Chapter 13 - Critical Mass
Hiruzen sat at his desk, pouring over his scrolls with a concerned frown. The events of the previous day wouldn't let him go, even when he knew that the Medical Ninja were handling the situation admirably, and documenting everything. Something was very off about all this.
Before him lay the scroll retrieved from the late Ryosuke's side. Filled with highly dangerous and forbidden seals from foreign countries. It had been locked away, but somehow it had ended up in the hospital. He wanted to shift the blame to Akatsuki, to foreign invaders, but he acknowledged to himself that it was largely because he didn't want to think badly of Naruto. Taking scrolls from the tower was one thing, but using lethal seals from those scrolls went into a whole new territory.
The seal. That was the most puzzling element in all of this, aside from certain parts of the village's defensive grid that clearly needed a check-up. The seal was drawn in blood, Naruto's blood, yet Naruto's fingers were only spattered with a few drops at the time he was found. If he'd been the one to make the seal, how had he done it without using his fingers? The medic Ryosuke might have done it, but with the chakra burns on what remained of the man's hands, there was probably no way to discern that.
Naruto had a ready answer for what happened. Perhaps too ready. Yes, he had always been one to blurt everything out, to barge into conversations without a thought. Yet, Hiruzen knew that was an act. He had observed personally that the boy could be cunning, smart; you didn't lose that spontaneously. No, the boy wasn't just mentioning everything he heard. He was choosing every word very carefully, calculating ahead of time what the reaction might be. He came across as a Jōnin, sometimes, seasoned by years in the field. Hiruzen strongly suspected that Naruto was far more like that, inside, than the image he had long maintained.
The way the boy mentioned Gaara, the Suna jinchūriki, and wove Akatsuki into the conversation, had been masterful; Kakashi probably hadn't even noticed how convenient that all was. Jiraiya did, of course, but he would doubtlessly be more interested in figuring out just what that group was up to than why Naruto had known about them. Hiruzen, however, had no such concerns at the moment. Naruto was clever, and he was taking advantage of people underestimating him, while it lasted. In a way, very much like his father had been; the fact that he wasn't of any particularly notable clan had given Minato a great advantage on the battlefield, where people wouldn't think to consider him a threat until their throat had already been slit. That was before he had gained his reputation, of course.
More chillingly, though, Hiruzen was reminded of someone else, someone who also planned out every word, who manipulated every conversation to his end. His old student, Orochimaru. Quick with his tongue, that boy had kept him guessing for years. He could use any situation to his advantage. Hiruzen loathed to make the comparison, but he couldn't deny his instincts. Naruto was not a snake, perhaps, not quite that conniving; he could be a fox, though. It was no secret anymore that the boy kept his knowledge and skill obfuscated at all times, that he knew considerably more than he had ever admitted to in his youth, and was quite aware of his strengths. He trained in the use of the demon's chakra without anyone knowing about it, until now; only the stricter time schedule of a shinobi had unveiled his activities. Naruto was dangerous, that was for sure. That didn't make him a traitor.
Keeping secrets and hiding skills, though, where traits that any shinobi might have; many of the best did. That wasn't what concerned him. No, what worried him was that he didn't know if the carefree and even friendly demeanor that Naruto showed with his team, was actually genuine. It could be just another act, a disguise used to get to his teammates. Could Naruto be manipulating Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura, just as Orochimaru had done to his two Sannin colleagues?
"I figured you were the Jiraiya of this generation," he muttered as he picked up a picture of his old Genin team. Jiraiya was smiling broadly; there was no doubt where the man's laugh lines in present day had come from. Tsunade looked mildly annoyed at her goofy teammate, her arms crossed. Besides her, though, enigmatically staring at the camera, was Orochimaru, his serpentine eyes sharp as ever. "ANBU," he called, and in an instant a masked figure appeared in the room.
"Hokage-sama?"
"I need an audience with Danzō-san," Hiruzen said in a measured tone. "I require his assistance."
"I will go get him at once, Hokage-sama," the ANBU said and turned to leave, but Hiruzen raised his hand, gesturing to wait.
"What is your name? I recognize all my ANBU, but you are new." He raised an eyebrow. "Weasel, is it? Are you not concerned with the connotations of that particular mask?"
"I..." the ANBU hesitated. "I will retrieve Danzō-sama at once." He body-flickered away in an instant then, and Hiruzen frowned momentarily.
"Danzō-sama, is it?" he turned with a small sigh, leaving his speculations for another time. He looked out over the village through his window, seeing the roof of Naruto's home in the distance, almost out of sight. "I hope you'll forgive me for this breach of trust, but it's unavoidable at this point."
"Finally, I can get out of this bed!" Naruto exclaimed, as Kakashi walked in. "Sleeping like this is annoying. I can't even turn around, so now my butt's asleep-" he hesitated. "Ah, sorry, Kakashi-sensei. I don't like hospitals much, y'know."
"I gathered as much," Kakashi said lightly as he released the first of the wires holding Naruto down. In honesty, he could have overpowered them, Naruto was sure. Even if his chakra was severely limited by the seal formula on the larger ropes, he had more than anyone really knew how to use. Channelling Kurama's chakra would be an easy way to get through them too. Of course, either scenario would end up with him being chased by twenty ANBU, which was a bad idea right now. Best to go with the flow.
As the last of the wires and ropes fell away, Naruto jumped out of the bed and almost collapsed to the ground as his legs wobbled. Man, his muscles were seriously inflamed from the use of his tenant's chakra; his body wasn't used to it this time, and he needed time to adapt. In about three years, he figured, he would be back to his old level, with his own system sufficiently adapted to be able to use Kurama's chakra shroud. Perhaps sooner, if he got some serious training in. That depended on Kurama, though.
"You really shouldn't get into these situations," Kakashi muttered as he shook his head. "I've been in a few hairy situations when I was your age, but I never got close to being murdered in the Konoha hospital. That's just bad luck!"
Naruto frowned. "I..." He looked away. "I don't suppose you would let me see him? The medic?"
"His body is downstairs," Kakashi said immediately, frowning. "Ibiki's working on it, trying to figure out the details. Thankfully, the brain's intact. Makes it easier."
Naruto shuddered as he remembered that moment he had seen Ryosuke, after everything was over. Crushed, yes, but he didn't seem to be in pain, if his expression was anything to go by. Dead in an instant, probably painless. That really didn't make things better. "Please, I just want to..."
Kakashi sighed. "If Ibiki allows it. I suppose I can understand the desire to make sure that your assailant is gone." He glanced away. "Come."
The two made their way through the halls of the hospital at a snail's pace; there were few people around, thankfully, and Kakashi offered his arm as support on the long way down; six floors, at least, though Naruto sort of lost count along the way.
"Did you mean it, yesterday?" Naruto wondered. "About Sasuke and Sakura...?"
Kakashi smiled. Naruto had gotten remarkably good at telling facial expressions from just an eye by watching his sensei in the future. "Yes, I did. They're worried, but I asked them not to disturb you while you were here, and the hospital's closed anyway. I figured that you wouldn't want them to see you tied down. Besides, Sasuke did the same thing, so he probably considers it payback. Of course, someone went and visited Sasuke anyway, outside visiting hours..."
"Hey, I totally had a good reason for that," Naruto countered. "He was being an idiot, you know. Had to smack some sense into him. Besides, he's probably too busy with his fancy eyes to worry about me."
"I wouldn't say that," Kakashi noted. "I've seen him try it out, but whenever he mentions it, you come up. I think he's both thankful and scared of you at this point. Which basically means he's really itching to have a fight."
"Figures," Naruto said with a snort. He grimaced. "Do you think I should tell him? Tell them, I mean?"
"Hmmm?"
"About Kyūbi."
"Only you can decide who to tell," Kakashi answered.
"Sasuke must suspect something, after that whole Sharingan thing. He might not know what I called on there, but he knows it's not normal. It'll be a matter of time before he connects the physical manifestations with the beast. He's intelligent, sometimes."
"So charitable of you," Kakashi deadpanned.
"Sakura probably doesn't know a thing; she has trouble enough realizing I'm not the total knob I was in the academy. Imagining me as one of the most dangerous people in the whole village is way too large a step."
"Are you that dangerous, you reckon?"
Naruto stared. "I'm a jinchuriki, sensei. You know that shinobi are considered human weapons, right? Dial that to eleven for us hosts of tailed beasts. Beyond everything else, I am the closest thing the ninja world has to a weapon of mass destruction."
Kakashi shrugged. "I suppose that's true. But all trained shinobi are capable of doing a lot of damage." Kakashi tapped his hitai-ate. "This eye of mine can be terrifyingly powerful, and I've used it with my Ninjutsu to kill hundreds. I'd call that mass destruction. I'm dangerous too. Nobody seems too scared of me. Well, not in this village, anyway."
"That's because nobody takes you seriously when you read porn all the time," Naruto countered, glaring. He sighed as he looked away. "I suppose you're right, though. Still, telling Sasuke and Sakura something like that, it scares me. Before..." He shook his head. "Maybe when we know each other better."
Kakashi smiled and nodded, then glanced down the hall at the level they had just arrived at. The walls were sterile white and there were stretchers set up everywhere. "We're here. Mind your step, blood might make it slippery."
The morgue, as expected of a ninja village's repository of the dead, was large, and protected by several ANBU. They gave Naruto barely a glance before they let him follow Kakashi in; more ANBU were stationed there. The walls were covered with some kind of clear material, and several bodies were laid out on slabs in their own recesses. As they neared the hindmost part, high priority, even more guards waved them on.
"Isn't this a bit excessive?" Naruto wondered. "More than a dozen people to guard corpses?"
"They're dead ninja," Kakashi said easily. "The body of a ninja is usually destroyed after they die, because a lot of information can be gained from the remains. This morning, a lot more ANBU were called in because of what happened in this hospital, so it's even more protected at this point. Here's where Konoha Medical-Nin study enemy shinobi, you know."
Naruto knew, but he hadn't been to a place like this until Konoha was rebuilt after Nagato's attack. He had never been very comfortable with going here; he constantly had the feeling that some ghost was going to come floating around the corner and spook him. He shivered just thinking about it.
"So, like Iwa shinobi?"
"Lately," Kakashi agreed. He glanced at the far end of the room. "Ibiki, I brought a guest."
"A guest," the tall man replied, staring at Naruto with an intense gaze. "You have left me with quite a mess, boy. Try not to repeat that, or you'll end up down here too."
"I'll try to avoid it," Naruto said with a nervous smile that quickly vanished. "Could I...?"
"I'm done with him, you can do what you want," Ibiki responded. "I usually work on live ones, it's more interesting. Still, this one had a few things to tell me." He raised a little piece of flesh, and Naruto almost gagged. "This here is one of his fingers. Right index. It's covered in blood. Your blood."
Naruto nodded hesitantly.
"That confirms that this subject was the one to draw the seal on the ground. Consistent." He moved on and raised another bit of Ryosuke. "This tissue's from his hands as well. There's slight chakra burn from the Kyūbi's emanations. Consistent."
"You don't have to gross him out, you know," Kakashi noted.
Ibiki reached into a bucket. What he retrieved made eve Kakashi wince. An entire brain. "I've had experts try and retrieve what they could, but the way he was killed burst several arteries, which destroyed much of what we had to work with. However..." He weighed it on his hand, narrowing his eyes. "There were traces of an unusual compound, one administered within the same day. Inconsistent."
"What compound?" Kakashi wondered. "I didn't hear anything about that. "
"Latest findings, only showed up in our tests this morning. It was subtle. Problem is, we're having trouble figuring out what it is, exactly. It's similar, however, to certain poisons used by Iwa shinobi in the third war." He paused. "If I'm right, it's meant to make the subject pliant and suggestible, probably tired and uncaring. Konoha has used versions of its before. The Yamanaka family in particular grows plants whose extract can be converted into this substance. Their techniques of mind-domination work far better using it."
"Mind control," Kakashi said. "Are you certain about that?"
"It seems most likely," Ibiki said. He glanced at Naruto then. "Can you recall anything that the subject might have said about this? We may be dealing with infiltration of a different kind."
"Not really," Naruto responded. "It was a bit of a blur."
The man hummed under his breath. "So, this man said that he was from this Akatsuki and mentioned Hoshigaki Kisame's name, according to the report?" Ibiki wondered. "The person controlling the subject must have been loose-lipped, or very confident, to name such things." He glanced at Kakashi. "We cannot afford to assume the former. If this one was sure enough of his group's plans that a leak like that would be insignificant, then we must conclude he is not alone."
"We already have our eyes on one person. He does some work at the hospital as well, which doesn't make him look any better." Kakashi looked down at Naruto and frowned. "Come to think of it, the lead on that came from you as well, didn't it?"
Kabuto. "Those people out in the woods," Naruto said in realization, trying to play it off like he'd forgotten it. Honestly, he really hadn't thought about that in the confusion. Man, he was building up too many lies on lies, it was getting hard to keep track. "You mean the grey-haired man I saw?"
"I suppose with all your sleuthing, it's no wonder you run across this kind of thing," Kakashi said, but his look lingered a little longer than Naruto was comfortable with. A shiver ran down his back before the man turned away, and the feeling didn't go away.
"If this was mind-control, what will happen to..." Naruto said to get his mind off it, gesturing to the corpse laid out on the table. It actually looked less gruesome than he remembered, with most of the blood gone. "Ryosuke-san was being manipulated, right? Shouldn't he get a name on some monument?"
"Perhaps," Kakashi agreed. "Still, we don't know his involvement here. He could be completely innocent, but his role in recent events might raise questions among shinobi. We can't really come out and claim he was being possessed, after all. That would just be spilling secrets."
Naruto grimaced. If the village wasn't going to put him on a monument for what he had done, Naruto would. And then, when Akatsuki finally became common knowledge, he would have the Third put it on there, no matter what. Even if he had to tell exactly what happened, how he was ultimately responsible, he would see it done.
Before he could rethink it, Naruto stepped to the table. Ryosuke's eyes were open, the small smile still frozen on his face. He reached out and closed the man's eyelids, thinking of the many times he had done this to people he knew, back in his own time. "I will make him proud. I promise you," he murmured. And he would. He couldn't deny a man's last words.
He turned away and walked out without another word. He had to think.
Gaara walked into the Hokage's tower with some uncertainty. The last few days had been strange, absurd even. After being kidnapped from his own village and locked up in an underground dungeon with his chakra locked away, he had expected to die. It was hardly a strange assumption to make, and he had been trying to figure out a way to get out, to escape.
For all the days he was there, though, the clones that kept him company had tried to interact, had tried to tell him things that he honestly didn't understand. He could understand someone capturing, torturing him even. He couldn't understand this fellow host, this Naruto. One moment he seemed carefree and happy, and his clones were no different. He was the antithesis of Gaara at those times.
But, there were other moments, Gaara had noticed. The clones didn't brood in his presence much, but they did do it, and the understanding looks they showed when they glanced at him were similarly odd. Like someone was looking at him that understood everything, that knew exactly what kind of life he had lived and perhaps had even experienced it himself. Buried under all that cheer, was someone not much different from himself.
His urge to rip the clones apart and escape had waned over the days. He felt calm. Calmer than he had ever felt, as if the screaming voice that was always there had taken his hate with it as well. The silence was deafening, terrifying at first. He had spent much of the first day trying not to panic, trying not to give his captors the satisfaction of knowing they had gotten to him so effectively. Even with the clones' promise that he was better off, he rebelled against the silence, focusing all his anger to fill that void.
Then, slowly, it had changed. One day, perhaps four days after his captivity, he had almost dozed off. He'd near enough fallen asleep, while tied up. He had been watching one of the clones disastrously losing to another clone at a game of shōgi, while a third was quietly reading to himself. An hour had passed without a single word, and the atmosphere in the room had been remarkably like Gaara remembered from his youth, from sitting at the fireplace in the middle of the night, when the desert could cool off enormously. Sitting together with Kankurō and Temari, smiling and joking with each other. Before he knew, his eyes had closed, as if on their own. The fright when he realized that had jolted him back awake, but it stuck with him.
He couldn't quite describe it, but he felt different. When he removed the seal he had been given, he could feel everything was still there. The power, the unearthly screams within his head, the loneliness. The sudden shock of it hurt, hurt like nothing he had ever known. It wasn't a physical pain; he hadn't been hurt in years and years, but he remembered that differently. It was another kind of pain, as if his own mind was crying out in protest. Against that agony, he would gladly trade his shield of protection. He would rather suffer a physical wound than to submit himself to that again.
Even as he repeated his long-held opinions to the blond clones, ignoring their attempts at conversation as much as possible, he wondered how true they were, now. Was his mind his own, now? The real Naruto had told him about the tailed beast within him, and he had known intellectually that it was there, but he could feel the difference, now. Was he the same person with or without it? Was this calm, this lack of hate, really him all along?
His father had done this to him. Gaara still felt a surge of anger there, but it was strangely muted. Like he had been hating the man for so long, that it didn't feel necessary anymore. His hand strayed to his seal, to the little paper covering it. Did that little thing really affect him so much?
He was in another village; he had never been to one before, he realized. He was even meeting with another Kage, and he was calm. It was surreal. He passed many shinobi, even ones that glared at him suspiciously, and he barely felt the urge to hurt them at all, nor the intense need to prove his own existence. For the moment, it seemed enough to just exist.
"Gaara-san," a tall man with a reddish coat and long white hair said, bowing slightly as he approached. The ANBU that had been following him vanished. "I am Jiraiya, one of the Sannin of Konoha."
"...It is an honour," Gaara tried. He had never considered how he would talk to foreign officials before, but he'd heard enough people meetinng with is father when he was little to infer some things. Luckily, it seemed he had done well, as the man smiled.
"Nice to meet you. Well, follow me!" He walked in the door with a light step, and Gaara quickly walked after him. He felt odd without having his gourd strapped to his back; he had no sand on him at all. It was uncomfortable, but not unbearable, and that too was a new sensation. Jiraiya looked back curiously as Gaara ran a hand over his own shoulder with a frown. "Is there something wrong?"
"Nothing of consequence," Gaara muttered, shaking his head.
"I can see why you weren't picked up by our border guards," Jiraiya muttered. "Your chakra signature's nearly undetectable. That's pretty impressive, actually." He raised an eyebrow. "I would have expected a jinchūriki to have more chakra, like Naruto..."
Gaara knew his chakra reserves were tiny right now, or at the very least hard to reach. Most of it was tied up, it seemed, by the seal holding back the tailed beast, alongside the one placed on top. It had to be quite remarkable, to have such remarkable effectiveness on a jinchūriki.
"Well, the Hokage is waiting," Jiraiya said after a moment. "The blond idiot's already there."
"He is?" Gaara wondered what he would say to the real one. Talking to Shadow Clones was hardly the same, even if they seemed a lot more chatty and intelligent than he would have expected. "I trust you did not harm him for my transgressions?"
Jiraiya was silent for a few moments. "You were quite brutal. Crushing is a nasty way to go."
Gaara cocked his head to the side. "I have learned many ways to kill shinobi, Jiraiya-san. This was the most effective under the circumstances. Naruto was going to die with the next strike." In reality, of course, he'd attacked because of the blood, the hatred that had surged within. The man he had killed was of no consequence; he wasn't even really dead.
"I suppose you should be glad that we proved you were right in killing that man, even if a less permanent solution would have been preferable." Jiraiya shrugged. "What's done is done. You saved a Konoha shinobi's life; that certainly does not hurt your case."
"My case?"
"Never mind that now," Jiraiya said as he led the boy into the next room. Naruto was there, lounging in his chair with a bored expression. His eyes lit up and he smiled broadly as Gaara walked in. The blond quickly walked over, smiling.
"There you are! I was beginning to wonder if they put you in jail!" he exclaimed.
Gaara just stared at Naruto with a quirked eyebrow. "Coming from you, that is ironic."
Naruto scowled. "Yes, yes, I get it." Jiraiya and the Hokage looked on in mild confusion.
"Do you two know each other this well?" the Hokage asked first. "I was under the impression-"
"We met several years prior," Gaara said, glancing at Naruto. One of the clones had suggested an explanation for their meeting that didn't involve kidnappings, and he had no desire to get his father involved in all of this. An anonymous foreigner rushing to Naruto's aid, it seemed, was something beyond the realm of plausibility. He could see the boy wince at his words, though. Strange. "I was close to your village, and Naruto was by its borders. Our respective natures became clear quite quickly, even from a distance."
"We kept in touch with letters, sometimes," he added. "Gaara's got this cool ability to send sand a really long distance away, and if you put a letter in there..."
"That's fine, Naruto," the Hokage said, though he sounded a little odd. He turned to Gaara with a frown. "The Kazekage's son, coming to Konoha? You chose quite a spectacular way of introducing yourself, don't you think?" He glanced at Naruto. "I can understand the desire to protect a friend, but I am very concerned about the fact that you entered the village, infiltrated a hospital, and made it back outside the walls without being seen. It is behaviour worthy of a spy."
"I did not harm anyone," Gaara said blandly. "Punish me if you will. I acted out of haste, and left at Naruto's request. He did not want to begin an international incident."
The Hokage frowned warily. "Understandable as that is, it does not diminish my concerns. To put you in jail would send a message to Suna that I do not care for; our alliance is too important to lose so easily. I would have had no choice, if your victim had not been unusual." He turned to Naruto. "For the duration of Gaara-san's stay, he will be followed by ANBU."
"That is acceptable," Gaara said.
"I will arrange for guarded sleeping quarters, so that-"
"He can stay at my place," Naruto blurted. "I've already got a whole bunch of guards keeping an eye on my home anyway."
The Hokage frowned, looking mildly disturbed for a moment. Then, he sighed. "I suppose that is appropriate. You clearly already know each other well enough. I must stress, though, that you do not engage in any of your... questionable behaviour. No juvenile pranks, no training in distant fields or outside the walls." He looked at Naruto sharply. "He remains a foreign shinobi, and you are under watch."
"I will also place a monitoring seal on you," Jiraiya said. "It is non-intrusive, but will allow Konoha ANBU to track down your location with great accuracy. It can only be removed by me as well."
"To prevent me from moving about unnoticed, again," Gaara observed. "It was a singular event, but I will agree to the request. If I am attacked, however, I will defend myself."
The Hokage frowned as he looked at the boy. He seemed confused by something, and Gaara figured he knew what it was. The Hokage had heard the stories about Suna's 'monster child', no doubt. He expected the person he was when that voice, when Shukaku was unleashed. The lack of any such thing was unexpected, it seemed.
"You are quite cooperative," the Hokage muttered. "What are your orders?"
Gaara shrugged. "Irrelevant. I negotiated with my father to go to Konoha, instead of another, as he intended. I can swiftly communicate with my village if it is required, trough a method that cannot be imitated by others, due to my nature." He gestured vaguely towards his seal. "My presence should dissuade attacks upon your nation. In exchange, father expects that you will assist if an attack were to be launched upon our land."
"Not unexpected," Jiraiya murmured.
"The Kazekage would willingly let his jinchūriki go elsewhere?" the Hokage asked, half to Jiraiya. "That seems..."
"He has tried to kill me before," Gaara said neutrally. "Several times he has attempted to end my existence, likely so that the beast may be placed into another. I have fought off his attempts. For years, I have lived outside the village proper. He cannot control me, so he has no use for me."
"Yet, you have power. He knows that he weakens his village by sending you away," Jiraiya countered immediately. "The Kazekage is no fool."
"Is it foolish, to expect Konoha's help?" Gaara inquired. The wince from both the older men was pronounced. He knew that the diplomatic connection with Suna had been rough, but judging by the reaction, it was unlikely the two nations were on equal footing. "You are aware that there is a Missing-Nin of your village which may have interests in our village's assets, are you not? Or in its jinchūriki."
"Well, that's quite devious," Jiraiya observed.
"What is?" Naruto asked cluelessly, glancing between them all. Gaara was tempted to explain, but he was pretty sure the boy was acting again. He had no doubt pick up on the subtext that Orochimaru would now perhaps focus on this village, with two Jinchūriki within its borders. It was not a bad assumption.
"Will you defend Konoha as if it were your own village, should someone wish to attack you here?" The Hokage raised an eyebrow, steepling his fingers. "You bring a possible threat to this village. If your enemies follow you here, will you take responsibility?"
Gaara nodded sharply.
"Good." The Hokage glanced at Jiraiya, and they communicated something without any words. The latter stood up.
"Naruto, I think it's time we send you back to your team. We'll have a chat later," the Hokage said. "Right now, there's a few details I must discuss with Gaara-san. Alone."
"Oy, why is that?" Naruto asked heatedly. "Come on, you can't just shut me out! It's Gaara! If it weren't for me, how would you even know about him?"
Gaara looked on bemusedly. "I am quite capable of taking care of myself. You do not need to follow me everywhere."
"I know," Naruto muttered, fuming. "It's not like I don't know all this stuff already, anyway. Come on, give me some credit." Gaara grimaced slightly. The boy clearly didn't think he was up to the task of explaining himself, which was actually quite insulting.
"Gaara, could you show me your seal?" Jiraiya asked suddenly as he glanced between the two boys with narrowed eyes. "You too, Naruto. I need to check something. There's something weird going on with your chakra..."
Naruto blinked. "This isn't a perverted thing, right?"
Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "Will you do it if I say please?"
Naruto sighed, raising his shirt and exposing his own seal; he still had active clones, so it was already visible. Suddenly, he froze. Gaara knew why: The paper seal. It was still attached to Gaara's own seal. He saw the blond glance between him and Jiraiya with a worried frown, and then his shoulders sagged. "Man, on day one?"
Gaara exposed his seal, and the seal paper stuck on top of it. The intricate figure shimmered in the light and Jiraiya's eyes went wide.
"What is that?"
"A seal, of course," Gaara answered blandly. "Are you satisfied?"
Jiraiya glared, impatient. "The paper one, what is it?" Jiraiya asked sharply. "It doesn't look anything like the Fūinjutsu used in Suna. No, it reminds me a lot of..." He glanced at Naruto then. "Did you do this?"
"Yes, it's mine," Naruto said heavily. He shook his head. "You had to go and check the very first day, didn't you? I wanted to show you myself."
Jiraiya stepped closer, examining the paper. "Do you have any more of these?"
Naruto quickly retrieved one from his jacket and tossing it over. "Now it's all spoiled anyway. You had to be all observant and stuff. I have the design over in my house somewhere, these are just the ones I drew up for Gaara."
Jiraiya frowned as he looked over the paper seal with an intense look. He glanced back at the Hokage, and whatever they communicated, the Hokage's breath hitched for just a moment.
"When?"
"I made it a few weeks ago," Naruto said, looking away. "That version, anyway. I have others."
"It's meant for yourself." It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Naruto agreed, and Gaara thought that had to be the first honest thing he had said that day. "It's designed to keep the Biju chakra completely separate from one's own. It has to be changed occasionally, but it works. It was a training tool."
"A training tool?" Jiraiya inquired. "This is advanced Fūinjutsu, on level with what you showed me the other day. But, this one functions properly, it seems. That's a level of skill I hadn't expected."
"It's just that one. I had incentive, alright?" Naruto sighed. "Look, you know how corrosive demonic chakra is. The body's not made to take that kind of damage. But, with my heritage, I have increased stamina and so forth. My mom's contribution, you could say. If I stop the Kyūbi's chakra, and then start it again, it gives a shock to the system. But..."
"That's very dangerous," Jiraiya said, narrowing his eyes. "Pain training, Naruto? That's not for any Genin, not even one as peculiar as you."
"Pain's just a side-effect of an imperfect seal." He glanced at Gaara. "My own works fine, and it allows me to do all kinds of cool stuff, like precision seals. The effect of the seal is that it greatly improves my chakra control, and it enhances my healing ability a little, each time I use it. Also, it prevents the big fox from doing much of anything. That's how I used it. It leaves very little chakra that's detectable to the outside world, which makes it very helpful for stealth missions. Rip it off, and you have everything you would need for a full fight. It's custom-made, you could say."
"That's how you infiltrated the tower, and how Gaara-san entered the village," the Hokage said in understanding, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Naruto, you gave a foreign ninja a personal seal formula capable of hiding someone's chakra to this level? Are you out of your mind?"
"It's Gaara," Naruto objected. "Besides, it needs my chakra to activate it. Without the design papers, nobody is cracking that one any time soon."
"It's designed for the Nine-Tails, but it should work as well on any jinchuriki," Jiraiya murmured. "That's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."
"Mom did some of the work, actually," Naruto said, smiling wistfully. "She didn't leave much in the way of scrolls, but those few I have, they're great..."
Jiraiya shook his head. "Oh, Naruto? You'll need to get some other eyes to look over it for you."
Naruto blinked at the non-sequitur. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Your hint. I promised, remember?" He raised an eyebrow, then pocketed the paper seal. "I will study this in-depth, I promise. It's been a while since I've seen a new seal in this line of study." He paused. "Now, scram. You were dismissed just a little while ago."
"Ah, come on! That's so unfair!"
The Hokage looked on with narrowed eyes. Gaara narrowed his own. Trust was hard to find, it seemed. Even here.
"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed. "You're better!"
Naruto smiled nervously. "Yeah, the old man let me go after a meeting at the tower. It took forever, you know? There's someone I know who just arrived in town, so I got to do the whole introduction thing, and then a new seal came up... things got a little busy."
"You and your seals..." Sakura muttered.
"Who was the new arrival?" Sasuke wondered, twirling a kunai around his finger as he walked over to his teammates. "Anyone we would recognize?"
"He's a Suna shinobi, so probably not," Naruto said easily. "You'll meet him soon enough, I'm sure. He's sort of like you. Silent, except when it comes to talking about killing people. I'm also pretty sure he's had an urge to kill me once or twice."
"Hn. So, what did you do to get in the hospital? Honestly. Did you hit your knee, bruise your wrist? Something pathetic, I take it?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Naruto said, smiling.
"You probably drank spoiled milk or something." Sakura murmured. Naruto snickered, and she just seemed confused about his reaction
"Let's hear it then," Sasuke added, folding his arms.
"You are such a hypocrite," Naruto retorted. "Won't say a word about what happened to you, and that had me worried for days. Now you want to know all about what happened to me in turn?" he laughed deviously. "Why, Sasuke, were you worried too?"
Sasuke looked away, but he didn't deny the accusation.
"Hah! I knew it!" He smiled warmly. "Thanks, guys. Kakashi told me that you tried to come visit, but they wouldn't allow you. Big mess, you know."
"They had the whole hospital closed up because of something," Sakura complained. "Well, not all of it, of course, but the floor you were on, and a few others, and the whole basement. Plus there were ANBU everywhere. Usually you don't even see those, let alone groups..."
"Eh, I'm intact, so I survived the hospital once more. I was kind of hoping we could get back to some training, since my muscles are all cramped up from laying in bed for a whole day." He stretched and winced. His enhanced healing was fixing his muscles, but the corrosive chakra was still pretty damaging. "Come on, let's have a spar."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "As long as it isn't another one of your crazy murderous ones."
Naruto smiled. "No promises."
"You two..." Sakura said, shaking her head. "You're incorrigible."
"Ah, Sakura, don't be like that. Well, I could fight you too, if you like? You've gotten good at using those super punches of yours, haven't you?"
"I've been practicing some," Sakura said hesitantly. "With you and Sasuke getting hurt all the time, Kakashi-sensei keeps ending up with me."
"You needed the most instruction," Sasuke said, and Sakura actually seemed to accept it, from him. Naruto was sure she would have punched him if he had said the same thing. "I never thought you'd be the Taijutsu type. Genjutsu and such, maybe, but hand-to-hand?"
"It is a good combination," Naruto noted. "Tsunade of the Sannin has super punches too, you know. You're taking that comparison pretty literally. Now all you need is medical jutsu, and a gambling problem." He snickered. "Probably drinking, too."
"Naruto!"
"What, it's totally true! Pervy Sage told me!" he explained. "So, what do you say we try and get another C-rank as soon as possible? With all the D-ranks we've been doing, ignoring the hospital visits, we're way ahead of most of the other rookies."
"Team 8 left on the mission that we might have received," Sakura said, frowning. "It didn't sound too exciting. Something with the border, I think. I think Ino's team is off on some training trip with their sensei too."
Sasuke scoffed. "Good riddance. We will take the next C-rank."
"I'll negotiate us something awesome," Naruto agreed, smiling. His mood lifted a little. Even with all the problems that the last few days had brought, with the ever-mounting pile of lies and half-truths he had to keep track of, his team was still his team. It felt good, very good, to have a couple friends that he could just hang out with, train with, without all the complicated stuff coming up. If he had missed anything in the last few years of his old life, it had to be his old team. Yes, Kakashi was still around, and even Sakura, but they had fundamentally changed. The former had been Hokage in a time of relative peace, but the stress of the job had still been high, and he had been quite a different person under that hat. Sakura... after Sasuke, she had never been quite the same.
This time, none of that would happen. He had to remind himself of that. However badly he thought of himself, however much he realized he was screwed up, no better than any shinobi who fought and killed for too long, in order to save too little, he still had that hope. He could keep Sasuke in the village. He could prevent Sakura's hope from crumbling away. He could even stop his own decline into someone he didn't want to be anymore, perhaps. One day, he might be able to stop the killing, to stop war, as he had originally intended.
He might still be the prophecy child, after all.
"Sasuke, you're definitely going down," Naruto announced as he cracked his knuckles. "Let me count you the ways..."
The Uchiha's eyes spun alight with the Sharingan. "You think so, do you? Kakashi's shown me a few tricks, you know..."
"Ah, come on, I asked to be there," Naruto complained. "You probably just stole all those, anyway. I knew I should have given you those freaky eye things."
"Given?" Sakura wondered aloud, glancing between the two. "I thought you said you activated them yourself?"
Naruto raised an eyebrow, then rolled his eyes. "Didn't take long for the Uchiha ego to pop up, did it? Couldn't wait to scrub my role out? It's too late, you know. Even if you get super-awesome in the future, you'll always remember that you got your boost from that blond-haired punk in your team." He smirked.
Sasuke winced. "You helped me get the Sharingan, that is true," he acknowledged after a moment. "I activated it myself. I was technically correct, deadlast."
"The best kind of correct," Naruto said jovially. "And I'm not that anymore, you prick. I was the dead last in the academy, but only by design. You probably figured that out, right?" He slipped into a Taijutsu form that he had developed himself; some inspiration was taken from the fighting style of the frogs, but until he had Senjutsu back he couldn't really use that all-out. "Let's see it, genius."
"Boys," Sakura said with a sigh.
Naruto had finally gotten around to popping his remaining clones later that evening, and their memories weren't too dissimilar from the ones he had gotten before. For a moment the fact that they took names surprised him, but his clones had gotten remarkably similar to actual people over his life, after using it thousands of times. He supposed the accumulated experience did help some; his own improvements to make the clones survive their creator's naps probably contributed as well.
He'd received memories from three distinct minds, far removed enough from their creation to have gotten a little individuality. All three working on limited data, had assumed quite easily that their original version, their boss, had killed a man to save his own hide. Killed an ally, no less, in cold blood. That was some serious Orochimaru-like behaviour, and the clones had assumed it likely enough to work their whole plan around it. He'd been forced to play along, and by the time he'd met with Gaara, he could barely keep from reacting. Every lie that he heard - created by his mind, granted, indirectly - seemed just to add to the ever-growing pile.
He wasn't who he used to be, Naruto knew that, but he had never really realized just how different his mentality had become. He remembered his own life when he was younger, so full of joy and hope, willing to risk it all to save innocent people, or even guilty ones. Once, the thought of sacrificing people to save himself would have been so alien that he certainly would have rejected it outright. Now it was his first assumption. When had that happened?
He knew, really. It had been a long time ago. He had gone back to the past, back to his youth, because it was the only way he saw to fix things. He had gone back as a coward, running away from the consequences of his actions, from his failure as the child of prophecy that Jiraiya had seen in him. That would have been something a young Naruto hated, cowardice. He kept comparing himself to that figure - a young Naruto, ignorant and idealistic. Not the same Naruto as stood here now, and probably a worthier one.
He realized now that perhaps the reason he had never made Hokage wasn't so much about being exemplary on the battlefield, which he was, but about something else. Something he'd seen when he started, but lost track of, somewhere along the way. Maybe Kakashi had seen it happen, back then, and that's why the hat had passed to Konohamaru instead of him.
Had he doused that spark of hope that convinced Jiraiya that he might be the child of prophecy? Had he given up on ending hatred after he had already conquered Kurama's, at least in part? It seemed like he had without realizing it, and he didn't know what to do about that.
Yes, he had changed things back here, but he had also started off exactly as he had lived in the future. Kill first, don't ask questions. Mizuki and Gato deserved it, granted, but he hadn't even considered alternatives. In his zeal to save people, he had lost some part of himself that made the actions have meaning. His killing of Mizuki prevented the closer connection between Iruka and himself to really form; he hadn't even spoken to the man since the exams. Taking out Gatō had saved lives, but Inari would still not understand the meaning of being a hero, and Zabuza and Haku were still out there, as swords for hire. He had heard the tales of strong Missing-nin near the village, which had prevented C-ranks for a time; he knew exactly who had been there, working for the enemy.
It wasn't that his motives were wrong: Saving people was a worthy goal. The problem, he realized, was that he had gone about it in a bad way. His trip to Suna, successful as it had been, had nasty side-effects too. Gaara was here, sure, but as a result he had attracted Orochimaru's attention. Hidan had nearly killed him out there, and without Gaara's last-minute save he might well have succeeded. Whoever or whatever had turned his clone against him, or stolen that blood, he knew too much now, and had gotten away. And then there was the medic. Without Ryosuke's help, he would have died. His life was another one diminished from the previous go-around, becominng nothing more than a sacrifice.
"I really wish I was young again," he whispered to himself. "That I didn't just look it." He sighed. The only time he could forget his situation, at least a little, when he could live like he was eleven, was when he was with the others. Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi-sensei.
He had been acting selfishly, of late, without really considering the consequences of his actions. Even in calculating the risks, in trying to work every event into his favour, he had caught himself in an ever-greater web of lies, one that was constricting him. He saw the clockwork consequences of the things he changed, but he had never really considered the people involved, nor the fact that his cold and harsh methods could only lead to cold and harsh results.
Now that he knew, had realized what he had been doing, he would have to change. People were beginning to suspect, were starting to see the cracks in the disguise that had worked so well, for a time. He'd tried to ignore the evidence, but it was undeiable that some suspected. The Hokage, maybe. Pervy Sage, probably. Kakashi, definitely. He would have to choose. Either live life as a world-weary shinobi in a boy's body, coldly excising that which he didn't like the first time around. Or, he could take the other route. The risky one; the way in which he could eventually tell the truth. In which he could be the idealistic numb-skull he used to be.
It would be hard. He would have to let go of a lot of emotional baggage, would have to hurt himself first, before he could heal.
"Well, I've always been the one to power through adversity rather than wait it out, so why would now be any different?" he muttered to himself, and it felt like a load on his back was lightened a little.
He remembered Haku's words, suddenly, from long ago, as if they had been said just yesterday. He knew why they emerged now - they had encapsulated his life, prior the to the fourth war. 'When people are protecting something truly precious to them, they truly can become as strong as they need to be.'
Well, then, he would do that. He couldn't just focus on the next kill and forget the village, which held almost all of the people precious to him. He would train with Jiraiya, showing him all the seals he had made. He would show Kakashi what he could, stop playing his role. Most of all, he would try to stop lying about everything, as if it was a compulsion. He need to get away from that mentality.
He couldn't be just Naruto; that wasn't enough. A smile made its way to his face, then. The first genuine one in quite a while. He would protect everyone, as he once promised. He would be the Leaf's Naruto, and the future Hokage.
Author's Note: I admit, the Danzo stuff was pushed ahead a little, apologies. Next chapter will deal with the Hokage's and Naruto's actions, and so forth. Also, titledrop. :P