Thunder Clap 2.1

I don't own Naruto, but it means a lot to me.

For a moment, everything was perfect.

Sunlight, late summer gold across the field like warm rain. Wind rustled the land and the nearby trees, branches swaying in tune to the melody of the forest. Serene. Meditative. A perfect zen space where -

"Hllp."

Jiraiya's face contorted, eyes straining to close even deeper. Deep breaths, in and out and in and out, as he returned to the garden of the serenity in his mind. The noise faded, and the low rustle of the leaves returned. The sun's dull heat flushed across his face.

He was here, and here was he. One with the grass and the ground. Nature breathing in, his own body breathing out in a perfect cycle of...

"Se...sensei."

Jiraiya closed his eyes harder. More peace. More serenity.

"Sensei... I think —" the voice moaned. It was so loud. The leaves felt distant. Jiraiya was fighting with every ounce of discipline he had. His own cells screaming peace against the wave of distraction that only sought to distance him from the serenity of the...of the...

"—m'gonna hurl!"

Naruto clenched, a dry squelch squishing into his throat. The zen was gone, and Jiraiya's finger snapped up and pointed away into the woods.

"That way." He ordered. "If you're going to lose your stomach, again, you do it that way."

The blond's body trembled and swirled in a scramble for the tree line. He made it four or five shuffles before being overcome.

"Blllleghhhhh."

It was much worse, Jiraiya decided, now that the boy was only dry heaving into the ground. He'd lost any actual sustenance stored in his stomach hours ago. The sound without the event was more grating on his ears than the actual vomit.

"I just…" Naruto began, attempting to re-find his footing. "I just can't get over the twist. Every time I jump my whole body just feels so…wrong."

"You're summoning yourself, kid." Jiraiya said, forcing his mind back from the display. "You've got to get used to relaxing your notion of spatial positioning."

"Spatial…" Naruto's squinted. "Spacial what?"

What Jiraiya wanted to do was turn and walk away right there. Or scream? Maybe both? Now, however, he just gave a slow and measured nod. Three weeks of disappointment had tapered his expectations, somewhat, and he was able to keep the totality of his disappointment bottled up inside.

"Listen," he answered, reaching to his right and plucking a single leaf from a fallen branch. "I need you to be like this leaf when you think about where you are."

Naruto appraised the leaf with the same expression that children have when listening to business talk or advanced number theory.

"Huh?" Was the response. "I don't get it."

'You can't stop, Jiraiya' the sage growled in his mind. 'Remember? Keep the disappointment inside. Remember why you're doing this, Jiraiya. You made a decision. A commitment.'

The sage exhaled and spoke.

"I know." He said. "I know you don't get it. But do your best to follow here. See this leaf?"

A nodd, blue eyes trained like a simple minded hawk onto the greenery.

"Okay, so this leaf is, right now, in my hand."

Naruto double checked the leaf was, in fact, still in Jiraiya's hand. It was. He nodded.

"Yes."

The bar had been lowered so much, Jiraiya found himself pleased with the smallest of victories. "Okay. So watch what happens."

Without a sound, Jiraiya let go of the leaf's stem. Flittering in the afternoon wind, it drifted down and down and down before crashing silent against the grass. Naruto's eyes followed it the whole way, unblinking.

"Okay." Jiraiya spoke again. "Where is the leaf, now?"

Naruto blinked. Twice. Thrice.

"On the…" Hesitation. Uncertainty. "On the ground?"

Without a word, the sage bent down and plucked the leaf up, returning it to the palm of his hand.

"And now?"

"Back in your…" Naruto answered slow. "Hand?"

"This isn't a trick question." Jiraiya assured. "I had the leaf in my hand, and then I dropped it. The leaf was on the ground, and then I picked it up and put it back in my hand."

"Now," the sage continued, "Here's the real question — did the leaf think about where it was?"

"…"

"…"

"…the leaf?"

"Yes."

"Did the leaf…think?"

"Yes."

"What the heck does that mean?" The blond protested. "Leaves don't think! How the heck is this supposed to help—"

With a hand, Jiraiya interrupted his students oncoming rant and met Naruto's gaze with a burning seriousness.

"Exactly." The sage said. "This isn't a trick question. Leaves don't think."

"But…" Naruto protested. "But what does that mean?"

"It means, you little shit," Jiraiya answered. "That you need to stop thinking and just start being. This leaf doesn't think about where it is — it just is. You're having this difficulty because every time you jump, you're thinking about where you were instead of just accepting where you are."

For a long moment, Naruto seemed to take in his teacher's words with a grave seriousness.

"I think…" the blond said after almost a minute of silence. "That this is a crummy way of teaching this."

Jiraiya groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

"Listen." He snapped. "They don't exactly write guideline analogies for space-time ninjutsu. Can you just try it?"

"Not thinking?"

Jiraiya nodded.

"It should be second nature to you."

Naruto gave his teacher a scathing look, but only turned his back, storming towards the training grounds. Across from him in the field, a single wooden log sat with a piece of paper adhered to its surface. The paper was a maze of symbols and calligraphy.

"Alright." Naruto all but growled to himself, pushing his mind away from his dumb, insulting new teacher and back to figuring out how the hell this worked.

"Don't think." He repeated. He thought it, too. "Don't think. Don't think. No think. No. Think. No think. No think. No."

There was a brilliant flash, a yellow explosion across the course. Then nothing. Reality seemed to tilt, and then Naruto reappeared behind the dummy. His breath was ragged, rasping at the sudden return to existence.

"I'm not…" he whispered, whirling with excitement towards Jiraiya. "I'm not gonna hurl!"

Jiraiya said nothing as he rose from his seat and approached the log. Extending his hand, his fingers wrapped around a three pronged kunai buried thirty centimeters into the wood. There was a 'thunk' as he yanked the knife from the divot. Jiraiya's lips stretched into a low, tooth filled grin with a click of his tongue.

"Now this…" he began, his eyes moving to Naruto with a fire that caught the blond in his step. Like being seen for the first time as…something? Potential? Naruto's heart swelled at the thought, but his elatement was subdued by an undignified yelp as the kunai rocketed near his feet and embedded itself in the dirt. The sage spun on a heel, waving his hand.

"Do it again."

The moment it was thrown, Neji knew what it was. Small, glistening. A seal wrapped handle beneath a trident spike of metal. There wasn't a shinobi on earth of didn't know the tools of the flying thunder god — weapons of Konoha's yellow flash.

What didn't process, didn't click inside his mind, was what happened after that.

The village idiot knowing one of the most powerful jutsu in history was like imagining a carp lobbing a samurai's katana from a stream. In Neji's mind, even giving the event odds, as though it was something that happened in reality, was absurd.

Much higher on the list of likely options were that the idiot had picked up a replica in some backwater, second hand replica store for 'loser shinobi who lose' and thought it would give him an edge. For a moment, he pictured a wide eyed and mystified Naruto, eagerly drinking in the every word of a half-rate conman, promising the blond the "speed of the Fourth" if he uses these 100% guaranteed authentic replicas in battle.

If he hadn't been so full of frothing hatred, he might have pitted the fool.

Replica or not, the kunai the blond had thrown was two things - sharp, and headed directly for Neji's face. The prudent move was to dodge, and so he would. The tactical move was a little more complex, but he was a genius, after all. Lean left, pivot off back his back foot. Surge forward, use your momentum. Hold your left arm weak, with the right arm ready to blast forward forward and claim victory. Quick. Efficient. Foolproof.

But none of that happened.

There was no counter attack, no perfectly poised strike. Neji had not gotten so far as to pivot on his back heel before everything seemed to stop.

An explosion of yellow.

Naruto's voice sounded like he'd just ran to Kumo and back, and Neji could feel the boy's heaving chest behind him. His Byakugan could see the blond's knees, hands, his whole body shaking on the brim of exhaustion, but Neji could barely focus on such things. His mind was reeling, a flash bang of confusion clouding his battle plan. He couldn't move, couldn't retaliate. The only thing he could focus on was the icy prick of steel pressed against the skin of his throat.

"Ah, ah, asshole" Naruto rasped. The way the blond's chest heaved, Neji wondered just how much energy the move consumed. "I wouldn't move if I were you. I sharpened the shit out of this thing."

On queue, Neji felt metal like ice scald against the warmth of his skin. His breath caught against his throat, and he swallowed hard. A prick tinged his jaw, and his mind agonized over the single, wet droplet he could feel rolling towards his chest.

'Impossible'. Neji's mind reeled, muscles tensing and fury surging. There was no way that he was being restrained. No way that what had just transpired was real.

'Genjutsu!' His mind roared, seeing through the deception.

"You think this will stop the all seeing eye of the Byakugan?" Neji declared, fingers flying into a seal as he channeled his chakra. "Parlor trick genjutsu won't save you. Kai."

The assembled coliseum waited on bated breath, all eyes glued to the scene. Neji waited, eyes ready for that familiar fade of a false reality like dust on the wind.

But there was no fade. No shimmer to reveal the truth. Reality persisted, constant, the only sound the haggard exhales of his captor.

"What." the prodigy whispered, his voice wavering into a far off swirl as the heaviness of the body pressed against his back weighed down like a train.

"Kai."

Again. And again. A fourth time.

"What?" Neji seethed. "What is happening?"

"So much for genius, eh?" Naruto rasped, but the exhaustion couldn't mask the smugness in his voice. "It ain't a genjutsu, so you can cut that shit."

If the taunt was meant to enrage him further, Neji couldn't tell. His mind was busy piecing together the last four seconds of reality. Nothing, yellow, knife at his throat. Nothing, yellow, knife at his throat.

Victory, yellow, defeat.

"But you..." Neji's whispered, voice awash in confusion as his Byakugan faded. Veins eased back, leaving nothing but milky white orbs that looked like the sea he was lost in. "Not a genjutu?..."

"Heh, yeah." Neji didn't need his all seeing eyes to see pride wrapped itself around the boys words. It filled his stomach with a writhing lurch.

"Master Jiraiya calls it 'space-time' ninjutsu, or something." Naruto explained, as though his words were normal and any of this was normal and not living in an upside down world. The blond gave a casual shrug, as though further technical details escaped either his memory or his interest. "It's kind of complicated, but it's cool as hell."

"...'space-time' ninjutsu..." Neji repeated. It was less a statement and more weighing whether or not those words were real. He was snapped from his thoughts as the pinch of steel brushed against his neck.

"Oi, proctor!" The blond hollered, shifting his head to make eye contact with the still dumbfounded Hayate, falling disinterested with the Hyuuga's ramblings.

"This counts as a submission, yeah?"

The jounin didn't respond, and Naruto had time to ponder how the toothpick stayed hanging even though the proctor's mouth was gaping open. Hayate's response was a wracking cough, which was good because it hid the utter shock running down his nerves. Memories of yellow flashes swirled just behind his eyes, and, suddenly, the image of a blond, loudmouthed genin looked too much like a poster he'd had in his room as a child.

"No." Hayate's said, his voice monotonous and droll because it didn't matter if this kid had summoned a bijuu, he had an appearance to keep up. Jounin didn't gape at genin, and he'd be damned if the whole village would see the crumbling of his meticulously cultivated aesthetic.

"Your opponent is standing. Victory is by knockout or forfeit." He continued, before raising an eyebrow. "Knockout, forfeit, or death, that is. Either way, giving him a hug from behind won't cut it."

Something about the phrase 'or death' when combined with a bladed knife brought Neji's arms empty to his side. Shock gave way to the reminder that he was, in fact, being held hostage.

"Well...shit." Naruto said, and Neji was reminded that he was being held hostage by an idiot. "I'm going to be honest, I don't have a clue how I could knock you unconscious right now without you maybe escaping. And that's not going to work, for me."

"So, what?" Neji hissed, inhaling deep and trying to calm his mind back into zen. He shifted in the blond's hold, pushing at the common escape points of a bind and biting down the frustration of discovering that someone seemed to have actually trained the idiot how to hold the knife poised at Neji's neck.

"You expect me to surrender?"

"I mean," Naruto replied, sounding unsure how this was a conversation he was still having. "the other option is 'or death', so yeah. I kind of figured..."

Neji said nothing, and his silence echoed throughout the arena. Setting his jaw, the Hyuuga prodigy rose to his full height, his eyes leveling in the distance as his shoulders rolled back. The blade of the kunai remained glued to the thin red gorge it had cut, a hairline trickle ebbed by steel.

"Then kill me."

Naruto audibly scoffed.

"I'm sorry." He offered, wondering if his grip around Neji's neck had been too tight. He could recalled Jiraiya, just days before, describing the effects of loss of blood circulation for various body parts. Stupid, suicidal declarations during a stupid contest seemed to fall right about there.

"Say what now?"

"You heard me, Uzumaki." Neji replied, and Naruto didn't like the way his name sounded like a dirty word when Neji said it. The blond's jaw clenched as he bit down the sudden urge to knee this jackass in the kidneys.

"Listen hear, prick." Naruto all but growled, his voice and patience dried up by the encounter. "I don't know who or what crawled up your ass and died, but I'm here offering you a chance to..."

"If you think you are sparing me by allowing me to surrender, you are mistaken." Neji interrupted, his voice like rocks grating against steel. Naruto's face contorted, his annoyance only receding for confusion to take its place.

"No." The blond reasoned back, his words slow and deliberate. "I think you're misinterpreting the other option in the 'surrender or death' equation. You see, death is, like, not the one you want to pick."

It was difficult, as the village pariah spoke to him in metered, patronizing tones, for Neji to not fling himself forward onto the blade. The kunai at his neck was sharp, but was it really worse than being held lectured to by the intellectual equivalent of a farm animal? He exhaled, and let the rage travel down his arms and dissipate in the clench of his fist.

"Spare me your opinions, I care not." Neji replied, his voice and gaze piercing into the concrete wall twenty meters away. "I don't know what kind of trickery you managed to pull or whether that was even what I think it was. Either way, I'll not be mocked by trash such as you. Kill me and be done with this. Do not allow my failure to linger."

The demand was met by nearly a minute of stunned silence before Naruto's brain could think of a response.

"Okay. I'm sorry, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?"

Neji scowled, lips curling in a digest. If only the blond idiot had the Byakugan, then he might have been able to see the contempt rolling across his face.

"Enough of your vulgarities. Fate has decided."

"Fate?" Naruto spat, like the word scalded his throat to even utter. Neji fought a wince as the blond's nails curled, digging into the skin on his arm. "You think I beat you because of fate?"

It wasn't a question. But trash didn't dictate the terms - even in the jaws of defeat.

"Fate is the all decider. Fate is -"

"Listen up, you freaking turd." Naruto snarled, the end of his short patience sizzling like a fuze. "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but I whooped your ass because you underestimated me, just like Jiraiya-sensei said you would. I pulled a fast one with a kickass new jutsu, and now you go and attribute it to fate?"

The blond heaved, heavy and hot, and Neji wondered if he was truly about to slit his throat. He inhaled, steeling his mind and vision, and prepared to be dispatched.

But the blow never came.

Naruto's chest rolled with a low chuckle.

"Fuck," he whispered, hands still shaking and blade still poised at Neji's throat, so sharp and so unsteady. "No wonder Hinata tried so hard to kick your ass. You're ridiculous."

"Shut up!" Neji seethed, fingers balling into the fists he so desperately wanted to bury in the blond's stomach. His eyes saw all, and all turned red.

"You know nothing of what transpired that fight, and I'll sooner die than hear nameless trash like you justify the Hyuuga. You know nothing of our history, nothing of the oppression of the Main branch!"

"Main branch?" Naruto replied, voice lost and naive. Neji breathed, and fire filled his belly "What the hell does you being a fucking prick have to do with the main branch?"

"Everything!" Neji's reply was so quick, so desperate and filled with hate that it scared even him as it left his tongue. His nails buried themselves into his palm because his body couldn't flair with the seething fury that it wanted to.

"It has everything to do with them. She represents everything that fate has ever wrought into my life. Every injustice, every loss..." Neji's voice grew distant, but his body trembled from the torrent flooding out of him. His head fell, and his milk white eyes poured distantly into his bloody palms.

"Fate may have given me this destiny." His voice was barely a whisper, but it shook through his soul. "But I will not be mocked by the rise of failures such as her."

For a moment, Naruto remained silent. This was a stunning turn of events, really, as, even a month prior, his immediate response would have been something...adversarial. Some know-it-all ponce with angst to make even that Sasuke bastard green with envy. Naruto, naturally, would rise above such provocation. He'd say something cutting and deep, like any real hero should.

'Cry me a river, douche'.

'You're the real monster here, asshole'.

'Fuck you, dude.'

But that was the old Naruto.

Old Naruto said things quickly, because you could say things quickly when you didn't think about what you said. New Naruto wasn't much better, honestly, but there was something, maybe a little. While his his heart and his fists voted that 'fuck you' was the best way to answer the angst sandwich getting verbally fed to him, something Jiraiya had told him before their fight fogged his mind. Fogged it and clouded his thoughts like when he left the house and couldn't remember if he'd turned the stove off.

"That destiny you're talking about. For you." Naruto began, voice unsure and unfamiliar with discourse. He wasn't used to having prior knowledge before going into a situation. This was untested waters.

"You talking about the Caged Bird thing?"

Like a waterfall onto a campfire. Neji could feel the blood, wet and sticky and dripping from the holes his anger and nails had bore into his palms, but the tension and rage dissipated like mist. His breath hitched. His eyes were cloudy.

"You..." He croaked, and he felt light and skinny and it was like he'd gone blind. His throat went raw. His heart thundered.

"How do you know about that?"

Naruto squirmed, but steeled himself. He'd started conversation, now. He was using his words, not his fists, to explain his opinions. Ironically, this lesson in dialogue over violence had been forcibly beaten into his head by Jiraiya for the past three weeks, but Naruto couldn't worry about that right now.

"Yeah..." Naruto answered, "Jiraiaya-sensei told me about it. Said it's pretty shitty."

A lifetime of oppression. An entire family line, subjugated and ground into the dirt by their own kin. Forced to walk around with a brand that could cripple their body and tear asunder their mind at the call of a single hand seal.

And the dead last said..."pretty shitty".

"Shitty." Neji repeated, numb and feeling a previously unfelt level of rage building in his body, like a tornado going through a volcano. He was going to turn around, kunai to the neck be damned, and he was going to throttle that ignorant little...

"Human beings aren't meant to be subject to one another. Slaves." Naruto said. His voice sounded deeper, lost but not unsure. Neji found his voice dried up.

"He mentioned he thought he had a way to remove it." Naruto finished. "The seal, that is."

"To..." Neji's sputtered, and his murderous train skidded off the tracks and caught fire. His tongue turned to lead. He didn't realize his fist uncurled.

"Remove?" he whispered. "Remove the seal?"

"Yeah." Naruto answered with a cough and maybe empathy? Neji couldn't tell. "He doesn't bring it up with the Hyuuga being here, and all, but he was showing me some of the outline. It's sort of like the one on..."

Neji didn't realize that Naruto stopped himself just short of saying "me". In fact, Neji wasn't aware of much of anything, anymore. The ground and the world were uncertain and alien. His stomach lurched.

"You...remove?" Neji whispered, the words felt like secrets, say them any louder and they would disappear like a dream. Neji felt called to voice one of the only questions he had ever had.

"Is there a way to remove the seal?"

The question lingered, and Naruto's answer stalled because he could feel what seemed the weight whole world hinge on his next response.

"Listen," he coughed, "I don't want to get your hopes up, here. Master Jiraiya just wanted me to know your weaknesses, so he told me about that seal. He mentioned he'd found a way, and he told me about your back-story. That's why he told me. I don't know any more about it, but he does."

It was a bit of a cop out, for sure, but still the truth. Naruto couldn't shake the vague notion that answering with something not truthful would have the Hyuuga genuinely trying to kill himself. There was nothing more truthful than Naruto not knowing something, so that fit the bill. However...

"But we are, uh, kind of, like, in the middle of something here? "he added. "If you forfeit the match, I'll bring you to talk to him about it."

He was so earnest, so painfully sincere in every stupid word that he could heave across his lips, it made Neji's chest hurt. The Hyuuga prodigy exhaled, and his breath was like cracks in a damn. Still holding, still clinging - but only just.

"Why?"

Naruto blinked.

"Why, what?"

"Why," Neji answered, his voice wavering like a flag caught in a hurricane. "Why tell me this? Why are you doing this?"

"Listen, I just want to win this match, alright?" Naruto answered. It wasn't the empathetic or caring thing to reply, but it was honest. Lying took energy, and he was just too damn tired to make up some sob story.

"You don't seem awful, you're just an asshole. Nobody deserves to live a life caged like that. I know..." Neji didn't understand why Naruto paused, but the hesitation in the blonde's words felt heavy like metal bars. It made his gut wrench, and Neji hated how he couldn't understand why.

"I know what it's like, alright? And it sucks. And when I'm Hokage, I'm not going to let anyone pull any of this kind of shit. But, I'm not Hokage, yet, so I'm just going to start with helping you."

Neji stayed silent for almost a minute, and Naruto began to worry that his words fell on deaf ears. That would pose a significant problem, as he could already feel his arm muscles begin to lock up, desperately crying for relief from the hold and...

"Proctor." Neji's voice was sharp as glass, and it cuts through the arena. "I surrender."

Hayate nodded, and Neji felt the rush as the three pronged kunai against his throat was whisked away. Delicate, almost reverently, it went back into the blonde's holster. The next moment, Neji was released. Naruto pushed off, shaking his arms to try and slough off the fatigue rolling up his muscles. Neji wasn't tired, but everything hurt. His feet drug little tracks into the dirt as he moved away.

"Holy. Shit." Naruto gasped, hands behind his head as he circled in place talking because even if he was tired he couldn't not move. "Doing it when I'm the one making the seal...that's exhausting."

From his spot a couple meters away, Neji gave a slow, shifting turn. His body twisting until milky white eyes stared back into Naruto's pools of blue. The prodigy said nothing, and Naruto squirmed.

"So does sometime later this week work?" He offered, feeling exhausted and deeply uncomfortable as Neji's eyes just stared at him, all glassy and expressionless. "Because, I've gotta be honest, I'm gonna need a minute or something. I'm still definitely not used to that."

"Are you telling the truth?" Neji asked. He didn't move, didn't meet the blond's eyes, and his voice barely even made it to his opponent.

"Huh?" Naruto blinked, before waiving a disinterested hand as he continued to pant like a dog. "Oh, yeah. It's a promise. That's my ninja creed. I won't go back on my word!"

Neji stared for a long moment at the declaration in complete and utter silence. After three seconds of no movement, Naruto's face scrunched as the blonde shifted uncomfortably.

"Well?" He demanded. "Say something you weirdo!"

It was slight, imperceptible even. But Neji didn't say anything. He laughed. One, then two, a giggle turned to a chuckle, a chuckle to full blown barks of laughter. The sound echoed through the still silent arena and rippled out into the summer air. Naruto, unaware of what the hell was so funny, didn't laugh, took a cautious step back. He'd taken Neji for the broody type, and if Sasuke had ever started laughing, his first instinct would have been to back away slowly. He figured the same procedure would fit here.

"Good luck, Uzumaki Naruto." The proud Hyuuga called, the declaration echoing behind him as the prodigy entered the nearby tunnel and disappeared. Naruto stretched, pushing his hands to the base of his back till he heard his spine pop in a few place.

"So..." He said loudly, turning towards Hayate. "We done here? Cause I'm hungry!"

Hayate didn't know how to reply, but he was overwhelmed with relief that he hadn't signed on to take a genin team this year.

"Winner, Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Jiraiya."

People had forgotten Sarutobi Hiruzen. Age tended to do that. The years drag on, and the memories of how things used to be just seemed to erode. Sarutobi Hiruzen. The God of Shinobi. There was a time where he had been hailed as the second coming of Hashirama himself. Undisputed power, the Will of Fire re-incarnate. Konoha under his gaze had been the most prosperous, the most protected in its history.

But people had forgotten.

For Jiraiya's money, it was the gimmicks. People only remembered the things that were flashy — the things that stood out. Hashirama and his wood style, Tobirama and his water jutsu (even though his forbidden jutsu were far, far more dangerous). Then Minato had come along, and everyone seemed to forget about poor, aging Sarutobi Hiruzen.

Jiraiya knew better.

Brutal efficiency. That was the way he described his former master. All the power, all the finesse and skill of his predecessors with none of the ego. None of the drama. People had forgotten how powerful the third Hokage was because no one he fought survived to tell some horror story of their battle. Efficiency was the most dangerous shinobi trait, and that's why Hiruzen was the god. A shinobi to be feared above all others on the battle field. One who didn't fight for glory or infamy — only purpose. The living incarnation of the Will of Fire.

As Jiraiya turned to face his former master, his heart clenched in his chest. A pressure, a wave, surged through his body and sent a chill down his spine. Their eyes met, and Jiraiya stared down the Flame.

"Come with me." The Kage commanded. "Now."

It was a testament to decades of training and discipline that Jiraiya could even stand. The third Hokage's chakra wasn't flared, but the chill of his voice dug into the box like thunder. Jiraiya forced out a nod before turning, disappearing down the nearby corridor. Hiruzen rose from his chair, his movements metered, calculating. If one looked closely, there were spider-web splinters left in the wood of his chair. Without another word, Hiruzen moved to follow his pupil until a voice called out from behind.

"Hokage-sama." The Kazekage spoke. Sarutobi paused, the company of the box forgotten in the turn of events.

"Yes, Kazekage-sama?" The honorifics were there, but the conversation balanced on the edge of a razor.

"I was not aware…" the veiled kage questioned. His voice sounded different than before. Strained? Concerned?

Scared?

"That Konoha had raised a second yellow flash."

Sarutobi's gaze was a line, his eyes watching in silence as a hapless boy heaved against his opponent in the arena. He exhaled, and the brim of his hat shaded his eyes from view.

"Then you now know, Kazekage-sama."

If the Kazekage expected more details, he was left wanting. The God of Shinobi disappeared down the corridor behind his student.

"What." He growled as he reached Jiraiya. A fury. A fire. "Have you done."

"You know exactly what I've done." Jiraiya countered. Like a man juggling fire. "And if you're asking me, it's something that should have been done a long—"

"Do not." Hiruzen's voice is like an avalanche. "No one is asking you. You do not get a voice. Do you have any idea what you've done."

"What I've done?" Jiraiya growled. "I've taught my student."

"What you've done," Hiruzen's presence swelled, a circle of cracks bursting into the concrete under his feet. "Is give an open bounty from every ninja nation on earth to a child."

"He's not a child." Jiraiya met Sarutobi's accusation with a hiss. "He's a soldier and he's been one since the day you let him join the academy."

"I let him join to protect him." Sarutobi countered. "To learn to control his stengths. To let him live a normal life."

"Normal?" Jiraiya's hand smacked against the stone wall of the walkway. Spider-webbed fissures bloomed from the contact.

"Is that what you think he is? Normal? Naruto's never been normal and will never be normal."

"He is a child who deserves the right to live without a target on his back."

"He's always had one!" Jiraiya snarled, eyes flaring. "He's had a target on his back since the moment Minato stopped that monster, and all you've done is hamstring him by trying to not play favorites."

The glare in Hiruzen's eyes was ice.

"You would lecture me?" Hiruzen answered. "You have the audacity to question my judgment?"

Brown eyes simmered beneath the brim of the Hokage's hat.

"You abandon the boy for thirteen years and then walk in with the gall to question me?" The Kage seethed. "I won't have it. Audacity - even from you.

Jiraiya's teeth ground in his cheek with a click as he reared back to his full height. He was always taller than Hiruzen, but it felt like more, now.

"Trust me," he began. His voice was a mixture of will and shame and it tasted in his throat. "A few things have become very clear, very quickly. I've plenty of blame on myself for assuming my pupil's son - the Hokage's son - would have been treated properly in the city he saved."

Hiruzen hadn't been this angry in years, his fists trembled in his hands.

"Get out."

"When the tournaments through." Jiraiya answered. "We will."

"We?" Hiruzen balked, unsure if his anger had clouded his hearing. "You think Naruto is going anywhere?"

Jiraiya nodded.

"He will" the sage replied, reaching into his pocket and pulling a small scroll from his belt. "because they're here looking for him, now."

The tremor in the Hokage's hand slowed, tension easing but for a moment in his fingers as he recalibrated his thoughts around the statement. Reaching forward, he snatched the scroll from his student's hand and read the text. Almost a minute passed before another word was spoken.

"Explain."

Neither man was willing to let go of the tension, blades poised at throats, but the command shifted in Jiraiya's spine and it was like he was reporting again.

"A report I got last week." He said. "I was taking him after the tournament whether he was my pupil or not."

For the first time, it was Sarutobi who realized that realized he was not the only one to become old and bitter. The way they argued in his mind was student to teacher, but this…this…

There were too many lines under the war paint, now. Jiraiya was far more than just a child.

"Why…" he said. "Did you not tell me this sooner?"

"Because you look a lot more weak than you are when it looks like I'm not still scared of you. When I can come in and fight with you" The sage replied. "You look a lot easier to assassinate."

The tension evaporated like a falling tide, but the new reveal lingered on the gaps like resin. Jiraiya would barely see his master's eyes in the dim light of the tunnel. So that was his play? Something was wrong, so to further the tension he publicly humiliates the Hokage in his own home. Such measures, such disrespect. Hiruzen found himself momentarily remorseful he had failed to see underneath the underneath.

"You're absolutely sure of this?"

"No." Jiraiya answered. "But their agents are here. Something's happening and whatever it is doesn't want us to be on speaking terms. But that's close enough for me."

Sarutobi pocketed the scroll in a motion, a silent nod in affirmation. Without a sound, the third Hokage was walking back to the box, alone.

"Jiraiya." He called out, tilting his head to only a profile. "Do not be mistaken. This will not be the end of our discussion. Regardless of this report, you still made a decision that puts Naruto in grave danger…"

"The topic of protecting Naruto is the priority but..." Jiraiya's answer was like firm but cold. His gaze lingered and fingers flexed against his fist. With a silent pivot, Jiraiya began his march down the corridor.

"But, for once, we agree..." he called back.

"This conversation is far from over.

"No fucking way." It was Kiba, of course, who's voice broke through. He sounded like he'd seen a ghost, whispering and repeating into the silence. "There's no fucking way. Absolutely no way. No fucking way."

"Shut UP, Kiba." Ino hissed, but her eyes never left the center of the arena. In fact, all eyes in the stadium remained transfixed to the orange jumpsuit at the center.

"Did you…" Chouji whispered, putting down his chips and committing the entirety of his attention to something that wasn't food.

"Sakura, did you know about this?"

She was pretty sure that he nudged her shoulder, but Sakura wasn't home.

"Of course she didn't know." Kiba snipped. "She didn't even know he'd been gone for a freaking month."

"Kiba, I said shut it!" Ino growled, taking a defensive stance between her frenemy and the dog boy. Sakura could feel Ino's arm, gentle but alarmed, latch onto her own.

"Sakura." She diverted, head dropping into a conspiratorial tone. "Was that what I think that was?"

Sakura opened her mouth, a fish gaping for an answer or an insight or anything that made sense, but nothing came. She shook her head, and fumbled for words.

"I don't…" she stammered. "I don't know what just happened."

"I do." Shikamaru's voice cut through the quiet like a knife, but his gaze was unflinching towards the center stage. His shoulders and frame were hunched, hand tracing his lips as his eyes absorbed the scene. It reminded Ino of how he looked playing his father in Shogi.

A new piece was on the board. The game had been altered.

Sakura could only watch in a stunned silence as three masked ANBU materialized around the blond in a swirl of leaves. Their kunai were drawn, defensive. She recognized it ask VIP escort formation alpha six. They'd learned it in the academy as a cornerstone stance for defending mission critical targets against unknown assailants.

'Naruto?' Her inner voice whispered. Why were they protecting Naruto? What was happening to Naruto?

Who even was Naruto?

For a name she'd yelled and berated and called out to over a thousand times, his name didn't sound sure any more. The only source of reassurance she could take was that Naruto seemed to be equally startled and confused by his sudden security detail.

"Hey!" He squawked. "What the heck's the big idea?"

There was another swirl of leaves and Jiraiya was standing beside him, hand on his shoulder. He whispered something low and quick the blond's ear, but Sakura couldn't make it out. For a moment, it looked like familiarity. Naruto was confused, and Sakura could almost hear the defiance welling up inside him — the refusal to listen or be told anything by anyone.

But Naruto didn't fight back at all. The boy in the center bit his tongue, and gave a steady nod. Jiraiya placed a hand on his shoulder, and Uzumaki Naruto disappeared from the stadium in a puff of white smoke.

Sakura stared at the empty space where her teammate had once stood in complete silence with the rest of the assembled arena. There was no cheering - no cries or calls. The collective air seemed to be sucked out of the very arena, broken only by the static of a frazzled announcer over the PA.

"We're going to take a brief intermission. Please stand by."

Hey everyone! I hope you're doing great. I'll be moving to a new continent, soon, and finishing up my masters - more time to write! I hope you like this chapter. A little secret, I like the next one even more.

I really love hearing y'all's take on things, so don't be a stranger to the reviews!

- Free Drinks