DO NOT READ!

by Arashi Kaoru

THIS IS FOR MY EYES ONLY. DO NOT READ THIS. I DO NOT INTEND TO STEAL ANY WORK OF OTHER WRITERS. I JUST WANTED TO USE THE AUTO-READ FEATURE OF THIS APP AND AFTER FINISHING ALL CHAPTERS, I INTEND TO DELETE THIS, DO NOT READ!

36. Chapter 36

When Sakura steps into the ring across from him, Kiba can't help a nervous swallow.

She's not one of their three demons for nothing– the muscle wrapped around her arms is corded, lean and defined, and doesn't even begin to demonstrate the true extent of her physical strength. It also doesn't help that maturity-wise she's several years ahead of him, already beginning to show signs of the growth-spurts and hikes in physical power that grace Kunoichi long before they grace Shinobi.

Kiba has every right to be more than a little nervous, thank-you-very-much. He takes a moment to thank every deity he doesn't believe in that their demon sensei's rulebook prevents Sakura from using the reinforcement latices that allow her to level whole hillsides in one blow.

Which would be more reassuring if she couldn't still easily muster strength enough to crush his skull.

Sakura smiles at him chillingly, cracking her knuckles beneath wicked metal cestuses. "What's the matter Inuzuka? You're looking a little pale."

Kiba grins back, but it's all bluster, one hundred percent. Sweat drips cold down the back of his neck, at the same time anticipation sends lightning firing across his nerves. This is going to be hard , and as scary as the idea of fighting Sakura is, he thrills with the challenge of it. It's not often he gets to test his strength against strength incarnate and see where the gauge falls.

And Hatake Kakashi is one hell of a teacher– he'd always known team seven was made of monsters, but somehow he'd forgotten team seven included their silver sharp-eyed sensei, whom Kiba had quickly discovered, was a monster among monsters.

"Sakura's biggest weakness is speed." he recalls from one of their nightmarish training sessions. "She's the strongest fighter of my cubs, hits the hardest, but it takes a while for her to find her momentum. You'd better hit hard and hit fast, because once she finds that momentum? The fight might as well be over."

So instead of doing what he would normally do, instead of responding to the taunts with banter of his own, he skips all that and goes straight for the jugular.

Literally.

He lunges, fingers splayed wide as he swipes at her, the tips of his nails aglow with a brand new jutsu, fresh from his training with the silver demon. It's an old Hatake clan taijutsu, something Kakashi himself could do since before he could talk, but took Kiba three whole days to fully understand.

Reikoku Kagizumei

Savage Claw

The chakraic talons extending from the tips of his fingers are razor sharp and glacier cold, an extension of his body and a manifestation of pure predator focus. The animal part of Kiba's brain surges to the forefront as the attack connects– the chakra sparking off the metal of her wrist brace as Sakura raises it in counter– and Haruno shifts her stance, squaring her shoulders.

The fight begins.

Sakura bats away his first attack and aims a crushing strike at his chest, but Kiba bows his back into a severe curve to avoid it, disengaging to flip back out of striking range and leaping at the Kunoichi from behind.

They're both brutal fighters, close combat for the two of them is as easy as breathing– so for long minutes they just have fun with it , clashing off each other with moving blocks and devastating strikes. Kiba manages to get a few hits in but they're all superficial– gashes across her blocking arm and opposite shoulder, one lucky cut across her cheek. Fighting Sakura feels like throwing kunai at a brick wall; sure, the attacks do damage, but they're glancing scars at best and do nothing to undermine the strength of the foundation itself.

It's exhilarating; the longer they fight the more animal comes to the surface of Kiba's mind, and the easier it is to use the Hatake jutsu. He looses one without thought– energy scythes that curve off his hands as they move through the air, arcs of light that fissure the air apart as they arc down.

And that one does do some damage, cutting into the flesh of Sakura's side and upper arm, and Kiba leaps back, prepared for her counter.

She doesn't respond though, at least not right away.

Akamaru yips a warning from inside Kiba's jacket, and Kiba grunts his reply. His nin-dog leaps from his jacket and Kiba makes a familiar set of hand signs, activating his beast clone jutsu. Akamaru appears as his doppelganger, crouched and ready.

With Akamaru doubling his firepower, they're a force to be reckoned with.

But halfway through his assault, Haruno Sakura finds her stride.

The change is instant, and terrifying, and so sudden Kiba thinks he might actually hear the click . Or bang in this case.

She knocks him back, spins, and drives a high kick into the ground that breaks up the cobblestones and sends a chakra shockwave out that sizzles through Kiba's blood and sends his own chakra surging back on itself. It's painfully disorienting, enough so that he barely dodges her fist as she comes careening at him like a missile, and it takes every animal instinct in him to dodge the chain of blows she fires on him; she's relentless, so powerful her strikes create shockwaves like sonic booms that make his ears ring, one after another echoing the fierceness of their master, and Kiba is missing death centimeters at a time.

Akamaru diverts her attention for a full second with an attack from behind, and with the opening Kiba manages to put some distance between himself and Sakura. He could start up another offensive, strike hard and fast and hope he gets lucky. But really, at this point, he knows it won't do him much good.

Kiba straightens out of his crouch, rolling his shoulders to facilitate their shift back to more human structure, and it's a testament to their friendship that Sakura immediately straightens too, defensive stance dissolving into a casually cocked hip as she sticks one hand in her pocket. They're both smiling, and Kiba is still so giddy with adrenaline that he starts to snicker, blowing out a heaving breath. It must be at least somewhat contagious because soon enough Sakura is raising her other hand to her mouth to stifle giggles, and then they're just standing there in the middle of the arena, clock still running, laughing like idiots.

Kiba hears murmuring break out in the stands, confusion and surprise, and sees Genma-senpai roll his eyes in the corner of his vision.

"Well shit," Kiba rumbles, rubbing the back of his head. "Figured this might happen. You and I need to spar more often."

Sakura's smile is wide and pleased. "Anytime dog-breath. You're getting pretty fast on your feet."

Kiba flushes a little at the compliment– it means a lot coming from her– and turns to Genma with an arm raised, remembering last-second that the clock is still running. "Oh yeah, I forfeit."

Genma snorts. "Little shits, the lot of you." he mutters, and then raises his hand. "Forfeit, Inuzuka Kiba! Winner, Haruno Sakura!"

Temari attempts to go into her match without expectations. It's hard for her sometimes; Kankuro calls her judgy , the little shit, but he's not wrong– she's always had a hard time changing her opinions once she has them formed, but her gut rarely leads her in the wrong direction, so she sees no harm in going with it.

Except it's currently fucking failing her .

Nara Shikamaru gives nothing for her to go on. Everything, from the lazy dip of his shoulders to the uneven set of his mouth, is unassuming and chameleon-esque, shifting constantly like a mirage off hot sand. There are no hard lines for impressions, no judgments to make in the curve of his eyes or the tilt of his head, no patterns to suss out in the way he shifts his weight from one hip to the other.

It's annoying as shit .

There's only a sparse minute before the fight begins and she's already impatient for it to start. She'd watched him carefully during his fight with the Hyuuga, but even then she could tell he was hiding things, letting slip only what he couldn't avoid showing off. It's a principle of intelligence that this dark clad Shinobi seems to understand far better than most.

Knowledge is power and I give you none over me.

She's been itching to fight him since she found out he was going to be her opponent, itching to force him into showing what he's capable of.

The proctor calls start, and Temari doesn't waste any time. She whips her fan from behind her back, and unleashes a long range wind style attack designed to scatter defenses; Fuuton: Grinding Gale.

And damn is he fast– one second he's standing there, stance lazy and loose, hands stuffed into his pockets like he's out for a godsdamned walk in the market, the next he's fucking gone , nowhere to be seen in the shatter of rock Temari's jutsu tears up.

And then sure as shit there he is , standing on his toes at the top of one of the upturned chunks of rock, hands still carelessly deep in his pockets.

He whistles once, low like he's vaguely surprised at the force her jutsu conjured up. "Impressive."

Temari practically sees red . One word and he's fucking messing with her like he messed with the Hyuuga, goading her, pushing buttons to see which ones set her off. She takes a deep breath, banks the rage in her blood to a simmer. That's good, she can use that. She was always an angry kid, and Baki-sensei has been helping her channel that anger through constructive outlets since the first time she'd lost her shit during training and thrown a punch at him.

She knows Nara Shikamaru is a long-range fighter, it was obvious in his fight with the Hyuuga that he's most comfortable at a distance, but she needs to be careful– that shadow jutsu of his is dangerous, and she can't afford to let it creep up on her. If she can just goad him into fighting close quarters…

She flicks her fan open again and twirls it like a mai-ogi dancer, releasing another wave of jutsu, hiding in the chakra an array of exploding tags that scatter in the powerful wind. They catch in the fissures of the rock and explode, sending debris flying everywhere. Temari brings her fan back up to protect herself from the carnage, stone shards bouncing harmlessly off the steel-lined canvas and ironwood.

" Ouch ." She hears as she lifts her fan, and no fucking way .

That attack was omnidirectional and powerful , meant to shred even the thickest defenses– she's used it to take full blooded Jounin off guard, to show how dangerous she was at any range, but particularly mid-to-long range. Simple. Effective.

The bastard has a scratch. A jagged cut to the cheek. That's all .

He wipes the blood away almost absently, idle and slow. Unconcerned. Temari thinks she understands the extent of the Hyuuga's blind fury now.

"That jutsu wasn't very nice." the Nara comments. "You always start off this intense?"

And there goes Temari's temper.

It turns out drawing Nara Shikamaru into close quarters combat is not the sound strategy she thought it was. She barks at him to stop talking and put his jutsu where his mouth is, but he doesn't seem to be taking her even remotely seriously until she accidentally steps on a nerve.

She's trying to get a rise out of him, trying to induce a fraction of the fury in him that his blithe and pointed comments are inducing in her, and she knows it's stupid, knows he shouldn't let him goad her like this, but he's just getting under her skin somehow, pointed words rubbing like sandpaper until she snaps.

She doesn't even remember what she says– she's scattering a fire jutsu of his, one of the strange dark-fire blazes that seems to stick to fucking thin air , dispelling it before the shadows they cast can cause her problems, and she says something scathing about mind games and his flaxen-haired teammate, and it had been brutal even for her, but not as cutting as some of the things she'd said to him already, which is why the change had taken her aback.

It's like the atmosphere thins right out, like the temperature drops whole degrees despite the still searing patches of fire littering the battlefield. It's the only warning she gets before he's right in front of her , and she swings her bladed fan down in time, but only just.

Temari's Tessen fan weighs more than she does, but he stops it even as she brings it down with as much force as her aching muscles can muster. There's a long, sharp knife in his hand that hadn't been there a fraction of a second ago, and it's caught her fan at the perfect angle to distribute force, right at the base of the axel. And he must be a lot fucking stronger than his skinny frame would suggest, because Temari can see the lines of the muscle straining beneath the black top, see how they bunch down the entire length of his arm and gnarl at the shoulder, how they pull tension down the length of his side.

For a long moment in time, the seconds stretched in her battle honed consciousness like thick mochi, they stay like that.

Shikamaru Nara says nothing. He only looks up, wry and furious smile curved on his mouth like slice of shattered glass, and then she sees something small in the shinobi's irises.

The tiniest flicker of furious, predatory gold leashed tightly behind the inky black of his eyes.

Every drop of blood in Temari's body runs cold as ice.

Temari has the greatest natural instincts of her generation, and whatever is hiding behind the dark cloak of this boy's eyes scares her half to death.

Its gone in less than a fraction of a second, a whisper of something she could easily have imagined.

But the sharp fissure of fear still quaking down her spine tells an entirely different story.

She sees darkness moving in the corner of her vision but she dares not take her eyes off the Nara himself– off ebon eyes still creased with trace evidence of that flash of brutal temper. It creeps in further, and now Temari can see it in her periphery– coils of shadow are winding their way slowly up Nara Shikamaru's arms, thick snakes of darkness nearly invisible against the black of his top. The Nara's muscles tense even harder.

And Temari's fan begins to move.

No fucking way .

The goddamn shadows are some kind of reality-augmenting genjutsu, they have to be; ninjutsu and taijutsu don't affect them, and they're immune to the normal laws of physics like space and inertia. They can touch, but not be touched.

But fucking genjutsu, no matter how strong, can't reinforce genuine muscular strength , can't act as a secondary source of torque and force– it breaks every single law of chakra differentiation that Temari even knows .

There's a low rumble, like the tone an earthquake makes in the crust of the world just before it rends apart, like the dull roar of an incoming sandstorm you can hardly see on the horizon.

With one tremendous shove, Nara Shikamaru wrenches her fan skyward, and it arches clear over her head, whipping through the air and crashing to the ground with a deafening thunk .

Her arm is locked behind her before the sound finishes ringing in her ears, the cool, paper thin edge of the Nara's knife a pointed brush just below her jaw.

The match is over.

Mother has been quiet as of late.

The whispering susurrus of her voice is dull and idle, a breeze across the sand instead of a tempest. She is usually so loud Gaara can't think anything but her orders, her mind crowding in and wrapping tight around him, merging their voices together.

It's strange to be able to form thoughts around the noise, strange to find enough quiet for an idea or two of his own in the rustling desert of his mind.

He can think for himself enough now to know that something is wrong.

For the first time in memory, Mother is afraid.

Her fear walks in a small skin with slender adolescent bones, behind ocean-sky eyes filtered behind spun-gold hair.

He should be dead already.

Normally, mother would agree. They are all dangerous, all out to get him, out to destroy and crush and devastate. He has to devastate them first.

But she doesn't agree.

There is no itch to see blood spill, no desire to cleave flesh from bone, no need for the sticky-damp power over death that seeps between the grains of his sand.

Too dangerous . She says. Not yet.

So far, Gaara has listened.

He's grateful for the quiet. It gives him more time with his blood, with the other beings in his desert, with his sister and brother and teacher.

But it's time now. Mother's fear is too dangerous, grows more dangerous the longer they stay here in this green place.

There is, however, a problem.

Someone stands between him and Mother's fear. A grim boy with storm-dark eyes. If he wants to destroy Mother's fear, he must go through him first.

His sister has warned him that the boy is strong, and Mother agrees. She sees confidence and the power that backs it, notes small things that Gaara would not have thought to look for in assessing a threat– things like the curl of fingers and how quickly an expression can move from softness to steel.

The boy stands before him now, eyes neutral, expression blank. He looks vaguely weary, but Gaara is not fool enough to think that means he is not still terribly dangerous– there is a Kumo-nin still recovering in the hospital who has made that mistake already.

Mother senses the danger Gaara cannot yet see and he feels the sand begin to stir on his skin, weaving together to shield him, ready to defend him immediately.

And an immediate defense is necessary.

That speed certainly is something to fear, because in the sparse second and a half that it takes to start the match the boy is practically in his teeth.

The air rumbles on impact as the Uchiha's strike collides with a protective mass of sand, and Gaara seizes the opportunity to surge it forward, to wrap the granules around the boy's fist in anticipation of compression. He will be far less dangerous with only one hand.

But it is not so easy, and the dark haired Genin is no fool.

Gaara's sharp nose picks out the distinctive tang of ozone, and he feels the crackle of electricity through his sand before he sees it. The lightning sizzles, sharp and hot, flash forging the sand particles to thin glass and then shattering them, and Temari had warned him about this too, this strange form of taijutsu that could summon forth elemental charge, so Gaara alters his tactics.

He leaps, moves to create distance even as he pulls his sand around in a dancing twist to encircle his opponent, his prey , in a curling spiral of compressing dessert.

But the dark haired boy is moving before he can fully contract the Sand Burial into a column of bloody particles, wind rushing off the length of his legs as he exerts even higher levels of superhuman speed to avoid the reaching curl.

It seems he can pour more than just lightning into his taijutsu.

Gaara changes strategy again fluidly, launching hardened sand-bullets on the heel of the attack, which are dodged as the Uchiha spins mid air and vanishes, reappearing at his back, only to vanish again at Gaara's quick repose of a desert wave, aiming for area over accuracy.

He's good , this boy of darkness and fiery motion. He is calm and unwaveringly focused, even when Gaara's attacks nearly graze him, and he chips into Gaara's defenses with methodical savagery, using small holes in his recovering shields to blow open larger ones.

The crowd is jabbering with excitement around them, Gaara can hear the irritating roar of it over the sound of adrenaline in his ears, and can't help his derision at how terribly foolish it is.

Considering both he and the Uchiha are still very much holding back.

Gaara retracts his sand from his most recent bombardment to regroup, his eyes narrowing fractionally, gaze flinty and blank.

"Is this a game to you?" Gaara asks tonelessly, when the Uchiha settles back from his most recent flurry of parries and counters, wind cresting up from around his legs and fluttering his pitch hair. The tiredness behind his eyes has not grown, but nor has it diminished any, and when he opens his mouth to breathe out a sigh, the very air of it catches in a brief flash of crimson flame.

"Could ask you the same question." the dark boy mutters boredly, eyes narrowed in something like suspicion. "You don't seem all that excited over this either. Something else on your mind."

The last part of that sentence is a shock, not a question or a taunt, just an observation, even though Gaara knows his expression gives away nothing of his thoughts.

Gaara tilts his head, animal sussing out threat. "You're in my way, like all the rest." He says with cruel softness, sand creeping dry and abrasive over his skin as he opens the floodgates on his chakra. It makes the monster in him fiercer, harder to control, but he understands now, after their test bout, that it will be necessary. "I'll see your blood either way."

But the first blood Gaara sees comes at the cost of his own.

The howl of the desert Gaara has created around him must be something to behold from the outside looking in, but he doubts somewhat that the spectators around them see much more than the rippling currents of a veritable ocean of sand, writhing and frothing and eager to obey him in his quest to crush the dark Uchiha into nothing more than a red smear.

But Uchiha Sasuke is a ghost , steps so light and quick he's hardly there for a moment before he's gone again, and the mass of sensory sand can't catch what it can hardly keep track of. But this game of cat and mouse has been going on a long time, and he knows he's not the only one running low on the chakra necessary to keep it up.

Their individual ability niches and strengths have made this entire fight into a bad joke– a messy and vicious catfight resulting in the damage of nothing but property and pride.

Mother is getting nervous, her energy riling his own– making it sharper, more volatile.

~Sleep .~ her rough voice beseeches. ~I will protect us.~

No . He counters. I will protect myself.

She quiets unhappily, though does not push the issue into Gaara's mind the way she normally would. Mother knows the wisdom in keeping their true nature concealed a while longer.

He's learned something during their frustrating bout, however; for one reason or another- despite the obvious tactical advantage of doing so- the Uchiha is reluctant, or even perhaps incapable, of using true ninjutsu to attack him. It would be a strange coincidence– facing two shinobi consecutively that did not possess latent ability for ninjutsu, though it would be far from the strangest thing.

The green clad ninja he'd nearly broken before had been far easier prey, but if what he suspects is true, Gaara plans to exploit every weakness.

But just when he thinks he's figured out the patterns to the leaf-nin's movements, something changes.

Suddenly and without warning Uchiha Sasuke is simply gone, vanished in the fluctuating sea of his senses. Then he's suddenly above Gaara, his presence casting writhing shadows over his head, and Gaara's ears fill with the furious sound of a thousand chirping birds.

Lightning spills, fluttering and sharp, from between the boy's outstretched hand, an obvious ninjutsu of haunting power, and Gaara barely manages to bring up a serrated shield in time to prevent the blow from being deadly. But even as barbed curls of sand twist and tear into the Uchihas arm, the jutsu still carries enough momentum and power to shear through his sand shell and rip right through his shoulder.

The thing about it is, halfway through the third minute of this stupid match, Sasuke already knows he's not going to win.

This Gaara kid is something else, a high cut above the rest of the half-assed Genin that had entered the Chunin exams hoping for recognition and a shiny new rank. The whole of the Suna team seem to be following that guideline, sure; but this shinobi, this Gaara of the Desert, is different. Dangerous . They feel each other out as opponents for the first few minutes before it becomes clear they're both clipping back on their true abilities. For Sasuke the restraint is a necessity– the less chakra he expends the better– but he suspects caution is the reason behind Gaara's tight rein on his chakra, a cagy and animalistic sort of warryness.

It's only after Sasuke calls him out on his preoccupation that the reason becomes clear, when a sliver of a deeper, darker power edges sharply into the blood-haired boy's chakra.

And then Sasuke knows exactly what he's dealing with.

He's spent enough time in close quarters with Naruto to know a fucking Bijuu when he feels one.

The sand-nin is being careful about it, very careful, but up close and personal with his chakra Sasuke is sure of it.

He has no idea what sibling of Kurama's this is, but it doesn't matter. Even if he was equipped to go toe to toe with the power of a Bijuu, which he isn't, this is no longer his fight.

This fight is, and always has been, Naruto's.

He'd told Sasuke about the promise late at night, a few days after they'd moved in with their sensei. Sakura had gone to sleep with some mild chakra exhaustion from training, but Naruto had been wired that night, awake and hypermobile with overwrought energy, so Sasuke had stayed up with him.

At first he assumes the restless state of Naruto's spirit has something to do with the new surroundings– Naruto had been living in that cramped little flat since before he could remember– but it soon becomes clear that it's something else– something more familiar.

It's the same kind of energy that used to plague him when they first met, when their relationship had been based off nothing but brutal spars and the tentative beginnings of mutual respect, interspersed with cutting insults and fractured silences. Sasuke had learned to notice the signs at first because he knew it meant that the beastly part of Naruto's mind– the part he now knows comes from spending nine months in utero curled up with giant fiery chakra demon– was close to the surface, and Naruto would fight him far harder than normal.

Was that really only a few years ago? He wonders. It feels like ages .

He can't imagine being back there now, being so darkly driven towards revenge and isolation that it blinded him to easy light and open hands, to all of the change, and to all of the choice.

He wonders where it all would have gone if Naruto had not been so bright, if he'd not been so persistent. It's not a thought he likes to entertain for very long.

So Sasuke had picked a fight that night.

For a few moments it's like they're back in the clearing for the first time– damage and devastation, bloodied lips and visceral blows, little to nothing held back.

But then, just like that first time, it transforms. It becomes less about fighting and more about moving together, relearning each other's strengths and weaknesses, the places where they fit and the ones where they clash, where they've grown and still need to grow, where the old strength still lives and the new has taken root.

It had worked, like Sasuke knew it would. Naruto had calmed, come back to himself after they were exhausted and aching, and the soft look of gratitude Naruto had given him was all that needed to be said.

Afterward, he'd tugged at a strand of Naruto's hair and commented on its length for the second time that month, so Naruto had agreed to let him cut it. He'd leaned back in a chair propped against the sink while Sasuke worked water into his hair to keep the stray locks down, sorting the uneven strands as he went to make sure he could get things somewhat more uniform.

Naruto's hair looks like yellow gold when wet, and it had shimmered strangely in the bathroom lamplight, slim almost imperceptible locks of red standing out and tinting the strands an amberish hue.

"Your mom had red hair, didn't she?" He'd asked, and Naruto had blinked up at him, water shining on his forehead and dripping down his temple.

"Yeah." he'd said quietly, curiosity clearing his cerulean eyes. "Did I tell you that?"

Sasuke shook his head and combed back a few more strands of hair, judging their length with his fingertips before starting after them with the scissors. "The Yondaime had plain blonde hair. But there's red in yours."

Naruto's eyes had widened a bit in surprise.

Sasuke tilted his head. "You didn't know?"

Naruto's returning headshake had been soft, both contemplative and careful of Sasuke working with the scissors in his hair.

"Kurama knew her, right?" Sasuke had asked, feeling the sudden need to fill the quiet Naruto normally interrupted regularly. He'd known the answers to most of the questions he'd been asking, but there was something about Naruto's quiet that had made speaking aloud feel necessary. "She was the Jinchuuriki before you."

"Yeah." Naruto returned, "Kurama told me about her when I was little, not long before…"

And that's when Sasuke had known something was off. Naruto doesn't keep secrets from him, has never seen the point, but there are still a few scattered things Naruto hasn't told him, and this is one of them.

"Before?" Sasuke prompted after a long pause, giving the dobe time to think.

"Before I made a promise to Kurama." Naruto admitted, and it had taken him so long to do so that Sasuke had finished with his trim and had been passing the time running an idle hand through the culled strands and parsing out strays.

"What kind?"

"A big one."

Naruto had turned to look up at him then, earnest and a little unsure.

Before he'd managed to elaborate Sasuke had snorted, cutting off the thought, and locked their gazes with a tilt of his head and dip of his shoulders. "You already know the answer is yes." He'd reminded him. Yes, I'll stay at your side, whatever you need. Yes, I'll do what needs to be done, whatever that is. Yes, I'll pull your ass out of the fire, whatever comes.

"It's kind of out of our way." Naruto had said seriously, and Sasuke had shrugged.

"Doesn't matter."

Naruto had stared at him for a long while after that, and Sasuke had returned the gaze, easy and sure.

He still wonders when Naruto will finally get it, finally understand that it really truly doesn't matter.

Not a lot I wouldn't do for you. Idiot.

It's simple in the end, not even on the far spectrum of lengths Sasuke would be willing to go to.

Save Kurama's siblings. Save the tailed beasts. Stop those behind their loss.

So no, this is not his fight, but is he going to bow out of it?

Like hell.

Pain sears through Gaara's mind, red smearing across his vision, and the effect is instantaneous. The monster in him roars , wrenches its way to the surface as mother surges to protect him, and Gaara knows nothing but her vicious, beastial instincts. They are his, and he is hers.

The sand around him roils, rising and crashing in fluid waves, wrapping long rough fingers around his arms, draping across his back, converging to protect the open wound. The sand mixes with the blood and crystallizes, a shell of protection and bandage all at once, sharp and aching.

The lightning is not gone, it is still a danger, arching out into his sand shroud and flash forging glass wherever it touches. It causes his senses to halt and skitter, catching over the blind spots as he reels in pain, trying to regain his bearings and maintain his own consciousness all at once.

Mother is already present in his sand shroud, her power writhing after the dark blur that is the Uchiha, animalistic and angry, and soon enough the leaf-nin has nowhere left to run.

Mother has finally managed what Gaara could not– the Sand Veil around the arena is complete, a single moving mass of deadly chakric desert, barring all access to the space within. Gaara at last sees the dark shape of Uchiha Sasuke clearly, after so long chasing the blurry echoes of his shadow. His serrated shield had done some damage, it seems; the Uchiha's left arm is a bloody mess, though he still clutches the strange, fluttering jutsu stubbornly in his fingers, the blood dripping down and searing off, filling the air with the tang of iron and ozone.

The blood is too dark. Gaara knows blood, knows its colour against rough golden sand, and knows that something in Uchiha Sasuke's blood is wrong .

Not just wrong, sick .

The boy's eyes are sharper now, the lines around them carved in deeper, and though Gaara can sense no perceivable change outside of that, Mother's senses are winding him up in anticipation of further danger, of something more to be wary of.

And then something does change– The Uchiha's back rounds, shoulders squaring, stance widening. His posture becomes primal and wolfish, the corner of his mouth pulls back to expose teeth in a grimace just shy of a snarl.

It takes Gaara a moment to sense it, the chakra spilling off the Uchiha's skin in waves. It's a subtle thing, subversive, like air warping in the heat over Suna's desert. Before long Gaara can feel it against his skin, prickling at mother's temper as it washes over the edges of his sand shell and seeps past.

And then, like a wasteland mirage, the form of the Uchiha's body flickers. The air darkens impossibly, the edges of the Uchiha's body become distorted and nightmarish, monstrous and semisolid as the unnatural darkness seems to overflow from the edges of his form.

Mother's senses reel in confusion– this is a genjutsu, it must be, but even she cannot tell the real from the false, what part of the Uchiha's form remains his and what is an illusion.

Standing where the Uchiha once stood is the opaque form of some kind of winged demon, feathers like blades and fingertips like talons. Drifting feathers begin to appear out of the artificial darkness, fluttering down around the arena. One drifts to rest at the edge of Gaara's dripping sand shell.

And slices right through it.

The feather cuts to the quick, just shy of Gaara's inner shell, too close to his real skin for comfort, before dissolving away back into shadow.

The scene is deadly and hypnotising, haunting and beautiful, and Gaara is frozen for whole seconds too long by the bizarreness and power of the atmosphere.

This is no normal genjutsu.

Sasuke is breathing hard behind the dark cloak of his illusion, and he's grateful for the sand ninja's paranoid defenses– he hadn't been planning on using this jutsu at all, not until he'd finished perfecting it, and Subaku no Gaara's chakra sand provides an adequate shield between him and the disapproving eyes of Ikari Ryouta, who Sasuke knows is watching him from the stands like a hawk.

As dangerous as it is, Gaara's whirling dome of sand is working in Sasuke's favor. The confined space allows the subtle miasmic chakra of the illusion to compound and crowd into the space, making the effects stronger than they would be in open air, and allowing him to use less chakra to reach the same effect.

That doesn't mean no chakra however, and Sasuke can feel the burn of corruption in the back of his throat now, resurging from where is been hiding in his vessels.

It's worth it though, seeing the power of the jutsu in action.

Demonic Illusion: Raven Blight

Kurenai's instructions had been invaluable in his understanding of genjutsu– as an Uchiha the art had always come natural to him, a side effect of his Dojutsu and the natural Uchiha predisposition to Yin chakra. But this aspect of Genjutsu is entirely unlike the aspects he is familiar with. The Sharingan is capable of weaving chakra into complicated patterns– making it a powerful tool in sewing illusions, sure– but there is an entirely different aspect to them he'd never considered until he began training with Kuranai.

Presence.

It blurred the lines between chakra and reality, mixing intent and the strange sort of gravity that came with the surety of ones own ability. It's a powerful and heady combination, and it makes Sasuke's head spin as the dark power drapes around him.

Then again, that might be the corruption.

Sasuke's not sure how Naruto handled this– Sasuke's corruption isn't even manifesting physically and he already feels like his blood is filled with sludge, like his body weighs a thousand kilograms.

Something foul rises in the back of his throat and turns his head to spit something that tastes like blood and tar into the arena stone. He brings a thumb to his mouth, drawing it along his bottom lip. The chakrick illusion mimics the movement, and Gaara watches his every motion, rapt and wary, gaze darting along the edges of the illusion, attempting to find where it ends and he begins.

Sasuke snorts. Good luck .

By the end of training, even Kurenai-sensei had difficulty determining flesh and bone from chakra and genjutsu.

He looks down, sees the unnatural darkness of his blood, and resists the urge to curse.

He'll only have one shot to do any damage, but doing damage really isn't what he's aiming for. This Gaara of the desert is insane, but Sasuke can see now how that insanity progressed; he'd started out the battle almost completely in control of himself, but somehow, as more time passed and Sasuke presented more of a challenge, a second, far more unhinged psyche had begun to reveal itself, rising up and stretching Gaara's own psyche until it cracked and splintered like dry earth, revealing more and more of the madness sleeping within, of the second mind crammed in close alongside the first.

Valuable information.

And he will wring out more for as long as he can stand on his feet.

Sasuke lunges without warning, his injured hand rising, fingers splayed. The clawed talons of the solid illusion mimic him, mixing with the sharp electric current of the Chidori , sawing wide as he slashes downward into Gaara's sand shroud. The sand blocks him, sizzling and melting into more unworkable glass, and Gaara responds with an unearthly growl, sand bullets forming in the wake of the attack.

Sasuke blocks them with an outstretched phantom wing, the dark span of it arching around him protectively. He brings the other around sharply, and feathers fly from it like kunai, slicing through the shifting barriers of desert. A few strike home, and red starts to stain Gaara's thick sand shell in splotches.

Gaara's snarl is low and reverberating. It raises the hair on Sasuke's arms and brings a sharp, heavy memory to the surface of his mind; the memory of Naruto's eyes, bloody red and wreathed in black, voice pitched impossibly low and saturated in angry power, consuming and monstrous.

Naruto is still so very careful about it. He may no longer be shy about using Kurama's power, but he's never again let it suffuse him like that, let it pour through him with the same dark ferocity. Not since that night in wave.

Sweat drips down Sasuke's temple, trailing the line of his jaw, dripping from his chin. His skin feels hot and tight over his bones, his breath coming in a steaming rush as he gathers his strength to attack again, to draw out more and more of this Jinchuriki's darkness and madness.

He never gets the chance.

"Fuuton: Sweeping Sunder"

At first Sasuke isn't sure exactly what's happening; a percussive sound begins to reverberate around the whole arena, creating vibrations that rush through the sand around them. The granules vibrate, lose cohesion and begin to slide apart, spilling lifelessly to earth, and though Sasuke does not recognise this technique, Gaara clearly does.

His expression changes from one of livid animal fury to that of pinched human frustration, the madness receding sharply as if chastised. Sand crashes to the earth in heaps, slowly revealing the outside world, and Sasuke too begins to quickly reign in his chakra, bringing the demonic illusion to heel and dissipating the heavy veil of it around him. The darkness recedes, sword-feathers disintegrating into pure energy and seeping back under his skin, returning to him a fraction of his lost chakra.

It's not enough, however, to cover the true extent of his exhaustion before the sand-cloud parts completely and Sasuke feels the gazes of his teammates, his sensei, and Ikari Ryouta, whose hand is still raised high, and who is no doubt the one who stopped the fight.

The jutsu had not come from him, though, nor had it come from Kakashi-sensei. It had come from a dark-skinned man with a painted face standing next to them, whose hands are still curled together in a ram sign– the sand-ninja's Jounin-sensei.

Genma stands on the edge of the arena, perched on a self-made platform of stone. He grinds his teeth around the long steel needle in his mouth before announcing; "Match halt! Medical intervention! Victory defaults to Sabaku no Gaara!"

Naruto is the first to reach him afterwards, like always.

Sasuke is still steady on his feet, mostly, so he grips the idiots shoulder instead of throwing an arm around it like he wants to. Naruto's eyes are pinched with worry, the muscle bunching under Sasuke's fingertips, but he's calm so far, and less angry about Sasuke's actions than he thought he'd be.

He just wants to sit down for a minute, to retreat into the safety of his team, of Naruto's presence, but sitting through Ikari's blistering lecture is a requirement.

Thankfully, it's also the only punishment that Kakashi-sensei forces him to endure.

After it's over, their sensei guides the three of them to a more private corner, away from the prying eyes of the stands. Sakura hovers at Kakashi's side, and Naturo stands to the left behind Sasuke, close enough that he can feel his body heat at the back of his shoulder.

Kakashi sinks down so that he's level with Sasuke, and slides his hitai-ate up off of his left eye.

The pinwheel glow of the sharingan eye is always haunting, and not just because it's darkly familiar– the colour of Kakashi's sharingan is… off, both brighter and deeper than his brother's or father's had been, and strange to look at up close. It spins idly, soft and constant, and Sasuke swears sometimes that he can see something just behind the curled tomoe, something branched and strange.

Sasuke knows that Kakashi's sharingan eye is not his, that it never turns off, even when he sleeps; that he keeps it covered to reduce both the unavoidable and constant chakra drain, and how frequently he sees it in the mirror.

Its calming now, even though it wasn't always.

It twirls slowly as he takes in the chakra damage, assessing softly and without expectation. Sasuke remains still and allows it without protest. When Kakashi-sensei is finished he nods softly to himself, tilting his chin down, and reaches up to recover the eye.

"Naruto." He says quietly, lifting his gaze to the Uzumaki standing over Sasuke's shoulder. "I think it's time you finished that seal."

Naruto nods, mouth a tight line. "Yes, sensei."

Kakashi turns back to Sasuke, and he expects a rebuke, a lecture– what he had done could be considered careless at best, blatantly reckless at worst. Sasuke's motivations and promise to Naruto aside, Kakashi has every right to be angry with him.

His sensei seems to sense this, and his eyes soften a touch, the corner of his mouth quirking up almost imperceptibly. A hand comes up to grip his upper arm, gives a firm, reassuring squeeze. "You kept your head, even when you saw what he was." Kakashi says softly, and his head tilts slightly, gaze unerringly keen. "Did you find out what you wanted to know?"

Sasuke's eyes go wide at that, surprised by the accuracy of the question. Then he remembers the words from last night, after that heavy moment of vulnerability rare to them both– 'Whatever happens tomorrow, I'm proud of you.'

Kakashi just smiles a little more, as if sensing the direction of his thoughts too, eyes crinkling kindly in the corners, and Sasuke huffs, allowing a slim smile in turn. "Yes, sensei."

He can practically hear Naruto's brow furrowing in the background. His presence is a protective brand at Sasuke's shoulder, warm and fierce, and he's aware of it like he's aware of sunrays on a cold morning, both a comfort and a relief.

The corruption is heavy, and Sasuke is so very tired of putting up with it. He knows Naruto must have questions, that he must have sensed exactly what kind of monster he'd brought out of Gaara during their battle. Be he doesn't have the energy for questions right now, and all he wants is to be somewhere else, somewhere where he can put his pride down and maybe pass out.

Sakura is his saving grace, because of course she is.

"I'm going to get what he needs from Ikari-sensei." She tells Kakashi, and she turns, leveling a look at Naruto that Sasuke is too tired to interpret. "I'll meet you two at home?"

The last part is partially directed at their sensei, who nods.

"I'll be home late, and bring what news I can with me." He turns back and levels a look at Naruto first, then Sasuke. "Rest. Both of you."

"Yes, sensei." They both say at once, in reflexive unison.

Kakashi chuckles as he straintens to his full height, reaching out to ruffle their hair and drawing groans from both of them.

But as much as they whine or groan or complain, Sasuke knows that they both treasure this kind of physical affection, which comes from their sensei so very rarely.

Sakura slaps them both on the back too hard and laughs as she takes off in search of Ikari. "Be back later guys!"

They wave her off, and Sasuke doesn't believe for one second that tracking down Ikari-sensei in a frothing rage is the only thing she has planned.

Sakura takes a sharp left as soon as her boys are out of sight, aiming for the boxed off section of the stands where the medical staff overseeing the Chunin exams are seated.

Unsurprisingly, about half of them are crowded together off to one side, sitting pointedly opposite the incarnation of seething wrath simmering in the corner. Sakura ignores their pointed or panicked looks as she gets closer, bypassing the stairs entirely and leaping nimbly over both railings instead, twisting to land lightly next to the ex-jounin head of surgery. Shiki sits boredly next to his boss, heedless of his fury, book open across his knees and chin resting on his fist, an effective barrier in case Ikari decides to actually hit something.

"Ikari-senseeeeeei." she says melodically, and she can suddenly feel the startled stares of the foreign ninja behind her.

" Don't you start with me, brat." Ikari snaps through grit teeth, eyes narrowed to angry slits. He reminds her of a grumpy dragon like this, all scaly hide and sharp horns and teeth like knives. She feels bad, mostly because Ikari is only this angry because he was that concerned over Sasuke's wellbeing.

Her eyes go soft, and she knocks off the sarcasm– both in tone and in posture, sitting down in front of him with her knees tucked to her chest. It's a little childlike, but it's the only way she really knows how to convey that she's being sincere.

"He really is sorry you know." She says softly. She doesn't point out that the fact that Sasuke sat through the entirety of Ikari's rant is proof that he's sorry; her Uchiha doesn't put up with things like that out of anything but respect or care, not even at Kakashi's askance.

Ikari looks pointedly away from her, but Shiki smiles, not looking up from his book, and adjusts his glasses.

"He wouldn't have done it if it wasn't important to him." She tries, and Ikari lets out a heavy sigh.

It takes him a second, but he eventually unwinds enough to uncross his arms, shoulders relaxing faintly.

"That's a poor excuse." he finally turns to look it her, dark eyes narrowed and lined in the corners. "And if Baki had not intervened they way he did, he would have taken it further ."

Sakura smiles up at him wryly. "Did I not also mention he's an idiot?"

Another heavy breath and Ikari's shoulders drop further, the killing intent dissipating enough from the atmosphere that Sakura actually hears a couple of relieved breaths. "He's mental is what he is, but I suppose I shouldn't hold that against him."

Sakura's smile turns blinding, and she takes the moment while his guard is dropped to move in for the kill.

She springs to her feet and launches at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a hard hug before he can resist.

" Ugh" He huffs, the breath slightly pained. "Little brat. "

She just hugs him harder.

Ikari's sigh this time is softer and he eventually gives in, wrapping his arms around her shoulders to squeeze once in return. "Is it too much to ask for you little shits to just fucking be careful? "

Sakura giggles, burying her face in his shoulder and hugging harder. "Probably. "

"You're gonna break my neck, pipsqueak."

"Shut up old man."

Shiki huffs an amused laugh next to them, and turns the page of his book.

Ikari hands her a medical case before she takes off. "For the shrimp." He says. "And if he doesn't follow the regimine to the fucking letter , I will tell Umino, and kill him."

One of those is a much clearer actual threat than the other, but Sakura keeps that comment to herself.

Her next stop is Shikamaru, who she finds with Ino in a clearing not far from the arena. Civilians are beginning to file out and back into the streets, chattering and loud, now that the spectacle is over for the day. Picking out voices, Sakura can tell many are frustrated or puzzled– most of Sasuke's battle with Gaara had been very confusing, but most especially to a civilian, since many of them would have no inkling as to the reason behind the medical intervention, or Baki's forced halt of Gaara's chakra in its tracks.

Sakura hadn't known Baki was working with Kakashi-sensei, or maybe she wasn't supposed to know, but she can tell the difference between her sensei's ambivalence and his grudging respect, and watching them stand beside each other on the railing, overseeing the event, Sakura could definitely tell it was more the later than the former.

Sakura hadn't actually seen most of the fight herself– none of them had because of the big dumb world-ball of sand around everything , but there was one thing she knew without a doubt.

Sasuke had done something stupid.

Sasuke did not do stupid things. He was not a stupid person. Which means that whatever he'd done, he'd done it for Naruto.

Which, regardless of how necessary it might have been, still made her so mad she wanted to roundhouse kick something.

Dumbass boys.

She'll demand an explanation later. She's pretty sure she knows what's going on, but she'll demand one anyway.

Ino sees her coming first and waves her over to where she and Shika are standing in the shade of some birches, waiting for the crowds to dissipate.

Shikamaru looks up from the scroll he's reading as she approaches, rolling it smoothly back up and tucking it into his cargo pants pocket. "Hey. Everything alright?" He asks, the concern in his voice soft and inquisitive.

Sakura nods, huffing. "Sasuke's gonna be fine. He won't be leaving the house anytime soon though. Naruto'll need at least twelve hours to get everything working right."

Shikamaru hums his assent, eyes shuttering slightly as he thinks, adjusting his plans and pulling his mental strings to best suit the current circumstances.

Ino shoves Sakura in the shoulder suddenly, hard enough that she needs to shift her feet a little to maintain her balance. Sakura looks at her sideways, blinking. "What?"

Aaaand that's a pout. A patented, dangerous, Ino brand pout, complete with the little crinkles in her forehead that somehow make her eyes look huge.

Which isn't fair because Ino's eyes already look huge, meadow sky blue and actually very distracting , and they really do have an operation in the works here, Sakura can't afford to be distracted.

"You didn't come by after your fight!" Ino whines with an edge of growl. "I told you I wanted to show you my sensory jutsu, and you said you'd show me the basics of the resonance!"

"I meant to!" Sakura complains, slightly desperate. Ino's got this stupid ability to fluster her, and she's absolutely abusing it .

"But you didn't even say anything after!" She wheedles, pulling on the edge of her overshirt like a kid.

"Sasuke's fight distracted me!"

"Excuses!"

Shikamaru snickers quietly under his breath, counting through scenarios in his head while they squabble. There's only one thing left uncertain now– Gaara's a wildcard, the spanner in Shikamaru's works. It's impossible to predict exactly how he and Naruto will react to each other tomorrow, and there's a good chance that whatever happens, the events of the end of the exams will draw both their adversaries out of hiding. He needs to account for possible worsts, and make sure the Nine keep any upper hand they can.

He looks up when he's finished sorting, taking in the sight of his teammate and their heavy hitting flower demon. They're leaning close, half arguing half laughing, eyes bright and playful, clearsky and springwater. Shikamaru smiles, reaching over to put his hands lightly on Ino's shoulders and pull her gently back towards him, out of Sakura's gravitational pull. She tends to muddle his Yamanaka's priorities a bit, and normally he wouldn't mind, but right now they have shit to do.

"Ino." He murmurs, a mild chastisement, and Ino turns to look at him with a gratifying amount of focus. Sakura immediately looks put-out.

"Hm?"

"Ready for some recon?"

Her eyes widen and sparkle with excitement, a smile spreading wide and wild across her face, quickly overwhelming her confused frown. "Yes! Finally ! We're starting?"

" Just recon." Shikamaru reminds her patiently. "But yes."

Ino leaps up and punches the air, whooping, and proceeds to overbalance in her exuberance enough that Sakura, laughing brightly at her sudden excitement, has to reach out and straighten her before she can fall any further forward. " Hell yea!"

Shikamaru hums, smile closeliped and crooked, taking a step back so she can turn around fully. "Team?" he aks, "No more than three."

Ino blinks at him, a little taken aback. "I get to pick?"

Shikamaru shrugs. "You're my specialist. It's your squad." he reminds her. He trusts her judgment, and even more than that, he trusts her intuition.

Ino flushes a little with pride, casting a curious glance at Sakura. Haruno tilts her head to the side, rosy ponytail swishing, and smiles apologetically. "Subtle's not really my style, Ino. But lemme know if you need me to break something."

Ino laughs. "Oh I know, I'm just bummed I can't steal Sasuke from you." She taps her fingernail against her lips, thinking. "I'll need Shino for sure. And Hinata."

Shikamaru nods, shuttering his eyes again to make adjustments. "No one else?"

Ino shakes her head. "All I need. Better to go in light."

Shikamaru nods, then turns to Sakura. "I can count on you and Kiba for backup later? If needed?"

"Obviously." Sakura returns flippantly, placing a hand on her hip and grinning like a savage. "You got a call-to-arms for me?"

Shikamaru digs into one of his many thigh pockets instead of answering, retrieving three jade beads the size of large pearls. The fourth stays in Shikamaru's pocket, unnecessary for now. Each one has a circular seal on it, thin delicate black lines curling over the green, with a sigil in the center bearing the likeness of one of the Four Sacred Beasts each.

They had been one of Nauto's more brilliant feats of sealwork, created at Shikamru's behest in preparation for the start of their first move in the long game. They're each tuned to the chakric signatures of the nine, and go both blank and chakra dead in the presence of other signatures as a failsafe. At Shikamaru's touch they light up, soft golden chakra pouring through the black lines and making the jade beads look like gilt gems fit for a Daimyo.

War Talismans.

Originally employed by Uzushio's special ops teams, made unique by Naruto's powerful seal variants.

Shikamaru hands the Phoenix Talisman to Ino and the Kirin Talisman to Sakura, who rolls hers in her fingers idly. The jade is warm from Shikamaru's body heat and the seals tingle pleasantly against her skin, syncing to her senses, heartbeat, breathing, nervous system, and adrenaline levels. She watches Ino rub her thumb over hers as it does the same, flickering a little with inner light before the glow dims again. Shikamaru keeps the Lion Dog Talisman for himself, rolling it along the backs of his fingers as it syncs.

"I'll be with Choji, working on locking down the safe zones." Shikamaru tells them, voice level and heavy, and the playfulness drains out of the atmosphere as he speaks, meeting both Kunoichi's eyes individually. His gaze reflects nothing but steely determination now, and both girls shift to match, nodding firmly. From here on out they proceed at high alert, in cyphers and codes, missions and moves. From here on out, they are at war.

He nods back, continuing. "Sasuke and Naruto are out of the picture for tonight, which is nothing unexpected, but it means we're working at two-thrids capacity. Ino." Their Yamanaka straightens, focus razor sharp, eyes clear and icy. "You're a ghost. From dusk till dawn tonight, you, Hinata, and Shino…" Shukamaru smiles ferally, the curve of it almost smug with his confidence in her, "don't exist."

Ino's returning grin matches his, wolves in the same pack. "Phantoms in the night." She lilts, slipping her Talisman into one of the small pouches on her belt. The Phoenix is the most subtle Talisman, softening the presence and smoothing out the chakra of the individuals synced to it, honing team resonance to a silent, knife-point edge. Perfect for scouts, infiltrators, and of course, assassins.

Shikamaru nods, crossing his arms and sliding the Lion Dog talisman along the grooves of his knuckles. "Tag the sleepers, and find me an insomniac. Mapping the Dreamscape is secondary, but if you get to it, don't worry about the upper ranks, just the pawns."

Ino gives him a cheeky two-fingered salute, "You got it boss." and then she's gone in a flash and a swirl of leaves.

Sakura is still smiling faintly after her when she's gone, and Shikamaru snorts.

She turns a glare in his direction "What?"

Shika isn't cowed in the slightest, giving her an idle shrug. "Nothin' Haruno. Nothin' at all."

The interior of the black temple is dark, devoid of ambient light save for what the chakra charged pools create themselves, glowing and swirling with jewel-tone shines, soft on Sasuke's aching eyes and throbbing skull.

He's reclining in one of the inner pools of the Gold room, which had been revived by Naruto and Shikamaru's quick and dedicated efforts in the weeks following their initial encounter with Orochimaru.

After spending his first hour in the temple sweating out corruption in the white room this pool is a welcome relief– he can feel the shimmering restorative chakra sinking through his skin, tiny parcels of living energy moved and directed by the intricate instructions of Naruto's seals. He's still working on them now, leaning back on the floor above Sasuke and trailing his fingers over the control systems embedded in the floor.

The backs of his hands are lit up with two seals; the one that splays up from his wrist to his knuckles is for concentration, specially calibrated for his hyperdense chakra. The other, which flows in five thin, geometric lines from his knuckles to the very tips of his fingers, is for manipulation, and allows him to draw in and configure sealforms in pure energy directly onto surfaces, without the need of an ink conduit. It doesn't work on living things, where the chakra interaction is more complex and still requires a medium, but it's perfect for inscribing and altering seals on the walls and ceilings, and other objects without high levels of inherent chakra.

He pulls his fingers through a long array, watching as it ripples and changes at his focused touch, configuring to alter its purpose at Naruto's behest. Sasuke feels the change almost instantly– the tiny motes of chakra start moving with purpose, seeking out the places in Sasuke's vessels where the corruption still lurks, ferrying it along natural pathways and out through his tenketsu. It's a pleasant enough feeling, if vaguely uncomfortable with the way his chakra is forced to move around the tiny intrusions.

"Better?" Naruto asks.

"Better." He confirms.

Naruto leans back towards him, the lines on his hands fading to black again. It's quiet for a while as Naruto watches the seals move around the basin, tracking each line to ensure it's all moving the way he wants it to. It's the first time he's stopped moving or working for a significant period of time since they got back– he'd been too busy organising the seals to really talk, and he and Sasuke haven't needed to talk in order to work around each other for a long time now.

Then for the first time in several hours he does make a verbal expression– a long, frustrated groan that is the most childish thing Sasuke's has heard out of his mouth since Sakura hid his scrolls last month in a vindictive attempt to get him to sleep.

"Which one is he?" Sasuke asks, when he's done being dramatic.

"Shukaku."

"The One-tail?"

Naruto groans again, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"Hn." Is Sasuke's response to that, and then, after a pause; "I expected you to be pissed."

"I am pissed." Naruto growls in retort, carding a hand roughly through his golden hair. " I'm supposed to be the stupid one, remember?"

Sasuke gazes pointedly at the masterpiece of sealwork cartwheeling around the space in brilliant, intricate patterns.

Naruto just narrows his eyes in response. "Shut up."

Sasuke shrugs, the water shifting around his shoulders as he moves. "I had my reasons." he tries, just to be standoffish.

Naruto snorts. "Yeah, I'm not falling for that."

Sasuke huffs, glaring, and sets his chin on his fist, elbow propped against the edge of the basin. "Are you really going to make me say it out loud?"

Naruto raises an eyebrow and narrows his eyes, like he's thinking about doing just that. But he doesn't, instead he shifts around so he's facing Sasuke fully, legs crossed over the floor, wrists on his knees. Sasuke shutters his eyes a bit. The apology goes unsaid.

From this angle Sasuke can see the seals peeking out from under the high collar of Naruto's shirt, geometric lines and sweeping scripts wrought in soft black. They change constantly, shifting whenever Naruto finds a more efficient pattern or more potent line of scripture. The only thing that never changes is the blank swaths of skin around which he writes them, the lines within which the extensions of Kurama's seal sleeps, like a painting in negative space. Kurama's presence in it is so strong that it rejects the energy of any seal that might be painted over it, burning it off and away like drops of water on a hot pan. As a result Naruto doesn't have many near it; some trailing writing across his collarbones, flowing mandalas on the backs of his shoulder blades, parallel geometrics in the hollows under the back of his ribs. The only exception is the Hollow Chain Matrix, which rides the lines of Kurama seal close down his arms, hugging just shy of the consuming edges and filling the whole space besides. The breadth of his skin is experimental canvas– covered in prototypes and half-finished masterpieces, and Sasuke knows that, one day, he plans to place his finished creations in more than just brush-ink.

"I know you agreed to help, but this isn't really what I meant." Naruto mutters.

"If you complain, that technically makes you a hypocrite." Sasuke points out, and Naruto's face pinches in frustration, the whisker-marks on his cheeks crinkling.

"The risk level with Neji was, like, a tenth what you risked with Gaara. Plus there was a minute there when I was positive Ikari-sensei was gonna actually kill you."

"Humph."

It's the closest to a concession that his pride will allow, though Naruto seems satisfied by it for now, his face smoothing out as he breathes a sigh.

"So." Naruto trails off. "What did you find out?"

Sasuke lolls his head at the edge of the basin, closing his eyes briefly. "Something's off in his head."

Confusion pulls Naruto's eyebrows together. "Well yeah, even I could tell that from a distance." he grumbles.

Sasuke shakes his head, eyes slipping open again. His damp hair sticks to his face, sliding over his cheeks and forehead like tiny ink brushes. "No, I mean something's off in there, fundamentally wrong ." He turns to Naruto, allowing the heavy pull and bleed of the sharingan to rise through his eyes. As the tomoe swirl, he takes in all the subtle nuances of the chakra surrounding Naruto's seal; the ebb and flow and stream. The patterns of it are etched into his memory with unerring accuracy after that night in wave– and now he knows, by sight and feel, which parts are Naruto, which are Kaurama, and where the two touch within it.

He reaches out, following the thin ring of space on one of the outer lines of the Jinchuuriki seal, first with his eyes and then with his fingertips, tracing it with the ends of his nails through the close fabric of his shirt. Naruto follows the motion with his eyes but doesn't move away, head tilted curiously as Sasuke finds the spot he's looking for, between two powerful lines of script on the inner edge. "Whatever structure in your seal that keeps Kurama's mind separate from yours? I don't think it's there in his." he explains.

That definitely means something to Naruto– his eyes widen, mouth opening slightly on a sharp intake of breath. "What do you mean?" he demands. "What did you see?"

Sasuke recalls the moment with perfect clarity; when Gaara's aggressive grimace had twisted, transforming into something gleeful, something bloodthirsty and monstrous. When he closes his eyes and brings up the memory, Sasuke can practically see the second consciousness rising behind the sand-nin's eyes like an ill sun, bloody red and swollen with madness.

"It's almost like the Ichibi's mind is… crammed in there with him." Sasuke murmurs, attempting to word what he saw and felt in a manner that Naruto will best understand. "And it's not just that they're too close together; there's something warped about it, like metal under too much heat and compression." He withdraws his hand from Naruto's stomach, rubbing his knuckles along his temple as he remembers the chilling wrongness he'd felt, the twisted pressure, the contorted intent that seemed to twist back in on itself. "There's some third thing fused in the whole mess, I think, something that only reacted when I drew blood the first time. That's what set it off in earnest."

Naruto's eyes pinch and he bites his lip as Sasuke speaks, and it takes a second to recognize the emotion on his face as sympathy . " Shit. " He mutters vehemently, rubbing the knuckle of his thumb into his forehead as he thinks.

"What?" Sasuke asks, lifting his chin and turning more fully towards him.

Naruto makes a distressed noise in the back of his throat. "It sounds like someone removed the Cerebral Rampart. It's the part of a seal that deals with keeping individual identities separate."

Sasuke's brows draw together in confusion. That sounds… unpleasant is not a strong enough word. Dysphoric maybe. "Why would someone do that?" He asks softly. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the seal? Putting the tailed beast in a position to steal control?"

Naruto's eyes shutter as he thinks, the lines in the corners deepening. "Theoretically, shortening the Cerebral Rampart could maybe allow a Jinchuuriki to access more control over a tailed beast's chakra, but removing it? That's just– that's just stupid! "

Naruto's frustration is starting to rouse Kurama; red bleeding in around the edges of his irises, black rising like khol around his eyes. His fingernails start to elongate and sharpen into the beginnings of claws, his seal slowly darkening into a visible pale grey, a trickle of acidic chakra biting into Naruto's smooth ocean-wind energy.

Sasuke reaches out on instinct, water splashing over the edge of the basin with the sudden motion. One hand latches around the Uzumaki's wrist while the other skates Naruto's cheek and finds purchase at his jaw, firm, forcing their gazes into a lock. Amber-ocean eyes fuze to ebon-ruby, and Sasuke's fingers curl under Naruto's chin, possibly too hard, but Naruto's focus just razors, thin cat-like pupils fixing on him wholly.

Sasuke gentles the touch as soon as he has the entirety of the Uzumaki's attention, and when Sasuke pulls him in, barely a hint of pressure on the back of his blond neck, Naruto moves to meet him without resistance.

Their foreheads touch.

Sasuke has never been able to describe the exact feeling that blooms through his chest when they do this, the electric hum that drags the whole length of his body, from the top of his spinal cord to the tiny capillaries in the tips of his fingers.

It's ritual and reminder, it's touchstone and truth, it's them without the world in between.

It's a force that lacks both reasoning and definition, the magnetic pull that rights their axis, it's– well.

It's a matter of gravity.

Sasuke shifts a bit, changing the angle so the lock of their eyes is softer, and Naruto shifts automatically to match, some of the tension draining from the chords of muscle in his throat where Sasuke's hand rests.

Calm down. The touch says, as clearly as if Sasuke had said it out loud. Clearer.

Naruto is a righteous soul– easy to work up over something he believes is unjust, but that also means he's sometimes guilty of letting his emotions think for him, and right now they can't afford to be reckless.

Sasuke can feel the burning power of the Kyuubi under his palms, flaring with every pulse of Naruto's heart against his fingers. Kurama's chakra is even more volatile when roused by Naruto's fury, sizzling and spitting and building like a volcano moments from eruption.

Sasuke is reminded suddenly, in this moment, looking into red and blue kaleidoscope eyes, that Naruto is terrifying. Not because of his instincts, or his talents, or the beastial god of chakra that lives in his soul. This idiot , whose anger could level mountain ranges, whose wrath could raze whole countries to the ground, looks Sasuke right in the eye and calms , breathes deep and banks the fire in his blood, quieting the monstrous power rising inside him, soothing the beast with whom his intent and emotions are so often one and the same.

He's terrifying because he can look hate and fear and anger right in the face and tell it no , because when he looks into the eyes of those consumed with the same dark emotion, the same pain, he doesn't see something monstrous.

He sees something human.

He'd seen it in Kurama. Haku. Zabuza.

Sasuke.

And if Sasuke knows anything at all, it's that Naruto doesn't even see a monster in Gaara , just someone hurting, and angry, and alone. Maybe two someones.

The animal in his teammate's chakra recedes, the amber driven from his irises by boundless blue, the anger chased away by Sasuke's grounding, his presence, his touch .

And that alone makes him feel more powerful than any jutsu or Kekkei Genkai ever could.

"People do stupid things for power." Sasuke tells his idiot firmly, when his eyes are clear again. "What's more important is what you're going to do about it."

Blinking a bit, Naruto stills as the soft words sink in all the way. He takes another breath, deep enough that Sasuke can see his chest expand with it, and nods. Then he smiles slightly, wry and sheepish, eyes soft in vague apology, and it's so blindingly Naruto that Sasuke suddenly wants to do something very, very stupid.

But he's already hit his stupid quota for the next year , so he moves his hand from it's trecherous place along Naruto's jaw and tweaks the Uzumaki's ear in admonishment instead.

Naruto squawks indignantly, pulling back to a safer distance and rubbing the harassed curl with his palm. "Jerk."

"Dumbass."

Jiraiya shifts uncomfortably in Sarutobi's office, rocking back and forth on the edge of his sandals. Sarutobi smokes aggressively at his desk, in long heavy puffs from his pipe, completely ignoring the oolong tea spilled over his paperwork, the cup rolling lazily across the sopping mess. The anbu standing next to him– tall, Kunoichi, bear mask, a black ops file open in one hand– is still holding the broken splinters of her brushpen, blue cypher ink dripping over her fingers from the shattered cartridge.

The tea cup finishes its journey uninterrupted and rolls merrily off the desk, shattering both itself and the thick silence hanging in the air.

" What? "

The sharp word comes not from the Hokage, but the anbu , whose hand is still so tense on the bamboo pen shards that her fingers are starting to bleed.

Jiraiya rolls his eyes. "You want me to start from the beginning? Or just repeat the good part?"

"Enough." Sarutobi says sharply.

Jiraiya just closes his mouth. After all this time the rebuke has lost its sting– Sarutobi's been sick of his shit for half a century, it's not exactly a surprise anymore.

"Bear." the old man says softly. "You may go."

The anbu bows shortly and turns, contrite, but he catches her arm before she can completely obey. "Leave the report."

A telling half-second of hesitation and she nods, closing the folder and setting it on the corner of his desk before dismissing herself, vanishing in a swirl of leaves and a flash of bright chakra. When she's gone (though likely not far, there are at least three anbu within sneezing distance of the Hokage at all times, Jiraiya isn't stupid) Sarutobi removes an antisurveilence seal from a roll inside one of his desk drawers and places it on a dry spot near the opposite corner by his inkstone, the flare of chakra in it sharp enough to make Jiraiya wince a bit. He already has a headache, and Sarutobi's chakra can be… intense when he's cranky.

The old man then proceeds to flick the folder back open, remove the half finished report, and drop it right in the middle of the greenish puddle on his desk.

Jiraiya gives the piece of paper a long, flabbergasted blink as it soaks through, the cypher ink disintegrating off the page exactly as it's designed to.

There's a long, heavy beat of absolute silence.

"Sooo, forgive the impertinence Hokage-sama…" Jiraiya says slowly, because he's always been a little shit and thirty years as spymaster has never changed that, "But what the fuck ."

"Repeat it to me again." Sarutobi snaps instead of answering. "Everything you saw, from beginning to end. Excruciating detail."

Jiraiya chews his lip and debates the merit of another sarcastic retort, only to catch a glimpse of the dark light hardening Sarutobi's eyes and rapidly decide against it. Instead he huffs, takes a deep breath, and starts from the beginning.

Jiraiya is staring, openly and unrepentant, at the little blond devil that is Uzumaki Naruto. They're sitting in a clearing of the kid's choosing, a pretty little circle of peace and quiet on the outskirts of Kakashi's clan territory. Naruto is standing, a sharpened stick in his hand, over a flat plane of clay dirt cleared of grass with an unthinking earth jutsu.

And he's… drawing.

Jiraiya can't even fucking follow his train of thought at this point- the little bastard has refused to explain his reasoning- he'd just bolted into the nearby grove halfway through Jiraiya's initial explanation of the hiraishin concept of homing seal formulas and come back with mostly straight stick and a gleam in his eye that Jiraiya found blatently unnerving. Somebody that short has no business being that intense.

It probably doesn't help that he's still awkward as hell around the brat; he's been a spymaster so long that he has no idea how to really be honest anymore, and he can't even figure out what he might want to say if he could be honest.

Something that would get him murdered by the old man, probably. Or Kakashi.

More than anything else right now though, he hates that this kid's life is now none of his business. He'd forfeited that right when he'd forfeited the opportunity.

Kakashi has made it his business, against the most livid of the Hokage's warnings; it's no secret around the village that the row about the Genin moving into his place had almost reached physical-confrontation-levels. That alone scares the crap out of Jiraiya, personally– the fact that Kakashi had felt so strongly about something that he'd shouted down the Hokage about it. The last time he'd felt even remotely that strongly about anything was after… well.

Jiraiya still gets chills remembering that night. Minato had come to him in a panic so severe Jiraiya had thought the world might literally be ending, and it hadn't been all that far off the mark.

It had taken both of them, two Kage level ninja, to safely subdue one thirteen year old boy.

Kakashi's anguish had been so severe, his wrath so unconsolable , that thinking about it still makes Jiraiya cringe a decade and a half later. The outburst had been even scarier for how long it took to manifest, for how long the denial had persisted, right until the dam of grief had burst open in the form of a lightning storm that much of Konoha still remembers, even if few are still alive who remember the cause.

Two and a half days after Kannabi Bridge. Sixty two hours before Kakashi had caught a glimpse of himself in the water of a pond in training ground 16 and destroyed four acres of forest in a fraction of a second.

Jiraiya had been old already by then, for a ninja. He'd seen chakra do more impossible things than most twice his age, walked into the sage lands and returned alive, but never before in all his life had he seen the sky break open like that.

The sky there hasn't felt right since. The land of training ground 16 is still dry and barren, cracked empty earth that hasn't seen rain or root for fifteen years, as though Kakashi's grief had scared the heavens so badly the clouds are no longer welcome to cross there.

Hatake Kakashi had outlived everyone he'd ever really loved, lost every piece of his heart he'd ever dared to give away; Sakumo, Rin, Kushina, Minato.

Obito.

And it's more than one person can reasonably survive, more than even Kakashi's prodigious will was capable of withstanding without some kind of break, some form of lockdown. He'd resigned himself to spend the rest of his existence entirely alone after that, bereft of what once made him whole and human and happy.

Except apparently he hadn't.

Because now he braids cherry blossom hair in the morning and cooks breakfast for four, reads ancient war strategy and sealing-for-dummies behind his Icha-Icha, steals jutsu and training codexes from the anbu coalition archive, cleans empty ramen bowls and notebooks from his living room with the ease of practice, and soothes nightmares from dark eyes tinted red with panic.

Jiraiya wonders, watching Naruto draw dizzying patterns in the clay, if these kids have any real idea just what caliber of miracle they've pulled here.

"So something like this?" Naruto asks curiously, drawing Jiraiya's attention to the most recent addition to the dirt canvas. His eyes trail across the journey of thought laid out in the soil, the progress of one idea to the next. He can understand some of it, mostly the beginning and certain parts of the middle. Some symbols he knows and understands, some look familiar enough that he can guess their meanings and functions, and others are completely fucking beyond him. The kid's mind is a crapshoot– some of the reasoning is simple enough a normal Genin could probably grasp it, but other parts make him feel like a moron– the kind of shit that would make Minato swoon if with pride if he were still alive.

But that thought leads to dark places he refuses to visit, so he skips to the end of the transcript near where Naruto is standing. Sketched there are several examples of homing seal formulas– none of which remotely resemble Minato's signature. A lot of them actually look disturbingly close to the Nidaime's homing seal– concentric rings of thin intricate script intersected at angles by lines of contrasting sigils. It was a style of sealing Minato was never able to get to work for him right, too complex for his straightforward style and energy, and too many meanings for his focus of grounding. Jiraiya understands it even less than his student had, and as he traces the glyphs with his eyes they almost seem to move, to rise up from the earth in three dimensions.

"Uh… forgive me for sounding stupid asking this, kid, but where did you even get the idea for these?"

Naruto blinks at him, like it's a confusing question. "What do you mean? Is this not how you string the anchors?"

Jiraiya blinks back at him in the same manner, brows drawing together. String the anchors? Minato had always described the hiraishin more like a hole-punch in space, a one way pull between him and his chosen seal or target.

Jiraiya gets up from the grass and walks over to him, careful not to step on his sprawling arrays, fingers rubbing at his chin as he attempts to focus on all the little intricacies.

Cognition strikes all it once, and Jiraiya binks. Opens his mouth. Closes it again.

Because he's pretty sure that's the beginning of an all-purpose teleportation seal, which, while not the goal, is brilliant to the point of being ludicrous.

Fuck it. He thinks after a long minute, and throws his pride to the wind.

"Wait, explain this part to me." he says, pointing to the top lines of script. "What do these circles do? And what's to point of these fasteners on the end here?"

Naruto looks bewildered for a minute, but then hesitantly he starts to explain, pointing out the different glyphs and symbols, the way they change the energy as it moves through space, the way some runes remember chakra signatures better than others, how the line placement is meant to focus that memory into a single space with strong enough force to recall a living being with the same signature.

It turns out that once you get the kid talking he can't really seem to stop, and Jiraiya's not really sure when he pulled the notebook out, just that by the time Naruto is finished with his monologue he's on the last page.

"Okay, I think I know where we went wrong here." Jiraiya hums as he traces some of the patterns with his fingertips. It's starting to come back to him bit by bit; all the time he and Minato spent pouring over Tobirama's treasured notes, deciphering the lines of script and formulae while Kushina helped and sassed them in equal measures, eating ramen and throwing crumpled paper at Minato's head. She'd always liked teasing Konoha's yellow flash with her natural sealing knowledge, taunting him with it playfully as they struggled, but in the end she had been the reason they figured it out in the first place.

He gestures Naruto in closer and the blond boy kneels next to him, offering him the stick. Jiraiya takes it and starts doodling script in softer lines than before, outlining two familiar seals. "In the second Hokage's notes, he also called the homing seals ' mortal fasteners' , and mentioned 'grounding through value'." He points to Tobirama's seal on the ground next to Minato's. "This is the seal from the original jutsu, the one the fourth Hokage–" Fuck it. "Your father , couldn't get to work for him." He points to the other seal. "This is Minato's."

Naruto pours over them, eyes wide and a tiny bit awed as his gaze lingers on Mianto's seal, the messy script characters so simple in comparison. "But they're so different." Naruto mutters. "How the hell can they do the same thing? That doesn't make sense ."

"Ah ah ah! I have a theory!" Jiraiya interrupts before the kid can get too frustrated. "At first we thought it was because Minato and Tobirama were too different, but what if it was just because they were different people? "

Naruto blinks at him. "I don't get it."

Jiraiya rubs his head and grimaces. "Okay, I probably could have phrased that better, but what I mean is that I think what works for one ninja can't work for another."

Naruto just looks more confused, not less.

Jiraiya sighs, exasperated, and takes up the stick again. " Mortal Fastenings , get it?" he draws out each separate line of Tobirama's seal and expands them, making the exact sealing script more visible and defined. " 'In order to untether the body so completely from the laws of nature, one must possess that which grounds them to reality just as completely, a gravity that guides the soaring comment back to earth.' That quote comes right out of the Nidaime's original notes on the jutsu. What if the seal isn't just a seal it's–"

"Forces of Value."

Naruto's voice startles him right out of his rant. The boy's voice is a little breathless, like he's seeing something now in Minato's scrawled seal that Jiraiya still isn't, and he's suddenly a furious flurry of motion again. He materializes a dark brown scroll from thin air and unrolls it, fingers fluttering frantically over the massive spiderwebs of seals inside, unrolling half the thing into a coil on the ground before he finds the one he's looking for. A puff of silvery dust and he's holding a tome as thick as a history account, which he immediately opens to a specific page. He steals the stick out of Jiraiya's hand and writes Minato's seal in clear, overexaggerated lines, straight up and down like kanji. His eyes scan the pages of the tome, flicking from one line of text to another, and he begins to write something next to it, the sharp tip of the branch making slow, clean lines alongside the seal. Jiraiya recognises the kanji before he's finished.

A name.

Uzumaki Kushina .

Jiraiya stands up next to him and looks down at it, flabbergasted. "Kid, what…"

"Certain kinds of seal script can also be used for language." he explains softly. "You can use it to write messages, or instructions, or… names." There's something heartbroken in Naruto's voice that makes Jiraiya's chest constrict, as if one of Orochimaru's anacondas has found its way into his ribcage. "I've used it before– working the name of what you're sealing into an array can make it more powerful and stuff– so I thought maybe…"

Naruto's voice is getting hoarse, and Jiraiya gets the powerful feeling that the kid has used this kind of script for a lot more than storage arrays .

He puts a tentative hand on Naruto's shoulder, and he looks up at him sharply, his blue eyes are glistening. Jiraiya hesitates, wondering at boundaries and whether or not physical comfort might be welcome, before he thinks, yet again; fuck it .

He puts an arm around the kid's shoulders, slow enough that Naruto can see exactly what he's doing before he does it. It awkward at first– Naruto stiffens and his eyes widen, but it seems more out of surprise than anything really negative, so Jiraiya completes the motion, giving the brat's shoulders a gentle squeeze. He relaxes a fraction, just enough that Jiraiya lets himself believe he might have done something right for once.

"You know, it doesn't surprise me at all." he says into the moment of quiet, while Naruto rubs surreptitiously at his eyes.

"Huh?"

Jiraiya gestures at Kushina's name. "Tobirama may have had a lot of things tying him to reality, but for Minato... Kushina was his world. Everything else, the village, duty, victory… it all took a back seat to her .

Naruto looks up at him briefly, then back down to the seal. "He really loved her, huh?"

Jiraiaya's eyes cloud a little, and he blinks back the sting in them. "It was pretty scary actually, how much they loved each other. You know they had Kill on Sight warrants even before the war?"

Naruto shakes his head.

"Did you know that upgraded to Flee on Sight if they were on the battlefield together?"

Naruto sniffles. "That's badass."

"Yeah." Jiraiya agrees. "That is badass."

They end up figuring the rest of the hiraishin out together, turning the clearing into a sea of equations and sealwork, crossed out and redrawn over and over and over. Naruto is clever, and paranormally intuitive, and honestly fucking hilarious– not like Kushina with her raunchy humour, or Minato with his friendly jibes, but a wise ass , deadpan and sarcastic and yet still so overarchingly good-natured.

It's...fun.

Naruto is everything Jiraiya was afraid he'd never be. Happy, kind, confident, clever, bright enough to make Suna sunshine jealous.

Jiraiya wouldn't blame the kid for hating him, with all he knows, but it's like the thought hardly crossed his mind. They talk and banter and… laugh , and Jiraiya hadn't expected a thirteen-year-old to be some of the best company he's had in years.

There's still a few kinks in the formula to work out, but they've been at it for hours already, and Jiraiya stares balefully at the beginnings of the Konoha sunset reddening the horizon. He's pretty sure Kakashi will hunt him down and murder him if he keeps his cub away for too much longer, so he interrupts Naruto's current train of thought regretfully, with a gentle pat to his back.

"Sorry kid, I hate to ask this now, but I still have to take a look at… you know."

Naruto hums in question as he backtracks out of his thoughts, blue eyes still bright with his passion for the sealing puzzle he's got engraved on the ground past his legs, crossed over the muddy earth. Clever as he is, he doesn't seem to understand until Jiraiya gestures awkwardly at his stomach.

"Oh!" he says, setting the now battered stick down by his thigh. "Sure."

That was… less like pulling teeth than Jiraiya expected. "Really?"

Naruto shrugs. "Yeah." he agrees easily enough, the bright light in his eyes dimming to something softer at he looks off towards the crimson sunset. It's paranormally beautiful this time around, with shades of pale purple rippling beneath rich red and orange, catching on the feathery roll of clouds in the distance. Eyes still fixed on the molting colours, Naruto murmurs; "You're a lot less of an asshole than I expected."

It sounds like more than just a backhanded compliment. It sounds like something tender, like something accepting, like something close to absolution. The emotion in it jars something raw in Jiraiya's chest, hits his regrets a little too close to home. It can't be a coincidence, even though the kid can't possibly know just how much this means to him, just how much he wishes he'd chosen differently, made better mistakes. He's suddenly very glad the kid isn't looking at him, because his eyes are burning and he's lost control over his expression completely.

"Thanks kid." he breathes, when he can manage the words steadily. It's not enough, but it's all he's got right now.

Naruto turns back to him after he speaks, and the smile he gives Jiraiya is brilliant and forgiving and filled with all the things he doesn't remotely deserve.

It doesn't seem like such a miracle now, that Kakashi's heart has risen from the dead. If the other two brats are half as impossible as this one, it was only inevitable. Honestly, Minato and Kushina's kid or not, Jiraiya thinks he might love the brat already.

Naruto strips off his shirt layers and strange wrappings while Jiraiya prepares the inspection seal and the chakra that goes with it. Normally he's just have the kid channel the Kyuubi's chakra enough to get a look at the eight trigrams, but Naruto had mentioned off-hand that it would be better if he saw everything down there in person, and Jiraiya hadn't argued with him.

The offhand mention had made him nervous though; even though the seal can't be unlocked without the key– the only copy of which is in Jiraiya's possession– he now thinks it might be possible that Naruto has changed something about it with his experimentation, maybe even intentionally .

He charges the seals to his fingertips, prepared for the worst.

Turns out he's not prepared for shit . Definitely not fucking this .

The inside of Naruto's seal does not look like the prison it is supposed to be. There is no darkness, no compression, no fucking bars . Its open, and bright, and beautiful ; the air smells like water and sunlight and green growing things, the energy tastes like storm-air and sea salt and ozone, the space feels like it goes on for an eternity.

The shallow sea of warm, calm water around him is filled with lotus flowers, both potent black and brilliant indigo, that range in size from the palm-width ones floating around his feet to gargantuan specimens the size of Kakashi's living room. Pale basalt columns rise out of the crystal water like fingertips, broken geometric walls of volcanic stone that crest and converge behind a rise of earth the size of a small island. Blue-green grass sways in the impossible breeze, sprinkled with wildflowers and what look like fragments of old ruins, familiar ruins, slanting half buried in the soft earth. Water crashes in denial of physics from the crest of the highest basalt structure, rushing over stone in lush sprays to feed into a large pond in the center of the earthen rise, over which presides a willow tree many many times larger than the species is capable of growing naturally.

Under the soft, swaying branches of the massive tree, partially obscured by the curtain of green, rests the Kyuubi no kitsune .

The great fox lies stretched out under the canopy in all its colossal glory, a single beastial eye cracked open lazily to observe Jiraiya dead on. Its enormous head is draped over crossed forepaws, tails curved around the beasts body in a crescent, and what the fuck .

Jiraiya remembers the Kyuubi perfectly. He's seen the damn thing up close and personal, felt the marrow-deep terror and breathstealling hate of its presence, choked on the power and chakra it radiated even bound by Kushina as it was. It should be locked up behind the most powerful imprisonment seal known to the ninja world– not lounging in the vestiges of evening sunlight under a dreamscape sky, looking for all the world content to be right where it is.

Fury and fear mix hotly in Jiraiya's blood at the sight of Kushina and Minato's murderer comfortable and at ease in the heart of their son, and it never looked this strong in Kushina's seal; the fur is a darker, richer amber than he remembers and is decorated with thin, subtle bands of black in places where it wasn't before. The darkness ringing its eyes is thicker too, and more trailing, and there's another third thing that makes the hair on Jiraiya's arms stand on end.

It's calm.

Jiraiya remembers the Kyuubi as something writhing and furious, all tearing claws and spat insults, never quieted, never stilled. But calm is always more dangerous than wrath, and the one thing you could always expect from the nine-tails was anger.

But before Jiraiya can move or breathe or open his mouth there's movement to his left, and Naruto– without the slightest hint of fear or hesitation– takes off for the center of the knoll at a run, kicking up sparkling arcs of water in his wake.

"Kura! I brought the old perv!" He shouts, bare feet sinking into the black sand at the edge of the rise as he climbs it. The fox raises its head as he approaches, black lined mouth pulling wide and soft in a way Jiraiya can only describe as a smile. Not a smirk, not a snarl, a smile .

~I see that, kit. No accounting for your taste in company.~

The beast's tonal, rumbling voice is unmistakably fond, resonant with teasing familiarity.

"Be nice!" Naruto chastises back, reaching out easily to run his hands over the fur of the fox's snout. "He's freaked out enough already."

~Humph.~ The beast rumbles in turn, soft enough to be grudging agreement.

Jiraiya is stunned to complete silence. He stares for a long heavy moment, a minute that feels like an hour, as he attempts to contemplate exactly what he's seeing.

No bars. No separation. No Hate. No Fear. A little boy and a tailed beast curled together like parent and child, like comrades, like friends.

Jiraiya knows genuine devotion, what it looks like and feels like. He sees it, sees this very rare human thing in the eyes of the bloody monster of the leaf, the most feared creature of its kind, the greatest disaster of the elemental countries.

If this is all some kind of giant elaborate joke, Jiraiya doesn't see where the punchline is going.

Naruto looks over after a moment, still leaning into the Kyuubi's nose, and waves him over impatiently. "Come on! He won't hurt you, he promised."

He promised?

Jiraiya swallows hard. He thinks his legs might be shaking, and he knows his hands are, but he grasps numbly for the pieces of his shattered poise and tries to cobble together enough sense to respond to the situation like a shinobi and not a startled rabbit, which is exactly what he feels like under the nine-tails' gaze– under giant arterial-red irises rimmed with gold and heavy with predator focus.

Jiraiya approaches warrily, taking the same path up the kid did, eyes on the beast the entire time. The fox returns his gaze levelly, and true to word Jiraiya does not find himself bitten in half, even when he gets close enough to feel the great rush of the monster's breath.

"Okay kid…" he says slowly, breathlessly. "Care to explain what's going on?"

~Mind your manners, Sannin.~ The beast rumbles in warning, and Jiraiya flinches. ~He's under no obligation to tell you anything.~

Naruto scoffs and scrubs his fingers roughly through the tailed-beast's fur. "It's fine Kurama. Knock it off."

The fox's response is a low grumble and an unmistakable nuzzle into Naruto's torso, followed by acquiescence as it lays its head back down and closes its eyes once more.

Naruto turns to meet Jiraiya's eyes, one hand still petting soothingly over the Kyuubi's muzzle. "So I know you've technically met him before, but this is Kurama."

Jiraiya has so many questions.

He sorts through them, tries to put them in some kind of order, and starts with the most benign one he can think of.

"I didn't realize tailed beasts had names."

Wrong question.

The Kyu- Kurama , opens his eyes again slowly, dark and deadpan. ~Funny.~ he growls, ~ You didn't exactly ask.~

Thats a nerve. Strike one, Jiraiya. Though that might also be a strike on ninjakind in general. "Uh…"

"Okay, so you're both idiots." Naruto interrupts. "But that's not the point right now. The point is, this is Kurama." He stands straighter and flattens his palm against the fox's nose pointedly. "He's my tailed beast, he's my comrade, and he is my friend. " The kid says the last word with such vehemence it practically takes on a new meaning all together, stronger than family or kin. He takes a pointed step between them, as if Jiraiya is somehow the threat here and not the other way around. "Got it?"

After a long moment, Jiraiya nods.

Naruto looks satisfied enough at that, and Kurama reaches to ruffle his hair with one giant paw, drawing a startled giggle from the Uzumaki heir.

There's a pause as Kurama stills.

~Actually kit, would you mind giving us some privacy?~

The question blindsides Naruto a bit, who blinks and tilts his head questioningly at the great beast from under large clawed fingers. "Sure. You gonna be long? Kakashi-sensei said to be home by dinner."

~Not long. Now scoot.~ Kurama scolds, and Naruto slides several meters when the beast shoos him with the brush of a tail.

The brat sticks his tongue out at him in retribution, but goes willingly enough. "Want a change of scenery before I go?" he asks.

Kurama hums deep in his vulpine chest. ~Violet Garden.~ He decides. ~At midnight.~

"You got it!" The boy calls brightly, and then he's gone.

Jiraiya wishes he'd spoken up before now, because now he's alone in a chakric soulscape with a Tailed Beast that probably still wants to scrape the marrow from his bones, with no definitive way out until someone on the surface breaks the seal connection.

But the fox just hums again, and reaches around to push Jiraiya more towards the pond.

~You're going to want to stand back for a minute.~

There's a sudden distorted rumble, then a melodious sound like the ringing of a massive bell. Without warning the world around him starts to shift and melt; the sunset colours drain from the sky and the solar disk itself disappears, navy darkness spilling across the atmosphere in its place, cradling the bright silvery disk of the moon that carves itself a place at the zenith. The willow shrinks away, the grass dissolving into more glittering black sand, the ruins transforming into the same decorative boulders used in karesansui gardens. The waterfall warps, changing into a softer feature that trickles in zig-zag patterns over mossy granite, and the pond narrows, elongating into a decorative river. Plants begin to grow out of the sand, creeping over the boulders and stretching higher and higher, dark vine-like branches gripping stone and each other.

Then suddenly all Jiraiya can see is shocks of gorgeous violet as dozens of massive wisteria trees bloom all at once, every branch heavy with trailing purple blossoms that glow in the light of the full moon above, which Jiraiya can hardly see now through the trees. At his feet the sand arranges itself in flowing spirals and circles as if with a hundred invisible rakes, like something out of the fire temple's meticulous stone courtyards.

After a few minutes everything settles, and a soft breeze begins to meander through the low hanging flowers, filling the air with their perfume. It's all so real and yet like something out of a fever dream; from the scent of the wisteria and the individual grains of sand, to the glow of the overlarge moon and the dulcet sounds of water trickling over rock.

"How is this… possible?" Jiraiya asks aloud, without meaning to.

~The kit makes them out of memories.~ Kurama answers unexpectedly.

Jiraiya spins to face the fox and Kurama's head rises, the tree branches swaying politely out of the way as he moves. He lifts a dextrous paw to brush clawed fingers gently over the bunches of wisteria blossoms, tender claws framing the clusters. It's an idle motion, but it's also a very human one.

"Memories?" He wonders, reaching out to pluck a single tiny flower from the closest branch. It feels real, velvety smooth and delicate in his fingertips. "What do you mean?"

The fox hums, a rough sound that would be a growl in a lesser beast. ~I mean the boulders come from memories of the mossy ravines of Wave country. The garden patterns come from memories of the inside of the Hyuuga complex. The sand comes from memories of the beaches of Uzushiogakure.~

" Uzushio?" Jiraiya blurts, forgetting for a second who he's talking too, but the fox just raises a regal eyebrow at him. And what the hell happened to that temper? By the kyuubi's own declarations, he should hate Jiraiya on principle just for being human.

~Yes, Uzushio . There is a great deal you don't know, Sanin.~

Jiraiya can agree with that at least, and now he knows why the ruin fragments from the scene before looked so familiar– it was the only part of the island Jiraiya got close enough to see before the sky had started to rumble angrily and the sea had begun to lash with outrage.

"What about the wisteria?" He has to ask. They're more native to places like Waterfall or Hotspring country, and tend not to grow well under the shade of the Fire country canopy. "In this colour? No way he saw them anywhere around here."

That gives the beast a fraction of pause. ~... It's from his Uchiha's memory.~ He says softly.

"Uchiha Sasuke? His teammate?"

Kurama nods. ~From a trip to Daimyo's estate with his father as a small child. But that's not why they're important.~

"They can share memories?" Jiraiya asks too fast, surprised. "That's… advanced. Even for an Uchiha prodigy."

Kurama crosses his paws again. ~Yes. But it's not because he's a prodigy that he can share memories.~

Okay Jiraiya's a little thick sometimes, but even he can catch that hint the second time around. "Okay, why are these flowers important?"

It's weird because it's not as weird as he thought– he's having a perfectly civil conversation with a tailed beast and he's already stopped finding it odd. Sure, it's tense as fuck and Jiraiya is quite aware he can be murdered in here with relative ease, but there's also a little instinct in the back of his head that gives him the feeling he can relax; Naruto would probably be pretty pissed at Kurama if he slaughtered Jiraiya all over the pretty flowers, and part of him knows that's better protection from Kurama than anything else could be.

~They're important,~ Kurama says lowly, ~Because if you want to have any part in my kit's life, there are a few things you need to understand about how this family works.~

That's the most threatening thing Jiraiya has heard from him so far, and there's protectiveness clenched behind the fox's teeth so strong Jiraiya can feel the emotion ripple through his bones the same way hate used to.

"Why not just kill me then? If you're afraid I'm going to hurt him?" Jiraiya asks, because he's not always smart about opening his mouth.

The Kyuubi snorts, teeth the length of nodachi flashing pearly-white, dark lips pulled back in a precursor to a snarl. ~If I thought you'd hurt him, Sanin, you would already be dead.~

Jiraiya swallows hard, bewildered. " Why? You hate humans, you hate Shinobi. What's changed?"

~Not as much as you may think.~ The beast says brusquely, tails lashing in agitation. ~I still find much of your kind… distasteful.~ Kurama sighs, a great huff of breath that rustles the trees like wind. ~The fishcake is...very different.~

There's a very long slightly awkward pause– Kurama looks as though he is trying to find the proper words to explain what he means and Jiraiya's not about to interrupt him. Besides, he thinks he knows what Kurama is getting at– Naruto is… impossible in the best ways. Jiraiya's only really known him for a few hours and he can already tell that. The Kyuubi no Kitsune has been with Naruto since before he was born, curled together in Kushina's stomach when she was pregnant, and sealed together at the moment of his birth.

That's a lot of time for a bright soul to make a difference, and clearly he'd made an impossible difference.

"Yea." Jiraiya murmurs, sinking down to sit in the sand. "I think I get that."

~Believe me Sanin.~ The beast corrects, almost softly. ~You really don't.~

He doesn't elaborate. Instead Kurama reaches for a cluster of wisteria again, and continues their conversation from earlier like it was never interrupted. ~Do you know what they stand for?~

Jiraiya nods and recites, straight from the Yamanaka handbook; "Honour. Memory. Patience. Longevity. Love." He pauses, another, lesser known meaning catching a bit in his throat as he begins to understand. "Victory over hardship."

~Yes.~ the fox murmurs, and then leans in close, very close, so that they're eye to enormous eye.

~You want to know what changed? I'm going to tell you. And if you want to run off and tell this whole hypocritical village every word, you go right ahead.~ There's something swirling in the great beasts eyes, something golden and powerful in a way that has nothing to do with ancient chakra. ~It won't matter. He does not need you, or them, and it is they who would be lesser for the loss.~

Sarutobi looks vaguely like he's about to throw up all over his tea-stained desk.

Jiraiya, funnily enough, is not finding himself all that sympathetic.

"He...what? That… that cannot be." the old man mutters, white as a ghost.

"It is." Jiraiya says bluntly, and doesn't much care how cruel it sounds when he says aloud what Sarutobi is thinking. "Turns out all the secrecy, all the covert bullshit, all that isolation from the people that loved him or his parents? Was for a whole fuckload of nothing."

" Jiraiya! " Sarutobi snaps, but Jiraiya just grits his teeth and fires right back for once.

" No. This was a bad idea from the start . He should hate this village! It would have been easy ! We made it easy!" he takes a deep breath through his nose and lowers his voice back to acceptable decibels. "But he doesn't. And that's to his credit. Not ours."

He lets that sink in, eyes hard, and Sarutobi's are wide and startled in response– Jiraiya's never raised his voice at him like that before now. Gods, he's turning into Kakashi now , what the fuck.

"Look." he breathes out, exasperated. "You wanted my report, here it is, one more time; The Kyuubi-no-Kitsune is not secure. The eight trigrams seal has been altered. It cannot be resecured. And there is no doubt in my goddamn mind that the only reason this village is still standing right now is because destroying it would make Uzumaki Naruto upset. "

Sarutobi doesn't respond. Jiraiya's not sure he can at this point– Jiraiya would be concerned he gave the old man a heart attack or something if that kinda thing happened to shinobi like him.

Jiraiya sighs. "Something's gotta change here, sensei. And if you don't do it, someone is gonna step in a do it for us, and that might not exactly go well ."

He steps away at that, heading towards the window and sliding it open, looking back only when he's got one foot on the sill.

Sarutobi's got his head in his hands, age gnarled knuckles digging hard into his temples. The sight calms some of Jiraiya's frustration; Sarutobi's always done what he thought was best, to the utmost of his ability, and he might have blind spots, he might make mistakes, but he's human . They lost one of the best Kage they'd ever had far too soon, and Sarutobi had done what he could in the aftermath. It's more than most could manage, so Jiraiya digs around in his heart for a small mercy.

"I'm staying with Kakashi and company while I'm here." he admits. "Come find me when you've got your shit together. And don't take too long okay? If Naruto does decide to leave the village, there's a good chance he'll take half your best shinobi with him, me included." he tries to phrase it like a joke, even though it isn't one, but the attempt still falls flat. Sarutobi just nods dumbly.

Jiraiya starts to pull himself through the window but then pauses, turning back just enough to catch Sarutobi's tired eyes. "One more thing you should probably watch out for– the Uchiha on Kakashi's team in regards to Naruto."

Sarutobi's eyes narrow a bit, deepening his crows feet even further. "Sasuke? He is a danger in this as well?"

Jiraiya shrugs. "Sort of part of the definition, yeah." he allows. "They're Kindred."

When Jiraiya gets back to the Hatake complex– still halfway wondering if dropping that last bomb on the old man and taking off was a little too mean– he finds Kakashi is waiting up for him.

He's leaning against one of the stylized wolf statues that frame the front door, dressed down to black basics. His hair is damp and slicked back like he just got out of the shower, and his hitai-ate has been replaced by a simple black band of fabric pulled low over his sharingan eye.

Jiraiya had been prepared for this to a degree– he knows now that Kurama isn't the only ferocious parent Naruto possesses, and he's honestly not sure which one he'd rather deal with.

He lands softly in the grass a few feet from Kakashi, and the cool nighttime darkness of the estate, so distant from the bright lights and constant noise of the village proper, exudes a kind of calm that soothes the sharpness of Jiraiya's irritation.

"Are the kids asleep?" he asks, barely above a whisper.

Kakashi hums quietly. "They've gone to bed."

That's pointedly not the same thing, but Jiraiya doesn't press.

"Want to know what I told the old man?" he tries, wondering at the odd quiet Kakashi is radiating. It's soft in a way, but also somehow intense– like acceptance, or maybe…

Resolve.

Kakashi's response, when it comes, is a haunting echo of words he's already heard.

"You're welcome to tell him whatever you want, Jiraiya." Kakashi murmurs, serious and soft. "It won't change anything that matters."

"Shika scares me sometimes." Naruto mutters, rolling up Ino's report and setting it on fire. The flash paper lights his face ghostly white for an instant before it's gone, not even a speck of ash to flutter down and stick in the rug.

"Hn." Sasuke mutters in agreement, chewing on the end of a green tea chocolate stick. He's laying with his head propped up on one arm, with his feet in Sakura's lap. She's being uncharacteristically nice about rubbing the soreness out of one of his ankles, pressing almost idle friction against the stressed tendon. He hadn't told her it was bugging him, but Naruto hadn't told her he'd overheated his chakra coils either and she'd still given him and energy wash as soon as she was home.

Naruto leans tiredly into her side, cheek pressed against her strong shoulder, and wonders where they'd be without her.

~Up shit creek without a paddle, probably.~ Kurama sasses idly.

"Why do I get the feeling that tomorrow's gonna suck?" Naruto asks the room.

"Because Orochimaru's still slithering around under everyone's noses, Danzo's peons are probably hiding in the backyard, and you're scheduled to go toe to toe with a mentally unstable Jinchuuriki tomorrow for the amusement of the masses?" Sakura supplies helpfully.

"Well when you put it like that." Naruto grouses, stretching his arms above his head and pressing his back into her side.

"You do have a plan, right?" Sasuke asks.

"Nope." Naruto admits blithely.

" Ugh ." Sasuke grunts, disgusted.

Sakura laughs and frees a hand to rub through Naruto's hair, scratching lightly at his scalp, and Naruto closes his eyes with a hum. "Just be safe, 'kay?"

"Can't promise safe." Naruto counters. "Can promise alive though. Possibly even in one piece."

Sakura tugs on a strand of his hair too hard in admonishment.

"Ouch, gez, okay , I'll be careful. Happy?"

"No."

"Ugh."

They all look up from the fuuton when there's a soft knock on the door.

"You don't have to knock, sensei." Sakura reminds the presence on the other side, and the door slides open.

Kakashi steps inside, Urushi, Pakkun, and Bisuke trotting in on his heels. "You should really be asleep by now, cubs." he admonishes as Bisuke dives right into Sakura's arms and Urushi drapes himself across Naruto's lap. Pakkun trotts right over to Sasuke and whines until the Uchiha rolls over enough for him to sit on his chest.

"Can't sleep." Sasuke mutters, scratching the pug behind the ears.

"Mhm." Kakashi hums, moving to sit cross-legged between Sakura and Sasuke. The wide window along the far wall has been left open enough for the cool breeze to weave through, and Kakashi notes proudly that it's also been trapped to high hells– the shredder snare below the sill would be a particularly nasty surprise to anyone foolish enough to set foot on it, and comes straight out of Genma's paranoid list of favored boobytraps.

Sakura leans into Kakashi's side the way Naruto's leaning into hers, making the three of them look something like a set of half-fallen dominos. Sasuke, offended at the idea of being left out, pivots around to rest to rest his head on the end of Kakashi's thigh.

Kakashi smiles under his mask, rubbing one hand soothingly back and forth over Sakura's back. She hums contentedly and nuzzles her cheek into the fabric of his shirt, and Naruto adjusts so his spine isn't digging into her ribs.

After they've all settled in and the rest of the ninken have started trickling into the room, Kakashi reaches into his pocket and pulls out a very different book than the one he usually carries around with him.

An Incomplete History of Known Bloodline Limits. Classification Level 4: Anbu Restricted.

"Now," Kakashi murmurs, flicking the dark, worn-in cover open with his thumb. "Where were we?"

"The Kumogakure chapter, Storm Release." Sasuke replies helpfully. "Page sixty-four"

Kakashi nods and flips to the correct spot, eye tracing the words until he finds familiar phrasing, and begins to read.

They're asleep a half-hour later.

Kakashi trails off softly, as not to wake them with sudden silence, and crooks his fingers at Bull and Uhei as he slips the book back into his pocket. They both lumber up onto all fours and pad closer, nosing at his hand and huffing quietly. He makes a couple of familiar motions in shinobi sign and they both nod, maneuvering into position at his back and side. With a practiced couple of motions they slide into his place as he sits up, Bull's bulk supporting Sakura and Naruto, Uhei wiggling into pillow position for Sasuke.

He just stands there for a moment, watching them doze, and can't help but marvel at how strong they've gotten in so short a time, how close. They've done so much, grown so much, gained such powerful drive it sometimes scares him. The extent to which they care; from Sasuke's subtle and steely devotion to Naruto's bright and indomitable kindness, Sakura's aggressively determined heart between them, gives them a power no kids their age should have.

Maybe it's time for Kakashi to do some growing of his own.

After all, what kind of sensei would he be if he couldn't keep up with his students?

Pakkun follows him out of the room, stepping gingerly off Sasuke's chest and trotting to catch up.

"That's one heck of a look on your face, boss." He grumbles when they're far enough out of earshot of the cubs. "We got work to do?"

"Something like that." he murmurs, and keeps walking.

He stops at the door to the basement vault, a thick, lead-heavy slab of sacred wood stronger than titanium and blood-sealed shut. He reaches for the blank spot in the center of the Uzumaki seals and presses his chakra signature into the grain beneath his palm.

The seals register, recognising his presence from the bank of chakra samples Naruto worked into its structure, and the locks click open, one after another until the door swings open on it's own weight.

He walks slowly down the stairs, not bothering to light any of the lamps decorating the walls, passing the treasures within as he goes; giant golden scrolls hewn with Uzushio's clan markings, ornamental Uchiha enforcer weapons worth more than Kakashi's yearly salary, jar sets of ancient medicines and toxins that would make Tsunade weep with envy– the spoils of an unwise bet with Kakashi's favorite Kunoichi.

He comes to the back of the room, to a hidden wall tucked between the seams of two others in a sort of optical illusion, and Pakkun's pace slows when he realizes exactly where Kakashi is heading.

"Boss? I thought you said you'd never open that thing again."

"I said I'd never do a lot of things." he murmurs, reaching up to rub his fist over a space on the wall about eye level. Dust and plaster crumbles away, with each pass revealing more and more of the crosshatched diamond that is his clan symbol. "I said I'd never let anyone close to me again, I said I'd never again be responsible for someone else's life, I said I'd never go against the will of my village or my Kage." At the final pass of his bare skin on the symbol it begins to glow softly, awaiting orders. "Turns out I'm a bit of a liar."

He pauses, staring at the dull glow of the old sigil, so long neglected that the light flickers in and out like a dying candle.

"I've been fighting with one hand tied behind my back for a long time, Pakkun. Too long." He breathes, his voice dropping into a whisper. "I don't remember what it feels like to be unbound."

"It'll be dangerous, boss." Pakkun admits gruffly. "And forgive the insubordination but– about damn time."

Kakashi breathes a startled sigh of relief. "You're sure?"

Pakkun nods with a huff and sits back, lifting his front paws into the air. Kakashi obeys and reaches down to pick him up, and Pakkun presses both paws comfortingly into his shoulder. "We'll always be your pack." He grumbles, and looks pointedly at the flickering seal guarding the oldest part of the Hatake complex. "It's time you stopped holding out on us."