Chapter 12: The Voices Inside
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
– Anais Nin
/Dhumrais Prison
/Hoseki City
/The Land of Fire
Naruto
The prison cell that Naruto found himself in was an insult to tiny boxes.
As tiny boxes went, well...
This wasn't the worst box he'd ever found himself in.
Six feet by six feet, and a few feet from scraping the top of Naruto's ragged blond mop, the cell alone could barely contain the immense bulk of Kazan, who spilled over the lower bunk, curled in on himself unmoving. Naruto was often made fun of-though not for long-for his feminine build, but in here, stuck next to his bear of a cellmate, his slender frame and sheer lack of size was definitely in his favor.
The insults from those who didn't know him were a small price to pay. More than one other prisoner found to their peril that he was far from helpless in a fight. It was, on the whole, better Naruto thought, than being so large people couldn't help but stare, like in Kazan's case. That was part of the reason Naruto felt they hadn't been immediately let go in the first place. They couldn't believe Naruto did it, no, it had to be this big lug.
He'd known that would be an issue.
That and Kazan, honest to a fault, reported them; just straight up answered the question when asked; did you attempt to murder the heir to Sukumu Gato? While Naruto was busy dodging the questions in the interrogation room, Kazan had just straight out told them. Started crying, the whole bit.
Why, yes officer, yes he did kill him. I saw the whole thing.
God damnit.
The guy was too stupid to know when to lie. Honest to a fault, guileless even in defence of his own life, Kazan was too pure for this world.
To be fair, at least if they'd tried to escape, Naruto could have melted away when needed. Kazan… well Kazan drew all kinds of the wrong attention, even at the tender age of ten.
The uncharitable thought was had while squished almost flat against the ceiling, having crawled into the top bunk of their compressed cell and immediately regretted calling top.
This was becoming a mantra: he'd been in worse places though.
The sound came again.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
Naruto's blood pressure rose.
"Can you fucking not, Kaz?"
"Sorry 'ruto. 'm bored."
"I know buddy, but flicking that metal bit over and over again is making me wanna kill you. So stop."
"Okay."
The cell was silent for a beat, the sounds of morning traffic and hawking of wares outside was reminding him of where they were; the shittiest place possible in the nicest city in the world. His life was a never-ending series of cages.
"'m scared."
Naruto grunted, trying to block Kazan out.
"Are we gonna die, 'ruto? They gon' kill us?"
This was the most Kazan had talked since That Night, almost a month ago now? Or two week? Honestly, Naruto couldn't tell. The thought filled him with rage and sprung the lock on every memory he was trying to suppress. With The Rage came Her voice; easily blocked while he was calm, less so when he was in the midst of… well, this kind of situation.
[kill them.]
[kill them and be free.]
[our power scares them and terror is a powerful weapon.]
[Rip and tear through them.]
[You can do it. I know you can.]
[You are my Seed, but soon you'll Be A gArDeN.]
Naruto shoved it all down, but still the voice persisted.
She alternated between psychotic mutterings that made no sense and soberingly coherent sweet-talk. Real and terrible, Kaguya spoke with a surety that Naruto had never felt about anything, save what got them in this mess in the first place. It was over and over again in repetition; like the bell tower of the sprawling city, but tolling and tolling and tolling. Sometimes Naruto felt like he was being pulled into another world when he actually listened to the voice.
"Shut up!"
Naruto, to his surprise, found himself screaming the words, breathing like a bellow as he usually did when it got to be too much. He tried not too, he really did, but the voice was so annoying. It kept speaking about things he wanted, but knew he shouldn't. Kazan was easy to bear with his...oddities, but the voice in his head… when it got to be too much, it was too much. Part of him thought maybe the reason he heard her more often now had something to do with the Lightning Mark, but if he believed that, then it brought scary potential problems with it… and Naruto had enough of those.
What were they going to do with us?
Kazan fell so silent Naruto couldn't hear him breathing, just the sounds outside their tiny cell; the usual screaming, banging of metal on metal, the clank of chains, and the smell. Desperation, death, and a potent cleanser that smelled of the fruit of the orange plant; a sterile clean that didn't mask centuries of blood spilt.
"I didn't mean you Kaz, I was talking to myself. Sorry."
It took a while, but Kazan eventually spoke.
"Yeah, okay."
And then Naruto was mad at himself.
Kazan wasn't like normal people. He didn't understand things and for all his size he was a child.
Then again, so was Naruto himself.
It had been a long, long time since Naruto had ever thought of himself as a child. Despite his now ten years of age, and it was important to note he was six months older than Kazan and so felt obligated to play the older brother role, he felt four-times that with the memories and horrors lurking inside to prove it and after all of his suffering at the hands of those monsters… he was here, in this shit hole of a place. A shit hole in the center of the greatest city in the world; the capital of Fire Country. That was quite a joke, given his goals. The whole place felt like cancerous fire, consuming the good parts of who he was because he couldn't find better. But that was the lot of the poor and destitute after all.
Lives like brutes, scraping small goods where possible.
Unbidden, his thoughts circled again around the carcass of his memories like a vulture; rage rose, like a wave. They should've given him a fucking medal for putting down that animal, not stuck us in HERE!
Naruto remembered it as a blur, the buzzing feeling under his skin and over his hands, the slice, the blood, the blood was everywhere, coating his hands and arms like a fancy women's opera gloves.
But they called him the animal now.
Him and Kazan.
Murderers for slicing Lionel Gato's throat and leaving him there to die.
Naruto scoffed.
What a load of bullshit. Kazan couldn't fight a strong fart if he was given a goddamn fan, let alone tell you each letter of the entire alphabet to spell m-u-r-d-e-r-e-r. Naruto clamped down on the rising tide, flexing his will; a will to ignore the bad stuff that was so strong it was borderline super-human.
Clanking came from out of their cage.
Jailors? Was this another visit from their… hosts?
It was.
Three men in similar uniforms, a reddish-beige military-style get-up with swords belted at hips, the curved falchions that typified the Fire Daimyo's capital guards, escorted two men who stood out like bad fruit in a good bunch.
The first was a young man, built like the huge monkeys he'd seen at a roadside circus he'd stopped at once… with his friends. A thick beard didn't conceal his relative youth, but it was all the more terrifying because he was sporting the fancy-shmancy sash that marked him as one of the Twelve Lord Guardians.
Lord Guardians weren't just any shinobi.
They belonged solely to the Daimyo instead of the Hidden Village, where the majority of shinobi lived and worked. Their lowest affairs were far above the notice of most people and most people knew to stay out of their way.
So why were two visiting Kazan and him now, on the eve of their execution?
It was the bald Lord Guardian that drew the most attention, though, Naruto diverting from his dark thoughts. Focused and intense, his dark eyes boring into Naruto's own twilight-colored ones. The man, hard to tell his age, was bald like an egg and wearing the robes of the Questioners, shinobi monks, under his own Lord Guardian sash. A Questioner, some type of devout religious-y crazies, and a Lord Guardian?
The idea was insane.
What could a Questioner do with the power of a shinobi?
The idea of the Questioners and Lord Guardians getting involved with him and Kazan…is that why they were here? This was the same fucker who'd brought them both in That Night.
Vaguely, he'd remembered attempting to fight someone and losing badly.
The whole situation stank though.
This was getting a little too big. Both of those groups, Questioners and Lord Guardians, only got involved in things that were matters of state. Naruto started to sweat for the first time.
The kid he killed was… well, it wasn't beyond imagining that Sukumu Gato of the largest company in the world would have the pull to drag Questioners and Lord Guardians in to kill him inside prison?
The sheer reality of the situation hit him all of a sudden. The crashing certainty of death-a public execution no less-suffocated him, fluttered like a cold wind through the weak flame of his earlier rage. Kazan and him both had been taunted by the guards with their impending execution, but he truthfully hadn't believed them.
Disbelief was replaced wholesale now by terror.
The Questioners, like Lord Guardian Chiriku, used chakra in place of knives and whips and tortured you to the edge of madness with their powers. None of it, it was said, left a mark. Naruto knew all about regular whips and knives and fire, that didn't bother him, it was the idea of losing before he had his revenge that terrified him.
More than one person he'd met, homeless or orphaned like himself, had been raging like a lunatic and proved a sad testament to the Questioners skills. You saw their victims a lot in the shelters and food pantries Chiyo and he had visited for food during those few days they'd been holed up in Haven Quarter. He'd asked a few of them their stories and from what he found, it didn't even seem to matter your guilt or innocence. Naruto hadn't even been there long at all, maybe two days at most subsisting with Chiyo before… before That Night.
So… could they really be here for him and Kazan?
Over that perverted fuck Lionel?
The Lord Guardians paused at the edge of their cell, the taller one held up a hand to the lead guard who was about to speak. Kazan was quiet, probably sensing their presence. Naruto risked a look down to see that Kazan was just curled up like a big dog on his bed.
Smart.
Naruto looked back up, mad at himself for thinking he'd let them intimidate him in the least, the very idea of acting like Kazan was infuriating, so he dragged his gaze back up to where the bald one had stopped in front of his and Kazan's cell. They were about to get his full glare. Ragged edges of the scraps of hate he dredged up glinting in his eyes. The guards were still there; looking at each of them with the kind of non-reactive blankness that characterized most of the guards in this shit hole of a prison; it was very, very clear how much they cared.
That is to say, not at all.
When two Lord Guardians commanded, you obeyed.
The lead guard cleared his throat.
"Both of you, stand up, lace your hands together, place them on top of your head, and prepare for entry."
A key turned in the lock, echoing in the long halls.
The first guard, taller than the other looked at Naruto nervously. He must've heard about the last guard who got mouthy. A moment of weakness that saw ten guards lay into him for almost ten minutes. Stun batons and heavy boots hurt.
The fear gave Naruto a thrill he tried-and failed-not to enjoy. The guard pointed at Naruto, gesturing angrily.
"You there, street rat, stay still-any move made will be construed as hostile and we'll take the necessary action. We don't need any repeats."
The Guardians stood quietly, watching.
Whispering started at the edge of his mind.
[Kill them,]
[tear them,]
[break them,]
[snap them up.]
[Show them our power, Seed.]
Kaguya was really trying him today with her crazy bullshit. Naruto couldn't help but grin anyway, long incisors showing and leading to a spike of fear in the man across the bars from him; the last Uzumaki could almost feel it in his mind.
Naruto knew, from a recent history of utilizing his appearance to achieve an effect, that the slashes of whiskers on his cheeks and his abnormally long canines gave him a particularly feral cast; most of the kids in the Gutter had stopped fighting him, save Uruchi. Torin didn't count. Most kids his age mistook him for a girl; sharp cheekbones and his long bright hair saw to that. He was a thin, dirty, long-haired mess with unusually bright violet eyes.
Their confusion about his gender led to many an educational sock to the face.
In direct defiance of the clear order, Naruto sat up on his bunk and the taller of the two took an involuntary step back. They were extremely lucky they'd taken his swords, or he'd have killed every last one of them without blinking.
"Stay where you are Prisoner, I will not ask again."
Naruto eyed him.
"That depends on where you're taking Kazan without me. Where he goes, I go. Got it?"
The man, the freakishly tall guard, sneered and his hate spiked painfully in Naruto's mind.
[He'll break easily,]
[Snicker-snicker DEAD.]
"I'd love for you to take a long drop with a short rope just for taking up space, guttersnipe, but today is the day we have one less retard in the world. The murder of a beloved son of Fire is on him...as much as I'd rather execute you instead."
Panic bloomed in his chest, constricting his lungs like an iron fist.
They were pinning this on Kazan alone?
No!
"Hey! I was the one who-"
"Oh, it's funny because we know that… no one else does. That vegetable isn't good for anything save taking up space now."
"Fuck you, I'll show you vege-
The guard snapped, eyeing the Lord Guardians. "Shut up and step back."
They'd run from this for so long, Naruto thought, when dark thoughts edged in, that Kazan would've been safe when he turned himself in. You didn't exactly turn yourself in though did you? You could've prevented this had you just talked to them. But no, you had to slice first, ask questions later.
And now… this. This is on you.
Naruto told his traitorous inner voice to shut up.
Was it possible… that they didn't think he could have done it?
He'd show them!
They were killing Kazan for something he didn't do. Naruto's memory unfolded the scene like a flower, remembering all the blood; opening the Gato heirs throat, coating his hands, his face, blood in his mouth, matting his hair, Kazan curled up sobbing and wailing like a child afterward.
They were going to kill Kazan for something Naruto had done.
That wasn't right.
"I'm not going to ask you again. I said, step back you little shit!"
Kazan was rolling back and forth, his bulk rocking their rickety bunk-bed. Raising a hand against Seiryu had broken him, Naruto thought. Kaz barely spoke, wouldn't draw, hardly ate.
Naruto leapt down in one smooth movement, putting himself in front of Kazan, close to the bars. There was no way he was letting his friend, his best friend-despite how irritating he was, you had to take the bad with the good, right?-be taken by this scum.
No way.
Naruto focused and knew the two of them had put the key into the lock of the cage, but they were hesitating. If he could scare them bad enough… maybe they'd leave?
"That was your last warning shit-stain. I only asked once as a courtesy."
Liar. You don't want to come in here.
A sparking baton appeared in one hand, Naruto knew that was painful to be hit with, the bruises and faint twitching that accompanied it were quickly healed, but Naruto's memory was long and accurate. A plan formed in his head. Calmly, Naruto stared into the guard's eyes. Willing him to understand how little fucks he had left to give.
This was Kaz's life now.
"I promise you, that if you come in here, you won't be leaving."
Regardless, this was worth Kazan's life.
Friends were the most important thing, the only good thing, in his life now; and he'd failed so many times before… his resolve to never let a friend get hurt was what got them into this mess in the first place. Naruto had promised Kazan he'd do anything for him. That he'd protect him. The blonde had failed a promise like that already; he'd left Chiyo to face that monster by herself. It didn't matter what she'd said, he'd done it. Friendship, as stupid and silly as it seemed, was the only thing he had left besides the darkness that was his life.
The two guards looked at each other, then at the Lord Guardians. The two nodded towards the cage.
No, not again.
Never again. Kaguya was there, whispering again.
[Yes, my Seed. ]
[Show them despair.]
The baton sparked to hissing life and the bars were thrown open.
The Lightning Mark on his neck activated with a snap-hiss, light coiling into the inked symbologies running doing his spine; circle, line, circle, line, circle. A glow burst through the back of his shirt. The faint luminesce cast a shadowy figure against the back wall of the cell.
Twisting like a cat in response to the first straight forward jab attack, easily predicted given the small space, he ignored the voice telling him to splatter the guards across the cell and focused hard, channeling with the limited enhancement time he received from his Fuin-mark. Agony shrouded him, but he ignored it as he had gotten fairly good at ignoring things he didn't want to deal with.
The Rage rose; the feeling he got only when violence was imminent, equal with the agony of the Mark. Naruto experienced the world slowing slightly around him as he felt the chakra inside his shattered coils siphon, painfully, like rusty bit-saws tearing into unprotected flesh painful, to the complicated Fuin-mark on his spinal column.
As he did so; the drip-drip-drip of water in the broken pipe sticking out of their ceiling suddenly took a thousand times longer to move the same distance. Time elongated, a tingling across his body erupting like pins and needles as if a hand or leg went to sleep, but inside; a rushing river feeling, like power and freedom in a bottle. Uncorked.
He had chakra coursing through him: strength and speed back, for a limited time at least.
This was a battle he intended to win.
The guards-tall one in front and eager, the short one in back very reluctant as it was written all over his hesitant stance-moving through the world as if in jest, like he had all the time in the world.
Naruto knew he lacked the strength to truly hurt them in a straight strength contest, despite his Mark, but calculation, endurance, momentum, and liberal viciousness counted for a great deal in this close-quarters kind of contest.
Or so he had found last time.
Right now he had all the time in the world to figure out his move. The plan was simple: make them back off.
He felt the familiar tingle of the stun baton intensify as his opponent lunged, wild. Aura flashing, Naruto paused in that frozen moment. Naruto stared into the eyes of his opponent and waited. He waited until the last possible second; the baton striking out seemingly in slow-motion. The stun baton came in full force in a straight jab that would've broken his sternum had it connected.
Instead, Naruto's right foot pivoted backward with his torso straightening out into a parallel line six inches from the stun baton-which gave him perfect access to the tall guards outstretched and oh so vulnerable wrist.
Never go all-in on an attack that can leave you so exposed.
Tsk. Tsk.
Pivoting, Naruto's left hand snapped out like a viper, crossing his own chest, and firmly gained a controlling hold over the baton wrist. Turning, Naruto pushed the hand up and over his head as he twisted his body and the baton in the opposite direction.
Planting his feet and syncing his hip movement with his right arm, Naruto viciously pulled his opponent off-balance, the tall guard stumbling forward further into the cell. Naruto's left hand, still clutching the baton hand, anchored him to his opponent as he summoned all his strength and speed to cannonball an open palm into the strong joint of his opponent's arm. Naruto felt the vibration, heard the agony and terrible scream accompanied by the crackling pops of an arm breaking and ligaments tearing apart.
Naruto wasn't done.
Not by a long shot. They had to back down!
Ignoring the thick ligature twisting and continuing to pop as he applied even more pressure, Naruto pulled the now-limp wrist in the opposite direction of the joint, applying torsion that brought the man's renewed screaming to cut off into a moan as he planted him face down into the floor where the ball of his bare foot crunched into the side of the man's head with a jaw-snapping crack.
Near unconscious, moaning, Naruto let him slide on the floor to where the other guard prepared to enter the cell. The shorter guard fell back with a cry as everyone stared at the tall guard whose arm was just wrong-looking now; dangling by a fleshy thread. Blood pooled on the ground as bone had ripped through the flesh leaving two shattered and open sections.
Kazan's wails were a counterpoint to the snarl of the remaining guard.
Interestingly, despite his worries, there was no sound from the Lord Guardians who simply watched.
The short guard, dumbfounded, moved very very late, coming forward now in a charge, stepping over his fallen comrade, anger like an aura around him.
"You fucking-y-you piece of-!"
Naruto snarled again like an animal.
"You should leave before I do worse!"
The man hesitated, indecision gliding across his features.
Naruto smiled to see it. Maybe I bought us some time?
But Kazan, apparently not rocking and wailing anymore, grabbed Naruto from behind in a suffocating bear-hug and left him entirely defenseless. Naruto choked out a response, trying to break the gigantic boy's strong grip. From behind, he heard shouts and booting feet breaking into a run. There would be more guards coming. Fuck!
"What the hell...are you doing? You idiot, they'll kill you-"
"Stop 'ruto! No more."
But his response was lost in the haze of electric agony that emanated from where the tip of the shorter guard's baton had slammed into his stomach in the same picture-perfect straight attack as his downed comrade.
Only this time, it connected and he felt his sternum crack under the strike. Everything else was lost in the white noise of fading unconsciousness; there was screaming, the boots-on-concrete sounds, Naruto felt the tip of those same boots slamming into his ribs and neck and head. Then more. Then more.
None of it mattered against the weight of Kazan's deliberate betrayal.
They'd scraped and scavenged all this time; escaping from Seiryu, The Gutter, hiding out in the Haven Quarter, making their grand escape and running into Seiryu, surviving sans Seiryu and then… them.
Why would he do this now? Did he want to die?
Kazan's tear-streaked face was hovering above him, big features, big like the rest of his body, contorted trying to convey… something, then it was ripped away, his wails joining the cacophony of meaty-thumps that now impacted Kazan too.
A shout rang out, drawing more guards.
The Lord Guardians were saying something but it was lost in the chaos.
Sadness?
Regret?
An apology?
Why did he stop Naruto from saving him?
From stopping this madness?
Whatever it was, Naruto knew it didn't matter because Kazan was dead now anyway.
He'd failed.
Naruto would never know why Kazan stopped him. The move cost Kaz his life, and probably Naruto's and that meant that, yet again, Naruto had failed a friend. Failed again, period. One more face now burnt into his mind.
FAILURE.
Ouran, Yojimbra, Taza, Furu, Mifune, Roran, Chiyo, and now….Kazan.
He didn't know when he added the name of his one-time rival turned friend from Iron, but it fit. They were all dead now weren't they? The Three Wolves would be the mountainous tombs of the people of Tetsu no Kuni. Naruto was now the only survivor he knew of; the last Uzumaki, the last of Iron.
More boots slammed into him, an almost soothing repetition. The whole thing was a tapestry of violence and burning sensations spreading over his whole body, he felt his arm and leg break, a rib too, on top of his sternum-but his vision was blacking out now, both the pain and his consciousness leaving him. Blessedly.
Naruto didn't even care anymore.
No more friends. The litany of dead ran through his head like a mantra.
Never again. He'd die here having tried to save a friend, but failing again.
Naruto was an orphan now; once a beloved grandson, a one-time Gutterknife, and most recently a convicted murderer, but it didn't matter what he'd done up until this point because despite all his meager skills with the art of violence, he couldn't do the one thing that he told himself he'd never let happen again after the last time inside that mountain of hell.
Kaguya was there, inside his mind, whispering sweet nothings. Softer this time, less crazy, which terrified him beyond anything else she'd ever done. Her voice was musical chimes, climbing high like she was reciting poetry.
"Ah my Seedling. Despair is so sweet. But Mother is here…"
[Fierce is the passion of the one who has everything;]
[ever fiercer for having it ripped asunder.]
[Beware that which you guard;]
[Lest you be forced to drink.]
[Regret the bitterest sip.]
Insane laughter followed the voice.
Yeah, that was more like it.
Shut the fuck up, stupid bitch!
Naruto knew nothing else as darkness closed, but he did have one last thought: if he survived this part of his life, this would be the last time he tried, the last time he stuck his neck out for a friend, and the last friend he'd ever have to mourn.
Life was easier alone.
When Naruto awoke, it was dark and Kazan was gone.
Hard to tell, but it seemed to him that they'd left him where he'd fallen into unconsciousness; in a large, spreading pool of his and Kazan's blood. All dried now, Naruto felt the crusted wounds pull and the scabs break as he levered himself up onto one arm. No discomfort beyond a dull ache and a twinge where broken bones and painful, purple and yellow bruises should be.
No swelling around the eye where they'd kicked him in the face either.
En Oyashiro had been right; more right than he even knew.
Up to this point now, a thousand almost fatal hits, blows, cuts, and agonizing incidents and Naruto was right as rain, always. It took a while, but without fail he healed things no other person should be able to recover from so easily. Months worth of healing in hours. That made it so much more frustrating that his 'miracle' body couldn't 'fix' his chakra problems.
What the hell was the difference?
Naruto never ceased to be amazed by his body, but he couldn't help but resent it now. He...he seemed to come back from things that his friends didn't survive. Always, he seemed to slip by while good people died around him. He was powerless against the tether his body gave him in this terrible life.
The idea that he healed faster than most people never occurred to him before certain… events of his life. This was yet another in a long line of strange happenings.
Darkness covered the world like a blanket outside the barred window of his cell, tiny like the rest of this shitty place. Naruto sat up, tears prickling at his eyes despite every fiber of his body turned towards not letting them fall.
Kazan was gone.
Dead.
[You failed.]
[Weak.]
[A Seed-weapon like you won't be enough to fight my brethren. ]
I know.
The voice spoke truth sometimes, the 'brethren' comment made no sense, but the other things… Naruto often didn't want to acknowledge the truth of the voice. Helpful it most definitely was not-all the words used were like spears, rather than a helping hand. Naruto ignored her like he usually did, focusing on what he could.
And there was nothing really to do.
All of it were memories he was trying to avoid; the Gutter, The Man in Red, the night he'd been crippled by his own choices, the sheer agonal experience that was regaining a smidge of his former chakra.
Memories of death and blood. Nothing happy.
Far, far too much unhappy.
So Naruto sat, in a pool of his own dried lifeblood, next to the bed Kazan had once slept in and lived in, and stared out the tiny window at the dark tapestry of lights in the night sky and tried to think about nothing. He always came back to the quiet moments, like when he'd played that simple game of Torbol with Kaz.
That had been happiness, hadn't it?
Despite the danger?
The companionship of simple laughter at an unexpected move, or a stupid one; that had been happiness. The simplest kind.
Hours, days maybe, he sat staring with hunger a constant companion.
A strange sound; a deafening sort of absolute silence, a wind that didn't exist, registered through the haze of a mind occupied with other things, and Naruto blinked, turning. There was a sound similar to gas being thrown on a fire then nothing. He'd gotten good at almost feeling if guards were on their way. This was no guard. There was something in his cell with him. Casting around in his mind for the right word, he had to settle on muted to describe whatever this thing was, this feeling.
Patter-patter. The thing paused and Naruto's eyes adjusted and saw...
"Are you okay, Naruto? This is a lot of blood."
Kaguya hissed in his ear, louder than ever before. He winced, slamming a door shut in his mind, but not before a last shout.
[THIEF!]
The Otsutsuki sounded almost… confused? Frightened? Intrigued?
"Ah, but it is dried blood. That's good. You are fine then I take it?"
The creature was hideous.
And tiny.
Almost a foot-high, the thing spoke to him from a mouth that stretched across its face, dominating the body slightly less than what sat in the center of its face. It was a shin-high creature made of what looked like nothing more than a wasp nest. There was an enormous eye in the center of it.
The eye was exactly like her's.
Naruto remembered exactly what this was and who sent it.
An enormous singular eye stood out prominently on a face, if you could call it that, that was warped and twisted. Like from a bad sculptor working off a misshapen human figure. Blood-red and black, the pupil contained a throwing-star shaped black symbol, if the throwing-star was three tear-dropped shapes connected by lines. The whites of the eye were thoroughly bloodshot or...maybe just red?
Naruto was sure his mouth was hanging open, staring at it. While he stared, the… things tail twitched, tiny legs swishing as it moved towards him. Where had it come from? He couldn't process this. Had he been hit harder than he thought?
Was he dead?
Delirious from blood loss?
The jailors playing a particularly terrible joke on him?
But no, they didn't know the shape and form of the Hokage's little… minions. The eye-creature poked him in the center of the forehead with one stubby white finger.
"Maybe you aren't well? Wake up, little Naruto."
Naruto scrambled backward as fast as he could, the bloody crust of dried blood anchoring him to the floor broke and flaked off his ratty trousers, a mini choked-back scream escaping his mouth. He did the only thing he could think to do and kicked at it from his position on the ground.
The creature gracefully dodged his half-hearted kick, floating in a backflip, coming to rest gently on a piece of the wall that was broken, jutting out like a splinter. The broken wall piece was just large enough for the creature to sit on like a chair.
"I'd rather you not do that. I'm simply making sure you're okay."
If anything, the… the thing looked amused.
"I am, after all, on my way to get you."
Naruto scowled, then frowned.
"What the hell are you doing here? Why are you talking to me, now of all times?"
He'd gotten in its face, fear forgotten in favor of the more comfortable and familiar emotions of irritation and anger. If the Hokage had been just a few hours-or was it days?-quicker, Kaz would be alive.
"Where the fuck have you been?"
Last Naruto had seen of her, she'd been in that hellhole of a trap sprung by The Seifuku-sha… if she had escaped, maybe others had?
It was enough to hope.
"All in due time, though I'm sorry I don't have enough of it to catch you up. There is more going on than you know. I'm so sorry they hurt you. That will stop."
"I don't need sympathy from a big, white turd."
It laughed at him and Naruto shivered. Weird.
"I know this must be hard. Kazan was a good friend, wasn't he?"
Naruto looked at it sharply attempting to grab the white creature.
His hand went right through it.
Frustrating.
"What the hell do you know about him?"
"Only that he is dead."
Naruto recognized Hokage's voice.
"He was… hung several hours ago for the attempted murder of Lionel Gato, son of Sukumu Gato, of Gato Corporation. A Yakuza Grand Oyabun. Very wealthy, yes? A patron of Shin Toruku's?"
Naruto blew up.
"Kazan didn't do a fucking thing! It was me and I tried to tell them that! Gato attacked Kazan! Did… things to him, sick things, and was going to kill him."
Naruto hissed, vicious and low thinking about Lionel. Lionel, he'd found out afterward, had a reputation as a skilled fighter, often taking exhibition fights in the Gutter when they visited. He'd never lost.
Naruto slaughtered him like cattle and they blamed Kazan?
Anybody with eyes could see that!
Naruto was weak, and small, and had no chance, or so most people probably believed. Whereas Kazan was large, so large he seemed the younger brother of a mountain giant. It made more sense. Maybe?
"I'm merely trying to explain the forces at work. This was not your fault."
Naruto didn't even hear her.
When the Royal Guard came for them, after Chiyo had fought off those Mist shinobi to let them escape; they'd been cornered in an alley. But they refused to listen when Naruto explained what happened. They'd laughed at him, scoffed. Naruto had killed two of them to buy time for Kaz to escape.
Then threw them both in here.
A small part of him whispered the lie.
That wasn't quite how it happened… was it? You didn't say anything at all, liar.
Naruto ignored it.
Now Kazan was dead and the real murderer was wasting away in a cell speaking to a white potato.
Naruto spoke softly, mostly to himself.
"I swore from the moment I met Kazan in that horrible selection… after I stopped Seiryu from beating on him for being… well, what he was, that I'd protect him from people who wanted to use him to hurt others. I gave myself up to Master Shin without any issues. As long as… as long as my agreement for fighting for Master Shin stood."
Naruto was quiet.
"Shin was gonna kill 'em. I couldn't… I couldn't let it happen, you know?"
The creature sat very still, listening.
Like it was holding its breath.
"Master Shin gave me his word and was true to it; had Kazan cleaning, doing odd jobs.
The blonde looked wistful.
"He loved cleaning things, the doof." Naruto was silent for a time.
"But?"
"I…"
Naruto looked up, not angry anymore. Just drained.
"Forget it. It doesn't matter anymore. Kazan is dead. And I will be soon too, regardless of what you say. You can't get here fast enough to stop them. You said it yourself; there are a lot of people that are paying to have me dead."
Both were quiet.
"I just regret never being able to kill him."
"Who?"
He stared hard at Her messenger, not having enough energy to snarl.
"You know who!"
Naruto sighed. The creature was silent.
"I turned ten recently, you know."
He shrugged. "I didn't tell Kaz or- or Lecenya. Ten and I already want someone dead so badly I can see when my eyes close at night. Over and over and over I stab him till he's nothing but meat and gristle."
Chiyo wouldn't appreciate him outing her to the Hokage of Konoha, of all places, so he used her fake name.
Naruto stared into the darkness. Drifting.
Almost forgetting there was something else there with him.
"That's normal, right? To dream of another person's death so long you can taste it, feel their blood under your fingernails, pray you'll be able to watch as they bled out?"
He stared out the tiny window into the world he'd be leaving behind, a world that was hard. Harsh and unforgiving. A world that cared little for those without money, or means, or power, or people to look out for them, or who were born like Kazan; with no guile or malice and a different kind of intelligence.
Innocent like Kazan. Dead like Kazan.
Innocence was a casualty of a world that didn't care about the little person. The world was a war machine that produced orphans and sorrow and death and broken dreams.
The creature hopped off the shelf and dusted non-existent pants off.
"I'm satisfied that you've sustained no lasting damage…"
Naruto had to laugh, it wasn't funny, but it was technically true despite how ridiculous a thought that was after what he'd been through.
"So I'll be visiting you shortly. Wait for me. Kazan's fate isn't yours. Not on my watch. I promised your mother after all."
Naruto frowned.
"My-?"
The red-eyed creature smiled; a crooked, face-deforming twitch of strange uneven muscles.
"So like your father, too. More than I expected. But far too much darkness. We'll speak soon, Naruto Uzumaki. About everything."
His world froze, so much so he didn't even process the implications of it's parting words.
Mother.
The Hokage knew his mother? And his father?
Naruto barely registered the swirling grey portal, like mist on a miniature lake, spawn behind the creature that knew his mother and his family. A sudden yearning in his heart constricted it like a giant's hand, an immense vice that made it hard to breath, hard to think, hard to care about anything at all past the idea of finding out any more tidbits about who he was, where he'd really come from; Mifune had told him some, told him some stories that he'd known of regarding the Uzumaki generally, but he hadn't personally met them nor had he known the identity of his father. Kazan was ashamedly forgotten in the wave of longing that soaked him like sunshine on a face that had forgotten its touch.
Flushed, adrenaline pumping, his focus turned to the creature who was beginning to disappear like smoke in a high breeze.
"Wait! Tell me-"
Naruto lunged for the thing in the portal and his hand closed on nothing.
The cell was empty.
Naruto was alone.
Again.
/Dhumrais Prison
/Hoseki City
/The Land of Fire
Mikoto Uchiha
Normally, when the shadowy leader of a Hidden Village, the sitting Kage, made a visit to the political seat of government of their nation, hundreds of thousands of people would line the streets of the main broadway, families setting up blankets and chairs and tents days-sometimes weeks-beforehand in order to catch even a glimpse of the legendary shinobi.
A single glimpse of the elusive Kage was something most folks would go their entire lives without.
Hidden Villages existed in concert with the governmental capital in every country on the continent; from Mist Country, to Lightning Country, to Rock, to Wind, and all the little barnacle countries clinging to the hull of the great ship that was the Great Elemental Five. Fire Country was no different, though in that there was an uneasy balance of power between the Kage and the Daimyo, the actual political leader of the country.
Security would be extremely tight, plans made months ahead of time against the possibility of foreign shinobi sabotage or plots from within. Musical bands and performances of Noh, mask-based theatre, would accompany those shinobi ordered to walk in the parade-a show of strength and might to lift the confidence of the people in their Daimyo and his strong ninja. They would watch as the Kage pledged undying loyalty in public to the Daimyo. That subservience was a necessary song and dance that played out on official state visits. The world would be a wasteland of tyrants if they did not bow to an authority other than their own.
The First Shinobi World War had been fought over just such a thing.
Despite the elaborate drama of the showy oath-giving by Daimyo and Kage both, Fire Country was one of the only countries that gave equal power to the military Kage as to the civilian Daimyo. Power, like political rule, tended to stay in the hands of those who had it; but Fire believed this was the best balance that could be had and their economic prosperity bore that out.
Shinobi had a strength that dwarfed any modern political notion of power; that of armies, or wealth, or superior pedigree. Chakra eliminated the notion that civilians were equal in any way to any competent shinobi, a Kage becoming more a god than a flesh and blood ruler. The Warring States era proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Millions had died.
It wasn't something anyone wanted to repeat.
Fragments of history declared it a lawless wasteland of perversity and horror with outlying pockets of honor. The Samurai for one… and Hashirama Senju, the founder of the current political system.
This display of loyalty was simply one more visible binding of the Kage to the Daimyo for the sake of stability and peace: Fire Country, the Fire Daimyo, and the Fire Capital as an entity took that to a whole new level. A lot of folks thought it was the reason Fire Country's economy was so strong, that cooperation between Kage and Daimyo. A lesser-known fact was that they were sitting on the largest chakra metal mine in the entire world.
The Lord Guardians ensured it stayed in the Daimyo's hands.
Genjo Fumakama, the Daimyo of Fire Country, worked hand-in-hand with the Hokage to ensure both of them, and by extension their whole country, prospered.
Other countries didn't work like that.
It was a delicate balance.
The Hokage, as the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi and her predecessor had told her in one of their many late-night talks, must need bend to that balance. They'd had many conversations like that in the years since he'd stepped down and started to enjoy his retirement, chasing after his grandson. That is, until Orochimaru and Danzo had murdered him. That thought brought a wave of pain she didn't care to dwell on; anger being a sword that cut both ways.
Of that, she had learned plenty.
She still missed Hiruzen deeply.
Mikoto did her best every day to live up to his example, despite him not being the perfect paragon of virtue most younger shinobi thought him.
Today, despite preferring to do this kind of thing at night and away from curious eyes, Mikoto was about to openly break with the Daimyo, something most would consider highly-unusual.
The strength of their bond should not be tested in such volatile times.
The pressure from the Daimyo's wealthy backers made this something that simply couldn't be helped. Freeing and indenturing an accomplice to a high-profile murder from jail without proper authorization from the Daimyo would have some… unpleasant political repercussions, but she was sure she'd be able to talk Genjo around when he found out. Especially given who exactly this boy was; she'd recognize her best friend's eyes in him and Him in everything else.
So yes, this was necessary.
The Daimyo would be furious.
By then, though, this action would enter the realm of 'forgiveness' rather than 'permission.'
She'd always liked the former rather than the latter.
Her daughter and eldest son, and Sasuke, from what she remembered of him, usually found that to be infuriating, but they were both possessed of a strong streak of stubbornness akin to stones worked into the ground.
No matter how much you pried, they just wouldn't budge.
Here, time was of the essence and she couldn't be sure how long any of them really had in the grand scheme of things. So, here she was, her official red and white ceremonial cotton robes swishing against her legs and the fast pace she set, nearly entirely outpacing the guards in Dhumrais Prison that had absolutely no idea how to handle her. None would ever presume to stop her, however, and that suited her quite well. They were all caught up in her wake like detritus.
Except for Lord Guardian Chiriku, the person currently attempting to fill the barren concrete hallway in an effort to bar her way; his presence was stolid, his chakra feeling calm as mountain bedrock. He was blocking her passage, yet over his shoulder she noticed another figure who really did fill the hallway, First Lord Guardian Kazuma Hidatachi, the Daimyo's Right-hand and first among the Guardian caste.
Built like a gorilla, Kazuma loomed over Chiriku and Mikoto both.
It was Chiriku who spoke first.
"Greetings Lady Mikoto. It has been far too long."
Sixth Hokage Mikoto Uchiha spoke, smiling with the gentle curve of the lips she was well-known for, dusk-colored hair framing a face many artists would still kill to paint, even after all the years she'd lived.
"Such a pleasure to find you here already, Lord Chiriku. I very much appreciate your foresight and your company. You've seen the boy, then?"
He nodded, lines in his forehead appearing while he thought. Chiriku appeared to be a man deeply troubled by something. Mikoto found it best not to guess about these things.
"You are troubled with what you've found?"
He nodded.
Kazuma leaned against the wall behind Chiriku who still planted like a boulder in the middle of the hallway, separating her from her quarry. Mikoto spoke behind her, already forgetting about the guards and focusing on the task.
"Leave us."
There was some mild protest from the lead guard, a stolid man indistinguishable from any other guard. She eyed him quickly, a flash and hint of red in her black eyes had his jaw closing and bowing and retreating back down the hallway. Chiriku, judging by his look when she turned back, didn't approve of the heavy-handedness.
Mikoto found she didn't care.
"Tell me."
"Naruto, if that is his real name, is quite skilled; a quiet, cunning, and vicious killer. Fast, calculating, and irredeemable. His soul is black."
Chiriku gathered steam with each word; word after word a condemnation. The whole charade was ironic and a toxic representation of the hypocrisy amongst shinobi; though Chiriku only barely qualified.
"I take it you disapprove?"
"I disapprove of allowing such a half-trained menace access to the full breadth of shinobi training. We know what happens with those types."
Who cared whether this child killed somebody? Reports of Sukumu's son's demise were inconclusive anyway; Hayate's reports indicated that one Tanaka the Lion made it to the body in time to prevent expiration via insanguination. An interesting fact in and of itself.
The hypocrisy astounded her and proved only one thing. That Naruto was more than qualified to become an assassin and soldier in the employ of her Hidden Village. That he had access to chakra was without question, given his heritage and the...sheer impossibility of killing the, and she had a hard time even saying this without scoffing, 'hero' Lionel Gato, by a boy barely into his majority without chakra.
After all, from what she'd heard the man was almost six and a half-feet tall and built like a warrior. To then claim a boy of nine slit his throat so deeply that all that held it was a strip of flesh and bone? The amount of resources, quickly mustered, it must have taken to save a life so far gone must have been staggering. To cause such a ruckus and ruffled an entire nation's worth of feathers indicated a strong case for admittance into their Academy.
They made some good shinobi, but very few save the truly exceptional started at nine. Well, ten now, Mikoto thought, remembering Naruto's words.
Chirku would not let it go. "He was most definitely responsible for the attempted murder of Lionel Gato. I questioned the idiot-boy, Kazan, before he was hung. Despite his size, he wouldn't have hurt a fly. The boy, Naruto, slayed his guards and slit the Gato heir's throat and set upon him like a wild beast."
"Attempted murder, thank you. The boy is not quite dead yet, if at all. I hardly think a wild beast would have been able to get the best of Lionel Gato, don't you?"
Kazuma snorted in the background.
Mikoto shifted her gaze to match his.
"You find something amusing Hidatachi?"
The head Lord Guardian glared at her, deference to her position be damned apparently. She had left off the honorific title and emphasized his lack of age, but in all fairness he was being idiotic. A beard didn't make one an adult.
He was the latest in a line of people who didn't want her to succeed and actively wished her failure. The why was long. But then, none of them really understood the stakes or why it had to be her wearing the hat of Hokage.
"I find it abhorrent that you are seeking to make use of a damaged child. A child most would say is beyond hope. Better death than to create another monster like Orochimaru or...perhaps, Itachi?"
The spike of pain every time she heard his name used like that did the same damage now as it did all those years ago. But she let nothing show. Men would seize any excuse to label a woman soft and she was not in the habit of giving an inch.
"I am not 'most,' Kazuma." The Hidatachi's eyes flashed.
"Let us end this here and now. Put the boy out before he goes feral."
"You, Kazuma Hidatachi, aren't in a position to judge the length of your own nose let alone the future potential of a boy you cannot possibly understand."
Mikoto brushed past Chiriku, a subtle application of force off-balancing the leader of the Lord Guardians and opening the space for her to slink through. She approached the other Guardian, one slow walk at a time, robes swishing. She pushed her hat up, baring her face. To his credit he didn't flinch when he met her eyes. There was no Sharingan in them now, but the activation was but a fleeting thought and he'd be trapped in her world against his will. Hidatachi's were known for being bull-headed and susceptible to illusion techniques. His father, the previous First Lord Guardian until his death a short time ago, was not.
This boy was not his father. Not by a long shot.
Kazuma was either brave or stupid or so convinced he could overcome her in a one-on-one setting that he was willing to risk the bold eye contact and antagonistic language . The boy would be rudely disabused of those notions in any of those cases, but he didn't know that.
"Did you notice that the friend-Kazan was it?-was exhibiting a cognitive disability? Hm? A rather severe slowing of thought? Moreover, and key to our case here-he showed incredible pacifistic tendences. He couldn't fight, couldn't defend himself, and cried the majority of the time I spoke with him. Emotional dysregulation combined with a lack of reasoning ability means that Naruto was defending a true innocent, regardless of his methods wherein. Your lack of concern for any of the children involved in this disgusts me."
"Lady Hokage, how did you get in to interview-"
But Mikoto spoke over him; evenly, flatly, while raising the pressure of her chakra, unveiling pure strength that pressed on his senses. She could see Chiriku and Kazuma visibly reacting, a tightening of the skin around the eyes. Subtle, but obvious to her eyes. The mark of difference between a Kage-class shinobi and mere Jonin.
"But one thing was very clear to me. Your 'vicious killer' was simply protecting his friend. That is all I ask of my shinobi, to have such moral fiber as to pick between two difficult choices. An admirable and noteworthy display of the Will of Fire, especially in one as young as he. Itachi," and here she drew out her son's name. "Did what he must to survive. Do not speak of things you don't understand."
Kazuma seemed to regret speaking up and flinched when she mentioned the Will of Fire, the guiding philosophy of all shinobi in the employ of their Hidden Village.
"I didn't-"
Mikoto continued talking.
"So," she ran a finger across the bars of the cell they'd stopped in front of, empty now. "Naruto had quite enough and didn't care that this youngest Gato was an exceptional fighter with a retinue of guards."
Mikoto pinned Kazuma with a glare. "He acted according to the Will of Fire, protected his friend, and eliminated a threat. That is all I, or you First Lord Guardian Kazuma Hidatachi, need to know."
Chiriku and Kazuma were quiet, simply staring at her with a mix of feelings plain on their faces. She didn't know what they could be thinking, but again couldn't find it in herself to care, not after the last few harrowing years she'd spent trying to pry the boy out of Mifune's hands and back in Konohagakure. Stubborn man.
On top of that, she had to contend with other nonsense like the Succession, Danzo and that ROOT business, Orochimaru and Hidden Sound, or even these disturbing-if true-rumors of war in the island of Pear and further off, or the civil wars in Ame and Mist; despite the later two having conclusive endings. She had more than enough on her plate without this pettiness from elected officials.
Naruto was a tool and she meant to use him.
"Aid me or begone, both of you."
Chiriku simply bowed, shallowly, turned and beckoned both the Hokage and his fellow Lord Guardian to follow.
The prison itself, surrounding and pressing on her from all sides, each cell a tiny box set inside a larger box, was made up of the bedrock of the old city. The capital city of Fire Country, the whole of which was positioned in the center of the continent, surrounded on all sides by enemies and allies, some of which it was difficult to tell were such.
Dhumrais Prison, named for the type of rock the old capital was carved from, had burned in the Third Shinobi World War, chakra-fire ripping through the mostly wooden structures. Solid architecture of carved bedrock and poured concrete had taken over and sprung up like the exoskeleton of a sea creature around the old city of which the only original structures were the Daimyo's palace and this prison. Outside of Hozuki Castle, this was the most secure holding facility in Fire country.
Unfortunately, it made things difficult to sneak in and out.
Which was, of course, the point.
She was quite possibly one of only a handful of people able to enter and leave at will. It was far from allowed from the majority of people.
The architecture made for bleak surroundings unless you'd received a cell overlooking the main thoroughfare which, it seems, Naruto did as his cell was the last in a long line of similarly occupied cells. The smell didn't measure up in the remotest way to a fresh battlefield, but it did have the heavy scent of desperate, unwashed bodies. Mikoto didn't consider herself delicate, but vastly preferred clean air, as most do. Sooner begun, soonest finished.
Best to get this done and over with.
Naruto lay where her creature had left him, sprawled in a dried pool of life-blood. Hard to believe the Warden of Dhumrais Prison gave any amount of thought for the lives of those in his care. Seeing him with her own eyes, as opposed to those of her Onibi, hit her like a hammer. He… looked so small. Fragile. So unlike Kushina and Minato. What a contrast to the picture Kazuma and Chiriku painted for her of a blood-thirsty killer.
Had either of his parents ever looked so vulnerable?
Mikoto had been looking for him for so long after the Kage Summit Massacre, as the people were calling it now, and finally a whisper had come to her from her hound that the boy was most definitely in Hoseki City. Hayate had never failed her, but as always seemed the case nowadays, she was a step behind events.
Not now though.
Kushina and Minato's legacy to the world was Konoha's again, at long last.
Her heart broke for what he must've gone through.
Kushina, Minato… I'm so sorry.
There was time for all that later.
"Naruto. Wake up, it is time for us to leave."
The boy barely stirred, but she cocked her head, 'listening' to his chakra wildly traipsing around his body like a herd of Plain buffalo and knew he was awake and aware. She frowned. That wasn't normal behavior for chakra. Tsunade would need to look at him when they arrived back at Konoha. Any irregularities would come out during his physicals.
Hard as it was to push aside, any irregularities could be dealt with back home and that is what she would focus on. The rhythm of his chakra, despite circulating chaotically through his body, signaled that he was awake, aware, and processing everything. It was what any good shinobi did when backed against a wall. Literally. The action made her smile.
Naruto would go far with instincts like these.
The slight child sat up, levering himself to his feet, one hand against the wall. Naruto stared at her from underneath a sheet of dirty-brown bangs, some gold visible here and there still visible amongst the absolute rats nest of a head of hair. Brilliant violet eyes, glittering with something indecipherable, glared up at her. He definitely recognized her.
"What the fuck took you so long?"
Mikoto smiled, as gently as she could and ignored the fidgeting of the youngest Hidatachi. Chiriku was steady as ever.
"I came as quickly as I could."
Both hands, long nails like claws, whitened as he grasped the bars.
"How about you tell me what the hell you want with me first? How do you know my parents?"
Mikoto eyed Chiriku and Kazuma who were far too interested in their conversation. Turning back from the Guardians, she sighed, speaking.
"I'd like to offer you a place in the Konohagakure Shinobi Military Academy as a student. I want you to come and work for me."
Mikoto's dark eyes glittered.
"I have a feeling you can go far as a shinobi. Don't you?"
His eyes, big already, widened further showing flecks of a thousand different colors in the violet of the iris. But they hardened from wonder to suspicion almost instantly, Mikoto could've sworn he whispered something to himself, but she lost it. All three of the shinobi saw that in the way his shoulders tensed and everything shifted.
"No."
It was said with a flat finality that Mikoto knew wasn't feigned. She wondered why and asked as much. Mikoto knew the other two were extremely curious as well; waiting with baited breath, as she did, for the answer. None was forthcoming. But they continued to wait.
Kazuma leaned in to her.
"That child… he looks identical to the Yellow Flash. Is that why you're here?"
Dangerous. Too dangerous. Why had he said that?
I'll have to make it look like an accident now. Chiriku will be wary.
Mikoto murmured, "You don't want to go down that road."
Kazuma frowned, "But-'
"I've worked too hard for a loose lip to sink this ship. Do not test me."
Naruto snarled suddenly, words pouring from his lips.
Not a patient one then.
"I spent a few idle hours talking with a friend I made. Yakuza type. He spent his days handing out supplies to people who needed it, protecting the Food Banks set up by the Oyabuns. Those 'thugs' are doing more for the people of Hoseki than you guys, or the Daimyo, are. You sit in your pretty houses and your Hidden villages and don't give two shits about regular people. Why is that?"
Interesting.
Her investigation never found ties like that.
He learned that in just a few hours?
Naruto pointed a finger at the two Lord Guardians.
"I want nothin' to do with people who support a Daimyo that doesn't do any good for his people. There are people in this prison barely older than I am who sunk into the opium dream because their lives just don't matter to anyone."
Sounding ten times his age, he barked a weary laugh.
"Guess who is surprised they end up here? Not me."
Chiriku shifted. Mikoto stifled her surprise. Did she detect...guilt? Did Chiriku know all of this? The man was nothing if not a bastion of virtue; could this boy be striking a chord?
"My 'friend's' daughter Surya was sold to old men as a toy because he couldn't pay his debts. You think all these things are happening because the Daimyo cares too much or not enough?"
Kazuma and Chiriku both shifted.
Chiriku spoke quietly, but it was razor-edged. Yes, he was guilty.
"Have a care child with what you speak of, I will not abet slander or treasonous speak. Hokage or no."
Naruto ignored Chiriku. So did Mikoto.
"People here can barely scrape for bread, I've been here for like three days and saw how messed up that was. Those people? They end up doing horrible things to survive and… I get that. What I don't get is having all your powers and whatnot and doing nothing to help."
She watched his fists clench and unclench, fascinated.
Those calloused child's hands committed some truly amazing kills. Gato's spawn was one thing, but when the boy had confronted the Gutterknife Seiryu in the streets and killed him? That man was Genin-level at least.
Not only was Sukumu Gato baying for Naruto's blood, but so was half the city once they found out that Seiryu had been killed in an alleyway by some random child.
As Gato and Shin Toruku were members, and ranking members at that, of the Daimyo's court this issue ballooned until the situation burst. They talked of a vicious little serial killer raised in the Gutter. Gato, all broken up as he sat and waited for the diagnosis of his child, milked that image of a grieving father to its fullest. Genjo was a father himself and it tore at the heart-strings of those around him. All Gato spoke about was the savage animal locked away in the dungeon, a boy Shin bought and subsequently provided freedom and training to that turned against them both. What a tragedy. What a scandal.
Genjo felt the least he could do was execute the savage that mauled his friend's little boy. To wit, there was already one casualty of Gato's warpath: Kazan.
This whole venture been risky, with a thousand things that could've gone wrong, yet, expectedly she was here attempting to convince what was supposed to be a 'vicious' and 'blackhearted' killer to come kill for her and instead, he resists her on the grounds that by not using her power to institute real change, she was complicit. He was right. However, he didn't know what plans were already in motion. The corruption of the system was hard to root out and systemic and required a whole new foundation.
That was dangerously close to brushing against her true movements.
Chiriku had been silent this whole time, but quietly pushed off the wall he'd been leaning against and left, just as silently. Mikoto thought the man was angry. That was odd, for a former member of the Questioners. Mikoto knew that the Shinobi Monks, Questioners as the common folk called them, were mostly frothing lunatics preaching the Word of the Sage and his moral virtues, but Chiriku was anything but a lunatic. He had a reputation as morally upright to a fault; if the man so much as passed wind in the wrong place, he humbly apologized and wrote a letter of penance.
Too much moral uprightness for her taste.
A quiet monk was not her concern here. Whether Naruto made him uncomfortable or not was irrelevant. She refocused on the boy in front of her, tapping into the true passion waiting in her heart, just a little while listening to him as he concluded his rant.
"Become a shinobi? You can do things other people can't and you don't do anything about the real problems. No thank you. Even if I wanted to, I'm no pawn."
"Naruto-"
Hurt flashed across his face. "Why do you talk to me like you know me? Your thing, your creature said you knew my parents."
He grabbed the bars, almost trying to stick his face through them, but thought better and turned away.
"Is that true?"
She nodded, though he was turned away from her. Mikoto had the sensation that he could feel it.
He sat up, facing them again.
"Then tell me who I am, show me some proof, really, and maybe I'll join your little club."
Bold of him. She knew the most desperate desire of his heart. Mikoto had heard it through the ears of her Onibi. The Man in Red, The Conqueror. Training at the KSMA would be a sure-fire way to gain the skills needed to potentially challenge that frightful being and he was gambling with that chance.
Yet… The Hokage surmised these questions had been eating him for the better part of his life. It was a carrot that was too juicy to ignore, too important. Here she was, dangling it just the same. He was headstrong, like his mother, and far smarter than she was comfortable with, like his father. That man… he had a reputation for a level of genius few if any shinobi had ever before or since matched. This was his son trying not to appear too eager.
Mikoto saw right through it.
She chose her words carefully.
"I knew your parents very well. We were friends. I know they were just like you-that they cared about people and wanted to make the world a better place, but they also understood that sometimes that meant doing things you didn't necessarily like to serve a greater purpose. I know that you were just protecting Kazan, I know that you felt like you had few options and you picked the one you could live with."
Naruto looked away.
"You or them."
Kazuma looked far too interested in this conversation for her liking. Small wonder.
"Leave us."
Kazuma looked startled.
Lord Guardians are responsible for monitoring chakra-use, they are responsible for everything that involves shinobi in the capital city, and directly protected the Daimyo and his family as well as other visiting dignitaries. They had absolute authority in the city. She imagined they were very rarely spoken to like a servant.
But she was the Hokage. And that carried more weight than he could reasonably fight.
Mikoto simply stared at him while his mouth worked soundlessly. He finally bowed, turning and leaving with large strides. He didn't look back.
Naruto was staring at her intensely.
Mikoto strode to the front of the cell and a conglomeration of black lines appeared on her palm, facing upward. A puff of smoke later and a set of what looked like paintbrushes and a small inkwell were on there. The Hokage moved swiftly, drawing a different iteration of those same black lines. Naruto's eyes, curious and for the first time not remotely hostile, were glued to the spectacle.
Energy flashed through the lines; Naruto had been watching and saw the flash on the lines of ink. Suddenly, the sound around them-the outside marketplace, the screaming of prisoners inside-was gone. A bubble of air pressure pressed on them from all sides.
"So we aren't overheard."
She looked around still, as if considering, then she seemed to give up all propriety and sat cross-legged in front of his bars. The Hokage needed to make her case, this was dragging on too long already. A little dignity that no one but him could see her squander was a small price to pay for a son of Fire to come home.
"As you may know, the Uchiha were once a proud clan. A founding clan right alongside the Senju. Power breeds distrust however, in enemies as much as allies. This is true to this day."
Mikoto was quiet, almost staring through him.
"Both my sons and my daughter bear scars that are only there because I refused to embrace the role my power demanded of me. Power I didn't ask for, but received anyway. The Uchiha were a grand house now divided because of a choice I made, a choice that my power let me make."
She took a breath and continued.
"My family suffered simply because of my refusal to act swiftly and decisively. I promised myself that that would never happen again. So I delved into the depths of what my power bought me and met my cute Onibi's, among other things. I believe you have only scratched the surface of what you are capable of."
The Sharingan spun to life in her eyes; coal-black eyes bleeding to a shuriken-shaped vermillion, Mikoto flooded more chakra into a technique. Internally, she spun the familiar framework of her Onibi-jutsu and three cyclopean spies hopped out of a dark grey portal swirling above her palm. They quickly ran, tiny legs pumping, to take up positions along the hallway entrance.
She stared right at Naruto now, intense.
"I would burn the whole world for my children, Naruto, of which Konoha is now something like. You are a part of that. What would you do for the people you care about? Would you let someone you didn't know die for a greater purpose? To save the lives of not one friend, but five? Or six? Or a whole village? What would you do, Naruto? You, who sit in judgment of Daimyo and Hokage both; who is so wise to the ways of the world?"
He stubbornly glared at the floor.
This part was...delicate.
"Naruto, I happen to know that Lionel Gato isn't dead."
The boy gaped at her.
"What? No, he is definitely dead. I cut his throat myself, I saw him choke on his own blood. I saw him die. You're lying!"
"I'm not."
She shook her head.
"Why would I lie? What gain?"
The Hokage pushed.
"I saw the iryounin tending him in the Daimyo's hospital, saw what you did to his throat. Shin Toruku paid a great deal of money for chakra-healing and they still aren't sure if he'll make it. Lionel is heir to the largest and most powerful corporation in history, made his father proud in exhibition fights and in business dealings. Many, many people wish to see you dead."
Idly, she played with the hem of her robes, watching his reaction in the corner of her eye.
"He got Kazan. He'll get you too."
Mikoto paused.
"Unless you come home."
She reached in and put her hand on his arm. Warmth like a furnace burned underneath his skin. If she wasn't so sure, she'd have thought he had a fever.
"Become a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf. Put your skills to the good of humanity and yes, I think we both know you belong there. Among others like yourself. A boy of ten doesn't ever win against a behemoth like Seiryu. Especially without a weapon."
She leaned closer.
"Unless they had a weapon… had some edge that Seiryu couldn't match. Hm? Maybe… a chakra technique?"
Naruto looked away, suddenly guilty looking.
To her, it looked like he was wrestling with himself. He was muttering. That wasn't the talking of someone mulling something over. It looked like he was talking to someone. Worrisome. Later.
Mikoto stepped carefully.
"Kazan didn't have to die for nothing, not if you can use your skills to prevent any more Kazan's from meeting an unjust fate. Shinobi are people, for better or worse, but with abilities that give them influence and power that goes beyond normal people. You have a gift. An immense power waiting inside you. It is up to you to decide how best to use it...or waste it. I know your mother and father and I will tell you about them at length if you come with me and become one of my shinobi."
She paused, watching his reactions with each word.
She could tell he was considering it. To her, there was never any doubt whether he'd be a shinobi of the Leaf. But choice was important, even if it was just an illusion.
"They were also the kind of people who wouldn't have stood by and let Kazan get hurt, but the difference is that they had power enough to stop the injustice without anyone dying. They would want you to become a shinobi and then decide for yourself what the world needed."
Mikoto turned half away for the final nail.
"After all, how are you supposed to really make a difference here; untrained, accused of murder, helpless, and ultimately dead in some nameless shit hole of a prison?"
She shrugged. He looked away and pushed a finger through the half-dried blood on his floor.
"You have hidden depths you've yet to explore. But power will demand a role you might not be ready for unless you let me help you. Not to mention, I have resources that will let you avenge Mifune, to become what you need to be to challenge The Seifuku-sha."
The boy was quiet; she knew she had him with that one.
Mikoto watched his hands spasming as if closing over someone's throat.
"I was able to work it out with the Warden to commute your sentence to my employ as a shinobi, assuming you agree. After all, Lionel isn't quite dead yet, if at all, and you know…"
He turned, eyeing her with an eyebrow raised.
"I'm the Hokage. Totally legal."
Mikoto turned fully and faced him with a small smile, her eyes crinkling.
"So what do you say?"
/Dhumrais Prison
/Hoseki City
/The Land of Fire
Mikoto Uchiha
"This is completely illegal! The Daimyo will hear about this!"
The lead guard, a man with an ornate eyepatch studded with gems, glowered at the Hokage in the discharge area of the prison. Like most of the prison, it was a simple geometric shape with an open area interspersed with tables, two chairs apiece, with one on either side.
Discharge Interviews were standard practice, routine, and ensured that the former prisoners understood there was no second chance. If you made it through prison once, you would not be offered a second chance to reform.
"Well, you won't be able to stop me from leaving. So what does it matter?"
That brought the guard up short.
"What is your name, sir?"
Uncertain, the man with the eyepatch folded his arms, nodding to the guards to bring Naruto.
"Kenichi. Takeda Kenichi, Assistant to the Warden."
Mikoto swished close, hands folded in her robes.
"Kenichi, my thanks for the swiftness. We will trouble you no longer."
Mikoto crooked a finger at a chunin, a mid-level shinobi, who accompanied her and the man nodded, disappearing in a Shunshin, a high-speed chakra technique.
The whole affair thus far had been designed to go under the Daimyo's nose. Truth be told, her taking someone like this was highly-irregular and the Lord Guardians and the Warden would report her. The money she'd given Raido Namiashi, a powerful Jonin in disguise as a lowly chunin, would help in terms of greasing the wheels, but it wasn't enough to prevent every eventuality. Mikoto liked to prepare for things regardless of the likelihood of positive outcomes.
Those 'other outcomes' is what Hayate was doing this very moment.
Delicate as this was, it had the potential to go very, very wrong if they knew exactly who and what they had languishing in their cells.
The low-level guard Takeda had sent to fetch the boy returned quickly with a thoroughly-manacled Naruto, still dressed in the same blood-stained jumpsuit he'd spoken with her in. He was, for once, relatively sedate and she thanked him mentally for it as belligerence would serve nobody. She wanted this to be smooth and for them to be gone as soon as possible. The return trip to Konoha for her would be instantaneous, but Naruto had two weeks of relatively rough traveling ahead of him.
The Hokage watched Naruto's head swivel and fix on an extremely tall guard with a swollen and bandaged face. Defined really by how bland he was aside from his height, the guard seemed to have gotten up prematurely to be here for this, standing against the wall cradling an arm in a sling and glaring hatred shining out like a lighthouse beacon. The man spat a glob of reddish-brown fluid when he saw the blonde looking at him.
Mikoto prayed Naruto wouldn't react.
He didn't react until a fat man next to him spoke-quietly, pitched low enough to avoid the attention of his superiors, but Mikoto heard him-and so did Naruto.
"Gutter trash. You should've died along with your idiot friend. Heh, that was a treat to watch."
The guard made a grave mistake, pretending to shake like he was on a rope. His friends laughed. The beat-up guard coughed in pain and laughter. Rage flashed across Kushina's son's face and she suddenly understood one part of Chiriku's reservations. To her, there was a slight glow that erupted around him as the boy moved from a stand-still into enraged motion. For everyone else, they might as well have been standing in quick-drying paving stone. The room was silent; the laughter cut off. Luckily Naruto was not nearly fast enough to be truly difficult.
The Hokage reached him before everyone else did more than blink.
She'd really been waiting for it, so with one hand on the back of his neck, hugging him to her side, the other clamped on his outstretched hand, fingers quivering a hair's breadth away from plunging into the fat man's esophagus, she pulled him against her tighter, guiding him away from the guard and smiled for all she was worth. It had taken a mere second, but it was enough for Kenichi, and the almost-dead guard, to be glad to see the back of them.
Mikoto whispered to the boy vibrating like a taut musical string against her, half in her thick outer robe, half out, "Still yourself and just be glad I don't knock you out."
He snarled. "They have no right to talk about him that way, no right!"
"Don't make this harder than it needs to be. You aren't that important. Smile, too. Remember… you're mine now. The past is for the dead. The future is for the living. Don't forget it."
The whole incident had taken a few seconds at most, but she had a firmly planted image of a very small glittering red chakra something clutched between his fingers before it disappeared like glacial melt. Chakra-technique it most certainly was, but unlike anything she'd seen before.
The boy slumped against her side, deflated.
Mikoto led him to the waiting hands of Raido Namiashi. This had been more exhausting then she'd thought it would be. But one of the most important pieces for the coming conflict was in her grasp at long last. Proper love and care was, along with time, a luxury they didn't have.
That would have to take care of itself.
Death threats and strange chakra techniques aside, for now, he was in their care and that would have to be enough.
/Highway 14 from Hoseki City to Konoha
/The Village Hidden in the Leaves
/The Land of Fire
Naruto
Four hours Naruto waited in a locked hotel room.
Four hours and not one person, save some random housekeeper, had come in or bothered to tell him what the hell was going on. Then, just when he was about to do something drastic, because you can't just doodle with Fuinjutsu forever without going insane, his 'attendant' showed up, told him to pack his shit up, and they ended up in a crowded bus terminal.
That 'attendant' chosen to watch over him after his quote-unquote 'really important business,' the lame excuse he used for why he'd left Naruto by himself in this hotel room, was a rather rugged and dour-faced shinobi named Raido Namiashi.
"What the fuck happened to your face?" Let it not be said Naruto Uzumaki was not straight-forward.
Raido did nothing, barely even acted like he heard the youth, just kept packing his things.
The man also happened to have a truly disfiguring scar on his face and Naruto couldn't understand why he himself was having trouble resisting the urge to continually point it out. Oh yeah, because the guy was a real asshole and Naruto had been left alone in a hotel room for four hours.
Raido said nothing.
Just like he'd said nothing every other time Naruto had asked other, less rude questions about how long things would take. 'They'd take however long they take.
Practice some patience, kid.' Tch.
The two of them were now standing outside the terminal center waiting for their Autobus to show up; the ticket showing Bus 85 to Highway 14, Hoseki City to Konoha.
Hidden Villages aren't very hidden anymore, are they?
There wasn't much stuffed into the sling-sack on his back; his notebook full of Fuin, his Etcher, a few of the cleaning supply pouches Kazan had left over, and some art supplies. All of it was taken from the prison locker. Naruto had thanked Raido reluctantly, very reluctantly, when the man had handed it all back to him.
Every time he looked at any of Kaz's art Naruto knew again what it felt like to be stabbed. But it was Kazan himself, his last actions, that turned over in his mind, weighing him down like a millstone tied around his neck.
Betrayal. That was what it was, plain and simple. Right?
No matter how he turned the thoughts around, examining them from different angles, he simply couldn't understand what it was that idiot thought he was doing. Kaz didn't save himself, didn't save Naruto, didn't make a lick of difference.
What had been the point?
A mass of people came from both directions, a brightly colored stream that fed both ways leaving Naruto and Raido in a small open spot, a rock splitting a thick river of humanity. Thousands of people crowded Hoseki Cities main hub, a glass-covered behemoth of a cathedral to the amazing progress Fuin-crafting had given modernity. No more wagons, no more slow walking, none of that.
The world was advancing.
Bells tolled, a disembodied voice telling people which bus arrivals were about to depart, which about to arrive. Despite his minders' presence, Naruto felt alone.
Alone again.
"Excuse me young man, would you mind picking up my cane?"
Naruto turned at the familiar voice. There was a woman there, several years too young to be Chiyo. His heart felt and it was something of a surprise to realize how much he missed her. A cane, simple wood with a curved handle, had clearly been knocked to the ground by someone in the press of the crowd.
Assholes. The woman was breathing heavily, leaning against the dark wood of the terminal shelter and Naruto hurried to her, giving a hand. Under Raido's watchful eye, Naruto picked up the cane and handed it back as she steadied herself. Her face was so covered in wrinkles he almost couldn't tell she was smiling ear-to-ear. His face heated. Being thanked for something basic was embarrassing.
"Oh thank you so much, dear. I'm so cheered whenever I meet a young man with such manners. Dreadful how often I seem to find ill-tempered, cheeky lout's that bite off more than they can chew."
It took everything in him not to make a face that would give away how mystified he was. "Um."
Are all old people just straight-up weird? What did she even mean by that?
That just made him miss Chiyo more and wonder whether she even made it out of that fight with the Mist shinobi.
Raido nudged him, none too subtly.
Right. "Uh, thanks and um, you're welcome?"
"Here, have a candy for the road!"
"No, that's really not necess-"
"I insist!"
"Please, I don't even like-"
"Nonsense, everybody loves candy!"
Fumbly clumsily, the woman, Naruto didn't even catch her name, pressed a candy in his hand, and disappeared into the crowd so quickly it felt like she'd simply melted away. Attempting to look for her, desperate to off-load this no-doubt disgusting chew of some kind, he realized there was a piece of paper wrapped around the candy. Confusion lasted only an instant before the pieces lined up and Naruto's heart jolted in his chest.
There was only one person who could be writing to him.
Wary of Raido, he shoved the paper in his overcoat pocket and popped the candy in his mouth, smiling his best smile around a full mouth. The guy just cocked an eyebrow, looking suspiciously at him as if he was about to burst into all kinds of problems Raido would be expected to fix.
Why did people always look at me like that when I smile?
A burst of chilly wind swept through and Naruto pulled his long over-coat closer to his body, wishing the guards had given him something other than barely-fitting clothes from their lost-and-found. Loose blue cotton pants and a white t-shirt weren't remotely warm. The long coat had come from Raido, who apparently had one that was close to his size 'lying around.'
Naruto swore that guy was a pervert; now here was the proof!
Who carried children's clothing around like that?
Above, the terminal voice announced their bus number arriving right on time: Bus 85, one-thirty in the afternoon. Naruto was used to things being slightly late as the Tramway in Sekiro City always ran at least ten minutes behind.
This was kind of impressive for such a large city like Hoseki.
"Alright, this is us. Our friends should already be on board."
Raido hoisted a small carryon over his shoulder, gesturing forward with his chin.
"Wait-friends? What friends? I don't have any friends."
"Small wonder."
"Hey- who-"
"You'll see."
"W-wait!"
Raido pushed forward, stepping carefully around a cordon made of silken cords, and handed his things to a real attendant, uniformed this time, that had just stepped off the bus. The scarred man turned, pinning his gaze on his charge.
"Do you need a written invitation or...?"
Naruto scowled, hoisting his bag higher up on his shoulder.
"Fuck off, Raido."
Thirty feet long, with what looked like an iron and wood frame, the Autobus was clearly a passenger vehicle with ten rows of three seats on each side, a carpeted aisle running down the center. Sixty people could ride in this thing! Comfortably!
"Go find a seat. We've got a bit of a ride ahead of us."
Raido poked him in the back from behind and Naruto snapped out of his daydreaming. Kaz would've loved this-and so would Chiyo as a matter of fact. She was always complaining about her back.
"Fine, fine."
Naruto combed through the aisle, already semi-occupied with kids that looked to be about his own age, finally choosing to sit all the way in the back, right in front of a small table set against the wall. It was as far from Raido as he could get, so it was perfect.
A weight settled next to him, thankfully across the aisle, but Naruto knew exactly who it was; and yes, as he looked up from where he'd closed his eyes, Raido was studiously ignoring everything around him.
Fuck this, fuck Raido.
Naruto decided, making a snap decision. He had nothing in him left to care. Why be irritated? The man was just doing his job, even if that job meant being highly irritating. A good soldier did as ordered, right? That was what Naruto was going to Konoha; to be a shinobi, a soldier in the army of the Leaf.
Ignoring Raido, Naruto took off his coat and bundled it up against the glass and closed his eyes, laying his head on the pillow.
For the next however long, he'd rather spend his life unconscious.
Waiting for sleep to come, Naruto couldn't help but overhear the excited chatter of the kids who very much acted like their age.
"Oh nice man, I can't wait to be a cool-ass shinobi! YA! I passed the chakra test and everything."
"I can't believe how fucking stupid you are Ryuki. You aren't gonna last an hour. You'll crap your pants the second anybody raises a fist, you big pussy."
"Oh yeah Tsukune? I bet you'd know all about big pussies, eh? Like mother like son, am I right, guys! Guys?"
Loud jeering laughter rattled through Naruto's feeble attempt at sleeping and it was all he could do not to snap. The bus rattled into motion; engines a coughing bellow like a dragon sneezing.
Nausea rolled through his stomach, an ocean wave bucking inside.
This would be a long ride.
A/N: This chapter was wicked long, hope that is okay. In my notes, this was considered the end of Part 1, so take that for what you will. I very much appreciate folks pointing out where I've gone off my own rails (so I can fix it). So any of that, please let me know. Criticism is still valid feedback. And just know that all the reviews mean a lot.
Thanks, folks.
Cheers.
JB
