Chapter 9: It Stared Back


"The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable, is that which rages in the place of dearest [lost] love."

-Euripides


/The Gutter, Shizumi Mansion

/Hoseki City

/Land of Fire

Naruto

There had been no way to see the iryounin without a half-dozen people around her.

This… rendezvous needed to be kept secret. Well, a secret from Tanaka and Torin at least, because the second they got wind of the fact Naruto was completely incapable of properly using his chakra, his life-and Kazan's-would be forfeit.

So Naruto waited. And waited. And waited.

And waited.

After nearly two and a half hours of loitering in a nearby hallway, close to the Infirmary, Naruto had a panic attack when he realized he still had chores that were outstanding. If he didn't complete them, his jig was up anyway because people like Torin would come looking for him and it would not be good when they found him.

Beatings at best-and at worst?

Well, the worst right now would be to be under any type of surveillance whatsoever. He needed his freedom. Naruto abandoned his spot in the Infirmary hallway, made his way to the kitchens in the Hall, and spent another three hours of his day cleaning the huge kettles the cooks used then proceeded on to chopping and stacking eight cords of wood for the huge ovens.

Naruto found he didn't mind the chores as busy-work like the repetitive motions of chopping and stacking, cleaning, and scrubbing were incredibly relaxing. The crack of dawn kata workouts with the steel blades from the arenas were his favorite parts of his day. He'd never been able to do the type of sit-down, stare-at-a-candle-and-hum bullshit that the samurai seemed to love.

Samurai were a buncha freakin' weirdos. Yup.

Scrub, scrub, scrub with an old wire-handled brush and chop, chop, chop with the lovingly-sharpened long-handled ax. Stack, stack, and stack some more.

Generally, Naruto had almost no concept of time inside The Gutter given that there were a practically non-existent amount of windows, except for the cells, and those were more like doggy-doors designed to give some semblance of hope of escape. That is, despite the fact, almost nobody here actually wanted to escape-which blew his mind more than once.

The realization had been startling in several conversations.

Avoiding the kids who were worshipful of Tanaka became a full-time job.

Briefly, he visited Kazan in their room, eyes flickering to the tiny window where outside the world was dark. Kaz was observing some bugs and drawing them in the corner of the room near his art supplies. The boy didn't even look up, so Naruto left him to it and went back to the Infirmary, slinking his way through dark hallways. Anybody who caught him here would automatically (and rightly) assume he was up to no good.

Naruto knocked on the door softly. No response.

He knocked harder this time and heard mutters and doors opening and closing, footsteps coming closer inside the room. The door opened to frame the bent form of the iryounin who looked even older up close than he'd thought. Wrinkled folds were carved into her like canyons made by glacial water movement. Unreal. He'd thought Mifune was old, but this broad made him look like a spring chicken.

He must've been gaping at her because she was frowning, though that might've just been her face, and beckoned him in with one flapping hand. The door shut firmly behind him and he had a swooping sensation in his stomach, a sudden feeling that maybe she wasn't as harmless as she seemed. Iryounin meant shinobi… or someone trained at the very least. Why that completely rational thought hadn't occurred to him before this was beyond him. Naruto had found, as he became unfortunately more self-aware, that he tended to think and believe what he wanted without suffering a thought for the details.

Naruto swallowed.

He wasn't prepared for the straight-up rude snap that came at him hard. She lacked her fingers together and Naruto swallowed a scowl before it could form.

She sounded like a bullfrog croaking.

"Well, what is it? Banging on my door like a wild rhesus, then barging in here like a bat out of yomi with no regard to the time. Well, girl? Speak!"

This is not going well.

Wait-girl?

Naruto gaped at her.

Trying to remind himself he needed what she knew was harder than he thought it'd be. Hands on hips, she stared at him like she expected him to cough up all his secrets and be quick about it. This was an iryounin that clearly cared about money above all or she wouldn't be working for a scumbag like Shin Toruku. So her time was valuable. Best not to waste it.

This was a terrible idea.

Suddenly, he didn't know what the hell he was going to say.

Hi, I had the king of bijuu in my stomach and when a mad shinobi tried to take it out I ripped it out on my own and crippled myself forever? I need help!

"Can I trust you?"

The words burst out of his mouth before he could call them back. They were a child's words, ill-thought, and would make no sense to this woman. But they were out and he couldn't call them back.

The old woman suddenly looked wary and she darted to the door, quicker than Naruto imagined she could, and opened it, peering both ways then shutting it tight, locking the top bolt with a clank of finality. She motioned to him with one hand as she tamped down on an oil lamp sitting next to her desk plunging the room into semi-darkness. The room she'd led him into the first time was the Infirmary, complete with a few beds and that sterile hospital feel with white walls, unexpected given the palace had been mostly constructed with sandstone, and the rest of the room had some random machines that Naruto couldn't place the purpose of stationed next to each bed.

The old iryounin walked quickly into the next room, shutting lights off as she went, opening a door in a T-section hallway that led into what must have been her apartment. The decor was completely different; no sandstone, all wood-paneling, and no white to speak of. The room looked fairly bare with some painted scenes of a desert at night of all things and bizarrely, an anatomically-correct full-sized wooden puppet sat on a work-bench against the farthest wall. Faintly amused, he wondered why a grown woman would be playing with puppets of all things?

Her hand slapped onto a fuin-mark against the wall and several others, spaced evenly along the walls, level with each other, lit up. Naruto hadn't made it out when it was dark, but now he could read it clear as day with symbologies identical to the ones he would've written into his cell walls; prevention against eavesdropping and a barrier of absolute silence.

She could murder me in here and nobody would know.

Naruto started and realized she was between him and the door.

Stupid!

She cut off anything he was about to say. "You asked if you could trust me. I'm ensuring we can speak freely. I'm not about to murder you, idiot girl."

Naruto rubbed the back of his head, getting more annoyed by the second. Though he wasn't sure who he was more annoyed with; this old woman or himself for overthinking this and going through with a stupid plan that had him reveal everything to a random stranger.

This… was not going to plan. He swallowed. But the next words she said figuratively blew his mind out the back of his head.

"I know you've had a bijuu in you girl, and I frankly don't care, if that's what you're worried about. I also happen to know he did a number on you coming out." She crossed to an L-shaped couch of some dark material that had a faint shine to it and sat, gesturing for him to sit across from her in a loveseat.

"What I want to know," the iryounin rearranged her skirts, pinning him as he froze half-way down to the seat, "is how you managed to survive."

How the hell…?

"Do you know how to speak, girl?"

Naruto cleared his throat. "Y-yes. How the hell did you-?"

"Know you had a bijuu in you? That's simple."

She waved the question away like it didn't matter. Naruto goggled.

"I've sealed my fair share of bijuu into unsuspecting children. Leaves a… mark if you will."

He found himself on his feet, white-hot anger coursing through him. This woman… she…

"Who the fuck are you?"

Those ancient eyes, clear and apathetic, pinned him like a bug on a collection board. Naruto didn't have his blades, but he'd kill this old woman with his bare hands if she made the wrong move. Naruto suspected he wouldn't get within five feet of her. The point was he wouldn't go down without a fight.

"Sit down."

Hesitating, because what did he have to lose really? Without help he was dead, he needed to extend a little trust to get that help, and she already knew way more than he was comfortable with. And she sealed bijuu into children?

Who was this person? What had he done, thrown himself into the lions jaws?

So his secrets, some of them anyway, were out. Trust would either get him killed or save him here.

So he sat. Frustration rose within him. This wasn't the way this was supposed to go! Roundabout questions followed by some super-secret important hint that would solve all his problems… not make new ones!

"I go by Lecenya here, but my real name is Chiyo, girl."

She seemed to pause here, as if that had some significance. Naruto just stared at her, waiting. That girl comment was starting to piss him off. He was a boy!

"Nevermind. All you need to know is that I'm looking for someone and this is temporary work while I investigate in the capital. I gave you my real name because it's leverage. Chiyo is a name that would spank the camel, so to speak, in Fire Country. Especially in Hoseki City. I'm extending the same trust to you, girl."

Naruto shrugged, nonplussed. But this girl comment was pissing him off. Naruto stood up and threw an accusing finger at her.

"First off, how about you stop calling me girl because I'm a goddamn boy, you old fuck!"

Chiyo visibly struggled.

"Would you prefer I call you boy, boy?"

"Well, no-"

"Then shut up."

None of this made any goddamn sense. She was so annoying! Naruto's mouth shut with a click and he sat. At least she wasn't some patient saint. She could get annoyed and that meant she had levers to press. They sat, quiet, eyeing each other for a moment. Naruto tried very hard not to fidget. He failed.

"Why are you here? You asked if you could trust me. You can trust me further than that lot." She pointed out there vaguely as if to include everyone not in this room.

She clarified after a beat as Naruto opened his mouth. Chiyo sounded drier than a desert.

"Not in The Gutter, idiot boy, why are you here at my door? I'm not going to tell anybody your secret if that's what you're worried about. You don't worry about the Two-step when a lion is on your tail, after all."

What the hell is a Two-step?

Naruto ignored the metaphors that didn't make any sense and thought about what he'd say. Mifune was fond of saying: "When you've committed to your strike, blank your thoughts! Hesitation kills as quickly as a blade to the throat."

"I can't use my chakra. I'm… I'm useless."

Silence dropped like a bomb.

Saying it out loud made it a thousand times worse and his eyes prickled with unshed tears, for some reason he didn't want to cry in front of this woman. It was an effort to swallow and continue.

"Well, not useless… but pretty much. The stuff, the chakra, is all haywire inside me. It's… painful...to try to grab it and move it. I was hoping… well, the man who kidnapped me and sold me to Master Toruku was a medical ninja like you and he said…"

Naruto shrugged uncomfortably, "...he said that there were… medical jutsu and stuff that you didn't use hand seals for. You just kind of…"

Naruto wiggled his hands in a huge circle.

Chiyo looked like she was trying not to laugh at him.

He threw up his hands, suddenly pissed. This was serious!

"I dunno, he said there were ways I could get around the issue, maybe. I was hoping you'd…"

Chiyo put one finger to her wrinkled chin.

"This man. You say he was a...medical ninja like me?"

Naruto nodded.

"Yeah, he saved me from drowning in a river… then he saw my… my problem and was intrigued. After he was done looking at me…"

Naruto gestured around him.

If Naruto didn't know better, he'd say he'd angered Chiyo with something he'd said. She was muttering something he couldn't hear.

"...strung up by his toes. Disgusting."

"Huh?"

Chiyo shook herself. "Nothing. May I look at you, boy?"

This was why he came after all. Some help would be better than none.

He nodded.

She moved towards him, though she made no hand seal that he could see, instead he felt something move through him, like an extremely powerful lense was looking through him, to something deeper. Green light surrounded her hands, like earlier, but she was standing over him, not laying her hands on him like En had to in order to do the same, or what he thought was the same, jutsu.

Hope surged up inside him as much as he tried to squash it. Chiyo seemed to know many things, perhaps one of those things would be the key to helping him. The puppet piece was weird though.

Chiyo's light faded and she stared past him as if she couldn't see him. Her face was hard in the dim light of the oil-based lamps. Why didn't she have any of the new fuin-lamps? Those lamps, powered by chakra, lasted a very, very long time and were now fairly mainstream. The Gutter had them strung across the ceiling of the arena in haphazard lines. But he was distracting himself from his nervousness. A stone was forming in his stomach.

What would she find?

"I'm sorry boy."

The stone dropped and he hardened himself, killing the enthusiasm that he'd started with. Of course, it wouldn't be this easy. Should he just give up and accept the limitations he knew were stretching around him like an iron chain? Wrapping him up in a miserable, slow, short-lived destiny? He might as well be Kurama, trapped inside a seal that was made, not by chakra and symbologies, but by terrible, impossible choices.

"I can't fix you, but I do know of a terribly long and difficult road that may lead to some success. May." That hope was hard to snuff out as it came surging back.

"I'll do anything, Mistress Chiyo. Anything."

"Oh ho, Mistress is it now? I'm no aristocrat. I'm a kunoichi. Knock that off, boy."

Naruto's head almost fell off from how hard he shook it.

She eyed him, dark eyes serious and held a finger up, her words taking on a lecturing tone.

"Most of your tenketsu are now disconnected from your chakra paths; they are like arteries and veins that pump chakra from your coils, which, in point of fact are thicker than any I've ever seen in my many, many years, thicker than many Kage I've seen. But they are full of holes; shredded like cheese."

Chiyo tapped a finger against her chin.

"That's probably the bijuu's doing if I had to guess. They tend to dig themselves in, make themselves at home, the freeloaders."

Chiyo shook herself.

"Anyway, those pathways connect to all parts of your body and chakra control, is defined as the ability to shuttle chakra in precise amounts where and when you need it to specific places or tenketsu. With me so far?"

Naruto nodded. What she was saying tracked with what he'd been taught already.

"Chakra has an ebb and a flow that needs to be mastered, a direction to the way it flows. As we're taught in the Academy, hand seals were tools created by the Sage as a sort of short-cut, or muscle memory designed to force a new shinobi to associate specific inward flows of chakra with the various hand seals, the direction."

Her hands rolled slowly through what Naruto assumed were these 'hand seal' things. Hands clasped, they intricately sped up, interlocking and separating, interlocking again in different ways. Naruto thought back to his home; samurai never used hand seals for what was now obvious reasons. They couldn't use hand seals and a sword at the same time. So they made life harder in order to master chakra techniques that didn't need short cuts.

Idly, he thought about the fact that Iron wasn't really his home anymore. It probably didn't exist. That thought almost crushed him under its weight.

"Rat, Boar, Bird. Yadda, yadda."

Chiyo flapped her hand idly. She liked doing that Naruto noticed.

"The point of me telling a tiny boy like yourself this is that most don't understand that hand seals are a crutch that both new and old alike cling too-you don't need them. In fact, the best shinobi, the most skilled shinobi, train their techniques so much to the point that they do not need hand seals to guide the flow of chakra inside their body."

Naruto struggled to process this and Chiyo watched him, leaning back in her chair wincing. How the hell did they do it then? Just… poof?

Naruto waved his hands.

"Wait, wait, wait. So, they just what-wave their hands and magic happens?"

Chiyo leaned forward, eyes intense.

"What I'm saying boy, is that right now you have zero chakra control, your chakra floats all over your body with no direction and it's painful to force it, but it is the mind that controls where chakra goes, paths or no paths, functioning tenketsu or no tenketsu. There are jutsu that create techniques inside the body. How do you think they do that?"

The thought hadn't even occurred to him, given his ignorance about most things chakra-related, that techniques could be formed inside the body.

"I guess I just assumed…"

Chiyo snorted and he had the sudden urge to stick his tongue out at her.

"I assumed that that was impossible."

Chiyo sighed. "Nothing is impossible with chakra, just… improbable."

She grew quieter, looking off into space.

"I've seen things done with chakra I wish I hadn't."

She looked back at him, focusing.

"But I've also seen some beautiful things. Both impossible. Both completed before my eyes. So there are always two or more sides to everything."

The Uzumaki got up from the extremely comfortable couch and started pacing. How could he use this information? She was plainly saying something, but he was still too new and didn't get what he was driving at.

"So you're saying that I need to practice moving my chakra around inside my body? But that's the incredibly painful part. Like, actually terrible. You ever just stabbed yourself for no reason? Yeah, that's what this feels like. And nothing ever happens."

Chiyo snorted. "Yes, because do you know any jutsu?"

"No."

"Then why would you assume moving chakra does anything without a purpose? A purpose you need to give it?"

Frustration gave way inside him; this was important, useful even, but he needed something now to give him an edge. To help him save himself and Kazan.

"Listen, this is great info. But I don't think you quite understand."

"Then explain it to me boy, because this isn't something you're just going to...get over in a day. Shinobi spend lifetimes achieving a pure-will activated technique. A great many cannot even manage half-seals. What your trying to do is skip to the end of a lifetime of training; like a newborn trying to compete in the Thousand Mile Trial without learning to walk first."

Thousand Mile Trial?

No.

No, he wouldn't be distracted. What was a half-seal?

Naruto shook his head.

No, that was a direction that was useless to him right now. He needed actionable information that would help him now. He'd ask about the Trial later.

If there was a later.

"So, how does fuinjutsu fit into it? I'm assuming it's like hand-seals-a short-cut? I can't do any of my fuinjutsu without applying chakra to activate a seal, yes? Is there any way to get around that?"

Chiyo looked surprised for the first time. "Who taught you that?"

"What do you mean, who taught me that? That's basic stuff."

"I think you'll find that fuinjutsu is an esoteric art to even the more learned shinobi you'll encounter. I know most villages are taking steps to combat the ignorance, given the amount of technology that uses fuin now, but still, boy, that is unusual you know so much."

Chiyo was looking at him consideringly.

"What's your rush? You have the rest of your miserable life here to figure things out, yes? Why not just… relax a bit."

Naruto knew this conversation was a tipping point. The bijuu knowledge was interesting, for most people, but not important anymore. He was nobody. A nothing. But tell her what or rather who he'd escaped? That he was being sought by some very important people for reasons even he still didn't understand given that he didn't contain the bijuu anymore?

That was real trust.

And that orb… that prison that went dark. Now the voice… definitely no on that count.

He couldn't trust anyone with that.

But maybe a little more trust would give him something more, something that could help. She knew about fuin, maybe that was the key, though he couldn't see how.

"Hidden Mist is going to be here tomorrow."

She was slow in replying.

"Yes. Along with that mouth breather Gato and his lumbering pervert of a son. What of it?"

Naruto sat back down. It was time to tell somebody.

"I… the Butcher of the Bloody Mist wants me for some reason. He's the reason the bijuu… you know, got yoinked. He's killed my family and I'm fairly certain he's still chasing me."

Chiyo looked truly stunned for the first time.

In an instant, she was hauling him up by the front of his ratty shirt in one old, but iron-clad, grip. Naruto could smell the sour breath from her face; acidic and tangy smells of alcohol and cigarettes. Her eyes bored into his.

"Why would he want you if he has the bijuu?"

Naruto slumped in her grip. "Well, first off I'm not sure he does have the bijuu. Kurama put up a helluva fight like the badass he is."

She looked at him, confused, but still holding him. Naruto looked away.

"I have no idea."

She shook him, hard enough to clack his teeth together in his head.

"I have no idea! I swear! I don't even know if the Nine-tails is dead or sealed again, let alone why he wants me."

She dropped him gently into his chair, seemingly deflated.

"Why do you care so much about the Man in Red, ya old bat?"

It took a second, but she responded quietly.

"My grandson, he's the one I'm chasing. And..."

Naruto waited and waited.

"He...works for the Seifuku-sha. Well, he works for someone who works for the Seifuku-sha. Or something like that. I'm not entirely certain. That's part of why I want to find him."

The bottom dropped out of his stomach and he scrambled away from her, desperate to get away. Oh shit! This was exactly the wrong person to confide in. Naruto was mentally kicking himself as he scrambled to the door and tried to get through it, not even seeing that it opened inward, which prevented him from leaving as he tugged on the handle.

"Calm down boy, I'm not going to turn you in, I promised. Besides, I'm trying to kill my grandson, not you."

She looked and sounded tired as he felt.

Kill… her grandson?

"Who is your grandson?"

"It doesn't matter. The point is that you are important to the Seifuku-sha. That means I'll do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn't succeed."

Wait. What?

"Um, okay. So you aren't going to kill me? You'll help me escape?"

She merely looked at him. Naruto was defensive.

"How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"Don't be an idiot. I can tell you aren't."

Well, that was good to know… and you'd be the first to think I'm not an idiot.

"Fine. Then can you answer my original question?"

"About fuinjutsu?"

Naruto stared at her.

"Very well, very well."

Chiyo took on a lecturing tone again, gesturing absently for him to sit.

"I don't know a ton about this, but what I do know is this; fuinjutsu is, at its core, the exact same thing as the hand seals or 'preparing' a technique only infinitely more advanced. Fuinjutsu activates with chakra, yes, but it executes the function you've given it. Follow?"

Naruto knew this but hadn't put two and two together. Fuinjutsu was like a prepared technique; the symbologies were what gave the technique shape, dimension, elemental-type, and function. But it was time-consuming, difficult, and exacting which is why nobody used it as a regular jutsu in battle. He suddenly saw exactly what she was getting at with this explanation and pieces started to trickle into a picture of a solution in his head; a puzzle unraveling in his head.

Excitement grew, despite his attempts at quashing them.

"So, what you're saying, is that I could theoretically program a fuinjutsu to… draw chakra in for a purpose? To use my chakra without me having to… you know. Actually use it?"

Chiyo frowned. "No, that's not what I was saying, because you didn't let me finish, but I suppose…no, that would be horribly painful, given what you've already described… besides, you'd have to form the seal inside your body and I frankly don't even know if that's possible."

She trailed off as if picturing something. "But, I suppose the idea would work. I've seen something similar." Chiyo looked like she was imagining her worst enemy. "But you'd have to be a master of fuinjutsu to create a whole new technique and to form it inside your body with the precision required of fuinjutsu. That has the potential to level a city, child, if you do something wrong with the amount of chakra you have swirling around inside you. You know this, yes?"

Naruto nodded, unable to keep the excitement off his face.

"You'd be willing to vaporize every man, woman, and child in Hoseki City on an experimental technique you don't even know enough to create safely?"

This gave him pause. Ashamedly, it was only a slight pause.

She didn't have enough information about him to understand why he was probably the only one in the entire world left who could risk this type of experiment without fears of blowing himself and the whole city up. So he put on his least mischievous smile.

"Don't worry granny Chiyo, I'm the youngest fuinjutsu master in the world!"

It was bullshit, but she didn't need to know that.

For good measure, he threw two thumbs up at her and smiled.

She frowned.

"That smile fills me with all kinds of horrible premonitions of being vaporized in my skivvies, boy. Do try to look less like such a rapscallion when you grin like that. Fewer teeth and more lips."

Naruto ground his teeth, still smiling for all he was worth.

While he still had no idea what he would do Seal-wise, let alone have the actual skills to call himself a master of anything, he had a starting place. He just needed to think… then figure out the logistics. At the very least, Naruto knew enough to prevent him from blowing up half a city.

They had a plan, he just needed a little… inspiration.

Chiyo sighed. "I'll start working on preparations to leave. They won't question me, they wouldn't dare. But taking one of Shin's investments won't be easy. So relax and let me work. Don't come visiting again for any reason until I call for you, okay?"

Naruto nodded.

Him and Kazan would escape and they would live another day.

After that?

He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth hurt. One thing at a time.


Naruto slept a total of an hour and a half that night, consumed as he was on his new project. A paper hill next to the bed stood testament to that fact. None of the symbologies were clicking together properly to accomplish a total body enhancement similar to what chakra naturally did when using Reinforcement techniques; he knew immediately as he wrote them whether they would gel together in functional linkage to produce that effect and...

No luck.

He did find one that would make him glow blue. Whatever the fuck use that would be except as a flashlight, he couldn't figure out. The closest analogy he could think of to what he was doing was attempting to brute force a lock with infinite digits by writing down each and every possible combination. He needed to narrow the field down somehow, but no brilliant ideas were coming to him.

Kazan was nowhere to be found when he woke that morning, still on time for his personal early morning training. Throwing some slop in a bowl and eating rapidly, he sped through his drills with feverish intensity in order to throw himself back into chores all with the express intent of gaining himself some free time for the day. The trainers were fairly lenient with their scheduling if you did everything else you were supposed to do and attended mandatory sparring practice.

Naruto lost those, again, with as much grace as he could muster.

Ears pummeled him, Torin trounced him, and the others were often just excessively drawn-out ties that usually Tanaka declared wins for his opponents.

Despite that, they had no easy time defeating him.

Naruto forced them to so thoroughly beat the shit out of him that it made them, eventually, that is, to sigh with pent-up frustration when he wouldn't stay down. He went out of his way to make it annoyingly difficult. That was his pride talking, salvaging what he could of his terrible situation. It was hard to suppress his excitement at what might be in his future if he could just crack the secret to this fuinjutsu project. The wide almost manic grin he wore on his face while his blades whirled and blocked and scored minor touches, even while losing overall, seemed to unsettle Ears and Torin both and just pissed off the others. They beat him, but he was so happy about what could be in his future-a world with chakra in it-that he unsettled them enough to let him win.

Tanaka stood throughout it all, stone-faced as usual.


Finished for the day, dismissed unusually early, Naruto sped back to his room and realized Kazan still wasn't there.

Probably at the Smithy?

Dismissing his roommate's absence, Naruto spent a quiet half-hour working when he realized there was a huge commotion in the hallway.

Naruto poked his head out to pure bedlam. Porters, porters of all things, dressed in posh clothing; velvet and brass-buttoned military-style jackets with high-collars, ran too and fro carrying luggage. Naruto snagged the sleeve on one of them as he ran by, this guy didn't have anything in his hands, and the sheer look of loathing and disgust on the man's pinched face made Naruto reflexively drop the sleeve. Naruto clenched his teeth.

"What's going on?"

The man sniffed. "Don't ever touch me without my permission again, vermin. I'm a personal valet to his lord Gato. He's deigned to grace this disgusting establishment, heavens know why, and I'm about important business."

Naruto grabbed the man's sleeve again and his face bulged.

Presumably in outrage. But he needed to know.

"Is there Mist shinobi here too?"

The man was red-faced, yanking his sleeve out of Naruto's grip.

"I say! The unmitigated gall!"

The man fairly sprinted away from him, only looking back as he rounded the corner.

Early on, Naruto had found that the Gutter was 'hidden' if a public arena that pretty much everyone knew about was to be considered hidden. Shizumi Mansion, the house that Shin Toruku and his family lived in, was the 'public' face of it. A sprawling thirty thousand square foot monstrosity, or so the rumors went. How anyone could afford that much real estate in one of the most populous cities in the world was beyond him.

Presumably, Gato would be staying upstairs, but usually clandestine things transpired in abundance down below, hence the porters probably bringing things up through the water-based canal entrances opposite where Naruto had been brought in the first time. The ramp and the canal were spaced pretty close together.

Bubbling anxiety clenched his stomach, but all Naruto felt was anger. Anger at the situation, anger at Kazan for not being there when he needed him, anger at the iryounin for not having all the answers, angry at the Hidden Mist for being here of all places! Angry, angry, angry! Naruto's fist was clenched and his nails, uncut for months, drew crescent-shaped bloody holes in his palm.

Naruto drew a long, shuddering breath then let it out in a gust.

What was his next move?

No dice with the fuinjutsu. No real plans for escape, except for what old lady Chiyo mentioned which Naruto wasn't even really sure he was sold on her being able to swing. Mist shinobi were potentially here and possibly being alerted to him being here. That wasn't a guarantee, nor was it even super likely, but on the off-chance, it was the case, Naruto and Kazan needed to make an escape now.

He didn't know how, didn't know the details, but this shit was busy as hell and maybe that was their ticket.

Naruto eyed the valet walking across the hallway in front of him, in quite a hurry. The valet who was thoroughly impressed with himself didn't notice the Uzumaki who ducked back behind a doorway out of sight.

The Uzumaki smiled.

It was now or never… and finally, finally, some luck came his way. Chiyo had come by that morning, speaking of a general plan, but still no specifics. It was too late though because his window had almost closed-this was his only way out. With or without Chiyo.

So he'd take it.


The collar was itchy, sticking up almost to his ears.

The coat was too big, hanging off him in folds.

The hat was too big, flopping around on his head. Thankfully, he had so much hair it filled the excess space somewhat.

As Naruto walked, he juggled his loose pants and the luggage he piled up in front of his face to hide it. If he hadn't had such excellent balance, there was a better than even chance he would've spilled everything and caused such a scene that he would have been caught immediately. Two lefts and the longest hallway in the history of the world saw him to the door of his room from where he beat the shit out of the stupid valet and stashed his body in a storeroom. He knew it was only a matter of time before they discovered the body, so he needed to move quickly. Hence this insane plan he put together only when he laid eyes on that valet.

Now or nothing.

No fuinjutsu to save him.

No Chiyo. No Mifune.

Naruto could only rely on himself and Kazan.

Naruto laid down his burdens quickly, pounding on the door to their shared space.

"Kaz! Open the door, let's go!"

No answer.

Naruto struggled with himself, palms sweaty. This was not the time, not the time. He entered the room and stopped. Kaz still wasn't there. Artwork was strewn about the floor, pencils left in an untidy mess. That wasn't like Kaz. Backing out of the room, Naruto realized he hadn't seen Kaz since the delegation came this morning. Where would Kaz have gone?

Good fortune my asscheeks.

Naruto heard in his head Yojimbra talking about the fact that no plan survives contact with the real world.

"It is how you deal with those unexpected things that determine success."

So...adapt, idiot!

Naruto thought about all the places Kaz could possibly be: smithy, kitchen, their shared room, and… that was it. No place else. Was it possible something happened? He'd already checked those places, minus the smithy. But there wasn't anything happening today that needed the smithy and he'd cleaned it last night in preparation for today. Would he really be there?

Closing the door and gathering the luggage again, Naruto was acutely aware of the rising exponential risk of discovery if he was seen wearing the livery of a Gato valet in a place he wasn't supposed to be. The smithy was furthest underground with vents nearest the canal. Most big places had coal-fired furnaces to heat the place, so any of the smoke wouldn't be remarked upon as it was pretty common.

Naruto hurried through the halls as fast as he dared, taking the corners and stairs by memory. The corridors were darker down here, less well-lit than the Training floor. None of that mattered as he took it almost at a run. He encountered a grand total of a dozen people; none of them so much as looked at him with all the luggage.

Naruto grinned. His plan would work. It would.

He just needed Kaz.

Stopping at the large double-doors worked with banded steel, he pushed against them to open them and his hand met resistance. Locked. Kaz wouldn't be in a place locked as it was. Dead end.

A choking feel squeezed his throat and his pulse raced. Naruto could hear his own heartbeat in his head. He wouldn't leave Kaz.

He wouldn't.

Naruto dumped the luggage and slumped against the wall opposite the door and pushed himself to think and not give in to panic. If Naruto left without Kaz, Kaz was dead. Every fiber of his body cried out against that, but if Naruto stayed, Kaz and Naruto were both dead for what he'd done to that valet. Let alone what would happen when Mist found him, as he was so sure they would. Come Yomi or high water, swords had to come out now.

Anything that was required to get them out, he would do.

So, step one: locate Kaz.

Then…

...then anything was on the table.


Naruto backtracked through the corridors, ducking behind corners and in shadowy alcoves every time he thought he saw someone wearing either the livery of a servant or the rough linen of the trainers. What took him five minutes with the luggage was a forty minute, pulse-pounding mindfuck of a journey.

But it was only after passing, briefly and just on an off-chance, near the corridor that housed empty bedrooms that he heard muffled shouting and what sounded like...crying?

Naruto looked around the corner he'd stopped against to peer down the corridor and saw two burly Yakuza heavies. Tanaka had gone over what to expect with Gato's entourage in order to prevent misunderstandings. They were told never to argue with whatever the Yakuza-identified by their thorough tattoos covering arms, neck, really any available skin-wanted.

If a man wearing tattoos like that said 'jump,' you would ask how high.

Two of them, wearing suits, had bladed weapons at their hips and one even had a longsword strapped to their back and were stationed doing what Naruto could only guess was guard duty.

A tall man, roughly the same size as Kazan, exited the room and spoke to the two on guard. A red cherry blossom tattoo sleeve contrasted head to toe red silks, accented in various ways by loose pants and a gold earring in the shape of a wolf in one tanned ear, Naruto had a sneaking suspicion this was someone he never wanted to meet in person.

Even from the side, Naruto saw this man had a cruel cast to his face.

The man's knuckles, which he was wiping on a handkerchief handed to him by one of the Heavies, were bloody and cut up. Readjusting his pants, the man smirked at one, said something that made the other laugh and waved behind him, walking further down the corridor. The taller of the two Heavies, the one with the handkerchief, peeled off and followed his charge.

That left just one lone guard.

Naruto hesitated, struggling. He'd crossed off every possible location that was readily accessible without exposing himself to high-traffic areas. This was out of the way, something shady was clearly going on, and on top of that, there was at least someone in trouble in that room.

But in all possibilities, this was interfering directly with someone high up in Gato's entourage and whatever he was doing had absolutely nothing to do with Naruto himself.

Naruto knew he shouldn't even be there.

But Kazan could be in trouble. Or… someone could be.

Naruto's luck had always been atrocious, so this was probably a huge mistake that would lead to the death of everyone he currently cared about.

No decision at all, really.

As carefully and as casually as he could, Naruto put his head down and looked like he was hurrying somewhere as he strolled through the hallway. Each foot he came closer, his pulse seemed to ramp up, till he was within a handspan of the mountainous Yakuza and his heartbeat slammed in his ears like a drum. Eyes locked to the blade poking up over the man's shoulders, Naruto barely heard the question.

"...huh?"

"I said, what business do you have down here? You shouldn't be here."

"Oh uh, Master Tanaka sent me down here to clean the storeroom. Chores."

Naruto shrugged one shoulder in what-can-you-do kind of way. The man relaxed.

Until Naruto heard the sobbing coming through the door. His eyes sharpened, darting to the door. The man's eyes did exactly the same, sharpening and darting to the door, then their eyes met as recognition seeped through him.

Naruto knew without a shadow of a doubt that he'd found Kazan.

Naruto would never forget the sound of the big child's sobbing from the day they'd first met when Naruto had promised him that he'd never let anything else bad happen to him.

Rage built and pushed against his self-control like a dam at capacity.

Who had Naruto ever been kidding?

His self-control had always been a joke: his control wasn't a dam so much as an IOU stapled to a cluster of logs, so the Yakuza thug might as well have been moving in slow motion for all the chance he had as that flimsy control broke and Naruto's hand clenched. Maybe it was a feeling of static in the air, or the overt murderous intention in his violet eyes, crackling like a thunderstorm with restrained violence, but the man moved for his weapon.

"Don't do it, kid!"

Naruto ignored the words, well-passed speaking, and speared his elbow into the man's stomach, doubling him over. Huge hands grabbed for him, wheezing, and Naruto pushed them almost gently off his centerline, making the man stumble forward. The Yakuza Heavy was exactly that though and he straightened quickly, showing his worth, spinning and throwing a straight jab that caught exactly nothing as Naruto ducked under it, landing in a crouch, staring at the man's waist.

Using the downward momentum of his crouch, he bounced, reversed, powering one boney rage-powered knee straight into the man's crotch. When that doubled the Heavy over, Naruto reached across the broad back straining the suit of the Yakuza, undid the latch on the longsword, and in one smooth movement, drew the weapon and spun away.

The reverse cut painted the far wall with arterial spray in one smooth motion.

Naruto watched the ruined throat pulse with blood, an eruption from jagged flesh, a botched decapitation, and felt nothing but contempt. Death wasn't anything new, not anymore. Further, these were traitors to the Fire Country government and the Leaf village, and he knew that because Mist shinobi were invited into the capital city by these back-stabbing asshole gangsters.

One less would be a boon to the world.

They had Kazan, too.

Naruto left the body cooling on the floor, already committed to his path, and burst through the door to a scene from a horror film; Kazan, naked and sobbing, bruised and bloody, curled up in a ball like he had when they first met. The Rage rose like a leviathan in the deep, curling about his heart. One had died, now there would be others.

Naruto put his blade down on a table near the door and hugged Kazan, rocking him, not saying anything.

He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, but Naruto was acutely aware that they very much needed to leave, so slowly, ever so slowly, Naruto pulled Kazan's weight onto him and attempted to stand, staggering a bit.

"Sage, Kaz, you weigh as much as a frickin' buffalo. We gotta go man, can you stand on your own?"

Kaz just sniffled.

"Well, I'm definitely not dressing you. Here," Naruto handed him the bundle of ratty clothes he'd rummaged around in the room to find. He desperately tried to ignore the bloodstains and other unidentifiable substances radiated throughout the room.

The Rage hummed in his stomach, a blackness that echoed Her voice.

Naruto didn't need to ask who did this to Kazan. He knew. It was that man from earlier, the man with blood, Kazan's blood, on his hands.

Kazan had himself together, clothed, but his head was down, eyes bloodshot, tear tracks making clean tracks on a dirty face. Naruto was aware of the fact he couldn't fight Tanaka, or the other trainers, or even the other trainees now one-on-one. He'd give himself even odds, maybe, against the lower ranks, but not the higher ones. Sheer ferocity made up a lot of ground, but not against that.

Not without chakra.

"Kazan, look at me, buddy."

The gentle giant swiveled his eyes up and peeked at him from his down-turned shaggy brown mop. Those clear green eyes, innocent, had something missing from them today.

"We're escaping. Today."

Green eyes widened. Terror filled them or something else, Naruto wasn't sure. But he put his hand on Kazan's arm and squeezed.

"I've already made a mess of things, but we need to get to granny Chiyo. She'll help us."

Shouts rang out in the hallway.

Naruto's heart raced and he snatched up the longsword, still covered in now-drying blood. He threw open the door with the other hand and met the startled gaze of the other Yakuza Heavy. Naruto's gaze narrowed. The man was just in time to grab the sharp steel launched at him in a thrust with both hands as the two-and-a-half foot blade plunged straight through the man's chest. Naruto found himself snarling as he drove the man into the wall where the blade pinned the tattooed guard like a bug on a collection board.

There were more people in the hallway.

"Get behind me, Kaz!"

Kaz wasted no time in ducking back into the room.

Three people moved forward. Two of the nondescript men were simply more guards, like the two he'd already killed. Those wouldn't be too difficult. Gato notoriously hated Shinobi and so never employed them, preferring regular mercenaries. That was all to the good here. Naruto never would have escaped from a Gutterknife, a shinobi lite, let alone a trained ninja. The wave-symbol, Black Ocean, was etched on their uniforms.

The third was a walking dead man.

Oh, he didn't know it, but before today was done that's what he'd be.

This fucker would be dead.

Naruto called down the hallway, "Are you the one who hurt Kazan?"

The two Heavies moved forward without prompting, both drawing blades; short, wakizashi most likely, to easily maneuver in close quarters. Naruto's longer blade would be a detriment.

The exchange was brief, blurred. The steel made a wet, slurping sound as he pulled it out of the chest of the pinned guard. Naruto ignored the thump of the body hitting the ground behind him.

It was the one with the earring, dressed in those fancy clothes, that was the target here, consequences be damned. The cruel face with a hooked nose and sharp-cheekbones. Naruto supposed some girls would find him… pretty, or something. He wrinkled his nose.

Kaz stuck his head out. "Kaz, go find the iryounin. Her name is Chiyo, you remember? She'll help you get out. I'll follow in a second."

So many emotions, many of which Naruto was sure Kaz could never express, rolled across Kaz's face. Naruto aimed a casual kick at him, to get him to move. The giant moved, looking back as he retreated down the hallway.

Good. The giant baby was surprisingly squeamish about violence. There was one time where he threw a half-hour tantrum because Naruto had squished a bug. Pacifist at heart was Kazan. This whole thing was no doubt tearing at him inside. That just made Naruto madder. Kazan deserved to live in a world where violence was the exception, not the norm.

Some day buddy, someday.

For now though...

Naruto knelt and wiped the streaks of blood off his blade on the mangled suit jacket of the downed Yakuza and let all the pain, all the Rage, all the injustice of this whole fuckin' system rise in him till he didn't know where he began and the pain and rage ended.

Did it ever end?

"What's your name?"

The well-dressed man had a casual smile.

"Mine is Lionel Gato, son of the great Sukumu Gato. Surely, you've heard of us?"

Naruto threw himself at the nearest guard in a leap the man clearly did not expect and was inside his wild overhead strike in an instant, deflecting the deadly edge with the flat of his longsword in a right-to-left guard. Both hands wrapped around the hilt gave his backhand swing the power to carve a furrow in the man's chest that erupted in a back spray of blood. The scarlet eruption was acrid and metallic on the bits that touched his lips. Lionel Gato was not phased by half his guard going down in less than thirty seconds. Had he never been seriously threatened before?

"Why do you care about such a lowly-creature? He is an idiot, a retarded specimen of boyflesh that can barely speak like a human being. Though quite tender and tight."

Lionel's mouth more resembled a slash than a grin.

Revulsion stopped him for a second, those words processing, not quite understanding; but instinctively knowing horror at those words. Kaz. But it was the Rage pushing him forward. The voice was there, whispering to him at the edge of his mind. It sounded a lot like the Lady from before; a whispering madness that demanded he trim these… weeds?

"I'll overlook this… mindless animal ferocity if you lay down your weapon and surrender. I'll even put in a good word with my father to have you spared, but continue on this ill-considered course of action and I will have you flayed, your skin prepared as a carpet for my childhood bedroom."

All of it was delivered in the same flat, slightly mocking tone, as if the outcome-either way-didn't bother him in the slightest.

Naruto didn't answer as the next guard was coming at him, snarling.

He met him, snarl for snarl, trading blows that rattled through his arm. Nothing fazed him. Naruto wove a web of steel, turning blow after blow into counter-attack after counter-attack, trying to reach the man's vital points. One particular hit, slightly off, slightly too slow, enabled Naruto to reach out with the razor edge and score a deep cut in the man's thigh. Agony painted the man's face and Naruto punched out with his opposing fist, cracking the cartilage in his throat. Choking, dropping his weapon, the man collapsed with a bulging face, bluish and getting darker as he choked, sputtering like some mean animal. Naruto kicked him in the face and stepped across the tangle of bodies in the corridor, ignoring the blood and the bits. His hair fairly dripped with it. Naruto could feel it sliding down the sides of his face, pooling under his chin and falling onto his clothes. He was a painter only using a particular shade of red.

Steadily he walked toward Lionel Gato. The man turned to run. Naruto had a sick satisfaction watching the realization that none of his guards would be there to help him, that every one of those goons who he used to make himself seem bigger than he was, were slaughtered like they meant nothing.

There was now nothing, nothing between him and his death.

The whole encounter was so quick. Naruto truly had gotten faster.

Not fast enough for his purposes, but faster.

Gato's son couldn't get away if he offered him all the money in the world. Not if he had a miraculous way to bring his chakra back under his control.

Not even then.

Naruto threw his sword, whipping it overhand, and heard the beautiful scream. In a second, he threw himself feet first on to the heir to Gato Corporation and was hauling his head back by his hair, Naruto's full weight on his back. Naruto crouched, one hand tangled in the curated, not-so-perfectly coiffed hair, and the other put the leading edge of the slightly curved blade against the tender skin of the throat. He could feel the man shaking. A stench of acrid piss filled the air.

All of a sudden, it was like a window, or a door, had opened in his mind. Something was there with him, inhabiting the same space. Something... vast. Old. Beautiful. Terrible.

kIlL hIm

KiLL HIM

KILL HIM

THERE!

A flash of impossible, beautiful, perfection; three eyes, horns, white hair, Red. White, black. White, white, spinning red. She was in him. She was him. She was everything. She was the Key to everything.

And she was the End of Everything.

Naruto shook his head, trying to close the door.

KILL HIM.

This was his head, so the door shut- but he and the voice wanted the same thing. This time.

Naruto screamed, shutting a mental door on the...vision?

Dream?

Nightmare?

Imagination?

Whatever it was, they'd wanted the same thing. So he did it.

Pulling the sword across Lionel Gato's throat in a vicious pull that Naruto felt in his hands, in his fingers, tingling across his body as his victim seized, the agonized screaming cut off as Naruto left him gurgling and spitting blood on the floor. The youngest Gato's lungs had filled with blood and the sick piece of shit started choking, but no amount of effort would stave off the darkness now.

Naruto didn't care.

Whirling the hilt, Stabbing downward, Naruto sneered. He pinned the heir and precious, precious son of that piece of shit Gato to the floor like Shish Kabob, meat on a stick.

Naruto didn't look back.

This was about what was right and what was wrong.

Kazan deserved better.

He deserved better.

Naruto left the carnage at a dead run.

If someone had explained the irony of what he wanted for Kaz and what Naruto had done, he would've found it hard to care.


Even if Chiyo hadn't spent the better part of forty years as a highly-experienced and trained shinobi and could hear a pin drop from five hundred feet away with the aid of chakra, there would be absolutely no way she could miss the anthill with a giant's foot stuck through it that the Gutter became all at once.

She doubted there were people in Earth country that couldn't hear what was going on in the underground arena.

Violet eyes like some night-creature flashed in her head. When Chiyo had set eyes on Naruto for the first time, she'd known without a shadow of a doubt that that boy would mean trouble for her and every single person he ever came across. Men, in general, made a lot of work for women; but this boy seemed like he was born with the knack and the nose for getting into sixteen different kinds of pear-shaped situations.

Today, she hated being right.

Adjusting the pack on her back, she pulled along the half-naked bear of a boy sent to her from where Naruto had saved him from the attentions of Lionel Gato with her as they pushed through the damp and cramped passages she'd found out of the Gutter. Water trickled down the walls of the corridor, seeping into a tiny river running between her feet. Lights flickered, set into walls for workmen, no doubt.

Kazan was having a hard time squeezing his bulk through, but Chiyo pushed and pulled and hoped her sheer gumption would get them through this.

There was no way she was going back for Naruto. He'd meet them at the rendezvous point at the appointed time and that was that. If she stayed, she doubted Shin would be kind to her. Not that she had much to worry about on that front; her collection alone could kill every single man, woman, and child in Shin's little organization… but she had promised the boy she'd get him and his friend out. Presumably with out making a mess. Now she could only safely succeed at one thing; get Kazan out. So that's what she was doing.

If only her brother could see her now.

As she walked, conscious of the sweaty child's hand in hers, she cursed herself a thousand ways for the foolish revenge quest that brought her out of Wind country and here, to this Fire country shit hole, looking for her grandson.

Instead, she found some smartass kid that looked like the Fourth Hokage and who happened to have a broken seal…

Kazan ran into her back. Chiyo hadn't realized she'd stopped.

"No…"

But it all made sense. She'd met the Fourth during his annual visits to Fire's Wind allies; Sunagakure had pulled out all the stops. All the Elders, like herself, had been summoned out of retirement to discuss future policy in a geopolitical security summit.

The boy, no, Naruto, was the spitting image of his no-doubt-father; though slightly more… feral looking and he had those curious eyes…no, not the sky-blue of his father.

Chiyo started sprinting, anxious to get to Naruto then stopped.

Why did she care?

But she knew why even if she couldn't say it out loud: those eyes had looked like Gaara's before Pakura and Chiyo had killed his father and freed him and his siblings during the Civil War. Gaara's eyes had been haunted. Dead lamps looking out of an abandoned house. Those eyes were a cry, a begging plea for someone to stay when it seemed like everyone had left.

Chiyo swallowed, all of a sudden feeling her age.

She started to sprint again, not wanting to think of sentimentality at her age. No, sentimentality from a ninja her age would see her killed.

But, Naruto needed her. So Chiyo sped up. Not running, no, but something close to it.

Chiyo of the White Death, legendary former S-class Puppetmaster would not let it be said she didn't keep her word and well... that boy might lead her to her grandson. But if she had to tell the truth; and she didn't, all she saw was Gaara looking at her with violet eyes.


For the better part of an hour, Naruto had ducked, dodged, murdered, fought, and then slipped away from better fighters than him as he fought for each inch of ground. Shizumi Mansion was enormous AND an enormous pain in the ass. Getting out was like staging a prison escape.

Which, in a way, it very much was.

He'd gone to Chiyo's place and she was gone, but so was Kaz. That meant she was sticking to the last second plan she'd told him about in passing that morning under cover of a 'check-up'.

Currently, he could only ascribe his current success at escaping, if you could really call it that, to the fact that he so thoroughly pissed off absolutely everyone in this place that literally no one could think straight. Lionel's death had enraged Gato to the point that Naruto was sure he'd made an enemy for life.

But it had worked in his favor.

Like the fact they were more in each other's way than against him and that was the only reason he wasn't dead six ways from Tuesday.

A sword hit his raised blade at an adjusted angle, careering off and protecting his face from losing key features that Naruto found to be important: namely a nose and ear. The sheer force through him across the room.

His back hit something solid as the fiery knives in his back could attest. The momentum from blocking such a colossal hit threw him up and over the security desk stationed next to the doors at the front of Shin's palaces entryway. Pain blossomed through his neck now as he finally settled, the pain now bouncing around his insides like a rubber ball; each bounce echoing all the other hundred thousand nicks and scrapes and cuts and bruises from his running battle with the Gutter's finest and the goddamn army Gato had brought.

Naruto lay staring at the ceiling.

A stunning scene was painted in gentle colors that swept across his vision; blues and greens shaded a fairy-tale forested glen with a river sweeping through it. Naruto would've given his left arm to be there right now.

A shadow darkened the beauty and instinct had him rolling backward, kicking out with one leg and catching his assailant. Naruto didn't even look and started sprinting, listening to the screams to halt and the epithets being thrown at him from his former 'class-mates'. Naruto turned and threw up both swords. Turns out there was no need to block because the cavalry arrived and was looking to surround him.

Three enemies ringed him in a semicircle, but they were just the vanguard: Uruchi, Torin, and a kid Naruto didn't know… who looked about the only one excited to be there.

Naruto stilled, watching the assailant he'd knocked down get up. Yet another person he didn't know. That made four in his immediate vicinity.

Behind them were three dozen mercenaries with Black Ocean stamped across their chests; the symbol of a wave etched in black against a white and red background. They were fanning out, some leaving through side doorways in the palatial entranceway of Shin's home. Behind Naruto was the smoking rubble of what had been two massive doors etched in gold trim. Turns out the sandstone was highly-susceptible to explosive tags. When Naruto had found them on some of the mercenaries already primed he couldn't believe his luck.

He still had one left… Naruto grinned then winced. His face got fucked up somewhere along the way. It hurt to smile. A lot.

Naruto tried to straighten from his wary half-crouch but stopped when it pulled something in his back. The pain felt like someone had dripped acid straight into his muscles. Memory swam to the fore and he remembered that Uruchi had stabbed him; at least six inches worth of blade, generous of him, as he scrambled away from the mercenary he'd killed that was in his way.

Naruto tried not to let his pain show on his face.

Shin Toruku, Sukumu, and Tanaka parted the now sea of mercenaries lined up facing him and he had to swallow. He opened his mouth to attempt to buy himself time. Maybe plead for his life a bit?

"FUCKING KILL HIM!"

Tanaka and Shin looked taken aback. But the place fairly boiled with fury.

All of a sudden Sukumu was screaming incoherently and the mercenaries were surging and Naruto had his second blade in the other hand and blades were coming at him from every direction.

One, two, three and he lost count of the assailants as he rolled and sprinted, Uruchi and Torin lost in the press as he was blocking multiple blades and taking some hits as he backed up towards the door.

Naruto spit at Torin, who resurfaced with an overhand blow. Evading everything was impossible, but he did his best to only get hit by the ones he knew weren't immediately fatal.

The blonde threw himself into a backward roll away from the deadly blades that crossed near his head and he recovered, coming up into a crouch that folded into a kick that took a startled Uruchi in the chest as the mercenaries knocked into each other next to them and one even went down from a swing from Torin who was clearly irritated and trying to get at Naruto.

The battle spilled into the courtyard through his saving grace of the doorway as Naruto did his level best not to get skewered. Frankly, he didn't know why he wasn't dead already though he suspected it was because there was only so much space.

Courtyard meant open space and open space meant being surrounded and that meant death.

Naruto tripped on a piece of rubble from the exploded hallway and went down, a sword swiping through the space where his head had been and he had to scoot sideways in order to get room to throw himself forward towards the open gate fifteen feet from where he was.

Freedom screamed at him. Kaz and Chiyo would be waiting for him.

If only he could just-

Frantically he hopped to his feet, blocking the overhead strike from behind, spinning right then left to avoid the second as he stabbed another nameless fuck in the throat, not even bothering to watch him die as he had to throw himself again to the left in order to back peddle against a surging tide of enemies.

From his pocket, he awkwardly snatched the explosive tag and slapped it on the flat of his right blade. The left made a huge sweeping strike that pushed all the enemies back and Naruto then locked eyes with Torin and hurled his blade at him.

Torin grabbed the nearest armored Black Ocean merc and shoved him in the path of the blade which buried itself in his stomach. Everyone in the courtyard was distracted by the hissing sound of a live explosive as Naruto hauled ass out of the gate and into the rapidly dwindling sea of people on the streets next to the open gates. No one wanted to be anywhere near the place where it sounded like a small battle was being fought by various armies.

Naruto looked back as he crossed the threshold of Shin's gates just in time to watch the whole courtyard go up in an unexpectedly enormous conflagration. Flames pushed towards him, the shockwave hitting where he stood at the edge of the gate, blowing it at him at high-speeds.

Naruto felt himself become airborne and then his already battered body hit something more stubborn than him. An unhelpful voice whispered that it was probably a goddamn wall and he couldn't help but think he was fuckin' cursed.

Freedom had been so close.

Darkness closed in as he found himself rolling off the edge of an embankment and into a ditch near the thoroughfare.

Then nothing.