Naruto stayed at the dining table as long as he possibly could, but when the rest of those seated around it started leaving he too had to rise, and then there were no more postponing. Danzo had retreated back to his office fifteen minutes ago, and Naruto had felt his gaze on him when he left, but pointedly did not look up.
He hesitated in front of Danzo's door before taking a deep breath and raising his fist, knocking once, hoping Danzo had forgotten all about him and left, even as he knew that wasn't actually going to happen.
The door slid open moments later, opened by one of the shifters that always seemed to be by Danzo's side.
Naruto steeled himself and walked inside, head held high. He had no idea if Danzo suspected that he knew about him, or if this meeting was for something else entirely, but all he could do now was to make Danzo believe Naruto was on his side. If he trusted Naruto that meant Naruto could get closer, which meant that maybe he could get his hands on the vials of suppressants, then it was only a matter of getting away.
"Good evening, Naruto," Danzo said, as if they hadn't just had dinner at the same table. He was standing by a window, back towards Naruto as he gazed out. Naruto wasn't sure just what he was looking at, because past the lawn there was little other than the wall to look at. Hardly scenic.
"Hi," Naruto said, finding shorter words less likely to betray the anger that was simmering in him just at being in the same room as Danzo. This was the man responsible for his parents' death, and now he had to pretend that he didn't hate him with every fibre of his being. If not for the suppressants flooding his system he was sure his eyes would be burning red by now.
Danzo turned around, taking a moment to just look at Naruto, as if assessing him.
"I had a talk with Tayuya earlier," he said, and Naruto couldn't quite stop the flinch that went through him. He was pretty sure that was Red's name, and her having talked to Danzo could not be a good thing.
"She told me what happened, and I just want to apologise for what you went through."
The warm anger coursing through him was tempered by sudden surprise at the apology. He had been expecting Danzo to do or say a lot of things, but an apology hadn't really been amongst them.
Naruto didn't say anything, and he just hoped he managed to keep a straight look on his face. He couldn't allow himself to show any emotions, had to find out just what Danzo was aiming for. Clearly the apology wasn't heartfelt, it had to be a tactic to ensure Naruto stayed on their side. It was hard to read from Danzo's tone that he was lying through his teeth though, he was completely calm and collected. He guessed it came with being a politician.
"If I had known she would betray me like that I would have made sure she wouldn't have been able to drag you into it."
Naruto's eyes narrowed. Betrayed Danzo? Was this the excuse he was going for then? He was going to pin it all on Tayuya?
"I had no idea she would take you along, and to procure highly restricted goods at that. I have no idea what she was going to do with it, probably sell it for a profit, and she must have thought she could win you over to her side. It's sad really, I took her in off of the street years ago, and this is how she repays me."
Naruto just stared at him. If he didn't already know better he would probably have believed Danzo. He sounded genuine, apologetic and a little sad. It was disgusting.
It was hard to know who to trust in a world of liers, but Naruto had always had an inkling of a bad feeling about Danzo right from the beginning, and Yamato didn't exude that at all. Something about Yamato made Naruto instantly believe him, and where Danzo had never once answered any of Naruto's questions Yamato had done so, telling him about what he was, and about his parents, and their fate. He trusted Yamato in a way he had never trusted Danzo.
Naruto wanted to call Danzo out on his lies, tell him that he knew all about him, that he knew he'd had his parents murdered and now wanted to use him, but he managed to constrain himself, knowing nothing good would come from an outburst. It was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do, trying to act as if he liked the man that had murdered his parents.
His fingers were curled into fists at his side, the nails digging into the soft flesh of his palm, but he managed to bite back the accusing words that was bubbling in his throat.
"I hope you won't think too badly of me, Naruto, I truly just want to help. The suppressants are working, are they not? I hear the doctor is coming closer to perfecting the dosage, then you will never have to worry about hurting anyone ever again."
"I'm… grateful," Naruto said, forcing the words out.
"I'm just glad I can help. Rest assured that I will ensure that no one who lives here are doing anything illegal. I want this to be a safe place for people like you, people who have nowhere else to go."
"I appreciate it." The words were lead on his tongue, but Naruto forced his lips to quirk into something resembling a smile, which seemed to appease Danzo.
"I'd also like to thank you for your service on my security detail, you were invaluable there as well. I see great things for you in the future, Naruto. I hope you'll stay with me. When I'm governor you can help do great things for the supernatural community."
Naruto just nodded.
"Now, I believe the doctor is expecting you, so I'll let you go. Rest assured that Tayuya has been dealt with and that nothing like this will happen again."
Naruto left the room as fast as he could without it being too suspicious and headed downstairs. He'd rather go back to his room, but he knew it wouldn't be long until he felt the curling heat in his gut from the beast as the suppressant's effect was wearing off, and knew he had to.
The doctor was waiting for him as always, twitching his nose and offering no greeting as Naruto walked into the room. Naruto ignored him and jumped onto the table, rolling up his sleeve. He felt as if there should've been marks left behind by the numerous shots he had gotten, but his skin was as unblemished as ever, healing over too fast. There were no sign of any of the needles, no sign that he was little more than a druggie at this point.
The doctor had a small steel tray with a syringe and a vial waiting on the counter, and Naruto took the opportunity while the doctor prepared to look around the room, trying to figure out where the drugs were stored. The first dosage he had gotten, the one Sai had given him, had been kept in the kitchen, but he hadn't seen any more of them there since. The rest of the dosages had all been given here, in the small med bay. He figured there was a definite chance they could be stored here somewhere. There was a row of cupboards underneath the counter the doctor was working at, all of them with steel fronts making it impossible to see what they contained, but they seemed a probable contender. There were locks on them, but Naruto figured he could break those easily enough. Problem was that the moment he did so he would be found out, and if it happened that there was nothing but aspirin and cotton buds behind the locks he would have messed up, given himself away for nothing. Danzo wouldn't let that fly, Naruto knew as much.
No, he needed to be certain, needed to be sneaky. Maybe he could get down here during the night, search for a key. Or maybe he could even get the doors unlocked without breaking them. People picked locks all the time, right? It couldn't be that difficult, Naruto was certain he could do it if he put his mind to it. He'd just need hairpins or something. Not that he had a lot of those around, but he'd find a way, somehow.
The doctor turned back around, and walked over to Naruto, placing the tray next to him on the bed, syringe now filled with the green liquid. Naruto glanced down at it, and suddenly his gut was churning when he started to wonder just what was in that syringe.
He had no idea what they were shooting him up with apart from the fact that they called it suppressants. Was it just a cocktail of drugs, some sort of tranquillizer that only worked on the beast? Naruto hadn't given it much thought, too happy that there was a solution to look too deeply into it.
Now though, that he remembered the box of shifter teeth and the witch that had died as they procured it…
He was starting to wonder if it wasn't just regular drugs, and he wanted to yank his arm away, refuse the doctor to fill his veins with it before he knew exactly what it was, flinching as the doctor tied the rubber band over his upper arm and tightened it.
"Hey, doc?" Naruto said as the rat shifter moved to disinfect the nook of his elbow.
He looked up at Naruto with his squinty eyes, as if he was surprised Naruto was even talking to him.
"So, what's even in this thing?" Naruto asked, nodding towards the tray with the syringe.
The doctor just looked at him for a moment, then finished the wiping, tossing away the cotton bud he had used.
"Suppressants," he said, picking the syringe up as if he couldn't finish the job fast enough.
"Well, I know that, but like, what kind of drugs is there?"
"Are you going to try to make it yourself?" the doctor muttered as he flicked at the syringe, removing any air bubbles before he moved towards Naruto's arm, pressing the needle into the vein and depressing the stopper, flooding Naruto's system with the suppressants. A chill spread through his arm before it dissipated, and where Naruto would usually feel himself growing relaxed as it washed away the budding heat in his gut he now found himself antsy, wanting to claw at his skin until he could get the green liquid out again, hating the feeling. It never had felt completely natural, just… numbing.
"No, just curious I guess," Naruto said, as much to distract himself as to keep up a conversation. He held a finger over the cotton bud the doctor pressed to the arm as he removed the needle again, hoping the doctor hadn't sensed his reaction being different than usual.
"It's a mix of various drugs aimed to isolate and calm down the part of you that isn't quite human. It's an intricate piece of chemistry, which is why it's taking so long to perfect. Normal labs would experiment on…" the doctor stopped, the word rat probably dying on his tongue. "Well, you know, but since there's no one quite like you around you have to be the one to test it out."
Naruto nodded, getting the impression that the doctor wasn't about to divulge any more information on just what he was getting injected in his arm, so he jumped down from the table and threw the cotton bud with the single drop of green liquid into the trash can and rolled his sleeve down again.
"As usual, contact me if you are feeling any side effects that are new or different. Also, I'd like for you to stop by tomorrow morning for some tests to ensure the drugs aren't having an adverse effect on your blood."
Naruto nodded and left the room, hesitating outside in the hallway, looking down at the row of doors lining it. He had been in a few of the rooms, mostly storage rooms when he needed to help Sai carry something, but most of the doors he hadn't even peeked inside, so he had no idea what was beyond them. Now he was picturing jars of preserved body parts, and the thought made him shudder.
The suppressants had to be down here somewhere, either in the med bay, or in one of the other rooms. He would have to find a way to get down here without anyone knowing and start looking. It was his only chance to ever get away from here.
Now was not the time though, it was still early evening so anyone might come down here at any time, and the doctor was still in the med bay. He would have to sneak down later when everyone was asleep.
Sasuke paced a round through his living room, frustrated and angry and worried. He hadn't heard a single word from Naruto since they parted ways, and he was terrified what that meant. He'd given him his phone, so it wasn't like he didn't have the means to contact him, just that either he couldn't, or he had nothing to rapport back about. Sasuke hoped it was the latter, and tried to talk himself out of calling up the phone from the new one he had bought as soon as he got back. There was always the chance that Naruto hadn't called because he really couldn't, and that somehow calling him would make things worse. The ball was in Naruto's court, and Sasuke just had to be patient, which was proving to be infuriatingly difficult.
He wanted to strap on his weapons and hunt down Naruto, and the only reason he hadn't done just that was because he had no idea where Naruto was.
It wasn't for a lack of trying. Sasuke had looked through all the information he could possibly look through from home, trying to track down where this cabin was, but if Danzo owned it it wasn't registered in his own name.
When the search for the cabin hadn't panned out he had kept digging into Danzo, determined to figure out who he really was and why he was hoarding up preternatural beings in the middle of nowhere. Was Danzo even human, or was he just hiding what he was? It wasn't like there was any kind of register over shifters and the like, so it was hard to tell. He didn't have any of the characteristics of your common preternatural beings, but that didn't have to mean anything. It was impossible to distinguish witches from humans, and a lot of shifters didn't have visible characteristics either.
If Danzo had dealt in business that wasn't strictly on the side of legal he had done a good job at covering up his tracks. All Sasuke could find on him was a whole slew of charities he had contributed to over the years, various causes he had fronted, and nothing shady whatsoever. Now he was running for governor, and although he wasn't a candidate that made that much of himself, he appeared steady enough that he might actually get the job. No scandals to his name, which was more than those that ran opposite him could boast of.
There was no talk at all about any kind of sanctuary driven by him though, which was weird. If he owned a place like that, wouldn't that have been the perfect selling point to make him a good candidate? Sure, there was people around who meant that only humans really mattered, but taking care of people who fell through the cracks of society, human or not, would be looked upon with favour by most.
Tired of pacing Sasuke sat down on the floor, falling back against the carpet, arms splayed to the side as he stared up at the ceiling. He felt so lost without Naruto around. The moment he figured out just where Naruto was he was going to drive up there and get him out. He would come home with him no matter what. They could work things out together, they didn't need drugs. Naruto had been fine for the most part of their time together, as long as he wasn't out in the field he would continue to be fine.
Sasuke tilted his head to the side, seeing the PS4 standing underneath his TV, the one he had bought for Naruto's birthday, as a way of asking him to move in with him. He'd actually never gotten as far as to ask properly, because Naruto hadn't gotten just why Sasuke bought it for him, and then they had gotten interrupted, and then suddenly Naruto was gone and Sasuke was back here all alone, and it sucked.
It hurt to be alone in a way it had never hurt before. Sasuke—who'd never wanted to rely on other people at all—had grown closer to Naruto than he thought he even could to anyone. He'd thought the parts of him that had a capacity for love was gone, shut off, but then Naruto came and he was the one person who cut through the bullshit and wormed his way into Sasuke's life, bringing with him chaos and light.
The moment Naruto was back Sasuke was going to ask him to move in with him. He wasn't going to let him leave him ever again, because without Naruto Sasuke was nothing.
Naruto had wanted to talk more to Yamato, but when he went looking for him the next day he couldn't find him anywhere. It probably meant that Danzo had sent him on some job. Naruto hoped so, because the alternative was that he had found out what Yamato had told Naruto, and then he'd probably dealt with him just like he had once dealt with Naruto's parents and probably many more who crossed him.
He was just glad Danzo seemed to believe Naruto was still on his side. Keeping his face straight and not accusing Danzo of murder had been one of the hardest things Naruto had ever done, and he was glad Danzo seemed to have left the cabin as well, because he wasn't sure he could have kept up that charade any more. As it was he had reported to the doctor in the morning, got several vials of blood drawn and then he'd been left to his own device.
He had worked out for a bit in his room, and when he got too restless and felt too cooped up he had gone outside and ran laps around the cabin until his breathing grew short and his legs ached. The air was cold, breath turning into little puffs of white as he ran, making it hard to draw deep breaths. It wouldn't be long until the grounds were covered with snow, frost already in the air.
It was already December, Christmas closing in, and Naruto tried not to imagining having to spend Christmas here. He'd had a lot of shitty Christmases when he was a kid, but ever since he had moved in with his dad Christmas had become something to look forward to. Christmas trees and presents and food and watching movies with hot chocolate and candy.
Dinner that night was a quiet affair, only five people around, and no one seemed to bat an eye when Naruto filled his plate with stew and left the table to eat in his room. He couldn't stand being around anyone right now, he just kept wondering if they too had killed people, if he was surrounded by murderers, or if the majority of them were decent people, caught up in things just like Naruto was.
The stew didn't taste like much, but he forced himself to finish it, knowing that he needed the energy no matter how little appetite he had. He figured tonight was as good night as any to go poking around in the basement.
He never did get as far. By the time the clock on the night stand showed three am and Naruto sneaked out of his room, he didn't even get down the stairs until he was face to face with someone. He froze, trying to come up with some excuse when he saw that the person he was looking at was Yamato.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Yamato lifted a finger to his lips to quiet him, and then motioned downstairs. Together they made their way down, trying to avoid the creakier steps.
All the bedrooms were upstairs, but that didn't mean people wouldn't be around, so they walked towards the furthest living room, the one that doubled as a library no one seemed to use. They sat down on a couch, close enough together that they could whisper and still hear each other.
"I was looking for you earlier," Naruto said.
"I had to go into town to pick up medical supplies," Yamato answered.
Naruto had a bunch of questions he wanted to ask Yamato now that he'd had time to think things through, but he was finding it hard to figure out where to start. "Why did it take so long until I saw you here?" Naruto had been here for weeks before he met Yamato the first time, he wondered what the other had been doing.
"I was in Arizona, talking to the head of a group of weretigers. One of them had killed one of Danzo's men, and he wanted them to pay."
Naruto's eyes widened. Had Yamato gone down there to kill them, was he a murderer too? Had Naruto completely misjudged him?
Yamato seemed to pick up on his distress, lifting his hands. "No, no, actually pay. Money. I don't… I don't hurt people."
"Yamato, why… why do you stay here? You know that Danzo is a bad man, and you aren't dependent on any suppressants?" Naruto asked a questions that had been gnawing on him.
Yamato took a moment before he answered. "Because… because I'm afraid. I've seen what happens to those who wrong Danzo. He doesn't like feeling betrayed. I'm afraid he'd have me killed. I grew up here, I don't know anyone on the other side of these walls, I have nowhere to escape to, nowhere that would be safe."
"But, you could go to the police, or the DPA, and they could protect you. With you as a witness, they could arrest Danzo, stop the entire thing."
"It's not that easy. Danzo is a powerful man. He might only be a councilman on the surface, but he has roots that go through the entire system. He has friends in high places, friends that would make sure no one believed me."
Naruto wasn't about to admit defeat quite as easily. There were always ways to stop people, there had to be. Unlike when he worked in the DPA this wouldn't be as easy as to cut off a head and slay a demon. As far as Naruto knew Danzo was perfectly human, which meant he had to find a way to get him locked away for what he had done. The DPA might be ruthless against vampires, but murdering humans were still frowned upon, no matter how vile said human was.
"We need evidence against him," Naruto said. If he could gather up enough evidence he could take it to Kakashi, who would know who to trust in the DPA. Even if Danzo had friends in high places he could not be controlling the entire DPA. With evidence they could catch him, and no more people would be hurt or used.
Naruto had no idea what Danzo's goal was, if he just liked feeling powerful by running this place with preternatural beings at his mercy, or if there was something more sinister behind it all. He was on track to become governor, but somehow Naruto felt that it was all connected, that he was working towards some ultimate goal.
What kind of evidence could he find? Witnesses, maybe. Something more reliable would be great, witnesses could be scared away from testifying. He needed something in writing, or pictures. Receipts for black market deals would have been good right about now.
The most likely place to find evidence would be Danzo's computer, so he wished he could find a way to access it, something Naruto figured was easier said than done. A man like Danzo would have protected his computer well, no simple password to guess, and Naruto did in no way know how to hack, so that wasn't likely to happen. No, he would need to find paper files. There had to be those around, right? If his birth father had been here as well, that meant that the cabin had been running for close to thirty years at least, well before computers were a household item.
Naruto straightened up. There would probably be a file on his birth father wouldn't there? Maybe pictures.
He had so little after his birth parents, not even a memory of how they looked. If there had been any keepsakes in their old house they had been lost before he was big enough to want them.
He needed to get access to those files, needed to see.
"Do you know if Danzo has a filing cabinet in his office?" Naruto asked.
Yamato looked at him for a moment, frowning when he realised what Naruto was implying. "You want to break in and read his files?"
"If I get evidence I can contact people I trust, we can shut down this entire thing. You'd be free."
Yamato's eyes grew wide, as if that was something he hadn't even dreamed of thinking about before. "Yes, there's… there's a filing cabinet in his office. The office is always locked though, and the cabinet would probably be too. You can't just walk in there and look through it."
A sudden sound had Naruto and Yamato stop mid-sentence and look around, half-expecting someone to be standing in the doorway, having overheard everything they said. The room was empty, but a vase was lying on floor, broken into pieces.
The vase appeared to have fallen down from a bookshelf, and Naruto headed over, quickly picking up the pieces, figuring he needed to hide them. If they were there in the morning people might wonder why, but it would likely take a while until people noticed it was gone if there was no evidence left behind.
He wasn't sure why it had fallen down. Maybe it had been placed too close to the edge or something, but either way, it was beyond saving, so he carried the pieces over to the trash, throwing them out together with a single black feather that had been lying amongst them. It had probably been placed in it in lieu of a flower.
Making sure no one was around he walked back to the couch, settling down, just at the edge.
"So then I need a key. Who has that?" Naruto was growing restless already, wanting nothing more than to do it right away, to just walk over there, kick down the door and break open the cabinet. He was sure he could do it, he was still fairly strong, even if the drugs had made him weaker. He could get an axe and make a pathway right through that heavy wooden door. He'd had a plan to go poking around in the basement, but suddenly getting into the cabinet seemed a lot more crucial.
"Apart from Danzo? Sai might, but other than that I wouldn't think he trusts anyone enough."
Sai.
Of course that creep would have the keys.
"Then I need to steal the keys from him, get into the office and find anything that will bring him down," Naruto said. It was probably too late tonight, they'd spent too long chatting, but if Danzo wasn't here tomorrow night he would go in. If they got incriminating evidence on Danzo they could have him arrested, and the suppressants would be in the possession of the DPA, no need for Naruto to go looking for it.
It was two in the morning when Naruto got out of bed the following night, wearing sweatpants and a simple black sweater, nothing but socks on his feet. Yamato hadn't been stoked about the plan, but he hadn't come up with any better ones either, so the night following their talk Naruto was preparing for some B & E to pass the time. He would go to Sai's room first, hopefully finding keys easily, even though he had no idea where he'd keep them, and then he'd go downstairs and make his way to the office.
He did his best to keep quiet as he made his way to Sai's room, hoping the idiot wasn't the type to lock his door.
He grabbed the door knob and gently twisted, peeking inside, realising he should have probably come up with some sort of cover story in case Sai was actually awake.
In the light from the hallway Naruto saw a lump in the bed, covered by a light sheet. He stood there in silence, waiting to see if the lump moved, and only when it didn't appear to stir did he walk inside, pulling the door close but not shut after him, to keep the room in darkness. He wouldn't have any problem navigating it.
The room was an almost duplicate of his, plain wood all around. As far as Naruto knew Sai had lived here for years, but it didn't show. Apart from the desk with drawing supplies there was nothing personal in the room at all. No pictures apart from the ones Sai had drawn himself, no clothes and books spread around, no TV or anything to pass the time.
Naruto's gaze swept the room, trying to figure out where a key would be kept. There were no hooks by the door, which had been Naruto's first hope. Sai might keep them in a drawer, or in the pockets of his jeans or… anywhere really. He had no idea where to even start looking.
Figuring a desk drawer was likely he headed in that direction. It was the furthest from the bed, but even from here he could hear Sai's soft snores.
He was about to pull open a drawer when he spotted a keyring lying on top of the drawing pad that was left on the desk, about ten keys of varying size, as well as a metal bird hanging from a short chain. Naruto wasn't much of an ornithologist, but it looked like a magpie or a crow or something similar.
It surely couldn't be this easy though, could it?
There was a rustling from the bed, and Naruto froze, not even breathing as he desperately hoped Sai wasn't about to wake up and catch him in the act.
When there were no cries of outrage from across the room Naruto dared to turn his head in the direction of the bed, seeing Sai now turned towards him, face looking ghostly pale in the dim light, eyes still closed, lips barely parted. He wasn't snoring, but he was breathing heavily, and Naruto's shoulders eased down as he let out a soft breath.
Not wanting to push his luck he grabbed the keys, slowly as to not have them jingle, and with it tightly enclosed in his fist he backtracked to the door, keeping half an eye on Sai until he could close the door after himself, wincing at the click the latch made, standing still until he was sure there were no sounds from within and only then taking off down the hallway.
He knew Danzo wasn't in the cabin, but there were still several others around, people that might suddenly find the overpowering urge to get up to get a midnight snack or something, and he really didn't want to get caught.
He sneaked his way down the stairs, peering into the rooms on either side of the entrance hall but seeing no one. On socked feet he hurried across the room, heading towards where Danzo's study was. He had no idea if any of the keys would open the door, so he'd just have to try them all.
His pulse was thrumming in his ears as he tried to shove the first key into the lock.
The second.
Third.
Fourth key.
He kept pausing to listen, knowing that if anyone walked in on him right now he wouldn't be able to talk himself out of this situation.
The eight key slid into the lock smoothly, and Naruto held his breath as he turned it, hearing the click of the lock opening.
He had to bite off the excited yelp that rose in his throat, and instead he hurried to open the door and get inside the room, sliding the door shut behind him. Now he just needed to be quiet and no one would have a clue he was in here, rooting through Danzo's files. That was, if he could open the cabinet.
It was placed in a corner of the room, and Naruto gnawed on his bottom lip as he walked towards it. He had no idea what he was going to find. It might just be filled with old receipts for taxes and stuff that he'd either have no idea was, or was completely useless, but he needed to check it out, because right now it was his best bet to find out more.
There was a lock in the top corner, and Naruto peeked down at the keys in his hand, trying to see if anyone looked like they'd fit. There was a couple of keys smaller than the others, so he tried those first, and was shocked when the second one actually fit.
This was going too smoothly, he was just waiting for something to happen, some alarm he hadn't known about suddenly sounding or someone bursting into the room, ready to catch him in the act, but nothing happened, so Naruto pocketed the keys and slid open the topmost drawer, seeing countless Manila folders neatly stacked behind each others. He picked up the first one and flipped it open, a picture falling out.
"Shit," he cursed, stooping down to pick it up. A young woman, probably not a year over twenty looked back at him. She was pretty, in that girl next door way, a soft smile and warm eyes.
With the picture still in hand Naruto looked down on the first of what looked to be a dozen or so papers, the first one marked with a name at the top, followed by what appeared to be the girl's information.
Apparently she was a dryad, and the date of birth was over thirty years ago, so the picture couldn't be recent. There were oak leaves woven in her hair, a common characteristic in tree nymphs, at least as far as Naruto had read, he had never actually met a dryad. They were indigenous to Continental Europe, so they didn't get many of them in these parts of the world.
Naruto wanted to read on, but he knew he wouldn't have the time to look through all of them, too many folders and not nearly enough time.
There were tags at the top of the folders, each labelled with a last name, all ordered alphabetically, which meant that the name he was looking for would be towards the middle. He placed the folder back in its place and opened the next drawer, following the alphabet backwards, seeing that it stopped at K, and then he moved to the next drawer, flicking through folders until he got to N. The fourth folder bore the name Namikaze, and Naruto had to shake a trembling out of his hand as he grabbed it, carefully pulling it out and carrying it over to the desk to lay it down before he opened it.
Yamato hadn't known too much about his birth parents, but he had told Naruto that his father's name was Minato Namikaze. Naruto had never really thought about the fact that Uzumaki might not be his birth name, but it made sense that his birth parents would have taken on a fake name when they went into hiding.
He wanted to take his time, but he knew he couldn't, so he opened the folder.
The first thing he saw was the picture fastened to the top of a stack of papers with a paper clip, and Naruto's jaw dropped as he saw the man who was his birth father, and suddenly he realised just how Yamato had recognised him the moment he saw him.
The man who looked back at him had a bright blond head of hair, longer than Naruto's, but equally as messy, and the eyes that looked up at him was a startling blue that Naruto recognised from looking at himself in the mirror.
Across either of his cheeks there were three lines, like whiskers, reminiscent of scars, but just as Naruto's they would have been there from birth, would they not?
"Dad," Naruto whispered, tracing a finger across the picture, feeling tears well in his eyes.
He wished he could have gotten to know his parents, that he could have grown up in a happy home, with two people who loved him, instead of being sent from foster home to foster home, never feeling like he was a part of anything, always alone, craving the comfort of other people. Even when he was pushed away over and over again he wanted to be around people, wanted to have someone to call his. His family, his friends.
With the folder in his hands he slid down to sit cross-legged on the floor, back against Danzo's desk. He forgot about where he was, and that he was supposed to make sure no one knew he was there, because finally he could learn something about his birth father. These papers were all he had to go on, and he wasn't about to leave until he had read every single one.
A/N: This part of the fic is very… Naruto centric. Poor Sasuke is just hanging around being worried. But we'll see more of him soon though! :D
