Disclaimer: is no longer vital, like a neglected side character

Ibiki Morino was by very few standards a small man. In contrast, he was often considered to be very, very big. With a bodyweight of nearly 90kg, and a height of around a hundred and ninety-four centimeters, he was the sort of person one would notice approaching. Naruto did so from his designated seat in the hokage's office, trying very hard to suppress his fear of the famed interrogator with nothing but his perception to aid him.

Emptying your mind was a taxing process. Thankfully, the Uzumaki had some practice in that arena. When one carried out as many pranks as he did during his childhood, survival sometimes depended on the ability to get away with it. This wasn't to say Naruto was a compulsive liar, though. Deception was a tool he utilized for self-defense alone. That being considered, he couldn't think of a better time to alter his ideals of reality.

Throughout Ibiki's initial questioning, the blonde busied himself with both telling the plausible truth with gusto and trying to organize his thoughts and memories into just such an array. An even more difficult task followed as Naruto went through the tedious process of fooling himself for Ibiki's purposes.

Ibiki, on his own part, knew very well when someone was lying. He had many different nonverbal names for separate kinds of lying, be they exaggeration or outright untruths. From Naruto's behavior, he couldn't place his bets on an outright lie, but he knew there wasn't a full story being recounted. The only evidence of any deceit being present was not found in any body language of the boy. Hell, even the youth's voice didn't waver. Often, even an honest shinobi would tremble. The real giveaway resided in Naruto's cobalt blue eyes. They weren't the pure eyes that a genin would sport when he was at ease with himself. They were tense and concentrated, following his every movement with a mixture of awe and distance from the world he currently inhabited.

Sarutobi had instructed Ibiki not to torture the boy, but on the way out he had issued an order.

Ibiki whipped his right hand out of his robe and made a few gestures that would have seemed harmless to anyone who wasn't familiar with mind-invasion techniques. His execution of the skill was superb, and Naruto had known better than to put up any barriers into his subconscious. If that wouldn't have screamed questionable motivation, he didn't know what would. No, it was better to just allow the invasion.

Ibiki materialized somewhere on the outskirts of the Uzumaki child's conscious being. The experienced shinobi had delved into many minds in his twenty-seven years of living, but not many were as vivid as that of Naruto Uzumaki's. Whether he had been planning for visitors or not, the youth's mindscape was a vast plain of grass, rustling in the hot wind that characterized Konohagure's summer months. Within the vegetation lurked many small animals and phantom books(tomes that would materialize and evaporate in various places according to brain synapses-relatively common). The grizzled ANBU picked one up and leafed through it, but there were mostly drawings of things that meant very little to him, such as swings and profiles of Konoha at night. Aside from that, there was only the occasional toy that would surface from the lush grass.



Beyond the vast grassy expanse was an enormous tower that was flanked on either side by a faceless idol the height of five men. That on its own was not too surprising. Orphans would often have mental ideas of what their parents were and would have been like that changed during their lifetimes. What really caught the black-eyed inquisitor was how the structure defied logic in a very obvious way.

It was built from the bottom upwards, expanding in width and volume with altitude, like the top of a very narrow hourglass that reached past the clouds. If anything, it seemed to Ibiki that whomever had created the building had been trying to isolate whatever was at the top from the innocence of the base. If that was the case, then the mental architect had both succeeded and failed at once. While the serene pastoral landscape remained more or less untouched, layers of pain within the tower would hold all sentient thought, proving that Naruto Uzumaki was still tangling with his own inner demons.

Ibiki found himself swimming in unease when he crossed over to the gigantic gate, and not just from the eerie statuary. There were scorch marks ornamenting the gate in the shape of the seal that Ibiki was all too aware rested on the physical belly of the jinchuuriiki he was trespassing within. Cautiously, the older man opened the gate to the sounds of rusty hinges. From there, he continued walking until he reached the main entrance, which was boarded up and decaying.

The bolt and the door that accompanied it gave way with a decent kick, allowing Ibiki to wander into the darkness it gave way to. When his sight proved useless, the ANBU was forced to feel around until he reached a stairway, which he then began to carefully ascend to a faint glimmer of light far above him.

The first steps were incredibly warped; Ibiki suspected that they lacked a foundation. The further up he got, however, the surer the stairway became. Nevertheless, it didn't ease the climb. While the footholds had become sturdy, they were rugged and unevenly sized. Every now and again, the Morino could swear that he was descending instead of closing the distance between him and the beautiful promise of escape. Other times, he would begin to progress quickly only to feel an invisible set of hands shove him down. He then heard malicious whispers from the walls.

The trek seemed futile, but Ibiki knew very well that no time passed in the outside world, and that his muscles were now little more than ephemeral. He had to remind himself of this when they betrayed him and ached, proving that the ANBU had covered a great deal of distance.

It was at this point that Ibiki understood exactly what it was he was doing. From an emotional and spiritual standpoint, he was living through the earlier years of his supposedly unwitting host's life. The Morino should have prepared himself for such conditions. He had seen the misery that had encompassed the young Naruto's existence. He had tried to stymie it ever so slightly, but there is a point where one gives up on saving someone else. Unfortunately for Naruto, Ibiki had been too busy and too worried about someone else to lend aid.

The whispers became audible voices when he resumed his climb. Terms and labels he had heard put to use for the sole purpose of abusing the Kyuubi's human vessel pierced his eardrums and tugged at a sliver of guilt residing in his soul. His well-hidden insecurities weighed him down in the thick darkness, and he felt he would lose all sense of self before glorious relief came in the form of a pair of arms beginning to push him upwards.

Promises of food, warmth, and companionship rekindles Ibiki's now somewhat delirious senses, and what the man would later come to recognize as Iruka Umino's voice and body gently urged him forward. Suddenly, the light didn't seem so far away.

Other voices and hands began to join the original pair, and soon enough Ibiki found his hands feeling what must have been the last staircase to what was now obviously the end of the tower. His elation would be short-lived. The opening that promised a clean air and sky suddenly shut, and a low growl told Ibiki that he wasn't only accompanied by phantom goodwill.

A torrential river of visions overtook his senses. He heard sounds of death, screaming, and the sounds of Sasuke's name being called in futile effort. He tried to focus on the individual details, but like all dreams, they faded away.

Iruka and the others faded away, and a dim candelight revealed the top floor of Naruto's inner sanctum to be an endless corridor. With a shiver, Ibiki slowly faced the center, where more guttural snarls graced him. There, in a cage the size of the gates of Konoha, stood the most formidable creature Ibiki had the mispleasure of ever meeting.

Kyuubi. With horror, Ibiki heard it growl again. A smile graced the creature's lips soon after.

"Presumptuous human," it boomed before Ibiki was able to regain any sense of normalcy. "Strange that you would think to target another as the result of your kind's ridiculous need to claim power for your own."

Terror drained all color from Ibiki's mutilated visage. "You have taken control of him, then… It's true."

Laughter echoed from Kyuubi's prison. "Is that what you would believe? Logic would tell you so, you pompous creature of decay. You who would tell the judges, who would offer him up to their true god. Such is the price of your…progress."

"What the hell are you talking about, monster?" Ibiki asked, his voice calmer than he thought it would be.

"I am the battery, not the machine." Kyuubi clarified, "and the mortal children can never hear wisdom without experiencing something for themselves."

"You're speaking in riddles, demon. Tell me what has happened to Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Don't you pay attention, inquisitor? He's moved on."

"Don't toy with me." Ibiki commanded, losing his resolve by the instant. If the soul of Uzumaki Naruto was truly dead, life could quickly morph into a nightmare.



"He doesn't dwell in the past. He dwells in the assimilated present. The child isn't here when he doesn't have to be." After saying those words, the light from above returned.

Taking a hint when one surfaced, Ibiki made his way up the last flight of stairs and onto the surface of whatever his destination was. Nothing could have prepared him for what he would discover when the light no longer blinded him.

A complete Konohagure sprawled out before him, but it rippled in appearance. One moment, it would be as he knew it. The next, it would expand and grow more beautiful. At any given time, it would suddenly be in flames.

People came and went, both familiar and unfamiliar. They, like the city, would change without any provocation or pattern. Emotions and states of well being differed, but they all seemed very confused for obvious reasons.

The mental image of Hatake Kakashi started coughing as his Icha Icha book suddenly combusted. The Naras grimaced as brimstone fell out of the clouds they were watching, and several jounin started grumbling as their uniform changed from green to a dull brown. After these actions, all of whom were involved would always look towards the town center with either reproach or concern.

When Ibiki reached the central lane of Konoha, he found what he was looking for, and his mind became number than it had been previously. Flying though it might have been, Naruto Uzumaki's prone form was the only constant in the entire mindscape. His face was pale and catatonic. Every now and then, one of Konoha's overly-dynamic citizens would bend over him in concern, but there was nothing to be done.

Ibiki stared at the whiskered face for a long time, no longer even bothering to understand the events around him. It didn't even startle him when the pallid eyelids flew open, and it was a downright relief when the ANBU official found himself safely grounded in reality within the hokage's office.

The clock had only moved two ticks during the time Ibiki's conciousness was gone, and the physical Naruto hadn't moved in the slightest. He gave a pleasant(if not forced) smile to his interrogator to show that he was still listening.

Ibiki sat there for some time, silent and dumbfounded before finally writing down his diagnostic. The scrawling sound of the pen Ibiki used was followed by his verbal instruction to follow him to the council's chambers. Naruto could only hope that the ANBU's observations had been flattering ones… If they weren't, things were going to get very ugly. Of course, it wasn't very likely that Naruto Uzumaki would have to assert himself to that son-of-a-b..birch assembly ineptly titled a 'council'.

Yeah, right.

Author's note: Duuuude. I think I might have some severe issues. I discovered this last night when partying with a bunch of killer robots sent by a particular reviewer.