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Chapter Six: Those Meddling Kids

A/N: Ah, yes, late. What else is new? I do hope I captured the intensity of this chapter well; I put my very best into it. If you do decide to leave a review, please be sure to tell me what you think of Yuni's character so far. It would really help me know whether or not I'm taking her in the right direction.

Translation Note: According to several different online translators, 1) 'Boushoku' means spinning (thread) / weaving, and 2) 'yosomono' means 'stranger' or 'outsider'. I thought the latter would be funny to use because 'bakemono' is the usual title. xD If it's grammatically awkward / unheard of / improper to use these in the contexts shown below, please let me know. I know as well as anyone the internet is not to be trusted!

I--I

"Dobe, would you tell us where we're supposed to be going?"

"The East Gate."

"How can you be sure that's where he is, Uzumaki-san?"

"I just am, you know!"

Racing through the village streets, Sasuke and Yuni glanced at each other, recognizing Naruto's words and the low, worried growl which carried them. If the fact he hadn't reacted to being called 'dobe' wasn't enough of a hint, Naruto was displaying an incredible amount of resolve in his purpose; there was something strange and unsettling about his new demeanor which encouraged his comrades to follow his lead without too much question.

The Genin reached a forty-foot high wood-paneled barrier separating them from the opposite side, and consequently, a division in the road. To the bewilderment of his teammates, Naruto made a left.

"Uzumaki-san, the East Gate is--"

"On the other side of this freakin' wall, and I'm not wasting time going around it! It's twelve minutes faster if you cut through this apartment building to the fire escape on the other side, you know!"

"Woah..." Yuni pressed a closed hand to her chest. "How does he know these things?"

Sasuke took off past her. "He's got a lot of time on his hands, that's for sure."

They entered the open doorway of the civilian complex, navigating through the dark, narrow corridors with only Naruto's echoing footsteps and occasional shouts of 'this way!' and 'up here!' as their guide. Many twisted turns and several flights of cramped staircases later, the group spotted him: Mizuki, silhouetted at the end of a hallway by the light of the large window behind him, leaning his weight upon the massive, partly-untied scroll he held upright against the ground.

"Good afternoon, Naruto-kun," he greeted kindly. "I hadn't expected to see you today. What are you three up to this morning?"

Still running, Naruto threw several shuriken at the Chuunin, all of which were deflected with the quick draw of a kunai.

The man's eyebrow gave a twitch of surprised agitation. "Now, was that really necessary?"

Naruto stopped in his tracks several feet in front of his former teacher. "Where's Konohamaru?!"

"Hokage-sama's grandson?" He blinked. "What makes you think I know where he is?"

"DON'T ACT STUPID WITH ME!"

At this point, several bystanders had opened their doors to find out who was making the obnoxious racket in their hallway; one look at the forehead protectors and raised kunai, and doors began shutting again, this time with locks being audibly turned shut.

"The night after I passed the Genin exam, you offered me a shortcut to becoming a Chuunin! The last thing Konohamaru told his Sensei this morning was that he was taking a shortcut to becoming Hokage, you know! You're a teacher at the Academy and you knew how much becoming Hokage meant to him, just like you knew how much it meant to me!"

'Naruto, what were you thinking?' Sasuke's hand was hovering over his kunai holster. 'If you told us that earlier, we could have went to a Jounin about it instead of rushing in blindly like this...I wasn't expecting to be put up against one of our own Chuunin.'

"Well, I don't suppose there's much point in wasting energy trying to keep it up..." Mizuki sighed, sounding extremely bored. "That's right. I'm the one who got Konohamaru to steal the Sacred Scroll while promising him a chance at advancement. Since he's so weak and insignificant, his Chakra signature can be cloaked with the right Jutsu, meaning he's even invisible to the Hokage's all-seeing crystal ball. Happy now?"

Too infuriated to pay closer attention, Naruto was the last of the three to notice that the scroll Mizuki held was already partially unraveled, as if Mizuki had been reading through it and couldn't twist it back up in time for their arrival. Naruto squinted into the shadow, barely making out the bolded name of a Jutsu above a picture of a hand seal he had never seen before.

"Taju Kage Bunshin?" Naruto read aloud. "You went through all this trouble for a Shadow Clone technique?"

"Sure, I learned how to make a few clones of my own, but that was more of a bonus than anything. Thanks to the little brat, I had enough time to master the only Jutsu in this scroll I even needed."

Mizuki performed a brief succession of seals with his fingers, forcing an emerald-green radiance of Chakra to emanate from his left hand. He charged forward. Sasuke immediately intervened and kneed him in the abdomen, but not before Mizuki crashed his glowing palm against Naruto's forehead and sent him flying backwards, colliding into Yuni.

Knocked back down the hallway by Sasuke, Mizuki landed on his feet and threw a small, spherical object to the ground, releasing a blinding purple gas into the air. After hearing the sound of shattering glass, Sasuke held a sleeve against his face and stole after Mizuki through the cloud.

Kneeling up on the floor, Yuni had Naruto leaning against her. "Are you alright?!"

"I'm fine!" he scowled, scrambling to his feet. "Come on, we have to catch up with them!"

The cloud dissipated by the time Naruto and Yuni rushed out the window in pursuit; the chase had taken to the rooftops, and the two trailing Shinobi found it hard to keep in time with Sasuke's lead. Naruto, followed by Yuni, changed route and dashed across a few adjacent buildings to try and get ahead of Mizuki, yet the Chuunin kept track of their maneuvering, and instead they ended up simply closing the distance between themselves and Sasuke.

"Konohamaru really wanted to move ahead, you know," Naruto thought aloud. "That's probably how Mizuki-sensei got him to do all the dirty work."

Yuni nodded in agreement. "Konohamaru also lives in the Hokage Tower, which means he has easier access to the scroll. This is really important information, Uzumaki-san...shouldn't we tell someone about this?"

"There's no time! When they finally get around to believing us, it'll be too late, you know! We need to get to Konohamaru before something bad ha--"

Mizuki made a clone of himself and split directions, each one of him carrying an identical-looking scroll.

Naruto nearly stopped in his tracks. "Wait--what the heck?!"

"You two!" Sasuke commanded from up ahead, making a right. "Follow the other one!"

Naruto and Yuni complied and turned left, following Mizuki's second form into a portion of the village where the rooftops were more sparse and varied in height. After struggling to the top of a particularly high building, it wasn't long until Mizuki divided himself once more.

"Damn it! Henjin, you go left, I'll go r--" Naruto felt a tight grasp against the shoulder of his jacket, yanking him off-balance. He got back on his feet and spun around to face his teammate. "What the heck do you think you're doing?! We're going to lose him if we don't hurry up, you know!"

"Mizuki-sensei's going to keep cloning himself!" she pointed out. "He's trying to lead us further and further away from where Konohamaru is, but since we know where he's really headed, why don't we just go there instead?"

"Hey--you're right! Good thinking, henjin! Let's hurry up and get there before Mizuki-sensei realizes we're smarter than him!"

"Right!"

-

With the further help of Naruto's inexplicably thorough knowledge of village shortcuts, the Genin reached the East Konoha Gate in just under ten minutes, only to find the guards' posts abandoned and the immense, branded doors already slightly ajar.

"What?" asked Naruto, looking around. "Where is everyone?"

Yuni approached the entrance, shoving her shoulder against one side and pushing the opening wider so they could pass through. "No one knows about Mizuki-sensei but us, Uzumaki-san. He..." Reaching a standstill, she pressed harder. "He could have lied and said he was ordered to stand guard duty as the Jounin here searched for Konohamaru...or maybe he said the Hokage requested an audience with them...or maybe--"

The last push made door slide open rather quickly, forcing Yuni to stumble forward as she clung onto a corner of the wood for stability. She looked up, and her heart skipped a beat.

The outer region didn't appear much different from inside of the village, yet even though the exterior forests carried the same scent, the same trees, and even the same bird calls, it also possessed a curious atmosphere of mystery and novel wonder, one which was absent from the familiar comfort of their home.

They weren't supposed to be out here, and it felt wonderful.

Naruto, on the other hand, remained perfectly still, staring at the wooden panel by his feet: the last separation between the village's stone pathway and the dirt ground of the outside. He knew this was where he would end up from the start, and he promised himself he wouldn't make a big deal out of it, but for some reason his nerves were refusing to cooperate with him.

"Ah? Something wrong?"

Yuni's words hit his ears and he argues whether or not he should tell her the truth, fearing another person he knew perceiving him as weak, or considering his concerns as foolish.

Naruto fought with himself, and honesty became the victor over dread.

"I've...I've never been outside the village before."

When she doesn't respond, he expects to find a poorly-masked expression of incredulity stuck on her face, and perhaps she'll scoff, or sigh, or say a bothered line about how he shouldn't be thinking of himself at a time like this.

A gentle hand rests on his shoulder, and he glances up.

She's standing in front of him, just past the thin boundary, and she smiles at him as if she understands.

"For Konohamaru."

He's jarred back to his senses, nodding once and making a small sound of acknowledgment.

And they run out without another word.

Konohagakure's political jurisdiction spanned a ten mile radius around the village itself, so as long as Mizuki was within this range, the Genin were still legally permitted to stop him. Despite the fact that lawful authorization was the last thing on their minds, it was common knowledge that no person Genin-level or under was allowed to leave Konoha's borders without a Chuunin-level or higher escort.

As Naruto and Yuni navigated blindly through the trees trying to detect even the slightest aura of Chakra, the notion of still occupying local ground made them feel safe. They were on home territory, which gave them advantage over the traitor. They were still in Konoha, and Konoha would protect them as she had always done.

That's when they heard the child scream.

"Oh!"

"KONOHAMARU!"

Targeting in on the source, they soon reached a small clearing of the exterior forest, where they discovered a struggling Konohamaru bound by rope and sitting on the ground, propped up against a tree.

"Let--me--GO, YOU BIG IDIOT! You won't get away with this! The whole entire village's prolly looking for me! If you don't let me go right now, you'll be in a lot of trouble!"

"Konohamaru!" Naruto yelled without thinking.

"Naruto-niisan!" he called back, sounding both frightened and relieved as he spotted his mentor in the bushes across the clearing. "Nii-san, I--I'm real, real sorry, about everything! Mizuki-sensei said it was a test from Granpa to see if I could handle real missions yet! He said if I could do it, I'd be allowed to shortcut through my training!"

Naruto waved his arms angrily in the air. "Stupid, what were you thinking?! Didn't I teach you anything about using shortcuts?!"

"Well, Granpa, an' Ebisu-sensei, an' everyone else said I wasn't strong enough to do anything besides what I was doing now! They made me do the same ol' stuff over and over and over again! Mizuki-sensei said if I passed, I get to learn new Jutsu from the scroll! I wanted to train harder with new techniques no one thought I could handle! I just wanted to prove myself!" He was shouting at the top of his lungs now, shutting his lids tight enough to force tears from the corners of his eyes. "I just wanted to be more like you, nii-san!"

"You see this? Your influence spreads everywhere, like a virus. It makes me want to puke."

Seeing Mizuki standing haughtily atop a tree branch above Konohamaru, Naruto stormed out from the cover of the forest, with an apprehensive Yuni tagging closely along behind him.

"Bastard..." he growled. "Taking advantage of a little kid like this...you'll pay f--"

Naruto's heart beat in his ears; his body control failed him and he collapsed, kneeling to the ground and pressing his hands hard against his temples.

"H--hey!" Yuni gasped, crouching down and putting her hands around his shoulders. "What's wrong?!"

He groaned. "It's...it's my head...it hurts...all of a sudden..."

"Looks like the Jutsu's finally taking effect," said Mizuki. "And if my timing's right, the Uchiha is probably just figuring out he's chasing a shadow clone."

"What did you do to Naruto-niisan?!" Konohamaru bellowed, kicking his legs around in a frenzy. "Why is he hurting like that?!"

With the scroll tied behind his back, Mizuki leapt down from the branch and faced the child. "Keep quiet, you little brat. You should be thankful you're even alive right now."

Naruto felt the hold around him lift, and Yuni's form stand up next to him. Through his pain-blurred vision, he could vaguely see her hand move behind her until her fingers brushed against the kunai holster tied to the back of her waist.

"I'm not letting you leave with the Fuuin no Sho."

She appeared confident, but up close Naruto could see her forcing her knees together to stop herself from shaking. "Henjin..."

"I'm guessing this is the part when I ask what you plan on doing about it," Mizuki sneered, turning to face her.

Yuni pulled out two kunai and cast them simultaneously at Mizuki. The blades tore through the air, crossing paths in front of the Chuunin, missing their assumed target, and crossing paths again once they were behind him; the kunai then split in opposite directions, each bending around a tree and switching aim to shoot straight back towards their origin. Yuni folded her arms, expertly catching the handles of both passing blades between her middle and ring fingers, the tips of which were pressing against her palm.

"...was there a point to that?"

With a kunai facing her in either hand, she uncrossed her arms and performed the Bird hand seal. "Keitai Henka: Chakra Boushoku no Jutsu."

The near-invisible weave of blue Chakra lines tightened and hoisted Mizuki into the air between the two trees. Five lines were affixed onto the fingerhole of each kunai; four bound his arms and legs firmly against his body, while the last was taut around his neck.

"A form technique?" he hissed. "That isn't poss--"

Yuni wrapped a line around either index finger and stretched her arms out the sides of her, tightening the choke on him until his neck threatened to snap.

Her lines fell loose as she witnessed Mizuki go up in smoke.

"LOOK OUT!"

Yuni heard Konohamaru's warning and flipped backwards, watching Mizuki rush forward below to stab her from behind. She throws one of the kunai in her hands to wrap him in Chakra lines again, and then proceeds to cast the other knife. Mizuki catches the second blade with a free arm and uses it to tear through the glowing bands tangled around him; he yanks the first kunai, drawing Yuni along with it, and kicks her in the stomach, sending her colliding into a tree nearby Naruto.

Naruto watches in shock as Yuni falls to the ground and a pained expression flickers on her face. She attempts to get back up, but Mizuki throws her own kunai back at her, piercing her right shoulder and collar bone until she was unmoving against the bark.

"Now stay put."

Shaken leaves from the tree drift to fall around her; Naruto's eyes widen and he finds himself whispering her name. The throbbing inside of his head was slowly receding to a point of tolerance, an event he tried to take advantage of by straightening up shakily.

'If you stand by idly like this, you're going to be murdered.'

Pain struck him down once more, draining all will and energy from him. The line uttered was deep and menacing, chilling enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end; the voice spoke through a mouth that sounded as if it were smiling.

"Who said that?" he asked frantically, sitting up and spinning to look behind him. "Who's there?!"

'No use looking around you, little boy. I'm up here. Inside your mind.'

Every time the bodiless entity spoke, his head pounded more and more severely. 'My...mind? What...what is this? Some kind of Genjutsu?'

'Understand this. I have lived too long and seen too much to allow it to end this way. Even though I despise your being to my core, I have no intention of perishing with you. Fight now or be killed.'

Naruto could feel his eyes watering. Each word was like a stab to the brain.

'Do you want to die?'

'Of course I don't want to die!' he thought loudly, trying to drown out the voice with his own. 'But this is too intense--I was barely able to pass the Genin exam, I'm not strong enough to go against a Chuunin! What can I do?'

Having retreated to a small corner of the clearing, Mizuki set up an invisible square on the forest floor using four smaller pieces of paper marked with calligraphy. Mizuki lifted the scroll from his back and placed it in the center; he performed an intricate series of hand seals quicker than Naruto could make out, and the scroll seemed to vanish into thin air as the small papers spontaneously combusted and shriveled in the resulting flame.

'What can I do?'

Somewhere closeby was the muffled sound of Konohamaru crying, sobbing and whimpering in fear, and Naruto curses himself for not being able to save him from this mess sooner.

'What can I do?!'

"Uzumaki-san."

Naruto instantly looks up.

Yuni's pressing a hand to her shoulder in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. Bright liquid trickled between her fingers and down her forearm like veins, pooling into her shirt's cloth and staining the elbow of her grey turtleneck red.

"Yuni-chan..."

"Please...you have to get Konohamaru out of here," she pleaded. "No matter what, you have to get him out of here...he's only a child."

"W--well, what are we?" Naruto asked, voice cracking as he fought against his temporary paralysis. "Aren't we the same?! I--I don't know what I was thinking, getting us into this--we were crazy to think we could do this alone, we shouldn't even be here!"

"Don't talk like that."

Naruto blinked, struggling with his breath as he fell silent. It was the first time he ever saw her look angry before.

"Even in the face of death..." she said. "We have to protect those who can't protect themselves."

"Isn't that precious?" Mizuki entered Naruto's line of vision, pressing a foot against Yuni's injured shoulder and yanking one of the kunai from her wound. "Believe what you want, but now that I've gotten the scroll to Orochimaru-sama, there's nothing either of you can do. So while you're sitting here being ineffective, why don't you go on and cry already, like a good kunoichi?"

Quivering, she laughed weakly. "Kill yourself."

Mizuki performed a move Naruto couldn't see and rendered Yuni unconscious. He then retreated to the opposite side of the clearing, and lifted Konohamaru single-handedly.

"N--no!" Naruto's head felt as if were going to split in two. "What...what are you doing with Konohamaru?!"

"You don't think I brought him all the way out here for nothing, do you?" Mizuki heaved the bound child over his shoulder. "He'll make a good bargaining chip."

With that, Mizuki ran away, cackling. The sounds of him rushing through the foliage were getting rapidly faint, and Konohamaru's cries were growing more and more distant.

'Yuni-chan's right; I can't just let him get away with Konohamaru, I--I have to do something!' Naruto roused himself. 'Think, think, think, what would be strong enough?! Transformation Jutsu...Replacement Jutsu...stupid useless school; why wasn't I ever taught anything I could actually use?! Maybe...the one I read off the scroll?'

'The Kage Bunshin?' the voice snickered. 'How do you expect to pull that off?'

'I don't know! I've never been great with clones and I haven't practiced with it and I don't even know what it does, but it's the only chance I've got and it's better to try and fail than to sit around doing nothing!'

'I admire your bravery, little boy, but you have no Chakra left. The only way you're accomplishing that is by borrowing my power.'

'Your...power?'

'Yes. The only way you can activate it is if I let you.'

In the far distance, Konohamaru called for his nii-san.

Naruto's eyes shot open.

Clenching his fists, he used whatever strength he had left to force himself to his feet. "I'm not sure what's going on here, but..." He stood up straight without falling over, the last action his remaining energy allowed him to perform. "Oi, yosomono. Show me what you can do."

Without warning, an unfamiliar feeling began swelling inside of him, overpowering his weakness and the incessant aching inside of his head. He could feel his Chakra being replenished with Chakra that wasn't his own, but instead a more tinted, intense, concentrated version which made him feel more confident than he had in his entire life.

Naruto ran up to his teammate, slumped over and unconscious against the tree trunk. He found that her heart was still beating, and she was still breathing, steadily. The only glaring risk was the amount of blood leaking from her open wound; he had to retrieve Konohamaru quickly before she lost too much.

"Yuni-chan," he whispered, pressing a light palm against the side of her face. "I'm going to go save Konohamaru, just like you asked, you know. Promise you won't don't die on me, okay?"

Naruto got up to leave, yet froze upon noticing something glowing under his shoe. He glanced down and saw he was stepping on a surviving Chakra thread leftover from Yuni's index finger, and leading off into the forest.

One of her lines was still attached to Mizuki.

So he followed it, and would have never guessed he had it in him to run this fast.

The trees were becoming nothing more than obscure green blurs to either side of him, yet somehow he could still focus ahead of himself, avoiding obstacles and tracking down Yuni's line with little to no effort whatsoever. He could feel he wasn't himself, but this concern was of no importance; right now, he had to save the little kid, the only person in the entire world who looked up to instead of down at him. Konohamaru had faith in Naruto, and Naruto wasn't about to prove it misplaced.

Besides, what kind of big brother would leave his little brother to the mercy of the enemy?

Finally, Naruto reached the end of Yuni's thread. He had taken quietly to the canopy branches as he found Mizuki escaping on the ground below. Konohamaru wasn't moving, leading Naruto to assume he either fainted or was subjected to the same Jutsu which caused Yuni's immobility.

Unwilling to wait any longer, Naruto reaches for his shuriken pouch.

"I should've known better than to think I could leave you alive."

Naruto gasped. His heightened senses attract his attention to the sharpened sound of a suddenly exposed blade; Naruto whipped around to face the shadow clone behind him, who had already spun and released a giant shuriken.

'Do it.'

He instantly jumped aside to avoid it, pushing the index and middle fingers of either hand together to form a cross.

"TAJU KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"

Mizuki stopped his run. "Wait--what?!"

A multitude of shadow clones spawned from out of nowhere, an indescribable force driving through them; one clone assured a long-since unconscious Konohamaru's safety, while the others focused their attention on Mizuki. A plethora of attacks struck him down easily, the succession quick enough to prevent him from performing any counter Jutsu or attempts to escape. The battle was won in the blink of an eye; the red energy evaporated as the original Naruto pinned a heavily beaten Mizuki to the ground beneath him. Naruto's body was still on fire from the power surge; his heart was beating faster than it ever had before. The kunai pressing hard against Mizuki's neck was being held by a trembling arm, drawing speckles of blood across the blade.

"I knew it," the Chuunin laughed.

'What are you waiting for?'

"You feel the voice in your head, don't you?"

'He kidnapped a child. He tortured your teammate. He betrayed your village.'

"Telling you to kill me?"

'Death may be too good for him, but it's all you can offer.'

"Listen to the monster inside of you."

'No one will blame you.'

"Prove me right once and for all."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Naruto punched Mizuki clean across the face, splattering blood on his fist and leaving a considerable mark against the side of the Chuunin's jaw.

In spite of his immobility and obvious defeat, Mizuki began laughing again, letting a stream of blood leak from the side of his mouth. "You're worthless. You're as worthless as they all say you are."

"NO!" Naruto grabbed the man by the collar of his vest. "You're never worthless unless you let yourself believe you are! People have treated me like dirt since I can remember, so I always, always made sure to believe in myself because I knew for sure no one else would, you know! But now I found out there's one person in this world who sees me whether I knew it or not, who cares about me whether I wanted them to or not, and that's more than enough to keep living for!"

"Iruka?" he snorted, the name rolling off his tongue like a bitter flavor. "You just don't get it, do you? Iruka only pretends to care to make himself feel better. He hates you as much as anyone else in the village, and he's right in doing so. Haven't you ever wondered why you were such an outcast all your life? Why everyone despised you, ignored you, hated your existence for no good reason at all? It's because they all believe that deep down, you're just as depraved as the demon inside you."

Naruto's grip loosened slightly. "Wha...what are you talking about?!"

"Everyone knows it was buried deep in you until even your souls became one, but it became Hokage's Decree never to speak of it, especially in front of you. Everyone knows, everyone's always known, and you were the only one excluded from your own shame. Your entire life has been Konoha's best-kept secret..." Mizuki raised his neck, leaning in close enough to brush a whisper past the unsuspecting Genin's ear. "Kyuubi no Yoko."

Naruto's eyes widened. The...Kyuubi? His heart was pounding briskly in his ears again, increasing in volume. The fox who almost destroyed the village...who killed all those people? He was beginning to lose touch: his entire body felt numb, and he could barely maintain hold of his opponent. Inside...me? Pulse after pulse of emotion coursed through him, infinitely more painful than the outsider--the Kyuubi--whose presence echoed within the walls of his mind. Disbelief. Guilt. Depression. Rage. Through it all, and soon enough, he felt it.

Losing control of the unwelcome tears now streaming down his face, Naruto gritted his teeth and raised the kunai, feeling his clench on the handle tense impossibly further as all his hatred, confusion, and despair seemed to commingle upon the sharpened edge of his blade. He could no longer hear a thing around himself: not the sudden rustling of brush, not Sasuke's frantic, repeated calling of his name. A single passion burned within his heart; the immaculate wave of murderous intent was the last thing he allowed himself to feel, before his desires overwhelmed him and his hunger shoved the kunai downward.

A gloved hand grabbed his wrist before the knife graced skin.

Naruto turned to look up. A tall, grey-haired, uniformed figure stood before him, with a partial mask as his shield and a bright gleam of afternoon sun as his backdrop.

"Who...who are you?" the boy asks.

"My name is Hatake Kakashi," the stranger replies, his voice strong, yet amiable. "I'm your Jounin Squad Leader."

It's the last thing Naruto remembered before everything went black.

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