disclaimer: i don't own any part of naruto

The Chain of Change

Chapter Five

At the border between Fire and River country, where forests gave way to water-cut mountains, an ANBU stood with a bird in his hands.

It was a rust-colored desert hawk, a species indigenous to Suna and commonly used in its native country as a messenger bird. Indeed, someone had placed a collar around its neck and attached to it a small pocket the size of a pillbox. However, this bird had been struck down from the sky before it managed to reach its intended destination. One of its wings was bent at an unnatural angle, obviously broken. The other flapped wildly like a flag caught in the wind as it struggled ferociously against its captor.

Even though its wicked talons and beak scored several deep gashes across his skin, the ANBU didn't even flinch as he calmly adjusted his grip and broke the hawk's neck with one smooth twist of his hands. He removed the message from its container and tucked it carefully into one of the many pouches gathered at his waist. Then, blurring through a series of seals, he set the bird's corpse aflame with a katon jutsu.

By the time the fire died out sufficiently to uncover a pile of charred bones and feathers, the ANBU was already well on his way back to Konoha.

On account of the large amount of sensitive material kept there, Danzo had gone through great pains to conceal his private study. Few were even aware of its existence, and only two other Konoha-nin – the top-ranking members of ROOT who served as his personal bodyguards – knew its exact location: a storage unit in the residential sector leased under the name of a civilian.

Even they were not with him tonight as Danzo pulled the intercepted missive from Suna out from one wide sleeve and spread it out on his work desk. The flame of his lamp flickered wildly in the drafty room, casting constantly shifting light over strangely formed characters.

It was an encrypted message, but of a very special variety. Danzo doubted that even the code unit had access to its key. Only the leaders of the hidden villages, the five kages, were allowed to use this particular cipher. Thus, in Konoha, only the hokage held the scroll needed to unscramble the message… And Danzo, who had previously taken the opportunity to make a copy for himself.

Transation only took a few minutes. The completed message was not very long, and written in a cool, clipped tone. The elder wondered about the one who had composed it, but he was offered no insight into the mind of the Kazekage.

On the subject of Namikaze Naruto, the contents were much more revealing.

Danzo read the message twice, just to be sure. Then he threw the scroll over his lamp. It quickly caught on fire, scattering small fragments of burning paper into the air that glowed like summer fireflies.

The elder sat back in his chair with a loud sigh. For sixteen years he had waited for some indication of the Kyuubi's location. Despite the Sandaime's dying speculation, the demon fox had never shown itself.

Until now.

Danzo had always been adept at playing father and son against each other in the interest of maintaining his own influence over the village. The truth of Kyuubi's existence could undermine all of his efforts. It was bad enough that Naruto was back in Konoha. Danzo was sure of one thing: if the boy could not be controlled, then he would have to be killed.

The elder snuffed out his lamp before sweeping out of the room and into the night.

Naruto woke up to the uncomfortable sensation of being smothered in white and immediately realized two things: first, that he was in a hospital, and second, that he wanted to check out of said hospital as quickly as humanly possible.

However, his body apparently didn't want to cooperate. Even the act of sitting up in the bed caused stabbing pains to pierce his chest. The blond lifted up the edge of his hospital gown to reveal taped ribs and badly bruised skin. Considering that he usually recovered pretty quickly, Shukaku must have given him one hell of a thrashing.

Though his body felt exhausted, Naruto's mind was restless. He had been placed in a private room, and though it was one of the expensive, nice kinds, there wasn't anyone in sight – not even a medic-nin to tell him how long he'd been out. There was a call button on the wall next to his bed, and for a minute he considered pressing it, but then he realized that it would probably just result in a prolonged, uncomfortable checkup and decided to leave it alone.

Another (worse) idea struck him. Taking a deep breath, he sat back against the annoyingly soft pillows and touched the tips of the fingers of each hand together, then closed his eyes and tried to relax to absolute stillness. This time, he felt the nature chakra draw in more quickly, bathing him in warmth and dulling the pain of his injuries.

He sensed about a dozen chakra signatures, all but two of them static. The mobile ones, most likely corresponding to patrolling medic-nin, were fairly faint and therefore probably far away. This was his chance.

Carefully, Naruto extracted himself from the bed. He was able to stand without much difficulty. Even without the aid of natural chakra, his legs would probably be strong enough to hold him up, which was a good sign. He gently tugged the IV free from his forearm and removed the other electrodes taped over his torso as best as he could, then dug around in the closet until he found his clothes.

He had just finished pulling on his pants on when he felt an enormous chakra presence enter eth building and continue toward his room. Realizing that it could only belong to one person, Naruto swore and headed for the window, not even bothering with his shirt. He managed to get two of the latches undone before sand streamed in between him and the window, blocking his access.

"Naruto, get your ass back in bed." Gaara's voice was not amused.

The blond scowled at his friend, who was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. "You are no. Fun," Naruto said, but complied. His sage chakra was rapidly dissipating anyhow, which meant that the pain was beginning to return.

"If you try something like that again," Gaara said calmly, "I will tell the medic-nin, and they will chain you to the bed."

"Kinky," Naruto said. "I've always like the idea of nurses having their way with me." His expression, however, suggested otherwise.

The Kazekage moved to the side of the bed, noting with narrowed green eyes the electrodes and discarded IV line that lay on the ground. "I am going to call a nurse in here," he said.

"Traitor!" Naruto exclaimed, but Gaara was already pushing the call button.

It took less than a minute for a medic-nin to arrive: an older man, maybe forty-five, grizzled-looking and missing a notable chunk out of his nose. He took in the situation immediately, saluted, and said, "Shall I send for the straps, Kazekage-sama?"

Seeing the man's expression, Naruto turned positively green.

Luckily, Gaara was feeling merciful, as he quickly fabricated an excuse as to why all of the monitoring devices that had once been attached to the blond's body had somehow ended up on the floor. The medic-nin frowned, obviously not really buying it, but he did not question the Kazekage's story. Instead, he prepared a fresh IV and "accidentally" missed Naruto's vein a few times when trying to reinsert it.

"If you're awake," the medic-nin said briskly after he had rendered his patient hospital-complaint once more, "I should give you a quick check-up."

"Uh, I'm really tired right now," Naruto said. "Maybe later?" He added lamely.

"Very well," the nurse said, excusing himself.

"You know," Naruto said after he'd left, "It's really not fucking fair. I fight and beat you – again – but I'm the one who ends up looking like shit."

"At least you're alive," Gaara replied. "What were you thinking, going up against Shukaku by yourself?"

"It's not like I had a choice," Naruto countered. "Kakashi had his hands full after my idiot teammate tried to set the village on fire. Permanently."

The Kazekage sighed, running a hand through his dark red hair. It was an unusually human gesture, and from it Naruto suddenly realized how worn out his friend looked, how his eyes were even more shadowed than usual.

Gaara must have somehow sensed his sudden worry, because a small smile appeared on his face. "I'm fine," he said. "The villagers actually took the whole thing quite well."

Naruto was incredulous. "You mean… you went ape-shit crazy on Suna, knocked down about twenty buildings, and everyone's cool with it?"

"Not everyone," the redhead admitted. "A few people wanted to arrest your team."

"They think we knocked you unconscious?"

"Konoha and Suna have never been on the best of terms. I'm trying, but the Orochimaru incident is still in everyone's minds."

"It figures that creepy bastard would be causing us problems from beyond the grave," Naruto muttered.

They fell into silence after that. Gaara seated himself in one of the plastic visitor's chairs by Naruto's bed and stared out the window, his eyes distant. He seemed calm enough, but it did not escape Naruto's attention that something seemed to be troubling him. The blond chose not to pry and instead lay back against his pillow, feeling exhaustion beginning to weigh down his eyelids.

Abruptly, Gaar's voice brought him back to attention.

"Naruto… what did you do to stop Shukaku at the end of the fight?"

For a minute, Naruto said nothing. He had been expecting this question, but was unsure how to answer it, was even dreading thinking about it because it reminded him how completely, frighteningly out of control he had been.

Gaara sensed his hesitation and amended quickly, "You don't have to –"

"No," Naruto interrupted, "It's better if I do." He frowned, drew into himself until his memory was bathed in the desert wind. He remembered the overwhelming feeling of sand closing in on him like a vice, squeezing and squeezing until the pressure seemed unbearable. The pounding of blood in his heart, in his skull. The red heat rising inside his chest like a building tide.

"Shukaku was killing me," the blond said slowly. "I thought it was going to crush me into pieces. At first I was starting to pass out, but then I began to feel really strange. Kind of angry that it had beaten me." He blinked. "That's pretty weird, isn't it? You'd think that I'd be scared that I was gonna die, not angry because some giant sand monster had gotten the better of me. Anyway, that was when this red chakra appeared everywhere and started melting Shukaku into goo. I've never seen anything like it before, but I think it was coming from me, because the angrier I got, the more of it there was. But that doesn't make sense either, 'cuz summoning Gamabunta ate up the last of my reserves."

His friend said nothing for a moment, but turned back to the window, face shadowed. Naruto knew the Suna-nin well enough to recognize that he was thinking deeply about something. Gaara, in his own right, was as much of a genius as Sasuke or Shikamaru, only his intellect was of the steady, tenacious kind. Faced with a problem, Gaara would not let go until he had devised an elegant, effective solution. So Naruto flopped back against his pillow and waited for him to sort it out.

Finally, Gaara spoke, but it was far from what Naruto expected to hear.

"You know, sometimes I can feel Shukaku's emotions if they're strong enough. And he doesn't like you."

"Shukaku's a demon, Gaara," Naruto said, as if pointing out the obvious. "I didn't know it liked anyone."

"Yes, but he really, really doesn't like you. In fact, I think he's afraid of you."

"Uh, what?" Out of all the adjectives Naruto could use to describe the demon, "fearful" was not one of them.

"Exactly," Gaara agreed. "There isn't much that Shukaku would be afraid of, and humans are at the bottom of his list. The only thing I can come up with is maybe another tailed beast."

"Exactly where are you going with this?" Naruto asked, confused.

"A higher-ranking bijuu – well, I suppose that could be any of them. But a bijuu with red chakra… and the Yondaime was the one who coincidentally sealed the Kyuubi."

Realizing where his friend was going with this, the blond broke out laughing, then winced as pain jolted through his abused chest. "Gaara, I think that I would know if I were a jinchuuriki!"

Gaara's only response was to give Naruto a flat look.

"Dude, you don't mean—" The Konoha-nin's laugh faltered. "You can't be serious!"

"Have you actually seen the statue your father supposedly sealed the Kyuubi into?"

"No, why the hell would I want to go look at it? Besides, it's not exactly a museum exhibit – the ANBU have it under 24-hour surveillance!"

"I don't know then," Gaara said. He looked tired. "But that's the conclusion I come to after considering everything that happened. I think we should talk to Hatake-san when he wakes up."

"Uh," Naruto said, "Sure. Wait, he's not awake yet? How long have I been out?"

"Two days. The medic-nin say that Hatake-san is expected to regain consciousness today as well." Gaara glanced at the small clock mounted on the wall, frowning at how quickly the numbers had changed. "I should go. I'll let your teammates know that you've regained consciousness."

"Gee, thanks," the blond muttered as his friend left the room. Too tired to give Gaara's words any serious consideration, but too restless to go back to sleep, he leaned further into the lumpy bed and tried to amuse himself by counting the cracks in the ceiling.

Mouse and Eagle always patrolled together; it was one of the perks of being on Danzo's payroll. And while the pair rarely conversed – ROOT training tended to select against garrulousness – having a constant companion while on duty was nevertheless reassuring. Thus, neither of them thought anything of it when they were both switched that night from watching the village gate to guarding the hokage. The Yondaime often worked late, but for some reason the regular patrol schedule ended at eight, so it wasn't unusual for on-duty ANBU to be reassigned on short notice.

The hokage was still hard at work when they arrived at the tower to relieve the previous watch. He was seated behind a desk stacked high with paperwork, scribbling his way through a thick packet with a small frown on his face. Relations between Konoha and the other hidden villages had been dissolving recently at a fast clip; diplomatically, it was the hokage who had to pick up the slack, and that meant letters to be written, envoys to be debriefed, and, of course, spies to be selected and dispatched.

Not that Mouse or Eagle knew anything about the matter. Their knowledge of the current state of affairs was that it caused the Yondaime to work late. Whatever effect it might have had on the man was of little concern to them. Their allegiance was to Danzo first; keeping watch over the hokage was just a pretext to maintain the illusion of their loyalty.

Thus, neither of them was really paying particular attention when, at around nine o'clock, two masked nin smashed through the panoramic windows and immediately set upon Konoha's leader with the intent to kill.

It was painfully clear to the ANBU, even as they leapt toward the hokage's desk, that they were far too late. Trained assassins killed in an instant; their task was only made easier when the target was taken unawares. Loose sheets of paper flew everywhere, obscuring the hokage and his assailants from view. The room was completely, overwhelmingly silent.

It was over in the space of a second, and when everything had settled, the Yondaime was standing over two unmoving bodies. There was blood streaked over his white robes; it was impossible to tell whose it was. He held in his hand one of his signature three-pronged kunai. Another was buried in the ground a few feet away.

"ANBU!" The hokage bellowed. His expression was terrifying. "Where the hell are my ANBU?!"

Mouse and Eagle watched as the office suddenly began to fill with masked Konoha-nin. If the events hadn't happened so quickly, they might have anticipated what was coming next and made a successful escape. Unfortunately, in their dazed state, they were barely able to register that the majority of the ANBU present seemed to hail from ROOT.

"I thought," the Yondaime was saying, in a quiet but dangerous tone, "That becoming hokage meant that I no longer had to kill people myself. That I had my ANBU to protect me." He placed the kunai in his hand on the desk. There was an audible click as metal met wood in the silent, motionless room. "When the protection of my son had been bungled, I thought it had been an honest mistake. Now I'm not so sure. Something stinks in this organization, and I intend to find out what." The blond's eyes were glacial and intense. "Nara!"

Some of the ninja present flinched at the breach of protocol, but no one said anything as a deer-masked ANBU approached their leader and saluted lazily.

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"I want everyone present here to be shaken down. Find out where their loyalties actually lie."

"Sir," Shikamaru acknowledged. "Should I have everyone taken down to Ibiki-san's division?"

"No," the hokage said. "Bring Ibiki and his force here. I'll see to it that no one leaves."

Shikamaru saluted again and vanished.

Mouse peered around the hokage's desk. The bodies of the two "assassins" were gone as well. That was about when most of the ROOT-nin realized that they had been set up.

Contrary to what Gaara had predicted, Kakashi woke up two days later. By then, Naruto had recovered enough to be officially discharged, although the hospital made a point of sending a medic-nin to check up on him daily. This irritated Sakura, who took it as a direct insult to her own abilities and compensated by zealously monitoring Naruto's condition. Between her ministrations and his injuries, Naruto found to his dismay that his activity was still heavily confined.

So, despite the fact that they were returning to the hospital, Naruto enthusiastically accompanied his teammates to go visit their convalescent jounin-sensei.

They found Kakashi sitting up in bed, engrossed in one of his perverted little books. The blond wondered how the man had smuggled it in. He'd probably gotten a nurse to do it; the jounin could be pretty charming if he put his mind to it.

"Yo," the man said as they came in, raising one hand in greeting.

"Kakashi-sensei, stop trying to act cool and put that trash away," Sakura snapped. Naruto had to hand it to her: the girl could talk in a way that made crossing her seem like a very, very bad idea.

Sheepishly, their sensei put the book down. He looked haggard – probably hadn't recovered fully from the chakra exhaustion yet – and his movements were slow.

"How are you feeling?" Sasuke asked. Naruto thought that it was unusually considerate of him. Then again, it was arguable Sasuke who had put Kakashi in this situation in the first place.

"Pretty good," the jounin said, though no one believed him. "I think I'll be ready to check out of here soon."

Sakura, who had grabbed Kakashi's chart from where it hung at the foot of his bed, looked up from flipping through it to say, "You're not going anywhere."

"We have to report back to the hokage, especially after what happened with Shukaku," he protested weakly.

"The Kazekage has already sent a message by hawk. There's no need to hurry," Sasuke said.

"This is important – Hawks can be intercepted – " Clearly their sensei was grasping at straws.

"Then Naruto can send another by toad summon," Sakura countered. She was clearly not going to be convinced on the matter.

The three talked with their sensei for a while longer before a nurse came in to usher them out, citing that the jounin was still recovering and needed his rest. They left, promising to visit again soon, and Kakashi asked that they bring another of his smutty books upon returning.

Once outside, Naruto turned to his teammates and said, "You guys go on ahead. I'm going to stop by Gaara's for a bit."

Sakura, still very much in medic-nin mode, protested. "You're still recovering too, Naruto. It's better if you come back with us."

"Why worry about me now?" Naruto said. "You never did before." That wasn't true, and he knew it, but he also knew that the only way to get Sakura off his case was to piss her off. And it did the trick – her eyes narrowed into cold green slits before she stormed off with Sasuke without so much as another word.

The blond watched them go. When their figures had vanished into the distance, he turned and went back into the hospital. It wasn't hard for him to avoid the nurses and get back into Kakashi's room. Apparently sneaking into a hospital was a lot easier than sneaking out of one.

His jounin-sensei looked up as he entered. His expression was quizzical.

"What are you doing back here, Naruto?"

"There's something I need to talk to you about," the blond said.

"Well, sure. What is it?"

"It's about the Kyuubi attack."

Kakashi's visible eye widened in surprise. "I don't think I can talk to you about that. You know that it's forbidden."

"It's not like the rule isn't broken all the time already," Naruto pointed out. His voice a little too casual, and it set off alarm bells in the jounin's mind. "Besides, I've already heard the story. I just want to know what you in particular remember about that day."

"Naruto – "

"I'll make it worth your while," his student continued. "You look pretty miserable here. If you tell me, I'll get you out of here."

Suddenly Kakashi's face became so hopeful that another would have mistook the expression for one of intense pain. It was clear that he didn't like hospitals, either.

"Alright," he said shrewdly. "As long as you break me out first. Then I'll tell you everything I know about that day."