Transmission # 1-9-9-2 ; Designate: Umbra
North Side the Wall, Tokyo Urban; Hidden Village: "Leaf"
294! (*#U ( hrs *crackle* Dec-&& (*crackle*...
Naruto had a feeling things weren't all right.
It started as a twinge deep in his gut—an oily, churning unease, like the rhythmic lurch of nausea after drinking spoiled milk or biting into meat left too long in the sun. It climbed his spine in feverish waves, blooming into a cold sweat that prickled his skin beneath the ill-fitting uniform. A migraine flared just behind his eyes, pressure building with each pulse of noise and movement around them. His clone stationed at Basilone was trying to tell him something—too much chatter, too many shifting figures. Something was wrong. But the signal came through muddled, like static through a cracked radio. The confusion nearly caused him to slip, his chakra faltering just long enough to threaten the edges of the transformation jutsu.
A soldier pill from Tsubaki brought him back—sharp and earthy on the tongue, the hints of tart cherry and bitter valerian root burning down his throat. His unease and nausea didn't fully subside, but they were dulled. His mind, still fogged at the edges, steadied.
In front of him, Beko tugged irritably at the collar of his borrowed Sendai infantryman's uniform. "くそ," he muttered, digging a thick finger beneath the stiff fabric. "Damned thing's too tight."
"Stop playing at it—leave it alone!" Tsubaki snapped, adjusting her helmet to better shadow her features. "It's fine, Beko."
"It is NOT fine," he hissed. "Feels like a noose. I can barely breathe in this thing."
"They're starting to stare at us," Naruto murmured, his eyes flicking toward the entrance of the Library. Two guards stood posted, their gazes sharp beneath polished visors.
"Starting? It's because we look ridiculous," Beko shot back.
Mizuki, several paces ahead, turned sharply at the exchange. His boots scuffed the gravel as he rounded on them, voice low but hard-edged. "Quiet. All of you. And button your damn collar," he snapped at Beko. "Regulation dictates full dress. No excuses, no exceptions."
Beko scowled but complied, fingers fumbling at the stiff top button. Tsubaki looked away, hiding her smirk behind the tilt of her helmet. Naruto exhaled through his nose, keeping his eyes ahead.
They marched forward, the shadow of the Library looming closer, its domed structure like a silent sentinel under the midday sun. Whatever waited inside, Naruto could feel it—a coil tightening in his gut, pressing against his lungs. The kind of feeling that never lied to him when he knew things were going to get dicey. Kakashi-sensei once tried to tell him those types of feelings could get a ninja killed, when you second-guess, over worry, and then overthink.
Yet, even the Copy-Cat came to learn sometimes Naruto's gut feeling was a better thing to rely on than Konoha training.
停留!"
The barked command cracked through the night air like a whip.
From the checkpoint, a tightly coiled commissar rounded the corner, posture straight as a rifle stock and expression carved from stone. His sneer alone could man the post—sharp, practiced, and just short of insubordination. Behind him trailed three genin, uniforms crisp, boots polished to a mirror sheen, their eyes scanning with the hungry nervousness of pups on their first hunt.
"What business do you have being so late, Comrade Miki?" the commissar snapped, his voice carrying the sting of accusation more than inquiry. His eyes raked Mizuki from head to toe, then flicked with visible disdain to the rest of the company—three Sendai infantrymen with helmets too large and posture too off. Then his gaze landed on Naruto.
His expression faltered.
"K-Koshiro-dono?" he stammered, straightening reflexively. "I… I wasn't informed you'd be arriving tonight. I had assumed you—"
"—would be busy seeing off our comrades?" Naruto interrupted, mimicking the voice Mizuki had coached him on—deep, gravel-laced, like steel dragged across wet stone. He could feel the strain in his throat, the resistance of his own voice rebelling against the disguise. Still, he pressed forward. "The Library is far too important to leave in the dark another night. Time is not our ally. I intend to make another attempt—see if any progress can be made."
The commissar stiffened like a snapped flagpole. "Y-yes, sir. Of course. My apologies for the delay. We'll clear the gate."
Naruto gave a single, slight nod—the kind of gesture meant to carry weight, to demand compliance without theatrics. It felt unnatural. The words felt carved from someone else's mouth. Even behind the henge, he could feel the disconnect, like wearing a skin too thick and a face too tight.
Everything he was taught about Chikuma Koshiro had come secondhand—in fragments between Mizuki, Beko, and Kosuke. They painted a portrait of a man inherited from another man's will: the late Tenzan's shadow, a protégé without polish, a successor bred more than chosen. The boy-wonder of the old ROOT directorate, born of paper files and engineered genetics, never quite grown into the myth people needed him to be.
Naruto had seen him only in passing—dressed like a relic from a feudal scroll, swathed in black kosode and cut hakama, his hair always too long, too unwieldy; his movements always a beat too late. Ungainly. He fidgeted with with an almost weaponized awkwardness. Koshiro wasn't the kind of man who led by charisma or conviction. He was led. Like a dog. And here he was pushed into authority like a sword shoved into the hand of a child.
Shinobi were trained to be wordless tools. Silent shadows. But Chikuma Koshiro was expected to speak, to dominate, to command. To exude control that couldn't be questioned.
Apparently, it was hard for the real Koshiro.
It was even harder for Naruto.
But as the commissar waved them through with the panicked stiffness of a man just brushing the edge of disaster, Naruto reminded himself: this is what it means to become a weapon. To vanish behind the edge of a lie sharpened well enough to cut the truth to ribbons. But still, Naruto had a bad feeling...
As they passed through the checkpoint and entered the encampment proper, Naruto could feel the eyes—so many eyes—watching them. Not with suspicion, but with reverence. With fear. The unmistakable blend of awe and terror that followed a man like Chikuma Koshiro wherever he went.
The mask was working.
Flanked by Mizuki and the others, Naruto—Koshiro—walked at the center of gravity. Mizuki kept a disciplined pace at his side, a slight bounce in his step betraying some hidden pride or anticipation. Around them, the camp parted like reeds in a current. Troopers in tan uniforms snapped to salutes. Some averted their eyes. Others stared too long, as if confirming for themselves that yes, he had truly arrived.
Naruto returned their salutes with cold efficiency, chin held high, back straight, his gait perfectly measured.
But inside, he was unraveling.
The chill came first—sharp and needling, like cold fingers brushing the nape of his neck. It wasn't physical, not quite. It was more like a whisper threading itself into the cracks of his mind, eating away from the inside. His face was a perfect mask—stone and steel—but beneath it, something clawed and gnawed at him.
This isn't right, he thought.
It's too quiet. Too easy.
He kept walking.
The Library loomed ahead, its weathered façade like the prow of a ship cutting through shadow. Tan-clad soldiers at the massive doors stepped aside in silence, offering precise, textbook salutes. Naruto inclined his head in return, even as his heartbeat thundered like distant drums. The moment he stepped through the threshold, a small, nearly imperceptible sigh escaped him.
Not much longer now, he told himself.
Just hold it together a little longer.
The inner entrance to the Konoha Library felt like stepping into another world—yet one that still bore the fingerprints of the Hidden Leaf all over it.
Old wood, rich with the scent of lacquer and dust, groaned softly beneath their feet with every step. The floors were worn smooth in places, faded where generations of shinobi and scholars alike had walked before. Support beams, thick and dark like tree trunks, ran overhead and along the walls, creating the illusion of being nestled within a great, creaking ship—or an ancient tree, hollowed out and repurposed by time and purpose. Even so, modernity clung to it in subtle but unmistakable ways: chakra-powered sconces that lined the walls, faintly humming with light; reinforced panels etched with sealing formulas and defensive inscriptions; automated systems that scanned their presence as they entered, eyes unseen but most definitely watching.
And then, the sheer size of it hit Naruto like a punch to the chest.
Bookshelves. Scroll racks. Endless rows of them. Dozens of straight corridors stretching outward from the entrance in perfectly symmetrical alleyways, like the streets of the village itself, each flanked by towering walls of knowledge. They ran straight ahead, then split again and again, forming a labyrinth of aisles that gave Naruto a headache just looking at them. Thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—of scrolls, tomes, bound volumes, and forbidden texts.
It didn't feel like a library.
It felt like a maze.
No—a tomb.
The ceiling above soared higher than he expected, three, maybe four stories, encircled by railed balconies that spiraled upward like the interior of a grand theater. The far upper walls curved with the mountain's hollowed-out belly, revealing a massive domed glass ceiling that cracked open to the night sky like a pupil dilated by moonlight. The stars looked cold and far away, barely flickering through the mist clinging to the peaks above—but the moon, the moon spilled its light directly into the heart of the Library.
It glinted off ancient iron balustrades and caught on motes of dust that danced in the air like snow.
Naruto followed the line of that light down, and that was when he saw it.
Dead center in the main floor—where the old wood gave way to a circular ring of obsidian tile—was the pit.
A massive, open shaft that dropped into blackness. Guardrails encircled the perimeter, but Naruto instinctively stepped back from it all the same. The drop was dizzying. There was no bottom visible—only layer upon layer of deeper floors, descending like the rings of some forgotten well. Each level had its own path, its own bookshelves and torches and crawlspaces. Some were lit. Some were not. Some seemed to stretch on infinitely into shadow.
The torches flickered far below, tiny beacons on floors they hadn't reached yet.
And down there, somewhere, buried beneath decades of stone and silence…
…was the Scroll of Seals.
Naruto swallowed and felt the weight of the place settle in his chest like a stone.
This wasn't just a building. It was a monument. A trap. A promise. A prison for knowledge the world wasn't ready to face.
As they entered the lobby, the change hit instantly.
The floor beneath them thrummed—alive with chakra. It pulsed in time with something ancient and buried, a force woven into the bones of the building. The sealwork here was different. Sharp. Hungry. Naruto could feel it tugging at him, pulling at the edges of his disguise. The henge trembled underfoot, chakra unraveling like fraying thread at the hem of a cloak.
The others felt it too—he saw it in the way Tsubaki's gaze flicked to him, measured and precise. Mizuki didn't flinch. He walked on, boots clicking across the uneven floor like he owned the place.
Waiting at the inner threshold was the man Naruto had been warned about.
Yuki Minazuki.
Lean, coiled, with a smile that never reached the eyes. The kind of man who wrapped insecurity in a veil of sarcastic competence. Naruto had heard enough stories to know the type—one of those jōnin who ruled not by talent but by keeping others down. Jealous, territorial, quietly dangerous. Known for sending any student who shone too brightly back to the Academy under false charges, or worse—buried under paperwork until their edge dulled.
Naruto already disliked him.
"Mizuki," Yuki greeted, his tone falsely casual as he handed over a clipboard. "What's the deal tonight? Who am I passing the babysitting duties off to?"
"Quiet as a crypt tonight," Yuki replied, shifting to salute the man he believed to be Comrade-Director Koshiro. "Most of the patrol units were redirected to the Academy per your orders, sir. Library's only got church mice and ghosts roaming tonight."
"Really?" Mizuki said with a tilt of his head. "Practically a whole platoon outside."
Yuki shrugged. "Kids and a few edgy commissars. The real teeth are the guards in place manning the north and east towers."
"And up-top near the atrium?"
Yuki shrugs again. "The few poking around in here are almost done conducting patrols, but other than them nobody else poking around."
"Yeah..." Mizuki turns slightly, gesturing for Naruto and the disguised team to move forward. His voice drops just enough to carry an edge. "You sure about that?"
"Of course I'm sure," Yuki said quickly. "That's what was relayed from Lord Thir—"
The floor shifted beneath them again.
This time the tremor was deeper. Subtle, but unmistakable. The timbers creaked in protest. Dust filtered down from the beams above. It might've passed for the sigh of an old building settling into its bones—except Naruto knew. The barrier was rising. The chakra-infused ward of the Library had sensed the presence of the false.
His concentration faltered.
The illusion cracked—just slightly—his hair bleeding from black to blond in the edges of his vision. His skin began to itch and burn as the transformation started to slough off like peeling paint under a heat lamp.
He couldn't hold it much longer.
Yuki's brow furrowed. His mouth opened to speak—
—and then the click of a senbon launcher sounded from behind.
The needle struck the side of Yuki's neck with pinpoint precision. His eyes widened for half a second, then rolled back as he dropped like a sack of flour, unconscious before he hit the floor.
"Tsubaki—!" Naruto started.
"Get clear of the walls!" she snapped. "Now!"
Around them, the Library rumbled again—louder this time. The security array was waking. Chakra veins lit up along the seams of the walls, pulsing with the same deep, buried energy that had begun to dismantle Naruto's disguise. Runes etched into the floor began to glow, the air buzzing with the high-pitched whine of a suppression field coming to life.
Naruto stumbled back, his hair now fully golden, skin flushed with heat. Koshiro's face burned away like smoke.
No more masks.
Just Naruto Uzumaki now.
The Library had sensed the lie.
And it was done pretending to sleep.
A siren wailed from somewhere beyond the walls, its shrill cry echoing through the building just as a low tremor rippled underfoot. The floor quivered and dust shook loose from overhead beams. Then, with a shimmer of light and a muted thrum, the entire structure was enveloped in a dome of chakra—its surface glowing faintly with the oppressive hue of the Four Violet Flames Formation.
Naruto spun back toward the entrance, heart pounding, just in time to see the last glimpse of daylight swallowed by the barrier's closing shell. Through the semi-translucent violet glass, he could make out the chaos erupting outside. Commissars bellowed at trainees, waving them toward shelter, but most of the young genin stood frozen, eyes wide in disbelief. This jutsu—its scale, its potency—was far beyond anything they'd been trained for.
"They're not getting through that," Mizuki muttered, his voice grim as he gestured for the group to follow. He strode toward the central service elevator nestled between dusty pillars and unused storage crates. "But that barrier won't last forever. All it takes is one of the Library's anchor points to go down, and the whole thing collapses."
"No way they'll be that fast," Tazuna grunted, still catching his breath as he limped along behind them. Sweat beaded at his temples. "Those seals are built right into the foundation. They'd have to dig through solid stone to touch them."
Mizuki doesn't seem to share Tazuna's wishful thinking. His attention though is immediately cast upwards and his eyes narrow.
"Everybody down!" Mizuki shouted, his voice cracking like a whip.
From the shadows above, a sudden flash caught the firelight—the unmistakable glint of steel. An assault rifle, foreign and brutal in its design, angled downward.
Then came the death rattle.
Gunfire erupted in a storm, the concussive bursts echoing like thunder in the enclosed chamber. Muzzle flashes lit the rafters in rapid flickers, casting ghostly shadows across the walls as bullets rained down in a lethal arc.
Naruto froze. His mind blanked, instincts screaming but offering no escape. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
Until Kosuke moves.
With a grunt, the old man turned, and the massive iron wok strapped to his back swung over his shoulder. In one smooth motion, it became a wall of scorched metal—a crude but impenetrable shield. Naruto stumbled behind it, breath caught in his throat.
Tsubaki reacted just as fast, shoving Tazuna into cover with her whole weight, pressing them both into the shadow of the iron plate. Shouts rang out over the gunfire—orders, curses, the metallic clatter of reloading.
"Hold on!" Mizuki barked, slamming his hand down on the lever.
The elevator groans to life with a shudder, its slow descent into the depths is agonizing. Sparks fly as rounds ricochet off the metal shield, the echoes of gunfire mixing with the grinding gears and the rising stink of gunpowder.
"Dammit!" Beko snarled, fumbling into his pocket. His fingers came back with a crumpled sealing tag, ink barely dried. Scrawled across its surface was the kanji for Wood Wall—木の壁.
Without hesitation, Beko flashed through the hand signs: Dog, Horse, Snake, Hare. A soft pop cracked through the air, followed by an explosion of smoke. When it cleared, a solid wall of wooden planks burst into being, slamming down in front of the group with a heavy thud. The sharp ping of ricocheting bullets snapped against the fresh barrier, but they held.
Kosuke let out a sharp exhale of relief, shifting behind it for cover. "Was this all part of your plan, Mizuki, you bastard?!"
"Partially," Mizuki said flatly, eyes scanning the corners, his tone unreadable.
"Movement! Five o'clock!" Naruto shouted, arm outstretched as he pointed across the vast chamber. A new squad of Sendai infantry was charging down a side corridor, boots hammering stone. They weren't hesitating.
Mizuki didn't either. He spun on one heel and fired from a concealed wrist launcher—thwip! A net of razor wire shot forward, coiling through the air. Its ends slammed into the wooden frame of the opposing doorway and snapped taut, forming a twisted steel web. The advancing soldiers skidded to a halt, blocked, their momentum shattered.
"We're moving too slow!" Kosuke grunted, shifting the wok-shield again as rounds slammed into it with hollow clangs. "We'll never make it like this!"
"This is as fast as the lift goes!" Mizuki shouted back, muscles tight against the tension.
"We won't make it!" Beko yelled.
"We will! Not much longer!"
But Naruto wasn't so sure. His gut twisted. Above them, more shadows gathered on the railing. Muzzle flashes—brief, sharp bursts of light—punctuated the dark. The bullets followed close behind.
They didn't have time to think.
Only act.
Without a word, Naruto's hand shot out and grabbed the massive shuriken strapped to Mizuki's back.
"Kid! The hell are you doing?!" Mizuki snapped, whirling, but Naruto was already moving.
He shifted his stance, eyes scanning the pulley system that guided the elevator. If he got this wrong, they'd crash—and die. But if they stayed…
He twisted, lined up his shot, and hurled the spinning blade.
It sang through the air. Snick! One rope was severed, then another. It cut clockwise through each of the remaining lines with surgical precision.
"NO—!" Mizuki's shout was lost as the final rope snapped.
The elevator platform jerked violently. For a heartbeat, everything was still.
Then the world dropped out from under them.
They plummeted.
The wind howled around them. Naruto felt his stomach lurch into his throat, weightlessness taking hold like a vice around his chest. The roar of the elevator's descent swallowed all thought, all sound, as torchlight blurred into darkness.
Naruto gritted his teeth and shut his eyes tight.
He prayed—not to a god, but to the world itself.
Let me see it again. Just once more. Let me open my eyes and see it again before this ends.
Asuma had a bad feeling.
These last few weeks have been rife with bad feelings, but tonight is especially sick feeling.
All those faces staring at him - DIRECTLY at him. Looking up to him, looking down on him; begging for answers, for direction, or a way out. Asuma didn't know what to say - he couldn't. At this point in his career, anything and everything felt like it came across as some kind of automated message spat out like some answering machine. The heart that was still inside him beat differently now. Gone were those days of fanciful wishes and grandstanding speeches about glory and comradeship. When your friends and enemies were easily recognizable.
Now...?
Not so much.
Asuma looked out toward his gathered students, looked to each and every one of them as he spoke. He saw in them their parents, his friends, the future of this Village...
All to be recycled for the same, sorry state of affairs so many shinobi had given their lives for in the past.
Honor. Glory. Friendship. Strength...
But how easy those qualities can be corrupted nowadays.
Normally, Asuma would have received a proper briefing from Genma or another of his trusted staff. Shinobi tradition, after all, was built on centuries of meticulous routines—information passed like sacred scripture from shadow to shadow, honed through generations of service to shoguns, daimyo, and emperors.
But in this new age—of gasoline and bureaucracy, fluorescent lights and fusion cores—the elegance of precision was often lost to the chaos of modernity. The systems had grown too large, too loud, too clever for their own good. The schedule, once sacred, was now just another casualty of progress.
"You're needed, Hokage-sama."
The words came heavy, not perfunctory. Not a simple update or late-night debrief. Comrade-Director Koshiro, all tight jaw and bristling eyebrows, delivered the message with the gravity of a man used to commanding death in syllables.
The Hokage Guards didn't appreciate it.
ROOT operatives skulking past protocol was an insult in itself—but to intrude directly on the Hokage, and this late in the night? It curdled something in their stomachs. Raido's hand twitched toward his kunai. Genma's quiet gesture barely held him back. Izumo and Kotetsu shifted, stances low, ready to make the next five seconds a bloodbath. Asuma stepped between them. Calm, unbothered—yet alert, like a lion deciding not to maul; it wouldn't be good for him or Konoha if another dead Director was added to the week's report.
He still held his Hokage hat in one hand, half-ready to hang it up, the stiff ceremonial robes itching against his skin. He had just been preparing to shed the burden of the day. Now the hour soured.
"Sigh. Needed?" he repeated, voice dry with fatigue and smoke. "For what?" His eyes narrow. "The children? Something's happened?"
"They're safe, Lord Third," Koshiro replied evenly. "This isn't about them."
From the corridor came the shuffle of booted feet. A squad of Sendai infantry filed in behind the Director—rifles shouldered, masks expressionless, forming a cold, practiced perimeter around him. It was less an escort, more a quiet siege.
"I'd like for you to come with us. If you would," Koshiro said, tone formal but without softness.
Asuma took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaling slowly. The smoke curled around the hanging light like a question unasked.
"I'm not some grunt you can yank on a leash, Comrade-Director," he said, voice low, deliberate. "You forget yourself."
He stepped forward, just enough that the temperature in the room seemed to drop.
"Would please me more if you addressed me with the respect the rank demands," he continued, tone hardening. "Your predecessor understood that. Tenzen also understood the meaning of knocking… and the goddamn hour of night."
"The goddamn hour is exactly why I've come to you personally, Lord Hokage. For you see an ongoing...incident has just been relayed to me concerning the Library."
That causes Asuma to pause.
Koshiro doesn't so much as flinch. He stands unmoving, rigid as reinforced stone—his expression unreadable save for a nearly imperceptible grimace, buried beneath bureaucratic layers of control and concrete.
"Currently, the Four Violet Flames Barrier is active," he says, like a man reading out an execution order. "Obviously, we all know what that means."
"Obviously," Asuma echoes, voice flat.
"Someone's trying to break in."
The implication hangs there like fog over a battlefield. It's not just a statement—it's a charge. Koshiro's tone is too precise, too pointed to be anything else. The accusatory undercurrent isn't lost on Asuma, but it doesn't sting like it used to. He's grown numb to the quiet insinuations, the barely-concealed disdain.
He's tired. Tired of being blamed—for his father's legacy, for the state of the city, for every unswept corner and whispered conspiracy.
ROOT, for all their lip service to truth, had long since learned to weaponize it. They didn't seek facts. They leveraged narratives. Threats dressed as procedure. Pressure applied like a surgeon's scalpel.
Asuma's patience with their shadow games was worn razor-thin.
"My men and I intend to handle this promptly," Koshiro says, voice clipped and cold. "If you wish to return to your chambers and resume your rest, Lord Third, no one would begrudge you."
The mock respect grates. The blank mask Koshiro wears does little to hide the derision tucked behind his words—the same flavor of contempt he's carried ever since they dragged him out of the radioactive rubble at Hiroshima and handed him a new uniform with cleaner insignias.
Asuma didn't need to ask what "handle" meant. Koshiro only had one tool in his kit. Break. Burn. Bury.
"And out of consideration for your rank, Hokage-sama," Koshiro adds, tone like rusted iron, "is why I inform you. Why I humbly beseech your aid in resolving the matter… efficiently."
The office falls still again—quiet but for the subtle hum of the electric lamps and the collective heartbeat of its occupants. In another world, this might resemble a standoff at the O.K. Corral. But here in the North, here in the Democratic People's Republic of the Jinsei, it was just another Thursday night on the job.
No. Koshiro wasn't here out of respect. That wasn't his nature. He needed something—and Asuma knew exactly what it was.
The Barrier was one of Tobirama's masterpieces. A living defense matrix—bristling with seals, fire, chakra, and will. Designed not just to repel intruders, but to destroy them. To protect the Library—the last great bastion of unfiltered shinobi knowledge—against fire, flood, or foolish ambition.
And Koshiro, for all his discipline, was exactly the sort of man who would try to bash through a sealed vault with a sledgehammer.
Which was why he was here. Why he came to Asuma, tail between his legs cloaked in military formality. Because Asuma—the Sandaime, the reluctant inheritor of Konoha's soul—was the only one left who knew the keys. The sequence. The voice of the Flame.
He tells Koshiro as much as they walk beneath torchlight through the cold, quiet streets. Midnight breathes heavily over the rooftops, and the cobblestones click beneath their boots like a ticking clock. The flames burn violet ahead, painting the alleys in bruised hues, casting long shadows.
Koshiro may believe himself in charge. But ROOT did not know these streets. Not truly.
Asuma did.
He knew them like he knew the back of his hand, or the bend of an old lover's spine. He knew them like the weight of a small child's hand gripping his—warm, fragile, trusting.
He paid for that knowledge. Paid for it in blood, in silence, in years of compromise. No one gave him the Hokage's robes. He earned them. Crawled through fire for them. Buried pieces of himself in the dirt for them.
And now, as they approach the Library—its dome bathed in the eerie, unearthly pulse of the Four Violet Flames—Asuma feels it.
A tremor.
Not in the ground, but in the gut. The kind of bad feeling that stalks a man long before the blade reaches his throat.
He may be asked to give more.
More than sleep. More than peace. He may be asked to give again—more of himself, more of what's left—if he is to remain Hokage. If he is to protect the people he loves.
And the ones who, day by day, seem to be slipping just out of his reach.
Falling was never something Naruto feared.
The first time Kakashi had taught him to control his chakra and focus it into the soles of his feet, the results were… dubious, to put it kindly.
He'd damn near shattered his elbow on the descent—tumbling from nearly three hundred feet in the air, ricocheting through pine branches like a bottle rocket gone feral. The needles clawed at his arms, bark scraped his skin, but even then—Naruto wasn't scared.
Because weightlessness—that feeling of the world slipping out from under him—wasn't panic. It was freedom.
A rush.
A wave he could ride forever.
When he finally cratered into the forest floor, dazed and bleeding slightly from the ear, he looked up at Sakura and Sasuke with a wild grin on his face and told them what it felt like to climb that high—and fall that far.
They thought he was insane when he said it felt like flying.
Kakashi-sensei, ever unreadable, chalked it up to a mild concussion.
But from that day on, Naruto never feared high ledges or sheer drops. Hell, sometimes he'd jump from the upper tier of The Wall just to feel the wind bite at his face, to remind himself that he could still survive the fall. That he could still feel something real.
It was exhilarating.
So when the elevator platform screamed into free-fall and the emergency brakes failed to engage, while everyone else screamed like their souls were trying to climb out of their throats, Naruto laughed.
He laughed loud and full and alive. The wind howled around him, the platform shuddered beneath his feet, and adrenaline thrummed through his blood like lightning. Bullets still ricocheted above them, the mission was spiraling into chaos, and yet—despite it all—Naruto was having fun.
For just a moment.
Then came gravity.
Not the soft kind that eases you back down to earth.
The cruel kind. The one with consequences.
Just as the last support above them groaned and snapped, Mizuki reached into his flak vest with the same mechanical calm he wore like a second skin. He retrieved a capsule no bigger than a thumb, twisted its top, and hurled it to the metal floor.
There was a hiss. A pop.
And then a whump—like getting body-checked by a thundercloud.
Naruto braced for the impact—shattered bones, concussed skull, darkness.
But it never came.
Instead, he was suddenly frozen mid-fall, engulfed in a dense, rapidly-hardening foam that expanded outward like an artificial cocoon. It clamped down on his limbs, stopped his momentum in a single brutal jolt, and knocked the wind clean from his lungs. The world tipped sideways, everything muted except for the distant thuds and muffled groans of others caught in the same net.
He couldn't move. Could barely breathe.
The rush was gone now, replaced by silence, pressure—and the bitter reminder that no matter how high you soared, there was always a ground waiting to catch you.
Or worse—this warm, suffocating foam that clung to everything and reeked like melted plastic and stale breath.
"Ugh, goddamn, it's in my pants!" Beko groaned somewhere nearby, his voice tinny through the layers.
Others were slowly stirring.
Tsubaki winced, rubbing the fresh bruise blooming across her cheek from where she'd slammed into the railing. She leaned over Tazuna, who was drawing in slow, controlled breaths, trying to stay measured despite the fall. His blueprints lay strewn nearby in a crumpled heap, partially buried in foam.
Kosuke was brushing the stuff off his gear, cursing under his breath, more concerned with cleaning his wok than his weapons.
Mizuki was already moving, checking bearings, eyes scanning the perimeter. Always thinking, always five steps ahead—or pretending to be.
Naruto figured they had to be near the bottom, judging by how many floors blurred past them on the way down.
Mizuki grumbled something about Naruto taking his shuriken to cut the pulley cables, but didn't seem all that bothered anymore. If anything, he seemed pleased the top-side response was going to be delayed now. The Library would register the crash as a breach, no doubt—its systems would already be locking down further. "Which means," Mizuki muttered, "those bastards up-top are gonna have a hell of a time getting down here to reach us. I was half-tempted to try and ride the elevator back up, but, well… the odds of getting shot go up about a thousand percent."
He glanced sideways at Naruto.
"So, good call. I guess."
"Don't act like this is going to make it easier for us in any way," Tazuna said, his voice tight with worry.
He sat up, his face grave, the air around him stilling.
"Tobirama didn't design the lower levels to be simple puzzles. The deeper you go, the worse it gets—especially if you bypass the system manually. If I don't know exactly what floor we're on, I can't predict what we're going to run into."
"Mucho take it easy, big guy," Mizuki drawled, dusting off his shoulders. "No need to get your fundoshi in a twist after one little drop. Catch your breath. I'll check the halls."
He vanished into the nearest corridor.
"Nothing's good in here," Tazuna muttered to himself, eyes heavy with experience. His words weren't a warning—they were prophecy.
Naruto glanced down the shadow-choked lanes between towering shelves. The torches on the wall barely touched the gloom. Scrolls, tomes, books bound in leather and string, histories no one was supposed to remember—all of it was here.
And somewhere, buried in the maze: Fūin no Sho.
The Scroll of Seals.
"Ugh…" he grunted, trying to claw more of the damn foam out of his hair. It was sticky, clinging like a bad dream.
He had a bad feeling—one that his clone, deeper down the hall, echoed. But the connection between them was flickering, weaker than it should've been. Fuzzy. Distant.
Almost like something was interfering.
He tried to focus—reach—but the tether wouldn't tighten. The clone he'd sent forward was still active—but distant, like a muffled voice through water. That fog between him and his other hadn't cleared. Naruto could feel the clone still being active. It hadn't dispelled. But something was severing his sense of self from it. Like radio static between thoughts.
And still, despite himself, his mind wandered—drifting toward Sakura.
What was she doing now? How was she feeling, knowing he and the others were spiraling deeper into a mission no one was supposed to survive? Was she okay? Was she scared?
Was she angry?
The thought gnawed at him—but it was shoved aside as Mizuki's silhouette emerged from the dark, flickering torchlight licking at his face.
"I've got good news and bad news," Mizuki said, voice cool as ever. "What're we feeling first?"
"That there's even a bit of good news gives me a bit of heart," Kosuke replied, still flicking foam off his sleeves. "Let's hear that first."
"Good news," Mizuki began with the faintest of smiles, "is technically, maybe, if my memory serves, we're still in the public section of the Library. So, Tazuna—you don't have to worry about any nasties coming for our spleens. Yet."
Tazuna's brow furrowed. He stood slowly, shrugging off Tsubaki's concerned hands. "What floor are we on? I tried to count as we fell."
"Eleven," Mizuki said.
"Eleven…" Tazuna nodded slowly, unspooling one of his scrolls. "Alright… I need light."
Kosuke, of course, pulled a long match from up his sleeve and struck it on the wall. Flame bloomed, casting gold across the blueprints.
Naruto leaned in, trying to make sense of the white lines and squiggles—but it was hopeless. He was terrible st reading maps on the regular. Normally, this woild be Sakura's wheelhouse, not his.
And it makes his heart twist just a little. The maps. The mission. The danger. The silence growing louder. Everything was pressing in, and he couldn't shake the feeling the deeper they went, the more painful this was going to get.
Tazuna's hands, calloused and sure despite their age, moved deftly across the large map unfurled across his lap. His brow furrowed in thought as his finger traced the levels, the complex weave of hallways, glyphs, and notations that only he seemed capable of deciphering.
"Well," he said at last, "we might've landed ourselves in a fortunate bit of misfortune."
The others glanced at each other.
"Had we fallen one floor deeper, or worse—if the elevator brakes kicked in at the wrong time—we'd be in far more trouble than we are now. Best-case, we'd have been flung all the way back to the top and locked out entirely. Worst-case…" He tapped the paper, a small, unassuming sigil at the twelfth level. "The Library's core defense systems would've activated. Full lockdown. Wards, traps, and things far worse than security drones."
"Things?" Beko asked, pale.
Tazuna didn't answer directly. "Let's just say none of us would've had time to scream."
He leaned back slightly, letting out a quiet breath.
"This—this stop we made, chaotic as it was, bought us a window. With the outer barrier sealed behind us and the first ten floors above likely collapsed or frozen by the lockdown cascade, we might just have a shot."
He jabbed a finger at the next floor on the blueprint.
"We have one more level to pass through before the real nightmare begins. Floor Twelve—last of the public-access levels. Beyond that, it's sealed wings, vaults, and systems even I've only heard rumors about."
"And what's on Twelve?" Naruto asked, still staring at the intricate lattice of seals and design etched into the scroll. His eyes couldn't make sense of most of it, but it was clear—there was power there. Knowledge layered with intent.
Tazuna's lips press into a tight line. "A security checkpoint. The last of the public failsafes. Complex enough I'll need time. And quiet."
"How much time?" Mizuki asked.
Tazuna looks over at him, his expression unreadable in the torchlight.
"Depends," he said finally. "Could be ten minutes. Could be an hour. I haven't seen this model in years—and even then, I wasn't meant to crack it."
He let the implication hang in the air before continuing.
"But… with the main entrance sealed, might buy enough time for me to work."
"Might be?" Beko echoed nervously, wringing his hands.
Tazuna gave him a hard glance. "This entire plan has been a stack of might be's since we agreed to it."
Beko didn't respond, falling into uneasy silence.
Naruto glanced once more at the map, then down the yawning black corridor ahead, lit only in brief flickers by the dying torchlight that lined the walls. The shadows between the light stretched long and deep—like open mouths waiting to swallow them.
Tazuna pointed with a calloused finger at a section labeled "STAIR ACCESS: WEST". "With the elevator down, this is our only way forward," he muttered. "Gratefully, I don't remember any traps laid into the staircases themselves."
"Because stairs are hell enough without traps," Kosuke grumbled, stretching out his knees with a crack that sounded like kindling snapping underfoot. "I've fought bandits, pirates, and kunoichi in heat—but I'd take any of them over a flight of stairs at my age."
Tazuna nodded sympathetically. "You're not wrong."
"Alright then," Mizuki said, pushing off from the wall where he'd been leaning, finally rising to his full height. He nodded toward the shaft above, where the faint sounds of banging and metal-on-metal could now be heard in earnest. From somewhere far above, a few scattered gunshots cracked through the vertical silence—small arms fire, undisciplined, uncoordinated. The kind of noise that made Mizuki smile faintly in condescension.
"They'll keep trying," he said. "Lob a few potshots down, hope to get lucky. But that's all they're doing—hoping. Wasting ammo. They've already lost."
He reached into his vest and pulled out a slim, silver pistol—a Tokarev T-33, clean and well-kept, its blued steel catching a glint of torchlight as he checked the magazine and snapped it back into place. A sleek, deadly tool of precision. Reserved for tokubetsu jōnin and select officers.
"We have the means—" he racked the slide, the click-clack echoing slightly through the stairwell "—and we have the will. That Scroll is as good as ours."
Naruto shifted his stance, his eyes narrowing.
"Overconfidence is exactly what the Second Hokage banked on when designing these traps," Tazuna said flatly, not even looking up from the blueprint.
Mizuki chuckled, not insulted in the least. "Yeah, and yet he never banked on me. Or you. Or any of us." His grin widened, wolfish and unbothered. "That's his mistake."
"His mistake," Tazuna echoed, voice dry, "was assuming his protections wouldn't need to last longer than a few decades. And yet here they are, still humming like they were built yesterday."
Naruto listened to them, but his eyes weren't on the men. They were on the stairwell—pitch black beyond the first landing. The kind of black that eats torchlight. The kind of black that moves when you're not looking directly at it. His clone still hadn't relayed anything useful from ahead. The connection felt fuzzy, distant.
Wrong.
"Let's move," he said quietly.
The others gather their gear, check weapons, and shouldered their packs. As the group steps forward toward the stairs, their silhouettes merged with the flickering shadows, swallowed slowly by the dark all about them before they cross the threshold, knowing after that there was no going back.
And with every step forward they took, that bad feeling in Naruto's gut kept getting heavier. As if the Library itself was watching now. Not just aware—but aware of him. Like some ancient, slumbering thing that had just cracked one eye open.
Or, more unsettlingly, it was something else.
Inside of him, trying to get out, trting to break free from the dreamscape and into the real world.
Been a long but since Naruto has felt comfortablebeing awake. He'd thought the thoughts and fears and feelings would fade soon as he opened his eyes. But instead the advent of night has kept him on edge, more awake. As if rhe closer he got to the truth, the louder this sensation became.
And the clearer it's voice.
うちにおいで...
иди ко мне...
Come to me...