Yep, I'm back. And in reasonably short order, too.
Anyway, this is going to contain some pretty dark themes. Like torture. Yay.
I should probably up the rating.
But, whatever. Here's Chapter 2.
Chapter 2: Shadows
"I'm sorry, Anko, but we won't have any Yamanaka on hand for at least two days," Morino Ibiki said, tapping a finger against something on a clipboard after he had flipped through a few pages.
Anko resisted the urge to groan. She did not succeed.
"Oh, that's just great. I'm being fucked over by the administrational shit-stick, and not in the good way," she almost growled.
Ibiki sighed, rubbing a hand against the back of his scarred neck as he leant into his desk. "Trust me when I say I know the feeling. It happened to me a few times when I was a rookie here."
Anko just stared at him. "I'm not a rookie."
"Yeah," Ibiki agreed quickly, "but my point is that this kind of thing happens. People, especially clan people, have other obligations."
"But these are the Yamanaka," Anko moaned. "They pull information out of minds for a living."
Ibiki tapped at his clipboard again. "And it seems that their living has seen the ones we need working outside of the village for now."
Anko shrugged and began to walk away. "Inoichi would probably the only one cleared for this shit, anyway."
"Yeah..." Ibiki agreed again as she left the room.
Heading back to the third room, Anko could not help the sense of frustration nearly wafting out of her pores. It was if fate itself was conspiring against her to keep her from doing her job.
The first thing was the nature of the prisoner. This wasn't some foreign bastard trying to steal military secrets from under their nose. This was one of theirs trying to do it. That made it an extremely delicate situation, not to mention that it shoved a shitload of additional restraints on her regular duties. Though it hardly ever happened, there were rules and regulations in place that she had to adhere to when putting a traitor under interrogation. For instance, she could, under no circumstances, harm or injure any part of his head, face or mouth without express permission from the Hokage. And she didn't have that. That meant no dislocated jaw, no broken nose, no pulled teeth, no cuts to the tongue, no cheek fracturing, and worst of all, no eye damage.
She realised it was meant to prevent any possible damage to information in his brain and the verbal delivery of that information, but what the hell did he need his eyes for? To see her next move coming? It wasn't like he was moving around or anything. Handcuffed with chakra restraints and strapped to a metal chair bolted to the floor in a heavily guarded room in one of the most secure buildings in Konoha, he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
And she liked to flick people in the eye. It was fun.
Second was the lack of available resources. Of course, the moment she was handed a traitor to deal with, she lost access to her most valuable asset in the twin arenas of torture and interrogation: a Yamanaka. They were a clan of mind readers, walkers and manipulators. Their sole claim to what passed for fame in the shinobi world was their fearsome ability to influence and control the mind. And, right on schedule with the rest of the bullshit, there weren't any in the village with the security clearance to work with her on this. The only one of the entire clan she or Ibiki would've really trusted the task of tearing through Mizuki's mind to was Inoichi, and he was conveniently absent, attending some mission near the Hi no Kuni capital involving a noble family, a case of murder motivated by inheritance, and a bloody spoon.
Of all the murder weapons, a spoon? I lost out to a spoon?
Anko clutched at the bridge of her nose and reined in a sigh as she walked.
Thanks to Inoichi's services currently engaged elsewhere, it left her in an irritating position. Her regular style of interrogation wasn't applicable to the traitor because of regulations, and the predictable stuff she had tried just got him even more tight-lipped, even when the two genin and the chuunin who had beaten him down left him so black and blue they'd needed a med-nin to heal him just enough that he could sit upright and talk.
And then the third thing that made it even worse was...
"Wait. Is there even a third?" she wondered aloud.
"Well, there's a third option I just thought of," Ibiki said from behind her as he shoved a file into her hands.
Anko opened it up. "And what is this supposed to... oh. Oh. Not a bad idea, Ibiki."
"Best get him down here quick, Anko," Ibiki said over his shoulder as he headed back down the boringly grey corridor to his equally boring office.
Anko shook her head. "Why is everything so grey down here, anyway?"
No one around to answer her question, she rushed off to throw her request for that chuunin instructor's assistance in the face of the appropriate person.
Koan walked slightly ahead of him on the dark streets, one or two paces in front as he led the way.
Naruto was curious. "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere quiet," he answered, glancing over his shoulder.
Naruto frowned somewhat. Koan was definitely not big on conversation. He didn't say much, and what he did say was kept short and direct. Or horrifically vague in the case of finding out where he was leading him as they kept walking through the quiet streets of Konoha, first passing closed storefronts and then residential complexes and finally some administrative buildings. He knew Konoha quite well, and certain parts like the back of his hand, but Koan was taking unnecessary turns, to many detours down side streets and little cuts through alleyways as they walked a strange path through familiar structures. It was almost as if he was... stalling for time. He just wasn't sure why.
There were a number of theories he could go for, some plausible, some just relatively unlikely, and some probably completely stupid in ways he couldn't even imagine.
I doubt he's luring me into a trap involving a catapult filled with whipped cream and a cage made of strangely shaped carnivorous plants, so I'm just going to go with finding the words to explain whatever it is he needs to explain to me.
At least that made some kind of sense. Besides, where would Koan find a catapult filled with whipped cream at this hour?
Shaking off his deranged line of thinking, Naruto looked up and realised where they were headed.
"Oh," he mumbled, "the mountain."
Koan didn't turn around. "Yeah."
Naruto nodded. "It's definitely quiet up there."
"Yeah."
"Especially at this time of night. Or morning. Which is it?"
"Yeah."
"... am I annoying you or something?"
"A little."
Naruto remained silent as they began to climb the stairs, passing beneath the entrance gate to the walkway that would take them up the Hokage Monument.
Climbing was a little bit of a chore. The stab wound in his gut moved up and down against his bandages uncomfortably, almost enough to make him wince with each step. But he ignored it. He'd taken the kunai for Iruka-sensei. If he hadn't, it would've cost a life instead of a temporary limitation on his ability to climb stairs. The trade was worth every needle of agony poking and prodding at his intestines.
And he'd do it again because Iruka-sensei cared.
He didn't say it, didn't tell him outright or imply it with his words. He showed it. He put his life on the line for the kid with the Kyuubi in his belly. Naruto would do the same a dozen times over if it meant he could show his teacher just a fraction of how much it meant to him.
Without a doubt, Iruka-sensei was one of the very few people he held close to his heart. He could count them on one hand, and with one finger to spare.
His first two came at once, when kindness in the form of food had been handed to a hungry child by a man in an apron and his daughter. Teuchi and Ayame were good people, the very best people he knew.
The third was the third. The Sandaime Hokage – jiji – was very much like a grandfather to him. While he hadn't known him first, he remembered being shown into his apartment by the old man in the robes and hat with a comforting smile and a gentle hand. He became more and more important when Naruto was continually surprised by his visits every few weeks. When he said the first time he would check on him in the near future, history told him that wouldn't be true. He was so glad to be proven wrong.
And the fourth was Iruka-sensei. He'd been infuriating at first, occasionally strict at the Academy and sometimes boring with his lectures on village history, but he'd come to understand him somewhat over the years. But then Mizuki happened, and it all changed. Iruka-sensei was suddenly important to him.
And it felt damn good to have one less finger left unoccupied on his hand.
"We're here."
Naruto looked up.
The long walkway was behind them, along with the walls of rock they had passed on the way up. Across a cool grassy clearing, leaves swayed in the gentle night's breeze as it ebbed and flowed through the trees. The calm hums and chirps of little insects provided an odd sense of rhythm to the moonlit quiet. Atop the mountain he rarely climbed all the way, it was peaceful.
"I can see why you like it here," Naruto noted absently as he moved slowly around the clearing, sandals padding softly on the grass.
Koan stepped closer to the edge, towards the view. "It's calm."
"Do you come here a lot?" Naruto asked, walking to his side.
Still focused on the edge, Koan didn't turn. "Some time ago, but it's been a while."
Naruto looked down on Konoha. During the day, there were so many people doing so many things in so many places. From above, it all looked so messy, so comfortably chaotic. But at night, Konoha was a different place. It was a quiet place, calm and settled. The village looked so very peaceful as it slept, the moonlight shining down through traces of cloud in the starry sky on buildings and homes and streets and parks. He was far fonder of the village while it slumbered.
Looking up, towards the horizon shrouded in forests and mountains, Naruto smiled a little. "The view hasn't changed much, but it's a little different from the top of the mountain. I usually sit on the heads when I come around here."
"We all have our preferences," Koan said with a nod before he fell into silence, eyes on the grass peeking over the edge.
Naruto gestured to the precipice. "Should we sit down?"
Koan turned and walked back a few metres into the clearing without a word, closer to a metre-high boulder he hadn't taken much note of near the centre. He stepped up on top, sitting down with a sigh as he leant forward on his knees, hands folded beneath his chin.
Naruto hopped up next to him, putting a bit of space between them as he did so.
And Koan didn't say anything. He just sat silently, eyes narrowed slightly at nothing in particular.
This is awkward to say the least.
Naruto kept his thought to himself, but the silence wasn't comfortable. He was just a little on edge as he waited and watched and listened for Koan to do something or say something. He wasn't a big talker, but he couldn't imagine that Koan was enjoying the awkward silence either. He just didn't know where to start with him.
Koan didn't seem like a lot of other people. It was the quiet combined with the oddly deep voice and the relentlessly casual demeanour that kept Naruto from pinning him down as one particular kind of person. If he knew that, it would make him easier to relate to. But Koan hadn't given anything away, and his outward appearances did little to help.
Koan wore a black hoodie, black pants and charcoal-grey holsters and pouches secured with tape of the same colour. His skin was slightly darker than the average person's, his relatively short hair was very dark brown, and his eyes were that weirdly murky brown flecked with yellow of all things.
He really does like his dark colours. Unfortunately for him, however, that still didn't tell him anything more than his preference in clothing. The only place he could start was with the only way he knew how: single words and common ground.
"So..." he began and simultaneously trailed off, attempting to break the ice with a single word. It didn't work.
Another moment passed without words. Naruto made another attempt.
"Uh, so I'm a genin now. That's something, right?" he offered with an uncertain shrug.
Koan nodded, but he still didn't say anything.
Damn it.
"This is quite the boulder," Naruto said, trying to look interested as he pretended to examine the large rock they sat on.
"Yeah," Koan muttered. "It was the first time I really succeeded with Doton jutsu."
Naruto nodded, rather impressed. "That's pretty cool... wait. You said something."
Koan turned to him, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Is that so surprising?"
"Yes," Naruto said instantly.
Koan placed his elbow on his knee and supported his head with his hand. "And why is that?"
"Because you barely say anything!" Naruto said a bit too loudly and a bit too quickly. "I mean, you don't say that much to begin with, but when you do, it's just ridiculously short answers that are either extremely direct or annoyingly vague. And it doesn't even seem like you're doing it on purpose or doing it to try and be cool or something. I swear, it's almost like it's just who you are."
"It's exactly who I am," Koan deadpanned.
"Oh," Naruto mumbled out as he began to scratch the back of his neck. "Then what was my point?"
Koan shrugged.
"That looked awkward," Naruto observed.
Koan shrugged again. "It is what it is."
"And the 'what it is' is very awkward," Naruto reinforced with a nod.
Koan sighed. "This conversation is getting awkward."
"Very," Naruto agreed.
Koan looked down again, one of his fingers beginning to tap against the stone.
Yeah, I'm getting sick of this. Explaining begins now, Naruto decided.
"Jiji said something about you explaining a couple of things to me before," Naruto began quietly. "What exactly is there to explain?"
Koan remained silent.
Naruto frowned. "Well, if you're not going to answer that, then how about this: back in the hospital, why'd you push that nurse?"
Koan leant back on his hands and sighed. "I was angry."
At least they were getting somewhere now.
"Yeah, I get that," Naruto nodded. "But you said something about disliking needles. What's that about?"
Taking weight off his hands, Koan shifted closer to the boulder's edge. "Needles are... intrusive."
"Makes sense, but kunai do the same thing. They make bigger wounds, too," Naruto said, tapping at his stomach for emphasis. "Shouldn't you dislike kunai as well, then?"
"No one likes getting stabbed," Koan snorted, his nostrils flaring slightly. "But needles and kunai are not the same thing. They're similar in design, but different in purpose."
Naruto cocked his head to one side. "What do you mean?"
Koan glanced at him, then back towards the view. "Kunai make wounds. Even if it's painful, they give something. Needles just take. That's why I don't like them."
Naruto nodded absentmindedly as he thought it through. Koan made a strangely solid point. Kunai, even though they caused pain and death, even though they inflicted something, gave. Perhaps it was a scar, a reminder of what not to do, or even quiet thanks that the wound wasn't any deeper. But the same couldn't be said for needles, not when they were taking blood.
But what about injections? Naruto wondered for a brief instant before shaking his head. There was little point in continuing when Koan had already made his point. Though, there was something that still bothered him.
Naruto turned his eyes to the one next to him. "... Why were you angry?"
Koan's eyes locked onto his firmly. "I'm still angry."
"Then why are you angry?" he rephrased.
Eye contact broke. "It's because all of... this was kept from me."
He knew what Koan was referring to.
Naruto leant back slightly. "It was kept from me, too. But how does it affect you?"
Koan turned away without a word, looking up to the clouds. "Well... I'm like you."
"How?" Naruto asked.
Koan sighed before he began. "You're an orphan. So am I. You know what it's like to be alone. So do I. You have a bijuu sealed within you. I do as well."
His background as an orphan made sense to him. In the rare times he'd taken notice of Koan before or after class, it was never with family, with people that looked similar to him in any way. He was alone. From that, the knowledge of isolation and solitude made sense, too. Koan wouldn't have suffered the same as him, the same stares and the same mistreatment from people in the village, but that didn't mean he didn't know anything about seclusion. Sometimes, being unseen among a crowd was worse than having hateful gazes forced upon him as he walked by.
But the last thing...
"What's a... bijuu?"
"They are... difficult to explain," Koan said after a moment. "Some would say that they are demons, immortal monsters composed of living chakra. In some aspects, that could be considered correct. But it's not. They are immensely powerful, but that does not make them monsters. At least, not any more than the people who enslaved them."
Koan exhaled slowly, looking to the ground. "The bijuu are chakra given consciousness, intelligent power. They are living, thinking beings that humans began to use as weapons long ago. Those weapons were made by sealing a bijuu within a human, most often from birth. Those who contain bijuu are called jinchuuriki."
Koan looked directly at him. "There are nine bijuu, each named and given strength by the number of tails they possess. The Kyuubi is the strongest, but the others are far more powerful than any mere mortal. That is what makes jinchuuriki so feared. And it's why we are not like everyone else."
Koan closed his eyes. "And from that, it's why we're cast aside, kept at two arm's length until they have need for a weapon."
Naruto looked down, just staring at the rock they sat on. He couldn't do much of anything else, not when the idea that there was someone like him began to swirl in his mind, filling his thoughts entirely. It all made sense, more than it had before.
Mizuki's ravings told him why he was looked at with contempt by the villagers, why he was kept from a chance at a normal life: the Kyuubi. The shadow of the fox, one that had once hung over the village and rained down fire and death on the people, now hung over him. But it didn't make sense. Beyond a way of simply defeating the Kyuubi, why was it sealed into him? For what purpose was he kept alive other than on the old man's kindness? If he really was the Kyuubi in human form, why hadn't they just killed him when they had the chance and saved him the misery of growing up alone? He had the answer now.
"... but we're not."
Naruto's eyes snapped over to Koan's, his already trained on him, suddenly intense.
"Purpose is one thing, but reality is another," he said. "Reality is choice."
Choice...
If he could choose, then why was he here? Why was he weighed down by an overwhelming shadow and forced down a path that he hadn't wanted to walk in the first place? Didn't he get a say? Didn't he get to use his voice to mumble or shout or whisper or cry out something, anything against what he didn't want?
"I didn't choose this," Naruto whispered. "I never wanted this."
Koan nodded slowly. "I didn't either."
"Then who did?" Naruto asked, slightly louder.
Koan looked to the sky. "Names don't matter in this. Intent does. The reason you were made into what you are does."
Naruto did the same. "And what reason was that?"
"To save Konoha," Koan stated. Again, it came across as just another fact, another unquestionable and undisputable piece of reality.
But a question still gnawed at him.
"Why me?"
Koan shifted his gaze back to him sharply. "Would you have someone else carry the weight of the Kyuubi on their shoulders?"
Naruto returned the force in his eyes. "No."
Koan closed his eyes once more. "That's why."
He nodded just a little.
He didn't get it all. He didn't think he would ever get it all. It wasn't his choice to make, but it was a choice that had to be made. So many lives had been at stake; so many people and families and children had been at risk. To stop the Kyuubi, a choice was made, and he lived with the consequences. But at least he was living at all. If some other child had been used, it might've all gone wrong. If it had been someone else, so many more could be dead. But it was him. And he could take it. He had too. And Koan had too as well.
He looked at his... friend? Comrade? Brother in burden? He didn't know what to call him, but it mattered little. What mattered was that he wasn't alone in his struggle. It wasn't just him holding such an enormous weight on his shoulders. Sitting atop a boulder in front of a forest on a mountain, they were in this together.
So much understanding and misery forced upon him in a single night, it felt good to smile, even if only a little.
Naruto glanced over at Koan. "Hey, which one do you...?"
Koan opened one eye. "The Yonbi. He's often referred to as Sen'en no Ou, the King of the Sage Monkeys."
"'He'?" Naruto echoed.
Koan rotated slightly towards him. "Yes, 'he'. Did you think they were genderless or something?"
Naruto scratched at his head. "Well, uh, I don't know. Maybe? It's not like I know all that much about them. You're the expert here."
"Eh, comparatively," Koan shrugged. "The competition isn't exactly fierce."
Naruto nodded with a sigh. "True, but it'd probably be good to learn about them at some point."
"Remind me at some point," Koan said, closing his eyes again.
Naruto cocked his head to one side. "Are you getting sleepy?"
"No."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Listening."
"For what?"
"Quiet."
"That doesn't really make sense. How can you listen for quiet?"
"Quite easily."
"Well, you're not really succeeding now, are you?"
"That's because you keep talking."
"... should I stop?"
"Please."
Anko put her face in her hands and groaned for the umpteenth time. The guy wasn't at the desk. The guy was a different guy from day to day. With too many faces to remember when she already had a few hundred filed away for both work and personal reference, she simply referred to the guy at the desk as... well, just that: the guy at the desk.
And the guy at the desk was not at his desk when she needed to file a requisition before she could go run off and snag the chuunin she needed for her yet-concluded interrogation session.
"Of course, this happens to me when I'm trying to get things done quickly," she muttered aloud.
"What's gone wrong now, Anko?"
Anko turned and smiled sweetly at the ANBU agent suddenly beside her. "Well, hello to you, too, Neko-chan. What brings you back down to my little slice of torturer's paradise?"
"The sunny weather and glorious ocean views, obviously," Yugao replied in the same forced tone before she dropped back to her regular self and held up the folder in her hand. "No, I was here to give Ibiki some copies of more of those useless reports my team wrote during recon. But what's going wrong?"
"I need to get that chuunin teammate of the traitor's down here, but the guy who does the requisition stuff for that isn't here," Anko muttered, gesturing with a hand to the unoccupied desk in another dull, grey corner.
"I'll wring that guy-at-the-desk's neck if he shows up tomorrow," she quietly growled. "I might even wring the other guy's neck if he doesn't."
"Yes, yes, Anko," Yugao patted a placating hand on Anko's back, "bureaucracy is bullshit."
Anko threw her arms around the woman still in her grey armour and cat mask. "Oh, you always know just what to say to cheer me up, Neko-chan."
Yugao pushed her off quickly. "That's enough, Anko. I'm not off duty yet. Though..."
"That gives you an idea that might help me speed up this bureaucratic nightmare?" Anko finished for her quickly, almost bouncing up and down.
"Yes," Yugao nodded.
Anko leapt into the air, pumping her fists. "Hooray! Neko-chan's going to do the thing!"
Yugao snatched the paperwork out of Anko's hands and began to walk away, sighing the entire time. "Yes, Anko. I'll do the thing."
Iruka walked down the dark streets at a brisk pace. He had somewhere to be.
The route to the Torture and Interrogation headquarters wasn't a familiar one, but he knew where the building was. Any shinobi who'd served for more than a year knew their way around the village. Perhaps some knew it better, and perhaps some memorised the village in its entirety, street by street and home by home, but they all knew where the important things were.
At the moment, the important thing was giving assistance in the interrogation of one Toji Mizuki.
Iruka was filled with dread.
He didn't want to see his best friend battered and bruised, cut and bleeding by his own hands and the hands of the interrogator, Mitarashi Anko. He knew the woman's reputation, and despite her playful, overly colourful demeanour and revealing style of dress, she was good at her job. If she needed his help in interrogating Mizuki, then Mizuki was putting up one hell of a fight in resisting.
If he had been captured in another village, another place at another time, he would've cheered, shouted and raised a fist to the sky at the news of his friend holding out, his Will of Fire unbroken and unaffected. But here and now, he didn't know what to think.
And that is not a good thing, Iruka thought. His distraction was removing him from the task at hand, assisting in the interrogation of a traitor.
Yes, that's it – traitor.
This wasn't Mizuki. His best friend wasn't in a locked cell, bleeding from his shattered kneecaps as a woman who knew what bones to break and what nerves to pinch to make a man scream his loudest circled him like a vulture. His long-time teammate and colleague wasn't shouting for the pain to stop or swearing his guts out at an interrogator wiggling a kunai in his belly, steering clear of organs to make sure he lived a little longer. Mizuki wasn't alone. Mizuki wasn't afraid. Mizuki wasn't a traitor.
It was someone else.
Iruka, stone-faced, continued walking down dark streets.
It's a mission. Complete it.
In a cold, concrete room with little within, Anko took silent steps around the sleeping, half-naked form of Toji Mizuki, the traitor in her care for the time being. Cuffed quite tightly to the sole steel chair in the room, the man was slumped back, breathing heavily, his mouth wide open. The numerous thick red lines crossing his black chest and his blue back definitely explained just why he was so exhausted, so utterly drained.
"Ha, blood loss," she chuckled quietly.
Torture was tiring, sometimes for both parties. The receiver was made tired by the boatloads of pain dealt out upon them when they didn't answer questions. The giver was made tired by the lack of results.
She could stab him, she could cut him, she could rip off a toenail, dislocate each finger one by one until she gave up and just started breaking them, but he held out, breathing so very heavy, eyes so very bloodshot and heart rate so very erratic.
"Is that... all you've got?" he spat between coughs of blood.
She smiled. "Nope."
He certainly had a pair of lungs on him. She was also certainly glad to find out that the room was thoroughly soundproof.
Speaking of chests...
His was stained with blood and bruises, not to mention one or two rather long burn marks when she was getting a little bored of one kind of reaction to her poking and prodding. But beneath it all, it was a little bit flabby. She supposed that happened when a shinobi retired from active duty and took up a position teaching their next generation and decided to betray the village and steal from them and attempt to murder a lonely boy looking for a chance to prove himself to his teacher and move up in the world that kept him from finding purpose. Not that she was thinking to deeply on it or anything.
But still, his torso was a little bit flabby. His abs weren't as defined and solid as they had once been; his obliques were starting to sag; his pectorals looked a little on the sad and pudgy side.
She looked down at her own chest hidden vaguely behind mesh and trench coat, then back to his with a frown. "Damn, keep that up and you'll have bigger tits than me."
"Fuck... you... bitch..." Mizuki coughed as he stirred.
Anko smiled. "Did I wake you? Sorry about that. You definitely could use the sleep, but we still have a few things to go over."
"I'm not... telling you shit," he tried to snarl.
Anko's smile grew wider. "No? Then maybe your shit might tell me what I want to know."
Mizuki looked confused. "The fuck are you talking about?"
"If you keep this up," Anko began slowly, moving down to eye level with Mizuki, "I might just be forced to make you literally excrete the information. And that is not pleasant for any parties involved, but especially for my hand when it goes up through your ass and starts to pull."
Mizuki spat in her eye.
Anko stood gradually, wiped the spittle from her left eye with an exaggerated rub and crouched back down behind him.
"That wasn't very nice, Mizuki," she said in a sing-song voice as she pressed two fingers into his side.
"Fuck... you," he groaned out through gritted teeth as she began to move further south to a particularly nasty cut.
He almost screamed when she dug her fingers into the opening and pushed down and to the right.
"Why'd you try to steal the scroll, Mizuki?" she whispered into his ear. He began to whimper when she moved her other hand onto his left side. "Come on. You can tell me. I know you want to."
"I'm not... telling you... SHIT!" he screamed as she stabbed her fingers into the last cut's symmetrical partner and squeezed.
She moved her head above his and looked him dead in the eye. She smiled. "Are you sure?"
His body stiffened.
She was about to put a senbon in a certain spot to make things a bit more exciting when a knock on the very heavy steel door pulled her attention away from the moaning, whimpering mess that Mizuki was quickly becoming. She pulled her bloodied fingers loose of the wounds, looked to Mizuki for a moment as she let the liquid drip, and then licked them clean for effect before she slid open a viewport in the door.
"The chuunin is here," the guard's voice came through.
Anko nodded. "Send him in."
A series of metal clinks and clangs range out as the mechanisms were unlocked from the outside and the sealing matrix was briefly deactivated. The door was slowly hauled open, and the Academy teacher that wasn't a traitor stepped inside. The door locked behind him.
Anko looked at him in time to see his eyes widen drastically as he looked at the prisoner, his body and then the floor beneath him. She guessed it could've been shocking to someone unprepared for the sight, but maybe the guy was more horrified at the sight of a friend of his in chains above a puddle of their own blood still in the process of being made.
His eyes turned back to her, judging, trying to make sense of what he saw. Maybe he was looking for an answer to the whole shit-storm still raging behind her. But neither one of them had the time for it.
"Umino Iruka?" she asked.
"Yes," he nodded, quickly assuming a rigid stance out of the gaping mess he had been a moment ago.
"The prisoner has been unwilling to cooperate, even with application of more forceful measures," she said, trying to keep her tone professional. She hated doing these exchanges of meaningless dialogue, but there was an odd sort of protocol to it, especially when there was a personal attachment between the one in the chair and the one standing in the room. Perhaps talking about it in more objective terms helped to avoid any unnecessary outbursts or shows of emotion, but it didn't work all the time. Experience had told her that much.
She was about to continue when Iruka interrupted.
"Do you think I could get a few moments alone with the prisoner?" he asked, glancing at her. "I may be able to assist the interrogation that way."
She'd had a feeling it would be coming.
"Understandable," she answered with a nod. "You have five minutes."
She knocked on the door from the inside. The mechanisms whirled once again, and it was hauled open with a grunt. Stepping outside and hearing it slam shut, she hoped he would be able to grab something solid out of the smoke surrounding this entire thing.
He had expected blood, cuts, oozing wounds and horrific bruising. He had expected broken bones, contorted fingers and ruined feet. He had expected the results of torture.
He just hadn't expected the gut-wrenching feeling of seeing his best friend lying beneath that tormented skin of swollen red, black and blue.
At first, he just stared. He just looked at it all. He saw the red lines, the cuts that began near his waist and carved up his sides before they continued up and over, passing his shoulders and heading down his back in one line, one unpausing motion. He saw the bruises on top of bruises, the dead, darkened skin he had played a part in creating. He saw the arms dangling loosely in their sockets, the fingers down below warped and twisted, hanging in wrong, wrong positions. He saw it all.
"Iruka..." Mizuki breathed. "I wondered... when you'd show up."
Iruka squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "Mizuki..."
He could hear how tired his friend was, how exhausted and beaten and battered even his tone sounded. His voice was hoarse, strained. Screaming and shouting had done that to him. Torture had done that to him.
"You shouldn't be here," Iruka said, eyes opening to no more than slits. He could still barely look at him.
Mizuki blinked slowly. "Where else... should I be? Escaped? In the ground?"
Iruka bowed his head. "I don't know. But you shouldn't be here, not like this."
"Oh..." he realised slowly, "you mean... the bruises... and the blood."
Iruka looked at him again, eyes more open now.
Beneath all the blood dripping from his cuts and the bruises covering his torso and his arms hanging uselessly at his sides and his fingers contorted at wrong angles, Mizuki was still there. At another time, he'd probably be laughing at his own predicament. In another prison, he'd probably chalk his cheer up to adrenalin and the Will of Fire. In another village, Iruka would still be able to tell it was all bullshit. The attitude was just a front, because underneath all the blood and the bruises and the broken bones, Mizuki was still scared.
But this isn't Mizuki.
His eyes opened fully. Iruka moved closer to him.
"Why?"
Mizuki looked back at him. "The scroll or the jinchuuriki?"
Iruka's face hardened. "Both."
Mizuki shook his head. "No."
"What do you have to lose by talking?"
"Nothing."
"Then why?"
"Because you have... everything to gain."
Iruka stepped back. "So you're keeping it from us because you can."
"You haven't seen... any Yamanaka, have you?"
Iruka nearly stiffened. "You were planning this."
"Of course."
"But why?"
"Do I need... a reason?"
"'Do I need a reason?'" Iruka echoed. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Mizuki smirked. "There it is."
Iruka did stiffen this time.
"You never were too... good with the facade, Iruka," Mizuki said, almost casually. "You always had trouble putting... on an act. I never did."
Iruka stepped closer, leaning forward slightly. "Infiltration was your speciality."
"And distraction was... yours."
Iruka closed his eyes for a moment. "You slipped in while I kept them busy. It was how we operated."
"We were... a good team, weren't we?"
Iruka nodded. "Yeah, we were. What happened to that?"
Mizuki smiled sadly. "Kasumi."
Memories flooded back.
A piece of paper slid over the desk. "Just a routine border patrol, Iruka. Nothing worth worrying about."
A week of inactivity in the north.
Three shinobi moved through the trees.
"Mizuki, keep a low profile at the rear. Kasumi, you're on point."
A simple mistake.
Kunai lanced through air and leaves.
"Iruka!"
Mizuki slammed into his side, knocking him out of the way as shuriken followed his first dodge.
"Get ready, Kasumi!"
Battle followed. Quick, precise, they dealt with the first two missing-nin from Iwa. Kasumi felled one. He took the other.
"Mizuki, you got the last one?"
"He's down, but I think there was a f-"
Spears of earth cut him off.
Fast movement ensued.
Mizuki returned. "Got him. Is everyone... okay..."
"Kasumi?"
"I think... I didn't... move...in time..."
She collapsed, stone spear through her chest.
"Kasumi!"
Rushing. Leaves. Konoha was in the distance
"Hold on, we're almost there!"
"I'm... sorry, Iruka. I let... I let you down."
"Kasumi, you didn't. You didn't. You're going to be fine, Kasumi. You're going to be alright."
She smiled up at him, her beauty obscured by misery. "I'm... sorry, Iruka. I'm so..."
She didn't make it.
"Yeah," Iruka murmured, little more than a whisper. "Kasumi."
He looked at Mizuki, gazed down at tired eyes with the same. He couldn't deny it anymore: this was Mizuki. He couldn't change that, couldn't convince himself otherwise. As much as he wanted to push the reality away, Mizuki was here, beaten, bleeding, broken and restrained.
"You still... can't fool me, Iruka," Mizuki said with a slight chuckle. "Denial was never your... strong suit."
Iruka held his eyes steady on him. "No, but it's never been yours either."
Mizuki's face went impassive.
Iruka held back a smirk. "There it is."
Mizuki snorted. "Ironic."
"Then tell me," Iruka urged.
Slumping back slightly, Mizuki closed his eyes and breathed slowly. "I'm dead anyway. Nothing to lose now."
Iruka crouched closer to Mizuki and frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Mizuki opened his eyes and focused them dead-on with Iruka's. "Orders."
"What?"
"I'm not going to repeat myself," Mizuki said, "so listen: this... had to be done. You might not understand it now, but you... will. Ask the Hokage."
Iruka leant in closer. "Ask him what?"
Mizuki's blank expression fell away. His sudden smile was sad.
"About the game," he whispered.
The word sent a chill down his spine.
Mizuki sighed. "Our time's up."
Two knocks on the door confirmed it.
Iruka walked out, but not before he spared one glance over his shoulder, for his friend. Iruka closed his eyes.
Door firmly shut between them, Mizuki closed his eyes as well and sighed. "My time's up."
"Get anything out of him?" Anko asked eagerly, kunai looping quickly around her finger.
Iruka frowned for a moment. "Nothing definite. He just mentioned something about a game."
"He equated stealing a valuable village artefact and attempting to murder our jinchuuriki to a game? Insane asshole," Anko muttered.
Iruka shook his head. "It doesn't seem like that to me. It's too... vague."
"Like he was trying to give you a clue?" Anko extrapolated.
"Yeah," Iruka nodded. "This all seems too purposeful."
So, he's getting that, too, Anko thought.
Yugao had been right about that strange feeling to this whole thing. Something hadn't been right about this from the get-go, but this nearly confirmed it. That feeling of something larger at work permeated this whole thing, right down to the traitor sitting in Room Three resisting her interrogation attempts but handing such vague information to his old teammate after five minutes.
"This was planned, wasn't it?" Anko asked suddenly.
Iruka nodded again. "He said as much."
"We should get in there," Anko said before she turned to the guard. "Open the door."
The guard complied, disengaging the locks and seals before he pulled the heavy barrier open with a grunt.
"What the-"
Mizuki was thrashing in his chair, desperately pulling away at his restraints, mouthing words like he was trying to shout something as he clutched for his left arm behind his back. Before he could make a noise, he slumped forward in his seat.
Anko rushed forward and smashed her hand against the cuffs, funnelling chakra into the seal and letting Mizuki loose. He collapsed to the floor, unmoving.
"Mizuki!" Iruka shouted as he appeared at his side. "Someone, get help!"
The guard ran off, footsteps resonating down the corridor.
Anko turned him over, moving Mizuki into the covering position as she checked his pulse. She blinked once, and then tried again. There was nothing at his neck, nothing at his wrists. There was nothing at all.
"Fuck, I can't find anything. Iruka, take over."
He moved closer, she checked outside the door. The guard came running down the hallway with their on-hand medic in tow.
"I think he's having some kind of heart attack," she yelled with a wave. "In here!"
The doctor sprinted inside.
"Please, help him," she heard Iruka urge.
Anko stepped back inside.
The doctor leant over Mizuki's battered body, a green glow enveloping the woman's moving hands as they roamed quickly over the man's ruined, bloody, blackened chest.
"Damn it. This doesn't look good," the medic muttered under her breath.
Iruka stood up, a hand covering his mouth as he held back something like tears. Anko moved to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder.
He was a traitor, but this chuunin was still his friend.
They watched for another excruciating minute as the doctor pushed chakra into Mizuki, scanning, probing, looking for some way to the fix the problem. But it didn't look good.
The glow around the doctor's hands faded. "I'm sorry. He didn't make it."
Iruka stepped back and whispered something to himself.
Anko was the only who heard it.
"She didn't make it either."
The Hokage placed folded hands beneath his grey beard, chin resting over his fingers over his desk. "I see."
Iruka had recovered his breath and was trying to maintain some semblance of professionalism, but the Sandaime could see through his firm exterior like a window of cracked glass. It was clear, yet so very indistinct.
So was the entire situation.
"This is... troubling," the Hokage said after some time.
Iruka sighed, eyes cast down to the well-trodden boards. "That's putting it lightly, Hokage-sama."
The chuunin looked back up to him slowly. "I just... don't understand this. There's something bigger behind this – there has to be – and I have no idea where to start in figuring it all out. So little of it makes sense to me."
He watched Iruka's facial expression, his posture and his general body language carefully. There was a mixture of sadness, anger and disbelief playing out across his features, his slumped, dejected shoulders and his clenching and unclenching fists. In the far too jaded mind of the Hokage, he saw a man on the edge.
This was a delicate moment. Iruka needed a push. It fell to the Hokage to choose the direction in which he would move.
The old man sighed softly.
Too many times had he sat in this office, behind the desk and in the robes that granted him the authority to decide, to choose the course that lives took, and been forced to make those decisions, those terrible choices. Too many lives had been in his hands for such brief moments, where words could make a man into something great, or break him beyond all hope of repair.
Power, authority, command – these were terrible things. So many sought them, so many craved them, but too few saw what they did, what they wrought in the wrong hands, or even the terror they could bring when wielded by the right ones. Power was a burden, not a blessing.
It fell to him to use it.
It is simply a question of how – which path must Iruka walk from here?
It left him with two options: explain, or deny knowledge.
As Hokage, it was well within his grasp to do either. He could give Iruka the information he needed to hear, or he could say he knew nothing of whatever bigger plan was at work behind Mizuki's own machinations. He could relay the truth, or he could label the information classified, out of Iruka's reach.
Such is the pain of choice.
Silencing seals already active, he decided.
Reaching a hand under his desk, the Hokage placed two fingers against a seal inked into the old wood many years ago, back in the days of Senju Hashirama and the inception of Konoha itself. The seal itself was of an old design, a highly secure storage seal taken along with dozens of other designs from the fabled subterranean libraries of Uzushiogakure when Uzumaki Mito first took residence in Konoha. It was ancient, as ancient as the scroll sealed within.
A pulse of his chakra saw a large scroll fall into his waiting palm. He placed it before him on the desk.
Iruka blinked.
"Does this scroll look familiar, Iruka-kun?" the Hokage asked.
The man stepped closer to the desk and examined it carefully. "It looks like the Scroll of Sealing, but... older. Does that mean..."
The Hokage confirmed with a nod. "What you saw Naruto-kun carrying was not the Scroll of Sealing. What he took was one of the older copies of the Kage Bunshin technique made to look like this scroll."
"It was a decoy?" Iruka wondered aloud. Then realisation swept over him. "Hokage-sama, you knew about this?"
"I was aware, yes," he verified.
Iruka's eyes went wide. "Then why didn't you stop this?"
The Hokage paused. Delicate phrasing was needed here.
"If I stepped in beyond the regular boundaries, I would have revealed that I knew about this plot from the beginning," he explained. "Doing so would have put far more of my shinobi at risk."
Iruka's face hardened for a moment, but quickly softened in understanding. "Yes, Hokage-sama, but..."
"You need details, I know," the Hokage interrupted with a raise of his hand. "There is a long tale I could tell, but I will boil it down to the basics. The night the Kyuubi attacked the village was the same night Naruto became a jinchuuriki. Some felt he would be more useful to the village as a weapon. I disagreed. I attempted to give him as normal a life as I could, but my efforts were not enough, and I will regret that until the end of my days. Despite my feelings, the insistence that Naruto enter the Academy eventually won out."
"You didn't want Naruto to become a ninja?" Iruka asked with an eyebrow raised.
The Hokage nodded slowly. "As I said, I wanted a peaceful life for him. It was the least I could do, given what he carries in our stead."
"So, this plot is about him, I take it," Iruka said.
"Yes," the Hokage resumed. "Given the prejudices against him and my lack of ability to remove them without violating my own law, certain insurances to assure that he graduated were put in place some time ago. Some of them I was... not aware of until quite recently."
"And Mizuki was one of them," Iruka muttered, bowing his head.
"I am sorry, Iruka," the Hokage said, bowing his own head. "As degrading as it may seem, and as disrespectful to his memory as it is, Mizuki was a pawn, a single piece to be manoeuvred in a much larger scheme. Eventually, he would have been discarded. Perhaps it is better that it happened sooner rather than later."
Iruka didn't look up. "I just... I still can't believe he's gone, and for what? What did his death accomplish?"
"It will be of little condolence to you, Iruka," the Hokage said, "but this was... necessary."
"'Necessary'?" Iruka echoed loudly, his tone nearing a shout as he looked up with sharp eyes. "Please, Hokage-sama, tell me just how the death of my best friend was in any way necessary."
The Hokage stood and lowered his voice. "Iruka."
The younger man stood to attention, back straight, legs stiff, and arms at his sides. "Yes, Hokage-sama."
The older man sat back down, his voice remaining in the same commanding state. "Jinchuuriki have been essential to the shinobi system since the Shodai Hokage distributed the bijuu among the Five Great Villages. The jinchuuriki are what keep the balance, and it is the presence of the Kyuubi that has helped to keep Konoha dominant."
His voice returned to normal, the tone of the grandfather. "At ease, Iruka."
"Hokage-sama, I apologise for my insubordinate behaviour," Iruka said stiffly, bowing low.
The Hokage sighed. "It's alright, Iruka-kun. I understand."
Iruka loosened himself and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Hokage-sama, but I still have trouble understanding this. What makes the jinchuuriki so important now? I thought we were in a state of disarmament."
"For now," the Hokage remarked. "Suna's jinchuuriki is widely noted as a genin with an impeccable mission record. Kumo's two are jounin, the older of the two quickly approaching the threshold of the five Kage's power. One of Kiri's is Mizukage himself. Taki's jinchuuriki has defended their village for years. Iwa's have been held in reserve for some time, simply waiting on the go-ahead from the Tsuchikage to unleash hell on whatever he sets within their sights."
The Hokage paused. "So I ask you this: where is our jinchuuriki?"
Iruka blinked a few times, his eyes almost watery. "I... understand, Hokage-sama. I just... I just wish it hadn't come to this."
The Hokage sighed once more. "At the very least, Mizuki is no longer a pawn in someone else's game. He is no longer a tool."
"I... I suppose he can rest now," Iruka nodded slowly.
The concoction of sadness and anger resurfaced on Iruka's face, regret and rage swirling in the eyes of the crestfallen. He had seen this day play out so many times across so many eyes and faces, the same kinds of emotional distress staring him down with unabated hate or resigned misery. The knowledge he could nothing to stop it repeating made each time as painful as the last.
"If you don't mind, Hokage-sama, I will take my leave now," Iruka mumbled, turning for the door.
"Iruka?"
The man glanced over his shoulder.
Time for the push.
"Konoha lies in forest. The village is the tree at its centre, and we are the leaves," he recited.
Iruka turned fully and smiled somewhat. "Senju Hashirama's own words."
The Hokage nodded. "Yes, but what he did not mention was the roots. Deep in the shadows, they support the tree from beneath."
Iruka blinked once in thought before he spoke. "Yet rot in the roots can bring down the tree."
The old man chose his next words carefully. "Look closely, then cut it away."
Iruka nodded slowly and left without another word. The door closed behind him.
Looking down, Sarutobi Hiruzen opened his top left-hand drawer, pulled out his weathered pipe, stuffed whatever tobacco was next to it inside and lit it up with a tiny spark of Katon chakra. He took a long drag from his old friend. Smoke coiled in aged lungs.
It was a habit he had never quite kicked. It did his health little good in the long run, but it was one of the few distractions that had kept him sane so long. No one could weather the world alone forever, nor could he withstand the burden of power the same way. They all needed something to rely on, an escape, however damaging it was. But then there were those who threw themselves headfirst into the abyss. They were the ones who used the darkness of the world itself as an escape.
He released his held smoke in a practiced ring, watching it billow neatly and lose shape and form as it expanded into nothingness.
Toji Mizuki had been taken in exchange for readying their jinchuuriki for the world. He had given Iruka the push he needed, in the direction that would take him to the one responsible for the death of his friend and teammate.
But at what cost?
That question would not be answered for some time, perhaps not for years to come. But it would be answered in the end. As much as it pained his old heart, the answer was a simple one: Umino Iruka.
He shook his head in slow, unhurried motions and sighed quietly.
"Damn you, Danzo. Damn you."
Well, that's something.
Anyway, leave your thoughts or what-not. Reviews and things are helpful.
I'm tired now. Goodnight.
With greats yawns and greater stretches of arms,
A238