Tsunade scan read the charts rapidly, the information being stored into her brain so fast and so readily, that those who didn't know her better would have thought she was bluffing.
To a degree, they'd be justified. She didn't have the same knack for paperwork her predecessor had, and so boring things would slip her mind. Medical stuff however, was a different story.
"How is he Shizune?"
"His speech has returned to normal, and he accepted food readily. His extreme patience aside, I believe he is becoming bored. He longs to get out and about."
"Good to hear."
"However, I have some reservations. He seems unhealthily worried about finding out the name."
Ah yes. There was an unspoken agreement between them not to talk speak it. Tsunade found it too upsetting, and Shizune wasn't fond of the memories either.
"As he should, although I like that he has something to strive for. He will be driven."
"He doesn't need it; we should tell him and give him his closure."
Tsunade smiled.
"Interesting, this is the first major disagreement in our thinking thus far, and has been for a long time."
"It is Lady Tsunade, but I do not think we can treat him like any other patient. He is too unique. Yes I agree he needs counselling, but Hinata?"
"Yes Hinata. She needs this as much as he does. Were it not for this mission she would now be a civilian training for a political role. She has far too much potential for that."
"I agree, but even so it seems like pushing her where she will be uncomfortable."
"This is where I want her to be. Remember what it took to get Sakura on track?"
Shizune nodded. The training had been brutal and unorthodox, and Tsunade had driven Sakura beyond her limits time after time. It had worked, but it had been painful to watch.
"She needs to be treated like that, only in a different way."
Shizune sighed.
"OK then, but when will you send Naruto on missions?"
"As soon as he is ready. In fact."
She steepled her hands and looked thoughtful.
"Kai."
Shizune felt the chakra was from her dispelling attempt like a gust of wind. Apparently Tsunade wasn't taking any chance and would simply blow away every genjutsu within a mile.
Naruto appeared in a corner looking right at Tsunade.
"Hokage-sama."
"You realise once again I should have you killed?"
"Yes."
She smiled a little.
"Which idiot was guarding you when you escaped?"
An ANBU burst through the office doors, looked at the scene, and visibly wet himself. Shizune turned away to hide her amusement.
Tsunade fixed him with a kindly stare like the one turkey's get before Thanksgiving.
"And?"
"He...disappeared; left a note...I'm in trouble?"
"Whatever gave you that impression Gibbon?"
The man behind the mask fell to his knees.
"The fact you're being so nice Hokage-sama."
She got up from the desk and walked over to the quietly sobbing man, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. Then she whispered something into his ear.
Two seconds later he was gone, and his footsteps could be heard bounding away very quickly indeed.
Tsunade turned to Naruto again.
"How did you do it?"
"Henged into a pillow to escape the bonds, henged out of it and knocked him out with one of his kunai. I then left the note of apology and went back to my apartment to obtain proper clothing. I will return the hospital gown when convenient."
Shizune began quietly scanning him with a diagnostic jutsu, which Naruto made no attempt to stop. Tsunade realised how much smaller he was without the cloak. He just looked so insignificant and quiet.
"I commend the escape, a solid henge is advanced and difficult, but never do that again. If I want you in hospital, you will remain there."
"Yes Hokage-sama."
She sat back in her chair and spun round a couple of times.
"Now, given your summons's testimony, we can verify that you were not siding with Uchiha Sasuke, however doubts still remain over the other death you caused. I want answers."
"I did not mean to kill him. What was his name?"
"Not mine to tell. Now Shizune has read your reports, what was the gist of them regarding this incident?"
Shizune nodded as gave the response she had decided upon.
"That he fired accidently after Sasuke had inflicted mortal damage."
"How did he word it?"
Shizune sighed.
"Much more poetically and with more soul."
"You haven't memorised it like the rest of the report?"
Shizune spluttered a little and turned to hide her blush, diagnostic completed.
"Relax. I'm sure you'll have it down in a week. Now, from any other shinobi under my command, I'd believe that. Seeing a squad mate killed brutally, watching helpless from the sideline. I've seen it, I've been there. You feel helpless and you don't think and everything goes wrong. Panic is something that affects everyone."
She paused to look him in the eye.
"But you are different. You're always thinking and planning so what happened?"
"I...didn't think or plan."
"Really?"
His face was contorted a little in confusion and sadness. She could see it. Maybe he wasn't so damaged.
"Yes."
"Interesting. You realise I'm going to need to have a Yamanaka examine your memory at some stage right?"
Naruto paled a little. Without the hood his expressions were far more visible.
"Or will there be a problem with that order?"
"Yes."
Naruto fought himself to stop trembling. He was going to defy another order. He had to. He couldn't let them know the truth he had realised.
"Which is?"
"My memories of the incident are likely to be incomplete or incompatible with a mind walk exercise."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow.
"Shizune? Is there anything in his report which might be considered incompatible? Any serious physical trauma?"
"Nothing in the report Tsunade-sama."
"Well, that's the only thing they don't like going near, so what prevents it?"
"The report is incomplete...I didn't have time to finish it."
Tsunade drummed her fingers on the desk as she thought.
"Finish it verbally. I don't care about spoilers."
"Well, upon my escape I had reached the border when I received confirmation of the kill via memory. Then...then..."
He was shaking again. Shizune guided him to a chair as he spoke.
"Then something bad happened. I don't know what it was."
He was still shaking, his hand twitching as he fought involuntary movement. Unfortunately you didn't hide pain from medics that easily. Shizune caught it first.
"Your side is in pain, left side about stomach height. What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Shizune gave him a look that would have stopped Gai from training.
"Lie to me and again and I'll sedate you to find out. Show me your side."
Tsunade was content to watch her protégée examine his side for a moment.
"His skin in the affected area is warm to the touch. I think it's a part of the chakra restriction seal."
"How warm?"
"A few degrees or so, the diagnostic is registering it as nothing but odd nerve stimulation."
Naruto grit his teeth and tuned out the medical discussion as he focused on anything to take away from the realisation. He found the face in his memory and focused. The pain began to ebb.
Shizune noticed that.
"It's going away. It seems stress or memory activated, most likely a sympathetic response to a mental trauma."
Tsunade drummed her fingers on the desk more vigorously, pausing only when she realised her fingers were leaving dents in the reinforced wood.
"Naruto, please return to your apartment and await further orders. I will send someone with your belongings."
"Yes Hokage-sama."
He was out of the window in moments and streaking through the rooftops. Shizune turned to her mentor with a worried expression.
"Is that wise?"
"Keeping him constrained is going to make his problems worse, not better. We cannot force him to remember just yet. I suspect he'll deal with it soon enough, I suspect that Orochimaru tortured him for some time. Contact Jiraiya as soon as possible, and get him back here. The more we can open him up verbally the easier our job of working out what is wrong with him."
"I understand, but his condition is unique. Too unique, dangerously so."
"He's insane Shizune, but he's treatable. Right now he's merely insane and not a psychopathic wreck like a lot of other mental cases we get. He won't go and massacre civilians who he thinks are enemy shinobi. He will keep his pain inside because he can.
I'll send on him some mission, although he's going with Talon's squad. He'll be comfortable and if needed he can be taken down."
She stared out over the city where he would now be moving through, hidden and silent. She briefly wondered whether or not she was making a mistake.
He got into the house and fought the urge from his fingers to form hand seals. He was safe. He dropped the henge that had carried him along the rooftops.
He nearly collapsed onto the bed in the corner, ignoring the torn curtain and broken window for a few moments. There was broken glass on his floor and dust was everywhere. He fought the urge to cough at some of it.
He felt like curling up and finding somewhere like his hole in the fortress. He felt it was home, it had been for so long. His and his only. This place was too big.
He breathed again. He was safe here. At worst he could henge if anyone found him. His room was dirty, and he could clean it. He considered putting a genjutsu over the window before realising that would alert other shinobi to his presence.
Finally he gave up and did collapse onto the bed and into a dark and restless sleep.
The Root teams spread throughout the base.
They knew where Orochimaru was, and now the biggest strike team assembled since the disaster in Ame was moving through his base on an extermination mission. Five teams, fifteen well skilled and emotionally blunted soldiers moving with brutal efficiency.
But they certainly weren't as stealthy as Naruto had been, and sensor nin would capable of picking them up once they got within.
They breached the entrances to the base and moved in quickly and quietly. They split up to cover more tunnels.
Then hell broke loose in the base.
Teams that had been moving down seemingly deserted corridors found themselves assaulted by waves of shinobi under Orochimaru's command. But Root Elite were tough.
The confined spaces made katon jutsu incredibly valuable, and Sound shinobi were burnt back repeatedly by the specialists on each team. The lesser grunts died fiery deaths, their robes and flesh catching fire in the enclosed spaces.
Water jutsu used to counter the attacks soon led to the tunnels being flooded; the battle took on a whole new dimension.
The three Root teams which had a lightning jutsu specialist had the easiest time, as anyone who stayed in the conductive water soon found themselves on the end of a swift frying, and so the battle took to the walls and ceiling between everyone.
Hardened steel blades clashed as the Root teams showed their prowess.
The defenders pulled back, the water in the tunnels now red with blood of slain Oto shinobi who could not match up to the ruthless killers that Root produced.
Then things started to go awry for the Root teams.
The first team was pushing forwards through the weakened resistance, heading deeper into the base to try and find their target when the corridor sealed itself in bone.
Then the spikes came and the Root team was no more.
Another team got bogged down in seemingly endless attacks from grunts. Whilst they would win the kill count, they were stuck fast under a growing wall of bodies.
Team three found themselves attacked by a smaller team of much more elite ninja, and were separated to fight their own fights. One man found himself against an angry shape shifting youth with orange skin. He fought bravely before being obliterated in a blast of chakra. Another found himself against a swordsman, and they duelled down corridors. Eventually he found his mark and chopped his head off, only to turn into a wicked scything blow from the youth as he reformed from the water. The third had it worst, and became one of Kabuto's test subjects after a quick fight. He struggled as Oto shinobi overwhelmed him and dragged him away at Kabuto's command.
Still, that left two teams on target.
Six highly trained operatives stormed into the deepest chambers in the base. They found themselves in what appeared to be a private medical ward.
The sickly man on the bed struggled to sit upright, keeping his face away from the light.
"Kabuto?"
The bed was hit by a storm of different jutsu at the same time. Fire met water and became scalding steam, which wind accelerated and lightning crackled around. The bed, the equipment around it and a few feet of stone were broken very quickly into an rapidly expanding storm of dirt and rubble.
The six men fanned out into the dust to find proof the target was dead. No notions of a guarantee were in the minds of such men.
Then they started to die.
The first man went with a yelp of surprise which ended in a loud crunch and an outward spray or something wet and warm. Then there was mayhem once more and more of them died in similarly painful ways.
The last Root shinobi began to retreat towards the door when something terrifying rose before him. He was prepared, and fear did not cross his mind.
He was not afraid to die.
He made the hand signs as the distorted snake face in front of him curled into a cruel smile that knew it was invulnerable.
His fingers formed the last signs and he thrust them towards his own stomach, intent on activating the four prong seal and seal the snake before him in his own body.
He arm stopped just before he hit is stomach, the snake still reared in front of him. Then the arm fell to the ground in a spray of blood, before the Root shinobi was sent flying into another wall with a crack and lay very still.
Orochimaru's true form seemed puzzled until a man pinned it to the wall.
The cloak was long, and covered his entire body as the figure held Orochimaru in place. The serpentine body thrashed as it tried to get free.
"Hello again Orochimaru."
The serpentine body thrashed harder, desperate to escape the man's clutches.
"You? Why are you here?"
The darkness and dusty rubble hid the man's expression, but what were visible were the eyes. The red burning eyes with the three black pupils that gently turned.
"I want some answers Orochimaru. You're going to give them to me."
The curved mouth of the snake curved upwards before the body held by the man turned into an empty husk. The man turned slowly and began to walk down the corridors.
He knew that Orochimaru wouldn't run. Even if he did he could be easily hunted down. No, Orochimaru's lust for the Sharingan would bring him back to attack.
He heard a crash from above as his partner continued to sweep up all the forces, Root or Oto that remained above him. Kisame would be enjoying himself greatly. A lot of food for Samehada.
He continued to walk down the corridors, his eyes seeing everything despite the darkness. The corridor filled with snakes which he simply blasted away with a fireball as if he were swatting a fly.
He caught a glimpse of Orochimaru's white snake form dart around a corner and followed, never once accelerating above a slow walk.
Orochimaru coiled on the ceiling of the dark laboratory where he conducted his experiments. Strange fluids bubbled and let off a fine mist which was painful to smell. He waited for his target. He would have the Sharingan, and Itachi was walking into his trap.
He smiled as the figure walked into the lab, and held its fingers over its nose. He slithered silently along the ceiling, waiting for the perfect time to strike.
After all, one of his more recent experiments was still on a slab in the back. He let Itachi wander about the lab. Every second that Itachi stayed in the room, he would be one step closer to taking his body.
Last time he had been foolish and tried to take Itachi by force, now he was ready.
He would leave it until just the right moment to strike. Itachi was still walking calmly through his lab, and was nearing the slab covered by a sheet. The man pulled it back to reveal the body hidden beneath.
He dropped around the man and engulfed him in a sea of white snakes which bit and tore at the body he held in place. There was no struggle, although there hadn't been last time.
He let the snakes go to reveal the limp body. He almost laughed, but there was no time for that. He needed the body intact and not too injured.
Then the body burst into crows and he cursed before he burst into flames of agony. He rolled, but the flames would not stop. He shed his skin once again to escape the man. He looked around for where he had gone.
Right into the eyes which had changed.
They spun this way and that before the world changed. He realised he was back in his original human body. His pale, imperfect body. He was also very much trapped.
"Hello Orochimaru. Nice to see you up to your old tricks."
"Itachi. Why?"
Another Itachi appeared and stabbed him with a sword. He felt the pain like the sword was made of fire.
"Why is my brother dead?"
Despite knowing that this would last 72 hours, and that he would likely tell Itachi everything, Orochimaru laughed.
"A family visit? Sasuke was well until just recently."
Another sword perfectly aligned to cause maximum internal damage. Despite knowing it was a genjutsu it hurt like hell.
"Who killed him?"
"Konoha."
A third sword pieced him. He laughed again. Itachi was staring at him from the endless desert of black sand.
"Who from Konoha? Tell me!"
Orochimaru found some brief irony that he was being interrogated for information about someone he had himself interrogated.
"A boy about Sasuke's age. Pain is going to take so long to get the answers out of me Itachi."
Itachi reached into his robes and drew out another sword made out of pure fire. Orochimaru's eyes went wide as all the other Itachi who had been stabbing him drew them as well. He had longed for that sword for so long.
"That sword? Here?"
The pain was much more intense this time, he started to scream.
"Tell me more about him."
Orochimaru panted. This felt too real, normally this much pain blasted someone out of the genjutsu.
"He was strong. Then he was poisoned."
He felt the temperature in the endless genjutsu rise a little. How long had it been? Maybe five minutes.
"How? You and your minions should have been well able to detect such a thing with ease and prevent it. Is Kabuto so weak? Are you so weak?"
The cruel, mocking but horrifyingly correct judgement dripped from every word.
"He spent three years doing it."
"Three years?"
"Three years. How I still don't know. Three years is the first time my followers mentioned the ghost."
Itachi narrowed his eyes. The desert got hotter again. He felt the sheen of sweat running over him and making it hotter. The blazing swords were closer now. Hovering all around his body.
"The ghost? The mighty Orochimaru brought low by a phantom?"
"Oh we found him. But it was too late. Kabuto found at least half a dozen components. In the end, his body died a few seconds after his last meal. A neurotoxin his own body made."
Itachi considered this. His brother was dead, but he would grieve later. There was something more important, even through the grief.
"Who was the ghost?"
Orochimaru suddenly found the heat replaced with Arctic cold that literally frozen him. The fiery swords seemed to be taking in heat rather than expelling it. The agony was near overwhelming, even for someone like him.
"A very special boy. But we only captured a clone."
"Continue."
The cold bit deeper into his soul. He cried out as fast as he his brain permitted.
"His clone lasted two days under torture and died on the slab before disappearing. It died and remained intact. That alone marks him out as special. But he had a seal that completely wiped out his chakra presence. And he had another seal."
"Tell me."
The voice was hypnotic and the pain too intense. He would tell Itachi everything.
"He's a Junchuuriki, and you know what that means."
The temperature returned to normal and he felt the pain recede a little. Then the illusion unravelled.
His serpentine form would not respond to his urges to run. Thoughts of attack were gone. He wanted to run and hide and let the pain disappear. He looked up at Itachi's standing form.
Something was running down his face, but it was too dark to be tears. The blood ran from one eye and what looked like tears from another.
"Itachi...spare me."
The man just looked down at his pitiful form and shook his head. Then the world erupted into black flames and he screeched as his life was extinguished.