Sorry about how long this took, enjoy!


Hiruzen always saw himself as a calm person. Being the Hokage for as long as he had meant it was stay in control, or crack under the pressure. But at this moment, he was quivering with rage. Because sitting in front of him on his desk, was a certain student's chair with a complicated seal under it. Despite his limited knowledge of seals he had a vague idea about its purpose, and it sickened him.

"Have you found the one responsible?" Hiruzen said as an Anbu with a dog design on his face appeared in front of his desk.

"Hye, we are holding them in interrogation room 3 and Yamanaka Inoichi is awaiting your arrival before he begins."

"Well best not keep him waiting" he said as he placed the Hokage's hat on his head, eyes glinting dangerously as he left, with the Andu quietly following behind.

At the hidden entrance to the cells Inoichi was waiting patiently, but immediately stood at attention as the Hokage rounded the corner.

"Inoichi, I apologise for the short notice, but it is vital we learn what this person knows" the Hokage said with a nod to one of his more trusted allies.

"I'm happy to help Hokage, what do you need of me?" Inoichi said, nodding in respect.

"I need information quickly and quietly. A more in depth look might be required later but I need information now. Get as much as you can as I preform the interrogation. Tell me everything after, unless it is truly vital" the Hokage replied as they entered the hidden entrance into the sub-basement.


Deep below the Hokage tower, were interrogation rooms that only a few where aware of, made to hold prisoners in secret, even from fellow Konoha ninja. Almost no one knew of these cells and to find yourself in one was almost a guaranteed death sentence and an unmarked grave.

So Hiruzen was in no way surprised when he walked into the interrogation room and could swear he could feel the fear.

The room was dimly lit with one light hanging from the sealing directly above someone chained to a steal chair. This chair was covered in seals designed and carved by the 4th Hokage himself to hold any ninja. In front of the prisoner was a simple table with one normal chair sitting in front of it, which the Hokage was heading for.

As Hiruzen sat down with Inoichi hiding in the shadows behind him, the Anbu took off the bag covering the prisoners head. Leaning forward and resting his elbows on the desk, the Hokage locked eyes with the person sitting in front of him, speaking in a voice that demanded a response he said, "Suzume, by any chance are you still practising the art of seals?"

Suzume was a thin Kunoichi with oval glasses sitting on her slim nose, with her thin face surrounded by a thick head of curly hair. But due to the angle of the light above her, her eyes where obscured by the glare of her glasses.

"I'm-I'm sorry Lord Hokage, what do you mean seals?"

"Seals, twelve years ago, before the qubi attack and the great toad sage Jiraiya left, he was training a small group of young ninja that he thought had potential in the art, you where one of his most promising at the time." The Hokage said without breaking eye contact. "After this you spent a short time as an active ninja before transferring to become a teacher at the academy, is this correct?"

"Of-of course lord Hokage! But I don't understand what's going on, where am I? Why am I here?" she said, clearly panicked.

"You see Suzume, you where one of the few people that learned how to affect other people's chakra with seals and with your access to the academy you were the only one that could have done this." The Hokage said as he placed a photo of the bottom of a chair with a complex seal on it. "So I am asking you Suzume, why where you trying to cripple the student Naruto Uzumaki?"

As soon as the words left his mouth there was a sudden change in Suzumes posture, her shivering stopped, she raised her head and for the first time in there discussion, she showed her eyes and they showed the Hokage who he was truly talking to.

Her eyes where wild things, full of cold logic and for a fraction of a second, he thought he was looking into the eyes of his greatest failure. The eyes of a snake.

"cripple? No, no, no. I was disabling a threat to Konoha's future. Even an old fool like yourself should have seen it, Naruto is too dangerous and important to leave as he is. Not only does he hold the nine tails, but he is far too clever to be made into a weapon when Konoha needs. So I was merely…limiting his intelligence and his rebellious nature, to make him into the perfect controllable tool for Konoha when we need him." She said as a crazed smile crossed her face, until the cold eyes returned.

"But apparently it was not to be; he found out about my seals, how I have no idea and was breaking them, the foolishness. He then must have told you about them, and to think, it only would have taken a year to do its work, oh well."

At this point it took every ounce of this self-control not to reach across the table and send her to (god of death) himself. But before he could even consider what to do next he felt a hand on his shoulder, turning he saw a panicked Inoichi. But before he could speak he heard a panicked scream and turned back to the now panicking Suzume.

"A Yamanaka! I will not let you dig into my mind and find him!"

Before any of the ninja in the room could so much as blink, Suzume bit the tip of her tongue off and ran it across the roof of her mouth before her mouth opened in an insane grin. As soon as her lips opened they all heard a hiss that through years of combat they all knew too well and as they all moved for cover they had one thought, "explosive note!"

Acting on instinct, Hiruzen flipped the table, putting it between Inoichi and himself and the now very explosive Suzume, and not a second to soon.

Even at such short range, Hiruzen barely felt any push on the table, and after a seconds delay lowered the table to see how much damage had been done.

The explosive note must have been very small but it still fulfilled its intended purpose, Suzume's head was little more than a singed stomp.

Turning towards Inoichi, and now the only person in the room with any information, "what did you see."

Still clearing his head from the explosion he hurriedly replied.

"She wasn't working alone, and she sent him after Naruto when the seals where coming back broken, he's supposed to strike today!"

With little less than a nod the Anbu disappeared to collect a search party to find Naruto.

"Who was her partner?"

After taking a second to organize the borrowed memories, he looked the Hokage in the eye and replied…


"Daikoku sense?" Naruto said, as his teacher stepped out of the shadows.

For a full second, Naruto literally had no idea what was going on, there was his teacher, in the middle of the woods, oh, and there's Mishiro.

Moshiro!

But why is he here, and why does he have a kuni out…

It was then that Naruto looked into his eye's, they weren't angry like he was expecting, or surprised, they were cold and empty.

Naruto could fell a shiver run down his spine as he looked quickly at Moshiro before locking on to Naruto.

"It looks like we were too late, even with our help the fox's corruption got to you. She was right; we got to you to late…such a shame."

At the back of his mind, almost like a whisper that seemed to get him to move, it only said one word.

"Run!"

Two things happened at once, Moshiro and Naruto dove to the Right, just as Daikoku threw his Kunai.

Naruto felt it cut deeply into his left arm.

"If I moved a second later…no, not now just RUN!"

This wasn't the first time Naruto had been chased, sometimes a shop owner would think he had stolen something, and even though they were mostly wrong of course, but even then he was never that scared of them. The worst that ever happened was I got ruffed up a but before the Military Police Force stepped in... Knowing them they waited a bit before they helped.

But this time was completely different. No one was coming to help, and I KNEW that if he caught up with me… I would never make it out of these woods alive.

I could still hear two different groups of feet behind me, one was four small feet directly behind be that could only be Moshiro. But a short distance behind us was a large pair of feat that could only be Daikoku, the man in the process of trying to kill both of them… and he was gaining on them.

"Dam it! At this rate we won't even make it half way out before he catches up with us! His legs are just too long… to long? Then how was Moshiro keeping up?"

Throwing a quick glance back he saw Moshiro dive under a bush, not around it, his small size letting him easily squeeze through.

"Small?"

He threw a quick glance to his right, noticing how he was passing by one of the densest areas of this park, so dense he has a hard time going through it and if he has a hard time… without a second thought he dove into the bush, with Moshiro hot on his tail.

Well he was right, Daikoku couldn't really follow him at any kind of speed through this dense foliage, and by the sounds of it, he might have lost him. But they were nowhere near safe left.

"As soon as I leave this area he could be anywhere, and for all I know, he could be sneaking towards us right now! Got to get to the village, but running might just tell him where we are again."

He looked down at Moshiro, already quietly sneaking to the left before making eye contact and quietly continuing on.

"Sneaking it is."

I have no idea how long we were sneaking through the woods, felt like hours and for all I know it could have been hours. But we played it safe, moving from shadow to shadow, not making a sound.

Then I heard it, one of the sounds you never want to be on the receiving end of, the hiss of an explosive note.


I don't know how we triggered it, but I do now we were lucky when it comes down to it. The blast blew us apart but a rock was between us and the blast, raining shrapnel chunks of stone everywhere. But I had a bad feeling the blast was never meant to kill us, just make noise.

"Haft to get back to cover; he must already be on his way!"

As I tried to stand pain shot up my left leg, looking down I saw a bit of stone shrapnel sticking out of my thigh.

"Shit."

With Moshiro behind him as encouragement he barely managed to drag himself up when he heard something behind his friend that made a shiver run up his spine. The bushes parted and Daikoku charged out of the woods, kunai in hand.

He made a mad stumbling dash for the bush and he could hear Moshiro behind him, trying to slow there procure down when he heard a sound he never wanted to hear again; Moshiro calling out in pain.

Naruto looked back and what he saw made his blood run cooled. It looked like Daikoku had gotten a lucky kick in, with how fast Moshiro was it was the only way he could think of that it would happen. But the worse thing was that Daikoku was turning towards Moshiro, and he wasn't getting up fast enough.

For a second, time stopped. He knew he could make it to the bushes again, he knew he could loss him in there, but he would have to leave Moshiro hear, with him…

"No."

"He would never abandon his friend, not now not ever."

"NO."

"Never again, he would never be alone again, and he would never… never leave his best friend alone!"

"NOOOO!"

He screamed out as he pulled the shard of stone out of his leg, he barley even felt it.

By the look of surprise on Daikoku's face, he was not expecting that and he shore as heck was not expecting Naruto to charge right at him.

Everything seemed to slow down as he moved in, after dodging under the wild haymaker he threw his entire wait behind the shard of stone as he shoved it into his teacher's side. He heard Daikoku howl in pain as something hit him in the chest, hard. Sending him skidding across the clearing, he still by some Miracle ended up on his feet when he had stopped moving.

What he saw confused him, why did they both looked so shocked and where is Daikoku's Kunai?

And why where they starting at his chest like that?

After looking down he found out where the Kunai was, almost up to its hilt in his chest.

"Well that's not good."

He could feel his legs give out under him as he fell backwards. As his vision started to fade he had one last thought before the darkness consumed him.

"At least Moshiro was safe…"


Du Du DUUU!

Got to love those cliff-hangers.

Again, i'm sorry guys, just school and my own laziness led to it not coming out sooner. I figured if I was going to make you guys wait it might as well be a nice and long chapter.

Hope this answered a lot of questions, and a lot more will be cleared up next chapter

Live the response and appreciate any suggestions and input you guys have.

found some errors that needed correcting, thank you for pointing them out, will try to be more consistent in the future.