Chapter XXXIX

I Have the Answers You Need

As ordered, I immediately went to Shikamaru's home with Naruto. The fact that Naruto is photosensitive and that the fear of the outside painfully slows the speed of his steps, I carried him on my back, telling him to hold on tight. Yamato's serious tone implied that it was relatively urgent. Fortunately, Naruto didn't hesitate to wrap all his limbs against myself. Obviously, the latter likes to be glued to me like this. Since we were completely drenched, the wind produced by my running became icy and biting, making the sapphire-eyed boy shiver with intensity as he buried his face in my neck. Nevertheless, it allowed us to dry out a bit along the way.

Arrived at Shikamaru's, I took a moment to rid Naruto of his wet clothes which make him shiver with cold while his teeth were chattering; the blond is shaking like a leaf and he hugs himself with his arms and his ebony tail. At first sight, he has become chilly and his skin is relatively sensitive now; I don't shiver unlike him.

Of course, he quickly realized that he had to take off his clothes. I had to pull up his underwear, which he had managed to get down to his knees before I stopped him. Since he didn't seem to understand the reason for my action, I told him to keep it; despite the confusion in his eyes, he no longer tried to remove it afterwards. However, he refuses to get rid of his forehead protector; the reason why prompted me not to insist further.

As for me, much more prudish, apart from my pants, my top and my mask never leaving my face, I removed everything. Naruto stared at me curiously for an uncomfortable time, then he went to the garden to lie down and roll around in the grass; unlike the other time, he avoids shadows, demonstrating that he seeks warmth from the sun's rays far from being at their full potential. Uncovered, his tattooed back overwhelms my and Shikamaru's full attention.

In a way, this bewitching mosaic is particularly hypnotic and has a certain charm.

Shikamaru just remained silent. He didn't need to ask me any questions since he easily guessed why we were soaked, sketching a smirk on his lips that he concealed with his hand. Aware of Naruto's atypical behaviour, he knows that it's entirely his fault and that I've been dragged into his silly idea in spite of myself. The youngster thus avoids embarrassing me by having to explain to him what happened.

While I hang up the wet clothes, Shikamaru settles on the gallery in a cross-legged position and spreads out a map of the Land of Fire extending over the entire territory. He lights a cigarette and brings it to his lips, patiently waiting for me to come and sit down—something I do when I finish hanging out the laundry. I see that they have already marked and demarcated areas by hand. Logically, this must be related to where Naruto was sequestered.

"If I understand correctly, the team is back on the matter?" I ask, looking at the map.

Shikamaru nods after inhaling the cancerous smoke into his lungs.

"Godaime wanted us to look into the matter again," he confirms with a sigh. "With the new data, especially that on his medical file, we're able to determine approximately where he may have been held captive."

"I see."

It's true that by taking into account Naruto's regenerative abilities and his new condition being unknown to us at the start, we are able to find some sort of clue… However, I know that Lady Tsunade formed the team herself, as I know the people in question are very thoughtful, not to mention the teenager who is a real genius. That Shikamaru asks me to participate in the investigation puzzles me since they have access to my reports.

"Tell me, why did you summon me?" I ask, crossing my arms. "I doubt I can get things move forward more than you."

A silence. The youngster starts looking at me with a serious pout. In response, I frown. After an indeterminable time, he finally speaks. "I know you're not saying everything in your reports," he accuses me dryly.

I keep my composure, but a panic sets in, pressing my heart hard. His words are true and he's fully aware of the pathological affection that Naruto has for me, far beyond a simple attachment disorder in search of comfort. I've already confided my fears to him and he has seen me sleeping with Naruto dangerously glued to me and I keep all that to myself. Also, Shikamaru is far from being fooled… Nevertheless, I stay impassive as I know how to do so as not to betray the emotions overwhelming me.

"You must have good reason for doing so, though… I hope what you're refusing to divulge isn't getting in our way, Kakashi-sensei," he says, piercing me with his stern gaze.

Again, I remain silent while maintaining eye contact; I refuse to let him destabilize me and therefore push me to talk only to bite my fingers afterwards. I understand now why he wants me to participate in the case. It's true that I can come across as hiding much more than Naruto's dependent feelings for me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Naruto on his four legs in a very low, almost lying down posture, staring at us apprehensively and suspiciously; at that, his hair stood on end, his hands and toes twitched, his fingernails clawed at the ground, and his black tail is wagging in anguish. Shikamaru doesn't take long to see it too. Naruto is on edge. He feels that there's an uncomfortable tension like a storm about to break. He seems to hesitate to defend me; unlike what happened in the hospital, his inaction and his uncertainty can be explained by the small bond of trust with the youngster.

Shikamaru and I exchange a silent agreement and we relax and push this animosity away with a long breath. From then on, this calms the blond who stops arching his back. He stares at us for a while before lying down and continuing his atypical activity.

I let out a sigh before reaching out my hand.

"May I take a look at the file?"

The latter nods before giving me the documents in question. While I analyze everything, he takes a few puffs on his cigarette. Carefully curated, I find all relevant information regarding Naruto since his abduction. His feral behaviours; the evolution of said feral behaviours since I have had custody of him; his new abilities as a chakra devourer; his injuries; his psyche… Of course, I focus on the injuries of his forearm and stomach, as well as his regenerative abilities. I comb through his medical records while observing the map in question in front of us. By comparing the data, I notice with horror that Naruto has been sequestered within our borders.

"With such injuries, Naruto wouldn't have been able to get to the village alive outside of these areas," I note, brushing my fingertip over the markings on the map.

"Indeed," he confirms, expelling the smoke one last time before finally extinguishing his cigarette butt. "But it's also possible that Naruto was attacked on the way."

"I don't think so," I retort before clarifying my thoughts. "We know that Naruto is a valuable subject and that those people were very well informed and prepared, especially considering how the Nine-Tails was neutralized. He had to be carefully guarded and chained up given the power of the chakra devourers. To get out of there, Naruto had to be carried away into a real fury to have a tiny chance of escaping. It's possible his newfound powers were underestimated, giving him an opportunity to get away. We mustn't forget that after a fury, he ends up exhausted both mentally and physically and this makes him completely harmless."

I look back at the map, pausing.

"If he had been attacked along the way, he wouldn't have been able to defend himself. The wound to his stomach was deadly, Naruto was defenceless… Why refrain from finishing the job? Besides, I refuse to believe that these people tried to kill him so stupidly after all the trouble they went through to kidnap him. I'm willing to bet that Naruto hurt himself in his desperate attempt to escape. He was below the malnutrition line when he returned, starving to death. His instincts, especially that of survival, must have awakened and this gave him the strength necessary to free himself."

"Your words make sense, Kakashi-sensei," Shikamaru nods, beginning to think. "If what you say is true, Naruto had to be in the Land of Fire and relatively close to the village as well."

When I see him draw the line with his finger in the area around Konoha, I frown.

"If Naruto had walked along the walls, the sentries would have spotted him before he got to the gates," I correct with my finger. "We mustn't forget that security had been reinforced."

"So that would only leave us here," he mutters, pointing to said area in question that avoids going along the wall. "Naruto must have walked in a straight line and it would be illogical for him to take an unnecessary detour."

I nod. Meanwhile, Naruto timidly approaches to sit next to me. He looks curiously at the map. His tail comes to enclose me gently around my abdomen, and this, several turns. The fur on the end of it tickles my skin with their painless lightning. The tuft of hair brushes my hand while the tail is wrapping itself around me. It's only now that I notice that this ebony fur is soft and silky, even more so than his golden hair; it's pleasant to the touch and it makes me want to pet it … obviously, I forbid myself to do so.

Shikamaru arches an eyebrow, but doesn't comment. It's his way of pointing out my secretiveness about Naruto; not being able to contradict him, I accompany him in his silence before returning to the matter.

"While that makes sense, a plausible hypothesis that could explain this whole thing, it just doesn't fit. My team searched and looked many of these areas when we started the search. Even if the place had been a hundred feet underground, the Byakugan would have found it in no time."

"That's what's bothering us too," Shikamaru sighs. "At least three different teams have searched the areas in question and everything has been combed through recently. It was for this reason that it was believed that he had been detained outside our borders."

A silence.

"Obviously, there's some erroneous data in this whole thing," I say, frowning. "The information we have contradicts itself…"

"We have confirmation that the areas were carefully searched from top to bottom, before and after his return. This also applies to his medical file which was recently updated. However, if we put the two together, it doesn't stick as you said so well."

I take a closer look at the report, to make sure we haven't missed a detail that would explain this problematic contradiction.

"By his chakra devourer condition, we could assume that he could survive longer with such injuries… But according to Kotetsu and Izumo, Naruto was barely breathing and if they hadn't controlled the hemorrhage, he would have bled to death before arriving at the hospital. Also, his powers don't act immediately like Kyūbi's did … at that, he was so hungry his wounds just wouldn't heal. Even in a perfect shape or after my chakra offering, his wounds take a while to heal despite his exceptional abilities that far surpass ours."

I draw an imaginary line of a few kilometres on the map, above those delimiting the place where he could have been held captive.

"Even if that assumption were true and that he might have survived longer, the problem remains the same. In any case, he could only have been in the country and nowhere else," I finish, a shiver of dread sliding down my spine.

"What a drag!" Shikamaru fumes, gritting his teeth. "Either we are missing information, or those we have are wrong…"

Suddenly, I feel the black tail entwine me more tightly, grinding me little by little in a vice of pain. Turning my attention to Naruto, he has completely frozen to the point where he no longer blinks. His deep blue irises stare with alarming intensity at a specific spot on the map. He clenches his fists so tightly that his sharp nails have dug into his palms after scraping his thighs marked with ten benign scratches. I can't translate his emotions or what he's thinking; this is the first time I've seen him like this.

I widen my eye.

Could it be possible that Naruto knows..?

This simple observation starts this mad race in my chest, giving me the impression that my heart is trying to extricate itself by breaking my ribs to escape; at that, I hold my breath. I put a careful hand on his shoulder.

"Naruto, what's going on?" I ask with a tremor in my voice as he doesn't react, even when I gently shake him.

When I turn his face by taking him by the chin to force him to look at me, his eyes don't deviate and his mind remains a prisoner of this absolute trance. Glancing at Shikamaru, he's also on the edge; he must share this same thought which agitates me to shake me whole. My hands begin to shake in spite of myself so much that the emotion poisoning me is too strong.

"Naruto! Show me exactly what you're looking at!" I order him.

The latter remains motionless and mentally absent.

"Naruto! Point your finger at what you're looking at!" I shout, clenching my fingers in his electricity static-oozing flesh.

Once again, I get no answer. The teenager is taken hostage in this maddening catalepsy to the point that I no longer seem to exist in his universe. About to shake him, I notice his right hand moving slowly and hesitantly; the said hand is a slave to terrible jolts. My ebony iris focuses on his index finger, which approaches the map with difficulty, but surely.

In this hellish wait that make me forget to breathe, I hear nothing but my own heartbeat pounding my chest with pain. In all this emotional shambles, countless cold sweats moisten my forehead and my silver locks.

Time therefore stood still.

My notion of time lengthens and lengthens.

Every second feel like an eternity.

Naruto's quivering index finger finally reaches the paper. The tip of his claw indicates a specific point without withdrawing. His eyes are indeed observing insistently what he's pointing at.

The place is located in the demarcated area upstream of the village. Shikamaru and I exchange a look and without saying a word, we guess the other's thought.

We are certain of it—even one hundred percent convinced.

This is where Naruto was sequestered.