Summary: Naruto has fun at T&I
It's all Naruto can do not to run to the academy early this morning. He's so excited he gets out of bed and dressed before the sun is even up. He gets that an enemy ninja in Konoha is bad, like really bad, but yesterday, he saved Sakura's life! Almost by himself. (Sure, Shisui-nii's kid cousin did the actual fighting, but he wouldn't have even come if Naruto hadn't been there to get him.) There's no way Sakura will ignore him now, he's a hero! Like, the ninja on TV. And even if school can be super lame sometimes, he's pretty sure today is going to be a good day.
Except only, it turns out not so much. Naruto doesn't even get all the way out of his building before his ANBU babysitter is there. Which is actually pretty weird. Normally they like to stay further away. Naruto rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, just like Kado-baachan. Except it's hard to look very intimidating when you have to look up almost a whole meter to even see the other person's face. Still, Naruto's feeling pretty upset and he's never been one to back down just because something's hard. The ANBU guy snorts and Naruto can tell he's laughing at him.
"Come 'ere kid," the ANBU guy says as he reaches down to grab Naruto by his shoulder. Naruto pulls himself up as tall as he can and tries to duck away, just like they were learning at the academy last month, but the ANBU agent is a lot faster than Iruka-sensei, and he grabs a lot harder too. "Ibiki wants to talk to you before school today."
Naruto isn't sure how he feels about being dragged around. On the one hand, they're heading toward the Hokage Tower, which—cool, means this Ibiki guy is probably really important. But on the other, Naruto doesn't really like people making decisions for him. And there is absolutely nothing less badass than being picked up and carried, even by an ANBU agent. He's still trying to figure out whether this is one of the absolute coolest things to happen to him ever (not including yesterday, when he saved Sakura-chan or anytime Shisui-nii stops by to say hello), or one of the most humiliating, when they start going down a flight of stairs. Who knew Hokage Tower had a basement? That's definitely something he's gonna have to check out again. When he tries to leverage himself up so he can see more clearly around the ANBU guy, he finds his face forced against the guy's chest so not only can he not see what's happening, he also can't breathe very well and is stuck smelling the guy's man stink. Not cool.
As it turns out, Ibiki is absolutely the most terrifying person Naruto has ever met. Not even Kado-baachan has anything on the man. His mere presence is enough to make Naruto reconsider every prank he's ever pulled. And it is absolutely the coolest thing ever. Naruto grins. Ibiki is the type of ninja he wants to be when he grows up. Powerful enough to scare people just by looking at them. No one would ever ignore him if he was more like Ibiki-san. And that's before Naruto finds out that he's in charge of getting information for Konoha. He's like a spy master or something.
Neither Ibiki nor the ANBU guy are willing to say exactly what Ibiki does, but he's super-duper important. Like reports directly to Shisui-nii type important. Like is in charge of keeping Konoha safe type important. And not safe in the way everyone does, by just standing guard and shit. No, Ibiki-san is the real deal. He's like in charge of finding threats to Konoha before they happen. Or something like that.
He spends a really long time talking and after a while all the words start to go in one ear and out the other. It's worse than Iruka-sensei's lectures though, 'cause he's giving it in the secret basement of Hokage Tower where there are like a thousand ANBU agents just wandering around and so much top secret stuff that even if Naruto was interested in what Ibiki-san was saying he wouldn't have been able to pay attention. Ibiki-san talks a lot about "National Security" and regulation of information and everyone doing their part. While they talk, Ibiki-san leads them to a room, an office of some sort, and gestures Naruto towards a chair. Naruto, glad to finally have an excuse to distance himself from his lame bodyguard easily vaults into it.
Then, as soon as they're all seated, or hovering kinda awkwardly in the case of his ANBU guard, Ibiki starts talking—as if he'd never actually stopped. Naruto tries really hard to pay attention until he realizes that the glass of the generic picture frame behind Ibiki-san's desk is just reflective enough to be able to see what's happening in the hallway behind him. The office is one of those fancy ones with a window in the door, so even though it's closed, you can still see out. Everything looks really faint and kinda blurry, but Naruto is able to make out what looks like three people walking very slowly down the hallway. It takes him a minute to realize that the one in the middle has something over his head and is being more than half-dragged. Naruto wonders what he did and why he was here. Is there a super-secret ninja jail underneath the Hokage tower that nobody knows about? That would be SO COOL!
Naruto wonders if he can get Ibiki-san to show him the prison cells. Are the real life evil ninja as scary and silly looking as the ones on TV? And then Naruto remembers that he's actually seen a real-life bad ninja and that guy had looked pretty normal. If Sakura hadn't been so scared and if the guy hadn't been going on and on about how evil he was, Naruto might not have even realized he was bad. Naruto gulps, suddenly feeling nervous. He could be surrounded by bad guys and not even know it until they did something. Even Ibiki-san could be a bad guy. He looked scary enough, and really, Naruto just had his word that he worked for the Hokage. Naruto had never really seen him around.
Just as Naruto is wondering how likely he is to die if he makes a run for it now, Ibiki-san stops talking. The sudden silence jolts Naruto's attention back to him and Naruto tries to force his face to look cool and calm and collected, like all the good guys on TV. Ibiki-san just keeps looking at him and Naruto gathers that he's expected to say something. Without a clue as to what the question even was, he tries nodding knowingly and grinning, though even he can tell the smile probably looks more scared than cool. "Uh—thanks Ibiki-san," he says and then when neither of the adults move, "so, uh, can I go to school now?"
Ibiki-san stares at the ceiling like he's praying or something. "You didn't pay attention to a word I said, did you?" His voice sounds pretty even, but Naruto's dealt with Kado-baachan enough to know that saying the wrong thing would be very bad.
"I mean, I didn't not pay attention," he tries. When Ibiki-san's face gets more upset he continues, "but, like, you were using a lot of big words and stuff and this place is really distracting, ya'know? And then there were the ANBU guys dragging that other guy past the door—which, by the way, is there a ninja prison around here? 'Cause, like I would definitely listen to everything you said again if we could visit the ninja prison – but yeah…" he trails off, realizing that he was rambling.
Ibiki-san stares at him with an expression Naruto can't read, but is really familiar with. It's the same one Iruka-sensei uses half the time. After another minute, Naruto can tell Ibiki-san wants to say a lot of things, but is having trouble picking which one is the most important to say first. It's a feeling he's really familiar with. Finally, Ibiki-san says, "When did you look into the hall?"
Naruto shrugs and then gestures towards the picture with its shiny glass. He's actually really proud that he thought of it. Iruka-sensei is always telling them about "situational awareness" and "using your surrounds." Naruto hadn't really known what that meant at the time, but he's pretty sure using the picture like a mirror counts.
Ibiki-san smiles a little at that and stands up, walking over to him. "You're a smart kid, you know that?" He pats Naruto on the head, which is not cool at all, but the compliment kinda makes up for it. A little bit at least. "I guess what I was trying to say is that there are some really bad guys in Konoha right now, you know?"
Naruto nods, "Like the one I saved Sakura-chan from yesterday, right?" He likes it when adults talk about stuff he knows about.
Ibiki grins again, and the scar on his face stretches in the coolest way ever. "Yeah, exactly like him. Well, they're pretty upset at Konoha for a lot of reasons, most of them pretty silly. And they'll use anything they can to hurt us. That means that when they succeed-" Ibiki stops as soon as he notices Naruto's eyes glazing over again. He crouches down in front of Naruto's chair so their heads are even. "Hey, kid, this is important, so listen up. Okay?"
The sight of a guy as tall as Ibiki having to crouch down so low his butt is almost on the ground, just so he can talk to Naruto better is really funny. Naruto's hands fly to his mouth to try to force his giggle back in. he manages to nod at Ibiki-san though.
Ibiki-san shakes his head and starts over. "Alright kid, so it's like this. There are a lot of bad ninja who want to hurt us, like the one from yesterday. So to make sure that they can't we have to be really careful."
"Like with extra guards and shi-stuff?" Naruto asks, managing to keep the cuss word in at the last minute. Kado-baachan always gets super pissy when he cusses in front of adults, and Naruto really doesn't want to upset Ibiki-san any more than he already has.
Ibiki-san nods, "Guards help, but what helps most is not talking about secret things. And what happened to Sakura yesterday, that's one of those secret things."
Naruto perks up, secret things you can't talk about "You mean, like classified stuff!?"
Ibiki-san actually laughs a little at that, "Exactly," he says. "What happened to Sakura yesterday has been classified by the Hokage. Later today he'll make a public statement about what happened, but we need to make sure not to release any more details than he does. That way we don't accidentally give our enemies any extra information."
Naruto frowns. "But, everyone already knows Sakura-chan was attacked. And I saved her! Why can't I tell people about how cool I was? Why am I never allowed to talk about the awesome stuff that happens to me?" He knows he's whining, but it's not fair. Not fair at all! Today was going to be his chance to become more popular than even Sasuke is.
Ibiki sighs. "You can tell them a little bit of what you saw and what you did, after the Hokage's announcement. But if we let the bad guys know how close they came to hurting us, then they'll just try harder next time. And who knows, it might even work."
And then Naruto realizes what Ibiki-san is really saying. The bad ninja are like the bullies at school. If they see that they can hurt you or if they see they made you cry the do the same thing over and over again. Sometimes punching them back helps, but if there are a bunch of them, then you just get hurt more. Sometimes, the best way to get them to stop is by pretending what they're doing doesn't hurt at all. Sometimes all you can do is just ignore it and hope they give up before they hurt you so bad ANBU has to save you from them. And if there are people like that inside Konoha, who want to hurt Konoha… Naruto doesn't know exactly what it means or what they can do, but he does know that he has to do his part to keep Konoha safe. Konoha is his home and Sakura's too. And if he wants to be Hokage someday, he's going to have to everything he can to keep it safe.
Naruto looks Ibiki in the eye and says in his most serious voice, "I understand Ibiki-san. We can't let the bad guys see that we have weaknesses, even if that means hiding the cool stuff I did to keep Sakura safe. I promise I won't tell anyone about it, even if they ask. No matter what, I'll keep Konoha safe!" By the end he can tell he's almost crying, but he's a ninja (in training) and ninja don't have emotions. He manages to hold it all in. Even if it seems like all his dreams of finally having friends at school are falling down around him, at least there are some people who know what he did. Like Ibiki-san and Shisui-nii and Itachi-san and Sakura-chan.
Ibiki-san pats him on the head before standing up again. "You're a good kid," he says. "And a very bright one. If you want, before Fox takes you back up to the academy, I can show you one of the empty cells."
Naruto is jumping off the chair so fast he almost collides with Ibiki-san's hip. "Yes," he yells, pumping his fist in the air.
After they look at the cells, Ibiki-san shows him one of their interrogation rooms and introduces him to a few of the people he works with, including a guy with the exact same hair as Ino-chan. By the time they're done, school has already started and Naruto misses the first hour. Luckily, Ibiki-san gives him a note that says the Hokage had important business with him all morning. And even if he can't tell anyone about yesterday or any of the real details about today, he can tell them about all the cool stuff he saw with Ibiki-san. And while it's not nearly as cool as the other stuff, no one else knows that. And even cooler, the less Naruto can tell them about what he's done, the more they want to know.
All in all, it's one of the best days he's ever spent at school. Even some of the people in the next year up sit with him at lunch trying to get him to tell them about what the Hokage wanted with him. His secret keeps trying to slip out, but Naruto is a ninja (in training) and knows how to keep secrets. And all of the attention is a very welcome distraction. He doesn't know what he'll do once people finally realize that he really can't say anything else, but for now, he's happy to bask in their jealousy and attention.