Konan's light amble through the dark hallways of the tower on this night was like any other. After a day of tending to her standard duties while she was in the village, which was anything from remaining a constant fixture among the denizens of Ame as their Angel to hounding Nagato over his petulant refusal to do paperwork, she quietly made her way toward the comfortable isolation of her room. This was simply the usual ho-hum routine that she had come to expect… or rather, it was until recently. The new addition to her and Nagato's lives saw to that.
Naruto. He was such an interesting boy. His bright, blue eyes were filled with so much exuberance yet simultaneously burdened with so much guarded caution. His smile could light up a room, and his boundless drive to improve quickly won over Nagato, but it was obvious that both of those were just as much to convince himself as anyone else. He was so ready to impress, so ready to prove his worth. Every moment he could, he sought to justify his existence among them as if it was a foregone conclusion that they'd throw him out on the street and never look back if he couldn't.
It stabbed through Konan's heart like a red-hot lance.
Her reasons for rescuing him in the first place aside, Naruto had already proven to her in only a year's time that his worth far exceeded what Konoha made him believe, even beyond the basic value he held as a human being that they seemed to nearly strip him of. She cherished the effort he gladly put in to grow stronger for Nagato's dream. She cherished his slow and steady discovery of what a (relatively) normal life was like among reasonable people. She just cherished having him around.
So, when she was walking past the door to his room and heard faint whimpering coming from within, she immediately entered to ensure he was okay. She didn't sense any foreign or malicious chakra signatures, and looking around the largely spartan room thus far, nothing seemed amiss. Focusing on the little nine-year-old tightly bundled in his blanket, she spied his face scrunched in distress, and after quietly stepping closer to his bedside, it was clear that he was still asleep.
"Naruto," she softly called, gently nudging his shoulder, but the moment she made contact with him, his eyes shot open and he violently scooted away.
Quickly getting over being startled, she saw his wild, tearful gaze slowly grow more focused as he became aware of his surroundings, and she immediately reached back in.
"It's okay, it's okay," she cooed, drawing him into a reassuring hug as she sat on his bed beside him. "It was just a dream."
Naruto didn't initially reciprocate, but she remained with him, softly rubbing his back until he finally got his wits about him and returned the embrace. There they sat for as long as Naruto needed to recover from whatever nightmare he was having, periodically shifting to alleviate the soreness he still felt from that day's training with Nagato, and the deep sigh that eventually emerged from him indicated that he did finally recover.
"Are you okay, Naruto?" Konan asked once he seemed well enough to talk.
"I… I had a dream that you guys took me back to Konoha…" he lowly replied, as if he risked speaking it into existence. "I wasn't good enough, so…"
He valiantly fought the sniffle that threatened to erupt and held himself together, but Konan was having none of it, and she held him even closer in her arms. "Naruto, we would never. I promise you that."
"I know, but…" he trailed off, and she responded by running a hand through his bright, blond locks and incrementally covering his body in strips of paper.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine," she softly sang to him, levitating him with the strips of paper and angling him back into a laying position. "You make me happy when skies are grey."
"But isn't the sky always gre-" he began, but Konan shushed him with a finger to his lips.
"You'll never know, dear, how much I love you," she continued, lowering him back to his mattress. "Please don't take my sunshine away."
Naruto acquiesced, not raising a fuss but also attempting to blink away the sudden heaviness of his eyelids.
"The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping," she sang, a serene smile on her face as she lovingly gazed down at him. "I dreamed I held you in my arms."
Naruto was visibly succumbing to the growing spell of slumber, and Konan recalled the paper covering his back to allow him to nestle into his bed. "When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken, so I hung my head and cried."
By now, Naruto had curled into himself and lost the battle with the sandman, and Konan gently glided her thumb along his whiskered cheeks.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
You make me happy when skies are grey.
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you,
Please don't take my sunshine away."
Light snoring filled the room, and Konan released the remaining strips of paper before pulling the blanket over her resting charge. Then, she stood up from the bed with a sigh. She was thankful that the genjutsu she cast on him to ease him back to sleep took hold, and she was even more thankful that the Kyubi didn't attempt to dispel it for shits and giggles. It would be a dreamless sleep; that's all she could do for him, but it would suffice.
"You're rather taken with the boy."
Her amber gaze darted to the Deva Path standing in the doorway, and she frowned. "How long have you been there?"
"Long enough," he replied before hesitating. "I did not announce my presence because it would have been counterproductive."
Konan shrugged before making to leave the room, though not before giving Naruto one final caress. Pain stepped aside to allow her to exit the room and shut the door behind her, and then she continued on her way back down the hall with Pain in tow.
"He's a reminder of all the good we can still do in this world… that there's still hope," she finally admitted after a moment of silence.
"And a picture of what could have been?" Pain observed, but it was more of a matter-of-fact statement than a question.
"Sue me," Konan dismissively confirmed. "He's a chance for all of us to live on in the world we all wanted to create, as well as a chance for him to enjoy a world that won't abandon him."
"As I said, you are rather taken with the boy," Pain remarked again, but there was a hint of joviality in his tone.
Konan simply shrugged again, but the following silence lingered for a little longer as she chewed on her words. "…If anything were to happen to him, I'm… I'm not sure I could bear that, Nagato."
Another silence followed that allowed her words to hang in the air like portentous yokai.
"We endure, Konan," he finally spoke.
"But for how long?" Konan pressed.
"For as long as it takes to ensure that he outlives us."
The rain was pouring. That wasn't atypical for Amegakure, naturally, but something felt off about the intensity of the shower. As Konan hovered far above the city with magnificent paper wings stretching angelically over the shinobi force that all but worshipped the ground she flew over, she cast her gaze at the sky, a frown marring her expression. Even when Nagato was upset about something, it never showed in the rain.
With a hard flap of her wings, she shot off toward the tower, paying no mind to the curious sight she may have caused by becoming a sudden zip in the sky to any passing observer. Coming to a stop on a balcony on the upper levels of the tower, she entered the building and made her way toward Nagato's office. Even if he hadn't sensed her approach, she passed several of the Paths on her way there, so it was no surprise that he was expecting her when she finally opened the door to the office.
"Konan," the Deva Path greeted with a nod as he whittled away at the stack of paperwork on his desk. "You don't have more work for me, I'm assuming."
She shook her head and stepped into the room. "The rain is harder than usual."
"Indeed, it is," Pain nodded again, inwardly thankful for the distraction. "It is not my doing,"
That didn't surprise her, but it still unsettled her. "Storm, then?"
"Perhaps…" he hummed, placing his pen on the desk and steepling his fingers. Konan could tell that he wasn't quite convinced, but she remained silent as he leaned back in his chair and chewed on a thought languishing at the tip of his tongue. "I'm normally not one to indulge in superstition-"
He was interrupted when a small, blue missile crashed through the window and comically rolled along the ground, coughing and cursing all the while. Pain and Konan eyed the invader in confusion before briefly meeting each other's gaze as a thought was shared between them.
"Aoimori?" Konan asked, kneeling before the huffing and puffing amphibian and offering him a hand. "Did Naruto send you?"
Her eyes then flickered to the hole in the window before landing back on him with a hint of amusement. "And why go through the window?"
"No time," Aoimori wheezed. "Naruto… captured."
The air in the room stilled, and a large pressure sat over the occupants (or, more specifically, Aoimori).
"Start from the beginning," Pain icily ordered, standing up from his desk.
Aoimori nodded, albeit frantically, before taking a moment to catch his breath. "We dropped in on two Tsuki no Me guys attacking Han. One was from Iwa and could make explosions; Han took him. The other one, though, he was weird…"
"Explain," Pain demanded.
"I don't even know if I can call him a guy," Aoimori shuddered. "His skin was white, he didn't really have a face, and he could use Wood Release. He honestly felt more plant than human, and he could spawn an army of clones that were almost just like him."
The shared thought of "Zetsu" traversed through the minds of Konan and Pain as Aoimori continued.
"And he was strong… really strong. So strong that Naruto had to go into Sage Mode to fight him."
That took the two aback so much that Konan genuinely took a small step back. Exactly how powerful was Zetsu, or how powerful had he become? Aoimori had also only mentioned white variants thus far, and they knew there was a black half to consider…
If Zetsu had gotten to this point, how strong had the masked Uchiha gotten since their last encounter?
"What happened after that?" Konan pressed.
"Naruto beat him," Aoimori answered. "I'm like 99% sure that he's dead, if not from Naruto's doing, then from getting caught in the blast radius of the other guy nuking himself. Naruto caught Han in the Gobi form after he was caught up in the explosion, but he was so exhausted afterward that he didn't see a sneak attack from this fuckin' living shadow thing coming. Naruto sent me away with Han after that so they couldn't have him. He's recovering back at Kuromizu."
Pain and Konan shared another glance, confirming their suspicions about Zetsu being behind this. Pain minutely stiffened at his desk, but Konan's deteriorating thoughts distracted her from that. Her whole world was threatening to crumble, and she absolutely fucking refused to allow that. The silver lining in all of this was that Tsuki no Me did not have the Gedo Statue, meaning they had no way of sealing or storing the biju, so it was highly likely that Naruto would remain alive while in their custody for the foreseeable future. Konan did not care who she had to cut down or what she had to burn in her quest to find him, but she would fucking hunt them down until she got her sunshine back.
"Konan," Pain sternly addressed her after she swiftly pivoted and stormed toward the door, but she shot back a furious, wobbly scowl at him.
"They have Naruto!" she snarled, appalled and apoplectic that Nagato would dare stand in her way.
"No, they don't," he denied, momentarily halting the beginnings of her no doubt bloody rampage. "I don't know what Zetsu's game is, but I can reasonably assume that he isn't in possession of Naruto right now."
"What?"
"I have a chameleon in the office of every Kage, for better or for worse," Pain reminded, keeping up the mental block on the sight of Jiraiya cranking it under his desk. "The Tsuchikage left the village a short while ago, but a message from him just arrived instructing his advisors to begin prepping the sealing room beneath the tower."
That halted Konan's fury, albeit briefly before it shifted to a new target based on the implications.
"My thoughts exactly," Pain nodded, his Rinnegan narrowing. "There were only two jinchuriki for them to capture, and they don't have Han."
"Then I'm going to Iwagakure," Konan insisted.
"No."
The shock from the curt denial bled into rage. The situation had become even more pressing since Iwa had no such inclination to wait to unseal the Kyubi. They only needed to have a proper vessel prepared, which they likely already had selected.
"You are NOT going to stop me, Nagato!" Konan shot back, having no modicum of time for this shit.
"I am not stopping you, Konan," Pain calmly replied, his rippled gaze still narrowed. "We are going to Iwagakure."
Sasuke was met with the dim glow of a candle illuminating a cave when he blearily came to. He tried sitting up, but his entire body felt like a giant bruise, and a dull pain radiating from the back of his eyes. The discomfort gave way for the memories of the battle to bleed through, and his already tired expression settled into a pensive one as he fought through the pain to sit up.
Itachi was dead.
Itachi was dead, and for whatever reason, Sasuke now knew the locations of several Pocky stashes across the continent.
He wasn't quite sure what to do with that information.
"I treated your wounds," came an unsettling baritone from the darkness, earning Sasuke's attention as footsteps echoed through the room in a crescendo. "You've sustained quite a bit of damage, and you haven't fully recovered. My associate should be here soon to speed this along, but until then, try not to move too much."
Sasuke remained silent, and out from the dark expanse finally stepped the leader of Tsuki no Me in all his strangely masked glory. "I'm not your enemy, Sasuke. I came to share something with you that I figured you would want to know about."
Sasuke barely spared him a glance before returning his gaze to the floor, and the masked man chuckled. "It's about Itachi."
And just like that, Sasuke's eyes were back on him, but he still hadn't raised his head.
"Let's start with a simple introduction," he said, placing his hand on the mask and sliding it over to reveal his Sharingan. "I'm a survivor of the clan, just like you-"
In that instant, Sasuke's Sharingan morphed into the pattern of Itachi's Mangekyo, and the flames of Amaterasu ignited on him, engulfing his right arm and shoulder in the deadly inferno.
"Oh no," he dramatically feigned worry before a vortex opened up in front of his newly shifted Mangekyo Sharingan, swallowing the flames into the twisted distortion until there was nothing left to speak of. "Anyway…"
Sasuke, meanwhile, was busy flipping the fuck out from his eye spontaneously acting on its own accord in a sudden burst of chakra. Somewhat less important was the man spontaneously combusting with Itachi's Amaterasu in front of him, but the fact that he completely dismissed it like a simple annoyance damn near broke Sasuke's brain.
"Leave it to Itachi to be annoying even in death," the man groused. "It was a smart play, though, I'll give him that. I wonder what else he may have implanted in you before his death."
"What the fuck?!" Sasuke finally balked at him, silently choosing not to mention the Pocky stashes.
"Oh, please," he rolled his one visible eye. "Amaterasu is incredibly deadly, but it's not infallible, nor is it inescapable."
Sasuke was still stuck on him casually doing away with the ultimate fire jutsu of fire jutsu, the one that Itachi used to literally overpower Sasuke's own fire at full power.
"So, back to introductions," the man spoke again in a mostly light tone. "I am Madara Uchiha, and it's time someone told you the truth about your clan, your village, and your brother."
And as such, Madara regaled Sasuke a tale of lies, calamity, mistrust, festering resentment, and tragedy—that tragedy, of course, being genocide. He spoke of the village's founding when the Senju and Uchiha Clans ended their bloody, generations-long conflict, uniting to usher in an era of peace against his wishes. He spoke of the village quickly making moves to place the Senju over the Uchiha in the pecking order, meanwhile his own clan turned their backs on him. He spoke of the titanic clash between himself and Hashirama that followed, as well as the measures that Tobirama took during his reign to put on a front of trust for the Uchiha while actually removing them from the central governing body and placing them under a microscope.
Madara waxed poetic about the slow decline of Uchiha autonomy over generations. He spun a yarn about the Kyubi's attack on Konoha and the supposed glimpses of the Sharingan in the eyes of the rampaging beast, as well as the suspicion that was inevitably cast on the clan by Konoha, namely the Hokage's personal council. The tensions that arose between the clan and the village's leadership, the forced relocation of the clan to the village's outskirts where they'd be under strict ANBU surveillance, and the distrust that bred hatred among them were all covered in the story of how Konoha fostered a self-fulfilling prophecy in the form of a rebellious Uchiha Clan.
Sasuke was enraptured by the chronicle, and he was struck even harder when Madara revealed the Uchiha Clan's plans of a coup d'état, or rather, he was struck by the spy the village leadership planted amongst them: Itachi Uchiha. As the mastermind of the coup, Fugaku Uchiha ordered his pacifist son to join the ANBU in order to be their pipeline to the village's nerve center, and when whispers of treachery reached the ears of the Hokage and Danzo, Itachi was chosen to be their eyes and ears within the clan, effectively making him a double agent before he could even reach the Pocky on the top shelf of the snack aisle.
"When relations had been long past the point of being salvageable, none other than Itachi Uchiha was given a top-secret mission," Madara dramatically orated. "Only a Sharingan could face a Sharingan, so the mission of eradicating the entire Uchiha Clan was bestowed upon your brother."
Sasuke hadn't said a word the entire time. He hadn't once interrupted Madara during his story, nor had he taken his wide, unblinking Sharingan away from him the entire time. To Madara, it looked as if he had the vulnerable boy exactly where he wanted him.
Madara knew he had to go for the kill. "Faced with a harrowing burden, Itachi had to choose between raising a hand against his own brethren or sacrificing the peace he sought and plunging his village back into the horrors of war that had scarred him so deeply as a child. A civil war would shake Konoha and the nation tremendously, no doubt emboldening other nations to invade. The Uchiha Clan's self-interests would be the spark necessary for the Fourth Great Ninja War, drawing innocent people into yet another bloody conflict on top of the countless shinobi that were certain to die along the way."
Pausing for dramatic effect, he shifted in his seat before he continued. "So, Itachi chose peace, or perhaps just the path of least bloodshed. Eliminating his brethren, the object of the village's unjust discrimination and antagonism, was what he felt needed to be done to prevent a catastrophe. He shouldered all the blame himself for the gruesome endeavor. No one should ever question Itachi's decision and the sacrifices he made-"
"Stop."
Madara was halted by the sudden interruption by Sasuke, who was looking at him fully with flickers of enmity in his crimson glare.
"I know what you're trying to do," Sasuke declared. "I get it, so you can stop now."
"Oh?" Madara mused, genuinely intrigued. "What do you get?"
"That you're trying to paint Itachi as the tragic victim caught in a century-long political struggle," Sasuke dully replied, but there was more than enough of an undercurrent of bitterness to be detected.
"And was he not a victim?"
"No."
Now that actually took Madara by surprise, and it nearly made him break posture. This was becoming even more intriguing by the minute. "So, if you don't see Itachi as a victim, then you stand with Konoha and the Senju on this matter."
"No," Sasuke denied again, his face darkening into a scowl. "The village made their bed when they perpetuated generations of discrimination against my clan. They earned whatever was coming to them when they blamed my clan for the Kyubi attack and isolated them from the rest of the village to keep a close watch on them. If Konoha was burned and laid to waste tomorrow, each and every person there would deserve every minute of agony they would endure."
"But?" Madara questioned.
"Itachi murdered my fucking family!" Sasuke heatedly emphasized. "He murdered our family! Our parents died on his blade, and he just cast me aside and let me fester in his mess for a decade! He left me all alone to endure the scars that he fucking inflicted on me!"
"He wanted to protect you," Madara countered, still leaning against the wall with his arms folded. "He knew his fate was to become known as a criminal who murdered his own clan once the Hokage's attempts to come to a peaceful resolution bore no fruit. He knew it was his fate to bear the burden of disgrace and become a rogue ninja. That was his mission, except for one little detail: he could not bring himself to kill his little brother."
"What?!" Sasuke incredulously demanded.
"Itachi appealed to the Hokage in a bid to protect you from Danzo and the others' machinations," Madara explained. "He fled the village after threatening Danzo that if anything were to happen to you, he'd leak the village's secrets. He worried about you above all else."
"Then why didn't he tell me?!" Sasuke demanded. "Why did he make me believe that he was doing it to test his power?!"
"He was trying to protect you, but he was also trying to protect the honor of the Uchiha Clan," Madara made a show of lamenting. "He wanted you to believe that the Uchiha were a proud clan of Konoha and begged the Hokage to make sure you never learned the truth. He deceived you because he wanted you to grow as strong as possible. Should you despise him and finally kill him, you would have avenged the clan, and their name would never be sullied by launching a coup and sparking a civil war."
"I STILL HAD THE RIGHT TO KNOW WHY MY FAMILY WAS KILLED!" Sasuke thundered, and silence filled the room.
Intrigue was practically spilling from the hole in Madara's mask as he gazed down at the smoldering Sasuke below. He was huffing, though not puffing yet, so it was clear that he was trying to get a handle on his emotions to prevent another outburst. Madara would have been lying if he said it wasn't entertaining.
"He made me watch him do it," Sasuke finally spoke through gritted teeth. "He put me under a genjutsu and made me watch my parents be cut down like animals for 72 hours! He made me watch him slaughter everyone in the clan; friendly shopkeepers we both knew, children who hadn't entered the academy or even unlocked their chakra yet, and civilians who had never even unlocked their Sharingan! I watched him cut every single one of them down over and over and over again!"
His voice was breaking every now and then, but he pressed on, ignoring the mixing tears and blood streaming down his cheeks as the tomoe of his Sharingan swirled into the intersecting ellipses of his newly awakened Mangekyo Sharingan. "And you're saying that all of that was to make me stronger?? He tortured me just to make me strong enough to satisfy his own designs for me?! He put me in a fucking coma to protect his goddamn Pocky for fuck's sake!"
He aimed a bloody, blazing glare at Madara. "I don't forgive him, nor do I accept his reasoning. The only victim of all of this is me, because I'm the only one left to deal with trauma from this horseshit, trauma that both Konoha and Itachi had more than a hand in putting me through."
Another silence fell over the cave, and this one was far more tense than any previous. Sasuke glared daggers at Madara, but it was clear to the older Uchiha that Sasuke had needed to vent his decade of emotional turmoil, and it was all coming out right at that moment. While before he looked upon Sasuke with boundless curiosity and intrigue, now he saw an absolute diamond for the taking. It may not have been the way he planned on going about it, but plans change, and this could elicit a fantastic boon in its own right.
Then, a Venus fly trap emerged from the ground, and when it opened up, the two-tone head of Zetsu emerged with half of a grin.
"We're back!" White Zetsu joyously announced.
"You've come back alone," Madara noted with genuine surprise lining his tone.
"Well, there were some…" White Zetsu trailed off.
"Complications," Black Zetsu growled. "Things have been rectified."
Unseen, Madara quirked an eyebrow at them. "What sort of complications?"
"Deidara is dead, obviously," White Zetsu answered. "Blew himself right up. Can't say I didn't expect it at some point."
"That isn't what I mean, and you know it," Madara sighed, already feeling the headache that came with dealing with Zetsu emerging. "We'll table it for later. As you can see, we have a guest."
"Ooh, that's part of why we're here!" White Zetsu announced, and clumpy, white spores emerged from the ground beside him. "We got what we needed to fix him right up!"
Sasuke watched the scene before him in a sour mixture of confusion, anger, and morbid curiosity. The white blobs popping up from the ground and inching their way toward him was the final straw, however. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"Remember, it's as I said earlier," Madara spoke. "Someone was on their way to speed up your healing process. This creature you're looking at right now is Zetsu, and he is here to do just that."
Sasuke cursed the pain his body was in, otherwise he would have been able to move in time to dodge the frighteningly fast spores when they pounced. They practically dogpiled on him, covering every inch of his body and expanding into a large, singular mass when they came into contact with each other. A vicious protest nearly left Sasuke's lips before he felt ridiculously warm, foreign chakra pouring into him.
"See?" White Zetsu said, the grin unwavering on his half of the face. "It'll fix you right up!"
Sasuke just stared at him, closely analyzing his fixed grin and the void that covered the other half of him that seemed to stare at him in a manner that felt like impatience and disdain. He was far too confused at the mere existence of Zetsu to think too hard about that, though, so he turned his gaze back to Madara.
"Where is my team?" he asked, finally relaxing as the chakra eased his aches and pains.
Madara hummed in surprise. He'd been doing that quite a bit today. "I'm surprised you're concerned about them. You've accomplished your goal, after all.
"My team," Sasuke repeated with a glare. "Where are they?"
Madara chuckled. "They're here in the base with us, but, obviously, I had to speak to you alone. Kisame is out there making sure that happens. He's really good at that, apparently."
Sasuke turned away and glowered at the wall, allowing the spores to tend to him while he lamented the shiny tower of shit that had crashed at his feet.
Unfortunately, Madara did not allow him a moment of peace. "So, Sasuke, what do you plan on doing now?"
The natural rain continued to pelt the village without reprieve as eight figures stepped through the gates of Amegakure. They paid very little heed to the Ame-nin stationed at the gate, not that the nin were dumb enough to raise a fuss anyway. While Konan was a semi-frequent fixture among the populace, it wasn't often that any run-of-the-mill Ame shinobi encountered Pain in the flesh. It was even less often that they encountered all of them at once.
The gate guards' heads were practically planted in the mud like ostriches with how far they were in dogeza at the full presence of their literal god, but no humor would be found here today. The Six Paths of Pain, Konan, and the final hooded figure exited the bounds of the village. The shinobi of Ame had already been made aware via mass paper missive that they would be away for a brief spell, and several Rinnegan summons stood guard at every corner of the village, towering over the populace and ready to strike down any hostile invaders at a moment's notice.
"Let's go," the Deva Path declared, his Rinnegan narrowed at the horizon in the direction of Iwagakure, and Konan was doing much the same.
Then, the Animal Path stepped forward, performing a few seals and slamming his palm to the ground. "Summoning Jutsu!"
Emerging from the massive puff of smoke was a boss summon-sized bird with a drill-like beak, and the group swiftly embarked on the bird before it took flight.
When Naruto came to, he was greeted by the dullness of a brown, stone ceiling. It was complimented well by equally dull walls and the grossly uncomfortable floor he was lying on. Peering down at himself, he saw that his entire body was bound in what felt like a straitjacket had a lusty affair with a sleeping bag. His arms were restrained as expected, and even his fingers were fashioned together to prevent him from performing any hand seals. His ankles were bound so that his legs were crossed so that he couldn't walk, and the snugness of the exterior of the restraints made even getting up an impossibility.
The real trouble, however, was the seals. His restraints were covered with them, and even more were scrawled on every inch of the cell, a great deal of which he recognized. They were chakra-restriction seals crafted by the Uzumaki themselves, and they were powerful; they had to be given that they were made with chakra powerhouses in mind since only other Uzumaki were around to test them on. However, the others were a worrisome mixed bag. Among the chakra-restriction seals were a few that he recognized from the scrolls he had read through in Uzu, those being highly experimental spacetime seals that attempted to bridge the gap between sealing barriers and spacetime ninjutsu.
What Naruto remembered specifically about them were the bold messages written in blood at the bottom of those notes saying, "DO NOT REPRODUCE." Naruto, unwilling to land himself in cosmic jail by fucking with the spacetime continuum (or simply blowing himself up) heeded that warning and moved on to the other notes at the time. Now, however, he didn't have that luxury, so he was faced with the pit in his stomach that seeing those seals and the remaining formulas that he couldn't even make heads or tails of created. Naruto had a pretty solid suspicion as to why and how Iwa got their hands on them in the first place, but he could mull the sordid implications of Iwa pilfering the spoils of Uzu's destruction later.
Right now, what he knew was that his bindings had seals on them, and he likely had seals inscribed on his body to ensure that he had no access to his chakra nor the chakra of Kurama. That, combined with the seals etched into every inch of his chamber and the intricate seal tags coating the bars of his cell, made it so that he was basically a civilian wrapped in an impossibly snug blanket that wouldn't be coming off anytime soon. He tried calling out to Kurama in his mind just to be sure, but he received nothing but silence in return, and he could barely feel his chakra flowing like molasses through him.
All in all, Naruto was in quite the pickle.
He cursed himself for allowing himself to land in this predicament. He didn't know how the hell he didn't sense that sneak attack coming. Well, perhaps that wasn't entirely accurate; the damage Sage Mode still did to his body was not insignificant, and his exhaustion after that final attack and the Hail Mary that followed dulled his senses enough to create the perfect window for someone (or something) to slip through. Even still, he shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with. The words of his opponent still echoed in his brain.
"I bet you thought you were the baddest man in town, huh?"
And he was right, Naruto had grown arrogant over the years of not having anyone be able to directly challenge him short of Uncle Nagato and the elder sages. He thought he was untouchable, and it finally came back to bite him. Maybe if he'd been less enamored with his strength, he would have pushed himself even harder to fully master Sage Mode. Maybe he'd take things a little more seriously. Maybe he would've swallowed his pride and summoned his parents…
…Nah, that wasn't happening.
In any event, Karin would strangle him when she found out about this. Well, assuming he survived whatever this was.
A heavy, metal door swinging open down the hall captured his attention. The sound of footsteps approaching the cell would have given him pause if he didn't have a decent idea of what was about to happen. Rarely ever does a Kage personally kidnap someone and not come to see them in the flesh later on. It was super cliche, but the Tsuchikage was likely older than even Kurama, so Naruto would allow some leeway.
His suspicions were soon confirmed when the Tsuchikage himself, Fence-Sitter Ohnoki appeared before his cell. What surprised him, though, was the fact that he was floating. The footsteps had actually come from the young woman with him, the same one that was present when they captured him. There was still so much curiosity swimming in her gaze; just as well, the smugness he had seen in their last encounter was still present, and it was in an even greater quantity this time around.
"Namikaze…" Ohnoki muttered, finally breaking the silence but not breaking his analytical gaze. "So, this is what your legacy has come down to."
The two Iwa-nin continued to stare at him when he offered no initial response. Well, Naruto was not anyone's museum exhibit.
"I don't really go by that name," Naruto did his best to shrug within his bindings to minimal success.
"I'd imagine not," Ohnoki said, which actually surprised him. "When I first got inklings from spies in Konoha that the jinchuriki was a blonde orphan, I needed to know more about it. I didn't want to immediately jump to the most logical conclusion, so I had them give me a full description of you. Imagine my shock when what they described was a neglected, isolated brat with spiky, blonde hair and horrifyingly familiar blue eyes; a brat, mind you, that carried the surname, 'Uzumaki,' the very same one of the previous jinchuriki and the wife of their Yondaime."
"Yeah, no one's really giving the old man a thunderous applause for that genius maneuver," Naruto muttered. "This going somewhere?"
Ohnoki didn't bother hiding his smirk at both the dig at his former peer in Hiruzen Sarutobi and the unbothered demeanor of his captive. "It was almost unbelievable what I had in my hands. In fact, it was so unbelievable that when word got around that you skipped town, it ultimately became moot. You weren't in Konoha and didn't pop up anywhere else in the world, so I just sat on that information for a very long time."
"As your moniker would imply," Naruto nodded, begrudgingly entertaining the Tsuchikage's game.
Ohnoki's smirk didn't waver as he brushed off the jab. "So, you're abreast of politics."
"Have to be," Naruto did his best to shrug. "That's Akatsuki's lane for the most part."
The way his eyes briefly lit up at the mention of Akatsuki clued Naruto in on part of why he was here to see him, and Naruto would have none of it.
"Akatsuki," Ohnoki hummed. "How did a runaway Konoha brat find himself in their web-"
"Y'know, I gotta be honest with you, Ohnoki," Naruto interrupted. "I'm a little over this Q and A, so why don't you get to the point and tell me why you're really here?"
"Watch your mouth when talking to the Tsuchikage!" Ohnoki's plus-one barked at him.
"Enough, Kurotsuchi," Ohnoki sternly addressed before refocusing his gaze on Naruto. His smirk was gone, only a ruminant frown in its place.
Naruto met his gaze directly despite his position, and the three fell into a tense silence. Kurotsuchi was glaring daggers at him, and that glare only intensified when she realized she was being ignored as Naruto's eyes were locked onto Ohnoki's and nowhere else.
"You Akatsuki have been making things difficult for the Five Kage," Ohnoki finally spoke. "A mercenary organization comprised of S-rank missing-nin explicitly operating out of a neutral hidden village in a war-torn buffer state would be one thing if that was the end of it."
His frown deepened. "But it's not. You all assassinate political leaders, dismantle business empires, interfere in civil wars, and collect bounties on notorious rogues. All the while, you foster alliances with other hidden villages, expand Amegakure's economy to heights it has never seen before, and do missions for a multitude of smaller nations, spreading your influence far beyond even the Great Five."
Again, his frown deepened, now nearing a scowl. "But even all of that isn't the most pressing matter. No, the kicker in all of this is that Akatsuki possesses multiple biju. Not one, not two, but apparently three, more than any of the Great Five. With the might of Akatsuki behind them, Amegakure is automatically a budding superpower with destructive potential that would give most major villages pause, and you're right in Iwagakure's backyard. You understand why that would be concerning, right?"
"Don't give us a reason to act untoward, and we won't," Naruto bit back. "We extended an olive branch to Iwagakure. You rejected it. That's on you."
Ohnoki scoffed. "A disruptor on the political stage isn't good for anyone. There's only so much room for every player, and a new one forcing his way in simply means that the others must give up some of their own space to make way for him."
As if to emphasize the positions they were in, Ohnoki floated a little higher toward the ceiling and looked down at Naruto directly. "You all are directly infringing on Iwagakure's sphere of influence, so something has to give. I have a responsibility to do what's best for my village, so if you all aren't going to bend the knee, then you are going to be eradicated. Since Han was resistant to returning, action needed to be taken. I merely sought to capture him and return the Gobi to Iwa's possession, but you…"
His aged, steely gaze narrowed, and he floated back down to just hovering at eye level with Kurotsuchi. "Not only is possessing the Kyubi an unimaginable boon, but to rip it out of the spawn of that damn Yellow Flash is just icing on the cake. To think, I'd be looking at an almost one-to-one copy of him two decades later."
Naruto's glare was outright poisonous. "I'm not one-to-one. I'm one of one. Do keep that in mind."
Ohnoki derisively snorted. "Is that so?"
"Real one-of-one if you're getting locked up like a nameless rogue," Kurotsuchi mocked with a smirk.
Naruto finally turned his glare to Kurotsuchi, and the triumph that washed over her at garnering his attention was plain to see. He'd do something about that.
"Oh, you're still here," Naruto remarked in as bored of a tone as he could muster, and the twitch of her smirk told him that he was on the right path. "I don't recognize you from any bingo book I've ever had, so you must not be that important."
She fought really hard to maintain her haughty smirk, so Naruto attacked that wound. "Let me guess; you're accompanying the little man because you're… a relative? Next in line? A Make-A-Wish kid? I'm leaning towards option three because there's no way that headband is legit, but let me know if I'm on the right track."
"I'm a jonin, you bastard!" she finally barked. "And I'm one of the strongest in the village."
"Oh hoh hoh, what, do you want a fucking medal?" Naruto derided.
"And what about you?" she fired back with a newfound shit-eating grin. "Mommy and Daddy died when you were born, and you were too much of a pussy to grin and bear your responsibility to your village, so you ran away and joined up with a bunch of other cowards who couldn't hack it. You're just a spineless craven with delusions of grandeur who wouldn't amount to anything without his biju."
Her smile grew even more wicked. "You don't deserve it. That power will be much better served when it's with someone else."
"Ah, there it is," Naruto identified with the smile of a cat that caught a canary. "So, you're the next vessel. No wonder you're here."
Naruto sighed with such a visibly false fondness. "Getting a good look at you, you're so… completely and utterly disappointing."
Kurotsuchi's grin vanished, and Naruto's filled in the void.
"Good luck getting the Kyubi to even bother with you," Naruto mocked, his grin growing even more malicious. "He doesn't deal with worthless vessels."
"How about I come in there and show you just how worthless I am, you rain-dancing piece of shit?!" she spat, snatching the bars and attempting to pull them apart before Ohnoki slammed his hand onto her shoulder.
"Enough!" he barked at her once more, tearing her away from the bars in a strangely frantic manner. "This is why you're not ready. You're still green. You're not mature enough."
He peeled his gaze away from his smoldering granddaughter and brought it back to Naruto who was still taunting her with his smile. "Pity that Deidara was killed, though it doesn't surprise me. I know senjutsu when I feel it, so he never stood a chance."
Naruto's hardened gaze shifted back to Ohnoki, the malicious joy having vanished at the mention of his senjutsu. It was Ohnoki's turn to be smug. "Yes, I know very well what you're capable of. I felt it even beyond the mountains, which is why you'll be remaining alone in that cell until it's time to rip the Kyubi out of you."
Naruto critically eyed Ohnoki. He was already a threat by virtue of being the Tsuchikage, but the unspoken portions of his machinations were beginning to become clear to Naruto. When it was time for them to unseal Kurama from him, they'd have to undo his restraints, removing the seals that restricted his chakra, and that would be the gamble of the century for both sides. They'd almost certainly be risking very gruesome deaths the moment they allowed him any measure of freedom, and they probably knew that, too, which was why he suspected that Ohnoki himself would take point in the unsealing.
Now, could Naruto take the Tsuchikage in a fight? Without question.
Could he do so in base? Far more difficult question.
He knew about the awesome power of Dust Release, but he also knew that Ohnoki wouldn't risk using that on him so long as he had something Iwa wanted, but the rest of his skills were absolutely nothing to look past. He was the longest-tenured Kage for a reason after all.
"It seems things are coming together for you," Ohnoki mused at the steady realizations showing on Naruto's face. "You're up Shit Creek without a paddle, and you don't have any of your Akatsuki comrades nor your biju to bail you out. No one is coming to save you, brat."
Ohnoki was nearly taken aback by the look Naruto sent him in response. There was no anger, no malice, no smugness, and not even any pity to speak of. It was simply the picture of utmost seriousness, as if what Naruto was about to tell him was indisputable fact and nothing short of an inevitability.
"For your sake, you'd better pray that's the case."
"I can't express how thankful I am that you all are here," Mei sighed once her office door was shut and Karin, Tayuya, Utakata, and Hotaru were standing before her desk. "I hope you didn't experience any complications in your travels."
"We had to kill a few Tsuki no Me on the way here," Tayuya shrugged.
"No biggie," Karin added, and the others nodded in confirmation.
On Mei's left, Ao's eye twitched at their casual attitude over having fought and killed S-rank ninja that someone like Kisame Hoshigaki was in league with. Back in his day, they would've thrown a party over something so momentous, but they were treating it like any other day. Just what the hell kind of monsters were in Akatsuki??
On her right, Chojuro was having similar nervous thoughts as far as a peer of Kisame was concerned, but he was having far more nervous thoughts attempting to keep his attention away from the absurdly beautiful blonde standing beside Utakata.
"Oh?" Mei prompted, her curiosity blooming, especially regarding the situation at hand. "Do tell."
"Ever heard of a fuckhead named Kakuzu?" Tayuya asked without a hint of decorum.
Ignoring Ao's indignant sputter over Tayuya's use of profanity when talking to the Mizukage, Mei hummed in thought. "Yes, actually. His name came up during my time in the academy… he's still around?"
"Not anymore," Utakata dryly remarked. "Bijudama took care of that."
"Hey, that was Karin's kill," Tayuya corrected on her friend's(?) behalf. "Give her the proper credit."
Beside her, Karin just shrugged. "They fought them first. We just came for the assist."
"No," Tayuya rebuked, having absolutely none of her downplaying her accomplishment. "You don't get to unleash a fucking fuinjutsu marvel just to call it a goddamn assist. I'm hyping you up, and you're gonna fucking accept it, you hear me?"
Karin predictably blushed at the aggressive praise and averted her gaze from Tayuya. However, Tayuya wasn't the only person she'd get it from.
"'Just an assist' is the downplay of the century," Hotaru added with a laugh, adding to Karin's blush. "I was basically a donut when you got to me."
"We would literally be dead had you two not shown up," Utakata deadpanned, and Karin finally threw her arms into the air.
"Ugh, whatever…" she bashfully whined, but her gratitude was audible to everyone in the room.
Mei had to do her best to fight back a laugh, as well, but her fond smile was present for the world to see. She first met Karin shortly after the end of the war when she and Naruto arrived with the body of Zabuza Momochi and the Kubikiribocho. At the time, she was a timid young girl who openly admired Mei's strength but was intimidated to all hell by her at the same time, staying glued to Naruto's hip at every opportunity. That spoke nothing of the mountain of trauma she clearly had tucked away under her sleeves. However, after only a few short years, the woman who now stood before Mei's desk held her head up high and looked her in the eye without flinching.
She felt like such a proud aunt when looking at the kunoichi Karin had become, despite them having only a handful of conversations, well, ever. If only Naruto was willing to settle down with a mature, regal bachelorette like herself…
Oh well. They had more important matters to discuss.
Mei cleared her throat, and the four mercenaries returned to attention. "So, to business. The Sanbi vanished shortly after appearing, and many of my men were murdered. We're certain that Tsuki no Me is responsible."
Utakata, as the actual emissary for Akatsuki in Kiri, took point and spoke. "That sounds about right. They attempted to capture me on the way and the Ichibi jinchuriki in Suna. Thankfully, both failed, but we can't speak to the status of the others given their villages have understandably been tight-lipped about it."
Mei nodded. "Takigakure was recently annihilated in a surprise attack. They have a jinchuriki, so it wouldn't surprise me if Tsuki no Me was behind that one, too. Who knows how much ground they've made…"
"Any amount is too much," Utakata replied. "We've been steadily culling their numbers, but we have no idea where they're even keeping the biju once they're extracted."
"You think they're already doing that?" Mei questioned. "Wouldn't it be easier to keep them inside the jinchuriki since humans are easier to keep restrained?"
It was Karin who answered this time. "They went to the trouble of capturing the Sanbi himself rather than waiting for him to be sealed, so it stands to reason that they have a means of stashing them away."
None of the Kiri-nin in the room commented on her use of pronouns for the Sanbi. Utakata, meanwhile, nodded in agreement.
"We just need to find out what that is," he said.
Before he could say anything else, a small puff of smoke signaled the arrival of a summon creature and alerted the hidden ANBU in the office. They appeared and surrounded the group with their blades ready, less to threaten the group from Akatsuki and more to remain vigilant against any surprise that might seek to harm them or the Mizukage.
"Stop!" Ao surprisingly commanded, freezing the ANBU in place while the veins of his hidden Byakugan bulged. "It's just a salamander."
True to his word, Aoimori was revealed on Karin's shoulder with an exhausted expression obvious to even the least familiar with talking amphibians in the room. The ANBU quickly vanished back to their hiding places as Mei massaged her temples in annoyance, and Karin shot a surprised look at the new arrival.
"Aoimori?" Karin questioned in confusion.
"Yo," he sighed, much less frantic than he had been when soared through Pain's window. "Just figured I'd keep you in the loop."
"About?"
"Naruto," Aoimori answered, his expression dead serious. "He was captured."
"What?!" she shouted, and everyone else in the room was shocked, as well.
"We fought those Tsuki no Me guys that went after Han," he began to explain. "Killed them both, but Naruto was attacked right afterward by some weird fuckin' shadow man, and he sent me away to keep Han from them."
"Where is he??" Karin pressed, Tayuya even appearing at her side to level Aoimori with a dark glare to speed him up.
"That's… kind of the problem," Aoimori muttered, the beginnings of bitterness edging into his tone. Seeing Karin about to flip out and Tayuya rearing to skewer him, he raised his hand to silence them with no joviality whatsoever. "Pain and Konan have a good idea as to his whereabouts, and they're on their way to him now. The issue that I, and all of the other Salamanders, have is that we can't reverse summon him."
"Why not?" Utakata questioned stepping in as well.
"Don't know, and that's the irritating part," Aoimori said. "I couldn't lock onto his chakra and go directly to him like I just did with you, and I didn't know why, so after I left Ame and went back home, I brought it to Ibuse and the elders. When they tried to reverse summon him, nothing happened."
Karin gasped, all of the color draining from her face. Fortunately, Aoimori knew what she was thinking and put a stop to it immediately.
"No, his name is still on the contract, so he's alive," he assured her, and Karin unleashed a sigh so heavy that he had to plant himself on her shoulder with his chakra to avoid being blown away. "But it's like there's a fuckin' void around him! Kodai and Seidai tried sensing for him directly with senjutsu, but all they got was this fucking box burning a hole in the goddamn spacetime continuum that their senses couldn't penetrate."
That struck the entire room even harder. Mei, Ao, and Chojuro had no earthly idea what to make of that, and even Utakata and Hotaru were perplexed despite having been exposed to countless Uzumaki shenanigans thanks to Naruto and Nagato.
However, Karin's eyes widened in remembrance, and she spun to her partner in crime. "Tayuya, remember! Back in Uzu, I couldn't for the life of me sense anything inside the central tower. It was like a black hole in my Mind's Eye that just blocked everything inside of it."
Tayuya lit up in remembrance, as well, but Aoimori's expression fell.
"Uzu," he muttered. "That explains Seidai ranting about 'fuckhead islanders toying with shit they shouldn't' in the past."
"Where's the void?" Tayuya demanded.
"We confirmed that it was in Tsuchi, most likely Iwa," Aoimori answered before pinching the skin atop his snout. "The void is interfering with our contact and who knows how many other things. Anomalies like this are taken very fucking seriously by the summon clans because it may call the attention of some shit we don't need on the planet, and we predate humanity by a long while… at least this current iteration of it."
"What?" Karin asked, but she was waved off.
"Long story, not important. What is important is that Pain and Konan are on their way to Iwa right now to rescue Naruto, and the Salamanders are calling a Summon Clan Summit to discuss if humanity needs to be thrown away again. I'll keep you updated."
Without another word, Aoimori vanished, leaving a thoroughly floored room in his wake. Silence was all there was to have between them as they processed what they were told.
Utakata again was the one to speak up, turning to the flummoxed and concerned Mizukage. "…Lady Mei, in light of current events, I believe you should look into contacting the other three Kage and calling a summit."
Mei blinked at him and cocked her head. "Don't you mean four?"
"No."
Mei stared at his unbendingly blank expression as she floundered to grasp his meaning. "…I'm not sure I follow."
"Pain is our leader, and Konan is his right hand and trusted confidant," Utakata began to explain, and Mei nodded along. "In addition to being his right hand, Konan is also Naruto's adoptive mother, while Pain is pretty much an uncle to him. They adore him, probably more than life itself. With that in mind, Pain and Konan felt it necessary to leave Amegakure together rather than one staying behind to watch over the village because Iwagakure pushed the Naruto Button. People die when that happens."
"So, we're headed for war is what you're saying," Mei gravely surmised, but she grew even more confused when Utakata shook his head.
"It's not going to be a war," he muttered. "It'll be a massacre. There's a reason I said you'll need to contact the other three Kage."
Mei silently considered him for a lengthy moment before finally speaking. "Forgive me for any offense, but I find it preposterous that two individuals can walk into a hidden village, massacre an entire shinobi force, and then kill the Kage."
"Bet Naruto could do it," Tayuya mumbled, earning looks from everyone. "What? You saying he can't? I watched him spar with the old fucks at Kuromizu when he was training in Sage Mode, and I can unequivocally say that I've never felt greater power than that in my life. And yet, he still didn't think he could beat Pain when I floated the thought to him. No idea if that's just respect or if he genuinely believes that he needs to be even stronger than a sage to win, but he has to feel that way for a reason."
"Allow me to use a familiar example, if you would," Utakata piggybacked on Tayuya's words so that Mei would understand the gravity of the situation. "Myself, Han, Naruto, and Pakura were sent to assist you against Yagura and the loyalists. We decimated them, metaphorically and literally, and we all but sunk the surrounding islands in the final stand against a fully manifested Sanbi."
Utakata sighed, and Mei was hanging on every word. "Pain, however, could have come alone and accomplished the same thing by himself. Now, that isn't to say exactly that he would defeat the four of us on his own, but he could absolutely take on the might of an entire hidden village on his own."
"And that says nothing of Miss Konan with him to assist him," Karin added, a pensive expression taking up residence on her face. "I think… I think Naruto will be okay. I have faith that he will be. They'll rescue him and deal with the seals creating that void."
"So, what I'm to understand is that the Tsuchikage is going to be killed and Iwagakure will be reduced to rubble like Takigakure," Mei said with growing exhaustion.
"If they don't comply, then that is what's going to happen," Utakata nodded.
Mei groaned, dropping her head to her desk before gesturing to a very freaked out Chojuro, who jumped at being nonverbally addressed before he quickly opened a secret panel in the wall. Behind the panel was a small liquor cabinet, and Chojuro retrieved her favorite brand of whiskey and a glass. She raised her head from the desk just enough to send him a flat, sidelong look, and he took the hint to grab six more glasses.
"Well, while Tsuki no Me is out snatching biju and the Great Five become the Great Four," she sighed, popping open the bottle of alcohol and pouring herself a glass, "would you all like a drink?"
It had been two hours that Naruto laid still on the ground with his eyes screwed shut. His patience had long since worn thin from feeling for the natural energy that simply wasn't there. Sage Mode was the only way he was going to force his way out of his bindings, but it didn't seem like he was going to be able to access it, and that both perplexed and irritated him beyond belief.
Granted, he probably should have expected that Ohnoki would have something of the sort prepared since he felt the senjutsu from his battle with Tobi, but Naruto had no fucking idea how the hell he managed to block the literal fucking energy of nature from seeing into the room. How the fuck was that even possible? Just what the bluest of hells was this goddamn cell??
"Fucking fuck!" Naruto frustratedly growled once he lost the last dregs of his patience. Tayuya had rubbed off on him, the vulgar shithead.
Then, the last thing he wanted to hear at that moment echoed through the hall: footsteps steadily approaching his cell. He didn't really care who it was, but he at least knew it wasn't the Tsuchikage again because whoever it was wasn't floating. When his visitor came into view, he nearly keeled over in the aggravation he knew was coming.
"Hi there," Kurotsuchi said with the most punchable smile on the face of the planet in Naruto's estimation.
"Fuck off," he grumbled.
"Oh come on, that's not very nice," she mock pouted. "I go to all the trouble to come visit you, and this is how I'm repaid?"
Naruto's sigh could have been felt on the moon. "You know, you're right. That was mean, and I'm sorry. Could you do me a favor?"
"What's that?"
"Fuck off and die."
Tayuya had really rubbed off on him.
"No can do," Kurotsuchi shook her head with a laugh. "Gotta get that fox off ya."
Naruto just rolled onto his side and faced away from Kurotsuchi without a word, and she sighed. "Don't be like that. I'm actually trying here."
That earned no response, which she likely expected since she remained there. Naruto closed his eyes and kept silent, deciding to wait until she got bored and left. He would be waiting a while, though.
"It's nothing personal, y'know," she said, her tone far more subdued. "I don't hold any ill will toward you for your dad or anything. It's just the Tsuchikage's orders."
Naruto didn't open his eyes, but he did keep his ears open enough to hear her bitterly mutter, "I didn't even ask for this." He peeled his eyes open and glanced behind him from his periphery. On one hand, this could be total bs to get him to interact with her for any number of reasons. On the other hand, on the off chance she was telling the truth…
Well, it wasn't like he had anything better to do, so he rolled over and faced her with a calculating gaze. "Seems like you get the first part of the jinchuriki experience. No one ever asks for it."
There was a flicker of a smile when he finally interacted with her again, but it was gone just as quickly. Whether or not this was an act, he supposed he didn't have much to lose by indulging.
"How exactly did you end up as the candidate?" he asked.
Kurotsuchi hummed. "You were right earlier about me being a relative and next in line to take the hat. Gramps is old and brittle, but he doesn't think anyone is worthy to take his place yet."
"Except you?" Naruto questioned.
"Somehow," she snorted. "He sees enough in me to want to groom me for the position even more than his own son, my father. I don't know if he actually sees potential in me or if he just sees my kekkei genkai as a good enough basis to start with. Guess it doesn't matter either way…"
She let loose another sigh. "Sometimes I think that I'm just a nice rebound from Deidara after he abandoned the village and went rogue."
Naruto had a sneaking suspicion of something of the sort after Ohnoki mentioned him completely unprompted.
"So, how does an unsuspecting successor become an unwilling jinchuriki?" Naruto reiterated.
She turned around and leaned her back against the bars, folding her arms and glaring at the stone ceiling.
"Gramps called me into his office after he finalized his plans and told me what my new responsibility was," she began. "Said it would straighten me out and give me the power I needed to actually be a viable candidate to succeed. I didn't wanna do it; I was fine with my own power and didn't want this foisted onto me, but he made it clear that I didn't have a choice. Didn't matter how much I pleaded."
"That's rough, buddy," Naruto muttered.
She shrugged. "Roshi had already retired by the time I was around, and I never really got to interact with Han before he left. I have no idea what being a jinchuriki is like beyond the fact that it sucks when that's all you're known as. I want to continue making a name for myself with my own power like I've already been doing. I don't need the power of a biju to do it. I can be Kurotsuchi, the Yondaime Tsuchikage, without it."
She sighed once again, and this one was far more forlorn than the rest. "But none of that matters now. I have a duty to do what's asked of me and serve my village until my dying breath."
"Do you, though?" Naruto questioned.
"Yes, I do," Kurotsuchi rebuked the thought with a glare. "I'm not a quitter, nor a deserter."
She paused, mulling over her words. "No offense."
"I think we're long past the point of offending each other," Naruto deadpanned.
"Yeah, I guess so," she snorted.
"Why tell me all of this?" Naruto finally asked. "Spilling your guts to the enemy seems like the worst possible thing to do."
"You won't be around long enough for it to matter," she pointed out with a shrug. "Plus, I can't exactly talk about this to anyone else in the village without being told to shut the fuck up and get over it. Iwa shinobi endure. It's part of the Will of Stone. I needed someone without that philosophy precooked in them."
Then, she sent him a mischievous smirk. "You're also a pretty good listener."
"I'm a captive audience," Naruto responded. "It's what I do.
"And thank Ishikawa for that," she chuckled.
The two fell into a strangely comfortable silence. Despite being the person designated to replace him as Kurama's vessel without his consent (or hers for that matter), Naruto couldn't help but empathize with her situation to some degree, even if she was a self-righteous pain in the ass in their first meeting… and second meeting. Likewise, Kurotsuchi wasn't lying when she said that she held no ill will against him for the actions of his father, and he was genuinely nice to get to speak (read: vent) to an actual jinchuriki about her situation despite the circumstances.
Suddenly, a thunderous explosion rocked the village, the tremors of which reached all the way underground to the tunnels that Naruto's cell called home. Kurotsuchi was nearly knocked off her feet, whereas Naruto rolled toward the wall of the cell like a bottle.
"The hell??" Kurotsuchi balked, quickly rising to her feet.
Naruto, once he got back to a comfortable position, hummed in curiosity, drawing the wide-eyed stare of Kurotsuchi. "You should probably go check on that."
So, um, gotta be honest here. If the ending seems abrupt, that's because this chapter and the next were initially going to be one single chapter, but it came out to be 20K words. I love y'all, and I love y'all enough to not drop a 20K word behemoth on you without warning and then vanish for another month and a half, so I split it. Some questions you might have that were raised in this chapter will probably be answered in the next one. A lot probably won't be lol
Editing the next chapter as you read this, so expect it within a day or so, idk man I'm tired. I also do not hold back on the violence when Pain and Konan arrive in Iwa (naturally), so fair warning.
Thanks for reading.