Naruto leaned over the balcony railing of his apartment and squinted against the bright morning sun.

Slowly, despite everything, a smile started to form on his face. As much as it stung to find out that Sasuke had betrayed him once again, he had at least managed to regain his memories. Meanwhile Jiraiya had taught Naruto the five-element unsealing technique so he could talk to Kurama whenever he wanted, and their shadow clones had practiced summoning chakra-depleted versions of each other so that the Toad sage would always be on hand to save the day during the next crisis.

Finally, Ino's team had convinced their respective fathers to give them greater information on the Council's workings and investigations, all under the guise of preparing them for the day when they would become the heads of their clans.

They were still no closer to finding Sakura, but still. It felt good to have a plan.

He vaulted over the balcony railing while yelling at the top of his lungs. "Watch out, world! Here comes Uuuuuuzumakiiiii…" He plummeted down the five-story tall apartment building, summoning a shadow clone and vaulting off its back at the last second to propel himself to the nearest walkway connecting two rooftops instead. "…Naaarutooooooo!"

"Careful, brat! Do not forget that that's my vessel which you're risking so casually. You would not be the first powerful shinobi to meet his untimely death by mistiming a jump and falling flat on his face."

Aww, Kura-chan, you almost make it sound like you care! Naruto kept running across the ramshackle rooftop walkway, summoning several more clones to run off in different directions while he darted into a shadowy alcove nested in between two buildings. It always paid to have at least one version of him be as loud and visible as possible so that the rest of him would attract less attention, or so he figured.

"Call me that again and I might yet make you regret loosening that seal on your stomach for me."

I'm regretting it already. Now shush, I need to focus on getting to the Hyūga compound without anyone seeing me. Sasuke had specifically told him to investigate the hospital and had somehow neglected to assign anyone to investigating Lord Hiashi's death, which was reason enough for Naruto to go there first. He vaulted through the open window of an old unused hotel before sliding down the garbage chute to land in a dark trash-filled alleyway that nobody ever used because it did not connect to anything.

"Careful, kit! We're being followed."

Followed? What? Naruto glanced behind him, but the alleyway was completely unpopulated except for a single emaciated rat digging through some month-old trash. How can you tell?

"I am an ancient being of inscrutable wisdom, created by the Sage of Six Paths himself to bring enlightenment to the world. I can intuitively sense the malign intent of lesser beings such as shinobi."

There is no such thing as killing intent – do you mean you can sense chakra? I guess that makes sense, seeing how you're a being of pure chakra and you have to absorb it from the air to survive and all… Naruto leaped over a pile of trash as he activated the flash seal on his palm, emitting blinding light in all directions before wrapping the light around him to make himself invisible. At the same time he created a shadow clone to keep running in the same direction while he himself sunk into the earth with his hiding-like-a-mole technique. After several tiresome minutes of digging through the dirt soil he emerged gasping for air in a parallel street. He immediately ran up the nearest wall, still invisible, before landing at the edge of a rooftop between a pair of giant water tanks. There, I'd like to see the ninja who can-

"I have been watching you, Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto nearly stumbled and fell from the rooftop in his haste to turn around, cursing under his breath. Standing behind him, standing way too close to him, was a member of the Anbu. Black cloak. White mask. Thin lines engraved on the metal mask to give the abstract impression of a whiskered cat.

Naruto did not think that was cute.

"Who," he said, "who are you?"

He could almost hear Kurama scoff. "A better ninja than you, by the looks of it."

The slim, shadowy figure tilted its head, and Naruto realized in surprise that he was looking at a female member of the Anbu – he could see the slight curvature of her grey chest armour. "You have been making inquiries about the unexplained events that occurred during the attack on Konoha. Why?"

"Why?" Naruto felt a strong urge to crawl backwards, but with the edge of the roof behind him there was nowhere left for him to go. His hand involuntarily moved towards his sword. "Because… well, because my teacher is dead and my teammate is missing, of course! It only makes sense that I'd wanna figure out what really happened."

"Yes," the Anbu member whispered. "When one loses someone they love, their perspective irrevocably changes. Even having anticipated the loss, the world can never appear the same again." She tilted her head up to the sky, causing a single strand of unkempt purple hair to slip from behind her mask. "Look, the full moon is shining…"

"What?" Naruto looked up, blinking, though of course the moon was nowhere to be seen against the bright morning sun. "I don't see anything."

"Just because you cannot see something does not mean it isn't there. The moon is always full, even if a part of it is hidden. The moon is the moon and a promise a promise – that will never change." The woman suddenly moved her masked face closer to Naruto, and he tried to draw his sword on instinct, only to realize that it was gone. He looked down and saw that she was holding his chakra blade in her hands. "You know," she whispered, "there are other places to hide than in the shadows."

With those words she vanished, Naruto's sword clattering to the ground. He immediately grabbed it and spun around, looking for his target. Kurama, where-

"Down the alley. Be careful kit, this one is dangerous."

No kidding. Naruto leaped down the rooftop towards where the figure was running. He body-flickered to his target and could just barely make out the tail of her black cloak before it vanished around a corner and he was forced to body-flicker again.

"You know, I imagine her speed would prove no obstacle if you loosened that seal a little more…"

Shut up and let me focus. Naruto body-flickered a third time, the world seeming to bend around him as he was hurled forward by what was essentially a continuous series of infinitely-short teleports. A distant part of him remembered the pointless argument he had had with Sakura over whether it was a true space-time technique or simply enhanced movement, only to realize that it was essentially a combination of both. The use of such categories had only made understanding more difficult.

He shook his head, stowing painful memories of Sakura away as he focussed on the chase. He landed in front of an expensive eatery which he recognized as Ichiraku's, the white hanging curtains of the deluxe noodle restaurant hiding him from the civilian customers that were eating and chatting away on the other side. He turned and looked down both sides of the street, confused.

"Where did she…"

His question was answered by the blade that was pressed against his throat from behind, and he could not even bring himself to act surprised anymore. "One last word," the masked woman whispered directly into his ear. "Do not trust the man known as Shimura Danzō."

The dagger vanished and Naruto spun around, but of course there was nobody to be seen. He kept standing there for several moments, staring at the white curtains of the noodle restaurant, as his heartbeat slowly returned to something resembling its normal rate.

You know… you could have warned me she was behind me.

He could practically hear Kurama shrug. "Well, you are the one who told me to be silent. Perhaps it shall serve as a valuable lesson to heed my sage advice next time."

Naruto ignored him, continuing his track towards the Hyūga compound in silence. He had definitely seen that member of the Anbu somewhere before. How many people where there in Konoha with purple hair, anyway? That sort of thing was usually the result of a recessive bloodline-limit, like how Hinata's teacher had red eyes from her distant Uchiha ancestor, or how Sakura had pink hair from…

Naruto shook his head, turning away from thoughts of Sakura. He had gone down that road before, and it only ever ran in circles. It began with regret and worry, followed by predictions and calculations of where she could conceivably be, and then his wonderfully imaginative mind would begin to simulate in extremely vivid detail all the horrible things that might be happening to her at that very moment.

Purple hair. Purple. He had seen her at the chūnin exams, he realized. She had been one of the Anbu summoning him to see the Hokage afterwards. And way further back, in the forest with Mizuki-sensei. She was always at Ibiki's side, which meant she belonged to the torturer's faction of the Anbu. Was that why she had warned him about Danzō? Was she acting on Ibiki's behest, or had she turned rogue?

"We're nearing the Hyūga compound. Be careful, Kit. Their eyes see much, and from what I remember their kind does not think much of clanless outsiders such as yourself."

Speaking of things I shouldn't let them see, demonic chakra probably ranks pretty high up there. He lifted up his armoured chūnin vest, revealing his bare stomach, and began to form the five-element seal with his right hand.

"Now hold on one moment! I am not some mongrel pup that can simply be dismissed at one's convenience. I am-"

Naruto pressed the fingers of his right hand into his stomach and twisted, and at last blessed silence returned to him. He lowered his chūnin vest again as he gazed at the colonnade of pristine white buildings rising up before him.

Now if only the Hyūga were as easy to deal with as thousand-year-old vengeful demons…

He cancelled the transformation technique which he had been using to mask Kurama's chakra: In the sight of the Byakugan it would only make it look like he was trying to hide something, and it was probably better to come in the spirit of openness. He sighed and began to approach the gates to the Hyūga compound, already preparing himself for the blunt dismissal he was bound to receive.

The Hyūga guard on the other side of the metal bars looked young, probably in his twenties, and was dressed in a black kimono. "What are you doing here?" He gave Naruto an annoyed look. "Scram, the Hyūga clan is in no mood for visitors."

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto," he said, holding up his hands. "I'm here to see my friend, Hinata-chan-sama, I mean Hinata-sama-chan… uh." In retrospect, he probably should have prepared his lines in advance.

The guard glowered at him. "Didn't you hear me, kid? I said scram. Lady Hinata has no interest in talking to the likes of you."

"That's enough, Kō." A ghost landed behind the Hyūga guard, flowing white robes billowing in the air like a wedding dress as she descended from the air, a long veil hanging in front of her pale white eyes. "Naruto-kun is a dear friend of ours. And even if he was not, we do not talk to visitors in that way."

"Hinata-sama!" The young Hyūga spun around in panic. "My apologies. I was only…"

"It's all right, Kō." Hinata placed a pale hand upon his shoulder. "I'll take it from here. Why don't you go see if brother Neji needs your help with the planning?"

"Yes, I… of course." The Hyūga guard bowed hurriedly before disappearing, shooting only a brief worried glance at Naruto and Hinata as he vanished back to the white marble buildings behind him.

"Hinata-chan," Naruto said, swallowing hard at the sight before him. "I…"

"You must forgive Kō. He has been my assigned guardian since birth, and he's very protective of me." The Lady Hyūga lifted her veil so that Naruto could see that she was smiling, though it was a forced, painful smile. "It's good to see you, Naruto-kun."

Naruto stammered, unsure of what to say to this unfamiliar person at the other side of the gates. "You look different," he said at last, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. "I mean good. You look good."

She gave a wistful little smile. "Thank you, Naruto. You look good as well."

Naruto hesitated. He wanted to offer his condolences, but he was not at all sure what to say. To the rest of Konoha the Lord Hyūga might have been this great leader, but all Naruto could remember him for was the way he had emotionally abused Hinata when she was younger.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," he found himself saying, only realizing how terrible that sounded as the words left his mouth.

Her face fell. "Yes," she said. "Me too."

Naruto gave up on trying to be diplomatic. "I guess he never did replace you as his clan heir, huh?"

"No." She stared at the ground, and for one moment she looked so much like the old Hinata that it was physically painful. "I think… I think he was holding out hope that I would prove him wrong, until the very end. That I would change, somehow." She began to fidget with her hands, but she stopped herself when she realized what she was doing. She looked him in the eye. "Why are you here, Naruto?"

Naruto stepped back, surprised, and for a moment he was so flustered that he almost could not remember. "I need to ask you about what happened. About what you saw." He felt a flash of guilt at the fact that he really had not come here just to see her.

She nodded. "Sasuke told me you might come here." She glanced briefly behind her, towards the large white building in the centre of the compound which Ko had run off to. "There is not very much to say. There was a… shadow. Father said he recognized it from-" she hesitated, "from stories. It ran past our branch-house guards and knocked them out as if they weren't even there. Father told us to seal ourselves inside his chambers, and we did, but… it didn't matter. It got in anyway."

Naruto frowned. "But if you were all locked inside the same room, how come you and Neji survived?"

Hinata began fidgeting with her hands again, and this time she made no attempt to stop herself. "I… I hid. Brother Neji shielded me with his body, and I think he'd have died to protect me, but when the shadow came in… everything just turned black." She shrank in upon herself until she was almost as small as she was back then, on the training grounds of the academy, when the two of them practiced throwing shuriken together. "When the light returned, father and grandfather were already on the ground." She swallowed thickly, her eyes glistening. "They died because of… because of me."

Naruto stepped forward instinctively, reaching through the metal bars to clasp her hand, and she let out a yelp of surprise as he did so. "It's not your fault," he said, putting all of his conviction into his words. He had never been any good at lying, so he prayed that Hinata would believe him if he just stated the truth strongly enough. "This is all the fault of the monster that did this. And I promise you we'll find him, Hinata-chan, and I'll beat him if it's the last thing I do. You know I never go back on my word."

Hinata pulled her hand out of Naruto's grasp, turning away so he could not see her tears. "You don't know what you're saying. You don't understand." She shook her head, taking a deep breath. "It looks like brother Neji is picking a fight with the other branch members again," she said, a sheen appearing in her white eyes. "I should… I should probably head back."

She started to pull away, and Naruto would have squeezed between the metal bars to follow her if he could. Instead he was forced to rely on his words once more. This time, a half-remembered passage from a book he read a long time ago came to him. "You know," he said, "people always think they don't have a choice. They find themselves on some path they're set on, and since it's all they can see before them they tell themselves it's the only one. But just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. If you don't like the way your road is leading, you can always just… choose again."

Hinata stopped. "That's from one of your father's novels, isn't it?"

"Yeah! I'm not really sure why I said that, but I guess it felt appropriate. Wait – you read Make-out Tactics?"

She turned around and raised an eyebrow. "The Lady Hyūga, reading vulgar erotica? I suggest you keep such disgusting thoughts to yourself, Uzumaki-san. The Village elders would be scandalized." She smiled slightly. "Besides, the plots are rehashed, the characters are one dimensional and the writing is terrible."

"It is," Naruto said, grinning. "Just awful. Can't imagine why anyone would read that stuff."

She shook her head, still smiling sadly. "I really don't deserve you." She reached between the metal bars, clasping Naruto's cheek, and for one moment Naruto thought something else was about to happen, but then she pulled away. "I need to go. It was… good seeing you, Naruto."

"Yeah," said Naruto, feeling his heart break once more. "Sure."

He stayed there for a while, watching Hinata leave, and then he began to amble back in the direction of his apartment. As he wandered, he found himself thinking back on the female Anbu member's words.

What were you trying to tell me, strange lady? She had clearly been distraught over somebody's death – could it be that she had known Kakashi-sensei too, somehow? Regardless, Naruto had long ago learned not to dismiss people's words just because he had an excuse to do so.

There are other places to hide than in the shadows… What did that mean? That Naruto should look underneath the underneath and consider the obvious? That the enemy could be hiding in plain sight, maybe?

The moon is always full, even if a part of it is hidden…

The Anbu lady had been using the shadow-clone technique, Naruto decided. That was how she had managed to vanish like that while leaving his sword behind. And combined with a sensing ability, it explained how she had managed to get behind him so quickly. In fact, if she had disguised herself as one of the customers at Ichiraku's and suppressed her chakra, then it was entirely possible that Kurama had not noticed her presence at all, and had only pretended to stay silent on purpose out of stubborn pride.

If I can be in two places at once, then there's no reason to think the enemy can't do the same. Naruto nodded to himself. If that was the lesson the lady had intended to teach him, then she could consider it well-learned. And if he applied that lesson to what Hinata had told him…

The shadow had breached Lord Hiashi's sealed off chambers without any apparent difficulty, and that part really bothered Naruto. There had to be some limit to the enemy's ability, or there would be no need for all this subtlety. If it really was possible to just casually assassinate a powerful shinobi leader while they were in their most secure location right in the middle of a hostile village, then why not just do that to every single person in their way and be done with it?

One the other hand, if they were capable of being in multiple places at once… well, the easiest way to break into a sealed off room was to already be inside it. That way, the Lord Hyūga would effectively be sealing himself off from any outside help. In fact, the seals would prevent anyone else from using the Byakugan to even see what was going on inside. So if the enemy had snuck a shadow clone in beforehand, and disguised it as an object or something… No, Hiashi's Byakugan would surely have spotted that the moment he entered the door. But if the enemy had disguised his clone as a person, or…

No wait, what am I saying? I already know he has the ability to control people's minds with Kotoamatsukami. All he would have to do is find a weaker member of the Hyūga clan and plant a suggestion in their mind while they were secluded from the rest of their clan. And then, when the moment came, that puppet could be used to open Hiashi's chambers from the inside.

Naruto stopped. His thoughts were leading in a direction he did not want them to go. He had trained himself to notice that discordant feeling, of his mind saying stop, don't go there, and he had resolved to always push through it. No good could ever come of not thinking about something painful, of refusing the truth that was in front of him. And yet…

There was a slight shift in the air behind him, and Naruto spun around, his hand already reaching for his sword. He stopped when he saw the black cloak and white mask of the Anbu, though this time the grey chest armour beneath it was not curved like that of a woman. Naruto craned his neck to stare up at the giant assassin looming over him, his hand slowly falling away from his sword. "Who…"

"Uzumaki Naruto. Your presence has been requested by the Hokage."