Naruto finally gets back to his apartment, after what feels like thousands of reassurances to Iruka-sensei that yes, he's fine, he just needs some sleep. He feels bad for lying, mostly because he has no intention of sleeping tonight at all.
Right now, he's merely infinitely grateful that prolonged use and familiarity with Kurama's chakra has acclimated him to constant chronic pain. The burn radiating from his seal is worse than what he's used to, but he is used to it, and if he were any less used to it, sitting still through class would have been impossible.
He hadn't heard a word of Iruka-sensei's lecture though, even if he had been awake for it this time. He'd been far too busy trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do.
And he had.
It's a long shot, but in the closed off section of the archives, the room meant only for the eyes of Jounin or the Hokage, are copies for every medical ninjutsu the village knows– it had been in the librarian's logs. Even if they don't have something that can fix Kurama's ailment, they might have something that could tell Naruto what the hell is wrong. Either way, it's his only choice.
Figuring out that part of the plan had been easy, it was the rest of it that had required more thought, because knowing where the scrolls are and getting to them are two entirely different things. Naruto already has the hardest part handled purely by chance– the door to the inner part of the archives requires two chakra-laced keys. The first key, which is carried by any active jounin, opens the door itself. The second, carried only by the Hokage, goes to a hidden lock that deactivates the chakra alarms– that way even if someone managed to steal a Jounin key to open the door, the alarm would still go off and alert every Anbu within a five mile radius.
But Naruto doesn't even need a Jounin key, because Jiji, on top of having the key to the alarm, also has a key to the box in his desk that carries the spare Jounin keys, Naruto just has to get them both off Jiji.
Which would be a problem for everyone but Naruto. Not only is Naruto keyed into the chakra alarms on Jiji's office, but he also knows that Jiji keeps all his important stuff in a compartment on the underside of his shodo easel.
The biggest hitch is that he needs more time with whatever scrolls he can find, so he can't go in the small hours of the morning like he usually does– and worse, he'll have to slip by the Chunin librarian while he's still on duty.
There's one saving grace, however. Naruto is one hundred percent positive that the inside of the library has no bathroom whatsoever. The Chunin in question also has a fondness for sweet black tea, given the bottles of the stuff Naruto keeps finding both left on his desk and cluttering the waste bin behind it.
Naruto had done him the favor of leaving a case full on his porch as soon as he'd gotten free of Iruka-sensei's concern. Now he just has to wait until Jiji leaves his office.
He sits outside the window in the branches of one of the big oaks, close enough that he can see the old man, but far enough away not to get in the way of the patrols going past. He uses the time to practice the one skill he's going to need if he's going to pull this off.
Chakra resonance.
He remembers Kurama's lessons on it clearly, and he remembers how it pertains to stealth.
Most high-level ninja rely more on their chakra sense than their eyes when it comes to detecting threats. Kurama had told him. Match your internal resonance with the ambient chakra around you, and even the most skilled shinobi will walk right past you.
He practices matching his resonance to that of the tree around him, and when he thinks he's got it handled, he tests it by sitting out on one of the branches close to the patrol and waiting for it to pass. The Jounin on duty don't even slow down.
He'd be more proud of himself, only the pain in his abdomen threatens his focus every time he loses sight of what he's trying to do, and every burning aching throb reminds him of the dire straights Kurama is in right now.
Kurama is precious to him. For almost a year now Kurama has raised him, and he will not let Kurama suffer if he has anything to say about it. So he draws from that strength, that will of fire, and razors his focus.
Ten minutes later Jiji stands up from his deck, rubs his back like the old man he pretends he's not. He knocks twice against his desk, a signal for his Anbu escort, and immediately the two guards that had been standing outside his door appear beside him– Rabbit and Falcon judging from the masks, which is normal. He waits a good fifteen minutes after they've left, until the patrol passes him a third time and the candle Jiji had snuffed at the edge of his desk is no longer trickling smoke. Then he slips through the window, moving silently to the shodo easel. He feels along the underside of the wooden frame until his fingernails catch against abnormal grooves, and then pushes against it.
A soft click as the panel gives a little, and when Naruto releases it a drawer pops forward at the easel's base, shallow, but as long and deep as Naruto's forearm. He pulls it open, eyes scanning the compartment for the key he needs, when his gaze catches on something else.
It's a set of picture frames. The first is old and oak and rough around the edges. Featured is a young picture of Jiji, his hair brown instead of grey, no age spots in sight. He's flashing a cocky grin Naruto has never seen on the reserved Hokage, standing behind three kids Naruto doesn't recognize. They're all older than him, but not by much; the boy to the furthest left of the picture has jagged white hair and is wearing a grin of his own that almost matches the once gracing Jiji's face. The boy in the middle has smooth black hair, pale skin, and strange slited eyes in toxic green-gold. The girl, the one on the right, has long blonde hair four shades lighter than Naruto's own, smooth and tied back on a smart pony tail, and her eyes are the color of warm and creamy coffee.
It looks like a picture of a Genin team, but Jiji has never mentioned having Genin, and Naruto would remember if he'd seen these faces around the village, even if they were older.
There's a picture underneath it, and despite the urgency of the situation Naruto can't help but take a peak, lifting the first picture frame gently by the edge as to not leave any fingerprints on the glass. The second frame is newer, polished mahogany, but the bottom corner of the frame is dented and the glass above it is cracked, like it's been dropped or thrown against something.
Naruto's breath catches.
The picture is of a man and a woman, again standing behind three kids. The man is ruffling the silver hair of a young boy with a mask over his face, who is glaring at the dark haired boy across from him. The woman has an arm around said boy's neck and is giving him what must be an excruciating noogie considering the look on his face. A sweet looking girl stands between them, giggling, the square clan markings on her cheeks crinkling as she laughs.
The man has gold-blonde hair and blue eyes, his smile kind and soft and obviously besotted as he gazes over. The woman has hair as red as a Konoha sunset, grown down almost to her ankles, pinned back from her eyes. The look on her face is playful and smug as she rubs hard against the boy's hair, her eyes glinting with mischief. Her skin is dark in a way the man's is not, but in a way that Naruto's is.
A picture of his parents.
His hands are suddenly shaking, and he puts the picture down before he accidentally drops it. They look exactly like Kurama had had said they would, but seeing them is somehow different, somehow more real.
He looks so much like his father that it's no wonder Jiji sees phantoms around him, but the shape of his face and the tone of his skin are clearly his mother's, who even in the stillness of a photograph looks as fierce as Kurama described her.
A pulse of contaminated energy in his stomach reminds him painfully why he's here, that he has a parent here and now, still breathing, that needs him.
He puts the frames back carefully where he found them and picks up the key ring nestled next to the frames. He picks the one off the top that he's seen Jiji use to open the spares box, and runs a finger over the others keys until he finds the one radiating chakra. He counts the number of keys before it, and then lifts it carefully from the ring and shuts the drawer. He goes to the bottom drawer in Jiji's desk, using the key to pop open the reinforced metal box he finds inside. He goes to the row of keys labeled 'Archives: Spare' and snags the first in the row. He closes and locks the box behind him, just in case a wandering shinobi peeks inside.
He ducks into the hallway, clear of Anbu now that the Hokage is not longer here to protect, and walks silently down the hall to the door to the Archives. He tucks himself into the corner of the door syncs his chakra to resonate with the subtle rhythm of the wood and plaster of the wall.
It doesn't take very long for the door to click open and the chunin librarian to exit, a prim shinobi with dark hair and wide set eyes. He yawns, exiting the short hall and turning down the corridor towards the restrooms. Naruto slips inside before the door can close completely.
The classified jutsu room is at the far back behind the shelves on B-rank Taijutsu, and he navigates the maze of books and scrolls with practiced ease. He has two minutes to get inside. Three tops.
The lock for the Jounin key is obvious, it's in the door, but Naruto has to move a small bookcase over to get at the second one, which makes an unfortunate amount of noise he can't help. He does it fast, wincing at the groan and scrape of the wood against the wall, and puts Jiji's key in the slot as soon as he's uncovered it. A twist and a chirping noise, and the chakra alarm is disabled.
He pulls the shelf back into place and slips the Jounin key into the lock on the door, letting out a sigh of relief when nothing screeches or blows up in his face, but immediately curses again as he hears the scrape and click of the library door being opened. He darts in fast, waits, and when he hears the doors start to close he shuts his own door at almost the same time, and hopes to every deity he doesn't believe in that the Chunin didn't hear it. He waits, ear pressed against the door, for a full heart-pounding minute, but he hears no footsteps coming towards him.
He hears almost nothing, actually. Even with his keen ears, the room is eerily quiet.
Soundproof. He realizes.
He lets out a breath, loud in his own ears.
He turns, surveying the room before him. It's not as small as he originally figured it would be, both walls lined with tall bookshelves laden with scrolls. There are no windows, so Naruto will have to rely on his internal clock to tell him when to get going. He has about seven hours to dawn, and ideally he should be out in six.
No time to waste, he tracks down the shelf of medical ninjutsu and pulls down the entire layer of scrolls and texts, laying them out on the floor, and gets to work.
It takes him nearly an hour, but he finally finds something that sounds like what he's looking for. The book he finds it in is old, the leather spine cracked and the ink faded on frayed pages. It's some kind of journal listing chakric ailments, and one of the chapters reads Chakra Corruption.
He reads it with more focus than he would a jutsu, committing everything it says to memory.
Chakra Corruption
Definition: Alteration and disruption of chakra's nature due to outside forces, resulting in a sickness of chakra vessels. This can be a primary or secondary affliction, depending on if the disruption is peripheral or central.
Symptoms: Severe lethargy, inability to keep conscious for long periods of time, soreness radiating from point of contamination, fever, blood toxicity, and inability to properly mould chakra. In severe primary afflictions of the central chakra system, symptoms can also include nausea and vomiting of coagulated chakra. Cases this severe must be treated immediately as prolonged suffering of this affliction can result in death.
Causes: Certain rare poisons have the ability to cause this condition, but it is most commonly caused by repeated chakra exhaustion followed by the over imbibing of artificial chakra pills. As a result this condition is also known as Campaign Fever. In rare and often unrecorded cases, extreme emotional turmoil or upheaval has been known to cause this condition, particularly in those inclined to Yang energy or with poor Yin control.
Treatment: The only known treatment for Chakra Corruption is transfusion. First, as much of the corrupted chakra as is safe should be drained from the patient. Once this is done, stable chakra should be fed into the patient's system slowly over the course of several days. The most severe symptoms should abate immediately, though lethargy and fever may persist for one to two weeks as the chakra system rids itself of remaining corrupted chakra.
No.
This can't be happening.
This can't be it.
Naruto throws the book to the ground, feeling the prickling sting of tears threaten the corners of his eyes. He lets them come, because he's tired and devastated and in pain and there's no one around to hear him. All this, and Naruto's useless.
All this only to find out that Naruto can't even help. Worse, Kurama's condition is probably his fault.
Extreme emotional upheaval.
It was the only thing that made sense. Kurama doesn't need chakra pills, can't be poisoned. And the only thing he knows that Kurama has any emotional attachment to is Naruto.
Goddammit.
He cries until he can't see, because he can do nothing. The one thing Kurama needs, the thing that Kurama has given him without reservation, is the one thing Naruto can't give back.
Chakra.
His seal, Kurama's prison, won't allow it.
As tears fall onto his knees, darkening the fabric over his legs, he tries to reach, tries to find Kurama in his seal. But whatever door Kurama slammed is still shut, and the burn against his stomach hasn't abated.
He can't let this happen. He can't. Kurama is a creature of chakra; Naruto has no doubt that this could kill his bijuu if he lets it.
He can't let it.
He puts a hand over his seal, feels the heat radiating off it even through the layers of bandages. Suddenly something fires in his brain, synapses connect, and hope flares.
The seal.
The seal is the problem. If he can alter it, change it somehow so that he can feed chakra through it…
He vaults to his feet, starts tearing through the shelves in search of anything he can find on Fuinjutsu. His frustration mounts and mounts as he tears through scroll after scroll and finds nothing that could help him, nothing more complicated than storage scrolls or barrier tags. He knocks over the chair tucked in the corner, the only furniture in the room, and is only absently glad the room is soundproofed. He leans back against a tall bookcase, staring despondently at the mess of scrolls and open books he's left behind, and sees it.
Behind the chair he'd knocked over, tucked along the edge of one of the bookshelves, is a keyhole. It looks the same as the one Naruto used to disable the alarms.
He moves over to it, not daring yet to hope. It could respond to Jiji's alarm key, but it could also require an entirely different key that Naruto doesn't have. If that's the case, if an alarm goes off and the Anbu find him, then Naruto would be expelled from the academy. He would never be a ninja, not in Konoha.
But if he doesn't try and there's a chance, then Kurama will die and it will be all Naruto's fault.
And that makes the choice easy.
He slips Jiji's key into the slot, sends a desperate quiet "Please." to any being that might be listening, and turns the key.
A click, a whir, the working of mechanisms he can't see, and suddenly the bookcase beside him swings open a crack.
No alarms go off. No Anbu crash through the door.
What the hell would Jiji say?
"Thank the seven gods of luck." Naruto murmurs, feeling old just saying it, but he feels it's necessary both for the situation and in homage to the old man.
He opens the secret door, which swings on heavy, creaky hinges. It leads down a short staircase into a small dark room filled with stacks of files and reports piled on the floor. There are kanji seals painted all over the walls, presumably to prevent intrusion from outside the library.
Naruto slinks down the stairs, leaving the bookcase ajar behind him. There's no jutsu scrolls save for one massive one sitting atop a desk at the back of the room, nearly as long as Naruto is tall. Nothing else that could potentially tell him how to alter a seal as complex and powerful as the one holding Kurama.
He takes a deep breath, and drags the giant scroll off the desk.
Kinjutsu. Forbidden techniques. Naruto swallows heavily as he continues to read through the Jutsu. The scroll paper is thick and heavy; the ink scrawled across it is disturbingly simple for it's contents. Naruto reads it end to end, copying the things he knows he won't remember. He has no idea what he might need later, what might help. There's instructions for a shadow clone technique that doesn't make sense because it makes too much sense, details about a chakric security system around something called the Shrine of Masks, and descriptions of a technique that uses a flying thunder seal, whatever that is. Towards the end, he finds something very familiar.
His seal is marked down in extraordinary detail under the name Seal of Eight Trigrams. According to the notes scribbled onto all side of the thing, it's a hell of a lot more complicated than anything else in here. He has no idea what some of these terms mean; fasteners, distribution curves, dimensional pocketing? And there's nothing inside that gives even a hint as to what they could be. Kurama had taught him some things, basic constriction, enough to make his own storage scrolls and a few types of customized barrier tags, but nothing near this complicated.
He copies down every word anyway, pens each scrawl of notes in excruciating detail, and tucks that specific scroll not in his pack but in one of the hidden pockets inside his shirt. It's a start, but there's not enough information, not enough for him to go on. He needs more help– a seal expert to teach him or something, but he doesn't know any.
...Except that he does, just not any that are alive.
He rolls the scroll back up and turns his attention to the stacks and stacks of files.
Four hours left. Better hurry.
He starts flipping through the files, careful not to disturb their order. They're alphabetical, so it's not hard. As he flips by the Ts into the category he's looking for, his eyes catch on a different file, four folders up from the one he needs.
The Uchiha Incident.
Naruto's mind flashes unbidden to Sasuke, to images of the massive empty compound Naruto has seen him heading towards after school. Through some instinct he doesn't understand, he pulls out the file. There's a strange symbol on the front, the Kanji for the word 'root' in bold strokes above the formal kanji for 'copy'. He flicks it open with his thumb.
Nausea rolls sharply through his gut at the sight of the pictures inside. He reads quickly, his hand at his mouth, horror rolling through him at the thought of doing something like that to another human being, let alone family. A few sentences stand out over all the others.
Root issued.
Mission Complete: Single survivor
Mission Assignment: Uchiha Itachi. Status: Missing nin. Control Prerogative: Failed
At the back of the file, in Jiji's handwriting, is a note.
Never again. Danzo has crossed a line. Root is to be disbanded effective immediately. Under no condition will he be allowed to operate without my direct supervision, not after this mess. I will see to it that the boy is protected. It was Itachi's last wish.
Underneath it is more writing in unfamiliar script.
Funerals were seen to as you asked, but you should know – eyes missing.
Naruto has no idea what the hell that means, and he's starting to resent the feeling. Something doesn't feel right though; something's off, so he takes a copy of this file too. He slips the folder back where he found it, shaking his head like it'll help banish the horrors from his thoughts, and moves on to the file beneath it, the one he was after to start. It's thicker by far, filled to the brim with reports and photo paper. It reads Uzushio: Destruction
The smell of mildew greets him as he opens it, the scent of forgotten reports and decade-old shame. He scans through, the pages seeming fragile in his touch as he thumbs through sheet after sheet of writing and pictures. Most of its nonsense and even more of it's useless, the only exception being a set of maps detailing troop movements. The reports aren't parallel, contradict each other, and again he finds the Kanji for root stamped on every other page.
One report seems different– it's written on different paper, crinkled with water stains and small tears like it was written in the field. The first part of the page is illegible, but Naruto can just make out the end.
–All dead or missing. Cannot tell Kiri and Iwa nin from Uzushio shinobi. Too many of both, far more former than later. Repository not found by either parties, Storm is forcing back both Kiri-Iwa and Konoha forces. Unable to continue search.
Repository? Something seems off about the way it's written, like a proper noun. Kurama had taught him enough script and he's read through enough history and jutsu to know that isn't normal. Storm is written in the same fashion. When Naruto flips the page over, he finds a disturbing note scrawled on the back.
The Island doesn't want us here.
Whatever hospitality or tolerance it once offered has been rescinded with our failure.
We cannot even bury the fallen.
Only the Uzumaki could calm it's wrath, and the Uzumaki are dead.
By the time he's finished cleaning up the mess he'd made in the in the upper room and securing all the doors, it's only an hour before the building starts to flood with early risers. He makes it out of the library and down the main hall without a fuss, and he's almost home free when he turns the corner towards Jiji's office and physically smacks right into a shinobi.
He flails and jolts back, swinging a hand up to grip his nose where it had impacted the ninja's ribcage with eye watering force.
Smooth dumbass.
His brain registers several things at once– guy, senbon, Tokubetsu Jounin,– before panic sets in and it's all just a jumble of shit I'm gonna be expelled and Kurama's gonna die and shit shit shit.
But then the man releases a pained breath and Naruto looks up, his freak-out temporarily stalled.
The Tokujo looks familiar, though Naruto can't put a finger on why. He's got jaw length honey hair pulled loosely back from his face, eyes the color of caramel syrup, and there's a senbon grit between his teeth. Other than the clench of his jaw and the pained hiss of breath Naruto is sure he heard, there's no sign of the pain the man is clearly feeling– but Naruto can practically sense it coming off him in waves.
"Dammit." The man hisses vehemently, pulling a hand through his hair where it's falling out of it's loose tail, but he schools his features easily enough and looks down at Naruto. "Hey, what're you doing here kid? It's godawful o'clock."
Naruto fumbles for a second because he's a shitty liar and he knows it, but stops rooting for an answer when he senses something other than pain rolling off the man before him.
Guilt?
Naruto has no idea how he knows that– the only emotion showing on the thirty-something's face is boredom.
Naruto's instincts seem sure of it though, and when he stares up at the man for a moment, blinking, the feeling intensifies until he starts to see it surfacing in the back of the shinobi's eyes. Naruto rubs at his face and the Tokubetsu seems to misinterpret the action in junction with his red and watery eyes.
He's instantly and obviously uncomfortable, and he puts his hands up like Naruto is some kind of mine he accidentally stepped on and if he shifts the wrong way he'll blow his leg off. "Where the fuck is Iruka when you need him." He mutters under his breath, low enough that if Naruto's hearing were any less keen he wouldn't have caught it.
"What are you doing here?" He asks harshly, his voice a little rough, because the man looks more in the spotlight than Naruto feels. The guilty tang to the air intensifies so that Naruto can practically smell it– acrid and lingering like vinegar and missed opportunities. Naruto rubs at his nose where it impacted bone. The man offers a smile that's more like a grimace, but doesn't answer his question.
"You okay, kid?" he asks back.
"I could ask you that." The words are out of Naruto's mouth before he can overthink them, and are softer than he intended them to be because sue him, he's exhausted, and now that he bothers to take a good inhale through his poor battered nose, he can smell the metallic tang of blood underneath the shinobi's clothes. "You need a medic or something?"
The forced smile drops right off of the man's face and his senbon clicks audibly against his teeth as his jaw goes lax, the shinobi's eyes narrowing and his forehead wrinkling in confusion.
Naruto just blinks up at him, confused by the scrutiny. "What?"
"How do you figure?"
"Uh, because you're injured?" Naruto says, because that's kind of obvious.
Except maybe it's not, because the ninja's eyes widen again for a fraction of a second and then suddenly cloud. The man sways, snaps an arm up to brace against the wall. The facade crumbles at the edges in a breath hissed between teeth and a pained slouch of shoulders, like air released from a balloon. "Shit." He croaks. "Sorry kid, but I don't suppose your sensei is about?"
It's Naruto's turn to be confused, because what has that got to do with anything? "Iruka-sensei? He won't be here for a while, I don't think. Don't you need to be in a hospital?"
The man shakes his head. He's gone from pale to sickly in under a minute, and clammy sweat is building on his forehead as he struggles to keep himself upright.
"No… hospitals…" He mutters, and then he's falling forward.
Alarmed, Naruto moves to catch him, bracing his shoulder against the shinobi's chest as the man slumps forwards. He's heavy, heavy enough that Naruto almost drops him, and just like that Naruto's stuck with seventy-five kilos of unconscious shinobi he didn't ask for.
"Aw come on…" He groans at no one in particular.
For a second he debates just dropping him in front of the shinobi wing of the ER, but he discards the idea almost as soon as he thinks of it. Iruka-sensei's house isn't far– it would be just as easy to drag him there than it would be to haul him to the hospital. He just hopes he won't get in trouble.