everything going his way recently, he was so used to having his plans executed correctly that this new wrench felt like a shock to a dead system. When was the last time he'd been so blindsided by something, or been forced to improvise?

Too long, apparently, answered his cynical mind. After traveling for nearly a day in absolute silence, Naruto wasn't sure whether to consider the voice in his head a good thing or not. Instead, he turned to his traveling companion. "So, how'd you actually find out I have a…a son?"

Damn, that would take time to sink in.

"You mean, aside from the obvious physical resemblance?" came the sarcastic reply. "We sensed it in your chakra signatures."

"…You what?"

Black Zetsu exuded a long-suffering sigh. "Every person's chakra is unique. It's based on several properties, one of which is elemental affiliation. Another component is genetic, and parents tend to pass on elements of their chakra to their children. Exceptional sensor-type shinobi, like us, can parse out each person's unique chakra signatures, whereas the more common sensing techniques can only sense chakra presence. Since your son's chakra includes aspects of your own, with which we are quite familiar, it was easy to determine that he was your spawn."

'More common sensing techniques', Naruto thought dryly. Feels like I'm being called out.

But Zetsu's enhanced sensing abilities made his task tricky. As good as the natural energy-enhanced version of the Green Sight Technique was, its main use was in determining what chakra didn't belong to the green world. It couldn't parse out the unique aspects of chakra signatures like the rogue Kusa-nin could, which meant Naruto had to confirm his tutor's tale the hard way.

And getting close to Konoha for the first time in five years in order to see his son was rather discomfiting.

"We're near."

Naruto shook himself from his stupor and summoned natural energy to himself, sharpening his senses. He turned his head slightly to the west. "There's a lot of people over there."

"Don't worry, Naruto-kun, they're just kids. Hardly a threat! His goal isn't to kill them, idiot. Then why's he so scared? Hmm…the unknown, most likely."

"Zetsu, either help me or shut up," the blond groused.

"Testy…but fine. Everyone's outside, probably for a break. Your son is there," noted Black Zetsu, pointing slightly at an angle to Naruto's line-of-sight. "Can't miss him!" The Jinchūriki took a tentative, robotic step in the direction his mentor was indicating just as White Zetsu cheerfully added, "Good luck!"

Naruto's feet were leaden as he took measured steps forward. His mind felt clouded, every thought and pathway which normally cycled over on repeat surrounded by fog. After several moments, a pinprick of rationality pierced the veil around his brain, and he slipped all but his head into the ground with the Attack Prevention Technique, moving automatically through the earth until the trees thinned ahead.

He stopped at the edge of the treeline when a clear view of the area ahead presented itself. Hidden in the bushes, he peered out at a playground, watching about a dozen frolicking four- and five-year-olds overseen by several adults – teachers, he guessed; probably some sort of preschool.

It took him mere seconds to identify his son, a strange ache building in his throat as blue eyes fell upon him. The boy had the same crown of unruly, spiky yellow hair that had adorned his own head as a child, a trait apparently unique to him. From a distance, it was too hard to tell eye color, or whether he shared any of Naruto's other features, but there was something so nostalgic about the hair alone that the runaway Jōnin knew Zetsu hadn't misled him.

The key difference, it seemed, was that his son had peers willing to play with him.

An unbidden pang of envy welled inside him at the sight, and Naruto tried to quash it by reminding himself that neither the boy nor his companions were the cause of his own childhood sadness, and that his son's situation wasn't a reflection of his own.

Although, he supposed, as he watched the teachers round up the children and herd them back into the building behind them, it was similar in one regard: an absent father.

Maybe that can be fixed, he thought as he sank completely into the earth and returned to where he'd left Zetsu.

Even as he tried to quickly debate the pros and cons of such an idea, Naruto knew it was insane and stupid from the get-go, a point his mentor had no issue vocalizing when he brought it up and reluctantly asked for the plant-man's assistance. "And if your inane scheme works, how do you intend on managing such a life?" Black Zetsu mocked. "Yeah, you're not gonna stay in Konoha, are you?" White Zetsu added.

Naruto hesitated before slowly admitting, "I don't know. But I think this is something I need to try anyway."

"So be it. It's your funeral. She's at home alone right now, about half a mile that way," he said, pointing to the east. "She lives above the flower shop you used to work at."

That was fast. "Well, wish me luck."

"Good luck!" White Zetsu offered. "Idiot, don't sound so sincere," Black Zetsu chided his other half. Just before the blond finished melding into the ground, Naruto heard his mentor snipe, "Have fun ruining your life."

-l-l-l-

Ino whipped around as she picked up on the presence of another chakra signature in her house. As her sensing abilities had expanded in the past several years, she'd been able to memorize the chakra of the people she interacted with frequently. But this one, suddenly appearing out of nowhere and sharing some similarities with her son's…

Dashing out of her room and into the living room, Ino stared in shock at the sight before her. Naruto was melding out of the floor not 20 feet before her, his feet rising from the heart-achingly familiar Attack Prevention Technique. He looked more mature than she remembered, with short blond hair and more weathered skin, though it didn't seem like his clothing choices – light brown pants and a forest green hoodie with wrist-length open sleeves – had changed all that much. She blinked twice, as if to ascertain what she was seeing wasn't an illusion. "…Naruto?"

He raised a hand in greeting. "Hey Ino."

The platinum blonde raced across the room and threw her arms around his neck, embracing him tightly. "You're alive," she whispered. "Holy shit, I can't believe it…" Then she released him and took a step back, her tone getting louder and more indignant: "Where have you been?"

"Well, Jiraiya sent me undercover on a long-term mission, and I'm finally… Ino?"

There was now several feet of distance between the two blonds; Ino's lips were contorted in a deep frown. "I've been working in T&I since before you disappeared," she began, a sharp lick of acid tinging her words. "In that time, I've learned every tell in the book about when someone isn't telling the truth, and I know that you're lying to me. So I'll ask again, where…the hell…were you?"

T&I… Naruto thought, blue eyes pensive. If she'd really started an apprenticeship in the Torture and Interrogation Department as he'd been getting close to leaving Konoha, her sudden coyness about her future goals made a lot more sense.

Ino's growth during his absence was probably nothing to sneeze at then; so glad to see him, the younger Ino wouldn't have even questioned Naruto's answer. This complicates things… He'd expected some resistance from his fellow blonde, but her intuitiveness was better than he remembered…or expected.

Crystal blue eyes hardened to meet the steely gaze Ino was leveraging at him; he was now on the defensive and had nothing to lose by going all-in. If she wants the truth so badly, fine. "I left," he stated simply, choosing not to get into the specifics of where he'd been. It probably didn't matter where he was so much as why he hadn't been in the Hidden Leaf.

"And why was that?"

"Because I needed to be free of all this," he said, gesturing broadly. "There wasn't anything here for me, and—"

"Wasn't anything here for you?" Ino echoed dangerously. "What, so our friendship meant nothing to you? Our date…us sleeping together…were you just using me?"

Naruto resisted the familiar urge to scratch the side of his head, unsure of how to respond; being around Ino again made him feel like a teenager. And he apparently couldn't lie without being caught, so… "…Kinda, but—"

There was a powerful sound of skin-on-skin as Ino's palm connected with Naruto's cheek. "Bastard," Ino seethed, baby blue eyes narrowed in fury.

…Yeah, I probably deserved that. "I didn't force you to have sex with me," he told her calmly, "and I never asked for you to like me romantically. You were my best friend," he continued in a soft voice, hoping it would soothe her, "and I appreciated that friendship, but I made up my mind to leave way before we became that close."

"Then why'd you come back, Naruto? Why shouldn't I tell someone that you're back, alive, right now?"

The hostility remaining in her voice indicated that his hope was likely to go unfounded. He took a deep breath, prayed for the best, and admitted, "I just found out about our son, and—"

"No, no way in hell."

"—I want to meet him," Naruto finished.

Ino let out a cynical bark of laughter. "You think I'm just going to let you, what, walk in here and take my son away? Fat chance."

"Doesn't it say something that I came back?"

"You shouldn't have left in the first place," Ino snapped.

Naruto let out a growl of frustration; playing nice didn't seem to be doing anything in the face of his former teammate's wrath, which he'd severely underestimated. How much had changed over the past five years? "Will you let it go? What's done is done, I can't change the past. Besides, I had to leave."

"Why?"

"Because living here sucked!" he shouted. Ino took a step backwards, surprised at his sudden raised voice. "Look," he continued, fighting the urge to throw his fist through a wall, "maybe I had you and Tenten and Jiraiya…Shikamaru, Chōji, Asuma, Shizune…but it was too late by then, okay? I stopped caring about people respecting me or whatever, but to hate me for something I had no control over? I didn't want to get stuck working for and protecting people who just didn't care."

"I cared," Ino replied in a more normal voice. "So did Tenten, and everyone else you mentioned. Was that not enough for you?"

Naruto hesitated before responding. Truth be told, he'd had much the same thought as his exit from Konoha had drawn nearer, finding the companionship of his friends – few though they were – a comforting presence, even in the face of everyone else's disdain. And there had been temptation in that.

But the allure of a plan years in the making, his bid for freedom, had won out, and so he'd pushed the thought out of his mind so he could live his life without that regret…even if he had others.

"I don't expect you to understand," he answered; it seemed better to avoid the question, as Ino was likely to follow it down a path that just raised her ire and worked against him. "I don't think anyone really understands anyone else unless they've lived through the same experiences. I'm asking for you to trust me."

Another bark of laughter, this one skeptical. "Trust you? You've changed so much!"

"No," Naruto admitted, "I'm just more honest about who I was back then."

"Who you are is a selfish asshole," Ino growled. "And I'll be damned if I let you near my son."

"He's my son, too," returned the blond irately, "and if you think keeping me a secret from him is a good idea, then you're wrong."

The Yamanaka scoffed. "I think I know more about what's good for him than you do."

"Really? Because of the two of us, I'm the only one who knows what it's like to grow up without a father! And if you think that didn't play a part in how I turned out, you're sadly mistaken."

"…Maybe I grew up with a father," Ino began icily, words measured and poisonous, "but I know what it's like to lose one. He died looking for you," she seethed at the blond's surprised expression, "so if you think trying to play the orphan card is going to win you any favors, then you're sadly mistaken."

Something that felt awfully like shame welled up inside Naruto at that revelation. When he'd left Konoha, he'd thought that the repercussions of his departure would be minimal at best. He hadn't counted on Ino getting pregnant or her father dying on a mission trying to bring him back. What else had happened that he hadn't accounted for?

"I'm sorry," he conceded, tone conciliatory. "I didn't know. I didn't plan for any of this…" When Ino scoffed again, Naruto had the grace to look away in defeat. "Look, I get that you're angry with me, and you have every right to be. But I would like to meet my son. Here," he said, flicking the platinum blonde a small seed. "Take a couple days to think about it. When you're ready to talk, channel your chakra into that."

"And what's to prevent me from reporting you to the Hokage or setting a trap?"

Naruto shrugged. "Nothing. But I'll know. And I guarantee you'll never hear from me again."

With that said, he sank out of sight and left the village proper.

-l-l-l-

It had been a long time since he'd felt anything remotely approaching guilt. Perhaps when he'd left Aka at the mercy of Kisame? But even then, he'd had no personal connection with the redhead, and certainly nothing on the level of what he was currently feeling.

The fact that he was still bothered by it days later was aggravating. He needed an outlet.

Fortunately, there was a group of twenty bandits who had set up camp about 50 miles outside of Konoha. Naruto had come across them not long after leaving Ino in an attempt to find a place to hunker down while he waited for her to make a decision. He'd watched them with vacant eyes, more for a lack of anything better to do, while his mind replayed his conversation with Ino and tried to pinpoint his missteps.

But it seemed like the entire exchange had been riddled with them. Ino wasn't the person he'd expected her to be, and his gamble had been based on the teenage girl from his memory, not the shrewd, skeptical mother she'd grown into. For all the information he had on other villages, there was a gaping hole in his network when it came to Konoha. In trying to avoid his former home, he'd made himself ignorant of its progress, and now that decision – or fear – was biting him in the ass. Hard.

And now he had to decide between the danger of continuing to remain ignorant, or risk exposing himself by turning a Konoha-nin into an informant.

He heaved a long, mental sigh. I left Konoha so I wouldn't have to deal with all this complex shit.

The sun was starting to set, and from his perch high in the canopy, the darkening golden oranges and yellows seemed to highlight the downward spiral of his mood. He really needed that outlet.

Naruto jumped from the tree and summoned enough wind to cushion his fall as he plummeted through the air. He hit the ground with a resounding thud, dust billowing out from the point of impact. Shouts echoed out around him, confused voices searching for answers to what was going on. He dug into the pouch at his waist with both hands and came out with senbon clenched between his fingers. They flew through the air, and Naruto was rewarded by several yelps and hisses as the needles struck true.

He propelled himself forward, bursting through the dusty smokescreen and summoning a trickle of natural energy from his surroundings. The shafts of bamboo he had hidden under his sleeves grew longer, extending a foot over his knuckles. He slashed at the bandit before him, carving a bloody 'X' across the man's chest with plants as sharp as knives. Senpō: Kusanagi!

The bandit fell back silently, blood spewing from his corpse. He side-stepped the weighted end of a kusarigama that sailed through the air, wrapping the bamboo from his left hand into the chain and pulling towards him. Whoever was on the other end was pulled forward, and Naruto plunged his right-side bamboo into the man's stomach. Senpō: Sashiki no Jutsu!

Extra bamboo branches exploded from the man's body in a rain of blood. Naruto jerked his wrist to break off the bamboo, then grabbed the broken piece and flung it to the side. It buried itself in another man's thigh before sprouting into another Sage Art: Cutting Technique.

Dusk was fading into night, and Naruto could feel even the limited natural energy he was using weaken. He broke off the other bamboo piece to prevent any interference with his hands and then immediately began flipping through seals, holding his palms out on either side of his body. "Fūton: Shinkū Hiki."

Cries of outrage sounded as the Vacuum Pull technique took effect. Naruto increased the pull of the wind from the jutsu's center, bringing the remaining 10 bandits into sight. When they were close enough, he stopped the technique – throwing the men momentarily off-balance – and placed his hands together. Then he opened his mouth and exhaled a cloud of poisonous smoke, turning on his heels to spin 360 degrees. Within moments, the blond was surrounded by coughing, wheezing men; a few more seconds, and he was the only human left breathing in the camp. He glanced around at his handiwork before muttering, "Gotta love the classics."

Then he exhaled, a long sound of relief. That's a bit better.

A sudden jolt rocked his body – like an electric current, though the sensation only lasted a second – and just like that, his good mood evaporated. He grunted. "Guess she wants to talk. Finally. Well, no point in leaving a mess behind." With a few quick seals, the soil around him turned to mud, the Swamp of the Underworld swallowing any evidence of his deeds.

He gave the area one last scan before disappearing into the ground and hightailing it towards the village. Instead of going back to Ino's home, he veered off and resurfaced in the dark familiarity of the forest where he'd always met Zetsu. Fortunately, the plant-man was nowhere to be found; now that he thought about it, his mentor hadn't bothered him since he'd gone to visit Ino. Annoyingly, he could still sense the renegade Kusa-nin lurking around the Hidden Leaf, likely judging the blond's decisions from afar.

Prick.

Shoving thoughts of his two-toned tutor to the back of his mind, Naruto focused on the speck of chakra in the seed he'd given Ino. Similar to how he'd trained his small cactus to recognize Zetsu's signature, he'd also managed to grow a miniature tree with seeds imbued with his own chakra. The seeds were capable of acting as a beacon of sorts; once given to another person, Naruto could either be notified of a desire to meet with a brief application of chakra, or search for and summon people to him by linking the chakra in the seed to his body.

Ino had alerted him she was ready to talk; now he would guide her towards him.

It took longer than he thought it would for her to appear, though he chalked that up to her lingering skepticism and resentment towards him. "Naruto," she greeted stonily.

"Ino. You rang?"

She made a noncommittal hum. "Neat trick with the seed."

"I think so." The silence that spanned between them was so long and painful that Naruto briefly wondered if their (former) friendship had just been a figment of his imagination. "So…did you come to a decision?"

Ino crossed her arms over her chest. "That all depends on you. I've thought about it, and you have a point. People can't truly understand one another unless they've lived through the same experiences, and I don't know what you've been through. But things are different between us now, and I don't trust you anymore, especially with my son. So, since you're asking for something big from me, I want something big from you."

Naruto arched an eyebrow. "Like?"

"The Saiko Denshin."

A tremor of something akin to fear ran through the blond's body. Even though all the Yamanaka clan techniques involved telepathy on some level, the Holding-Door Mind Transmission – which Ino had told him she was starting to learn around the time of his departure – was the quickest and most effective form of mind-reading in Konoha, and likely the continent. It would essentially put all his memories on display for her, like flipping through a photo album, or watching a movie.

Silence rang between them as Ino studied him with analytical blue eyes. He was beyond hesitant to allow his former friend anywhere near his memories, and rightfully so – there was no telling what she could or would do to his mind while she was probing it. But he'd already lost significant traction in his byplay with the Yamanaka, and now he was stuck playing her game instead of his.

So the real question became: was there truly anything more to lose going forward? He'd already exposed his existence to Ino, and the one thread of biology he'd discovered – not even a distant cousin, but his own child! – was a few steps away. All that stood between them were a few self-imposed obstacles, rules he followed for the sake of his own sanity. But his actions over the past few days had resulted in a shredded rulebook and windblown scraps of paper, all for the sake of something with no guarantee of success.

He could practically hear Zetsu telling him that the best things in life carried risk.

Slowly, with careful consideration, the blond nodded his consent. Ino took cautious steps forward, as if approaching an animal which could harm her at any moment, and reached out to place one hand upon his forehead. Her fingers wisped through his short yellow spikes. "This won't hurt," she assured him. Then she closed her eyes and concentrated, and suddenly Naruto could see images flashing before his mind's eye, a long scroll with his life's story inscribed upon it unraveling at her fingertips.

It was…bizarre, he supposed…to see his memories laid out and replayed in his mind, especially when Ino seemed to grab and hold on to some moments more than others. Years prior, when he'd meet with Zetsu to discuss some facet of social or shinobi philosophy, there had been times when he'd struggled to make connections to his own life, mostly because the memories had become diluted and scrambled with age. But now, with Ino flipping through his formative years, Naruto could remember why he'd become as jaded and withdrawn as he had. Each transgression he'd suffered, long scabbed over, seemed to bleed anew, even as the sting of each wound merely throbbed dully with age.

The minute Ino stumbled upon his first meeting with Zetsu, the platinum blonde shrieked in surprise and withdrew her hand from his forehead, baby blue eyes wide in a mixture of shock and horror. "What the hell was that?"

Naruto heaved a tired sigh; even though he'd known the question was likely to come up when he'd agreed to the Saiko Denshin, trying to explain the plant-man was bound to be problematic. "That's Zetsu. You could say he's my mentor."

"Your mentor?" Ino echoed incredulously. "It tried to kill you! And you decided to learn from it?"

"I told you I don't expect you to understand why I did what I did," he stated, crossing his arms over his chest. "If you don't wanna continue—"

"I'm over it," she asserted, though the Jinchūriki felt that she was trying to convince herself more than anything. Not that he blamed her; it took a lot to stomach Zetsu. When her hand fell back to his forehead, he could feel it shaking, just a little.

This time, the images came slower, Ino watching and analyzing each one in turn. He watched with her as his precision and accuracy grew slowly under Zetsu's yellow-eyed gaze; his unsureness in the revelation of his status as the Kyūbi Jinchūriki; their meeting in the flower shop and potential friendship; interacting with Team 7; walks through the forest with Zetsu as he learned about botany, poisons, and medicinal herbs; the mission in the Land of Waves; his failure in the Chūnin Exams…

At the point where Naruto started to learn the Shinra Banshō, Ino lowered her hand again; her lips were pursed, and a frown pinched her brow together. "You listened to it. Why?"

"Because…he made good points."

"It turned you against Konoha!" Ino shouted, baby blue eyes narrowed in anger.

"Konoha turned me against Konoha," Naruto corrected firmly. His own blue eyes reflected a surety that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

"You trusted that freak of nature over your village—"

Naruto stopped her by grabbing her wrist and placing her hand upon his forehead. "Go back in," he ordered quietly. "Go back in, rewatch everything, and then tell me that Zetsu manipulated me into leaving."

Ino stared at him for a long moment, trying to understand his thoughts without actually reading his mind. Naruto didn't blame her skepticism; he'd gone from hesitant to allow her inside his memories to telling her to essentially psychoanalyze him. Now, suddenly, he wanted her to understand him, even if he wasn't sure she could.

When the Yamanaka did as he requested, the previous memories began to replay, but this time they moved in something closer to real time; instead of skimming them for fragments of importance, Ino was analyzing them for clues. Both blonds relived what felt like every word exchanged between Zetsu and a young Naruto over the course of months, up to the point where Ino had returned from the Forest of Death to a Naruto fed up with her idolization of Sasuke.

Then, after reviewing all that – some memories twice, just to scrutinize them for every minute detail – Ino went back to his formative years and started sifting through those again. Naruto considered it a good sign; every step he'd taken towards leaving Konoha had been prefaced by a specific instance he could point to in his past that drove him away from the Hidden Leaf. But Ino hadn't been privy to any of that – and couldn't see his thoughts as he'd had them back then – and was now looking for evidence to support why he'd made the decisions he had.

It took a while to get through his childhood, but apparently Ino found what she was looking for, for the memories sped back up until they'd returned to where she'd left off. This time, she didn't slow down unless something caught her interest: his first conversation with Gaara; knocking the Suna-nin out during the Sand/Sound invasion; his reaction to her pretending to flirt with him…

Things progressed in that vein as the platinum blonde sifted through years of training and missions and botanical experiments, up until the night before Naruto left the Hidden Leaf. There, she slowed down the memory and watched every action for…something. What it was, Naruto didn't know, but the same shadow of doubt he'd felt back then was now stuck in his chest, a thick mass of guilt as their date replayed itself before his eyes.

He had used Ino for his own purposes, and she'd been left behind to deal with the repercussions while he'd gone off and lived a life he'd spent years building up in his head. And while his life now was great, it hadn't been his intention to screw over his closest friend in the process.

Hindsight gave the gift of clarity, he supposed.

His confession to Ino the morning following their date surfaced, and the memory seemed to pause – perhaps reflecting the Yamanaka's confusion – before playing in its entirety.

When it was done, Ino withdrew her hand from his forehead and simply stood motionless, a pensive yet sad expression on her face. "You said your…mentor…brainwashed you, but it never specifically told you you had to abandon Konoha, did it?"

Naruto shrugged. "Kinda, but not really? It's hard to explain. He just kind of…guided me there when I figured out I needed a new path. I left because…well, probably for the same reason you keep calling Zetsu 'it'. People here saw me as a reminder of what they'd lost when the Kyūbi attacked rather than as me, a human. After realizing that, I figured it didn't make sense to stay where I wasn't gonna be appreciated, where I was gonna be used for what I was rather than who I was."

"Yeah, I saw. Sorry," she apologized, though it seemed more automatic than sincere, and Naruto wasn't sure whether or not she was referring to how he was treated growing up or her dehumanization of his tutor. "But you seemed happy when we were teenagers…"

"Well…yeah, I guess. We had fun, and I liked training and hanging out with you and Tenten and the others. But the idea of protecting all these other people who couldn't stand me, who lied to me…I couldn't stay here. I didn't feel free back then, but now I do."

Ino lapsed into another thoughtful silence before probing, "What you said…after we slept together… Did you mean it?"

"Yeah," Naruto admitted, "of course. You were my first and closest friend, and our friendship was the best part of being here. And I'm sorry about how things turned out, but," he continued, tone unyielding, "I'm not coming back to Konoha."

Ino hummed in thought for a moment, and when she finally spoke, her tone was business-like. "No, I imagine not." Whatever spell that had fallen between them during the Saiko Denshin was broken, a détente waffling among hostility, stubbornness, and nostalgia taking root. After several moments of careful thought, she said, "I think I get why you did what you did…but we're not who we were back then, and I still can't fully trust you."

So…it was all for nothing then.

"But," she continued, "I understand the influence a parent has on their child. And I want the best for Inojin. So I'll let you meet him—"

Or not?

"—with certain conditions."

Naruto frowned. Ah. Of course it wouldn't be that simple. "What are they?"

"I'll be supervising whenever you two are together. I'll have to lock away his memories each time—"

"Why?"

"Because he's four," Ino deadpanned, "and if you want your existence to remain a secret, he can't remember you're alive when you're not together."

"And…you're okay with that?"

"No!" she snapped. "I don't like lying to my son, or manipulating his mind. But if that's what I have to do to make this work, then I will."

Ino was making a huge sacrifice for him, Naruto realized. He'd known when he'd confronted her that the two likeliest outcomes were that he'd have to keep her quiet in some way or be forced to leave the continent to avoid Konoha's search parties. But it hadn't occurred to him the toll it might take on her if she actually agreed to his proposal; for as plan-oriented as he tried to be, he could also be remarkably short-sighted. Everything in her face screamed at him that her decision was heart-wrenching. "…Thank you," he murmured.

"I'm not done. You also owe me. I don't care about your self-reliant crap," she cut across his protest. "You're asking me to go against my better judgment, including treason for consorting with a nukenin, so I'm asking the same of you."

"…Fair enough. What do you want?"

"Information. I want to know anything you've found out about the other villages that might remotely affect Konoha."

Naruto hesitated. When he'd left the Hidden Leaf, it was specifically because he didn't want to work for a village that didn't appreciate him, that we wouldn't become a tool. That he was being suckered back into assisting the village he'd abandoned was a mockery of the life he'd fought tooth and nail to achieve, not to mention becoming a puppet rather than the one pulling the strings.

But he was so close to meeting his son. And even though it had been years since they'd been close, and she'd changed more than he'd expected, there was still a tiny part of him that trusted Ino. Maybe it was leftover nostalgia from the Saiko Denshin, or maybe just a shred of the empathy he'd tried desperately to expunge, but it was there regardless. She was making a huge concession to make this work for him, and she at least understood his story, meaning some piece of the blonde he remembered still remained.

The memory of the girl in the forest, long forgotten, now echoed in his mind, asking the question he'd answered with a lie: "Do you have someone who is important to you? Someone important to you, a precious person who you would do anything for?" For years now, it had only been him, but with the knowledge that there was someone out there biologically connected to him, maybe that could change. Maybe he could change, just a little.

For the friendship that lingered, and for his self-indulgence, he was willing to compromise.

Naruto slowly nodded. "Done."

-l-l-l-

Author's Note: Happy 2018, readers!Nice job to those who called Ino's pregnancy going as far back as Chapter 22. For clarification, and because I think some people missed the time frame, Ino was holding the baby in the previous chapter (with Tenten). If you have some confusion about Naruto's motivation, I recommend rereading Chapter 23, where he explores Uzu. Ino's T&I skills are based on the show Lie To Me. And I've decided to keep the name Inojin for her son, as an homage to the 'Ino' theme of her family.

Anywho, feel free to let me know what you think. I'll respond to any queries/comments to the best of my abilities.