The text Naruto had just read was unreal. It was something out of a spy thriller. Leaf had not seen two-day secret military tribunals for decades, not since the days of the Second Hokage when the Blue Ink Crisis had necessitated the legislation of some frankly terrifying legal powers in the name of village security. The Third had repealed the laws involved not long after his accession (the history books recorded his famous line, "That which fears the light cannot be called justice"), but on the other hand they were secret tribunals. They could easily have been reinstated since, with the general population left none the wiser.
And then there was the statement that those responsible for proving Kakashi-sensei's innocence could not be trusted. This suggested that someone very influential was out to get Naruto's instructor, someone with the power to block or pervert the course of an entire investigation. The note's sender had to be influential as well—they were aware of the details of a secret tribunal, after all—which meant that Naruto was being dragged into a conflict between heavyweights. Ordinarily, that should have been scary as the cold hells, but now... now Naruto knew that some major power in the village, one capable of overruling the Hokage himself, was also responsible for all the suffering in his life. If this was an opportunity to see some of Leaf's movers and shakers first-hand, and simultaneously find out which of them was evil enough to try to frame Kakashi-sensei for treason, there was no way he could back down. He was going to do this, for Kakashi-sensei, for a chance to take another step towards his revenge, and for his pride, which wouldn't let him give up on a challenge without trying.
All right. Time to think it through logically, step by step. Kakashi-sensei was being accused of illegally killing Gatō. Since Naruto had been the one to do the deed, it was ridiculous that they wouldn't summon him to the trial as a witness or even an accomplice—unless the prosecution simply didn't care about the truth. In which case, as the note implied, the trial must have been set up purely as an attack on Kakashi-sensei.
If so, the note-writer wasn't telling Naruto to gather evidence in order to exonerate Kakashi-sensei. That wouldn't work against somebody who already wasn't playing fair, and who, based on the timing, had to have somehow made the preparations for this tribunal before the team's return. On the other hand, if evidence was completely useless, Naruto wouldn't have been given the note to begin with. Presenting evidence of Kakashi-sensei's innocence had to trip up the mysterious accuser in some other way. Perhaps all the note-writer wanted was time to prepare a counterstroke, and Naruto could buy it by slowing down the trial. Or perhaps they wanted Naruto present at the tribunal because their opponent didn't, in which case bringing urgent new evidence would give Naruto an excuse to attend without being summoned.
Not that any of this changed Naruto's priorities—he was still after the best evidence he could find, in the biggest possible quantities. And there was one more thing he could do...
Yes, the solution to the issue of Gatō's assassination suggested itself almost instantly. It wouldn't be enough to simply admit that he'd acted on his own rather than on Kakashi-sensei's orders, since then he might end up being tried for the same crime instead. But what he could do... he didn't like it, and it made him feel more than a little dirty, but, in the end, he thought what he was going to do would be understood. Maybe even forgiven.
The hard part would be the other accusation, that Kakashi-sensei hadn't called in reinforcements when he should have. Kakashi-sensei had told Team Seven he'd done it, and he had no reason to lie. But for all the tactical advantages of leaving nothing on interceptable scrolls, it also meant there was no physical evidence that he'd made the request.
That brought it down to witnesses. He, Sasuke and Sakura had all been asleep at the time of the hand-over, so that was right out. The staff at Takeda's Wayside Inn might have seen something, but there were a number of reasons not to rely on them, not least the fact that there was no way he could make it there and back in six hours. At least probably not. Kakashi-sensei had told him that the Fox was able to beat Haku on speed using only the techniques in Naruto's arsenal, so as a last resort he could try to invent some sort of road runner technique in the time remaining to him. But that was probably best left for Plan B, or maybe Plan Z.
Naruto thought through the events of the day. The prisoner had been handed over to the four chūnin, who had taken him through the forest, to the gate, signed in at the gate, then gone through the village to the ANBU headquarters, and signed the prisoner over. So he could find out the names of the chūnin who were supposed to convey the message quite easily, and question them.
Except that was a bad idea. They were one of the two possible weak links in the chain—either the four had failed to deliver the message, or ANBU had received it and then pretended they hadn't. In case of the former, he was only going to be told lies, and would also be alerting his enemies to his investigation. In case of the latter, he was doomed from the start. If ANBU had been subverted...
Wait. There was a third option. The missing-nin, the Demon Brother whose name he could find out easily from the gate records, would not be aligned with any faction in Leaf, corrupt or otherwise, and over him Naruto might actually have some leverage—more than he would over the four chūnin or ANBU, anyway. In addition, he probably didn't expect to be questioned about events taking place after his capture, and wouldn't have spent time preparing a plausible story that concealed the particular information Naruto wanted. The prisoner might have witnessed Kakashi-sensei's reinforcement request, or at the very least conversations between the chūnin that might give a clue as to their motives and plans. He was still gambling that the man's ANBU jailors were innocent, but since they hadn't been involved in the reinforcements issue thus far, that was quite likely.
There was no time to lose. Naruto set off at a run towards his first destination.
-o-
ANBU receptionist and office administrator Matsunaga Nao half-heartedly sorted through equipment requisition forms while listening to the clock tick away the minutes until the end of her shift. To her right, a thick metal door led to the rest of the complex. To her left, the smell of life-giving coffee wafted in from the entrance to the break area, where her replacement was already waiting as per standard procedure. Occasionally, her right hand would tug reflexively at the purple ponytail over her shoulder, as if to check that it was still there.
After a hundred thousand near-identical forms (or at any rate, at least thirty), her work was interrupted by a late-night visitor, a boy she couldn't help but recognise thanks to his daft orange outfit. Uzumaki Naruto, she recalled, had all but single-handedly exposed and captured a traitorous chūnin instructor before even graduating from the Academy—a feat that had put his name on a number of interesting lists.
If he maintained this track record of exceptional achievement, Nao knew, then one night in a few years' time he'd wake up to discover a mysterious masked shinobi at the foot of his bed, there to make him the offer of a lifetime—whatever the psych profile said that Naruto wanted most. And the price? One tiny betrayal. In real life, a tiny betrayal led to another, then one slightly greater, then one more which would surely be the last, until through a combination of temptation and blackmail the handler had taught his victim to murder comrades and swear allegiance to those who would see Leaf destroyed. Such cautionary tales were always told at ANBU initiation, because ANBU was the one thing that Must Not Fall—the trunk that, if it rotted, would take the entire tree down with it.
Those that failed to refuse the offer had three days' grace, enough to wrestle with their morals and decide to report the masked shinobi to the authorities. There was no shame in being forced to confront one's inner weakness. But if the weakness won… by the morning of the fourth day there would be nothing left of them but the paperwork.
"Hello there, Naruto," Nao greeted him as she set those thoughts aside. "What can I do for you?"
The boy smiled as he recognised her—receptionists being among the few categories of staff not required to maintain anonymity. "I need to interrogate a prisoner, Miss Matsunaga, the missing-nin Onigahara Tariki."
"You can call me Nao," she told him. "But I'm afraid that as a genin, there's no possible chance you'd have the security clearance to conduct an interrogation. Your best bet is to get your team leader to authorise it for you."
"Ah," Naruto grimaced. "That would be the problem. My team leader is Hatake Kakashi, and he's in no position to authorise anything right now. I'm here because he needs help."
Nao's lethargic mood vanished in an instant. Hatake Kakashi. There was nobody in ANBU who didn't feel something upon hearing that name.
"Captain Hatake needs help? Why didn't you say so before? Tell me everything you can."
Naruto explained the situation to her. It was a gesture of trust, given that he had no way of knowing she wasn't in on the conspiracy, but she could see where the boy didn't really have a choice.
"Shit," Nao muttered. She thought for a few seconds. "All right, Naruto, I'm about to let you in on the most closely-guarded secret of the ANBU administrative staff. In times of crisis, we are formally obliged to do things by the Book."
She half-turned, in a practised movement that left Naruto in her peripheral vision as she considered the enormous double row of thick tomes on the shelves behind her.
"What's that?"
"The Book." Nao picked out Volume IX, always a good starting point when dealing with issues of security clearance, and set it on the desk in front of her. "Also known as Complete Rules and Regulations of the Assassination and Battle Tactics Special Unit. Our ultimate weapon, expanded and empowered by generations of masters of the bureaucratic arts."
Nao opened the book and began to flick through it. "Have you passed your twelfth birthday, as recorded on your birth certificate?"
"Huh? Um, yeah, for what it's worth."
"Good, then clause 26 doesn't apply. Now, based on section 18, paragraph 6, and given that the current duty officer fulfils the criteria for clearance category L3, we can proceed straight to section 8..." Nao started to mutter to herself as she turned the pages back and forth, occasionally swapping in a different volume altogether, pausing only to ask Naruto the occasional inane question.
-o-
"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a criminal organisation involved in smuggling operations across ninja village borders?"
"OK... You haven't submitted forms 3314, 205 and 472b (twice) in advance, but I think paragraph 16, clause 3 can get us around that..."
"Technically, the current Hokage is the Third, but since he's taken the post twice, section 173, paragraph 2, clause 7b allows us to count him as the Fifth..."
"Have you ever carried out a mission in a squad including one or more members of Root?"
"What's Root?"
"Like ANBU, but evil."
Nao looked up from the book sharply. "Oops, I did not just say that out loud."
Her eyes unfocused slightly as she proceeded to recite, as if from memory, "The ANBU policy towards our Root colleagues is based on complete respect and professional cooperation, and it is in no way permissible for ANBU staff to advise members of the public to stay the hell away from Root if they value their life." She looked down again. "Anyway, that lets us invoke paragraph 4..."
-o-
Meanwhile, somewhere deep underground, in a place very few people know exists...
Although, as the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen was trained to the peak of physical and mental fortitude, as a man long past the age of retirement he nevertheless did not relish spending long periods of time in cold, damp subterranean spaces. As such, in spite of himself he felt a momentary sense of relief when he finally heard the inimitable "tap, tap, tap" of Shimura Danzō's cane.
It had an interesting rhythm, that sound. One who knew what to listen for would notice that it was not the slow, heavy rhythm of an old man relying on a stick for support. Nor was it the casual tap of someone carrying a cane as a convenient status symbol, or perhaps an elegant concealed weapon as some foreign aristocrats liked to do. No, to a fellow master this rhythm spoke louder than words: "I have already calculated exactly how to kill you in one motion from anywhere in the room, and am now choosing a suitable position at my leisure". Hiruzen had seen would-be assassins flee from Danzō's presence upon hearing it.
"Why have you called me here, Hiruzen?" Danzō demanded in the tones of a long-suffering public servant whose only desire is to return to his interrupted work. Of course, given that he had been the one to arrange the meeting, this could only be a trick to assume control of the flow of conversation.
Hiruzen would not give ground so easily. "Stirring up the ghosts of a legal system long dismembered is beneath you, Danzō. How many weeks of digging through their graves did it take you to find these loopholes in the archive?"
Danzō's only reaction was a slight raising of his eyebrows. "You always lacked foresight. I, on the other hand, knew this day would come, the day when the balance between us would have to be restored, and made sure your attention was... redirected... from certain records even as you dismantled Master Tobirama's legacy."
"What balance? I have taken care not to interfere in your work with Root." This was, of course, a lie, but Danzō would be hard-pressed to prove otherwise. "Do you have some other complaint?"
Danzō gave him an annoyed look. "Don't play dumb, Hiruzen, it doesn't suit you. You were too greedy. I could have tolerated your claiming the Uzumaki child—with difficulty, but I could have done it. I am nothing if not a patient man. But you should have left the Uchiha to me. Or vice versa. They are resources that belong to the entire village, not just to you."
"So that's what this is about?" Hiruzen frowned. "You want me to give up one of this cohort's most promising children to Root?"
Danzō shook his head. "It's too late for such half-measures. Your every action keeps proving how unsuited you are to leadership. Unsurprising, of course, since that's just another thing you stole from me."
Hiruzen opened his mouth, ready to rehash this age-old argument yet again, but Danzō didn't give him the chance.
"You can wear the hat, Hiruzen, if it matters to you so much. Who am I to stand in the way of a man desperately clinging to unearned pride? But I will not let you endanger the village with your incompetence. I will not stand by while you let those two play children's games, growing up worthless and soft like the rest of your genin. That is why I'm giving you a choice.
"You can try to keep them. Then Hatake will be convicted, and you'll lose one of your favourite tools to no gain. I'm sure I don't need to remind you what punishments Master Tobirama decreed for treason.
"Or you can allow me to assign a squad leader of my choosing to replace him." A certain hunger shone in Danzō's eyes. It was subtle enough that even Hiruzen would have missed it, were he not familiar with every shade of expression his former best friend had to show. "If you do, your best shinobi will be released, to serve you elsewhere as you wish, and I'm not even asking to have Uzumaki and the Uchiha moved into Root. They can stay within your formal jurisdiction, but my chosen captain will have final control over their development. The girl will, of course, be transferred to another squad—I care not what you do with her—and I already have a most promising candidate ready to take her place.
"You must replace Hatake as squad leader no matter what," Danzō told Hiruzen. "Your only choice is whether you wish to spare his life."
Hiruzen feigned intense thought. The fact of the matter was that he already had a number of schemes working to counter Danzō's gambit, from the wildcard that was Naruto, to a plan which would ensure that Team Seven could manage without a squad leader for the immediate future. As matters stood, he couldn't conduct any sort of investigation himself. Danzō had pulled some of his best shinobi from their missions in order to watch him and throw up regular obstructions. As a man who had mastered infiltration when Danzō's minions were still in their nappies, Hiruzen could surely have evaded their surveillance with his hands tied behind his back—but the Hokage couldn't simply disappear. Too much of the village's business relied on him being easy to find in an emergency, to say nothing of the political ammunition it would offer Danzō if he could catch the Hokage deceiving his own people.
In the absence of better options, the best use of his time might be to keep Danzō talking. Every minute Danzō spent in this thrice-accursed basement was another he couldn't use to reinforce his own position. And right now, every minute counted.
"You're the one who blocked the reinforcements to Kakashi's mission, I take it?" he asked. "You realise they were nearly obliterated as a result?"
Danzō shrugged. "If the Demon Fox host and the last Uchiha, under the leadership of Sharingan Kakashi, could not handle a low A-rank mission, then their power would have been insufficient for me to concern myself with their survival in the first place. On the other hand, if they survived, as they did, their power would increase significantly, as it has."
"And I take it you are offering to sacrifice four of your own men—who were acting on your orders—if I accept the deal? All to keep those two boys out of my hands?"
"Do not waste my time with pointless questions," Danzō said sharply. "You know as well as I do that something is coming. Every village is making preparations and maximising their resources—they are all doing whatever it takes to be ready. Something is coming, and I will not allow you to doom Hidden Leaf with your weakness and inaction. Too many good men have fallen, and too many more will fall, for you to dishonour their sacrifice with yet more failure.
"You were never able to make the difficult decisions, Hiruzen, never able to make the sacrifices that need to be made to protect that which matters. I am making them for you, and though I know I cannot expect any gratitude from you and yours, I expect you to at least make the effort to act rationally—for the good of your faction if not of the village. Make your decision about Hatake before the trial resumes. I will be waiting."
And then there was only a rhythmic tapping sound, and then silence.
Hiruzen sighed. Normally, he could tie Danzō up in philosophical debate for hours if that was what it took—part tactical manoeuvre, part yet another hopeless attempt to pull someone who mattered back out of the darkness—but his talk with Naruto had left him too emotionally exhausted. He stood there for a few seconds more, then began the slow walk back. There were cunning plots to weave, and dreary paperwork to process, and at times like these he honestly couldn't say which he hated more.
-o-
"I think we're nearly there," Nao announced, her eyes locked on Volume IV. "Would you say, in your best judgement, that the current situation threatens an irreversible breakdown of public order?"
"Yes," Naruto nodded firmly. Which was to say he would raise the cold hells if Kakashi-sensei was falsely convicted of treason. There were vast, unplumbed depths of creativity he could draw upon if that was what it took, and if Leaf thought he was a terror before, they had no idea what he could do now that he actually had money.
"Great!" Nao finally closed the book. "Then in accordance with clause 13a(ii) of paragraph 7 of section 245 of the Rules and Regulations of the Assassination and Battle Tactics Special Unit, I am bound to escort you to the low-security section and hand you over to the captain in charge, who will facilitate the interrogation."
She turned towards the break room door. "Yukari?" she raised her voice. "I need you to relieve me for a few minutes."
"Sure thing, Nao-baby," a young woman's voice responded.
Nao blanched. "Yukari, we have a visitor!" she hissed.
"Oh." Another, younger, woman emerged from the break room, looking like she wished she knew an instant earth-opening-up-and-swallowing-oneself technique. "I mean 'Saitō Yukari, acknowledging reception area handover, ma'am!'"
Nao gave Naruto a look that quite plainly said, "I'm helping you out here, so just pretend that never happened", and silently took him through the large metal door.
Naruto was led to the entrance to the prison section, and an enormous metal door that looked like the armour-plated primordial ancestor of which other security doors were but inferior descendants. After a few words from Nao, the behemoth reluctantly screeched open. On the other side, the duty officer, a tall ANBU man with a crow-themed mask, told her to go back to her post, and Naruto to wait. He then half-turned back, keeping one eye on Naruto, and gave a guard a few brief instructions.
Several seconds later, a loud voice came out of nowhere, nearly making Naruto jump. Loudspeakers, like most high technology, were rare and expensive as heck, but then you could probably buy a small country with ANBU's annual budget. (If not, you could certainly conquer it.)
"Attention: Areas Three through Seven are now at Yellow Alert. Prisoner no. 435 is now being transferred from Cell Block D to Interrogation Chamber Four. Repeat: Areas Three through Seven are now at Yellow Alert. Prisoner no. 435 is now being transferred from Cell Block D to Interrogation Chamber Four."
The officer returned his attention to Naruto. If he was even slightly surprised to see a newly-graduated genin in a secure facility belonging to the village's elite special forces, he gave no sign of it.
"Listen carefully," he told Naruto in the emphatic monotone of someone who had delivered the same speech, word for word, a thousand times, and taken more pride in it with every repetition. "These are the rules for using a private interrogation chamber. You surrender all weapons, loose items, jewellery et cetera before entering the room. You do not move from your seat unless there are at least four guards in the room with you. If for any reason you find yourself out of your seat, you do not under any circumstances approach the prisoner, not even if you think you'll still be out of reach. You do not use ninjutsu. Repeat these instructions back to me."
Naruto did, feeling more than a little anxious.
"There will be four guards outside. The acoustic properties of the room scramble speech, but they do not conceal the fact that you are speaking. If the guards hear shouting, or any noise that doesn't sound like a person speaking, they will enter immediately. If they hear nothing for a full minute, they will enter immediately. If you press the concealed alarm button under the edge of the table nearest to you, they will enter immediately. If there is any impact against the door, they will enter immediately. Repeat this information back to me.
"If anything unexpected happens, summon the guards immediately. If you feel threatened, no matter what the reason, or even if there seems to be no reason, summon the guards immediately. If you feel confused, or have difficulty thinking or moving, summon the guards immediately. If you find yourself having thoughts or feelings inappropriate to the situation, whether in nature or intensity, summon the guards immediately. Repeat these instructions back to me."
Satisfied with Naruto's excellent memory, the captain led him to the interrogation chamber. To Naruto's disappointment, whoever had designed the ANBU complex had put some thought into it, and left a route that gave visitors no chance to satisfy their curiosity about the actual layout and contents of the prison.
Naruto did, however, get a glimpse of the ANBU approach to secure construction inside the chamber itself. A table and two chairs were arranged parallel to the wall with the door, such that anyone coming in had quick and easy access to both the visitor and the prisoner. All furniture was bolted to the floor, and while the interrogator's chair merely looked as if it had been hewn from one piece of stone, the prisoner's chair came with floor-mounted "boots" to hold the feet, and locks on the back to fit the hand restraints all prisoners wore at all times. Anyone sitting in that monstrosity would be effectively immobilised.
In defiance of manga convention, which demanded one tabletop lamp providing a narrow beam that left the questioner's face in shadow, the room was brightly lit by a ceiling-mounted light the rough size and shape of a dinner plate. As such, Naruto had no difficulty making out the baleful glare Onigahara Tariki was directing at him.
Tariki looked considerably worse for wear compared to their last meeting, with fresh scars visible on his face and hands, and grey streaks in his previously black hair. The standard-issue ANBU prisoner uniform, high-visibility orange with strips of reflective material, and "ANBU PRISONER 435" emblazoned across front and back in big white letters, stood out starkly against the oppressive, featureless grey of the room.
Naruto had no idea how to interrogate a prisoner. He would much rather have left doing so to a professional, but right now he didn't know whom to trust, and could not be sure that ANBU hadn't been caught up in the strange power politics surrounding Kakashi-sensei's trial. He'd managed to get this far without anyone trying to stop him, but he couldn't afford to push his luck further.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto," he finally told the prisoner. "I have something I need to ask you."
Tariki did not respond except to sneer ever so faintly, as if to remind Naruto of the absurdity of asking for favours from the man he'd robbed of everything.
This was not lost on Naruto, who had spent most of the journey here racking his brain for leverage he could use to get the information he wanted out of a hostile source.
"There are things I could offer you in exchange," he said with more confidence than he felt.
Tariki gave a short, sarcastic laugh, almost a bark. "Of course there are. Go ahead, wave your magic wand and make the Mizukage forgive my so-called crimes. Or pull the Sword That Cuts Iron out of your ass and use it to break these bonds so I can escape. Or maybe you're the Second Hokage in disguise, and you can blackmail the very demons of Hell to give my brother back to me, how about that? No? Then fuck off and stop wasting the little time I have left."
Naruto was taken aback by the sheer disgust in Tariki's voice. He had to do something about that. Trying to negotiate while the missing-nin was in this frame of mind would be like getting blood from a stone. What was he supposed to do? Genin weren't taught interrogation techniques, and detective manga could only take him so far. What would Inspector Tsunemori do at a time like this? Try to build rapport?
"I'm sorry about your brother," Naruto said.
The prisoner gave him a look of weary contempt. "Subtle like an explosive tag to the face. I'm guessing they don't keep you around for your interrogation skills." He looked at Naruto's costume. "Or your stealth."
He sighed. "Look, you little prick, I can tell you're not getting the hint, so I'm going to break this down for you nice and simple, and then you're going to fuck off and leave me alone. The best case scenario for me is that your ANBU buddies keep torturing me until they decide I've got nothing left to tell them. Then, they either execute me or keep me imprisoned for the rest of my life, depending on whether your leaders want to look strong or compassionate that day. Then your medic-nin vultures pick over my remains to see if they can drag any Mist secrets out of them. Then if there are any bones left they get chucked on a shelf in some storage facility and left to gather dust. If I'm lucky, they might even be in the same room as my brother's.
"That's the best case scenario. The more likely one is that after ANBU's done torturing me, Leaf acknowledges they've got me, and sells me back to Mist. Then our ANBU tortures me until they've got everything they can out of me, including anything I've learned about Leaf, and believe me, they make your ANBU look like fucking pansies. Then they give me a nice, thorough public execution to remind everyone else what Mist does to 'traitors'. And if there's anything left of my body after the execution's finally over, they make sure to desecrate the remains so my spirit can never be at peace.
"So with all that in mind, just what do you think you can offer me, you little shitstain?"
Naruto opened his mouth. No words came. He'd known, in the abstract, that it was possible for interrogation to include torture when the safety of the village was at stake. He'd known, in the abstract, that when a missing-nin chose to abandon their village, they also chose to abandon the rights and protections that their village guaranteed. He'd known, in the abstract, that some criminals were too dangerous to ever be given their freedom.
Now the abstract was here, and there was no escape.
There were no words. There were no thoughts. Time passed in silence.
A guard opened the door. "Do you need help?"
Concise, short syllables, easier to answer quickly than "Are you all right?", the back of Naruto's mind noted absently.
It was Tariki who responded. "Take him out. He's done."
Acting on autopilot, Naruto started to get up. He was nearly out of his chair—
If I leave now, Kakashi-sensei will die.
It was only that thought flashing across his mind that stopped him. He stood still, unaware that his body was in an awkward half-standing position, and repeated it to himself, deliberately now.
If I leave now, Kakashi-sensei will die.
If I leave now, Kakashi-sensei will die.
If I leave now, Kakashi-sensei will die.
Slowly, he made himself sit back down. "I—I'm fine. Thank you."
The guard looked at him appraisingly for a few seconds. "Interrogation is draining. If you find your mental, emotional or physical condition deteriorating, you should end the session and resume after you've had time to recover."
Naruto nodded. "Th-Thanks. But I need to get this done tonight."
The guard left.
Naruto took a deep breath. It felt like dropping a grain of sand into an abyss, but he still said it. "I am sorry. About your brother, and about what's going to happen to you."
"Spare me," Tariki told him. "You won, we lost. You live, we die. Are you really going to pretend you'd rather it was it the other way round?"
"N-No," Naruto said. "But... But that doesn't mean I want it to be like this!" His voice was still shaking. "I fought you because I had to, to protect my team and my client! That doesn't mean I wanted you to be tortured and killed!"
Tariki rolled his eyes to the grey concrete heavens. "Sage's blood, I'd rather be back with the ANBU and their clever little instruments than listening to this shit."
He was quiet for a moment. "Look, you fucking worthless excuse for a ninja, you think you have some sort of moral high ground for being on the defending team? Let's be clear about this. Sooner or later, it's going to be your mission to assassinate some poor sucker whose only fault is that he's got enemies rich enough to afford ninja. Or maybe you'll be stealing documents with trade secrets. Suddenly, poof! Some big-name merchant's out of business, and his employees don't have jobs, and their families don't have food on the table, and their children starve to death, and tears and drama all round, and you're the guy who made it happen. Or maybe you could only take the missions that let you come out smelling of roses, and turn down the rest. Except do you know what they call guys who refuse to obey orders? Traitors. I'm sure you'll be rushing to join the club for the sake of your precious morality now you know what that means.
"Fuck it, why am I even explaining this to you?" Tariki asked as if the thought had just occurred to him. "I'm not your master, I'm your fucking worst enemy, the guy from whom you took everything." He paused. "But you know what, whatever. Maybe this is my last chance to hurt you, or maybe I'm doing you a favour by opening your eyes to the truth. I don't know anymore. Listen up, because I'm going to strip away your retarded little illusions, and then you can fuck off and take your 'oh I'm so noble' bullshit with you.
"This is your world. Are you with me? This is where you live. You took money to protect that bridge-builder guy. Why? Because your village wants money, because money is power, and power is survival. Jiriki and I took Gatō's money to kill the same guy. Why? Because money is power, and power is survival. Gatō wanted him dead so he could keep squeezing money out of the people of Wave. Why? Go on, take a guess.
"There's only one thing anyone wants, in the end, and that's to survive. Love? Ambition? Duty? Revenge? Good luck with those when you're six feet under. Survival always comes first. And it never comes free. There's a price to pay just for staying alive in this shithole of a world, and sooner or later you'll have to make other people pay it for you before they do the same to you. And then you'll want power like you've never wanted it before in your life. Those with power can bargain. They can choose what to give and what to take. Without power, you own nothing, you are nothing, because everything you have and everything you are can be taken away at somebody else's whim." There was a painful stress to those last few words.
"And you, kid, are no special little snowflake. Pretend to be noble, pretend to be a fucking tragic hero trying to do good in a fucked-up world. Truth is, that world is part of you and you are part of it, and at the end of the day, whether you're a holy saint or an irredeemable monster, you'll reach for power or you'll be crushed underfoot by the guys who do. No third option."
Naruto's hands, safely concealed beneath the edge of the table, were trembling. Not only had he lost control of the conversation (if he'd ever had it to begin with), but that impulse to flee, barely suppressed to begin with, was surging again. Tariki's sheer conviction gave his words the weight of hammer blows, and Naruto had no defence that would let him stand his ground. What was he supposed to say? "No, you're wrong—you might be about to be tortured and executed, but the world is all sunshine and roses really"? What evidence did he have that Tariki was wrong about even a single one of his claims?
The prisoner just watched him, with a glint of satisfaction in his eyes, waiting for him to get up and leave.
Naruto wanted to. The desire dominated his mind, intense enough to block out nearly everything else. But if he left now, Kakashi-sensei would die. But if he didn't leave now... the thought refused to complete.
In the chaotic miasma of Naruto's thoughts, there was a part of his mind desperately trying to think rationally, aware on a things-you-drop-fall-down level that this was what you were supposed to do when in trouble, but not having the resources to manage it. Suddenly, it saw an easy-to-make logical connection and went for it. Naruto wanted to leave. If he left, Kakashi-sensei would die. Therefore Naruto wanted Kakashi-sensei to die.
What.
Naruto snapped out of his trance with a jarring sensation of alertness, as if he'd just found himself about to walk into a lamppost. Did he just conclude on the basis of logical syllogism that he wanted Kakashi-sensei to die? That... that was stupid on so many levels, and so profoundly, that he didn't have the words to describe it.
OK. Let's just pretend that never happened, and get back to work.
Naruto took a deep breath, then another one. Ninja Teaching Eleven: breathing techniques are the quickest and easiest way to take control of your mental state. It took time, but gradually, Naruto's breathing grew slower and deeper. Some semblance of order returned to his mind, and he began to think.
First off, conviction and emotional impact didn't make an assertion more true. He'd been on the receiving end of enough angry rants and stern lectures to know that. At best, it might be evidence that the other person really believed what they were saying. Then again, there was an odd sort of correlation in Naruto's experience between people with strong beliefs and people who were horribly wrong, from the villagers convinced that he was a monster whose death was the only way to save the village, to Haku and his unswerving devotion to a man who couldn't begin to value him as much as he deserved.
Likewise, while an adult's superior experience meant they'd had more learning opportunities, it didn't automatically make them smarter or wiser. Having lots of raw data wasn't the same as knowing how to draw the right conclusions. Funny, really, but when you'd been around enough adults, you tended to find that the injunction to listen to one's elders was the only thing they all agreed on.
All right. That was the theoretical, easy part. Now he had to turn to Tariki's actual words, and that was still tough. He wanted him to be wrong, with an aching (if now tolerable) desperation, but either way, all he could do was test his words against reality and see if they survived.
He didn't have to look far for examples of selfishness and evil in the world. His daily treatment at the hands of the villagers was enough, and at first sight it supported Tariki's case all the way. Indeed, that was part of what had made it so hard to argue against him in the first place—even without thinking about it consciously, some part of Naruto had resonated with a picture of the world that matched his own experiences so closely. But when he looked more carefully...
Every time they saw him, they hurt him... because they thought it would help them survive? Because they thought that if they didn't, he'd hurt them first? Because they thought it would give them power?
No. None of it quite fit, no matter how he turned it around in his head. They hurt him because... well, because they honestly believed that he was a monster, different and alien and dangerous. Most of them, anyway, the ones whose corruption wasn't absolute. And because they honestly believed that hurting monsters, and people who were too different in general, was right and proper, or at least permissible and understandable. It didn't make their behaviour forgivable—nothing could do that—but it did make it comprehensible. They weren't, for the most part, people who had sold out their morality in the name of staying alive. They were people who tried to live moral lives, but whose morality was upside down because they were stupid and short-sighted and selfish and unempathic and terminally incapable of thinking for themselves or taking even the slightest bit of responsibility for their own decisions.
And yet this world, a cold and lonely hell that encouraged people to walk around with their eyes closed hurting each other, had also given birth to Iruka-sensei and Hinata and Haku. Tariki wasn't wrong—the world was a place of cruelty and selfishness and conflict in which people hurt and exploited each other, in which the strong trampled the weak, in which power was the only guarantee of safety even as it corrupted those who achieved it. And yet.
"You're wrong," Naruto told Tariki. "There are people in this world who try to do the right thing, not because it'll let them win conflicts or bring them profit, but because they want to help others and make the world a better place. They—"
"That's it?" the prisoner exclaimed. He'd obviously been expecting this response, or something like it. "That's the best you've got? You really are just off your mummy's tit, aren't you?"
He smirked. "So you believe in heroes, do you? Then let me tell you what this world does to heroes. Take your First Hokage. He wanted to unite the clans and teach them to live in peace and prosperity alongside commoners, so he wasted his life on diplomacy and negotiation and finally founded Leaf. Real noble, huh? All it got him was to be killed off by Uchiha Madara, who knew the score and had spent his life becoming a fucking unstoppable god of death. Oh, and the village system? We have that to thank for three great wars that were a thousand times more devastating than all the little clan skirmishes that had come before."
Naruto opened his mouth, but Tariki wasn't done.
"Who else might an ignorant little brat like you worship? How about the First's granddaughter, Princess Tsunade of the Leaf Three? Hero and genius. Single-handedly revived the fading art of Leaf-style medical ninjutsu. Improved on it, even. Nobody wants to die, so of course she was hailed as a living legend. Except then she decided to take the logical next step, and she proposed that every squad should have its own medic-nin. Poor girl actually thought her superiors cared about saving lives. Do you know what happened?"
Naruto shook his head. He could guess, from the fact that Leaf didn't have all that many medic-nin, but his history classes hadn't mentioned anyone called Tsunade. That meant something, if she'd really been that important.
"She got turned down. Know what happens when too many ninja live long enough to get real strong? Of course you don't, you idealistic little prick. They start getting ambitious. And there's nothing worse when you rule a ninja village than someone who thinks they can rule it better than you, and won't wait their turn.
"What," the missing-nin went on, "don't tell me you thought ninja fatality rates were all bad luck? Come on. If the Powers That Be wanted their ninja to survive, they'd have fewer of them, and invest their resources in training each one to jōnin level, or as close as talent allows, instead of mass-producing a bunch of useless genin each year. I've been on the front lines of serious battles. Know what happens? First, they throw the genin and the weaker chūnin at the enemy, the guys who might have mastered one or two techniques at best, and any fighter worth his salt kills them off by the dozen. Only then do they send in anyone who can make a difference. Guys like you? You're meat for the grinder, you're lambs for the slaughter, you're the caltrops thrown to the ground to slow down pursuit for that one extra second while the real ninja get away.
"I like that look on your face. Means you're listening. If all that kunai fodder survived, it would only inconvenience those in power, so Tsunade's proposal was rejected. Then the Third Great Ninja War broke out, and she lost everyone she had ever loved, starting with her own brother, because there were no medic-nin at their side to save them. After that, she vanished, never to be seen again. She'd learned her lesson about trying to change the status quo.
"And to finish off, how about the Fourth Hokage? Gave his life, everything he had, to seal away the Demon Fox and save Leaf. How's that worked out for him? He's dead and rotting, all the big reforms he had planned never happened, and the host he chose became such a bloodthirsty monster that you people don't even dare speak its name in case you draw its attention. That's what happens to good people in this world."
Naruto felt once again like he was clinging to a reef in the middle of a stormy sea, the prisoner's relentless litany of cynicism a swirling whirlpool trying its best to drag him in and drown him. He held on, however, because this time he had a response.
"You're missing the point."
"Huh?" That, Tariki had not seen coming.
"So good people are rare. So horrible things happen to them. So they never get what they were hoping for. That's not the point."
"What are you—"
But Naruto was on a roll now, finally reaching his time to talk back. "The point is: their existence isn't magic. It's not some great cosmic coincidence that makes good people appear in a world that's full of evil and suffering and darkness. Reality doesn't work that way. There are rules, there are concrete and discoverable reasons why some people do good and others do evil."
Naruto paused dramatically.
"And being a ninja is all about making the rules your bitch."
Tariki goggled. "You're fucking kidding me. That's your response? You think you can change the world? What the fuck do you think you can possibly do?"
"I'm going to become Hokage," Naruto told him. "I'm going to use my intelligence to understand whatever in cold hell is wrong with people that makes them hurt each other, and I'm going to figure out a way to make it stop."
"And what makes you think that you, some tiny, naive little prick who doesn't know the first thing about real life, can pull something like that off?" Tariki asked, sounding intrigued, like he was an entomologist listening to the first report on a new and completely alien species of beetle.
"Because I'm me," Naruto said. "Because I'm a few months out of the Academy, and I've saved a country, beat a jōnin, and forced S-rank secrets out of a head of state, and that's before figuring out how to use the incredible unique powers lying dormant inside me. One of the richest men in the world is dead right now because he sent you to interfere with my first C-rank mission.
"This is my world now, and I will teach it to play by my rules."
Then there was a sound so unexpected that Naruto took a second to recognise it. Tariki was laughing.
His whole body was shaking to the limits of what the restraints allowed, the laugh coming from the very depths of his body, so loud that an ANBU guard opened the door briefly to assess the situation. It seemed to last for hours, and every time Naruto thought the man was about to stop, he suddenly went into convulsions again.
"Oh, man," Tariki told him once he got his breath back. "That was fucking priceless. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Makes me wish I could live to see just how you're going to crash and burn, because I'd bet my immortal fucking soul it's going to be spectacular."
He gave Naruto a more serious look. "Maybe I underestimated you. If even half of what you just said is true, you're so goddamn insane I actually want to see you take a stab at it."
The prisoner paused, then smirked, but this time seemingly at himself, as if half-disbelieving what he was about to say. "All right, kid, whatever it is you came here for, you get one shot. Give me your pitch, and I'll hear it out."
Naruto focused on his breathing again. Well, that conversation probably wasn't in any interrogation manual in the world. While it had been satisfying, in the end, to be able to boast to someone about all the things he'd genuinely done, it was more than a little uncomfortable to realise that his ambitions were growing faster than he could really take in their scope. But for now, he'd given himself the opportunity he needed to pursue his original goal, namely saving Kakashi-sensei's life.
So, what could he offer this man, in the end? The clues were there, if he'd read him right. The tricolon crescendo of his impossible demands. The futures he'd described for himself, and how they ended. A few odd words. Balance that with what Naruto was likely to be able to get, with his very specific field of influence...
"I can offer you and your brother an honourable burial next to each other in Leaf's Foreign Shinobi Cemetery, with the rites you request."
Tariki gave him a strange look, surprise mixed with intense attention. Was there maybe, just maybe, some suppressed hope in those eyes? "That doesn't happen to captured missing-nin. We're barely human in the eyes of the law. What makes you think they'll bend the rules that far at some genin's request?"
That was the easy part. "The Hokage owes me a favour. A big favour. The kind you can't measure in ryō."
Tariki looked him in the eye. "Since you're here, I guess you managed to survive your mission with that bridge-builder guy, and I can believe that Gatō sent a jōnin to finish the job after Jiriki and I failed. So I suppose there's a chance you're telling the truth about this part as well, and you really did get one over on the Hokage. In which case, what do you want from me?"
"Tell me what happened the day after we fought—fully, honestly and to the best of your ability."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. Now, since we're technically enemies, I could add a bunch of conditions about all the different ways in which you're not allowed to lie, and you could look for loopholes in them, but instead I'll just say this. What you're buying is the right to leave this life with honour. How much truth you pay with is a direct reflection of how much you think that right is worth."
Tariki gave him an incredulous look. "I really can't tell whether you've got no balls at all, or huge swinging ones of steel. You kill my brother and take me prisoner to be tortured and killed. Then you cry like a baby when I tell you the basics of how life really works. Then you boast like you're the second coming of the Sage of Six Paths. Then you bargain with me and spend favours for what you could get for free through torture. And now you blackmail me with the last thing I've got left to care about.
"All right, final question. How do I know that when you've got what you want, you won't walk out of that door and forget I ever existed?"
"Who, me? The 'fucking tragic hero trying to do good in a fucked-up world'?" Naruto grinned. "The 'naive little prick who doesn't know the first thing about real life'? I guess you don't. But if you haven't figured out what kind of person I am yet..."
Tariki sighed. "I could have died instead of Jiriki, and then he'd be the one here, stuck dealing with this bullshit. But no, he always knew to get out before the shit hit the fan, everywhere from the women's baths to Hidden Mist itself. So what do you want to know?"
-o-
Some time later, Naruto returned to the reception area to find three ninja in unfamiliar, predominantly dark grey uniforms, arguing with a cheerful Yukari.
"These documents are filled out to every last specification you gave us! Now, for the last time, you are to hand over prisoner Onigahara Tariki to us immediately for urgent transfer to Root facilities! We are not going back to get these forms redone again!"
Yukari smiled. "Of course, sir. Let me take a look. Now, I see you've submitted them in triplicate, with the date in the top right hand corner in the correct order, signed and countersigned by the relevant authorities with name readings provided in the appropriate format..."
She continued to talk softly to herself as she carefully examined every last element of each of the three forms, taking care to do so with the speed of a sleeping sloth.
"Thank you. Now, I will be happy to take you through to the main complex to carry out your request... as soon as you correct this error here."
"What?!"
"Section 71, paragraph 4, clause 9 of the Rules and Regulations of the Assassination and Battle Tactics Special Unit clearly stipulates that forms referring to prisoners originally from the Village Hidden in the Mist must list their names in both standard script and Traditional Mist characters, for reasons of compatibility with other document databases."
"But Traditional Mist characters haven't been used for generations! There probably isn't anyone outside Mist who can even read them!"
"I'm sorry for your inconvenience, sir," Yukari responded in a tone of pure innocent helpfulness. "Before you leave, I should remind you that any action likely to reveal Mist missing-nin Onigahara Tariki's presence in Leaf to Mist authorities, including requesting the Traditional Mist characters used in writing his name, would be deemed an act of treason if performed without the authorisation of the Hokage's Office."
"This isn't over, damn you!"
"Have a nice day!"