"I disagree with you here, Neji. I think the issue is our world."

"With all due respect, Naruto-sa—Naruto. We are who we were meant to be. The world merely reveals our nature."

"I knew you would say that. As though you believe it is not a place that would make anyone worse. I have seen the kind become cruel. The strong become desperate."

"You knew I would…? Besides, it is a simple answer: maybe the people you mention were never as kind or as strong as you thought. They were always capable of that darkness. Destined for it."

"Or perhaps kindness and strength were consumed by what the world demanded of them. It's not as simple as a matter of clear-cut destiny, Neji."

"Isn't that the same thing, in the end? And, despite your words... Well, you try and hide it, but you are a kind man. Have you not saved me?"

"It was a trade you are both currently paying for. My point remains the same: the world shapes us because it must."

"That is fate too."

"And why does it have to be, brother? Should we just accept that? As though it is some kind of law of nature? Should I simply have stayed with the clan, as was destined?"

"Hanabi, you of all people should understand. Your position as heir—"

"Was just another cage, Neji. One I chose to step out of, paying the due price. The same way you chose to step out of your own."

"The difference, as I see it, is that Neji believes he was always meant to break free. While we think he broke free because he chose to, because circumstances allowed him to see beyond what he was told to be."

"…Then tell me, Naruto — I believe history is cyclical. What then of those who perpetuate this endless cycle, in spite of having the power to stop it? If that is not the purest expression of fate, what would you call it?"

"That, too, is a choice. Not fate, not just circumstance, but the terrible freedom of deciding."

"Then we are back where we started. I believe this nature was always there, merely unveiled."

"And I don't, Neji. I believe we are where we choose to end up, carrying everything the world has made of us. The question isn't what we were meant to be — it's what we do with what we've become."

択

18 — TO BE CHOSEN

IT WAS A LONG TEN minutes before Shiori came back from wherever she had gone with the last surviving man.

He had been alive then, at least. When she stepped back into the dim light of the warehouse, neither Naruto nor Shinpachi missed the fact that she came back alone. Her face was carefully blank, a mask of composure so tightly drawn it was hard to tell whether it was disregard or discipline holding it in place.

"I apologize for this grim spectacle," she said, her voice low but steady. "And for submitting you to this memory. I judged it to be safer this way."

The boys exchanged glances, Shinpachi's mouth twitching like he might say something before deciding against it. Naruto, for his part, could only nod.

The weight of her words, of what she had just done, as well as everything else hung in the silence between them.

"Should you wish to become shinobi, however…" Her eyes found theirs in turn, dark and unwavering. "This is the reality you can expect. Most of the time, there will be no honor. No glory. And rarely, if ever, will there be true justice. If those are the things you seek, the samurai might suit you better — if even they can deliver such ideals anymore."

The words fell like stones into a still pond, ripples stretching outward in quiet inevitability. By the time they kissed the distant shore, it seemed impossible that so small a weight had disturbed the waters at all. Shinpachi looked away, his fingers tightening around the hem of his cloak — the new one, gifted by Shiori to replace that oversized thing he had picked up from a corpse. Naruto swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.

"...Thank you, Lady Shiori," he said at last. The words felt strange and small, but he needed to say something. "For saving us."

Her gaze shifted to him, so sharp it was almost hard. "Why are you thanking me?" she asked. "Keeping you two alive is my duty — a duty I have already failed in the past. And I have already very nearly failed you as well, by letting you get caught."

Naruto flinched. The confusion, the cold fear, and the sight of Shiori falling down to the cold metal floor like a dark angel; all of it came back. It had felt like salvation then. But now, hearing her speak, he wasn't so sure.

"I—" he started, but the words faltered. What could he say? That it wasn't her fault? He didn't know anything about this Nobu who had died, so long ago. That she had done everything she could? He didn't think she would believe him, even if he did.

"It won't happen again," she said, as much to herself as to them. "No matter what."

Shinpachi glanced back at her, hesitation flickering across his face. "You… didn't have to do that on your own. We—" He broke off, struggling to find the right words. "We're not entirely helpless, Lady Shiori. You could've… we could've helped."

Shiori's lips pressed into a thin line. "Helped?" she repeated, her tone almost incredulous. "You did that. Distracted them, and that was enough. Helped with what, then? Killing? No. There was no need for you to do that."

Naruto realized she wanted to shield them from as much as she could. The contradiction between her earlier words, her actions, and her beliefs nearly made his head hurt.

She exhaled slowly, shoulders sinking as though the weight of the world had suddenly grown heavier. "There will be a time for that," she continued, her voice quieter now. "Sooner than you think. But until then… you are my responsibility. Your lives are not yours to gamble."

Naruto looked down at his hands, the faint tremor in his fingers betraying the storm of emotions swirling inside him. He wanted to argue, to protest that he wasn't just some child to be protected. But when he looked back at Shiori — the faint smudge of blood on her sleeve, the way one of her sharp black talons was still extended — the words refused to come.

For a long moment, none of them spoke. Then, Shiori straightened, the steel returning to her posture. "Let me show you what I have learned from him, then," she said briskly. "I will do that as I fix Naruto's knee."

And with that, she set out to do exactly that.

Naruto's second dive into another's memories was as jarring as the first, thrusting him into a different perspective without warning.

The man whose memories he and Shinpachi were seeing, who was named (at least that was how he introduced himself) Ryōma, stepped into the vaulted chamber, with footsteps swallowed by the murmurs of the gathered crowd. The room was massive, its ceilings arched like the ribs of some great beast, disappearing into shadows far above. Firelight from iron braziers danced across ornate stonework, making the ink-black patterns carved into the walls seem to writhe with a life of their own. The air was heavy with incense and the musty breath of old stone.

Ryōma adjusted his silk mask, suppressing a grimace at the way it clung to his skin. Similar masks were seen throughout the chamber, concealing the faces of at least a hundred men and women in formal dark attire. Like him, many of them were studying one another, searching for tells beneath the disguises, hunting for any trace of identity or weakness.

At the chamber's far end, elevated slightly above the gathering, stood three figures behind a table of polished obsidian. Only three, Ryōma noted with interest, despite rumors of more. Two had red eyes that smoldered like dying embers, while the third, centered between them, fixed the crowd with a green gaze that burned with an intensity bordering on madness — though such things were often difficult to distinguish with strong shinobi.

Behind them hung a massive tapestry, its crimson threads forming an unfamiliar sigil that seemed to shift when viewed from the corner of one's eye. Servants glided through the crowd with practiced smiles, offering drinks that Ryōma accepted but had no intention of consuming. He knew too well how many secrets and dangers could be dissolved in a cup of wine.

He, of course, had no trust for anyone here, only here because the mission paid more than most.

The green-eyed man stepped forward, his dark silk mask catching the firelight. Unlike the ornate disguises worn by others, its simplicity only heightened the devastating intensity of his gaze. As those eyes swept across the gathered assembly, conversations died mid-whisper, leaving only the soft hiss of burning incense and the distant cry of night birds.

"Brothers, sisters," he began, each word precisely measured, sharp as drawn steel, even though his voice warbled unnaturally, "I am the one your leaders have joined forces with." His slight nod toward the twin red-eyed men carried all the warmth of a winter dawn.

"Yes. My men and your group have joined forces tonight to discuss a singular purpose: the recovery of Konoha's Chosen Children." The tension in the room coalesced, thick enough to choke on. Every masked face turned toward him, moths drawn to a deadly flame. Were he a more superstitious man, Ryōma would have said that even the shadows seemed to lean closer.

"These sacrificial lambs are crucial." His gloved fingers traced an idle pattern in the air, a gesture somehow both elegant and threatening. "They are to be brought back alive — no exceptions." The last word cracked like a whip. "To ensure this, we will pursue every possible avenue. Boats have already been dispatched to intercept vessels crossing near Uzushio's last known location above the Frostspire Ocean. Men stand at the ready, and no path should be discounted. Should they attempt to flee by land—" a cold smile touched his voice "—they will find our nets already cast."

One of the red-eyed men was sweeping over the crowd with his gaze, noting every reaction, every subtle movement. The other's crimson eyes were fixed upon the speaker, with eerie intensity.

"But there is one other matter." The green-eyed man's tone dropped lower, acquiring an edge that made several members of the assembly flinch. "The man known as the Tempest. Uzumaki Nagato indeed."

The name brought with itself a silence, as well as ripples of unease spreading outward. Ryōma's fingers curled against his palm, nails biting flesh — no wonder it paid well.

"He will undoubtedly be part of the escort. He is to be killed." The words rang with the finality of a death knell. "Our strongest will handle the task. No compromises, no hesitation. He carries within him a threat that cannot be permitted to fully mature." Next to him, the red-eyed man's hand drifted to the hilt of the blade at his hip, a gesture so casual it could almost be missed — almost.

The room held its breath. In the brittle silence, the crack and pop of the braziers sounded slightly too harsh. The green-eyed man turned slightly, meeting the crimson eyes of the two other leaders. Something passed between them, quick and sharp as lightning — a recognition of mutual purpose, overlaid with mistrust. This alliance was a sword balanced on its edge, Ryōma thought, and ready to cut in any direction.

But they were mercenaries, all of them. No amount of fancy drinks could hide that fact. All of them were here because they had something to gain.

In this gathering of masks and secrets, that might have been the only honest thing about any of them.

And then, a sharp pain in his knee. Ryōma barely had time to register it before the sensation of being yanked backward into darkness overtook him. The vaulted chamber dissolved like smoke, and when the world reformed, Ryōma blinked — no, he was Naruto, not Ryōma — and found himself slumped on the airship's cold warehouse floor, staring up at the familiar, creaking beams above. His knee throbbed dully, but it was bending the right way again.

"Apologies," came Shiori's voice, calm as ever. She crouched beside him, one hand resting lightly on his knee, the other brushing her robes back into place. "I figured this would be easier if you weren't expecting it."

Naruto blinked at her, the disorientation fading as reality settled back around him. "Lady Shiori," he gasped, still trying to catch his breath. "Was that—?"

"Indeed," she said, her sharp gaze shifting to Shinpachi, who stood at a polite distance. "That man's memories. The most important one I managed to make him give to me. The rest…" She waved a hand dismissively. "Are just noise. He knew little of true value, as mercenaries like him rarely do."

Naruto rubbed at his knee, trying to ignore the ghost of pain lingering there. "But why show us that directly?"

"To prepare you," she replied, rising smoothly to her feet. Her tone was steady, almost matter-of-fact, but there was a hint of something colder beneath it. More pragmatic. As though she had already decided upon a course only she could see.

"They are aiming to kill Lo—… Nagato." Shinpachi's face darkened.

"Why, yes." Shiori's lips curved into a humorless smile. "They will try."

Her confidence was unshaken, but her eyes glinted with an edge Naruto had come to recognize as the quiet resolve of someone who had seen far too much of the world not to prepare for the worst anyway. "If you do come across them — those with red eyes — do not, under any circumstances, meet their gaze directly."

Naruto frowned, his stomach knotting. "Why?"

"Their eyes are a trap," she said simply. "One that will shatter your mind if you're not careful. You would be powerless before them."

Naruto's hands balled into fists at his sides. "Then how are we supposed to—"

Shiori cut him off with a raised hand. "You won't fight them. Focus on the task at hand. Your survival depends on it. Leave the rest to those of us equipped to handle it."

And she pressed a scroll in Naruto's hands.

"Use it when I tell you to," she said simply and he nodded.

Naruto stood up gingerly, pushing against the floor with his leg to test it. Not perfect, but it will do.

"…Red eyes, then? Should we avoid looking into yours, too?" he asked evenly.

To his surprise, Shiori laughed.

They made their way forward, with Shiori walking ahead, her movements fluid and sure.

Although she believed Nagato could handle himself, leaving him entirely alone when they didn't know the enemy or their actual plans was a risk she wasn't willing to take.

"…What was that deer, back then?" Naruto asked suddenly. Shiori's eyes focused on him, and he hesitated. "And what happened to all of you?"

After a moment's silence, it was Shinpachi who spoke. "...Whatever it was, the moment its hoof hit the ground, we were separated."

Shiori's pace didn't falter, but her expression shifted — a microscopic tightening around her eyes that Naruto might have missed if he hadn't been observing. She pushed aside broken rubble. "It was much the same for us as it was for you. As though being dropped into a dream for a moment," she said. "And then warped away. I made my way to you, as soon as I could."

Naruto frowned, studying the sharp lines of Shiori's profile as they walked. The moonlight streaming through the broken walls cast strange shadows across her face. "You didn't answer the other question."

Shiori stopped so abruptly that Naruto nearly collided with her back. When she turned to face him, her carefully composed expression reminded him of a mask — perfect and practiced, but with eyes too sharp, too alive to be porcelain. "Because I don't have a full answer, Naruto. Whatever that thing was, you are right — it wasn't a deer. Not in any way that matters."

That much, I know already, Naruto thought.

"But it was a yōkai?" he pressed, frustration bleeding into his voice. "Working with them? With humans?" Through his peripheral vision, he caught Shinpachi watching them with the intensity of a hawk, his hands clenched at his sides.

Something flickered across Shiori's face — recognition, then irritation, like storm clouds gathering. "And just who—?" She caught herself, lips pressing into such a thin line they nearly disappeared. "Ah. Of course that fool would."

"I have read tales—"

"Bah," Shiori cut through his words like a blade through paper. "Fantastic folklore, with barely anything to do with reality."

"Even then, it fits. They can't be anything else," Naruto insisted, carefully dancing around Gojō's name — suspicion was a dangerous enough seed without watering it. "Shinpachi and I—"

"We encountered a bake-kujira at sea," Shinpachi said abruptly, perhaps in support. "Perhaps you are aware of it, Lady Shiori."

Shiori's shoulders snapped taut like a drawn bowstring.

Her eyes darted across their surroundings — the abandoned corridor stretching into darkness, the ethereal glow of moonlight painting silver patterns on broken stone, and the shadows that seemed to breathe in the late-night silence. When she turned back to them, her face had lost some of its careful composition. "Truly...? A cursed whale spirit? When?"

"Weeks ago, in late April, off the southernmost coast of Sea," Shinpachi replied, his hand unconsciously drifting to his chest where, Naruto knew, a burn scar mapped constellations beneath his clothes. "Ceremonial fishing. If the legends are true in any way… Well, I believe one of the crews killed an actual whale..." His words faded like mist.

The silence that followed felt thick enough to cut.

"I should have been warned — Even then, that's not supposed to be possible," Shiori muttered, but uncertainty had crept into her voice like frost on glass. "Fishing is only done close to Uzushio." Both children nodded, and something in their eyes made her pause. "The wards should have—"

She stopped herself, drawing in a breath that seemed to steady her like an anchor. "Listen to me carefully, both of you." Her voice dropped lower. "There are things in motion right now that I am not allowed to tell you. And apparently, things I'm afraid I don't understand either. Things that shouldn't be possible, yet somehow are."

Her final words fell between them like stones in still water: "Something is changing."

The moonlight continued to pour through the broken walls.

"Does Nagato know?" she asked.

Shinpachi and Naruto exchanged a glance. Shinpachi hesitated, then answered. "I don't know."

Shiori exhaled sharply, frustration flickering across her features. "He needs to know," she said firmly, shaking her head. "If I wasn't informed, then perhaps he wasn't either. And what of the others?"

"Gojō does know," Naruto said after a beat. His voice was quiet, almost reverent whenever he thought back to that moment. "He was the one who saved us."

Something in Shiori's expression softened, the steely tension in her jaw easing just slightly. "Truly?"

Shinpachi nodded. "Without him, we wouldn't be here. We'd be…" He was staring at the ground. "Like Karin."

Shiori straightened, lifting her chin as if bracing herself. "I see. Then we must convene. All of us."

"Now?" Shinpachi asked.

"Now," she confirmed. "I know that Nagato, at least, is fighting." Naruto didn't bother asking her how she knew. He himself had seen the flashes of lightning echoing through the night. "Ryūjin must be safe if he can still hold this ship together, which leads me to believe that he's either hiding… or that Gojō might be with him. Wherever that is. I cannot sense any of the two, drowned as they are in that chaos."

"Where shall we go, then?" Naruto asked. "Toward Nagato?"

Shiori closed her eyes in contemplation. "No. He's been moving quickly — too quickly for anyone to pin down. Given our different fighting styles, I might hinder more than help him. And Ryūjin can't afford to fight at all, as of now. Gojō, though..." She opened her eyes. "Yes, he can complement Nagato or me decently enough, and that would be the most practical option. Let us find him. We will be heading towards the dining room. I ensured its safety, instructed people to gather there, and one of our comrades might have found refuge there — or simply passed by. In any case, if there is any place to find information about them, that would be with the survivors there."

The word 'survivors' sent a wave of ice through Naruto's body.

"We haven't come across anyone else," Shinpachi said. "…At least I haven't." Naruto confirmed it with a slow, hesitant nod — it had been the same for him.

Shiori nodded as well, as though she had expected it, but held on to some slight hope anyway. Her eyes scanned the way ahead.

"Let us go, then," she said, and her gnarled fingers flashed through hand seals with practiced ease, faster than Naruto would have thought possible. It was like watching water flow uphill — fluid, unstoppable, and impossible to ignore. "Do try to keep up."

A brief shimmer of chakra coalesced around her feet, and with a burst of motion, she was gone. There was nothing of her frail appearance as she blurred down the dark corridor, robes billowing behind her.

After a moment's pause, during which they realized she was clearing the way for them once more, Shinpachi threw himself after her. Naruto leaped close behind.

Shiori didn't run — she tore through the world.

Despite her age, she scaled the slanted walls of the airship with the grace of a spider, fingers and toes finding purchase where none seemed to exist. She flitted across wreckage, scaling broken beams and shattered walls as though they were a simple stairwell.

Naruto and Shinpachi scrambled after her, arriving just in time to see her cut through the first wave of soldiers.

They barely had time to raise their weapons. Shiori's hands moved in a blur — three precise strikes. The lead guard's neck snapped with a wet crack. The second crumpled as she drove her palm up under his chin, crushing his windpipe. The third, she merely touched — a single finger to his temple — and he collapsed, blood trickling from his ears. One moment her fingernail glinted in the light, and then it was dull red.

She never broke stride.

Her foot swept out, toppling a woman Naruto hadn't even seen onto her back. Before she could recover, Shiori's other foot was on her face, and a sharp pulse of chakra lit the air. The woman's body convulsed once, then fell still, smoke curling from her mouth and nostrils.

Another man lunged, but she sidestepped him with an ease that bordered on mockery. Her free hand moved in a small, precise pattern, drawing a fiery sigil upon nothing but air.

What? That's not—

Her fist was now shrouded in flame. The man didn't have time to scream before she drove the burning knuckles into his chest.

Naruto stood frozen for a moment, his stomach churning at the sight. Shinpachi was no better, his face pale and eyes wide.

"What are you gawking at?" Shiori hissed. "Hurry this way."

It broke the two boys out of their trance.

Naruto's legs moved before his mind caught up, his tabi slapping against the metal gangway. Shinpachi stumbled after him, clutching and quickly sealing away a supply pouch he had stolen from one of the fallen — between this and the loose coat he had already discarded, he was turning out to be quite the scavenger, Naruto thought. Unlike the respect he held for the sea, Shinpachi didn't seem to care much for the dead.

Good.

Shiori led the way, like a blade carving through the storm. A face appeared ahead, and in the time it took Naruto to analyze whether it was a friend or a foe, man or woman, she had already dispatched them.

The orange-red sigil flared again, brighter this time, and the air hissed with the sound of burning ozone. She raised her arm, not even flinching as a spear came down in a vicious arc. The weapon shattered against the barrier of her fiery chakra, fragments clattering like dead leaves. In the same motion, she lunged forward and planted her palm flat against the man's chest.

The force of the impact threw him backward like a ragdoll, with a sound like a cannonball roaring, and the man's scream was cut short by the crunch of his spine against the gangway railing that collapsed in the next moment. There were people lying down there, Naruto realized, and they weren't dressed like shinobi—

"Go! Move!" Shiori barked without looking back, and Naruto obeyed, even as his breath came shallow and his hands trembled. "I will carve this hesitation out of you, if I must!"

The staircase loomed ahead, winding like the throat of some iron beast. They were rising, yes, but every step felt like plunging deeper into the maw. Naruto's foot caught on something — a tiny severed hand, still clutching a children's toy. He wrenched his leg free, bile rising in his throat.

Without power sustaining the lights, it was dark, too. Too dark.

Behind him, some metallic clang grew louder. Shinpachi yelped, spinning just in time to redirect a crude axe with the flat solid edge of one of his cards. The weapon splintered wood, but the impact sent the attacker staggering. Before the man could recover, or before Shinpachi could cut through his jugular with the very same Slicer card, as Naruto saw in his eyes, Shiori was on him.

Her talon-like fingernails carved through flesh and bone with merciless precision, spraying arterial blood across the corroded deck plates. The enemy ninja crumpled without a sound, his mask splitting to reveal features frozen in permanent surprise. Shiori didn't pause to watch him fall, already scanning the shadows for the next threat, her enhanced senses straining against the oppressive darkness.

Naruto noticed a pair of bodies, buried under the rubble—

"I said — Keep moving!" she snapped, and once more, her voice carried an edge that left no room for hesitation.

Naruto reached the top of the stairs first, his heart pounding like a drumbeat against his ribs. The chakra drain was starting to affect him, making his movements sluggish and his thoughts foggy. He barely registered the sharp transition from the night air that rushed into the holed ship air to the suffocating heat of the ship's hermetic interior. The metallic taste of blood lingered on his tongue, mixing with the acrid scent of burning seals and oxidized steel.

Somehow, this part of the ship seemed nearly intact, in comparison to the devastation they'd left behind. And the walls gleamed with faintly glowing runes, layered upon one another in a sealing language he didn't recognize. They pulsed with an otherworldly light, casting strange shadows that danced across their faces.

"Barriers," Shinpachi whispered — scholarly interest momentarily overriding even his fear. What else could they have been? Naruto thought, a bit irritatedly. As if they had time for academic observations now — and he chided himself for feeling so tense, when Shinpachi had done nothing wrong.

"Yes." Shiori's tone was grim as she stepped past him, not even eyeing the runes she had likely written herself. Blood dripped from her fingers, leaving dark spots on the floor, and Naruto was uncomfortably reminded of the ease with which she killed — was this what awaited him, down that road? "Powerful enough, hopefully."

The unspoken 'or we're all dead' hung heavy in the air.

Naruto could feel it now, the weight pressing down on his chest like an unseen hand, the suffocating pressure of multiple barrier seals working in concert.

The final barrier seal flared to life behind them with a sound like thunder, and Naruto felt his knees buckle as some of his chakra was drained to power it. They had made it to the safe room — and it took him a while to realize the reinforced chamber they were in had been the dining room, with all of the tables set in the corners, and bloodstains all across the floor.

"Naruto!"

The cry came just as his vision began to blur. A familiar figure launched herself across the room, nearly bowling him over. Aiko's arms wrapped around him with desperate strength, and her face buried against his chest.

"You're alive!" she sobbed, her fingers clutching his torn jacket. "When we felt the explosions — when we saw the smoke — I thought..." Her voice cracked, and he could feel her trembling. "Oh, you're covered in blood!"

It took him a moment to realize what she meant, and where she was looking: that his hair, to her at least, had been blond before.

He wanted to reassure her, to pat her back or something, anything, but his arms felt like lead weights. The room swayed, and he might have fallen if not for her support. Around them, people were sitting or pacing the room, and it seemed that the reality of their situation had sunk in.

"We're okay," he managed to mumble, though 'okay' was probably stretching the truth. "…Looking for the others."

Aiko pulled back just enough to glare at him through tear-filled eyes. "You're not okay! You're shaking, and you're…" She choked on the words, her hands hovering over his bloodstained cloak.

"That's not my blood," he blurted out before he could think about it, and something in his tone made her pause.

It might have been that sudden, jarring violence he felt deep in his gut. This aimless thing that seemed as though it could leak out in any direction, the fragility he felt in her arms, which made him wonder where the hell his thoughts were running off to. It could have had several implications about his mental state, certainly, but in any case, it was this something that made her realize what he meant.

The realization hit her like a physical blow.

She stumbled back a step, and he could almost see it: her mind racing through the only few meaningful interactions they had had. The way he moved, slightly too graceful for most civilians. How he always seemed secretive about where he came from. The calluses on his hands that didn't match his cover story as a student.

"You're..." The word 'shinobi' died in her throat, but her eyes said it clearly enough as they darted to his hair — which she now noticed nearly matched Shinpachi's own, by the mainland's standards. "One of them—!"

There was no mistaking what she thought of them. Aiko's mother, after all, had been killed by shinobi.

Naruto knew it. Shinpachi didn't, but when his voice cut through the taut silence, it was sharper than Naruto had ever heard it anyway. Though he bothered with the mainland's honorifics — the kind Naruto had only ever heard used for Lady Mito ('Mito-sama,' as the mainlanders preferred) — there was no mistaking the edge in his tone.

He stepped forward, and his battle-worn appearance sharply contrasted with his usual bookish demeanor. In his eyes, Naruto saw a hint of the man he'd someday become; the deadliest sort of flower, the sort that bloomed in shade, so quickly no one ever noticed it had happened before it was done. "The only reason any of us are alive right now — you, the other passengers, all of us — is also because of shinobi intervention. Because of people like Lady Shiori herself—"

"I know that!" Aiko's voice cracked, tears flowing freely now. "I know, but..." She wrapped her arms around herself, unable to stop shaking. "You killed people, didn't you? All of you. That's why there's so much blood, that's why—"

"…Yes." Naruto's answer was quiet but unflinching. "We did."

Her mouth opened, then closed, as another thought seemed to strike her. She looked around the safe room, at the huddled passengers, at the shinobi who stood apart, at the blood-spattered walls outside the barrier seals.

It didn't take a shinobi to notice there likely had to be a reason for all this carnage.

"Why..." Her voice dropped to a whisper, and Naruto could see the exact moment the pieces started to click into place. "Someone asked, before, and I can't shake it off — Why are so many shinobi — Why would they... they wouldn't come all this way just to..."

Her eyes widened at Naruto's silence, at his expression.

"…They're looking for someone, aren't they? Or something — That's why —!"

Another silence.

She took another stumbling step back, her gaze darting between faces. She knew it, the same Naruto knew it.

Someone among them had drawn this violence to their ship. Something had brought these killers to their door.

"Who?" The word escaped her like a prayer, or perhaps a curse. "What? What brought all of you—"

"That's enough, young lady." Shiori's voice cut through the growing tension like a blade. It was clear in the way some of the passengers wouldn't meet anyone's eyes, how others were looking at their neighbors with new suspicion. The safe room suddenly felt much smaller, much more suffocating.

The barriers continued to glow, feeling slightly like protection and more like prison walls, trapping them all together.

Aiko had already realized it, somehow. Perhaps it was in the shroud of guilt Naruto was now slowly feeling rising around him.

He watched this realization spread across her face like a stain. The fear of him, of all that he was; and all that he would be — shinobi, which was a fancy way to say killer; and among the best, too — had been replaced by something far worse. And when, suddenly, her eyes found his again… This time, they widened with a different kind of understanding.

And Naruto, who wasn't looking at her anymore, thought he understood it too. It hit him in full then, and he stared at his blood-stained hands, and the weight of it was crushing him, and it made it hard to breathe. How few people there were in this safe room. How Aiko's father was nowhere to be seen. All those deaths. Some were the ninja who'd attacked them, yes, but many were also the innocent passengers who'd been caught in the crossfire of a battle they had nothing to do with before they could reach the safe room. And how many of even the attacking shinobi were only here for their objective anyway? How many had actively tried to avoid this sort of carnage? If their goal was to seize the two of them and kill Nagato, how different did it make them from Konoha itself—

This destruction. This terror.

All because there were paid killers and thugs looking for him, Shinpachi and Nagato. And they were paid killers and thugs, or going to be, too.

Naruto felt bile, rising in his throat. His mother had been right, of course. Why did he ever leave Uzushio? To save her, when even Yasaka hadn't managed to find a way? It had barely been days, and yet...

"Yeah. It's me," he whispered, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "They're here because of us. All of this... everyone who died..." His voice cracked, and he felt Shinpachi stiffen beside him.

The guilt rose like a tide, threatening to drown him. Every face he'd seen tonight, frozen in death — they were dead because of him. Because of whatever they wanted the ones chosen by Konoha, for whatever purpose that was, for whatever use Konoha had for them, whatever reason Lady Mito — or was it Mito-sama now — had—

"Stop."

Shiori's hand came to rest on his shoulder. "Both of you, listen to me carefully."

Her voice was firm, full of the weight of years he couldn't fathom. She turned Naruto and Shinpachi away from the other passengers, creating a small bubble of privacy with her presence alone.

"This violence, these deaths — they're not on your shoulders. They're on the adults who started this game long before either of you were born."

Her eyes, when they met Naruto's, held a fierce protectiveness he'd never seen before. "You're children. Both of you. Whatever brought us to this point, whatever secrets or purposes are at play — the ones I can tell you and those I cannot — those are the mistakes and machinations of adults who should have known better, but don't. Adults like I, who should have protected you instead of making you carry this sort of burden.

"Perhaps we should have risked going through the southern Lands, after all. But that is on Nagato, Yume, and I. As for you…" She squeezed their shoulders, and for a moment, her mask of stern efficiency cracked, showing something almost maternal underneath. "The only thing you're guilty of is surviving. And I won't let either of you apologize for that."

And Naruto realized he was not alone in this nightmare.

Behind them, Aiko watched silently, as though her own fear and horror warred with the scene before her — these killers, these shinobi, who somehow could still show concern for one another; two boys caught in something far bigger than themselves.

That was what Naruto assumed it was later on, at least.

Because another sound caught his attention — applause.

The slow clap shattered the silence, freezing every drop of blood in Naruto's veins. "Beautiful speech, Lady Shiori." The voice slithered through the safe room like poisoned honey. A figure emerged from the shadows by one of the barrier seals — had been there all along, watching, waiting. "Very touching."

That person's stance was loose, predatory. Behind their ornate, smiling mask — different from before but somehow more terrifying — Naruto caught a flash of those same green eyes from the memory.

His gut twisted. Shiori's fingers dug into the boys' shoulders before shoving them behind her.

The thing was, Naruto, who was uncannily observant, noticed something in her.

Something that made his heart stop.

It was a flicker of fear — not the kind born of immediate danger, but something deeper, more visceral.

Disbelieving, almost pleading, as if Shiori were grasping for the impossible hope that what she feared wasn't true. And yet, it lingered in her eyes, trembling on the edge of acceptance, betraying some truth she wished desperately to deny.

Naruto couldn't figure out why. Was the man truly that dangerous?

When Shiori spoke, however, her voice was as cold as winter ice. "You shouldn't be able to—"

"Be here?" The figure's head cocked like a crow studying dying prey. "Inside your precious barriers?"

The air crystallized with killing intent so thick Naruto could barely breathe. Civilians pressed themselves against the walls, whimpering. Shiori moved forward, and gone was the gentle guardian — in her place stood something just as lethal as it was old.

"Naruto. Shinpachi. Get them out of this room. Anywhere." Her command cut like steel. "Now."

The figure's mask caught the barrier's light, its painted smile writhing. "Yes, run along for now, children. The adults need to discuss..." A dark chuckle. "Old mistakes."

"Old mistakes…?"

"You always did have a way with children," the man said, almost fondly. "Remember how you used to lecture me about protecting the innocent?"

"Where did you—" Shiori's eyes widened, and the wall behind her exploded; stone and blood splattering across the room.

She turned around briefly, if only to ensure Naruto and Shinpachi were alive; if only to confirm it was only a diversion; never realizing in time it had been a setup for the actual one, even as Naruto screamed.

The real diversion was the man's mask, dropping.

Shiori's breath hitched — the smallest whimper, a pathetic sound.

In that split second, the man struck. His hand seized her forehead, fingers splaying across her skull like a spider. And she crumpled in silence.

Naruto couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't process what he was seeing.

The face — the one that had made Shiori's composure shatter like glass — was hauntingly familiar. Although Naruto had never seen the man before, he recognized him instantly. In fact, this recognition happened at exactly the same time Naruto realized that the word the man had used to say Lady was not Kyosei.

The intruder's smile curved sharp and predatory, gleaming white, but his eyes held something worse: affection.

"Oh, Master," he said in perfect — although slightly accented — Uminokoe. His voice was gentle, tender even, as he forcefully rolled her still form upon her back with his foot. "Did you really think I wouldn't recognize my own sealing work?"

That man was Uzumaki Tenjin.

And in that moment, Naruto realized with horrifying clarity: this wasn't an invasion.

It was a homecoming.

i/LfLKmo : Tenjin

i/LfLpu9 : Extra — Nagato: On the Nature of Tagging

AN: Feeling the Christmas spirit yet?

Same, same.

Next chapter: Bitter Blood