Chapter XV
The Chakra Devourers
Shikamaru and I go to the office of the Hokage. I can't help but be on my nerves. What if they don't believe me? It's possible. Along the way, I busied myself to refine my ideas, prepare my speech … however since anxiety is a destructive demon swallowing everything in its insatiable hunger, my head goes completely blank once we knock on the door. In silence, I breathe in calmly, hoping that the youngster does not notice it; a habit of not showing the slightest weakness to anyone obliges me so.
After her clear voice invites us to enter, I come in first. Surprised, but not surprised, Lady Tsunade's face is stern while her assistant's is not much different from usual. Clasping her hands together, she looks down at me and makes no attempt to hide her displeasure about my getaway this morning.
"I see that you've finally found him, Shikamaru," she says, not taking her eyes off me, gradually raising her voice. "Kakashi, have you forgotten your obligations regarding this case? Or that I didn't allow you to take time off from your convalescence? Should I also remind you of what happened yesterday in the jail? Of my warnings to rush things about him? Can I know what was more important than your duty?!"
Shikamaru and I exchange a brief complicit glance, neither I nor him regret our decision to have returned the headband to Naruto. By this very fact, I can feel his impatience with the information that I am about to share shortly.
"Please forgive my insolence, Lord Hokage, but I haven't wasted my day twiddling my thumbs," I explain curtly. "I may have found what's going on with Naruto."
Silence settles in as the mood thickens. All attention is on me; their curious eyes pierce me. Puzzled, Godaime frowns.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you ever heard of "chakra devourers"?"
"Chakra … devourers?" Shizune repeats mechanically.
"When I was a kid, my father told me stories about them," I continue. "From the information I was able to glean from the library, these creatures were known to feed on chakra and excelled in elemental ninjutsu and genjutsu. These beings are described as demons who create nightmares and act in the night. If we relate Naruto's symptoms to this theory, it makes sense. His finesse with fire release, his refusal to eat, his sensitivity to light…"
"How did you come to this idea?" Lady Tsunade asks.
"When Naruto pounced on me, he put me under genjutsu … however, it happened in a lucid dream where he was absorbing my chakra. It felt so real to me that I couldn't separate the real from the fake, to be honest. That's why I'm sure it was an illusion. Following our visual exchange, a sudden fatigue of great intensity seized me to the point of being forced to lay in my bed to then fall asleep immediately. I am certain that this fatigue and this dream are intimately linked."
Judging by their faces, Shizune and Shikamaru have no idea what I'm talking about. However, I notice that Godaime reflects and loses herself in her thoughts. She seems to know something…
"Was that what you were looking for with those books?" the teenager asks me. "Pardon my words, but your theory sounds more like a fairy tale than the truth. I've never heard of it."
"You're too young to know," Godaime retorts, rising from her chair to stare at the horizon beyond the window. "A very, very long time ago, there did exist what was called "chakra devourer." The greatest threat the shinobi world has ever faced. These chakra leeches, these real parasites with a bottomless appetite targeted a group of ninjas and during their sleep, they devoured them the nights that followed. Although they were getting more and more exhausted, no one seemed to find any answer to this phenomenon or remember these nocturnal assaults. And this continued until these fighters were attacked and killed by another group which then became the new prey of these creatures, thus perpetuating this cycle of annihilation of entire clans. One day, if not all, the shinobis allied to put an end to the threat once and for all. These stories, it was my grandfather, the first Hokage, who told them to me."
A short pause before finishing her monologue.
"In his lifetime and in the lifetime of his father and his ancestors, no one has ever seen them. They have been exterminated for several decades to the point that their existence has practically disappeared from this world."
Like the others, I am dumbfounded. In fact, I did not expect at all that she would know something and provide us with their origin and the cause of their extinction which assemble all the pieces of the puzzle that I had started. Although the prognosis is rather grim, I manage to find hope; having answers, even bad, is always positive.
Shizune is the first to break the silence:
"It's… If what you say is true, how is it possible that Naruto is one of those demons?"
"Experiments," I whisper quietly.
"Kakashi-sensei's theory is plausible," Shikamaru adds with a serious and concerned look before going deeper into his thought. "It's understood that this group experimented on him and until now, we didn't know for what purpose. If these chakra eaters, or whatever you call them, were truly feared in the shinobi world as Godaime specified, seeking to bring them back to life as weapons makes sense."
A cold sweat slides down my temple. If what he says turns out to be true, Konohagakure—just like the other Hidden Villages—is threatened with a potential future war.
"Thanks to Sunagakure, we also know that Naruto isn't their first subject," he continues. "These kidnappings, these deaths… I am ready to put my hand in the fire that they're all failures unlike him. On the other hand, what bothers me is the targets. Why me, Naruto or Kiba was targeted? Not to mention that it wasn't just shinobis who were…"
"To achieve their purpose, subjects must meet specific criteria," I add.
"I think so too. But I'm going to admit that I don't know these criteria," he sighs heavily.
"To be sure, there's only one thing left to do," Lady Tsunade suddenly says.
She raises her hazel eyes to stare at me. I can already guess what she is about to tell me; her visage betrays an anguish that must probably be similar to mine, tearing my guts apart.
"If it's chakra that Naruto wants, we just have to give it to him. If he takes it, we will thus confirm this theory. Since you are the only one he trusts, you will vouch for this task, Kakashi."
To be frank, I do not enjoy this situation at all. The idea of having my bluish essence stolen and devoured—that is limited by the way—sends shivers of dread down my spine. But as she said it well, I'm the only one who can approach him and, moreover, it was to me that Naruto spoke to for the very first time even if it was in a relatively abstract way. Deep down, I hope with all my heart that it's something else and that Naruto is still "human" and not a rumour of yesteryear that has passed through the ages.
