AN: NOTE – Alltariss – It has been a VERY long time since I posted a chapter. Unfortunately work is piling up and leaving little time for fanfiction.

Chapter 18

A Cool-Looking Headband

Alto had little to no idea what to expect when he arrived at the warehouse. Naruto's assurances did little to soothe his rising apprehension. How could he not feel afraid? He was going to be staying with people who would have killed them if they knew about the money.

The only reason they're friendly now is because we gave it to them. Otherwise, they would have beat us to death.

The warehouse had clearly seen better days, but it was far more comfortable than the dilapidated shack they had lived in. It was definitely warmer and far more spacious. He could barely make out the walls, and the noises of people breathing and talking made it hard to pinpoint any significant features of the area.

Ever since he escaped her, his senses had never been the same. People, animals, even insects, but not as they were to others. Everyone looked like flames, human-shaped and flaring at times. Each had their own colours in addition to the usual hues of blue, black, and white. Yet, the rest of the world was unknown to him. He still needed to feel out the ground as he walked, feel the walls with his hands. Wisps of a person's flames would flow out brushing against the area around them allowing him to see briefly the ground beneath their feet or walls if they were close enough.

He had long since learnt to interpret the flames that shrouded people. It was more than just having a unique colour, but also an abstract feeling. Naruto's colours were far more numerous than others were. His hues were in constant motion and swirled unevenly. It felt like a storm, whirling and twisting one way and another. Never ending, never yielding. It was an accurate description, but the other colours were vastly different.

A deep blue hue with various nuances of red. The black seemed darker than his blind vision and the white so blinding at times that it prickled the exposed bones of his eye sockets. Blood, an overwhelming ocean of it. So much so that sometimes he felt suffocated. He had no idea where such power came from, and recalled feeling it only once before when they escaped the orphanage.

"These three are our new members," Daichi said.

His flames were darker than usual even his whites seemed dull.

"They're also the ones that got us a lot of Ryō."

Alto could see everyone turn towards them, their flames flaring as if stoked. The warehouse filled with whispered conversations. Many of them looked with something akin to respect. He had initially been against Naruto's plan of handing over all the gold to the faction. He would have preferred to hide the money in a place only they would know. At least then, they would never have to starve because they could not pay the weekly tribute.

"Nice," one voice exclaimed.

Soon many of them gave thanks for the rapid income, but it felt hollow. A little goodwill now would not stop the faction from killing them if it suited their purposes. Alto's thoughts coalesced into a single statement.

If I have to kill them, I will.

Ishikawa hated few things in life. Hatred was exhausting, like a fire that constantly demanded fuel until you reduced to ashes. Sometimes, he really hated his profession.

"You look like you could use a bottle," his secretary remarked.

Sitting at her desk with pen in hand Kaede appeared to be drowning in scrolls. Paperwork was an unfortunate side effect of being part of the upper echelons of Konoha's administration.

"I'm going to need two if this shit doesn't stop," Ishikawa replied, grabbing said bottle from his cabinet.

"I'm going to assume that you found the children and that things weren't to your expectations."

He laughed a deep chuckle as he seated himself on the couch.

"First, I find out that they were well aware of the consequences regarding the Jinchūriki and yet still plotted to have the boys killed. We were lucky that didn't happen and believe me, it was this close to a complete disaster."

He brought two fingers close together to emphasise his words.

"Yet, it wasn't all that bad," he continued. "One of the Jinchūriki seems very interesting."

"How so?" Kaede questioned.

"I watched the kid murder a guy with nothing but a roof tile. He was hesitant at first, but carried it out well. At least for an untrained street dweller."

She stopped writing, completely paused. She often questioned her employer's sanity.

"So the kid commits murder, and you're impressed." She rubbed her forehead hoping to stem the inevitable headache. "I understand why you didn't arrest the kid because of his status, but you're not seriously considering that he's suited for a ninja career?"

Ishikawa smiled and took a swig of saké.

"I always wondered why Sensei chose me to be his successor. Now I know."

This really piqued Kaede's interest. She knew enough about Ishikawa, but knew next to nothing about his predecessors besides their names.

"Izuna was the first of us. The herald of a dark future, but cursed to stay his hand."

Kaede's brow furrowed in thought. It always struck her as an odd thing for a Senju to do. To choose someone from a clan you had been at war with for centuries. It seemed natural to keep such a title within the clan.

"Uchiha Izuna was a man whose eyes were unlike any others. Not even his brother could compare. His Sharingan gave him tremendous foresight; a level one could say was divine."

She snorted in disbelief. "What like seeing the future? Like those shitty fortune-tellers that can't even predict the weather?"

"Nothing like that," he said. "More like an extension of his Sharingan's predictive abilities."

He took another swig before continuing.

"In addition to being able to read his opponents, he was able to read the flow of people around him. Imagine seeing a crowd of people and knowing exactly which way they would sway if certain opportunities arose. That was his gift."

"I don't understand," Kaede stated frustratingly. "The Sharingan can read the movements of one's opponent, even hundred opponents, but that doesn't really make it special just more capable."

He laughed. It amused him to no end the boxes that people lived in. Where even the windows carved into them were lenses that limited their perspectives.

"Imagine seeing the people of Konoha before they were unified and knowing without a doubt that they would choose Hashirama as their Hokage long before the concept of 'Hokage' had even been formed. To read more than just people. To read their hearts, their minds. To read the will of a nation before it takes its first breath."

Kaede could hardly believe what he said. She, like most people, had a very particular view on the Uchiha clan. They were arrogant, but it was somewhat backed by their prowess. Their history and Kekkei Genkai known throughout the nation. Uchiha Madara was a name every ninja knows and respects. A man that could literally cut mountains in half, deserved that level of respect.

"Izuna had known all this and knew that there was nothing he could do to stop it. Make no mistake, he loved his brother and was equally fanatic towards his clan. Yet, he knew that he had to stay his hand and shelve any thoughts of vengeance if his clan was to survive."

Ishikawa peered inside the bottle, judging how much was left.

"So why did he choose a Hyūga to be his successor?" he rhetorically asked. "Some would say that he was attempting to bridge the rivalry between their clans. Others would say that it was an attempt to join the bloodlines together, but the truth is not so simple."

"So why go through with it?" Kaede asked. "If he loved his clan as much as you say he did, then it would have made more sense to pick a member of his own clan. Keep the title for themselves and make it pseudo-hereditary like the Military-Police Force."

"That's because there wasn't anyone in his clan that had the right skills or potential to properly succeed him." Ishikawa replied. "And that more than anything else hurt him the most."

"So in the end he chose Hyūga Hideyoshi, your master," Kaede finished. So much history that had never seen the light of day. Information never written down for others to learn. A part of her felt afraid, thinking that if they all died then no one would ever know the truth.

"If I had to sum up Hideyoshi-Sensei in a single word, then it would be perfectionist. For the entirety of his life as far as I'm aware, he was exactly that. If he started something then he would repeat it until he mastered it."

Kaede nodded to herself in thought. "Sounds like the type most would want to have as a student."

"On the surface, yes, but he wasn't without flaw," Ishikawa said. "He was very impatient as a child. Always rushing into things without pause. Izuna lacked in skill, but made for it with his foresight and patience."

She snorted in a rather unlady-like manner. "I assume he beat that particular virtue into his skull?"

"You bet," he replied, laughing. "Izuna passed his gift of foresight onto Hideyoshi-Sensei and taught him patience. I'm sure it wasn't easy, but when I first met Sensei he was a very patient man. He never hated me for being slow to pick up certain skills and always made sure that I had truly learnt what he had taught. If nothing else, he was an exceptional teacher."

She noticed that his voice had gotten softer in tone and realised that perhaps the man was more than just his teacher. She knew that the apprenticeship had to have started very young. He implied on more than one occasion that his Sensei had taught him how to walk, talk, read, and write. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she entertained the thought that he looked to his master as a father rather than a teacher, before discarding it as sheer stupidity.

He's hardly the type of person that actually feels emotions. Just an empty void incapable of it. Sure, he could pretend to feel emotions, but I'm sure that he thinks it's a massive waste of time.

Unaware of her thoughts Ishikawa continued.

"Hideyoshi-Sensei's skills were his one-track mind when it came to learning techniques. I was just an orphan with no clan-name and would have joined the Yakuza if it weren't for him. The only reason he chose me was that I'd snuck into one of the hidden caches around the village without tripping any of the traps or alarms."

Kaede blinked owlishly. "The caches!?" she exclaimed. "Even a trained Ninja would find themselves dead or at the very least wounded trying to break in."

"True," he agreed. "But the traps were made for adults as it was assumed that any invader would be an adult. Which was how I got in. I was small enough to bypass the safety measures."

"So, Hideyoshi-san was so impressed that he immediately drafted you into the military and made you his apprentice?" she asked, trying to comprehend the sheer absurdity of it all.

"I suppose that was his initial assessment, but I think he was more impressed by my natural talent at infiltration," Ishikawa said, placing the now empty bottle down. "In the years that followed I learnt everything I could from him. All that he inherited was passed down unto me, and now it seems that my time has come."

There was a minute of silence between them. Kaede's mind wandered as she processed all the information that was revealed. She had never known her employer to be so forthcoming with information.

"You've never been upfront with me whenever I wanted to know something. You, Jiraiya-sama, Hokage-sama, even that war hawk Danzō-sama. Not once have any of you trusted me enough to answer my questions. So why now?"

Ishikawa smiled. He smiled so broadly it could be seen through his facemask. "You were fifteen when you first applied for an administrative position among the military personnel."

She nodded. "I wasn't suited for ninja training, but I still wanted to be useful."

"Your file was like most of the others. Nothing special or out of the ordinary."

He stood up and grabbed another bottle of saké along with two saucers. Placing them before Kaede and began pouring.

"At the time I was getting swamped with paperwork. My predecessors lived in an era where information was mostly oral in nature, but things have changed. New methods of encrypting information surfaced and written missives were suddenly more feasible. I needed someone who could handle extremely sensitive information, but wasn't biased by having a ninja background. I needed a civilian perspective, but one that wasn't afraid of getting their hands dirty."

He pointedly looked at her and she finally understood the gravity of her position. True, there were times where she had come across certain facts that horrified her. Backroom deals and covert-ops of gruesome nature, but she understood why they were done. She understood the greater picture. The casual manner in which she disregarded the murder that one of the jinchūriki committed was proof of that. In an ideal world, that child would be imprisoned and undergo therapy, but that could not happen. The stakes were too high to sacrifice a piece on the board in the name of morality, ethics, or justice.

"A necessary evil, Kaede. You understand this, which is what sets you apart from all the other candidates that applied. Do you remember the psychological tests we put you through back then?"

She dipped her head in thought. "I remember; it was a bunch of scenarios that we had to pick the solution to. A multiple choice test."

"Yes, but after every single question it asked that you justify your choice."

"But you can't justify it!" she shouted, slamming her hands on the desk. She huffed and stood to pace around the room. "Every single one of them were horrible."

"Exactly," Ishikawa agreed. "Each scenario was written such that every choice was a shit one. We asked you to justify your choice, not make an excuse, but give us justification."

"I don't understand." Her pacing paused but her posture remained strained.

"Over three hundred people applied for that position Kaede. Hiruzen, Danzō, and I sat down and went through each and every one of them. And every single person gave us excuses. 'Nothing could be done' or 'Sacrifices have to be made' or 'The other options are simply too horrifying'. Out of all those candidates yours was the only one that acknowledged the weight of your choice. For every scenario your answer was essentially that the choices available were shit and that regardless of what was chosen it was an evil."

She was silent. Struggling to grasp the sheer scale of what she had done. Of the person she had become, or rather groomed to be.

Were the choices I made even mine to begin with?

"We also had to make sure that you weren't the type that would betray the village."

Her head snapped to his direction.

"Treason?!" she shouted. "You'd think I'd actually betray my own home?"

He shook his head. "I strongly believed in you, as did Jiraiya and Hiruzen. The motivation wasn't there and the inclination to be swayed by money or power was near nil. Only Danzō doubted you and that's because it's in his nature to doubt everyone and everything."

"So what changed? What happened that made the lot of you suddenly decide that I was worth your trust?"

"You passed our tests," he answered simply.

"What tests?"

"Over the years we've exposed you to a number of double-agents within Konoha that work for the other villages. In particular Iwa and Kumo. And not once did you betray any secrets to them."

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. It was shocking enough that they had foreign agents freely about the village, but that they had exposed her to them. Especially when she had absolutely no combat skills to defend herself with.

Even an academy student could kick my ass!

"But Jiraiya-sama had placed his encryption seal on me. Even if I wanted to I couldn't betray any secrets," she countered.

"True," Ishikawa said, nodding his head. "But while the seal seems foolproof there's no guarantee that it is."

"So…" she started hesitantly. "How do you know if you can trust me? If there's no guarantee that I can be trusted?"

Oh Kami, he's going to kill me! I know too much so he has to tie loosed ends, right?

"Faith," he answered. Were his face visible she would have seen a gentle smile. "I have faith in you. In your skills and as a guideline to remind me that sometimes the solution doesn't require ninja."

He picked both saucers filled with saké and handed one to her. He raised his up and waited for her. Her brain short-circuited for a moment before realising what was happening. She wasn't going to be killed, quite the opposite in fact.

"So, congratulations Kaede. You're officially vetted. From here on out you are a Kunoichi of Konoha and with it all the responsibilities, privileges, and rights afforded to you by the Hokage, the Daimyō, and the Emperor himself."

Her hand shook as she clinked her cup against Ishikawa's and swallowed the saké swiftly. She could hardly believe that her dream of being an official ninja of the village would actually come true. She slogged for years in civilian school to make up for her lack of Chakra and combat prowess that prevented her from traditional entry into the village's military forces.

"So, what happens now?" she asked, still shaken from the sudden news of her promotion.

"Well," Ishikawa started with a chuckle. "I hear there's a fancy ceremony where they give you a cool looking headband."

They laughed and proceeded to spend the rest of the night celebrating.

Alto shifted to accommodate the petite body that huddled next to his. The night was especially cold again. The rain made the frost seep through the gaps of the wooden roof and the wind was biting cold. Haname clung tightly, her tiny arms wrapped around him. He pulled the threadbare blanket towards her leaving him a bit more exposed to the cold.

Her energy was unlike any that he had ever seen. Everyone had the blue-coloured hues that signified Chakra, but amidst the flames were colours so vibrant and shining that it left him speechless. A white so bright that it could illuminate greater than the sun ever could, such that it rivalled Naruto's own colours. The gold shined with such lustre that outmatched any he had ever seen before; it gave new meaning to how precious of a metal it was.

She had not a sliver of black or even a colour that was remotely dark. Everything was vibrant, nothing was dull. The blues, the whites, the gold, and nothing else. Everyone had more colours and shades than her. They had blacks, greys, and silver to accompany the rest forming a complex mix of shades, tints, and tones. Yet, Alto was the opposite. Gazing at himself from time to time he noticed the startling differences between him and others. He had no flames, not a single ember or spark of blue. All he had was silver, an ever flowing amount of it that creeped into every nerve, flowed through every vein, and coated all his bones.

A part of him wondered if silver was just as precious as gold.

Naruto was not certain as to what drew his brother and the girl together. From the moment they met they had seemingly bonded, even though they barely spoke to each other.

Although to be fair, the girl is mute.

The thought only served to make him wonder how they even communicated to begin with. He shook his head and cleared his mind. He had to pay attention to what Hikaru and Taro were saying.

"The trick to getting enough to pay the clan dues is knowing where all the hotspots are for loose change. It's nothing to really worry about."

Taro's voice betrayed his reassuring words. The raspy throat and gaunt features left Naruto with a lasting impression of what the years ahead were like. Unlike Alto, he knew exactly what he looked like and it wasn't pretty. Kyōko's work had left more than just scars. Scars healed quickly enough, it was an anomaly that he had yet to truly understand. But the starvation did not heal as his wounds did. If anything, it got worse. If he was this emaciated now then he would be completely withered by the time he reached his teen years.

"Usually you can find a few coins here and there around the merchant stalls and restaurants."

Hikaru's voice held the same weathered tone as her companion.

"But never, ever, go near the bars. They usually have gambling going on and would gladly kill you for a spare Mon to wager."

She would have been quite pretty if it were not for the sunken cheeks and baggy eyes that showed a lack of food and rest.

Suddenly it hit Naruto that this was his life. The streets of the Mizu District were now his home. It would be impossible to venture to the other districts without attracting attention. For all intents and purposes, he was trapped here. Taro had assured him that scavenging for coins on the ground was only done in desperation. The real money came from doing errands for the people who own businesses in the district.

Hikaru mentioned that certain businesses looked for specific kids that fit their agenda. The bars were off-limits to all except a select few, tea-houses kept an eye out for girls and rarely picked boys. The only types left were restaurants and merchant stalls. Stocking shelves, cleaning tables, washing dishes, these were what earned you enough to stay within the faction. You were considered lucky if you had enough left over to buy food. The adults had no problems putting them to work for the whole day only to get two copper Mon, three if you were lucky.

Naruto looked towards his brother and wondered if they would have been better off dead. He vowed then and there that their lives would be beyond the streets that they would have the whole world at their feet to explore. Never to hunger or thirst for scraps that others threw away. That they would never cling to life but chase it. That they would never be weak but instead have power to conquer any one or thing in their way.

Deep within the far reaches of his soul the waters rippled beyond the seal.

AN: NOTE – Alltariss – Another chapter done! I hope you enjoyed it as it will be quite some time again before I release another one unfortunately.