AQN (A Quick Note): As a general rule of thumb, "Guest Reviews" make it difficult to answer you with a PM and I do not often answer them in my stories. Sometimes the question is a really good one that deserves comment. More often than not, they lead to spoilers and I prefer, when I do answer them, to answer you directly.

So, I ask that you pose questions from an actual account, if possible. My stories, and Nature is no exception, have layers to them and a problem in the chapter you're reading now may not get answered for several chapters later – it will get answered though. If you have a burning question that you really want an answer to, a PM response from me is truly the best chance you'll have of finding that answer without me spoiling the plot for everyone else.

~Siva'a

~I I I~

Legend Moving Forward:

"Speech"

'Thought/ Communicating mentally with a Bijū'

"Normal Bijū Speech"

[Shinobi Sign Language]

[Jutsu!]

Chapter 3: Of Mice and Dogs

~I I I~

The young ANBU captain appeared on the roof adjacent to the dried pool of blood in the alleyway below. He was twenty feet above the ground and it still appeared far too large to have come from that tiny body. Below he could see the shinobi police force, their trademark blue jackets with the red and white paddle emblazoned on the back, scurrying around the crime scene pretending to be interested in police procedure.

Inu was not fooled.

Half of them were standing dead center in the bloody earth diligently eradicating any valuable evidence left in the crime scene. The somber dog-faced nin "tsked" audibly in disgust. Without turning away from the disgusting display of bias, he pulled the string hovering in his shadow.

"Report."

Two ANBU, one with purple hair braided to the small of her back and a cat's mask and the other with spiky brown hair and boar tusks, stepped forward. The cat spoke first in lilting feminine tones, her edged voice crisp with her frustration, like a blade being drawn from the scabbard.

"Apparently, the child hunkered down in preparation for the festival. His apartment showed signs of being barricaded from the inside, at least to the best abilities of a small child. A six-year-old could not have anticipated two drunken shinobi breaking into his apartment three days prior to and trashing the place nor the unidentified intruders that broke in tonight and flushed him out a second time. An open window in his bedroom suggests he escaped through there.

"The suspects destroyed what little food he could gather – did you know he is charged four to five times the going rate for rotten food and boxed ramen?"

Her disgust and annoyance were evident, but she was not expecting a response. Her eyes swung down to the crowd below them long enough to scowl at everyone making a mockery of efficient investigative work while she continued her verbal.

"They opened all of his ramen containers and urinated in the cups. The rest of his meager belongings were strewn about his apartment or broken beyond salvage.

"To make matters worse, none of the vendors would sell him more food for the week sighting…" she paused to review her notes, "'limited supply due to festival sales.' With the trap set, we estimate the child went the last two to three days before the festival holed up in his dump of an apartment without anything to eat. These bastards knew he would eventually have to sneak out to find something to eat and they stalked him from his apartment to the market then set upon him almost immediately."

Neko was known for her dispassionate almost methodical analysis but here she sounded… furious. Inu could swear he heard her growl. Were domestic cats capable of that?

"No assumptions or conjecture here, Neko-chan. You are sure they stalked him?"

The feline ANBU held up a glossy bag sealed and labeled "Exhibit #5," its glossy environs containing several expired cigarette butts.

"These were collected on one of the neighboring roof tops adjacent to the victim's apartment complex, which is convenient since his apartment building and the ones surrounding it are all empty and have been since he moved in a year ago. Additionally, we found standard issue protein bars and meal supplements, several of the partially consumed pieces with trace DNA. Samples were sent for analysis to T&I: Intelligence Forensic Subdivision for confirmation and a match to our suspects."

Now that sounded like the Neko he knew.

All three figures shuddered briefly. Despite being hardened shinobi all of them were intimately familiar with Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Division. In fact, Inu would be headed there once he wrapped up his findings on-site.

"Anything else?"

Boar took over from there. "As you can see, the Uchiha and civilian police force are diligently deleting any usable evidence we could use to corroborate eye-witness accounts, not that Konoha's honorable populace would have offered any." The group frowned almost in sync at the obvious bias against the container.

"We managed to secure about half of the images we needed for our database before the circus arrived and began impeding our efforts." His ensuing snort was filled with derision. "Even managed to get an L-Square on a couple of 'em."

The dog nin clucked his teeth loudly while glancing down into the alley as Boar rattled off the rest. An L-Square was a measuring tool, a ruler with a ninety-degree bend for measuring prints and other objects. Ibiki once called it by its old name, some kind of visual scale if memory served. It was old, old technology resurrected from a time pre-dating the Warring Clans Era but it had its uses. Not a silver shuriken by any stretch of the imagination but it could help build a web of evidence to catch a shoddy criminal. His lone eye hovered over the one civilian suspect below and narrowed.

Too bad most shinobi were trained to get around such tactics.

"There were five people primarily involved in the attack with over a dozen observers-slash-supporters cheering them on at the time. Amazing how there were no corroborating eye witness testimonies from any of them to provide a coherent picture of what actually happened." That last part was spoken almost to himself but both Inu and Neko caught the dripping sarcasm all the same. "They all contradict what viable evidence left at the scene suggests and all of them claim the child attacked the mob single-handedly while unarmed. Some claim he spouted several heads and large demonic wings with clawed hands at the wingtips. Others say he grew enormous fangs and tried to drink their blood."

"Is there any proof to substantiate their counter claim?" the elite asked despite the unbelieving tone of his voice. He needed to follow protocol just in case.

"There were no wounds on any of the victims, unless you count mud as a lethal weapon. Some of the child's injuries suggest he was defensive for the first part of it but our guy found no shreds of skin beneath his fingernails to indicate he'd tried to fight off his attackers, no torn cloth in his hands or mouth." There was no need to elaborate on who "their guy" was; ANBU had a specialist trained to work in time-delicate situations where a victim's life was on the line and evidentiary perishability was an issue.

Inu snarled in disgust. "Send the liars to Ibiki. Fill his cells." Boar nodded glad that his mask hid the wince in his eyes.

"Therein lies the first major problem. Primary suspects include one civilian and four shinobi with significant clan ties. We have a Yamanaka, a Inuzuka, a Hyuuga and a Uchiha, all lesser clan members without 'heir status' but clan members nonetheless."

Inu whistled sharply while looking down again at the five figures kneeling in the dirty alley with their hands in restraints. Was that police officer congratulating them on a job well-done? He knew the pain all of this would cause his investigation. Then an odd thought struck him as he looked at the sun peaking over the horizon.

"Why haven't they been taken to Ibiki yet?"

Boar merely pointed to the platoon of clan lawyers arguing sharply with the lead security force representative, the fool's placating gestures doing little to ease their concerns. Inu fought the urge to urinate over the roof ledge and onto the disgusting cesspool of humanity beneath them.

"We need to move quickly on those four shinobi. Insure they make it from here to T&I before the Council can intervene. If they make it back to their respective clans, we'll never get our hands on them again."

'Patience Kakashi, patience.' "And what of our assigned escorts?" Time was slipping away and he didn't have the full picture before his initial report was due to the Hokage. Despite his recent lackadaisical attitude towards punctuality, he would not be late this time.

Here Boar sighed heavily. "Rat and Mouse had the guard. Rat claims that they lost visual on the child during the chase and were too late to prevent what occurred."

Inu raised an eyebrow beneath his mask. "Their stories match?"

Boar shook his head in the negative.

"Send them both as a gift to Ibiki as well. It seems I owe that man more than a few drinks after this." Boar, a senior ANBU operative, actually flinched at the comment (internally he wondered how Inu could see his answer looking in the opposite direction) but responded as a professional.

"Hai! Nezumi will be sent without delay. We are having… trouble… locating Rat."

If there was any doubt left in Inu's mind, that statement crushed it. Hokage-sama would not be happy about this whole mess but he would be even less happy about letting the rat bastard get away. He changed the channel on his radio and clicked his mic twice…

After his short burst of traffic, the already agitated dog nin turned to two of his most trusted ANBU.

"Wrap up here and draft the written report. I want it in my hands within the next two hours. I need to arrange for a guard rotation for the hospital room first." Inu turned his head just enough to observe the late arrival, his eyebrow raised imperceptibly behind his ANBU mask.

"Yes, Toki?" For the gangly ANBU to come to him directly meant the news was important. Inu just hoped it was positive as the morning had been full of nothing but crap thus far.

"ANBU guarding emergency access point India have apprehended Rat." Inu almost smiled at his early choice to turn over the handling of standard comms traffic to the efficient nin while he ran this down. "He was trying to sneak out of Konoha with his filthy tail between his legs under forged mission orders. It appears your notice went out over our emergency comms just in time."

"How so?" Boar asked, the curiosity for a good story edging through his mask.

They could almost see the ANBU's smirk under his mask when he responded with, "He was waiting for KR clearance when you piped in." Toki scoffed loudly. "He was surrounded by killers with nowhere to run," he chuckled as two of his audience vanished in swirls of angry wind and leaves.

Inu growled underneath his mask as he sped off to T&I to meet its newest guest, the cat-faced ANBU hot on his tail.

Buildings flew by in a blur as they crossed northwesterly across the large village, most of it still asleep. Light was just beginning to glare from tightly closed windows as they sped by. Below in the busy Market District, shutters were being flung open, stoops were being swept clean, and rugs were being beaten fresh in preparation for the daily glut of traffic yet to come. In the back of Inu's mind, in that tiny pessimistic part of his brain that saw the worst in people, he began to dissect the average Konohan, those simple folk that claimed to embrace the Will of Fire and yet would cheer on the monsters that would murder in cold blood a defenseless child.

Vessel to the mightiest demon to ever walk the earth, true, however, it was an innocent child all the same.

He knew from many discussions with the Sandaime that the creature was most likely slumbering deep within the seal located on the boy's stomach but what if the vicious attack had awakened it? What if they'd damaged the seal enough that the monster could escape and, once again, set fire to Konoha in order to finish what it started six years ago? How poetic would that be?

Idiots, the entire lot of them. You could try to justify their ignorance-through-fear all you wanted but the jaded Captain knew to expect continued horrors from the lowest elements of the village so long as the boy was kept helpless. ANBU couldn't be everywhere and there weren't enough able bodies willing to help the isolated orphan indefinitely; ANBU were never meant to be babysitters.

Sooner or later, if the child survived tonight that is, he would need to learn how to defend himself. This would be vitally important once he grew, as all children eventually did, and folks could no longer look past the cute exterior and began seeing him as the threat that he could be.

Cubs grew into wolves at some point and wolves fought back when cornered. A demonic powered wolf?

The last Hatake shook off the sudden shiver rattling his spine as they settled onto the winding stairwell leading them up to the observation lookout located halfway up Hokage Monument. Without skipping a beat, the tattoos on their shoulders pulsed clearing the Genjutsu preventing the uninitiated from finding one of several controlled entrances to his home away from home. Not two seconds later, he was clearing the challenge from the two visible ANBU sentries, his head giving a discrete nod to the additional four waiting in the shadows, before continuing on from the kill room – the KR, into the hallway beyond, then down the pathway to the right leading to the holding pens below.

A "Kill Room" was a chokepoint, a vital access space to highly sensitive buildings or bunkers where the person entering was put at a severe disadvantage. Those spaces were normally heavily-reinforced, the walls often sealed to resist high-grade demolitions in addition to being reinforced concrete meters thick. There was always a narrow passage leading in followed by a narrow passage leading out – to restrict flow and bog down infiltrators while defenders either detonated staged defenses (usually more explosive notes or paralyzing seals) or launched violence on the attackers through murder holes cut into the walls. They were a helpful holdover from the Third War imported from Iwa back to the Land of Fire, a lesson Konoha paid terribly for in Leaf blood.

Inu shook his thoughts free once they were beyond the brightly lit chamber. The dark gave him time to think, to center himself. What he would be required to do in the next few minutes would make him want to vomit despite the hardened past of the war veteran; breaking a comrade always left a vile taste in his throat.

They were deep now, the warmer air of the upper levels giving way to cooler airstreams of the lower security brig level. One by one, they posted on the far side of a large pane of seal reinforced safety glass to clear what most considered the first level of security; Inu knew it was actually the fourth and final chance for infiltrators to turn away. Beyond here, security only grew worse and often ended in death for the unskilled.

Once through the vault-like door, they shot down through the next three stairwells into a square chamber void of furniture or decoration. Without pause, Neko followed him to the center of the room where floodlights revealed on the floor a circular pattern of sealing work three meters in diameter.

Inu placed his sandals firmly in the center.

"Challenge," a booming voice echoed over speakers hidden in the ceiling.

"Inu-Zero-Two-Zero-Seven, active, access four-four-seven-niner-eight-two-DELTA." Neko noticed that the script surrounding the Taichou on all sides was gaining a dull red glow, a dull glow transitioning to a much brighter one as he rifled off his registered access code.

For several agonizing seconds, nothing happened before the glowing light flashed green once then faded. Only then did Inu step from the circle and patiently wait while Neko repeated the process. Once the circled flashed green again, both operatives glances upward and waited.

"Query?" came the same monotonous drone.

"Prisoner, Rat-One-Zero-Zero-Niner."

"Authorized." An angry buzzer sounded in conjunction with a flashing red light above one of three doors on the wall to the left side of the room. Both surged through knowing that the door would be accessible so long as the buzzer sounded and not a second longer. To miss it, was to repeat the same challenge-answer process with the added benefit of ANBU analyzer (backed by an ANBU Black Kill Squad) dissecting every nervous tick and muscle response looking for infiltrators. To be honest, five seconds wasn't very long to clear the room so you could not afford to dawdle.

Beyond that large vetting chamber, the hallways radiated outward like a concrete reinforced spider's web, the subterranean threads filled with chamber after chamber of shinobi deviants. This section of the compound always made Inu twitchy; he'd spent a few months here after she died, the memory of it making his right hand flicker and clench. It was protocol really in friendly fire cases until the accused could be cleared but being down here still brought back memories he'd rather forget, if he could. He'd need to visit them again soon and let them know how things were progressing.

He forced himself to break away from that memory and focused forward where his feet were silently taking him and his Neko-shadow.

Each hallway beyond the "spoke" had the sterile quality of a mental ward. It was also lined along both sides with reinforced concrete walls embracing more seal-reinforced glass, the panels solid and unbroken. Inu knew that each cell had air holes, not vents, in the overhead to provide air and prevent escape, which wasn't a worry since each cell both restricted and disrupted chakra use on three levels he was aware of and at least two too complicated for him to rationalize. Given the audience these rooms catered to, it was a sound precaution, not overkill.

Besides, if worse came to worse and someone actually posed a valid escape risk, those air holes stopped providing charcoal-filtered sustenance and started churning out nasty derivatives of Sarin gas flooding the targeted cell, if necessary.

Inu paused for ten seconds to peek into the holding cell housing a young woman sitting placidly on the starched bed of her cell. The base was made of the same unyielding stone with a thin bedroll laid across it. There was no space beneath the slab holding her "bed," the space between the top and the floor consisting of a solid slab of the material the walls were made of. A sterile metal toilet seat sat to one side of the room next to a sink of identical construction and in the middle of the room sat a circular metal table with two stools. Nothing had sharp corners, not even the edges of the table and sink, and the air holes in the roof were easily ten meters straight up.

In that brief inspection, his eyes focused on the broken posture of the woman wearing plain white prison clothes matching her prison-style bedroll, the billowy shirt thin and most likely uncomfortable. The trousers were equally thin and non-complementary to her small yet ANBU-trained body. As the temperature was carefully modulated to a crisp twenty-two-point-two degree Celsius setting, nothing needed to be overly cumbersome and that prevented opportunities to store weapons and other tools. Worse still, as female prisoners were not afforded metal laced undergarments or wraps, as the metal clips that kept them closed could be used for other purposes, their conditions kept such prisoners in a constant state of discomfort and vulnerability meant to, as Ibiki always boasted, keep them "pliable" for later conversations.

He needn't fear that she would recognize him. Those same chakra inhibitors prevented sensors from reading anyone right outside their cells. The planes of glass keeping her cell wide open to people allowed access to this part of the pens, as they were affectionately called, were tinted with just enough silver nitrate that people inside couldn't make out shapes in the darkened hallway. Just to be safe though, Ibiki spared no expense and limited the blindingly bright light in her cell to the floodlights mounted above her glass prison and turned so that they shone in her face the entire time her room was lit up. If they weren't dimmed during the authorized period of sleep, he doubted she would ever get any rest. Knowing approved shinobi sleep deprivation tactics, Inu surmised that may have been the original intent but it wasn't like Mouse would have noticed given her current state.

This tiny woman sitting on her horrible prison bed seemed lost to it all, her shoulders slumped, her hands resting listlessly in her lap, and her face sunken as it was. They hadn't begun the official questioning but he could already tell – she'd withhold nothing once whoever Ibiki sent finally arrived, which should be soon if he missed his guess.

Snapping his eyes away from the mousy brunette, Inu stepped quickly from the well-lit cell to his intended target two more doors down and scowled beneath his mask at the pacing figure presented by ANBU Rat. Former he had to remind himself. He also couldn't help thinking that the hunchbacked nin had earned his moniker as he watched the condemned man pace back and forth in his cell. Bulbous nose and eyes, flared ears, recessive chin, greasy hair plastered in a stringy crown to his head… the man personified his ANBU avatar in more ways than one; Rat harbored in that rodent-like noggin a keen nose and sharp mind.

Inu pushed the call button on the small grey box melded into the glass window and waited while the nervous fellow in the overly bright cell paused his frenzied pacing to glare, with one hand bridged over his eyes, to the large viewing pane. Knowing that Rat would only be able to see shadows on his side of the tinted, semi-one way glass, he felt fairly confident that the voice distortion of the speaker box would make him mostly unrecognizable to the prisoner within.

"Oshiro Ken'ichi," Inu blared through the mechanical voice box taking no pleasure in the involuntary flinch of his former peer. The Oshiro family was not a clan but both sons were known for their service to the flame. The elder boy, Kazu, was part of the engineering division, a broad-backed ANBU with a gifted mind for puzzle-solving while Ken'ichi, well… Ken'ichi was Ken'ichi. Inu knew that calling him by his given name would drive home the crucial point of, "You are no longer one of us; you are one of them now, the ones you despised and belittled as you once locked them away. You are no longer special."

Young Ken'ichi once made his family proud when he got the nod to join the ANBU. He was defying his fate and living up to the name his proud family had given him.

Oh, the blow his arrest would be to them.

"You have two minutes to tell me the truth. I would not waste this one chance you're being given."

Inside, the former Rat stiffened, his usual sign of distress, as he launched into a stuttering tale of being called off-station to quell a small disturbance at the festival, of how he'd only been gone for twenty minutes. Hands pressed to the glass he couldn't see through, he pleaded his innocence and begged the mystery voice to "Just ask Mouse! She'd be able to confirm everything he was saying!"

Inu called his bluff and depressed the button again. "There were sufficient police force and ANBU patrols on duty near the festival to handle disturbances. You knew your assignment."

He watched the frail man collapse on himself even as his mind frantically tried to work out an escape, a predictable habit. Rat's normal collapse under pressure did not disappoint.

"T-T-They called… needed backup… child was safe with Mouse…"

Inu let him ramble on until a pair of "handlers," the heavy combat ANBU that rotated prisoner duty as they relocated subjects from their cells to handily adjacent interrogation chambers, came in to hoist him away. When one clamped onto the smaller man's arms while the other slapped a seal transfer strip to Rat- Ken'ichi's forehead, Inu merely shook his head at the struggling creature screaming his innocence at the top of his lungs. Anko would get the truth from him eventually but the terrorized man didn't need to know just yet that Mouse had given him up without a struggle.

"Time is up, Ken," the somber nin muttered to no one in particular. Kakashi knew it was a long shot but the truth would come out quickly under Anko's gentle ministrations. At this point it was just a fact-finding exercise to corroborate the story provided.

Long after Rat's cries disappeared down the blackened hallway, Inu turned on a heel and departed to find the nearest nin bar so he could work on his initial report.

Neko moved on to watch the interrogation of a man she'd wanted to gut years before – she never liked Rat all that much.

~I I I~

Konoha General, Four Days Later, Konohagakure no Sato…

Dawn was breaking. Kakashi glanced quickly out of the window to his left just long enough to see the growing light reflect off a mirrored building next to the hospital courtyard before snatching his eyes back to the imperious figure standing in front of the same window overlooking the western half of the village. He left the bar, as he'd done several nights in a row now, unable to sleep and found himself in the very spot he now stood listening to the good doctor explain what Konoha's upstanding citizenry accomplished several nights ago. To say the atmosphere was… tense… would be a gross understatement.

When the good doctor opened up with, "We should have lost the child if not for his tenant," well that just sent the mood right down the crapper, didn't it?

At that point, everyone in the room sighed internally because the doctor's honest statement meant that the creature was awake but hadn't escaped for whatever reason. They'd give thanks to Yondaime's unfathomable skill in Fūinjutsu later. For now, they were simply grateful that Konoha wasn't a smoking crater. That still left them with the aftermath of such a horrific attack on the unconscious child in the bed before them.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, tried not to shake as he listened to the very nervous doctor next to him reading off the list of injuries suffered by a six-year-old boy in his village. A six-year old boy he loved very much.

Included were stab wounds to both vital and non-vital areas that should have out right slain the child; the fact that he had not died could only be attested to the Kyuubi's overwhelming need for self-preservation combined with its restriction. Inu the detached ANBU elite, along with his Hokage, could simply not fathom any other reason for the creature's assistance. For once, the old man was grateful to the creature of nightmares. However, there were limits to how beneficent the demon could be as a tenant, something Hiruzen noticed in the worried eyes of his old friend.

Doctor Katsuo Yamakishi had serviced the Sarutobi clan for over four decades. Though he considered himself close to the Hokage, he never took that relationship for granted. Having been asked from the moment of the child's birth to be the sole medical representative to care for the orphaned Uzumaki, he had taken that responsibility to heart without reservation and what he saw now, despite the years of documented mental, emotional, and physical abuse, sickened him to no end. As he gave his oral synopsis, Yamakishi-san tried to clear his throat yet again to buffer out his own fear, rage and frustration in order to give a clear and unbiased assessment of the child's overall health.

The good doctor first noted that he had been present when the still bloody ANBU arrived carrying the broken body. In a very professional tone, he quickly summarized the young Captain's initial medical assessment on the patient's level of consciousness, airway breathing and circulation noting the inability to confirm spinal stabilization due to the egregious rate of blood loss – they had to take risks and stop the bleeding and clear the fluid from his airways first. Citing fear of imminent cardio pulmonary failure, the Captain had opted for speed in order to reach advanced life support services hoping that medic nins could reverse any damage due to the subsequent trauma of transport. In Doctor Yamakishi's eyes, it was a necessary risk that saved the boy's life.

The heavy sigh escaping the immobile ANBU officer in the corner was not amiss.

From there, Yamakishi-san took personal charge of medical operations to repair and sustain the child's quality of life. As the patient was unconscious and unresponsive, the doctor immediately transitioned into a Rapid Medical Assessment, establishing the patient's baseline vitals and trying desperately to identify any existing or potentially life-threatening conditions so they could focus on those medical emergencies first. It was during this phase of his report that the Hokage's anger flared, his ki lowering the room temperature drastically. There were just too many injuries and, despite the Kyuubi's parallel efforts to save the boy, there were just too many leaks to plug, rips to heal, arteries to mend, and organs to replace and or save. As it was, a team of four medic nins were working with five apprentices to keep the damage stable while the demon's chakra healed the most serious damage.

The small medical staff was amazed at what they were seeing transpire at the soft-tissue level but there just weren't any other medical personnel cleared or trusted enough to be in the room, so they were trying frantically to commit to memory the demon's work in saving a child that should have died hours before. It was frustrating, in more ways than one, as they were unable to record any of it for later research to later study and build upon this miraculous healing phenomenon, and the boy was healing at an unprecedented rate. So much was happening at the cellular level using chakra and they couldn't take the time to study it due to lack of helping hands.

The fact that less than ten trustworthy medical staffers existed in a hospital staff of hundreds was not lost on the Third Hokage. It was a fact he would remember well.

Most of the critical structural injuries had healed or mostly healed while the boy was in transit with the demon's energy, or youki. The Kyuubi no Kitsune fought furiously to stem the leaking of life-giving blood from vital organs while generating enough new blood to keep oxygen flowing to the child's brain preventing trauma and atrophy.

The medic nins could literally see the blood and pulsing red chakra flow, could see the soft tissue knitting itself back together. This accounted for the gallons of blood found at the scene of the crime and staining a young ANBU Captain from neck to sandals. Unfortunately, repeated jostling of the child during rapid transport to the hospital continually sent waves of pain due to the enormous number of broken and fractured bones, the repeated shocks risking paralysis or worse. Then there was the downside to the youki's rapid healing affects that made the Hokage grimace in sympathetic pain.

Medic nins were going to have to re-break and reset every broken bone in the child's body to fully heal him. This is a process that would take several days and, as they could not trust sufficient numbers of the hospital staff to work on the jinchuuriki non-stop, they would have to do this over multiple operations conducted over multiple days, perhaps weeks.

It was officially a nightmare of epic proportions. The boy would be in constant pain with no relief in sight for the near future.

To make matters worse, the Kyuubi's recuperative powers were making anesthesia worthless unless it was being applied constantly. Naruto was building an impressive tolerance to anesthesia, his bio rhythms constantly resetting to wakened levels, thus continuously refreshing the astronomical levels of pain and adrenaline almost immediately as his Fight or Flight reflex took hold. To keep the patient sedated, staff transitioned from traditional anesthesia to keeping the child's mind buried under deep layers of sleep-inducing therapy through direct chakra application to critical brain functions; they had to shut his mind down, so he wouldn't register what was being done to heal him. This had huge field applications and, better yet, it was one they could all learn to use through treating the boy.

This could effectively open up life-saving surgery with combat med teams of two or more nins and the potential future impacts in large-scale combat surgery were staggering.

Through direct application of chakra to several parts of the brain involved in sleep, the med nins could actually rotate out when needed, thus prolonging their endurance; there was only one trustworthy anesthesiologist in the group and they couldn't go for fifteen hours without exhaustion but there were several med nins with the skill to induce forced slumber to the brain with much less chakra strain. They could effectively rotate out and "catch their breath" so to speak. They would all still be exhausted when this was all done but, for now, they could share the load.

By the fourth rotation, they all had the process pretty much in hand and were gaining a much-needed education from the lone brain specialist in the group.

Maintaining the correct chemical and hormonal balance required more concentration than simply doping large sections of the brain with anesthesia but less chakra thus allowing the nins small breaks in the action. To keep the patient pliable, they would need to subvert normal operation in the brain's hypothalamus, the brain stem, the thalamus, the pineal gland, the basal forebrain, and the amygdala, simultaneously applying chakra directly to the base of the skull and through the temporal lobe.

First off, they needed to suppress the suprachiasmatic nucleus within the hypothalamus preventing information about light exposure and enabling greater control over the patient's behavioral rhythm. They were tricking his body into believing that it was always time to sleep thereby modifying his sleep/wake cycle. They were effectively resetting his internal clock.

Second, by shutting down triggers from the brain stem, they could add an additional buffer to the hypothalamus and reduce the brain's production of GABA, a chemical affecting arousal levels in the hypothalamus, while manually controlling activity levels in the stem's pons and medulla sections thus preventing the deepest level of sleep – or REM. Entering REM sleep would relax the body too much allowing him to enter a dream state, something that would be catastrophic if those dreams turned into nightmares brought on by recent physical trauma. They could not risk a thrashing patient in the middle of delicate surgical operations. Nins would need to keep him safely in Stage Three non-REM sleep for as long as possible.

Third, they would need to artificially stimulate the pineal gland to enhance certain signals from the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a fine balance if they were to keep his internal clock in snooze mode. The trick was to increase the pineal gland's production of melatonin just enough to support but not surpass deep levels of non-REM sleep. This was a delicate balancing act.

Lastly, triggering the basal forebrain to promote sleep while subduing the emotion-generating amygdala produced a final buffer layer from the external trauma of surgery to help keep the patient's brain effectively deadened to external stimuli.

It was a medical work of art cobbled together out of desperation and the fear of chakra exhaustion. They could not fail the Hokage. They could not fail this child. With a heavy sigh despite the miraculous teamwork used to save the comatose boy, the doctor's wandering thoughts, jarred by a subtle cough from the Hokage during his medical spaceout, returned to his grisly report.

"The patient suffered multiple lacerations and contusions. All major organs were punctured and hemorrhaging blood at unsustainable transfer rates. The fact that he did not bleed to death enroute to the hospital is simply miraculous."

The ANBU standing in the corner growled but did not take his eyes off the boy sleeping in the recovery bed. Seeing no additional comment, the doctor continued.

"Once critical organ function was restored, we proceeded to mend major soft-tissue damage, reconnecting repeatedly perforated muscle tissue in the abdominal and thoracic regions." The Hokage's question made Yamakishi-san pause.

"Repeatedly perforated, doctor?" the Hokage queried.

"Naruto was stabbed forty-seven times in the stomach, chest and neck regions of the body." Hiruzen's eyes grew slightly before he could still his face back into impassivity.

"In addition, we were forced to reconnect all major ligaments in his arms and legs. Someone had an impressive anatomical knowledge base. They were very… thorough in making sure that he could not escape." Inu immediately thought of the Inuzuka suspected of participating; Pagu was part of the Hunter Division.

For the first time the Hokage turned from the child and looked into Yamakishi's eyes before he spoke. "And what of his eye, doctor?"

"I am sorry, Hokage-sama. It can be replaced but not saved. We will… try to match the remaining eye but that is the best we can offer. The child has an unusual and very rare natural eye color."

The Hokage nearly sagged in defeat. If he survived, the child would have a constant reminder of this night every time he looked in the mirror. He would start his day with a souvenir of how an angry mob tried to take his life on the day of his birth.

Oh, how the Hokage hated this festival. If he could prove who from the council leaked the child's status as the Kyuubi container, he would string that person up publicly at next year's festival. That thought prompted him to his next course of action.

"What is your recommendation moving forward?"

"If things progress normally, we will begin resetting his bones once his vitals have stabilized and we have conducted a detailed physical assessment. The mechanism of injury appears to be numerous blunt objects – we found multiple fist and foot impressions over sixty-percent of his torso and lower extremities – so we must be cognizant of secondary and tertiary soft-tissue damage. We had to reset his broken ribs and repair his fractured spinal column and skull to ease pressure to critical organs, so he should be out of the woods there. Now we need to correct his extremities and then I'd like to keep him here for observation for the week following the last corrective procedure, which will be the eye replacement."

The Hokage nodded his permission sending the tired doctor off for much needed and well-deserved rest before turning to the shivering ANBU.

It didn't require a Hokage to see that Inu was angry. His whole body literally vibrated with rage. Admirable though his anger may be, Hiruzen knew that Inu did not know the boy's true origins, otherwise he'd be addressing many more corpses, so this emotion could only be in response to a drunken mob willing to attack an innocent child, any child. Right now, however, he needed him focused on the remaining tasks at hand.

"Captain." Inu snapped to attention and focused on his Commander in Chief.

"I will want you present when the offenders are released from Ibiki's custody. Make sure that Anko is present as well when the final report is given."

Immediately the ANBU's chakra resonated with anticipation. He knew full well what the snake princess's reaction to these bastards would be and he planned to watch as much as he could for as long as he could.

"Also, assign your best team to guard the child lest our more motivated citizens seek to continue the festival's remembrance."

Inu's response was brief, immediate, and professional. With a response of, "Hai! Hokage-sama," he vanished in a swirl of leaves, his body bent at the waist.

Hiruzen turned to the boy wrapped in bandages and wished him strength in the week to come. He would try to visit and lend some of his own strength when he could. With a tear rolling down his wrinkled cheek, the old man vanished without a sound.

~I I I~

Deep below Konoha in the dark environs where sunlight fled the evil of men, a figure swathed in robes and bandages imperiously lorded over the kneeling figures beneath his daised throne. A single eye flickered between individuals as his mind recorded and filed each mission recount, the right side of his head wrapped up eerily similar to a convalescing jinchūriki resting in Konoha General. With a quick nod in the dimly lit chamber, the three masked figures before him vanished into the shadows as a fourth shuffled silently but quickly into the room assuming a similar pose with their neck bent and one knee pressed to the stone floor, the other knee bent and supporting their hands.

"What have you learned?" the mummified shinobi rasped out, the cross-shaped scar on his chin wrinkling with his barely suppressed interest, his lower lip rising ever so slightly when he awaited news of something important.

"The vessel is stable, Danzo-sama. He currently rests in the high security ward on the second sublevel. Doctors appear pleased with his recovery rate and plan to relocate to a more accessible location if the next few surgeries prove equally promising."

The figure identified as Danzo appeared displeased. "The soft-hearted fools would squander high security and risk the container to further reprisal, tsk."

The agent was monotone in his ongoing report. "If I may, Danzo-sama." He waited for permission to continue, like all well-trained tools should, Danzo happily noted (though he'd never let on he was pleased). "Konoha believes that the standard two-two-two ANBU rotation is sufficient to protect the vessel while he recovers. The move was predicated based on access to direct sunlight."

Danzo scoffed at the old wive's tale about sunlight being good for recovering medical patients and young children.

"Any signs of the seal weakening post-attack?" This part was crucial.

"Negative, Danzo-sama. The demon-."

"Bijū," Danzo calmly interrupted. He was nothing if not precise.

"Pardon, Danzo-sama…the bijū… made no apparent attempts to escape the seal that we could detect. Conversations between the doctor and the Hokage appear to confirm that the entity was more focused on healing the container rather than taking the opportunity to flee and wreak more havoc."

Danzo's one visible eye narrowed in thought. 'The creature must have bonded at some point with the child to forgo its freedom. That is a point we might be able to use to gain leverage over it.'

"That concludes this agent's report, Danzo-sama."

The mummified shinobi nodded ever so slightly acknowledging the figure's satisfactory performance. "Make sure we establish a proper guard over the weapon; we cannot afford to let Konoha bungle its safety before we can gain control. Use Fourth Platoon to fill the roster. Zero body count unless another attack on the weapon's safety appears unavoidable."

Danzo only had the one unit comprised of four platoon-sized forces but they were highly trained, more so than Konoha's soft-hearted shinobi. He was confident they would succeed where Hiruzen's pathetic nin would continue to fail. Just because the beast had not retaliated, didn't mean that it wouldn't eventually.

By then, Danzo wanted to be firmly in control of the reins.

~I I I~

A/N: Behind the Scenes

This early section is part of the world building for the rest of the story, to include some of the flashbacks planned for the sequel. Here you are introduced to some of the main characters in this version of the Narutoverse. Kakashi is here as the competent Captain, not quite given over to his porn vice (but it is there in the background); note that he knows what Naruto is just not who he is. Danzo in all his royal sliminess makes an early showing to counterbalance the Sandaime. Yugao is there as the up-and-coming Captain.

Characters will come and go and a few mainline OCs will get added. This is a fantasy version delving just barely into the realm of mythology so the extra faces are needed. This story will be so far out of canon that, if you aren't sure you can handle it, this Behind the Scenes note is your early pass to freedom.

The next "Behind the Scenes" will address a question concerning Kyūbi's willingness to help an orphaned human, which will explain why my Kyūbi is not some large-breasted vixen with over-developed maternal instincts; there is a reason behind why she's the way she is and it's tied in with the Kitsune that will begin to make their presence largely felt in this story. Until then…

Ja ne!