Silence and Sound

by werewitchy

Summary:

The night of the Kyuubi's attack, the Kyuubi "appeared out of nowhere." What happens when a large object suddenly becomes present? The air is shoved aside in a massive pressure wave. Massive pressure wave + infant eardrums = deaf baby. Deaf baby + miscommunication, panic, and exhaustion = no one actually knows who has the baby. Misplaced baby + growing hatred = toddler abandonment. Toddler abandonment + continuing hatred + deafness = confused child who had to make up the rules as they went.

The correlation between the actual rules and the invented rules is loose at best, but when the invented rules end up making more sense than the actual rules and the inventor is charismatic enough to get anyone to listen to him, what chaos ensues?

And once a terrible, immaterial, unfightable foe from Somewhere Else begins to claw out a foothold into their world, how can a strange child and their friends protect themselves and their precious people?

 

Listening to The Magnus Archives is not necessary to understand this work, but it's a really good horror podcast so I reccomend listening to it for that, if nothing else!

Chapter 1: A secret Naruto didn't know they had

Shikamaru was going in for his first day at the academy. His clan made him learn this stuff already, so why did he have to learn it again?

"Because I said so!" shouted his mother when he asked her. He wiggled a finger in his ear and went to ask his father.

"Because you need more than knowledge alone, and you need the qualifications," said Shikaku. "Social connections are vital both for mental health and for making life easier later, and either way having friends is a very nice feeling. As for the rest of it, if you don't go then you can't be a ninja and I'll make you tend the deer every day for the rest of your life." This was quite enough to convince the boy, who wanted nothing to do with the troublesome chore. Maybe if he could get away with skipping classes, he could go cloud-watching then make friends at lunch. Then he could pass the tests with ease as usual, and he'd be able to pass on that alone.

Confident in his plan, he grabbed a bento from his mother and went on to the academy. Once there, he bumped into a short boy with carrot-colored hair. Wait, no, it was sunshine-yellow, it just had enough dirt in it to look orange. The boy jumped like he'd been electrocuted instead of bumped, and ran to hide behind a tree. He peeked out, trembling, to see Shikamaru watch in bemusement.

"What are you doing?" asked Shikamaru. The boy was staring at him intently, and Shikamaru was about to ask if everything was alright when the boy spoke up.

"Please don't hit me, I didn't mean it!" the boy whispered. Shikamaru's eyebrows raised. well, guess that answers that. everything is absolutely NOT right, he thought.

"I'm not going to hit you, why would I do that?"

The boy shrugged from behind his tree. "Everybody does."

"Well I won't. I'm not a jerk like them," said Shikamaru. Apparently this was the right thing to say. The boy's eyes shot wide, and he started trembling again. It was a different kind of tremble, like a puppy that's just too excited to stick with only wagging his tail and has to wag the rest of himself too. He darted from behind the tree and grabbed Shikamaru's hands. Before Shikamaru had a chance to react, the boy was shouting.

"Hi I'm Naruto what's your name! If you aren't going to hit me does that mean you're my friend? Please be my friend!" Shikamaru stood there, thunderstruck. This boy had never met someone that was nice, had he? His six year old mind turned this over in his head. No one nice, absolutely filthy, clothes were tattered now that he could see them. He's homeless, isn't he, he thought, and before he could think about it any more he spoke.

"Sure. Wanna go to the academy with me?" With a crow of delight, Naruto accepted. A short walk later, there was an extra child sitting in the classroom. Attendance was called, and since Naruto's name wasn't called he never spoke up, and went largely unnoticed. The academy chuunin mistook the dirty hair for orange and couldn't spot whiskers underneath the thick layer of grime, and so Naruto was able to go unassaulted for more than two hours for the first time in his life.

---

 

Shikamaru could tell there was something wrong after an hour passed in class and Naruto hadn't untensed yet. The boy stared fixedly at the teacher, wariness writ plainly across every inch of his face. When class ended and the teacher stepped out, Naruto relaxed all at once, only to tense up again as the next one walked in. He never spoke up, never looked away, never really relaxed. What could cause this kind of behavior? Shikamaru wondered as he settled on the swing for lunch.

"What's that?" asked Naruto loudly.

"Bento from my mother."

"What's a bendo?" Shikamaru looked over, startled. How did a kid get raised in Konoha and not know what a bento was?

"Bento. It's a way of packing up lunch for kids like us," he said. Noticing Naruto didn't have anything for himself, he continued. "Mother always gives me boiled eggs, but I hate them. You want some?" Timidly, Naruto accepted. Seeing that he wasn't going to be punished, he made short work of the rest. Must not have had breakfast either, thought Shikamaru. "So tell me, why are you so tense around the teachers?"

Naruto gulped down the rest of his egg before replying. "Grown-ups are always mean to me. I've never even met one that didn't hurt me before today other than Jiji. The ones with animal masks are usually alright but they never talk to me and they hit me if i see one and look away. Sometimes they do even when I do look at them."

Shikamaru didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything. They spent the rest of lunch chatting, or rather Naruto chattered away like he had never had someone who would listen to him, and Shikamaru listened and gathered information. Eventually the bell rang, and they went back inside.

---

 

One evening about a week later, Shikamaru parted ways with Naruto at the park and went home to think. Something was really, really screwy here, and the puzzle demanded his attention. On the way to his room, he stopped in the clan library to check over some psychology books Ino's dad left the last time he and Shikamaru's dad visited. One of them was a slim text on war orphans, street children, and other types of homeless people that often became shinobi out of necessity. In his room, Shikamaru pulled out a pen and some paper, and made a list.

1. Naruto had ragged, ages-old clothes and only one set at that.
2. Naruto was free to randomly spend the week at the academy without someone bursting in looking for him.
3. Naruto was terrified of anyone older than him, or that touched him without him seeing them try to.
4. Naruto latched onto the first person he knew wouldn't hurt him, and had already spent every minute he could either near or outright touching Shikamaru.
5. Naruto could speak mostly normally, but mispronounced a lot of words when repeating things.
6. Naruto was very easily distracted, at least when an adult wasn't around.

Part of the puzzle was easy- Naruto was an orphan and a street kid, and had been for a very, very long time. So long it had affected his development severely. Maybe even since just after he learned to walk and talk. The rest was harder, and he worried at it like a dog with a bone for days, until he saw something interesting in the park one morning.

Shikamaru was walking to the park. It was a sunshiney Monday morning, terrible for cloud watching, and it was time to pick up Naruto for the Academy. Just as he was about to call out for Naruto, he heard a voice. Glancing around, he spotted Naruto staring at an ANBU.

"Uzumaki Naruto, the Hokage requires your presence."

Naruto stared.

"Uzumaki, did you hear me? The Hokage requires your presence. You are to go to the Hokage Tower immediately."

Silence. Shikamaru watched with confusion. Wasn't Naruto going to answer?

"Uzumaki, respond!" The ANBU's voice rose in irritation. Finally Naruto answered.

"What?" asked Naruto, as though the ANBU had only just now spoken. The ANBU visibly restrained himself, then just as visibly failed to do so. With a resounding thud, Naruto's head bounced off the tree behind him and he fell face-first in the dirt and grass.

"Go to the Hokage, you idiot!" shouted the ANBU, before stalking off, grumbling that "The menace does it to rile us up on purpose, I swear."

Naruto slowly twitched, trying to pull himself up. Shikamaru ran forward, throwing curses his father used when he thought Shikamaru couldn't hear them. He reached out to help Naruto up, only for Naruto to jerk away in panic. Once Naruto realized it was only Shikamaru, he allowed the contact. Shikamaru spent the rest of the day in a daze. All the puzzle pieces finally clicked together, and the answer was obvious:

Naruto Uzumaki was deaf.

Chapter 2: The Only One Inner Thinks Is Cool

Haruno Sakura had a secret. Well, if you counted Inner, two. The secret was one she'd never, but never, share with anyone. It took her time to realize she even had the secret, took weeks of being around the filthy boy who sat near her in class. Sakura saw him once, a few weeks before the academy started. She'd been walking to Ino's house, when a comotion in the alley caught her attention. When she looked, she saw the boy, more bone than meat, had caught a bird. With the beatific smile of someone getting their favorite food after a long period of starvation, he bit into the thrashing animal. Rather than be grossed out, she watched in awe as the most hardcore thing she'd ever seen happened. The boy ate the whole bird, cracked the bones for their slivers of marrow, then crunched the shards down too. It was Inner who pointed out his teeth, and how his lips stretched too far back on his cheeks. How the blood showed that the whisker marks had actual tiny whiskers in them.
Her secret was that the absolute coolest kid in class was the malnourished boy who sat two rows back.

Sakura knew that it was popular to like Sasuke, to hate other boys. She just couldnt do it anymore. Sure Sasuke was cute, but Sakura was darn sure he'd never bitten into a live bird he'd just caught bare-handed. That sort of thing adjusted where a girl set the bar, y'know? There were other things about Naruto. He never relaxed, always bouncing with energy or rigid with a wariness Sakura couldn't place. Lately he'd been hanging around Shikamaru, and the tension in Naruto's tiny frame would ease just a bit every time they were close. Sakura also noticed that Naruto's parents never came to pick him up after academy ended. Halfway through the first year at the academy, this led her to make the worst mistake of her life thus far.

"Mom, where are Naruto's parents?" The innocent question garnered a much stronger reaction than she expected. Her parents faces froze, then slowly shifted into the ugliest expression Sakura had ever seen them make.

"Where did you hear that name?" asked Daddy. Sakura blinked.

"He's in my class at the academy," she answered. Daddy's expression hardened, but Mom's fell into worry. Mom grabbed Daddy's arm and leaned over, whispering frantically into his ear. Sakura missed most of it, but caught enough to resolve never to mention Naruto around them again. The next day, Naruto's name was called in class for the first time. The hatred in the chuunin instructors expression and voice terrified Sakura. The resigned fear in Naruto's dismal reply was far worse. Within five minutes the instructor had sent Naruto out of the room for "breathing".

"Sir, I need to use the bathroom!" Gaining permission, Sakura bolted out the door.
Naruto was across the hall from the classroom, head hung low. Trying not to startle him, Sakura walked up slowly. He flinched suddenly, making Sakura jump in turn. Gathering herself back together, Sakura opened her mouth to speak.

"Naruto, I think this was my fault," she started. "I asked my parents who yours were, and they got really mad." Why was he watching her mouth? "Why do the grown-ups not like you?"

"I don't know, but nobody other than Jiji and Shikamaru-chan like me anyways," said Naruto.

"-Chan?!" yelped Sakura. "Shouldn't it be "-kun?" Naruto looked baffled.

"No, I'm pretty sure its -chan, dattebayo!"

Sakura blinked. Had she somehow missed that Shikamaru was a girl? No, couldn't be. Maybe... "Naruto, are you making fun of Shikamaru? I know he's not good at taijutsu and he's not super strong, but thats no reason to call him a girl."

Naruto scoffed. "Are you kidding me? all the strongest ninja are girls! And i'm not being mean either. Shikamaru-chan has long hair, so she's a girl. Easy as instant ramen!"

Oh kami, thought Sakura. "Thats not how you tell boys from girls!"

"Then how?" asked Naruto.

"Girls have bigger chests of course! And they've got different stuff for their privates."

"No, thats stupid!" Naruto shouted. "You're a girl and you've got the same size chest as me, and the stuff about privates is stupid too! What does that even have to do with anything other than private stuff?"

Sakura took a deep breath. "Its how you tell who's a boy and who's a girl." This was so embarassing, but Sakura just knew that if she didn't sort this out now, in the empty hallway, it'd be so much worse.

Naruto shook his head. "Being a boy or being a girl isn't a private thing, everybody knows! So since its not a private thing, it can't be based on private parts since if it was they wouldn't be private either!"

Sakura blinked. "So, is Sasuke a boy, then?" she asked.

"Yep!"

"And Ino's a girl like me."

"Of course."

Time for the trump card, thought Sakura. "So Hinata is a boy."

"That's right, dattebayo!" said Naruto with a grin.

Sakura grinned back. "But Hinata told me she's a girl." So there, shannaro! shouted Inner. The smile slid off of Naruto's face. Sakura was shocked when instead of surprise on his face, it was a quiet seriousness. He thought for a moment, and Sakura waited for his reaction. Finally it came.

"Sakura-chan, who cuts Hinata-chan's hair?"

"Um, her family i guess. Why?" Naruto's face hardened, but he did not answer. Instead, he turned sharply and left, anger in every step.

Sakura and Inner shared a moment of angry confusion, then decided Naruto was obviously too weird to be cool in any way. Even if he did eat birds raw and squirming. Aw, who am I kidding, he could think gender is based on how people eat dango and he'd still be the coolest person I know. Suddenly Inner spoke up. Y'know, kid's got a point about the whole privates thing. We've not seen anyone's other than ours, and Mom and Dad don't like Naruto and he's cooler than Sasuke like woah, so maybe they're wrong about this too...

Notes:

my brain ran dry on naruto for a bit, but you peeps are so rad! every time i'd start to think "nah im not feelin it" someone would kudo, or comment, so i couldn't leave you guys hanging forever!

sadly, writing for me is one of many hobbies, and not one of my primary ones, so this is about how often i'll update

Chapter 3: Call The Fuckin' Priest, Because I Just Died And Went To Cuteness Heaven

Summary:

Merry crisis!

Hinata is a sweet, kindhearted, sincere little girl. incidentally, overuse of profanity has been linked with increased honesty. Hinata's just not rude/brave enough to knowingly say it out loud yet.

It happens again. Hyuuga Hinata was on her way home from the Academy when a group of boys start picking on her. Blind-eyes. Freak. Shorty. They start pushing her around, and its just like when Hiashi-sama takes her to "train". She feels just as useless, just as helpless, just as...

hated.

Then something new happens. A shrill, hair-raising yowl tears through the mockery, and a bundle of rags and hair and teeth drops out of a tree on the ringleader's head. The child's mouth gapes wider than it should be able to, and with an audible crunch bites down on his arm, hard. The bullies scream and run, other than the one that still has a whole-ass boy hanging off his arm. That one just collapses after a few seconds, hiccuping and crying in fear and pain. Every time he tries to get away, the feral boy growls and jerks his head.

Then there's ANBU. Hinata is frozen in shock and not a little bit of terror, but ANBU mean safety, and so she relaxes a little.

"Uzumaki, report."

The boy just watches him.

"Uzumaki! Report, NOW!"

He lets go of the bully, and starts talking.

"He was bein' a bully, dattebayo! He had a whole gang and were pushing her around!" He turns his head and squirts out a massive gob of blood, before continuing. "Him and two of the others were the ones that told the Kumo bastard she was easy pickins, 'ttebayo. Someone's gotta get'm for it, kami knows their parents won't, bein council assholes dattebayo."

Hinata just about lost her damn mind right then and there. This little prick was the one that told the kidnapper to go after her?! Her father STILL hated her for that! He- that- shit-!

With a howl of fury, Hinata used her first ever flawless, textbook jyuuken.

--------------------------------------------------

It's been about a week since Uzumaki saved her. Hinata has seen him every now and then, usually doing something weird, and always either alone or with Shikamaru. She'd asked Sakura if she knew anything about the boy, and was unsurprised but still enthralled by the story of Naruto (which was apparently his name) eating a fucking bird.

"Ne, Hinata? Naruto said something to me that made me think," says Sakura.

"Hmm?"

"How do you tell boys from girls?"

What the actual fuck.

"Hinata!" Oops, she said that out loud, didn't she. Shit.

"A-a-ano, boys and girls have, d-d-d-d-differe-ent parts?" answers Hinata.

"Okay, but," says Sakura, "those are privates, right? So how do you tell who's which without them being not private?"

"Wha- uhhhhh," oh fuck, "mmmmmmmm."

"Naruto thinks it's hair length, like, boys have short hair and girls have long," Sakura elaborates.

"What about Shikamaru? And Koko-sensei?" asks Hinata.

"Naruto calls Shikamaru -chan, and i guess being a teacher is more important than gender? Naruto doesn't call Koko-sensei anything but -sensei, anyways. And," Sakura blushed, "I haven't seen either of them naked so I can't technically say Naruto is wrong."

Huh. Wait just a fuckin' second, "What about me?"

Sakura gets the most confused look on her face now. "That's the thing, he started out using -kun," I'm going to fucking murder the brat, "but when i told him you were -chan, he got really angry and asked who cut your hair."

"I wonder why-" Hinata is interrupted by a loud bang, an explosion? echoing through the classroom. Everyone rushes to the window, where she can see smoke rising over the tree line.

"Ano," says Sakura, "isn't that from..."

The Hyuuga compound.

Hinata is gone before Sakura can finish her sentence.

-------------------------------------------------

The Hyuuga compound is lined by walls nearly as impressive as the curtain wall surrounding Konoha, decorated with intricate paintings that, if looked at with a Byakugan eye, can be seen to be seals and traps so tightly spaced that they look like solid lines of paint. Their protections were so great that, even with the seal key to the compound, Hinata's Kumo abductor had chosen to kidnap her en route to the playground rather than risk the compound's defenses. The wall had never been breached by anyone.

Hinata watches as Uzumaki FUCKING Naruto runs rampant through the compound, completely unphased by the fact that his presence inside the compound should be an impossibility. He doesn't hurt anyone, but regardless of the Byakugan's all-seeing eye, not a single person can lay a finger on him. The weirdest thing is, he's trying to leave. What in the god damn hell is going on?

Oh.

Hah.

"Hahahaheheheeeee!" Hinata bursts into laughter, and she can't fucking breathe, because Hyuuga Hiashi is tearing after Naruto, and he's bald and dyed an eye-searing shade of yellow, and Hinata can see from here that the paint has so much glitter in it that Hiashi can't even move without blinding a dozen Hyuuga. She ends up rolling around on the forest floor laughing her guts out, as undignified as can be.

"You have a pretty laugh, Hinata-chan."

"EEP!" Somehow Naurto sneaked up on her. She blushes so hard she can feel the heat rise off her face.

Naruto pokes one crimson cheek. "I di'n't know people could turn colors 'cept when they were mad."

Oh god that's adorable. Call the fucking priest, because I just died and went to Cuteness Heaven.

Naruto is still looking at her, and it takes Hinata a moment to place that look. He's looking at her like a confused fox kit, to the point where she can practically see the twitchy ears. Wait-

ohmyfuckinggod, his ears ARE twitching! How the hell is he doing that. What the fuck. Is this kid actually part fox? Because the ears, the teeth, the claws, his mannerisms, hell, his eyes are even slit like a foxes!

"A-a-a-ano, are you a fox-person or something?"

Why did he watch her lips so hard? 

Oh shit is he going to kiss me?

"Dunno, I ain't got any family so maybe they were?" he answers with a shrug. "Anyway, I gotta go, Hyuuga-teme is gonna catch up soon if I don't. Bye, Hinata-chan!"

The feral boy skitters up a tree and is gone, jumping tree to tree, though he moves less like a ninja and more like an oversized squirrel. A few moments pass, and Hiashi crashes through the underbrush. The new paint job is somehow even worse up close, and Hinata can't open her eyes past the barest squint.

"Where is the Uzumaki, daughter?"

I'm not telling you shit. "I have not seen him, Tou-sama," says Hinata. "Why are you covered in paint?"

Hiashi's face hardens, but something in his voice tells Hinata he's also blushing from embarrassment under the paint. "Uzumaki has concocted a chakra-dampening paint. He issued an ultimatum, refused by the clan counsel, before dousing most of the main branch."

So all those uppity bitches are like this too? "What was the ultimatum?"

"Essentially 'stop being bastards to your own families or get fucked,' if I remember his wording correctly. Apparently his original objection was your haircut, oddly enough, but it seems he saw the Caged Bird Seal on his way in  and added that to his list of grievances," says Hiashi. Then he-

Since when does Hiashi know how to smile? 

"The counsel of course denied him, upon which he triggered the trap he'd somehow managed to construct in the ceiling of the counsel chamber, though when he had the chance we may never know."

"Tou-sama? Why are you smiling at that?"

The smile drops from his face. It is replaced by... mourning? Loss? Something sad, anyways. "Memories, daughter." Hiashi is staring into the middle distance, into his past. "Hinata, if you can, befriend that boy. If he is anything like his mother, and he most certainly is, he will be the best friend you could possibly hope for."

"You knew his mother?"

"...Yes."

A long pause.

"Was she or his father a fox? Because Naruto looks kinda like a fox boy."

Hiashi stiffens. "Come with me. Be completely silent."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"Enter."

"Thank you. Wait in the lobby, daughter, and speak to no one."

"What is your business here, Hyuuga-san?"

"Hokage-sama, Hyuuga Hinata is on the cusp of figuring out an S-rank secret."

Chapter 4: Twist Twist Twist Pull

Summary:

in which every bit of knowledge is useful, but some of it isn't useful yet...

[From the notes of Uzumaki Naruto, transcribed and edited for legibility]

[Begin text of volume 1]

my name is naruto. jiji told me so, and he is always right.

he gave me this diary to practice writing in, but i don't know how to write good. he said it would keep me too busy to prank the hyuuga again. he is wrong, but i won't tell him that.

[Pages 2-99 are devoted to hiragana and katakana practice]

i need more diaries.

[End text of volume 1]

[Begin text of volume 2]

i found this one in the trash can on 4th avenue where the baker puts paper stuff. jiji says its for recycling but if he's gonna recycle it why did he throw it away?

[pages 2-37 are devoted to various practice sentences and repetitions of street signs]

bullfrog mask taught me how to make string today. twist one twist both, twist one twist both. i made two feet of string out of just grass, and its strong enough to hold my pants up!

he says if i'm good, he'll take me to the cotton field on one of the training grounds and teach me to make thread i can use to fix my clothes. i can't wait!

[Remainder of volume is destroyed by a large blood stain]

[End text of volume 2]

[From the desk of the Sandaime Hokage]

Incident report SSV-12982

September 29, 56 AF

ANBU Operative Crane has been killed in the line of duty by ANBU Operative Bullfrog. Operative Crane approached Trainee Uzumaki Naruto with an offer for special training. Trainee Uzumaki refused, citing Operative Bullfrog as having already offered that day. Upon hearing this, Operative Crane became agitated. The Operative made a further attempt to convince Trainee Uzumaki to accompany him, and upon being rebuffed applied a chloroform rag to the Trainee's face and abducted him. Operative Bullfrog pursued, intercepting Operative Crane at Warehouse 34C. A fight broke out, during which Trainee Uzumaki was struck by stray kunai, waking him. Seeking to end the fight before Trainee Uzumaki could be further injured, Operative Bullfrog opened his Inner Gates to level 4 and terminated Operative Crane with extreme prejudice.

Casualties: 1 dead.
Injuries: 1 moderate, 1 minor.
Property Damage: 14,395.61 ryo

Notes: Operative Bullfrog strongly overreacted to the presented threat. Psych evaluation is recommended before returning to duty. If proper distance from subjects of his mission cannot be maintained, it is recommended that he be reassigned to a division where such attachment is a boon rather than a hindrance, such as the Jounin Sensei program.

[From the notes of Uzumaki Naruto, transcribed and edited for legibility]

[Begin text of volume 3]

bullfrog mask got me a new diary because my old one got messed up when crane mask hurt me. he also took me to the cotton field like he promised! cotton is a plant that grows balls of fluff, and you can take a big bunch of fluff and twist twist twist pull, twist twist twist pull! and you have a thread!

it's super easy and now i can fix the holes in my clothes if i can get a needle. jiji has senbon and those are needles, so maybe i can ask him for one.

[Pages 2-12 are devoted to practicing the kanji for various essential shinobi equipment]

bullfrog mask says he can't watch over me any more, but if i become a ninja he can teach me. he showed me what he looks like with the mask off so i can recognize him. i told him i could smell the difference and he didn't have to show me, but he said it's important to him.

i think he should have had the caterpillar mask.

he said he wanted to get the turtle mask, but dog mask gave him the bullfrog one instead. dog mask showed up and said that bullfrog mask got the bullfrog because of how loud he was. i guess that makes sense because every one else is so quiet i can't hear them, and bullfrog mask is just right. :)

i am going to miss him, but jiji says bullfrog mask liked me too much to do a good job protecting me. i asked why that was a problem and he said bullfrog hurt himself by trying too hard when he could have tried less and got it done without getting hurt, and if he did it with someone stronger than crane mask he might die even if the bad guy only wanted to hurt me and not kill me.

i think mummy-san swapped jiji's pipe stuff, because thats what he would have said.

[Pages 14-89 are devoted to further kanji practice]

[Remaining pages have been carefully torn out. One of the removed pages has been folded into a paper crane and taped to the inside of the back cover. Unfolding reveals it to contain notes passed between Uzumaki Naruto, Hyuuga Hinata, Haruno Sakura, and Nara Shikamaru regarding an especially dull lesson which all four students agree was largely useless and served no purpose besides punishing any students who paid attention within the last week]

Notes:

usually shika-chan, saku-chan, and hina-chan make naruto-(kun? chan? we just don't know) practice writing, but those last few lessons were 1) boring for everyone with an IQ better than "pretty bad" and 2) were blatant propaganda according to shika, so they just threw origami at each other across the classroom for a few hours.

also gai was there and gave naruto a skill that will prove to be very, very useful.

Chapter 5: Root Like A Weed

Summary:

in which Ino discovers hell, and Kurama has a purpose.

sorry for taking so long, lost the groove temporarily. take an extra-long chapter as an apology!

chouji, shino, kiba, sasuke... i wonder who comes next?

edit: fixed a minor timeline issue bc i hadn't had the next chapter planned when i wrote this one

Kurama knows something was wrong. When the cursed Yondaime sealed him, it was into a prison of expert crafting, and though Kurama raged, he also admired. Then around two years later, the prison had become... warped. Not broken, not failing, just... weird. The rest of the mindscape is fine, but on the inside the bars are twisted in non-euclidean fractal shapes, the water pulses with pressure waves from recesses so deep that even he can not find them, and the bricks skitter into new configurations when he isn't looking. Another odd thing was that the warped bars allowed Kurama to feed chakra through. Tiny amounts, really, but his new vessel was in dreadful shape, and if the kit died he'd take Kurama with him. So Kurama patched what he could and replaced what he couldn't with better.

But oddest of all is a small, thin chain that runs from one of the prison bars. Day by day, hour by hour, it grows links, no bigger than a pea. It runs to the sewer floor, across to the far corner where it grows in a heavy knotted coil. Until very recently, its terminus was just a final ring, but now it ends in something that makes Kurama even more uncomfortable than the state of his prison.

An empty collar shackle, sized perfectly for a young, malnourished human.

It is not common knowledge, but Kurama is an expert at sealing. Being the son of the sage of six paths does have benefits, mainly being that so long as he puts in the effort, results will be achieved. no diminishing returns, no level caps, no glass ceilings. So in the time before he got so jaded, he tried to learn everything about everything, and sealing was one of the first topics he'd tried his paw at. Being held in a jinchuriki meant he was intimately familiar with that breed of sealing.

So Kurama sees that too-small collar, and his vision goes red.

Sorry kit, but this is going to hurt a lot.

------

History class is about halfway through when the weirdo a few seats over from Yamanaka Ino suddenly begins glowing red. He lets out this thin, whistly screech and collapses to the floor. The sensei just screams and runs away, inspiring all the civvie kids but Sakura to follow.

Idiots. Shinobi don't run unless they know what they're running from, that's the best way to get a kunai in the back. Ino Is no idiot, so when she sees that Shikamaru, Hinata, and Sakura are scared for the kid rather than of him, she decides that whatever is going on, it isn't his fault.

"What's going on?" she asks.

"No clue," answers Sakura, "He just... did this."

"Ah- I m-might have an ide-a," stutters Hinata, "b-but I c-can't-t say it."

On the one hand, what.

On the other hand, ninja village.

"Fine," sighs Ino. "Is it safe for me to pop in and ask?"

"Sure," answers Sakura with a shrug.

"UUHHH..." Hinata has an expression of horrified indecision. But Ino is already making handseals, and the last thing she hears of the physical world is Hinata yelping out a loud "SHIT!"

------------------

Ino opens her eyes to one of the sewer catacombs she remembers her dad telling her to hide in if something like the Hyuuga kidnapping incident happened again. Back then, the place was groddy as hell but... peaceful. Safe.

Here, the atmosphere is that of a ruin where the monster that did the ruining still stalks the halls. Bricks aren't crumbled from age, they're shattered from massive blows and crushed under an oppressive weight. There are pipes running along the walls and ceiling, colored red and blue. the blue ones shake and boom from water hammer and high pressure, and Ino can't help but think that Naruto probably had to work his ass off day and night to have what pitiful chakra control he does. The red pipes, though. Those ones bleed like cut arteries, dumping a glowing red sludge that visibly corrodes the bricks and boiling the water.  Ino looks closer, and sees that the worst dumps always land on the most destroyed bricks, leaving either empty spots in the wall for new bricks, or melting them just enough for the pieces to bond again before resolidifying. Something horrifyingly malignant, repurposing itself to heal.

Ino looks down, and almost drowns as the water on the floor surges to meet her. Hundreds, thousands of faces, no, people, all looking at her with wrathfeardisgustrageloathinghatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate

With a wheezing gasp, she breaks the surface and falls to her hands and knees in inch-deep water, breathing heavily as she looks blankly down at her own face, twisted into the expression she saw on all those other people, an expression she'd made at Naruto not that long ago when he'd caused a ruckus in class. No. When he was kicked out of class for being present and seated quietly during a ruckus that Kiba had caused.

Ino closes her eyes.

"don't look down, got it," she whispers. She stands up, and when she opens her eyes again, they are fixed dead ahead. She has to find Naruto before she accidentally looks down again. Like a tightrope walker with a fear of heights. Oh kami how does Naruto live like this.

Then Ino notices it. There's a breeze, low and slow, steady but alternating, coming from deeper in the sewer. She follows it for what feels like forever, deeper and deeper into the mind of her classmate. At least the path is straight. So long as she doesn't look down, she won't get lost. Finally, she notices a literal light at the end of the tunnel. A deep, rusty red orange, like a bank of embers the size of a city. The sewer opens up into a massive room, with twisted, warped bars going floor to ceiling, and chained to the bars is Uzumaki Naruto.

He looks over and, seeing Ino, lets out a soft "Hi." He's lying on the floor, barely conscious, like he's been beaten within an inch of his life. There's a collar around his neck, and the chain attaches to it before knotting around his wrists and ankles. As Ino watches, one of the knots tightens, causing Naruto's hand to spasm.

She runs over and tries to untie him, but the collar tightens and Naruto's eyes roll up in his head, and he goes limp and unconscious. Ino is crying now, but she can't stop to do anything about it because if she does, this boy she never gave a chance might never get a chance ever again.

Then a dollop of red sludge lands on the knot in her hands, and it.

burns.

Ino screams, but the acid chews the chain as much as it does her hands, and after a bare second she is able to rip the knotted chain apart.

"Good,"  says a voice as deep as the ocean. "Again, girl."

Another dollop lands on a knot near Naruto's left hand. Ino waits a second, grabs the chain through the sludge with a scream, and rips.

"Again."  The right hand.

"Again."  Left ankle.

"Again."  Right ankle.

"Again."  Waist.

"Again."  Knees.

"Again."  Chest.

There is a long pause. Ino whimpers, looking at the ruins of her hands. They look like they've been boiled, dunked in lye, and scrubbed with a sandblaster. The skin is just gone, the fat is rendered, the muscle is tattered, and the bones are polished bright.

"Brave girl," says the voice as vast as the Suna Desert. "There is but one more, but I do not have the angle to aim it. Catch my chakra, and place it directly on the collar around his neck."

Ino holds out one trembling slab of meat, and with a wet smack the red sludge lands on her hand. She sobs as she does what the voice asked. The moment the collar breaks, Naruto vanishes. Ino crumples like a discarded umbrella, and weeps from the pain of her hands, so dissolved she can see between the bones of her palms.

"Brave girl, come closer to the bars."

It takes her several minutes, but Ino drags herself over. Whatever the thing is, it helped her save Naruto. It can't be all bad. Her field of view is suddenly entirely taken up by a black claw, larger than her and Naruto combined. With a deceptively gentle motion, the razor tip taps her palm. There's a sort of... sucking sensation, and suddenly the burning sensation of her hands melting stops.

"For acting as my hands when I have none, I give you a gift. Use it well, little genesis."

Ino looks up.

and up.



and up.

 

"Wh-who are y-you?" she asks the eye as large as her house.

"I am the wildfire that cracks the seed, and the beetle that kills its tree. I am the plague that preys on the unclean, and the fever that burns out the unthinking poisoners work. I am the inferno that kills the drunken smoker. I am the tree that falls on the careless woodsman, and the fox that eats the lazy farmers chickens. I am the word to the wise, and the noose to the fool.

I am the Kyuubi no Kitsune, and whoever did this to my kit is a fool indeed."

And Yamanaka Ino wakes up.

------------------------

She's in the hospital. Dad is asleep in the chair next to her, and she can hear Mom chatting quietly with a nurse.

"-recovering well, but-" That's Mom. Worrying, it sounds like.

"Nonsense. That's quite average for children in her situation, she'll be up and raring to go as soon as the latest dose wears off." The nurse. Older, commanding.

"Thirty seven points above what her last physical says is her maximum chakra flow rate is normal? While unconscious?" asks her mom, talking over the nurse.

The nurse ignores the interruption entirely, not even slowing down. "I know she's your kid, but you need to stop worrying. Kami, how did I get dragged into this. Oh yeah, your husband payed off my gambling debts and locked up half my memories of the last decade. You need to control yourself and your bastard husband, woman, or I'll put you through a wall."

"Arrogant lush doesn't give a shit about my baby-"

"Kami, what time is-"

"-need a fucking drink-"

"-heart-rate is dropping, if i don't-"

"-when i get-"

"-so much paperwo-"

"-out, Rabbit-teme-"

"-sharp-"
"-scary-"
"-burns-"
"-stings-"
"-baby-"
"-ouch-"
"-pain-"
"-pain-""-pain-"
"-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-"
"-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-"
"-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-""-pain-"

Suddenly a blackness engulfs part of Ino, part of the world, a guttering candle is snuffed out before a hand could shield it.

Ino's eyes fly open, and she screams.

The world is a cacophony of sounds, words, spoken thoughts and idle images, and.

Dad is holding her. He has two voices. One vibrates deep in his chest, saying "Hold on, it's okay, it's okay baby, I got you," and the other vibrates in her own head, saying "What do I do, is she hurt? Is my baby okay? Did it hurt her inside too?" and.

Oh.

Okay.

Another bloom of darkness takes a corner of Ino's mind, and she takes that terrifying blank black pit and she uses it to focus herself, *hard,* wrap her self around herself away from the outside, and.

The noise dims, dulls, and goes silent, save for the voice that rumbles in Dad's chest.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, Baby-cakes?"

Ino swallows. There's a lot to cover. But first things first. "Is Naruto okay?"

A pause. "Tsunade-sama, please ask ANBU to check on Uzumaki-san," says Dad.

The nurse who is apparently not a nurse at all chuckles. "No need, Yamanaka-san, Sensei took him out for ramen about two hours ago and spent the last half hour telling me about it. He's fit as a fiddle, and as cheerfully loud as one played by the amateur he is." She points at the bedside table. "He's the one that brought you this and took care of it for you."

Ino looks over, and there's a small pot, clumsily but carefully made out of river clay and fired in a campfire. It's cracked and glued with epoxy, and it holds a lump of dirt, not even potting soil, and a carefully tended dandelion. There's a note in that same clumsy but careful manner, carved into the side of a pot, in plain hiragana.

"Bloom like a flower, root like a weed."

That might just be the best get-well gift she's ever gotten, including that time Grandpa Yamanaka gave her a thousand ryo.

"Okay," says Ino, because if she doesn't then that gift will make her cry, "Then. Daddy? I think Kyuubi gave me a kekkei genkai.

Everyone in the room freezes.

"I think," says Mom faintly, "that the rest of this should wait for Hokage-sama."

The not-a-nurse nods slowly, and opens the door. She flashes a handsign to the ANBU outside, and closes the door.

Ten minutes later, the Hokage enters, Naruto in tow.

"Ino-chan! You're okay! Are you okay? Do you like your flower?" The Hokage puts a hand on Naruto's head, and he shuts up.

"I would like to hear the story of how this came about," says the Hokage, and Ino tells him.

She tells him about Naruto suddenly glowing and collapsing, about going in to ask what happened. She told him about the ruined catacombs, and her parents and the Hokage look furious, but at someone not present. She tells them about the water that was just water so long as you didn't look at it, of the thousand faces filled with hatred and loathing, and she can hear the Hokage's heart break. Her parents, too. She tells them of the huge room with twisted bars and she tells them about chains strangling her classmate. The Hokage's face is blank and his mouth is still, but a whisper against her senses speaks in his wrath-filled voice about a man who has crossed the line for the last time.

She tells them of red sludge dripping onto her hands, and her parents go white. She tells them of a voice as ageless as the molten core of the world directing her hands, and the Hokage leans forward, entranced. She tells them about being called brave by a voice behind bars, and being called genesis by a claw that took away the pain in her ruined hands, and the Hokage goes from interest to shock. She tells them what the Kyuubi no Kitsune called itself, and the Hokage goes from shocked to thoughtful.

When she's done, Ino feels wrung out. Naruto looks confused and scared, and he tugs the Hokage's sleeve.

"Ne Jiji, if the Kyuubi is in me, does tha' mean the villagers are right about me?"

"No," answers the Hokage. "Is a bowl filled with ramen made out of ramen itself?"

Naruto giggles. "Nah, that's silly!"

"So are the villagers," says the Hokage with a smile. "Just because the Yondaime put the Kyuubi in you does not make you the Kyuubi. You are made of Naruto, the Kyuubi is made of Kyuubi, and Ino-chan here is made of Ino."

That reassures Ino a lot too, mostly because Naruto had looked so sad for a moment that she could tell that, in his mind, he had looked down and lost his balance.

"So," pipes up Ino, "about the kekkei genkai part. I think I know what it is."

"Oh?" says Dad curiously.

"Mhmm! I could hear people talking, or at least I thought so at first, but then there were so many voices at once that I couldn't think, and I think I was hearing thoughts? One of them about forty meters that way," she points, "vanished. Thats when I screamed. It was so scary! Like part of me tried to go with it."

Tsunade-sama's face goes the color of curdled milk. "That's. That's hospice care."

Ino doesn't know what hospice is, but everyone else other than Naruto does, because Dad is trembling and Mom is almost crying. Hokage-sama looks grave.

"Ino-chan, I want you to use your mind transfer jutsu on me and nick my finger with this kunai," he says, taking one out. Slowly, Ino complies. As always, it's so weird looking at herself. She makes a shallow cut in the Hokage's finger while everyone watches, then releases the jutsu. The Hokage raises his injured finger, gesturing for Ino to do the same. She lifts up her finger, and gasps.

She has no cut.

Chapter 6: Wearing A Lie

Summary:

in which tsunade loses her got-dang mind

guys i may or may not have gotten this idea and slapped it out in a few frenetic hours. the tags have been updated, because this idea makes a horrifying amount of sense. this chapter has references to some very heavy subjects, because tsunade is a medic in a position to notice and catch the implications of things that the previous pov characters wouldn't have the experience or education to even see. If discussion of the sexual abuse of a child is a trigger to you, please skip this chapter. if you skip and are curious for other details, I can provide a summary in the comments.

also, in any au in which hiruzen doesn't do anything about naruto's treatment, he does not deserve the hat. for his supreme lack of observational skills if not something worse.

All else aside, Senju Tsunade is having the time of her life. Her monetary debts are paid in full, her mental state has basically been locked onto "pretty damn good" by Yamanaka Inoichi, she's been given four quarts of prime sake, and she's got a kekkei genkai genesis to observe whenever she gets bored.

Of course, it was all at a pretty damn hefty cost. Inoichi had been insistant that she come to Konoha to treat his baby girl, and had agreed to nearly any condition and caveat she threw at him. Nearly. She hadn't caught it when he'd very neatly skipped around agreeing to let her leave Konoha as soon as the girl woke up. She'd missed the clause he'd slipped into the actual paper contract she'd had him sign stating that she was to remain in Konoha until the girl was confirmed to be entirely, completely healthy. Including anything like, say, the normal trials and tribulations of being a shinobi in training, or the mental health issues that come with confronting a kami-damned bijuu.

Damn him.

Still, he did agree to lock up enough of her past to make her functional long enough to get the job done. Tsunade knows she only has another few days before the blocks fall. Before her brain remembers why Konoha isn't home. Before she remembers... Something. Someone? She doesn't know right now. So she decides to enjoy it while she can, and heads to the casino she used to go to when ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||. God she loves that place, it's got everything! Roulette, cards, dice, wrestling, racing, slots, NawakiWHAT

There's a moment where she sees hair so yellow it looks like the sun, and a face drawn straight from heaven, and

everything.

Snaps.

Memories cascade.

Dan, with soft kisses, sweet words, gentle hands, movement in tandem with everything they did.

Nawaki, with starry eyes, bold words, crushing hugs, a blinding sun in both looks and personality.

Blood.

Death.

 

 

Loss.

 

 

Pain.

 

An eternity of emptiness pulls, sucks, twists at her soul, and Tsunade thinks that this is it, she's going to break for real this time.

A messy mop of hair intrudes on her vision, as golden as her dreams and nightmares, and. Oh. It's not. It's not Nawaki. Tsunade is both happy and terribly, terribly sad at that. Wait, the kid's talking.

"'M sorry, 'm sorry, don't cry Baa-chan, it's okay, 'm sorry," the kid babbles, hugging her leg.

"What are," Tsunade gulps down a sob and continues. "What are you talking about, kid?"

"I dunno, you looked at me and you started crying and you smell so sad 'm sorry i di'n't mean to make you cry-"

"Kid-"

"-swear i di'n't, please don' be sad-"

"Kid!" The brat looks up at her face. He looks so much like Nawaki it hurts, but he also looks like his own person. There's something she can't place about his looks, but there's something else she definitely can. "Take me to your place, and i'll tell you a story."

His eyes light up and he takes her hand, just like Nawaki did, and drags her away. He's not going at the pace she would expect of a kid with someone looking as young as she does. Kids don't be this careful with anyone but the old and the sick. Kinda like reverse wolves.

"Why aren't you going faster?" she asks curiously.

"'Cause," he says, "You're pretty old even though you look normal grown up. Jiji can't go faster than this, so i just guessed." His eyes go wide. "Did i get it wrong? Do I need'a slow down?"

Tsunade laughs. "Nah, brat, you're doing just fine. If I knew where we were going, I'd offer a race!" The kid giggles at that. Good. "Anyways, how'd you tell? You said I don't look old."

The ki- ah, hell with it. Naruto crinkles his nose. "How does anyone miss it? I mean, you smell like you're wearin' a lie." Enhanced senses, then, combined with some chakra sensory capabilities that Kami and everyone else somehow missed. "How'd'ya wear a lie anyways?"

"Genjutsu," replies Tsunade. Fucking hell, how does a kid grow up in a ninja village while attending the academy and not know what genjutsu is! "It's a type of jutsu that is used to trick an enemy's senses, like making them think there's a hole in the ground, or make them think a canyon is an open field, or make them walk in circles without realizing it."

"So like a prank," ponders Naruto, "but on tha inside."

Tsunade continues educating Naruto about genjutsu while they walk. The casino is towards the north edge of town, so when Naruto walks south, Tsunade just thinks he lives somewhere more central. Then he keeps going, and she thinks they're headed towards the southern civilian district. When they reach the south end of that, Tsunade stops.

"Wassup, Baa-chan?"

"Kid," asks Tsunade in a slow, deadly voice. "Do you live in the Akasen?"

He just looks confused. "Yeah?" Tsunade's heart feels like it's stopped. "I mean, I'mma Akasenko, yeah? Only reason I don' spend more time there is 'cause no one stops to pay the beggars when I'm around so they team up to give me breakfast if I go somewhere else for the day."

Tsunade just about loses it right there. Literally the only thing that keeps her from breaking something is that she knows Naruto would think she was mad at him rather than. Well. Hokage-sama. Fuck calling him sensei anymore.

Instead, Tsunade follows Naruto to.

Kami.

Dammit.

Tsunade follows Naruto to a lean-to in the alley formed by two brothels. Neither have doors or windows opening to this alley, and the back is a brick wall formed by, lo and behold, another brothel. The lean-to is concealed from casual observation by a pile of quasi-glassed bricks somehow missed in the rebuilding after the Kyuubi Incident. There's a nest made of scraps, no, full kimonos ruined by the clients of the brothels making up Naruto's safe spot. There's also a backpack stitched together from sheets, likely sourced from the same dumpsters as the kimonos.

Naruto's shoulders visibly relax as soon as the view of the street is blocked by the rubble. It's also getting pretty late by now, and tomorrow is Monday.

"Get comfy, and I'll start your story," says Tsunade, and smiles sadly at the look of wonder on his face. He twists around himself like the fox he holds, and Tsunade starts talking. "Long ago, there was a man named Minato, and a woman named Kushina," she begins.

-------------------

Naruto is asleep. He'd slipped off to dreamland around five minutes ago, and Tsunade is just now certain he's actually out and not just dozing. Time to get to work. She fires up her favorite deep-scan diagnosis jutsu, and turns on the small voice recorder in her pocket.

"New Patient, left unnamed for security concerns. Parasite scan shows Patient has numerous external and internal parasites, including lice, fleas, mites, roundworms, hookworms, lung flukes, and tapeworms. Species present are a mix of species specialized to attack either humans or foxes, along with several sexually transmitted parasites. Uncertain as to origins at this time, though unless rape is indicated the sexually transmitted parasites would likely be gained through bedding sourced from brothel dumpsters."

"Infection scan shows... nothing. Absolutely nothing. Patient has exactly zero infectious microbes present in the blood, lymph, or other fluids. Wait- On inhalation, numbers spike for a bare instant then return to zero. Patient's immune system seems to be augmented to the point where it is doubtful that the Patient can fall ill. Inhaled microbes are destroyed on contact with the blood. Drawing a sample. Upon leaving the body, augmentation of immune cells in drawn blood continues, though at a much reduced rate due to the lack of chakratic catalysis. I theorize that the Patient has an innate healing factor heavily augmented by the chakra of his... tenant."

"Current injury scans reveal no current injuries, with the notable inclusion of the needle wound. Making a superficial incision to test rate of healing. Of a three centimeter incision, bleeding stops in the first two centimeters and scar tissue forms fully in the first centimeter before the third centimeter is complete. Healing factor is confirmed and is extremely quick. At this point, the entire incision is rapidly fading scar tissue."

"Nutrition scanning reveals... cough Reveals that Patient has not eaten anything in the past seventy-two hours. Last meal was negligible. Preceding meal is too old to show on scan. It is very likely that the Patient's tenant is solely responsible for his survival, let alone his high energy levels. Criminal neglect is confirmed for all responsible for the Patient's welfare."

Tsunade has to stop for a few minutes.

Never.

She has never seen or heard of anything this bad. Not for a child. That nutrition scan shows the last two weeks. And he'd been running and skipping! And the parasites. animal parasites, sex parasites, and human parasites all writhing in a teeming mass in his poor pudgy belly. Distended because of starvation and parasites, not overeating a favorite food. He was lucky to be alive.

If she ever was able to speak to the bijuu, she'd thank him on bended knee. Hell, if it wouldn't hurt Naruto, she'd let it free and feed Konoha to it.

Tsunade cleared her throat, and continued.

"Due to the healing factor, most evidence of old injuries has been removed, but deep scar-tissue scans reveal several do- dozen broken bones, including fourteen skull fractures and evidence of massive barotrauma at a very young age, likely from the displaced air from the release of the Kyuubi. Patient is most likely very hard of hearing due to said damage."

"Scanning for rape and sexual assault is necessary due to the home situation of the Patient. Due to the healing factor, scanning for rape and sexual assault will be done by searching for chakra impressions, which are highly effective in cases of rape but do not reveal all forms of sexual assault. Chakra impression scans reveal a total of... no, that can't be right. They can't be that stupid. Scans reveal a total of four seals, crafted by four individuals. The first is the Shiki Fuin, placed by Namikaze Minato. Second is a Chakra Draining Seal placed by Shimura Danzo. Third is an unknown control seal placed by Shimura Danzo and mostly destroyed by Yamanaka Ino. Fourth is another unknown control seal also placed by Shimura Danzo."

"Further chakra impression scans- no. Nononono."

She doesn't know that signature.

But she's going to kill them.

------------------------

Seven hours later, Senju Tsunade stands in the Hokage's office. She is covered in a fine dusting of rubble and blood, and her expression is... satisfied. Mostly. The Hokage sighs.

"Why," he asks, head in his hands.

"He was a rapist," says Tsunade, as if that is all that needed to be known. The Hokage looks up and blinks.

"Wait, what?"

"Rapist," answers Tsunade, and her face begins to harden. "Of a homeless and orphaned child living in the Akasen because when he tried to leave someone broke his skull open." The Hokage looks absolutely thunderstruck.

"What the fuck." His mouth is hanging open.

"He raped a homeless orphan and put a chakra draining seal and two control seals on him!"

The Hokage looks... lost. Horrified and utterly confused, as though the possibility of this had never entered his mind. Tsunade sneers down at him.

"Did you never ask him how he was able to churn out so many perfect little soldiers?" she asks. "Did you think he just got them young enough that he was able to get to them? Did you think at all? Because if you didn't, you need to step down, now. And if you did." There's an awful pause, and Tsunade's face looks like a death mask.

"If you knew, Sarutobi Hiruzen, I will kill you here and now, and may Kami-sama cast you to hell."

The Hokage looks as bleak as death. "I did not know." he says. "I suspected there was more to it, but I had no evidence, and no idea that it went that far." He considers something for a moment, then presses a button. Instantly, an ANBU drops from a ceiling tile to his left. "Spread the word to all citizens of Konoha. Shimura Danzo is convicted of high treason to Konoha, and his death at the hands of Senju Tsunade was sanctioned by myself and the Daimyo. All citizens with information pertaining to his deeds in the past twenty years are to present themselves to the T&I division headquarters immediately. If they have seals placed by Shimura or one of his subordinates, they are to indicate so by any means necessary, and will be detained for unsealing as soon as a counterseal can be devised."

When the ANBU leaves, the Hokage buries his head in his hands. "Fifty two years, I knew the man. And I was blind enough to miss this." He looks up, and Tsunade is somehow shocked to see that he's crying. "How, Tsunade? How do I keep not seeing it? How do I let people become so horrible without doing anything about it?"

Tsunade wants to hug the sadness away, wants to say 'It's not your fault,' wants to tell him that he misses it because he's such a good person that he can't comprehend how awful people can be. She wants to. She really does.

But.

"Did you know that Naruto is deaf?" He blinks, thrown by the change in subject.

"No, he just doesn't pay attention well," he says. "I've taken him for checkups before, there's only one nurse who will tend him, but she does a good job. She'd have caught something like that."

Tsunade nods. "Just like she wouldn't miss thirty seven species of human and animal parasites in his system, right?" The Hokage shakes his head, horror slowly growing on his face as he realizes where this is going. "Just like she wouldn't miss a chakra draining seal and two control seals, right?"

"No," says Sarutobi, begging. "No, it can't be!"

Tsunade fixes him with a piercing gaze. "Just like she wouldn't miss a decade of abject starvation, less than a meal a day."

He's crying again. She can't bring herself to care anymore.

"Just like she wouldn't miss repeated rape of a child."

There's a long moment where Sarutobi just sobs.

"You don't see it because you don't look for it. You don't even try. I don't care if I have to drag your corpse out of the tower myself, I cannot in good conscience leave you in power to let another child get raped into compliance."

He tears the hat off his head. "Take it," he sobs.

Tsunade thinks about the too-small boy living in the Akasen, and takes the hat before leaving the room.

She's got a fox to adopt.

Chapter 7: Basically Going To Die, But Kami What A Way To Go

Summary:

in which naruto makes the first full conversion to The Way Of The Hair and sasuke has several revelations of good, bad, and very, VERY embarrassing natures.

It's decided. Uchiha Sasuke has a new idol.

When the newly-coronated Godaime Hokage brought his family in for a discussion about the plans Danzo had had for the Uchiha, he had no idea what to expect. What unfolded was a mess of intrigue and knives in the dark even beyond the ken of most shinobi. Kekkei genkai theft, murder of friendlies and allies, kidnap and rape (whatever that was) of children, and seals binding the victims to silent obedience.

And then she brought up the mission that Danzo had given to Itachi. That, if she hadn't killed the man before he could give the order, was to have happened tonight.

Oh yeah, and Itachi was one of those kidnapped and raped kids. Turns out the whole bullshit about getting put on the battlefield as a four-year old was just that. Danzo had him working as a spy against the Uchiha even before relations with the village soured. Turns out the reason Itachi always says no to training with Sasuke is because he's always been terrified that if he did, Danzo would take Sasuke too.

Ugh. If Sasuke thinks about that any more, he's gonna hurl. Again.

Anyways. After... that, some street kid broke in through a ceiling tile (Which. How? The Hokage Tower is really fucking fortified, not to mention the Hokage's fucking office.) and proceeded to go on a badly mispronounced tear about something Sasuke never caught, called the Hokage "Baa-chan" about nineteen times, called Itachi "Weasle-mask-chan" rather than his name (causing Itachi to choke on air and spend the rest of the visit in a coughing fit), bit Dad on the hand (drawing a lot more blood than a bite normally should), picked Mom's pocket twice, and grabbed Sasuke by the wrist before jumping out the window. And now they are sitting in an alley, and this glorious brat is eating a rat.

He just. Picked up a rat. And ate it. This kid is some kami-sent agent of chaos and adventure, and this has to be the best damn thing that's ever happened to Sasuke. He doesn't think he could offend that many people that quickly if he tried. And their faces! Sure they were the Hokage and his family, but oh kami it was good.

Also the only person he didn't insult in the room was Itachi, which just so happens to be the only Uchiha that Sasuke didn't have an issue of some kind or other with. Dad was an absent parent at best, Mom was apparently neglectful enough to not catch that her son had been kidnapped at some point around age three, Shisui was an ass to anyone he didn't respect (a funny ass, but an ass nonetheless), and the clan as a whole was apparently planning to start a civil war in his own home town. Itachi was just doing his very best with a very, very shitty hand.

But it's also hard to keep someone on a pedastal when you realize that his "awesome skills" and "incredible genius" was a product of having those skills and genius bludgeoned into him before he could see over the counter-tops, and his "cool, calculating demeanor" was because of near-constant dissociative episodes from being kidnapped when he was three. They stop being a person to idolize and become a person to protect. Now don't get him wrong, Sasuke respects Itachi even more than he did when he idolized Itachi, he just. He can't help but think that Itachi has done enough. Itachi doesn't need Sasuke to put more pressure on him. If anything, he needs help with the pressure he's already got.

Sasuke makes a mental note to start doing some of Itachi's chores around the house. That's what Mom does for Dad when the Elders give him trouble, and that's what Dad does for Mom when tax season comes around (because despite being good at paperwork, Uchiha Fugaku somehow got a zero on every single math problem put before him. As the answer, not the grade. Mikoto was actually kind of impressed, while also being absolutely baffled).

But this kid. This kid broke into the Hokage's office. That's worthy of admiration on its own. Then he insulted the Hokage in front of Kami-sama and everyone. And got away with it! He bit Dad! Sasuke just had to try that one, it'd probably get him out of his next "Uchiha Decorum" lecture. Also he picked Mom's pocket, which. Nice. Mom's a jounin, getting a finger in her pocket should be impossible, let alone a whole hand in and out. And twice? Oh yeah. This kid is going places, and even though Sasuke's not sure whether the destination is the Hokage seat or the morgue, Sasuke wouldn't miss it for the world.

"Hey, yer hair's gettin' longer. You growin' it out?" asks the boy, looking curious.

"I think so," says Sasuke, fingering a lock. He figures it'll help get rid of the whole duck-butt thing he'd heard some of the boys in class mutter about when he did better than them at something.

"Okay!" says the kid, beaming. "My name's Naruto!"

"My name's Uchiha Sasuke."

Naruto beams. "Wanna be my friend, Sasuke-chan?"

Sasuke blinks. Never got that honorific from anyone his own age before. Huh. "Sure. Also, why -chan?"

Naruto rolls his eyes a bit. "Seriously, what good're parents if they don' teach kids any of the important stuff? Yer a -chan 'cause yer a girl, dattebayo! and before you ask, yer a girl because you got long hair!"

Sasuke just has no idea what to say about that. But. "What about privates? Mom says that's what makes boys and girls different."

"They're private, ain't they?" Naruto says with a shrug. "Privates is private, and people got different tits no matter who they are, same's they got different faces, but hair's easy! Girls got long hair, boys got short! Easy peasy, an' you don' gotta go pantsin' people to find out what to call them."

That makes sense. Sasuke's been around the Uchiha clan a lot, and the girls always have fairly long hair, and the boys never have hair past six inches or so. Come to think of it, the only girl Sasuke can think of that has short hair is Hyuuga Hinata, but he's never really talked about it with her before, and she's started growing it out a lot in the past few months.

Also, now that Sasuke's actually putting serious thought into the topic, gender is kind of a fuck? Like, on the one hand it's just words. On the other hand, being a boy defines a whole subset of Sasuke's life in a way that he's never examined before in the slightest, and now that he is he's? Not really cool with it? Sasuke doesn't want to be the Second Son, the Spare For The Heir, the Untalented Brother, and whatever else Dad and the rest of the clan put on him.

You know what, why be a second son when you could be a first daughter? Why be "Uchiha-kun" when "Uchiha-hime" is just waiting for someone to be the first daughter of the clan head? Why fight for a position in the Military Police and never pass Lieutenant when she could learn kenjutsu from her mom and become the new "Red Death of Konoha"?

"Do you think," starts Sasuke, before pausing to gather her thoughts for a moment. "Do you think grown-ups just. Don't know?" Seeing the skeptical look on Naruto's face, Sasuke rushes to elaborate. "Like, parents and the doctors at the birthing clinic see kids before they've got a chance to grow their hair, but all the birth certificates I've seen has a spot to say whether they're a girl or a boy, so they just go by privates or something?"

Naruto squinches his eyes up for a second in deep thought before nodding. "That sounds exactly like the kinda stupid shit grown-ups would do. Yer pretty smart, Sasuke-chan."

Sasuke feels her cheeks burn, and oh god kill me i've got a crush.

Lets just. Shove that to the side and deal with that later.

Sasuke thinks for a moment, before deciding to go for broke. Naruto's obviously a genius of some kind, so maybe he'll have a good idea for this. Also? Secret date. If Sasuke's gonna have a crush, by god she'll do a better job of it than all the creeps that stalk her at the Academy.

"Hey Naruto, do you know anywhere I could go to get something to keep my hair out of my eyes?"

Naruto lights up and grabs Sasuke's wrist before leading her off to a part of town Sasuke's never been to before. There's a little house with an unlit red lantern hanging outside, and Naruto leads Sasuke around the back and knocks on the door. When it cracks open, he greets the person inside joyfully. She's got long grey-brown hair, and Sasuke's really hoping she's wearing panties, because otherwise all she's wearing is a longish button-up shirt.

"Nee-chan! Are you or Mama-chan free? Sasuke-chan wants to be a girl an' she needs some help with her hair."

The woman (Naruto's sister? But they don't look alike at all!) grins and waves them in. "Yes, Naru-kun. Me and the other nee-chans are free for another hour or so." She turns on Sasuke, and her smile gets, if anything, wider. "So Naru-kun converted you too?"

Hesitantly, Sasuke nods. The woman giggles. "Don't worry, Sasuke-chan! You are by no means the first. Naru-kun could sell life insurance to a corpse-"

"An' get a good deal, too Nee-chan!" interrupts Naruto.

"And get a good deal," she says indulgently. "Anyways, you're not the first to decide their parents were wrong, but the other one went the other direction from you. The only thing you're first with is in thinking you were a boy before Naru-kun converted you to the Way of the Haircut and deciding you are a girl after."

Then Naruto's sister puts one slim hand under Sasuke's chin and lifts it up. "Remember, Sasuke-chan. People like you and me have always existed, and will always exist. Naru-kun's just stumbled on his own way of announcing himself to the world, and is persuasive enough to get people to join him. Being a boy or being a girl is not about what is between your legs, it is about what is you."

Sasuke nods, and. Oh. She's crying. Okay. It's just really overwhelming, and it's all at once, and now it turns out you can just. Be different? If you want to? and you aren't a freak or a weirdo for doing it?

And now Naruto's sister is finger-combing Sasuke's hair while hugging her, and Sasuke honestly can't remember the last time she got anything more than the cursory "going to the academy" squeeze from Mom. So Sasuke hugs back, and cries some more.

When she finally pulls herself together, Naruto is playing cards with some other women, none of whom look at all like Naruto (or each other) and all of whom Naruto calls "Nee-chan." Adoptive family? Or just really affectionate? And all of the women are in a state of half-dress. One is putting on a bit more of her makeup between rounds. One is wearing a bathrobe over a nightgown (at four in the afternoon?), and keeps winning hands. Another is very obviously wrapped in a blanket and nothing else, and is very not shy about it. 

Then another woman walks in naked as anything, rips the blanket open, sits in the owner's naked lap, and closes the blanket. There's some very unsubtle motions under the blanket, and equally unsubtle jokes made by the others at the table. Including Naruto.

Sasuke is basically going to die, but kami what a way to go.

Also Sasuke is now one thousand percent certain that none of these girls are in any way blood relations, and also she's pretty sure she has entirely misunderstood what this place is.

Naruto's not-sister catches Sasuke's expression and rounds on Naruto. "Naruto! What has Mama told you about bringing people here without telling them you're taking them to a brothel?"

Naruto whips around, eyes wide, and suddenly Sasuke notices Naruto looks a little different than normal. Like his (her, now?) oiroke no jutsu, but not aged up and not naked. Huh. Guess you can just. Swap around? Interesting.

Not that Sasuke's ever going back to being an unwanted boy if she can help it. She's going to have to learn whatever jutsu Naruto is using.

Naruto chuckles uneasily. "Not to?" she says.

Naruto's not-sister nods. "And what did she say she'd do if you did?"

Naruto slumps. "Make me do laundry on my own."

"Then get to it. There's only thirty minutes to get the laundry ready before customers arrive, and you'll have to take Sasuke-chan home too. I doubt you went slow enough for her to remember the way."

Naruto surrenders her hand to the discard pile and slinks off to do laundry, apparently. Her not-sister turns back to Sasuke. "My name is Yuki. This is Tanya," the makeup-wielding woman waves her compact, "Rin," the bathrobe-wearer flashes a smile over her cards, "Tsubasa on the bottom there," the original blanket wearer twiddles some wet-looking fingers, "and finally Rika," the last woman gives a saucy wink. "Now, first off, you're young enough that I doubt your parents have taught you what a brothel is, right?"

Sasuke nods. She can definitely guess, though.

Yuki smiles. "A brothel is a place where people go to pay for sex. Have your parents given you The Talk yet? You are fairly young for it, but it's better to know sooner, especially if you are training to be a shinobi like Naru-chan. No? Well, it's the reason we have privates. There are two kinds, but there's not a sharp divide between them. The kind that goes in, like Tsubasa and Rika have, is called a vagina ("Twat!" "Pussy!" "Vag!" "Cunt!"). The other kind, like you and I have, goes out is called a penis ("Cock!" "Dick!" "Wang!" "Schlong!"). Shut the fuck up, girls, I'm trying to teach her, not corrupt her!"

"Anyways, the short version is that touching your privates feels good, and when you start to grow up it starts feeling really good, and touching them together with a partner can be even better, and that's what sex is. Once you're all the way grown up you can also do it to make babies together if you and your partner have opposite parts. It can also be a way to express love for your partner, but sometimes people just want to do it to feel good and don't want the hassle of having a permanent partner, or their partner doesn't actually like sex, so that's where we come in. A brothel is a place people go to to pay for us to have sex with them."

There's a pause while Sasuke just tries to wrap her head around all this new and incredibly embarrassing information, before Yuki's hand grabs Sasuke's chin again. "Unfortunately, it is not all good. There are special diseases that spread through sex, and there are people who have no concern for their partner, only themselves. These people are the worst of the worst, and will pleasure themselves by forcing people to have sex with them, through coercion or violence. If someone is unwilling, sex can be very painful, so these horrible people also use it as punishment. That is called rape, and if someone is found guilty of rape, the new Hokage has promised to sentence them to death."

So.

So Danzo.

Itachi.

Oh Kami.

No.

Never again.

Sasuke has found her new mission in life. She can't be better than Itachi, because just surviving made Itachi the strongest shinobi in the world. But she can make it so that this abomination never happens again.

Sasuke spends several minutes brooding, until Naruto returns from wherever the hell the laundry room is. Naruto promptly shatters the heavy atmosphere by cramming something over Sasuke's head. There's a mild scuffle as Naruto realizes she's going to have to take Sasuke's shirt off to get whatever it is on and Sasuke realizes her new crush is trying to rip her shirt off, but eventually Yuki pushes Sasuke into a changing room, ending the matter.

Sasuke takes off her shirt, and pulls on whatever Naruto brought her. It's long, but of a nice fabric that is soft but sturdy. She pulls it down, smooths out the wrinkles, and looks in the mirror and oh kami it's a dress. It's a dress and it's cute and it makes her look cute and like a girl and she never realized she wanted to be a girl so bad until this exact moment because she wants to wear this dress every day forever.

She trembles violently for a second, then bolts out and down the hall, careening into Naruto who she hugs full-force with tears in her eyes.

Today's been a bit of a windmill of emotion. Both the worst news and the best news. A smashing of all the old structure of her life, and a new structure stronger than any before. All thanks to this kid.

"Thank you, Naruto-chan," she whispers.

Notes:

this chapter is, so far, the only one with a hard relation to the canon timeline, as it takes place on the day the uchiha massacre would be had danzo not been executed. this is going to have some very far-flung repercussions. the most relevant change to the main cast at first will be that sasuke never was traumatized. but later, well, that would be telling.

also The Talk is a very different beast when given A) to a six-year-old, B) by a half-dressed prostitute, and C) in a village where honeypot missions can happen before your voice breaks, D) a botched normal mission can get you raped on your first mission out of town, and E) a respected elder was executed for mass child rape two days ago and your brother was one of the victims.

alternate title: In Which Naruto Transes Sasuke's Gender And It Is Implied That Sasuke Is Not The First Person Naruto Has Done This To And It It Is Promised That Sasuke Will Not Be The Last.

Chapter 8: Fishy-Kit

Summary:

In which Kurama remembers the old days.

The kit died. Poor thing didn't have a chance. Not even an hour out of the womb, and its own sire put a death seal on it. Of course it didn't survive when the full force of Kurama's fury reflexively turned on his new container before realizing just how little it was.

Kurama thinks that this might be the first truly innocent creature he's killed.

He thinks he might just not be able to handle that.

So he stretches one hand through the bars of his already-fading prison, through the halls of the disintegrating mindscape, across the crumbling edge of what is, and plunges it deep, deep into the voracious black hole of death.

Gently.

Oh so gently.

There.

It's safe.

The sucking void of dying eases, and finally reaches equilibrium. Slowly, the bricks leech back into place. Kurama pulls back his arm just before the bars can re-solidify.

Oh. Oops.

Well, it'll certainly be safer this way, not that any human mindwalkers will agree.

Feh. Stuff the lot of them.

So Kurama dozes off, tiny kit almost invisible where it lies nestled against the titanic paw pads of his hand.

------------------------

Kurama watches, in his off time. Not that he has much in the way of time that isn't off time right now. A few clever twists of his chakra focuses it needle-thin, then hair-thin, then thinner than the most gossamer spider silk. This thin, he can thread it between the lines of the seal itself, and gently tap into the chakra lines around the part of the kit's brain that processes the senses.

So Kurama lives in the senses of the kit, and he watches, and, occasionally, when something goes wrong, he does a little more.

------------------------

It's sometime around the winter solstice. Kurama has been sealed roughly three months. He's only interfered to find the kit a nurse-mother, and to give the kit whiskers so he can find her teats in the darkness of the den. And the kit is dying, again.

The vixen Kurama had found, Amaikusa, was killed by a mob, skinned and waved about like a battle standard by hateful villagers and shinobi. That was yesterday, and it's been almost twenty four hours since the kit was fed. Kurama wants to take him to find another vixen, but a winter storm blew in that morning, and if he takes the kit out, it won't last another hour.

Four hours later, and Kurama starts cycling a tiny whisp of his chakra through the kit's system to keep him warm. The kit is crying.

At sunset, Kurama decides there's no real choice but to take a risk. Any longer and the kit will die of dehydration if nothing else. The threads he uses to tap into the kit's senses shift, splitting and replanting in new areas, tapping into new nerve clusters. The whisp he is cycling to keep the kit warm diffuses into the kits thin arms and legs, strengthening them to withstand what Kurama is going to make them do. Lastly, he gently tugs the kit back into the mindspace, cradling the squalling infant in the fur between his eyes, where Kurama can keep a good eye on him while concentrating outside.

Outside, Kurama stands up in the kit's body (well, on all fours because as mighty as Kurama is he doesn't have the build and thus the coordination to walk on two) and trots outside. Snow and sleet whips by, stinging the fragile nerves of the kit's tiny body, and Kurama shivers. Then he lets out a loud yip, and waits.

A moment passes.

Two.

Then out of the curtains of driving snow, comes a good three dozen foxes. Kurama chuffs happily at the number of foxes that the mobs have missed, then gets down to business. Feral foxes like these don't have much in the way of language, and what language they have is almost entirely fox-speak, with a smattering of crow and maybe some wolf. Even though fox-speak is incredibly simplistic and unrefined, it has plenty of room to ask if any vixens have recently lost their kits.

A particularly well-fluffed vixen steps forward. "Kits caught by Village-folk. Still nursing."

Kurama smiles through the kit's face. "Kit need milk and warmth. Village-folk abandon. Need vixen one, two season-turn. Willing?"

The vixen considers, then nods. "Willing. Hollyhock."

Kurama sighs with relief. "Thanks. Nine Sages. Kit no name"

Tachiaoi geckers for a moment in snide amusement. "Nine Sages definitely tod-fox. Doesn't name kit."

Kurama scoffs, looking to the side. Tachiaoi sniffs around Kurama's, or rather the kit's, body, before snorting. "Where kit?"

"Inside. Borrowing while find help."

"Let out. I name."

Kurama closes the kit's eyes, and gently pushes it back out of the mindspace. The kit looks around in shock before seeing Tachiaoi. It immediately tries to burrow into her fur. She snuffles about the infant and sneezes.

"Sweet Grass eat too much fish. Smell like Village-folk fishcake. Name Fishcake." Tachiaoi nods, satisfied. "Come, Fishcake-Kit."

The newly christened Naruto babbles loudly and grabs her ear. The other foxes around them laugh at her expression. Tachiaoi huffs, then begins nosing Naruto towards her den. After about ten feet, she gives up on getting him there under his own power in any good time, and slips her nose under his belly. Naruto panics at being lifted like this and grabs hold of two large fistfuls of fur, but this grip is enough that he doesn't fall. It's still not fast going, but Tachiaoi gets home in around twenty minutes, rather than the two hours she would have expected if Naruto had crawled.

Safe in a new den, Tachiaoi nurses Naruto for a while before the exhausted baby falls asleep in warm fur.

------------------------

By the time Naruto is ready for something more solid than a vixen's milk, Tachiaoi has run dry and her successor Gobudo has gotten caught, and it's almost the summer solstice. It's also very lucky that he's ready now, because the last nursing vixen within ten kilometres has already fled the villager mobs. So Kurama pulls his kit back into the mindspace, but not all the way. Naruto watches from inside his own head as something stands him up, shakes off the dirt, and scrambles out of the den.

When he finds a nice sunbeam, Kurama sends a new set of threads of chakra into Naruto's body while he rests in the warmth. Slowly, gently, Kurama shapes the small pudgy fingers and toes and tiny ridges of brand new teeth. His kit needs to hunt if he is going to eat, and if he is to hunt he needs the proper tools. So he gently peels away skin and fat and tendon, and he erodes nail and bone, shifting chakra in Naruto's nerves and brain to ensure it doesn't hurt until there's nothing happening to cause pain. Once his fingers and toes are each missing the tip-most joint and the palms and soles are skinned, Kurama stops destroying and starts growing. The bones grow back curved, thin, and tapered. Tendons reattach in new ways, and fat eases over the undersides of  fingers, toes, the soles of Naruto's feet, and the palms of his hands. Skin creeps its way over them as well, forming thick calluses in pads over the new fat deposits. Kurama returns nail, covering the ends of the new bones where the skin and fat and tendon stopped short. Finally, he turns his attention to the kit's teeth. These just won't do. Kurama doesn't have access to the fruits and seeds and grain that a human body is built for. So he reshapes the forming teeth, and speeds their growth and emergence. Bicuspids become carnassials, and canines grow long and sharp. Kurama tweaks the incisors and molars a bit, but those will be useful when Naruto gets old enough and therefore strong enough to climb trees for the berries and nuts that grow in the Konoha Forest, so he mostly leaves them as they were. Then Kurama steps back, both to admire his work and to let little Naruto have a chance to play with his new features for a bit.

Naru-chan is enthralled, both with his new paw-hands (which are just like Rama-tousan's!) and with how he got them. He spends a few minutes just waving them around and admiring them, then he tries scratching stuff just like Budo-kaachan did when she stretched. His claws even make the lines! So cool. And now he's got teeth! lots of teeth! He's only had two or three before, so this is so many!  He happily clicks them together a few times, and runs his tongue over them to see how pointy they are (very!). But Rama-tousan wants a turn again, so Naru-chan decides to watch what he does next. He hopes it's as cool as the paw-hands!

------------------------

It's not as cool as the paw-hands. Its very sad, and it makes Naru-chan cry a lot. Usagi-chan didn't deserve it, and Naru-chan wants to puke her up so she can bury her like Rama-tousan did when Aoi-kaachan died. But Rama-tousan won't let her. He makes Naru-chan gobble her all up, and he doesn't even say sorry. Naru-chan does though. She says sorry a lot, and she buries Usagi-chan's bones and puts a flower on top so she can nibble it before she goes away.

Then noises come from the treetops. Kurama snatches control from Naruto and pelts to the river. If he can get there quick enough, he can wash off the rabbits blood and dirt, then hide in that beaver den downstream before the passing shinobi realize he was even there. He manages it, barely, and he listens closely to the words drifting in through a small chink in the walls of mud and branches.

"-oo much blood, Sensei. I think she got caught," says the first voice, a young girl.

"Mmm. We should still try to find the body. The client's daughter will likely be devastated either way, but this way she'll get some closure." A deeper, booming voice. Probably an Akimichi.

"Is that why we do retrieval missions even if there's no one living to rescue, sensei?" A different voice, this time a young boy.

"Yes, Umino-kun. If a body is not retrieved, it can give the surviving loved ones false hope of their survival. At the same time, you must treat your fallen ally according to the third rule of surviving a fight with a shinobi. Which is?"

"A shinobi isn't dead until you've watched their corpse for a week and put their head on a pike and their body in a pyre," answers the girl. Kurama has to admit, that is a very sound rule of thumb for fighting shinobi. Kami knows the Fourth Hokage gave him enough trouble he would have done the same if he'd won in the first place.

"Correct, Mitarashi-kun. Now, Ebisu-kun: what can you tell me about the client's missing pet from what we see here?" asks the probably-Akimichi.

A third voice pipes up. "The rabbit is injured or dead, likely dead going by the amount of blood. I see... Are those foot prints or paw prints, sensei? They look like both and neither. Anyways, whatever it was that caught the client's rabbit, it stayed here for a while before going over this way and digging. There's... also a dandelion on the dirt pile. Sensei, do animals dig graves?" asks Ebisu.

"No, they don't," says the Akimichi, his voice hardening. "Those prints are reminiscent of fox prints, but stretched to match a small human hand. I don't recognize it, so I can't assess how dangerous this could be."

There's a pause.

"That's... What the fuck," says the girl, Mitarashi. There's a scuffling noise as she exhumes the rabbit, and Kurama realizes he's fucked up.

Oh, they're not going to catch him and Naruto right this instant. But now they know that someone is out here, someone connected to foxes. Kurama hopes it's not the villagers who run Naruto down first, or one of the low-rank garbage shinobi that have too much prejudice and idiocy to rise higher. If it is one of those, he'll have to possess Naruto entirely just to have a tiny chance of getting him out alive.

"We have to report this to the Hokage immediately. Anko, grab those bones. Ebisu, you have the steadiest hand, I want a detailed diagram of the events you can determine as fast as you can. Iruka, I know you've got your pranking kit in a scroll somewhere, get out plaster of paris. I need a cast of those prints before anything comes by to obscure them," orders the Akimichi.

There's a loud fwsssssshhhhhhhhhhhBANG, and kami damn it, that's a signal flare. Sure, a genin team won't find him in a beaver den, but an ANBU squad will have him in two seconds once they show up. He has to run, now.

He takes a deep breath, and plunges back into the water. The river's current is strong, and he rides with it, circulating chakra through Naruto's lungs to keep the air fresh. If he comes up, that will make a sound, leave a scent. Luckily the river isn't cold enough to force him to split his concentration three ways, because if he doesn't keep swimming the current will bash the kit's brains in before Kurama can get him to safety.

Five kilometres downstream, Kurama finds another beaver den and takes residence to catch his breath and check for pursuit. He can't sense anyone within a good kilometre and a half, and no one is heading this way. As safe as he can expect to be without going further afield, and if he goes too far he'll end up leaving the bandit-free area around the Hidden Village. As annoying as it is, he'll have an easier time running from five or ten ANBU than he will from five or ten hundred bandits. Deeming it safe, he lets Naruto take over again.

------------------------

Naru-chan wakes up in a hole, and he's clean now. It's as if Rama-tousan never made him eat Usagi-chan. He starts to cry again.

"Everyone eat everyone. No one not eat someone."

"Miss Rabbit too?"

"Rabbit too. Rabbit eat Grass, Grass eat Mold, Mold eat Fox, Fox eat Rabbit. Everyone eat. Everyone eaten. Rabbit inside you, become you. One day someone eat Fishy-Kit, Fishy-Kit become them. Not Fishy-Kit anymore, but not gone."

That is so sad. Naru-kit doesn't want to get eaten any more than he wanted to eat Miss Usagi!

"Not want eat Miss Rabbit! Not want someone eat Fishy-kit! Not let! No no no!"

"Fishcake can try. Nine Sages let. But not help. Fishy-Kit fail, then help eat. Fishy-Kit succeed, then celebrate."

-------------------------

Naruto holds out five days before he falls unconscious and Kurama takes over. The local beaver they've been cohabitating with  is slain almost immediately, and Kurama eats until he's full, then gently pushes Naruto back out.

Naru-chan wakes up and immediately starts crying. Biba-san wasn't a good den-mate, but he was Naru-chan's! But Naru-chan's tummy isn't hurting anymore, and he doesn't feel cold like he did. Instead he feels super comfy and full, and this is somehow worse because he felt that way because he ate Biba-san!

But...

Biba-san only ever got to see the river and the forest right around his home, and Usagi-chan only ever got to see the forest around her burrow. Naru-chan gets to see so much more, and. And they are part of him now, even if they aren't Usagi-chan and Biba-san anymore.

Maybe it's okay to eat People if it means he gets to show them new things?

"Sages-tod? Who Fishy-kit eat?"

"Not eat Fox, not eat Village-folk. Everyone else okay."

"Why not?"

"If eat same kind, get sick. Very sick in mind. Other same kind kill or run, never have friends."

Well, that settles that. Naru-chan wants friends a lot, and he doesn't want to get sick either.

------------------------

Rama-tousan has to hunt three more times before Naru-chan is brave enough to try on her own.

Naru-chan manages to catch Miss Neko, but before she can take a bite, Kurama wrenches control back.

Kurama knew something was wrong from the moment he saw the ribbon on the cat's neck. This was a set-up. He ducks the first gloved hand, dodges a leg, hops over a wire trap, and slips past a rising Doton wall. He's almost in the thorn bush where he knows an old badger's sett is when a second gloved hand snatches him up by the ankle.

Kurama lashes out, ripping open the ANBU's arm from wrist to elbow and diagonally across his gut, and the man drops him. He scurries into the sett, and starts molding every thread of chakra available to him and more, the seal burning its way into Naruto's gut. He runs through the seals he remembers one enterprising shinobi using to escape his massive palm strike last time he was free.

"It's using Doton!"

"Raiton: Amigumo!"

Electricity screams through the earth, through Naruto's nerves, and Kurama's concentration fails. It takes another few seconds for an ANBU to use their own Doton to crack open the sett, and they swiftly tie him up and put him in a sack.

He's carried through the village, and he can tell from the flavor of chakra that he's being taken to the Hokage. The one carrying him is interrupted before he can get there, and the sack is opened just enough for a glowing hand to reach in. Then a curtain of chakratic fire falls over his vision, and the threads he uses to  tap the kit's senses and control his body are cut.

Naru-chan is slammed back into her body so hard it hurts, and now everything hurts everywhere forever. She whimpers, and the hand on her tummy lets go.

She is dumped out of the sack onto something hard, and there are Village-folk watching her, talking in their weird way. Naru-chan cries, screams for Rama-tousan, for Aoi-kaachan, for Budo-kaachan, for anyone to help her. One of them takes the ropes off of her wrists and ankles, and another one picks her up. It's scary, they're scary, and Naru-chan cries more. Rama-tousan isn't answering, for the first time ever. So Naru-chan bites and claws and kicks and wriggles, but it's not enough!

They talk forever, until the sky is dark and Naru-chan has cried and struggled until she falls asleep. No one comforts her. No one answers her cries. No one cares.

------------------------

The council decides to send the child to the orphanage. They quietly make sure to never mention it when the Hokage or his shinobi are in earshot. If Sarutobi learned, he would have the monster trained, and it would kill them all. This way, it's available if the village is attacked, and harmless if it isn't.

The orphanage decides to put the feral demon brat on the streets. They quietly put it out on a balmy night in late July, and spread the word that the demon is no longer there.

The beggars on the street notice that since the kid got put out, no one comes down that street, or if they do it is as an enraged mob. After a full month, they can't handle it anymore, and one of the more heartless of them throws him in the Naka River.

A prostitute fishing for dinner after a long night of nothing sees the kid struggle, and pulls him out. She sneaks him into her room in the brothel, and hides him as long as she can. The Kaa-san finds him a month later, and lets him stay so long as no one sees him.

Two weeks later, a drunkard wanders into the closet he is hiding in, and confronts the Kaa-san. In exchange for his silence, she puts the child out, though she does show him a hidden spot in the alley where he can hide from the mobs.

On Naruto's first birthday, he cries alone in an alley, with neither friends nor family to comfort him. It will be one year before someone takes the time to teach him a human language, two before his one-day Nee-chans first teach him to do his laundry in the river, three before Shimura Danzo has ROOT agents brutalize him, four before Sarutobi Hiruzen learns that he is alive, and five before he makes a friend.

It's only two months before he wishes the mobs would just kill him like they would a normal fox.

Notes:

Alternate title: "In Which Naruto Learns About Death And In The Process Instills The Fear Of Kami-Sama Into Tora."

Alternate alternate title: "In Which Naruto Survives His First Year Because Kurama Is A Sappy Sap Even Though He's Very Bad At Being A Dad."

Fox-speak is basically the local language without any connections or frills or other non-essentials. It's almost all body language, with ear, nose, and whisker twitches being the main method of communication. Kurama is translated as "Nine Sages", Amaikusa is "Sweet Grass", Tachiaoi is "Hollyhock", Gobudo is "Five Grapes", Naruto is "Fishcake", Usagi is "Rabbit", and Biba is "Beaver". Naruto can actually speak fairly well in fox-speak at six months old, if only because the vocabulary is tiny compared to any human language. Kurama also had to modify Naruto's body and growth heavily just to make sure he survived a Konoha winter right after he was born, so that also helped.

Naruto doesn't remember any of this, since he was under a year old. Kurama does, and he has a small bone to pick with Ebisu, Anko, Iruka, and Chouza for putting the ANBU on his kit's trail.

And yes, Ebisu, Anko, and Iruka were all three genin at this point, and no, no one is particularly happy with this team setup. (Anko isn't too miffed about getting Iruka, though. He's a troublemaker like her, and kinda dashing with that scar.) (Iruka isn't too upset about getting Anko, either. She's a bit of a bitch, but her sensei really did just abandon her and frankly, he wants to be a bit of a bitch to her sensei too. (also the way her nose crinkles when she laughs at his pranks is so cute he's gonna die.))

(Chouza is determined that if he can't get these brats to pass the chuunin exam before Anko jumps Iruka or Iruka seduces Anko, he's going to retire right then and there.)

Chapter 9: So They Killed You

Summary:

In which Shino takes off his glasses.

Notes:

If you are triggered by mummification, eye trauma, or death of a child, please don't read this chapter. The events revealed are Deeply Fucked Up.

Aburame Shino finds themselves in a new and rather unusual situation. Of course, they recognize that as an Aburame they would be perpetually in a rather unusual situation, as being composed of over a million small insects and one ravaged child's corpse is, ah... not the norm, as it were. But that's nothing new. Not for the last year or so, anyways.

This, though? This is unprecedented, as far as they know. After all, Uchiha Sasuke was pulled from the Academy two weeks ago, only to return today as a girl.

But maybe it isn't new. Why? Because Shino is incredibly distracted at all times, and thus may very well have missed other classmates swapping genders for quite some time.

They don't think so, though.

Suddenly Subcolony 4T reports unrest. The unrest spreads to 4M, 5E, and 8S in under a second, suggesting a heavy chakra source approaching from west-by-south-southwest. Shino turns, and Ocular Worker 93P reports an aura of blue chakra laced with purple. Ocular Worker 187H reports that the approaching chakra source is wearing a large amount of orange, and Olfactory Worker 238Y reports a heavy scent of fox and ocean spray.

Ah. Uzumaki Naruto has returned as well. He took a short sabbatical to get acquainted with his new adoptive... mother, Shino supposes, despite the way Uzumaki always refers to her as either "Granny" or "Old Hag" depending on how his relationship with her is doing at the moment.

Oh. Uzumaki is speaking to them. Shino does not wish to interrupt, but they missed almost everything said so far, too busy settling the Subcolonies to focus outwards. Unfortunately Uzumaki has noticed their transgression and is visibly saddened. His scent also shows it, with the scent of ocean spray shifting to that of calm seas under heavy rain. And he's still talking, and Shino has to focus right now because this level of distraction is unacceptable.

"-but tha's okay, 'cause i know you guys have a hard time focusin' when i'm aroun'. I'll jus' go," says the downtrodden boy.

"Wait, please," says Shino before Uzumaki can leave. "We were distracted settling a portion of our colony. We did not intend to offend or ignore you."

The scent of rain leaves Uzumaki, though the impression is still that of a sea in calm as opposed to his normal choppy waters of enthusiasm. "Wait, your colony don' do stuff all at the same time?" he asks, curiosity growing in his expression.

"No," replies Shino. "Our colony is composed of individuals, each with their own individual concerns. Though our colony is often referred to as a 'hive mind', the concept is a production of pure fiction. Our colony is very like a miniaturized village, with our body forming the buildings and land."

"Woah, that's so cool!" says Naruto, and his scent is now heavily focused on that of a very curious fox. "You're like a Hokage! Like Baa-chan!"

"Yes," replies Shino just before the sensei calls the class to order. This is also a very new experience. They have never met someone that is not only not disgusted, but actively engaged in learning about the Aburame. Maybe...

Maybe if they share some more, Naruto would remain engaged? If so, then Shino may have found their first close friend. Close enough to discuss something very secret, even.

------------

Two weeks of this new comradery has finally gotten Shino confident enough to open a new line of discussion.

"Naruto," says Shino, "We need to ask you a question."

"Sure," he says from the shady, grass-free patch of hard earth on the edge of the clearing Naruto has brought Shino to. "What's up?"

Shino is quiet for a moment, before they finally work up the nerve to ask. "If we were to show you something, tell you something, would you be willing to break the law to help me with it?"

Naruto nods without any hesitation whatsoever. "You're my frien', an' that means we gotta stick together, thick an' thin, right an' wrong."

Shino shakily raises a hand to their face. "Then, we ask that you don't make any loud noises when we show you this," and they take off their glasses. 

There's a soft gasp of dismay, and Shino can see Naruto is on the verge of tears. The boy shakily raises a hand to his face, stopping short, but not retracting or retreating.

"Who did it?" asks Naruto. There's a fragile note in his voice, brittle and hard and so, so very sharp.

"The Aburame clan elders," replies Shino. If they were capable of proper emoting, their voice would be thick and wavering from nerves. As it is, it is all Shino can do to speak in the first place. Mummified vocal cords don't make sound on their own, so Shino has to have the Tracheal Subcolony vibrate their wings at the correct pitch.

Shino wishes they could explain all this, could see it with the same horror as Naruto, a horror born of not knowing that this depravity even existed. But Shino does know, has known for quite some time. They know Naruto is looking at two eye sockets, one gaping open to allow kikaichu to use their myriad types of vision, and one sewn shut to provide a space for a hidden seal.

Shino realizes suddenly that Naruto's scent isn't fear. It isn't horror, or pain, or sadness, or shock.

It's rage.

"Why?" he asks in a voice that is far too hard for someone so short and so young.

"Because I was born without the Aburame kekkei genkai," responds Shino. "The Aburame clan has been allied with the Hyuuga for centuries, and shared their limited knowledge of fuinjutsu. In conjunction with any one of several demon- or yokai-sealing seals, the clan can seal a child born without the kekkei genkai which allows an Aburame to communicate with kikaichu. The seal removes their soul and memories, and implants it in the queen of an unclaimed colony. The body dies, and the sealers apply further seals of preservation and control, with the sealed queen in control of them."

There's a long moment of silence, and Shino almost thinks Naruto has just completely checked out of reality.

Then he talks.

"So they killed you."

And something else speaks through Naruto.

"And they sealed you."

And Shino is suddenly aware that something is very, very wrong with Uzumaki Naruto, because there is one body in the clearing, but there are two scents, two voices, two chakras. 

And the flecks of purple in Naruto's chakra make sense, now. One source is a blindingly bright cyan, like shallow sunlit seas. And one is a red so dark it can only be compared to spilled blood on a moonless night.

"They killed you and they sealed you and they gave you no mercy, no chance to learn or find another way."

Ocular Worker 35F reports an ANBU flare to the east. And the south. And suddenly from every direction.

Suddenly the red completely swamps the blue, before receding fully. Anbu are still approaching, but far too slowly for Shino's preference.

"Little beetle, do you trust me?" asks someone who is not Naruto through Naruto's lips. They have red eyes.

Shino, all of Shino, is terrified. But.

But this is the first person to get angry for them. (for him).

"Yes."

"Then give me your queen, and I will make things right."

Shino doesn't know how this not-Naruto is going to do that.

But Shino's baby sister is going to be sealed in a week.

So Shino takes off their (his) jacket, and undoes the stitching of the scar on their (his) chest, and pulls out a fat, distended queen kikaichu. Not-Naruto gently cups it in one palm, then says "Is there a section of your body free of seals, insects, and tunnels?"

Shino considers for a moment, then nods. "My fingers. They are unsealed, and are too thin to support kikaichu tunnels."

Before they (he) can blink, Not-Naruto takes him (them) by the hand, and with a flash of teeth rips off his (their) pinky finger. And the other hand lashes out, and

------------------

Aburame Shino is small, for the second time in his life. He is one creature, for the first time in a year. He watches from tiny facets as the mummified body falls to the ground, seal slashed in half. Then air whisks over him, and he can tell that Not-Naruto is whispering so as not to deafen him.

"Little beetle, consider a wash rag, saturated from cleansing filth and scum. If one were to use this cloth once more, what must one do?"

Shino cannot answer, but he thinks it nonetheless: wash it clean, then wring it dry.

"Very good, little beetle. Now, little kit, if your mind was dirty, filth-covered and messy, how would you clean it?"

and a thought pops into Shino's head, and it's in Naruto's voice, his real voice. "RAMA-TOUSAN!!!"

"Answer the question, kit."

"Soap cleans dirt, right?" asks the voice, somehow far more articulate than Naruto in real life. "Soap and nice smells and good light and clean breezes. So I'd find what feels like that, but on the inside. Stuff like being with you again, and eating ramen with Baa-chan, and making new friends."

"Excellent," says Not-Naruto, or, Shino supposes, Rama. "In the words of an ancient children's song, 'think of a wonderful thought'. Or as the little genesis said, 'don't look down,' though I suppose that one was more for avoiding it in the first place.

"Now, the last step. Little beetle, how does one wring soapy water out one's mind?"

Shino thinks for a moment. Perhaps focusing closely on a task?

"Precisely," replies Rama, sounding very pleased. "Let it never be said that either of you cannot be taught. You both think fast, and think well. Cleansing one's chakra of influence works in much the same way as you have laid out for cleansing the mind. It is essential for any healing, and especially so for what I am about to do." Then Rama looks at Shino and grins, and oh kami, Shino can see the finger still in his mouth. "Little beetle, one last question. If one wished to combine gold and silver to make electrum, what must one do with their gold and silver?"

Shino doesn't know, but he gets the very distinct impression that he is not going to like it.

"Kit?"

"Put them in a forge?"

"Precisely," says Rama with a wide, terrifying smile. "Put them in a forge." Shino is lifted up, dangled for an instant, and dropped. He lands next to his own finger, and Rama tosses his head, and gulps, and

---------------------------

Shino sees bars.

Great, twisting bars as wide as houses and taller than the sky. Behind them is blackness, and in front of them sits Naruto, happily curled up next to a titanic finger with orange fur stretching from behind the bars.

Out of the darkness opens an eye that feels like it's the size of the moon.

"Little Beetle," says a voice equally as huge. "I brought you here so the flames of the forge don't burn you while I create your electrum."

"Where is 'here'?"

"In the mind of your friend. Do him a favor: don't look down."

Of course, the surest way to make sure any child does something is to tell them not to without explaining why. Shino looks down out of sheer reflex, and for just an instant, he drowns in a sensation so painfully familiar he could map it with his eyes closed, and so dreadfully beyond what he knows that he could shrivel up and die.

Hatred.

Pain.

Fear.

Prejudice.

Rage.

Apathy.

So familiar, because these attitudes are ones he faces every day as an Aburame. So dreadful because Naruto suffers (or suffered) completely alone, and because the attitudes directed towards Naruto are so much more viciously held than anything any Aburame has ever faced.

"I did warn you," says Rama dryly.

"You did," whispers Shino. His voice trembles in a way it hasn't for a year.

"The forging is nearly complete. My chakra, when purified, is the most powerful regenerative possible. From one mummified finger, an entire child. But my power is not only in my chakra. I am not simply a fox with nine tails. I am Youko. I am Kitsune."

That.

That is a revelation Shino is not up for right now. He puts that in a pretty little box, ties it shut with a pretty little ribbon, and throws it as far into the back of his mind as he can.

"I need only wait for ANBU to arrive to apply CPR, and with the tiniest whisp of youki I can place your soul in your new body."

"What of my queen?"

"Do you want to live, or do you want your queen?"

Shino snorts. "Live. I can find a new way to fight, now."

"Your resilience is a blessing, little beetle. Now wake up."

---------------------------------

Shino wakes up, in a human body, alone on the inside, and with the sound of Uzumaki Naruto and Aburame Shibi ranting about the Aburame clan elders to the Godaime in his ears. Shino can hear his father shouting (shouting! his dad! at the Hokage!) about being sealed to silence, about treason and terrorism, about Torune, demanding justice for his son and his stolen adoptive son.

For the first time in three hundred and eighty three days, Shino cries.

He's free.

Notes:

alternate title: "In Which No Clan Is Free Of Sin"

alternate alternate title: "In Which Tsunade Forgot That There Would Be Consequences For Removing The Extra Seals On Naruto"

i had an awful idea and it fit so well that i had to share it. also, danzo and the various clan heads had so many fingers in so many pies that i'm honestly shocked we didn't learn something absolutely traumatizing about every clan. on top of that, we know so little about the aburame that it is so, so easy to slot said trauma in.

the aburame elders combined yokai-capture seals with the hyuuga caged bird cursed seal and some stolen Uzumaki fuinjutsu to create the Scarab's Eye Cursed Seal, used in the warring states era to make use of every resource available to keep the """""useful"""""" children safe. in essence, an aburame child without the insect communication kekkei genkai becomes a human sacrifice to a kikaichu colony, and the colony becomes sealed to the child's corpse as well as the child being sealed to the queen of the colony. the resulting revenant is publicly treated like a child, and privately treated like a combination security construct and spare kikaichu worker generator. fortunately, only one in every thirty aburame is born without the kekkei genkai, and the seal does not react to anyone not of aburame blood. unfortunately, the current batch of elders was in league with danzo prior to shibi gaining the headship, and have used his silencing seals liberally.

kurama is absolutely disgusted by this practice, to the point where he secretly uses his own life force to bring shino back, not just youki and chakra.

there's gonna be Consequences.

Chapter 10: Chouji Is Hungry

Summary:

In which Chouji is hungry.

Akamichi Chouji is happy to see that Naruto is getting fed, finally. He's happy that Shino is better, that Sasuke got to choose to be a girl, and that Ino didn't die helping Naruto. He's happy for so very much.

But also?

Chouji is hungry.

It's like saying water is wet or fire is hot. Chouji is big, and Chouji is hungry.

But this is different. He doesn't want chips, or fries, or ramen, or even barbecue. He is hungry for something more raw. Not sushi or sashimi, either.

See, Chouji knows that his friends and his friends-of-friends have been hurt, a lot, over a very long period of time. He knows, roughly, who hurt them. He knows what their titles are, and with a little asking around, he knows their names.

Shimura Danzo. Dead. Cremated. Ashes taste foul and burnt and for some reason soapy. He doubts these ashes would taste different.

Sarutobi Hiruzen. Resigned. Repentant. Tears taste like sea water and empty stomachs, somehow tasteless and despicably briney at the same time. The man is off limits, anyways.

Aburame Elders. Arrested. Watched. He can't get to them, but if he could, he knows they would taste of dry-aged pork and the most deliciously crunchy mealworms.

Hyuuga Elders. Free. Hidden. The cowards hide behind seals he could never get through. Last he saw them, they smelled just like koji rice and century eggs.

Chouji is hungry.

Wait.

There is one person, now that he thinks of it, that has both the experience to recognize when something is wrong and the power to do something about it.

--------------

Chouji remembers his first clan lesson. Tousan used that first lesson to tell a story.

"The founder of the Akimichi clan was a young lady married to a horrible man when one day, a terrible oni walked out of the woods," began Chouza. "The oni roared, and set to terrorizing the townsfolk, and the lady feared for the children. Oni were well known to eat humans, and while the women could run and the men could fight back, the children were too slow and too physically weak, and would surely be gobbled up. So the lady rang her dinner bell, and welcomed the hungry oni into her house. The oni roared, and the lady brought him whole roasted ham hocks. The oni howled, and the lady brought him thick ropes of sausages doused in hot gravy. The oni yelled, and she brought him rice thick with eggs and vegetables. The oni rumbled, and the lady brought him dumplings stuffed with everything she could think of. The oni spoke, and the lady could find no more to bring him in her kitchen. So she took up a knife and chopped up her despicable husband, and she brought the oni sashimi and sizzling barbecue and smoking kebabs. The oni fell asleep, and the lady sent a message to the townsfolk to flee before he woke."

"The oni slept for seven days and seven nights, and when he woke, he laid eyes on the most beautiful lady he had ever seen. He loved her, from the tips of her dainty toes to the tip of the single small pink horn she now grew on her forehead, for she had fed him when he was hungry, had guarded his deep slumber, had slain her husband for him that he may finish his meal. The oni begged her hand in marriage, swearing by his blood and power that he would never harm another human save by her word, and she accepted. They converted the sprawling estates of her first husband to bountiful farms, and together grew old and fat and happy, with enough children to fill a town."

"We don't know whether that story is strictly true," said Chouza, "but we do know that Akimichi aren't purely human. We are close, and those of us who stay civilian may never once run across the remnants of our yokai ancestry. But shinobi will, over and over and over again."

"Why, Tousan?" asked Chouji.

"Because of our appetites," replied his father. "Publicly, we eat the way we do because our clan jutsu burn body fat very quickly, quick enough to kill us if we aren't very overweight. And that is true," he conceded, "but it is not the actual reason.

"The real reason is that our ancestors were oni, and if we don't eat at least half our weight every day, our oni blood begins to rise up," said Chouza. He was deadly serious, a sharp contrast from his usual self. "We partner with Nara and Yamanaka, because those clans are the only ones with a deep-rooted capacity to hold us if we go without food. Nara to restrain us, and Yamanaka to call out the human in us. If you ever are placed on a mission with shinobi not of those two clans and even the slightest chance of being overnight or low on food, turn it down. Akimichi have eaten their own team mates before. It used to be common, before we banded with the Nara and Yamanaka."

Chouji nodded. He remembered the stories told by the Akimichi elders, men and women with red and blue and green and grey skin, with one or two or three or ten horns and hair long faded from soft red to dense, wiry black.

"Will I ever get horns?" he asked his father.

"Kami-sama willing, never," said Chouza, "but then, Kami-sama has never been particularly willing to help Akimichi shinobi on this matter."

Chouji had sniffed angrily, upset that his father was wishing to deny him his clan heritage, and even more upset that Chouza changed the subject before he could ask how, exactly, an Akimichi got horns in the first place. He didn't want to be a baby and throw a tantrum though, so he just changed the subject to dinner plans.

Now, something in Chouji's gut whispers that he'll get his horns after all.

---------------

Mizuki-sensei is Naruto's homeroom sensei, and he's an unmitigated ass. He dotes on heirs of rich clans, ignores non-heirs and heirs of poor clans, and derides non-heirs of poor clans. He saves the worst treatment for civilian-born students, and the worst of the worst for orphans in general and Naruto in particular.

Chouji has always hated him for his conniving cruelty, but now Chouji is hungry.

He follows Mizuki-sensei. To class, to the teacher's lounge, to the coffee shop, back to class, to the chuunin lounge, to home, and eventually back to class again. Mizuki-sensei doesn't notice. Not for the full week Chouji follows him, stalks him.

Chouji once promised he would never attack a Konoha shinobi, a comrade in arms, but now Chouji is hungry.

Another week passes, and Shikamaru gives him a subtle nod. His best friend has sussed out his plan, and approves. The last of Chouji's reservations fade like morning mist. He stops bringing food to class. Meals with his family will keep their suspicion down, and keep the oni from taking over his mind. Not enough to keep the oni from showing itself at all, though.

Finally, another week later, Mizuki-sensei has broken his usual routine, and has gone outside early, leaving his class alone in the classroom. Chouji leaves, mumbling about the restroom.

Once outside, a deep, slow pull of air through his nostrils tells Chouji that Mizuki-sensei is behind the utility shed, smoking the same pungent stuff the elders do when their oni acts up too much for food alone. Chouji is hungry.

"Sensei," calls Chouji.

His sensei starts slightly, before smiling that wide, false smile he uses for wealthy clan heirs. "Chouji-kun! What's up?"

"I'm hungry, sensei."

Mizuki chuckles softly. "Lunch is in just another hour, Chouji-kun, you'll have to wait a bit longer."

A small hand grabs his wrist.

"Sensei, you don't understand." The grip suddenly tightens. "You were mean to my friends," says Chouji, eyes gleaming in the shadows cast by the shed. "You didn't help them when they were hurt." The bones in Mizuki's wrist crunch, so sharp and sudden that he can't even cry out for help. "You laughed at them when they were in pain." A sharp tug pulls Mizuki down to the ground, and Chouji looms over him like the spectre of death itself. "And sensei?"

"Y-ye-es?" Mizuki manages to squeak out.

"I'm very, very hungry."

Mizuki never gets a chance to make a sound before teeth, not the rectangles of human teeth but the heavy, curved cones of orca teeth, rip into his neck.

---------------

Chouji is, of course, caught. By Naruto, of all people. But to Chouji's amazement, Naruto isn't disgusted at all.

"Entcha not supposed to eat tha- the same kinda people as you?" asks Naruto, cocking his head in that curious-fox way he does.

"Yeah," says Chouji with a slow, disbelieving nod. "But Akimichi are part oni, so eating humans won't make us sick like it would if we were human."

Naruto nods slowly, like he's thinking about how to answer. Then he starts mumbling intermittently, before nodding again. "Rama-tousan said ta- to ask if the same goes for kitsune hanyou."

Chouji blinks, then sits back from his meal. That... makes rather a lot of sense. What with the whiskers and claws and teeth. Also the bullying and shunning, since Naruto doesn't have a clan or a pre-existing good reputation. Belatedly, he nods. Hanyou in general are safe from that, he remembers his father mentioning it during clan lessons.

"Then," says Naruto with a toothy grin, "pass me a leg. Baa-chan keeps makin' me cook everything, an' Mizuki-sensei definitely deserves to get eaten."

The two spend a solid two hours idly eating their cruel sensei and chatting about their mutual friends.

That evening, Chouji helps his mother cook for the clan's get-together by chopping thirteen pounds of onions, before washing his hands and going to find his father.

With the help of tears born of onions and a history of having never once lying to his parents, Chouji shows his father a slowly forming bump on his forehead and a backpack full of gnawed bones. His father says nothing, but holds him so close and so tight that Chouji can feel the pain and sorrow and regret in the words his father doesn't say. Chouji cries for real now, for making his father so sad, for lying, for killing someone in cold blood. But he doesn't say anything.

---------------------------

Mizuki is reported missing by noon the next day. When ANBU can find no signs of either abduction or willing departure within a month, his missing status is amended to missing, presumed dead.

Six weeks later, a heavily chewed skeleton matching the specs of Mizuki is discovered deep in Training Ground 44. Enemy action or treason is immediately removed from the list of possible causes of death in favor of any one of the thirteen hundred and twelve species capable of killing a chuunin in the Forest of Death.

Notes:

Alternate title: "In Which Mizuki Gets What's Coming To Him Early"

i read a really cool au idea several years ago about how the akimichi ate people before they settled into a village, and it was too juicy not to run with it. they're usually not cannibalistic, but they grow a horn for every human they eat, and as mentioned some of the elders have a lot since accidents happen and shinobi are put in a position where people free for the eating are more... available. the one with a crown of ten horns wasn't some kind of hannibal lecter, he was mangled on a mission in the suna desert and couldn't make his way home, so he waited two weeks in the desert for rescue, eating only the shinobi sent to kill him and some delightfully hallucinogenic cacti.

the Akimichi family legend is mostly true, it only skips the part where, after his meal, the oni and the lady chat for several hours and end up getting very... intimate. and kinky. it wasn't even that she seduced him or he seduced her, it was just that they had a lot in common, found out they had a lot of chemistry, and he did just eat the man that spent the last five years beating her and she did just feed him nearly a ton and a half of food, and it had been so long for both of them, and one thing led to another and before you know it she's got a baby bump at the wedding.

the townsfolk thought she had only barely escaped to give her warning to flee, but really she was just too well-fucked to walk in a straight line, and expensive kimonos don't hold up well against a mutual ravishing.

Chapter 11: Stuck In This Complete Farce Of A Body

Summary:

Alternate Title: "In Which It Do Be Like That Sometimes"

Kiba has a bit of a problem.

Akamaru does too, but that's for later. Right now, Kiba is freaking out (only a little!) and doesn't have the mental space to panic about two things at once. Sure, he used to be able to panic about a lot of things at once (anxiety has to be good for something), but right now Akamaru occupies half his brain, and oh kami does Kiba wish that was a figure of speech.

It all started in what the bureaucrats in charge of the academy called "Study Period" and everyone with actual experience with the event called "Mayhem Hour". A whole hour for students to do preliminary research on new subjects and review old.

Or rather, an hour of unsupervised chaos because not even a dozen chuunin could hope to hold the attention of thirty half-trained chakra-enhanced lunatics for a whole day without a break for everyone involved.

Kiba usually passed the time by training with Akamaru. This time, Akamaru had gotten a cut paw, so they took a break, and agreed to be test dummies for Ino so long as she didn't do anything too embarrassing or make Akamaru use his cut paw. Normally, being Ino's test dummy for her clan jutsu was actually a big relief. He could stop doing the whole confidence thing for a minute and just /be/.

Kami, whoever said "fake it til you make it" completely forgot to mention how exhausting it is.

Anyways, normally a bit of possession between friends outside of a combat situation is kinda nice. This time was different. Kiba had hit a growth spurt since the last time he played test dummy, and Ino had gotten a new kekkei genkai, and between the two of them, Ino's coordination in Kiba's body was shit. It took two tries for her to stand up, and the first time she took a step she landed square on Akamaru's tail.

Akamaru had been in a good, deep nap, so the sudden pain sent him from REM to dead sprint pretty much instantly. He bolted, and Ino reached out reflexively to catch him, as Kiba tried to do the same. By complete accident, she reached with her mind as well as her hand, and brought Kiba along for the ride. Ino pulled back her mind, but Kiba was still reaching, and he made contact at the exact moment Akamaru's cut paw touched down in the center of a weird doodle Naruto had been making.

Suddenly there was light and smoke everywhere, and everything hurt.

It's about two hours later now, and the mednin are confused, and that makes Kiba worried. Is he gonna die? Are him and Akamaru stuck like this forever? What if he has cancer now? Oh kami, what if he has dog cancer now? Are they going  to even try to fix him? What if they decide to study him instead? Are they going to experiment on him? What if they have to hurt Akamaru to get him out? What if Akamaru has human cancer? Are they-

"Inuzuka-kun, are you alright?"

"I don't wanna have dog cancer!" wails Kiba.

"Rowowroorou rooo roh!" howls Akamaru through Kiba.

"Inuzuka-kun," sighs the nurse, "I promise you don't have dog cancer. Physically speaking, you are in perfect health. The only reason we haven't released you yet is that we still can't tell if the de- ahem, Uzumaki-san's seal did more than simply fuse you and your ninken, and we can't undo the seal until Jiraiya-sama arrives next week, and that's if he can figure out how."

Suddenly a shadow looms over the nurse.

"Nurse Matchanami," booms out the Hokage, "Correct me if I am wrong, but did I just hear you volunteer for indefinite bedpan duty?"

"N-n-no, Hokage-sama!"

"Ah," says the Hokage with a nod. "My mistake. You're fired."

"Fired?!" yelps Nurse Matchanami.

"Fired," snarls the Hokage, anger suddenly no longer being held back, "for slandering my grandson. Be grateful you corrected yourself before you could break the Sandaime's law, because unlike Sarutobi, I am willing and ready to enforce it. Now get out of my hospital."

The newly ex-nurse scuttles away, leaving Kiba and Akamaru alone with the Godaime Hokage.

Kiba looks desperately to the Hokage, and asks the question that is really important to him. "Hokage-sama? Whrrrrooo" His voice cracks, and suddenly its Akamaru asking the same thing. Kiba focuses hard on what he wants to say, and tries again. "What's going to happen to me?"

The Hokage's face softens, and she ruffles his newly multicolored hair. "We're going to talk to the brat and see what specific iteration of the seal he was working on when your hairier half accidentally activated it. I've already gotten Yamanaka-kun's report on what happened on her end." She suddenly gets serious again. "Inuzuka-kun, I will be honest with you. The seal Naruto-chan was working on was a prototype, hence why he wrote it in the dirt rather than with fuinjutsu tags and chakratic ink. Much safer to erase. But I do know that the end goal he is working towards is a seal meant to permanently unite a human chakra source and a non-human source. The final product was used in the Warring States era to restrict overly destructive youkai, and was the predecessor to the jinchuriki class of seals."

"What's a jin-chu-ruki?"

The Hokage just stares at him for a long, long second, before she groans like Hana-neechan does when a ninken comes to the clinic two minutes before closing. "Of course. Of course! Why teach shinobi about the literal worst case scenario that could happen at literally any point in the field! Kami, Sarutobi, if I hadn't already punched you so hard you got a hernia, I'd strike you right here and now. Alright, fine." She looks at Kiba again, then begins talking again in a brisk lecturing tone.

"Jinchuriki are heroes, because they protect us from the biju like the Kyuubi. Biju are too big to lock up, too strong to chain down, and don't even have physical bodies so they can't be killed. But they are made of chakra, and chakra can be sealed into things made to hold chakra. The only thing in the world that can hold enough chakra to be used to seal a biju long-term is a human. The seal Naruto was learning is what the jinchuriki seal is based off of, scaled down and made for chakra monsters that have at least a bit of physicalness."

Kiba... was actually able to follow all of that. Huh. Hokage-sama is a super good sensei.

"The bad news," says Hokage-sama, "is that the seal might be one of the versions that cannot be undone. You might be half Kiba and half Akamaru forever. The good news," she says with a smile, "is that if you are stuck, Akamaru's mind is still separate, so you still have your friend. Also, once you get used to the shared body, you'll likely be one of the most dangerous shinobi in the world." The smile turns into a smirk. "After all, it's very, very difficult to kill something with two souls and make it stick."

----------------

Learning to walk with crooked legs is hard. Having a tail helps, but Kiba still has to go on all fours if he has to get somewhere at any kind of reasonable pace. At least the teeth are only a bit longer than he's used to.

Akamaru is mostly just enjoying thumbs, and lamenting the loss of his glorious ears. That, and feeling tall. He is very young for a ninken, so long-lasting traumatic situations mostly consists of "am I hurt? If yes then cry, if not really then investigate until it does, if no then play time". This, of course, is not conducive to helping Kiba, since their new body isn't in any pain whatsoever.

Kiba is trying to re-learn writing with paw pads a couple hours after the Hokage's visit, when suddenly the door flies open, and Naruto practically prances in. He's wearing a girl's kimono the color of melted orange creamsicles, a pencil and a senbon press-ganged into duty as hair sticks, and no footwear whatsoever.

"Yo Tusk," he says a high-pitched voice with a weird accent. "Oldies-pops hi."

Okaaay.

"Naruto, why are you talking like that?" asks Kiba, "And also! Why are you in my room?!"

Naruto wrinkles his nose and squints his eyes, and Kiba feels like he's getting checked out and found to be pencil-dicked at best. "What-for jabber fancy-like? Jabber like hood coots."

"Moron, you sound like a slang thesaurus!" Kiba growls, then. Oh. OH! He focuses on his words for a moment, and tries again in human. "Hey dumbass, that's not how you speak Dog."

This time, the look he gets is downright withering. "Dumbass yerself, Kiba, I was talkin' Fox. Not my fault Dog is too uptight with grammar."

That draws Kiba up short. Naruto can speak Fox? But you need a kekkei genkai like the Inuzuka or Aburame ones to talk to animals.

"How'd you learn to speak Fox?"

"'Rama-tousan re-taught me. 'Pparently I used ta be pretty good at it when I was little, but Danzou-teme got a seal on me an' it made me forget a lotta stuff, on toppa how I was so little makin' me forget."

"And... why are you in my room?"

Naruto snaps his fingers in a moment of realization. "That's right! Baa-chan said since I'm a hanyou, I can teach ya some stuff. S'not e'sactly the same, but we got a lot in common body-ways."

Makes sense, especially the Naruto-is-a-hanyou part. He'd always smelled too fox-ish to be full human. Must have some kitsune in him.

"First thin'," announces Naruto, "Ya gotta take off all the clothes." And before Kiba can do more than experience a bare instant of mortal terror, Naruto has pantsed him and lifted Kiba's shirt so high he can't get himself untangled.

While he desperately tries to get free enough to hide before Naruto sees, he hears another rustling of clothes. When his head finally pops free of the knotted shirt, Kiba gives a massive jolt, then stares in disbelief.

There, in his room, is a naked girl. She has Naruto's face, Naruto's callused hands, Naruto's muddy bare feet. But... Kiba looks away, suddenly intensely aware that he is staring at a naked girl that isn't his sister. She giggles at him in Naruto's voice.

"C'mon, Kiba, go ahead an' look. S'not like I'd strip us both if I didn't want'cha lookin'."

Kiba looks up, feeling very... odd. She's very pretty, and. Oh. He. He recognizes that scar, too. Trying to be subtle, Kiba takes a slow, deep sniff. It's Naruto. For real. Not under a henge, not in a disguise. Naruto is a girl.

"Yep, last two hours 'r so," says Naruto, making Kiba realize he'd said that bit out lou- wait, hold on.

"Two hours?" asks Kiba. "You can't just swap sexes like a set of clothes like that!"

"Ehhh," says Naruto, wobbling a hand. "Straight-up humans can't, but'cha can swap gender, and part of bein' a hanyou for me is bein' able to shape shift. I used ta think it was just bein' super good at henge, but 'Rama-tousan says I use youki ta do it, so instead a lookin' and maybe feelin' real, it actually is real, down ta the DNA."

"Wow..." A sudden surge of intensely violent, acid-green envy spills through Kiba. The option to change, to be himself, is so out of reach that Kiba can only play pretend, and for Naruto to have it while Kiba is stuck in this complete farce of a body makes him want to tear Naruto's throat out and pop her eyes like overripe blueberries until Kiba can find what lets her do it and take it for himself.

Then Naruto sticks her finger in his belly button and wiggles it around until Kiba almost pees himself. From his new home curled in a ball on the floor, while he gasps for air, he suddenly notices something else new. The sensation of needing to pee was different than what he's used to. Further from his body, somehow, and.

Kiba sits up in a rush, then, ignoring the still-naked Naruto, pulls his boxers out as far as the waist band will stretch, and stares.

"Huh," says Naruto. "That's weird." Kiba looks up, and she's definitely looking at his junk, but now it's not the judging look from earlier. It's that constipated look she gets when she's genuinely confused. "Thought you had an innie."

Kiba is far too shocked to be at all embarrassed. There's. There's a bubble in his chest. A lump forms in his throat. Naruto chatters on about how lucky Kiba is that human innies and dog outies must mix to make human outies rather than a muddled mix or something like that , but Kiba can't follow. His eyes are burning, and his nose is clogging up, and Akamaru is too busy napping to be of any help.

He feels like. Like dawn. That first ray of light. The one that pokes you in the eye when you've gotten up early to watch the sunrise. It hurts like blinding, but it's so special, so hopeful, so happy, that you can't help but laugh.

Tears pour down Kiba's face as he laughs, then cries, then finally crashes and falls asleep on Naruto's shoulder.

------------

Naruto makes a note to try again the next day. She's not sure Kiba was coherent enough when he was awake to notice any of the body stuff she needed to show him. She gets it though. It's nice when the outside matches what's inside.

She can't wait for him to notice he has six nips. 

Notes:

With this chapter, the last of Naruto's class has been introduced.

the feeling of raw envy that Kiba feels is one that I and many, many other trans people are *intimately* familiar. there's not a lot of us that get as permanent a fix as Kiba got, but from everything i've heard the euphoria is as all-encompassing as Kiba's.

also, people who wrestle their anxiety into the dirt through sheer contrariness are gods among mortals, and should be feared and revered as such. it's hard as hell, and super fuckin easy to fuck yourself up with, and i've met all of two people that really pulled it off, but when it works it is something to behold.

Chapter 12: Once Is Chance, Twice Is Coincidence, But Nine?

Summary:

In Which Iruka Makes A Choice

The trick to teaching children how to be Shinobi, Iruka is learning, is to keep their attention.

Some teachers can, some can't.

The ones that can get to teach a bunch of sweet, thoughtful children.

The ones that can't tend to quit before their first term is over from sheer terror.

Case in point, Yamanaka Inosuke, whose wife got pregnant a few months ago so he decided to take an in-village extended C-Rank rather than the A's and B's he was used to as a jounin. Unfortunately, he can't captivate a moth if he strips and paints himself in glow sticks while wearing a lantern on his head. Iruka had interned under Yamanaka-senpai for all of a week during the optional summer class session, before the man called in "sick" the first time. Turns out he had been busy working up the nerve to request a transfer to the border.

"Don't worry 'bout it," says one of the senior teachers, Kurumi Something-Or-Other. "They're still kids, it's exactly like babysitting, and I seem to remember a certain genin last year that could juggle six tots on a grocery run and have those munchkins thinking it was a super important mission."

Michiri-senpai, who has been assigning classes for the upcoming year, calls out "Umino Iruka! You get the short straw this year, class 1-A. Try to last longer than Mizuki, please."

There is a long moment of silence.

"Never fuckin' mind," says Kurumi. "You're well-fucked now."

-----------------------------------

Iruka opens the door to a perfectly silent room.

Nothing falls on his head. Nothing slips or trips or blocks him.

Huh.

Then he looks at the students, and freezes.

Nine kids. Each of them looking directly at him. And there's a weight of judgement to them the likes of which he has never felt outside of the presence of the Godaime.

Front row first on the left, in Inuzuka Kiba's spot, there is a wolf. Well, wolf person. Golden eyes with two pupils in each eye stare at him. It's ears are pricked, its hackles raised, and there's a very slight wrinkle to it's lip as though it hasn't decided whether or not to growl yet. It's jacket is the thick fur coat favored by the Inuzuka, and there's something like a tattoo showing under the sparse fur around it's mouth and nose. A tiny part of Iruka's brain notices that the boy's class picture must be really, really out of date.

Front and center is Hyuuga Hinata, and the moment Iruka notices her he almost drops his jaw. While a wolf-human hybrid is almost to be expected of an Inuzuka, Iruka is absolutely baffled by the very concept of a Hyuuga going through a punk phase. She is wearing a fur-lined black leather jacket, decked in patches and very deliberately placed spikes over the tenketsu and pressure points of the upper body. She is wearing black cargo pants like those Iruka has seen in shinobi armor shops, and he knows they are lined with mesh, with further lining of chainmail over vulnerable points. She's got enough piercings to give her clan elders a case of the vapors, her hair is dyed black and cut into a pixie/undercut combo, and she wears black make-up like it's another article of clothing.

Front right is Aburame Shino, and Iruka is greatly relieved to see that this student at least is what he would expect. Then he looks closer. There's something... off. His arms bend strangely, though he's made an effort to arrange them correctly. There's a thin line running from his lower lip, and now that Iruka has spotted it, there's dozens of those thin lines, tracing an insectoid carapace across what is visible of his skin before disappearing under his trench coat. His hair is bizzarely stiff, somehow looking fluffy and sharp at the same time. There are a pair of small black circles on his upper cheekbones, and another set on his temples. When the boy blinks, so do the little black circles.

Center row on the far right is Haruno Sakura. Her pink hair is braided straight down to the floor, and seems to invite one to touch it, but Iruka can see the stiffness of the ribbons braided in, and knows they are threaded with razor wire. At the end of the braid, the head of a rope dart sways gently in the breeze from the nearby window. She is wearing reinforced leather gauntlets, the kind made without fingers so that the wearer can wear chain mail gloves underneath, and on the left there is an intricate seal etched into its surface. Hazy memories of his mother's cousin from Uzushio teaching him about seals inform Iruka that it is a weapon storage seal, meant for one large, heavy object. The right gauntlet also has a seal, this one intended for dozens of small, light weapons. Other than her hair and gauntlets, Sakura looks like a normal preteen civilian, and somehow that makes Iruka more wary rather than less.

On the left is Uchiha Sasuka. Propped against his desk is a massive sword with two sets of cross-guards. It is the kind once used against armored knights in the era before the Warring States, but now used solely in execution by beheading. The boy's broad shoulders and callused hands tell Iruka that this sword gets a hell of a lot more use than a headman's blade. He is dressed in a feminine-cut kimono popular among kunoichi who must attend state affairs respectfully while also anticipating combat- long cuts placed carefully where natural folds in the fabric will conceal them to allow for free motion, and lots and lots of shinobi-grade mesh armor lining. His makeup is designed to draw one's gaze right to his eyes, and Iruka knows it will be a deadly trap one day.

In the exact center of the room is Uzumaki Naruto, and somehow the fact that the Demon Brat is the most normal kid in the room so far despite being decked out in a rather hideous orange boiler suit makes Iruka more pissed than anything else. The brat is the only student not looking at him, and is instead doodling on the desk.  He's about to speak up, when suddenly he has the unique sensation of being shoved away from the controls of his own brain.

Ah ah ah, sensei~! Naru-kun is busy, and you don't have interrupting authority yet. Go back to sight seeing for now, you're only just past halfway!

Iruka's body turns to look at the student on the right of the third row- Yamanaka Ino. She looked like the deranged child of a stereotypical Yamanaka and Mitarashi Anko with blond hair but a certain intent for mayhem in her bearing that no Yamanaka Iruka has met has had, and after a moment, Iruka realized that it wasn't far off. Inoichi-sama had married Anko's aunt, and the only reason Anko wasn't a Yamanaka after her parents died is that Orochimaru snapped her up before the new Yamanaka matriarch could offer her a home. She idly taps a finger next to her eye, and holy shit how is she controlling him while controlling her own body!

Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy. That's for me to know and you to find out. With that, she inexorably turns Iruka to look at the student beside her, Nara Shikamaru. While the other children (they're kids! Kids! Why are they so intimidating!) look like they are waiting for him to give some kind of cue that will determine how they will handle him, Shikamaru is looking at him like the cue has been given and now he is merely trying to decide how he will sell his actions to the Hokage with full confidence that anything he says will be accepted as gospel. He's dressed in an odd vest, one with dozens of loose tags and strips of cloth attached loosely enough that if grabbed, they will snap off without slowing him down. The sun glinting through the window throws a hint of something embroidered on the little flaps, something the same color as the base cloth, but Iruka can't make it out.

Finally, in the back right is Akimichi Chouji, and if you were to ask Iruka what a twelve year old oni were to look like, he would say they looked like Chouji. His two horns frame his brow and are framed by his red hair in turn. His build is the kind that always startles onlookers, thick slabs of muscle under just enough fat to hide any lines, and what little shows through is broken up by the enameled armor he wears. One meaty hand rests casually on his desk, the other taps gently at his chin as the boy stares down Iruka, as though trying to decide whether or not he is hungry.

He's not looking at a room full of Academy students. The only one in there that looks like they might have even a hint of childishness about them is the Demon Bra-

Strike one. sings Yamanaka's voice in his head, and Iruka feels his left eye twitch twice, rapid-fire flickers of motion he would ordinarily dismiss as stress induced but are obviously a signal, because every other gaze in the room hardens. Inuzuka goes from almost snarl to almost growl. Hyuuga activates her Byakugan. Aburame stops trying to look like he has human joints. Uchiha eases her sword a bare millimeter from its scabbard. Haruno touches a finger to one of her gauntlets and draws forth a battleaxe that must weigh as much as she does. Nara's shadow suddenly goes pitch-black, including the shadows of the tags on his vest. Akimichi's lips peel back to reveal teeth shaped like an orca's.

Uzumaki, though.

Uzumaki flinches. Hard.

And Yamanaka doesn't have to lean on certain memories for the sight to ram them front and center, but she does hold them a moment longer than he really needs her to.

Every day of Iruka's own Academy career. The same flinch. But not made by a student or subordinate of Iruka.

Iruka was the one flinching.

Every time the sensei laid eyes on him and saw "Trouble" rather than "Child".

Every time another troublemaker blamed him and the sensei didn't even hesitate.

Every time a noise too low-pitched for the sensei to hear hurt his delicate Umino-born ears and the sensei kicked him out for disrupting the class.

There is a sudden rushing sensation, and Yamanaka speaks up, out loud this time.

"Sensei's a little confused, but they've got the idea. I didn't even have to show them, they showed themself." With that, every single weapon is put away, the looks calm down, and Yamanaka gives him back full control. Iruka stumbles, and walks over to the desk at the front of the room. He awkwardly clears his throat and looks at the roster. Full of out-of-date examinations, and judging by the students, likely to get him killed.

He dumps the roster in the wastebasket and pulls out the little notebook he keeps his to-do lists and grocery lists in.

"Good morning class, and I apologize for the rough first impression. The most I can say is that I was given faulty information, and let that be your first lesson from me: Bad intel kills more shinobi every day than any amount of enemy action ever could alone," says Iruka, and finally, finally Uzumaki looks up.

"Don' worry 'bout it, sensei," says the boy. "I'm not too good at first impressions either."

"That is kind of you, Uzumaki-san, but it does not excuse my negligence in making sure the information I was given was correct. Please, allow me to start over," says Iruka with a smile. "My name is Umino Iruka, my family was based in Uzushio before its fall and specialized in their Kekkei Genkai, the Kujira no Mimi. It means I can hear sounds of much lower pitch than the average shinobi. I enjoy teaching, playing pranks on my coworkers, and eating onomichi ramen from Ichiraku Ramen. I dislike liars, playing cards with people I don't know, and eating mazegohan made by anyone who is not using the Uzushio recipe. My dream is to live to see one of my students become Hokage, and to prevent my village from falling like my parent's village did."

Dead silence.

Then.

"Uzu... shio?"

Grateful to have something concrete he can do, Iruka pulls down the map and points to the ruins of Uzushio. "Uzushio was a small island nation with only a single city, Uzushiogakure. they were powerful shinobi and kunoichi, long-lived and with enough chakra to drown a fish, but what they were really known for was the Uzumaki clan. The Uzumaki were masters of seals, and had chakra so heavy and dense that they could manifest it physically as unbreakable chains strong enough that, during the Battle of the End Valley, Uzumaki Mito was able to hold down the Kyuubi no Kitsune singlehandedly, and was able to seal it into herself, becoming the first successful jinchuriki. When Senju Hashirama later married Mito-hime, Uzushiogakure and Konohagakure became extremely close allies, and would regularly trade shinobi, up until the Second Shinobi World War."

Iruka looks back, and as he takes in the nine identical poleaxed expressions, a thought strikes him like he's a cheap bell. They don't know what Uzushio is. Was. Whatever. They don't know about the Uzumaki clan. *Uzumaki* doesn't know about the Uzumaki clan.

His eyes, by complete chance, meet Shikamaru's and Iruka can tell that they are having the exact same thought.

Nine students.

Nine supposedly well-educated shinobi in training that don't know about Konoha's most famous, most powerful, and most mourned ally.

Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but nine? Nine is enemy action, and I don't know who the enemy is yet.

Iruka can see it. Nine children, and if he keeps to the curriculum not one of them will make it to their sixteenth birthday. If he doesn't keep to the curriculum but doesn't tell them the multiple S-rank secrets they need to know, they might, might make it to eighteen.

Fuck.

That.

Shit.

"Nara-san, I can see that one of your tags is a privacy seal. Radius?"

"Four meters, Umino-sensei. If we scrap the desks and move to the center of the room, it'll cover all of us," comes the rapid answer.

"Huddle on Naru-kun," says Yamanaka briskly. "C'mon, shake a leg now, Kiba, Chouji, watch your head," she rattles off as she pulls everyone together. Iruka can already tell that while Shikamaru is the brains of this operation, Ino is definately the head. As soon as everyone is grouped close together, Shikamaru activates his seal and nods to Iruka.

"Class, remember what I said about bad intel being lethal?" asks Iruka to a whole hydra's worth of nodding heads. "This is as serious as bad intel gets. I can already tell that each of you knows Naruto's most poorly kept secret, but I can also tell that something far more important has been hidden from him and you. Naruto, how is your chakra control?"

"Shit," says Naruto seriously. "I can't get one measly leaf to stick to my head."

"By being denied your Uzumaki heritage, you are also being denied the knowledge of how the Uzumaki trained to deal with their massive amounts of chakra. Your... ah..."

"Roommate?" asks Naruto cheerily. "Tenant? Fuzzy little problem?"

"Let's go with tenant," says Shikamaru as dryly as a desert.

"Right," says Iruka. "Your tenant exacerbates the problem, meaning that, if you take the ordinary route and wait until you have a jounin sensei, you will never be able to reach Jounin, let alone follow the dreams you likely have. In turn, this sabotages your team, because to become genin, the entire team must pass together. Same with the chuunin exams. Furthermore, residents of old Uzushio are still actively hunted by the three nations that teamed up to exterminate them at the beginning of the Second Great War. Your very name puts an A-rank bounty on your back, right here, right now. Once you make genin, S-rank. You will have kage-level shinobi trying to kill you and your team every time you leave the gates. I myself have an S-rank bounty despite being conservatively a C-rank threat, B if I have more than five minutes to get ready, so I am completely restricted to in-village missions. The fact that not even one of the nine of you have been told is a deliberate assassination attempt on each and every one of you, by someone high enough in our system to alter the curriculum of the academy."

Some of the kids look sick at the news, namely Haruno (likely due to not having a clan to back her up) and Uzumaki (very visibly due to being scared for his friends). The rest look downright pissed.

"That is why," continues Iruka, "I am going to call in some favors, dig up some blackmail, and make sure you are the most lethal pack of monsters that have ever been trained anywhere by anyone. You've each got the temperament to handle it, you've shown me that very effectively today. You guys are going to be my first students, and I absolutely *refuse* to have my entire first class go on the Memorial Stone before I manage to graduate a second."

As one, the nine students nod in determination.

"Taijutsu, bukijutsu, shurikenjutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, personal jutsu. Best to worst, Inuzuka, go."

"Taijutsu-" "Shut up, Kiba, your form sucks cat ass." "Fuck off, Sakura! Personal jutsu, taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, bukijutsu, shurikenjutsu. My hands aren't built like regular hands so I can't grip as securely as I need to."

"We'll get you in on Naruto-san's control training, and get some kakute and knuckle dusters, maybe bagh nakh." Kiba snorts in disgust at the last one. "For shurikenjutsu, we'll have to play around and see what works. Hyuuga, go."

"Shurikenjutsu, personal jutsu, bukijutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, ninjutsu. I just don't have the chakra capacity for more yet." The girl's voice is low, almost boyish.

"I've got a taijutsu master that owes me about three thousand ryo, I'll get him in to help on your taijutsu," says Iruka. "Chakra capacity goes up the more you use it, so you're going to be doing tiny jutsu constantly for every hour. Not chakra exercises, mind you. Those just cycle it so you get a better feel for it over time. No, you're going to make as many bushin as you can every hour on the hour until you go to bed each night. As you get better, we'll change up the jutsu. Aburame, go."

"Personal jutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, bukijutsu, shurikenjutsu," says the boy with an odd buzzing drone layered over it. "My anatomy does not lend itself well to traditional kata for any style or weapon, but I have chakra capacity and control in plenty."

"You'll be one of the main focuses for that taijutsu master I told Hyuuga-san about," says Iruka. "I've also got an in with the ANBU Master of Arms. They can figure out what weapons would work best for you, and how you could use them. Haruno, go."

"Bukijutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, shurikenjutsu, ninjutsu," rattled off Sakura. "I don't have anything personal, and I don't have the chakra capacity for ninjutsu."

"Same jutsu exercises as Hyuuga-san," says Iruka, "and I've got blackmail on a bunch of ex-ANBU. They can help you develop something unique, or refine what you have to be able to handle anything. Uzumaki, go."

"Personal jutsu, everything else," says Naruto in a matter of fact tone. "'Rama-tou doesn't like to see me get hurt, so he takes care of fights for me. He's just about the best there is at everything else, so I let him have fun with it." The boy pauses and stares into the middle distance for a moment, then nods. "Personal jutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, bukijutsu, then shurikenjutsu for him. No weapons to practice with, don'cha know."

Iruka has a nasty suspicion who this "Rama-tou" is, but this really, really isn't the time so he lets that slide. "We'll catch you up on everything, then. No reason your Tenant should have to handle everything."

One of Naruto's eyes flickers almost purple, and the boy sketches a very lazy bow, far different from his normal bearing. There's a feeling of... weight to the motion. Like an emperor of normally regal bearing taking a day to unbend and laze about on the beach, thanking a lesser nobleman's servant's son for a glass of water.

Iruka swallows the sudden lump of terror in his throat, and stutters out a short "Uchi-ha"

"Buki, gen, nin, shuriken," says Sasuke in a quiet, serious tone. "Personal has to wait for my sharingan to awaken, and taijutsu has to wait as all the kata for the family style are dangerous without it. Itachi-nii has given me stretches and exercises that will give me the strength and range of motion I will need."

"Very well. You should also meet with the taijutsu master, as he undoubtedly has additional exercises to use, and will be able to teach you a good temporary style for while you wait or for when your chakra is too low to make good use of the sharingan. Yamanaka. Go."

"Personal, shurikenjutsu, genjutsu, ninjutsu, bukijutsu, taijutsu. I've not got enough stamina to do front-line jutsu types effectively."

"Stamina training, and later meeting that taijutsu master. Front-line work is the work you'll need most when you get ambushed, so we need to get that to the top ASAP. Akimichi, go."

"Personal justu, taijutsu, ninjutsu, bukijutsu, shurikenjutsu, genjutsu," says the ogreish boy. "Power in spades but not much control."

"Uzumaki chakra exercises and training with that weapons master," says Iruka, ready to be done. "Nara, you."

"Personal, shuriken, gen, buki, tai, nin," he says tiredly. "I was diagnosed as inattentive-type ADHD a while back, I default to lazy as hell and it's biting me in the ass."

Iruka chuckles, then grins maliciously. "Oh, I have the perfect trainer for you. I'll need you to come by the dango stand on the corner of 5th and Rosehip for lunch."

Shikamaru stares for a moment, gears visibly turning, before he lets his head fall back in a long moan of anticipatory pain.

Hinata raises her hand.

"Yes?" says Iruka.

"Don't forget, we have to introduce ourselves too," she says. "Probably as soon as the privacy shield gets taken down."

"Excellent idea. I'm done with what I need to do privacy-wise, any of you have anything to add?"

"A bit of mine and Naru's introductions should be done here," Sakura says, and raises her hand for a bushin, but what comes out isn't quite... her. It's her, but there are key differences. Namely, the bushin is pitch-black with chalk-white outlines, her face is twisted in a mask of uncontrolled rage, and the kanji for the word "Inner" is branded on her forehead. The clone darts forward and reaches for Iruka's throat, but is dispelled before Iruka feels anything but the whisper of fingertips that really shouldn't be there, that was an E-rank bushin not a solid one holy shit.

"I can't use any bushin or genjutsu for anything but lethal combat if I'm even slightly unhappy," Sakura continues as though nothing happened. "Inner takes over it instantly and she is, ah..."

"Wildly homicidal when at all irritated, and you being unhappy puts her right at pissed as hell?" pipes up Shino in his raspy buzz.

"...Yeah," acknowledges Sakura. "She's what happens when a kid with dissociative identity disorder tries to recreate her Yamanaka friend's jutsu to suppress one of her socially unacceptable selves without any supervision. Inoichi-oji-chan thinks I short-circuited it somewhere and Inner got enough chakra out of the equation to establish herself as a whole-ass distinct person with a soul and everything. When she's not pissed she's actually a really good person, and if you make friends with either of us she does her best to not seriously hurt anyone, but she has not so much issues as subscriptions."

Iruka considers that for a second. "Ranks for her?"

"Taijutsu genjutsu. She doesn't even try anything else, never has, and never really needs to. We tested it, she can put a few kilonewtons of force into every punch, and she has this thing where she can lock a genjutsu by targeting the sensations of pain and chakra-flow. It takes Tsunade-level control to break a genjutsu if you can't feel your own chakra, or if you can't feel anything but pain."

Iruka shudders in agreement, then looks to Naruto.

Whose eyes are crimson.

"Mmmmm. Name's Otsutsuki Kurama. My family is trapped the same way I am, or dead for millennia, but we specialize in Ninshu, which shinobi bastardized and weaponized to create ninjutsu. It lets us do a lot of shit you pinklings used to outright worship us as gods for, still do, really. I saw Hagamoro-tou-san's statue at the temple uptown last year, made me laugh so hard I almost puked. I like my siblings, my skulk, and fried tofu. I dislike any dairy foods other than yogurt, mind control, and people who take prejudice as fact without bothering to ask the prejudiced. My dream is to free myself and my siblings without harming their landlords, and to reintroduce humans to Ninshu."

It is all Iruka can do to not bolt right there.

Then Nar- no, Kurama smirks. "Easy, dolphin child. No need to get a cork in your spout. I am well-contained, and I wouldn't force my way around my kit if you offered me Uchiha Madara's head on a diamond platter. I get to speak with you because I asked, and he agreed. No coercion, no force, no tricks. I will give you this warning, however. My kit has been taking lessons for six years, and had a different instructor for each, sometimes two. None were fired, none quit, none switched away from this class. And here's the kicker- I was not the one to get rid of them."

A chill runs down Iruka's spine, and his eyes track across his new student's faces. Each face was set in stone, with a glint of something violent in each of their eyes. Chouji runs his tongue slowly over a set of suddenly very carnivorous teeth. Then Shikamaru taps his seal once, twice, three times before lifting the barrier. In an instant, the students are smiling again, Chouji's teeth are human, and Naruto's eyes are blue.

"Yosh!" says Kiba jovially. "My name is Inuzuka Kibamaru. I used to be Kiba and Akamaru, but there was a sealing accident and we both liked the result too much to switch away. I like chewy cuts of meat, fighting, and meditating so I can spend some time together as Kiba and Akamaru. I dislike chocolate, shots, and people who abuse their pets. My dream is to invent a jutsu that lets me split up for a while without getting rid of the things Kiba and Akamaru like about being me."

"Yo," says Hinata in her low, almost boyish voice. "Name's Hyuuga Henkaku." Huh. Must be trans. Good for him. "I'm a Main House Hyuuga that refuses to use jyuuken." What. "I like Naru-kun's perspective on change, cinnamon rolls, and being able to say 'Fuck' around the clan elders without being murdered." What? "I dislike tradition, abusive family, and everything else that comes with being a Hyuuga. My dream is to break free of the clan without being branded with a slave seal." Okay, that last part tracks with being a rebel in the Hyuuga clan.

"Good morning," buzzes Shino. "My name is Aburame Shino. My clan elders were equally horrible to me, but Kurama-senpai rescued me and gave me back my life."

"Shut the fuck up, Shino," says Henkaku. "At least mine still hasn't turned me into a corpse puppet for the crime of not being a fancy-ass kekkei genkai holder." Why must everything that comes out of Henkaku's mouth be so distressing!

"As you say," agrees Shino. "I like honeyed crickets, low light levels, and people who are kind without potential gain for them. I dislike rain, fumigation, and people who kill insects and other arthropods without reason. My dream is to find a way to free the members of my clan trapped as I was."

"My name is Haruno Sakura," chimes in Sakura. "I'm civilian-born, but my family is head of the single largest inland shipping industry, so what I lack in physical power I make up for in connections." Ah, that kind of Haruno. Iruka sees their mon on more crates than any three other trading groups save only Gatou's, and they still beat him out by a good third this far inland. "I like hair care, umeboshi, and people who don't let others define them. I dislike poor quality goods, bandits, and people who judge without information. My dream is to buy out Gatou using only mission pay and gambling winnings, just to see if I can."

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" shouts Naruto. "I'm fulla secrets, so you can't get my backstory until you're a level 3 friend. I like Ichiraku Ramen, switchin' stuff up, and my friends and Tsunade-kaa-san. I dislike vegetables, bein' told what I gotta do, and assholes! My dream is to bring back Uzushio, 'cuz 'Rama-tou-san says they were super cool and my mom was from there and they didn't try to hurt 'Rama-tou and his family until Madara-teme made him do some bad stuff!"

"What's a level three friend?" asks Iruka curiously.

"A friend 'Rama-tou says I can trust. Two is if he can't be sure an' he likes you, one is if he can't be sure an' doesn't like you."

"Where, uh. Where am I at right now?"

"Two," says Naruto with a wide grin. "He thinks you're funny and says you definitely won't hurt us on purpose, but that doesn't mean you're any good at keepin' secrets.

Fair.

"Uchiha Kurousagi," says the Uchiha. Huh. Two trans kids in one class is pretty rare. "Mother is teaching me kenjutsu, so I can use her sword Inlé.  This one is about three-quarters the size of Inlé." Well that's gonna be a big fucking sword. "I like tomatoes, sparring, and brine-pickled vegetables. I dislike grapefruit, injuries to my hands, and people who treat residents of the Akasen poorly." Now that's a rare opinion for a clan member. "My dream is to one day redeem my clan in the eyes of Kurama-sama by presenting him Madara's head."

"Yamanaka Ino," says Ino. "I'm the first user of my kekkei genkai, Toiishiki. It lets me hear what people think without using chakra, and lets me use Yamanaka hiden without losing control of my body or sharing injury. I like pudding, hearing happy thoughts, and people who are gentle to flowers. I dislike sashimi, hearing people die," oh shit that's one for the therapists right there, "and people who abuse seals. My dream is to become a therapist with SS-rank clearance, because everybody deserves to be able to talk with somebody"

"Hello! My name is Akimichi Chouji," says the heavy-set child. "I'm the first Akimichi to be proud of our heritage, rather than simply accepting at best. I like Korean Barbecue, cooking, and people who accept that their ways are not everyone's. I dislike lizards, ingestable poisons, and people who would rather kill than learn new ways. My dream is to one day have my clan live without fearing themselves or be feared or ridiculed by others." Pretty reasonable for an Akimichi, but why would the Akimichi fear themselves?

Iruka turns to the last student, the Nara. I'm not going to get four names wrong in a single day. I'll never live it down.

"Nara Shika. Genderfluid, not trans. Today's just a girl kinda day, so it's Shika. Naruto's the same way." Trust a Nara to notice Iruka noticing all the trans kids. "I'm your typical Nara, I've just got more on the line than most so I've got to work harder than most. I like mackerel, meteorology, and people who don't wake me up from naps in jarring ways. I dislike people that hurt kids, people who don't use the brain they were born with, and injuries from overextending myself. My dream is. Uh."

"Oh we know what your dream is, lover-girl!" interrupts Chouji with a loud guffaw.

"Shut!" yelps Shika. "My dream is to talk about my dreams without you assholes laughing at me about it!" Of course, it's far too late for that, as almost the entire class is giggling at Shika's unspoken true dream. The only exception is Naruto, who just seems lost, and Iruka, who actually *is* lost.

Ino's gaze flicks to meet Iruka's between two bouts of giggles. Shika-chan's been crushing on Naruto since our first year, at first she was too lazy to do anything about it, but now that Naruto somehow hasn't noticed for so long she's too shy to actually tell him. We've got bets on it, the current favorite is Shika won't ever work up the nerve, Naruto will just figure it out and blurt it out in the most embarrassing place possible.

Iruka starts chuckling too, and, upon noticing, Shika's face goes beet-red and she buries her face in her arms. Ten ryo on the next Daimyo escort C-rank after their first chuunin exam.

You got it, sensei!

Now Iruka just has to get them there...

Notes:

This one is the first time skip, to the beginning of their graduation year. A couple years have passed since Kiba's chapter, and the senseis have not gotten any better over time. A dedicated whisper campaign led by Ino has gotten rid of any and all classmates that speak out against their group, and alternating "sensei duty" has resulted in the deaths of seven instructors, and plenty of "long pig" for the resident hanyo Chouji and Naruto, and the resident yokai Kurama and Shino. The friend group has also used this time to work on sorting out who they *want* to be, rather than who their parents *say* they are. Kibamaru is a dog-boy Stevonnie, more than the sum of his parts but the parts still love each other dearly. Henkaku is a transboy, and his name means "Revolution", referencing both the Hyuuga "ultimate" defense and what he wants to do in life. Kurousagi is abso-fuckin-lutely a reference to watership down: her name means "black rabbit" and her sword is inle. She's gonna be the Grim Reaper when she grows up if it kills her lmao.

Iruka is scared but determined not to make dead kids, so he's gonna call in the big guns off-screen.

Chapter 13: A Good Death Indeed

Summary:

In Which A Warning Is Given

Time passes.

It always does.

It always has.

It always will.

Try though they might, neither god nor man can stop it. They can wind it back, for a bit. They can slow it to a crawl, in a small space. But stop it entirely? Halt it once and for all? Not a chance. Time is inevitable, and it will pass.

As Sarutobi Hiruzen's unfocussed gaze peruses the ceiling above his futon, he cannot remember the last time he didn't feel ancient.

Surely he didn't feel so weak, so helplessly old when his son was born?

But... no, all he can remember is being glad Konoha had been founded, glad that his son would have a chance to grow as old as him.

Then perhaps it was when he became Hokage? Surely that was far enough in the past to feel young.

No, no. Definitely not. All he remembered feeling on that dark day was irritation at his team for acting like lost children, and feeling far, far too old to be flexible enough to fill his sensei's shoes.

Kami damn him, he was right to feel that way. Kage is a position for witty, observant young people, not stiff, oblivious old fools. Kami damn him to hell for not realizing that before accepting the hat after Minato's death.

But then, Hiruzen is already in Hell, isn't he. A hell of his own making. And he has dragged everyone he has ever loved into that very same hell, whether by incompetence, ignorance, or his so-called "best" intentions. What's more, there is not a single damn thing he can do to fix any of it. He can apologize, has in fact done so, at length. He can stop making things worse for his few remaining loved ones. But he can't undo any of it, and he can't stop the consequences from continuing to hurt his loved ones in the... future...

Hiruzen's eyes snap back into focus, and he sits up slowly.

He cannot undo his mistakes, but maybe, just maybe, he can stop one of his mistakes from coming back to haunt his precious people.

And if he tries and fails, at least he'll be too dead to make things worse.

 

-------

 

Time passes.

Hiruzen kneels in front of the seat of the Godaime Hokage, having spent six months working towards this moment. Training, researching, bargaining, all for this one request.

"... That's one hell of a way to commit seppuku, Sarutobi-san," says Tsunade, viciously biting out his name the same way she has for the past year. "Why go to the trouble? Why not take the old-fashioned 'honorable way out'?"

"Two reasons, Hokage-sama," answers Hiruzen. "First and least important, traditional seppuku is a messy business, and I have already brought enough pain to those who would have to clean up that mess." Tsunade gives a little snort of derision, but lets him continue. "The second reason is... I have made... many mistakes in my life. If I am to die as all men do, I wish to die preventing at least one of my mistakes from hurting anyone else."

Tsunade stares at him silently for a long, long moment, then nods.

"Permission granted. I will write up the mission my-"

"No," Hiruzen interrupts. "I am not doing this as a mission."

Tsunade quirks an eyebrow.

"I am not doing this for Konoha, or for the Hokage, or for money, or for fame," Hiruzen continues. "I am doing this to protect the people I hold dear. I have done too much harm to you, I refuse to die without at least trying to fix something. So please, let this be off the books. No pay if I survive, no honor if I don't. Only satisfaction if I succeed, and a good death if I fail."

Tsunade gives him another of her long, hard looks, then smiles. It's just a tiny tick of one corner of her mouth, but it's more than he's seen her aim at him in over a year.

"Then go well, sensei. I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive you completely, but I'll never forget you."

 

---------

 

Time passes.

Now Hiruzen sits in the shade of an old oak tree outside a no-name brothel in a no-name village in the hinterlands of a no-name country, smoking his pipe and waiting for- ah. There he is.

"What the hot-cross fuck are you doing in Redaku, sensei?" asks Jiraya.

"Same as you, more or less." Hiruzen puffs his pipe before continuing. "Meeting a contact. Only difference is your contact is a frisky young woman, and my contact is a hairy old man."

"I'll have you know the ladies dig the hair, ya old coot!" Jiraya protests.

"Uh-huh."

"They do!" Jiraya blusters, then sags. "Anyways, what do you need to know?"

"Names, preferably with faces to put them to. I'll take care of the rest."

Jiraya stills, expression growing serious. "So Tsunade wasn't exaggerating. You're really doing this solo."

"I am. I'm already well under way, I just need to make sure I haven't missed anything before I commit."

"...Alright. If you insist..."

"I insist."

"...Then I'll mark them for you in my spare bingo book. Good luck, and happy hunting, Sensei."

 

--------

 

Time passes.

On what he knows will be the last day of his too-long life, Sarutobi Hiruzen stands in front of a door. It has taken two whole years to get to this point. He could have done it sooner, hell, he could have gotten to this door within twelve hours of Tsunade giving him the go-ahead, but that would leave far, far too many loose ends for Hiruzen's peace of mind. Better to take his time and do it right.

No, he's going to do this properly, and that means a year of reconnaissance, a year of spiking some very specific drinks with a very specific kinjutsu-made cocktail, and only now does he get to finally, finally fix one of his many mistakes.

Hiruzen uses a senbon to prick his thumb, then smears blood across the enormous seal he has laid out in front of the door to Orochimaru's current bolt-hole. Immediately, screams ring out, both from behind the door and from guard posts scattered throughout the forest.

"Knock knock," he mutters with a sardonic grin, while every single man, woman, child, and animal bearing Orochimaru's Cursed Seal Of Heaven dies screaming.

It takes almost ten minutes for Orochimaru to show his face, but Hiruzen supposes having to climb through nearly three hundred bodies to get to the door must take a good while for anyone.

The ensuing fight is exactly as brutal as he'd expected. Exactly as one-sided as he'd feared. Exactly as uninterrupted as he'd hoped. Enma does end up having to desummon himself to wrangle Manda in the Summoning Dimension, but that was to be expected.

He does end up having to use the Shiki Fuin, but he'd expected that to be the case as well. He'd prepared for that by using some fuinjutsu to strengthen his body enough to prevent Orochimaru from pulling away too soon.

What Hiruzen most certainly did not expect was for the Shinigami to not immediately consume his soul after sealing Orochimaru.

Instead, it stares at him over the corpse of his student, then slowly sits down. Hiruzen stares. The Shinigami gestures for him to sit, so he does.

Then it speaks.

"Time passes, Son of Man. It passes for all. Not even the gods are immune to it, and now... Now time is running out. There has been a disturbance since the last time I was called to this plane. Old names are being forgotten by those incapable of forgetting, gods incapable of moving are going missing, and something cruel knocks at the door of reality. I cannot spare your life, the seal you have used does not permit that, but if you would do me a favor with the time you have left, I will grant you a boon."

Hiruzen considers, then nods. "What favor do you need?"

"Send a message to the children of The Sage, those you know as the Bijuu, stating quote, 'There is an incursion from Outside', end quote. I will seal the message with my name, so they will know its origin. That will be sufficient for them to recall their duty."

Hiruzen blinks. He doesn't know how a colossal, unthinking monster made out of pure chakra is supposed to read a letter, but he supposes he doesn't need to know. He pulls a used weapons-sealing scroll over, uses a kunai to cut appropriately-sized sheets from it, and, not finding a pen anywhere nearby, dips a senbon in Orochimaru's blood to write nine identical messages on the mostly-clean backs of his scavenged paper. As he completes each one, he passes it to the Shinigami, who in turn rolls the message into a scroll and seals it by pressing a thumb at the edge, where an intricate wax seal appears. When all nine messages are complete and sealed, Hiruzen re-summons Enma.

"I have one final mission for you as your summoner, old friend. Deliver these messages to the Bijuu. They are from- Kami, I can't believe I'm saying this- they are from the Shinigami."

The Shinigami, visibly amused, waves an invisible hand as though greeting Enma. Enma, visibly confused, accepts the scrolls and desummons himself to deliver them.

"Now, for your boon, Son of Man?"

Hiruzen thinks about it for a moment. "Would you be able to deliver a message to the living?"

"Through dreams, yes. They will only remember it as well as they remember any other dream, but yes."

"Then... tell my son that I love him, that I am proud of him, and that I hope he lives a long and happy life."

The Shinigami nods. "It will be done."

"Thank you," says Sarutobi Hiruzen.

With those final words, his eyes drift closed, his shoulders slump, and he collapses to the ground. Sensei next to student, laid in blood and ash and death.

The Shinigami stands as slowly as he sat. Looking down on the wrinkled body of an old, old man, the spirit smiles.

"A good death indeed, Son of Man. A good death indeed."

Notes:

Alternative Title: We'll Meet Again Some Sunny Day

One year ago today, my grandmother died a good death. Comfortable, surrounded by family, in her sleep, from old age. Five minutes before I got the call, 'We'll Meet Again' by Vera Lynn came up on my music playlist. It felt like a goodbye, and I already know I'll think of her every time I hear that song for the rest of my life. Her favorite thing to lovingly complain about was that every single one of her babies and grandbabies was tall enough to rest their arm on her shoulder and plant a kiss on the top of her head, and *obviously* we all needed to stop growing up so fast. She taught me that no matter what you do in life, it's better to do it all the way. When I told her back in elementary school that I wanted to write a book, she told me to never give up on finishing it because "Every half-assed finished story is better than every whole-assed unfinished story."

So here's to you, Gammy. Come hell or high water, this story *will* be written and posted in its entirety, no matter how half-assed I have to make it to get it all out.

Chapter 14: About To Be Very Busy Soon

Summary:

In Which A Warning Is Delivered

The first clue as to how well his day would go came to Hatake Kakashi at exactly nine in the morning. If he was honest with himself, he would have preferred the hint be a little less blatantly obvious to everyone around him.

But then, it is hard to miss over a hundred people scattered throughout Konoha screaming in agonized unison.

At least he had been talking to Anko when it all started. He was just barely fast enough to carve the better part of her arm off. He doesn't know what triggered Orochimaru's seal to do that of all things, but thankfully the stone didn't continue spreading once the seal was cut off of her entirely.

The civvie across the road wasn't so lucky. Kakashi really doesn't look forward to seeing so many familiar faces etched in stone, screaming their last breath forevermore.

Unfortunately, shunshin-ing with your eyes closed is a decidedly stupid idea, so he gets to see all thirteen statues between his starting point and the hospital.

Fun.

The front desk seems to be going through some kind of commotion unrelated to this... fiasco, but, seeing the back of Shizune's head in the melee, he decides that isn't his problem. Once Anko is safely in the hands of a mednin with a stone hand still wrapped around his wrist, Kakashi heads for the Hokage Tower.

He is intercepted just before he can go through the window by Nara Shikaku of all people. Well, 'intercept' is a bit of a strong word for 'makes eye contact from his seat on the roof and shakes his head', but for Shikaku that's basically a drill sergeant bellowing in your face, so in light of the dire nature of the situation, Kakashi obeys the command in the spirit it was given.

Lazily and with no particular effort put into looking like someone with his level of authority.

Excellent.

By the time he moseys into the Jounin break room, most of the panic seems to have calmed down and been replaced with Serious Business Mode.

"-Current casualty count 152 and rising-"

"-States petrification began at the site of His-"

"-Ningame tells me that the Serpents have abandoned-"

"-Nearly a quarter of all ex-ROOT that ranked Tokubetsu and above-"

"-Sooner we can start sending messenger hawks the better-"

"-Preliminary reports from our satellite villages claim-"

"-Nobody that it affected has survived-"

"Actually," interrupts Kakashi, "I managed to save Mitarashi Anko."

All eyes focus on him as the chatter dies.

"Had to cut her arm off to do it," he admits sheepishly. "I didn't have time to think of anything less drastic, but she was still swearing at me when I dropped her off at Konoha General."

Kurenai slumps into her chair by the window where she had been intercepting the incoming Jounin reports. "Oh, thank kami."

"No need," Kakashi quips, "but if you insist on thanking me somehow, let me know how her recovery goes. I get the feeling that, one way or another, I'm about to be very busy soon."

Snickers pass around the room at the last part of his sentence. Seems the feeling's mutual.

Kurenai smiles. "I'll make sure to do that. Inoichi already had me on deck this month to help with any civilian post-incident psych evals, so no matter how busy I am, I'll still be in-village for the next couple weeks."

"Sheesh, you might just be the busiest of us all," Genma whistles appreciatively from his cubicle. "Shit kicked off at the busiest part of the morning, didn't it? Damn near everyone hit by the petrification was in a public venue, if not literally mid-conversation, and none of them went peacefully. You're gonna be flooded."

Kurenai's sour grimace betrays her agreement blatantly enough to spread another round of snickers through the room.

"Speaking of," pipes up Raido, "What the hell are we gonna do with, what is it now, 182?"

"184," calls out a voice Kakashi doesn't recognize. Not too surprising, given how many Jounin there are in Konoha, but he still makes a mental note to follow the guy after the meeting. After all, he's made some of his best friends by stalking strangers.

"184, thanks," Raido continues. "What are we gonna do with 184 statues of screaming people? We can't just leave them scattered about for birds to shit on and kids to be traumatized by."

That... is a surprisingly good point.

The room is quiet for a moment while everyone either tries to come up with an answer or waits for someone else to do the thinking.

Before anybody can answer, fucking Enma, chief summons of the kami-damned Sandaime Hokage, poofs into being right in front of the guy who Kakashi just finished making a mental note to stalk. Fucking Enma, not a messenger summons. All the Monkey King does is place a scroll at the man's feet. Then another poof, and fucking Enma is gone again.

The man blinks, and he must be just as confused as everyone else in the room, because all he says is a very quiet and heartfelt "What the fuck, dattebayo?"

Ah.

Naruto.

Got it.

...

Gotta admit, it's kinda impressive that it took something as out-of-pocket as fucking ENMA hand-delivering him a message to make the kid break character.

Genma tenderly and lovingly slams his own face into his desk. "Fucking hell. Go ahead and drop the transformation, brat. I shoulda known some bullshit would out you before the alert ended. Before anyone asks, yes she has permission to be in here, I was on guard duty when shit went down, figured there'd be no better place to guard a kid than in the middle of the fuckin' war room."

'She', huh? Interesting.

Naruto gives a cruel little giggle as she poofs into her usual self, with a couple notable changes. "Toldja so, Sensei-chan. If it wasn't this it woulda been Shika-kun tryin' ta find me."

As if on cue, the window next to Kurenai shatters, as the most energetic Nara Kakashi has ever seen cannonballs through it. The kid leaps to his feet, pointing dramatically at Genma.

"You sonnuva bitch, you stole my Naruto!"

Genma slams his head into his desk again.

Naruto flings herself onto Shikamaru, crowing with delight. "Shika-kun! You're here, dattebayo!"

Shikamaru clearly hadn't seen Naruto in the room, because Kakashi can see the moment the kid realizes that Naruto has to have heard Shikamaru call her his Naruto. Judging by the poorly-stifled laughter, everyone else in the room can see it too.

Kakashi has never been more grateful for his mask, because seeing the little Nara brat glow katon-red under the attention of his hyperactive new necklace is bringing up... old memories. Kakashi doesn't know exactly what his face is doing right now, but he does know he would die if anyone clocked it and figured out why he was making that face. At least the Nara kid seems to recognize how he feels about Naruto.

Kakashi always had been slow on the uptake when it came to emotions.

I'm sorry, Obito, Rin.

...

Anyways, time to save the Nara kid before he blows an artery from how hard he's blushing.

"Mah, mah, Naruto. Shouldn't you be reading your message? It was special delivery and all, wasn't it?"

Naruto's brain visibly reboots, and with an excited little "Oh yeah!" she drops to the floor, grabs the scroll, and-

Her eyes.

 

Turn.

 

 

Red.

 

 

 

The wave of chakra billows off of Naruto like smoke from a forest fire. All nine tails come out at once, each splitting into nine, and less than a heartbeat later every single person in the room, is pinned in place by an inferno of pure, raw chakra.

The Kyuubi no Kitsune.

But the seal, Kakashi thinks wildly, what about the seal?

The Kyuubi flicks it's gaze to Kakashi, and smirks. "Don't worry about the kit," it says in a voice that feels like it should shake Kakashi's bones. "I wouldn't take over without her permission unless it was important."

"What's wrong, Kurama-sama?" asks Shikamaru, acting for all the world as though he was talking to a respected elder and not a fucking bijuu.

"Hmm." The Kyuubi's- Kurama's- gaze flicks back to the scroll. "I suppose it has been a few weeks since I last gave you kits a lesson. And it seems your elders could do with a refresher as well," Kurama adds snidely.

Shikamaru lights up like he has just been promised ice cream for dinner, and immediately drops to sit attentively at Kurama's feet. At the same time, Kakashi feels the chakra tail engulfing him loosen it's grip around his legs just enough for him to sit as well. Across the room, every single Jounin takes a seat, willingly or otherwise.

One of Naruto's eyes suddenly turns blue. "'Rama-tou!" she chides in her normal voice. "Don't be rude, 's not like they know yer okay!"

The blue vanishes as quickly as it came, and Kurama rolls it's eyes. "Very well, kit, if you insist. Little Deer," it turns to Shikamaru, "rule one of recieving intelligence is?"

"Don't trust it."

"Unless?"

"Unless you know who discovered it, who wrote it, and who delivered it."

"In which case?"

"Trust, but verify."

Kurama nods in satisfaction, and Shikamaru beams at the unspoken praise. Meanwhile Kakashi is trying to reconcile such solid advice for any shinobi, with the fact that it's coming from the fucking Kyuubi no Kitsune.

Either way, while Kakashi is well aware of the basics of the lesson he is apparently being given, he's never heard it spoken quite so succinctly. He kinda wants to take notes.

"Wolf Cub," says Kurama, and Kakashi once again finds himself pinned by those red eyes. "How best can one determine the identity of the one delivering intelligence?"

"Chakra signature," Kakashi answers, surprised to find himself capable of speech. "There's too many methods for a spy or saboteur to disguise themselves to be certain without it."

"And did you check Enma-chan's chakra?"

"No," Kakashi admits, "but what I could passively feel of it matched Enma-sama perfectly."

Kurama nods. "I will grant you that, Enma-chan was not here long enough to permit anyone not actively checking signatures to do so. But yes," it continues, "the message was delivered by Enma himself. Which brings us to our second point of concern: who wrote the message? Little Cobra?"

Genma flinches, then squints at the scroll. "That's the Sandaime's handwriting, and if what Nara-kun called you is your name, it's addressed to you directly. I'd need to run it through forensics to be certain since my sensing isn't as good as Hatake's, but if it's forged then whoever did it is damn good."

"And the ink?"

Genma squints harder, then channels a tiny bit of chakra and sniffs. "Blood, smells like Orochimaru. So, if i'm right, the Sandaime wrote this in Orochimaru's blood, then had Enma, not a messenger, Enma, deliver it not to Naruto, but to you."

Kurama nods again. Genma sags in relief. "All correct. Which brings us to the final point: who is the intelligence from? I will tell you now, there is only one living person on this entire planet other than myself who has sufficient experience with this chakra to be able to even recognize it, and unfortunately kit, you would not be able to put a name to the source. You were too young back then to remember the day I was sealed inside you."

Oh.

Ohhhh shit.

Kurama's bloody red eyes meet Kakashi's.

"The Shinigami's chakra," Kakashi whispers.

Every single person in the room freezes.

"Yes," says Kurama musingly. "A message from the Shinigami itself, dictated to the Sandaime Hokage, written in the blood of one of the most notorious nuke-nin in the world, hand-delivered by the Monkey King to the eldest and most powerful of the nine Bijuu. I dare say there's rather a lot wrong with that, wouldn't you, Little Deer?"

Kurama uses a tail to pick up the scroll. A flick of chakra is enough to undo the wax seal holding it shut, and the message inside must be very short, because Kurama almost immediately closes it.

"Well shit," the Kyuubi swears.

The chakra tails vanish, Naruto's eyes turn blue once more, and Shikamaru leans over to pick up the scroll Kurama dropped.

"There is an incursion from Outside'," the Nara kid reads out loud. "Outside of where?"

Naruto blinks dizzily. "'Rama-tou says outside of everything. Like, everything-everything. He's tryin' ta get a message to the other Bijuu, says we don't have time to finish the lesson or explain th-."

The door, previously held shut by one of Kurama's too-many tails, flings open so hard it bounces off the wall.

Kato Shizune, haggard, drenched with sweat, cheeks streaked with tears, and pale as a sheet, careens inside, slams a small, old-fashioned tape recorder on the nearest table, and presses play.

In the split second before the audio begins, Naruto's eyes turn red, and Kurama whispers.

"Damn you, Shinigami. You were too slow."

Notes:

Alternative title: "In Which Shikamaru Outs His Crush On Naruto To Every Jounin In Konoha And It Is Somehow Still The Least Important Or Notable Thing To Happen Today"

i got two things to tell yall:

first, Fuck Keeping A Schedule, im just going to post shit as soon as i write it. taking the time to keep myself two chapters ahead is how i got such a long-ass gap between chapters 12 and 13, i lost momentum and the adhd ate my brain. so yeah, no promises on how regular the chaps will be, but u can bet your buttons i'll post each one the very minute i finish writing it.

second, and also the other reason chap 13 took 5 fukkin years: i wrote myself into a nasty little corner. the path i took to get to chapter 12 (aka the end of the beginning) felt fine, and the place i wanted to take the middle and end felt fine , but for the life of me i could not figure out how i wanted to get from the end of the beginning to the beginning of the middle. i came up with about seven different "chapter 13"s, but none of them quite... *fit*. they were logical places to take *a* story, but they didn't fit *this* story. The tone was off, the characters felt misplaced, or the plot didn't connect the way it should have.

As you might guess, I *did* eventually figure things out. But as you might also guess by me telling yall about it at such length, i'm not sure yall will like where i'm taking it. If you don't, that's perfectly fine. I still have ideas, so tell me in the comments and if enough of you wanna hear the alternatives, I'll make this a branching series.

But don't judge *too* fast, i think i can reel you in >:3c

When I post the next chapter, I will be updating the tags *heavily*, because per the Shinigami's warning, this is about to become a crossover work. If you are familiar with a certain horror podcast, you knew where I was gonna take this the moment Shizune pressed 'play'. If you are familiar with it but haven't finished the original show, the *entire* rest of this fic will contain *So Many* Really Important Spoilers. If you are not familiar with a certain horror podcast and do *not* intend to listen to it, don't worry, everything will be explained to you at the same time as things are explained to the characters you have already met.

Enjoy~

Chapter 15: Feeling A Bit Peckish

Summary:

In Which A Door Is Opened

𝙾𝙵𝙵𝙸𝙲𝙸𝙰𝙻 𝙳𝙾𝙲𝚄𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙺𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚑𝚊 𝙴𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚕 𝙸𝚗𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙸𝚗𝚟𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙳𝚎𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝.

𝙰𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚂𝚎𝚌 𝚁𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚂𝚂 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚐𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙺𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚑𝚊 𝚂𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚘𝚋𝚒 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚢, 𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚙𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙷𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢.

 

 

------

 

[CLICK]

 

[JUST BARELY AUDIBLE IN THE DISTANCE, PEOPLE BEGIN SCREAMING]

 

[ALL AT ONCE, THE SCREAMS CUT OUT]

 

[STATIC SLOWLY BUILDS OVER THE COURSE OF SEVERAL MINUTES]

 

[CLACK]

 

------

 

[CLICK]

 

[FOOTSTEPS ECHO STRANGELY]

 

HELLEN

Very rude of you, you know. I know you thought you were doing the right thing, but really! Discorporating me was taking it a bit far!

 

[Someone else groans weakly]

 

HELLEN

Well, all's well that ends well, I suppose. Michael's not me anymore, and I find it far easier to let things go now that I'm not him. It will be fascinating to explore our new home. You know, I might even have to thank you for all this! Helen's life as a real estate agent was so dreadfully dull in comparison to being the Distortion, and being the Distortion in a world where the Distortion was Known was awfully inconvenient, but now I get a fresh canvas to paint with insanity and confusion and- Ah! Here we are! Now you just sit here and bleed for a minute, Archivist, and I'll see if I can't get someone to... open a door. [She laughs, and both her laugh and the echoes of it sound distorted and warped]

 

[CLACK]

 

------

 

[CLICK]

 

[SOUND OF STEEL CRASHING AGAINST STEEL]

 

KATO SHIZUNE

Nice try, Sakura-chan, but that's match.

 

HARUNO SAKURA

What are you- oh. Damn.

 

SHIZUNE

[Chuckling lightly] It's the little things that get you. It's an easy reflex to guard your head, neck, and torso, but the femoral artery will bleed you out just as fast as any other.

 

SAKURA

[Huffs] I know... Can we try again?

 

SHIZUNE

Sure, but let's change tack for a bit so we don't get too tired too quick. You mentioned you had a new seal you wanted to give a test run?

 

SAKURA

Hai! It's an automatic genjutsu reflector.

 

SHIZUNE

Nice! Let's give it a whirl- Magen: Narakumi No Jutsu!

 

[LOUD SNAPPING NOISE, FOLLOWED BY AN EXPLOSIVE BANG]

 

[SEVERAL SECONDS OF SILENCE]

 

[A DOOR OPENS]

 

[CLACK]

 

------

 

[CLICK]

 

[LOUD CRACKING NOISES AS A BODY FALLS THROUGH BRANCHES]

 

[LOUD THUD AS THEY LAND]

 

MARTIN BLACKWOOD

[Groans] Ugh... ow...

What the fu- Jon? Jon?!

[Sighs] Here we bloody go again.

 

[CLACK]

 

------

 

[CLICK]

 

[MUFFLED BACKGROUND NOISE SUGGESTS A HOSPITAL SETTING.]

 

[SEVERAL HARSH CLICKS, MULTIPLE TAPE RECORDERS BEGIN RECORDING]

 

SAKURA

Oh kami-sa... Sa-ssss...

Statement of Trainee Haruno Sakura, regarding a door that should not have been real. Statement extracted from subject by Jonathan Sims, The Archivist, August 3rd, 1023.

Statement begins.

 

 

SAKURA; STATEMENT

A little background seems likely to be necessary. We're taught at the Academy how to recognize ethnicities and clan traits from around the world, so that we have a better chance of deducing an enemy shinobi's possible capabilities. It's by no means foolproof, or even particularly reliable, but it's at least somewhat helpful roughly seventy-five percent of the time, so it still gets taught, and neither you, Martin-san, or Hellen-san look even close to any group I've ever heard of. None of you have any traits that indicate that you are combat-trained, either, so even if you are just from some isolated and obscure group, there will likely still be enough cultural and occupational disconnect to require some background.

So-

Shinobi are specialized soldiers trained in covert ops, guerrilla tactics, and chakra manipulation. While most of us are capable of open combat to some degree, doing so without chakra would be akin to asking a world-class gymnast to participate in a marathon- they could do it, possibly even do well, but even the best gymnast is only going to be a middling marathoner, because racing simply isn't the point of what they've trained for. There's a fundamental gap between a 12-hour hit-and-run skirmish that we specialize in, and a 12-hour knock-down-drag-out battle that soldiers and samurai specialize in.

Chakra is, essentially, weaponized life force. We use it to cover that gap, and it's also why we start training so young. Usually five years old, but it depends on the student. I started at five, but my friend Naru started at four.  She needed to, since she has so much chakra that she wouldn't be able to use most jutsu if she didn't.

But Naru has another problem, as a jinchiriki. Jinchuriki are essentially living prisons for biju, which are yokai with so much chakra that they have historically been worshiped as gods or, more often, feared as demons. Personally, I find it more accurate to think of them as sentient and sapient natural phenomena. A volcano disturbed is a cataclysm, but if you keep a respectful distance and use common fucking sense, it's just... nature in action. Give it a mind and the ability to walk around, and you get a biju. Stuff that inside an inanimate object and sooner or later it explodes, but stuff it inside a person, and you get a weapon of mass destruction that makes for an awfully tempting target for anyone that wants power. As the jinchuriki for the most powerful biju, Naru is guaranteed to be a target for all enemy forces.

So, for that and some other reasons I won't go into, she and anyone associated with her that is young enough to benefit from it gets a shitload of extra training. That wasn't always the case, but as soon as Iruka-sensei realized we weren't, he cashed in a lot of favors and blackmail to set it up for us. He teaches us at the Academy, and coordinates with the personal senseis he got us so that we stay roughly level with eachother, and the personal senseis coordinate training sessions with various specialists, and help us tie all our new skills together into a cohesive whole afterwards.

It was at one of these training sessions that things went... weird. I was having one last spar with Kato Shizune, my primary sensei for training outside of the Academy. It was a sort of... Sort of send-off celebration spar, I guess. My class graduated from the Academy last Friday, and our Jounin-sensei's exams are set for next week, and since she's also the Hokage's primary assistant, Kato-sensei is going to be super busy with the paperwork for that all week. So yeah, this was my very last spar as Kato-sensei's student, and I was having a blast. We started the day early, 'round seven AM, and we decided to move to one of the outer training grounds so nobody would interrupt Kato-sensei for Hokage business. We had just finished a bout, and Kato-sensei decided it was time to have me try out a new anti-genjutsu measure I'd been developing, where Inner Sakura activates a seal to reflect the illusion back on the caster. Inner is a sort of... congenital twin of my mind I made by accident when I was little. She has a completely seperate mind and soul from my own, so she wouldn't be affected by any genjutsu that hit me, which should have allowed her to trigger the seal before my own mind even noticed the illusion.

So Kato-sensei cast the Hell Viewing Jutsu, which essentially shows you a waking nightmare, and that was the moment things went... wrong.

The thing about a good nightmare that is different from a good genjutsu is that you know it's a nightmare. You know that this isn't real, or at least that it shouldn't be real. You know that, and yet you cannot escape. You cannot change it. You cannot shake off the fear. You are stuck in a limbo of terror, with your only hope of escape so tantalizingly close, all you need to do is wake up, and yet that is the one thing you cannot do. But if you know that it's a genjutsu, you can just... pop the bubble between you and reality, and be free.

I knew I was in a genjutsu. I saw Kato-sensei weave the hand signs, I heard her incant the name, I felt the altered flow in my chakra, I could see the inconsistencies in shadows and complex particle physics, I felt the borders of textures neglected to reduce chakra consumption. I even felt my newly finished invention, the mindtrap-reversal seal, fire. This was a nightmare, but the nightmare was a genjutsu, nothing more. The only harm it could do to me is the harm it could convince me to do to myself.

That didn't seem to mean a damn thing to this genjutsu.

There was a door in the woods.

It was not a door, it just looked like one.

It was here for me.

It couldn't be here for me.

A slow smirk crawled along lips it didn't have. Oh now this is interesting, it thought.

Said.

Meant?

Something was wrong, I could tell, but as to how...

Oh little girl, you have no idea.

The words crawled across my mind like static pins and needles, foreign words distorting themselves into plain Japanese with a mild foreign accent. The door was a sickeningly bright yellow, and the edges didn't line up at the corners, so instead of rectangular panels the edge just twisted and puckered and warped, it captivated me, pulled me in, and I found my hand rising.

It is polite to knock, said the door, giggling like it had just referenced a particularly entertaining memory. I felt one of my arms reaching out, and it didn't feel real, not even in the "bad genjutsu" way, just in the way seeing someone else sleepwaking would feel unreal.

Knock.

Knock.

Who's there? trilled the door.

"Me," I answered. 

Me who? it asked.

"Let me go," I finished.

Is that really the best you've got? Well, if you insist, said the door with a laugh that sounded like a headache. I suppose there is some precident for giving a little grace to the people who open doors for us. Tell you what, give me some names, and I'll go ahead and Mark them down as being off-limits, same as you and your teacher. No promises on anything actually listening, but at least they'll think twice. Probably. The door laughed again, and the echoes bled pink and white and sour at the edges of my mind.

I didn't want to open the door. I wanted to get out of this place, this sinister quasi-nightmare. So I cut my chakra flow entirely, nothing for any genjutsu ever created to latch onto. The chakra construction of the genjutsu shattered like a fine china teapot filled with overpowered explosive tags, and the remaining shards slid off of me.

Nothing happened. The Door was still there.

I tried to contact Inner. She didn't answer, but the door did.

We're sorry, your call could not be connected as dialed. Please try again after the tone, it said, giggling with the acrid colorsmell of vinegar and diethyl ether.

"What did you do to her?" I whispered. Talking any louder felt... ill-advised.

Me? Not a thing! That wonderfully Spiraling doodle you used to catch your teacher, on the other hand... The door broke off to laugh properly. The pain it put in my head crescendoed, and I could feel blood gently starting to trickle from my ears.

It's not really in my nature to be direct, but this is simply too alien for you to comprehend in the first place, so I'm sure your fear is going to taste quite delightful. Now, where to begin... Oh, I know! There's this wonderfully confusing piece of media that deals quite extensively with a concept it labels "circumstantial simultanity". Two events from two entirely seperate universes that cannot have happened at the same time, as they do not even exist in the same time stream, and yet they are so uniquely similar in some sense that, should you make a complete timeline of each universe and compare them side by side, the two events would occupy the same location on the page relative to the other, even if the line itself has to be twisted into knots to reach that point at the correct time. They can't happen at the same time because time is meaningless, but they do, because they must. That is what happened to your little brain-double. She opened the door to let your teacher get caught up in a trap at the same not-time as someone in some other existence closed a door to escape a trap.

"So, what does that mean?" I asked.

It means more than could be explained in a couple hundred episodes of a podcast, but for your purposes? It means you need to open the door if you ever want to see your double or your teacher again.

I didn't even stop to think about it. I could somehow tell it was speaking nothing but the truth. So I reached out, and twisted the doorknob.

A woman in a red and chartreuse pants-suit stepped out, her smile too wide for her face, so wide it shouldn't have been possible. Her eyes were twisting, whirling spirals of insanity, and her fingers... All her bones were in her fingers, so many joints that there couldn't have been any left for her body. The woman made a stiff little bow with a smirk, somehow not moving to do it, simply... being in a new position.

"Thank you ever so much, Miss Haruno Sakura," said the woman, eyes spinning in amusement. "I rather expect you have no idea what you have done, but I can't say that I have any intention on explaining, either. The Archivist will likely do that just fine, and in the mean time your slow spiral of confusion and fear will be quite delightful." The woman righted herself just as suddenly and strangely as she had bowed, and her long, sharp fingers looped around each other in a cruel mockery of clasped hands. "Now, I believe you were about to give me some names to Mark."

I took a deep breath, and started thinking faster than I had ever done before. Shika-chan taught me how to organize the key points in any situation in a hurry so well that my thoughts flowed reflexively into a quick and dirty list of known facts.

1) Kato Shizune cast the Hell Viewing genjutsu on me.

2) The genjutsu connected, and stuck.

3) The trap seal fired.

4) The door and it's accompanying voice appeared.

5) I broke the genjutsu.

6) The door did not disappear when the genjutsu broke.

7) Inner was silent, and the door was claiming responsibility.

8) The door claimed that it could protect anyone I named, and won't... eat... anyone I named.

9) I opened the door.

Finally, Inner spoke, sounding muffled and distant, as though she was speaking through the crack under a door.

10) the door is real, but it isn't from this reality, she said. Her voice was shaking with fear, and that more than anything else scared me. Inner is never afraid, it's one of the defining traits that seperates her from me in the first place, so her being afraid of this door was a Big Deal.

11) the door is a hungry maw and the endless maze of rooms and corridors inside it is the mouth and the woman is the smile and lie and teeth and throat and hands and laugh and eyes and... and if she... if it decides to help, any door can take you anywhere in an instant. But if it decides to swallow, you die. And chakra doesn't work in there if she decides it doesn't, so you can't even fight it.

Well.

"That puts some things in perspective for you, doesn't it," said the Woman as though she could hear Inner all along.

"Uzumaki Naru, Nara Shika, Yamanaka Ino, Inuzuka Kibamaru, Hyuuga Henkaku, Aburame Shino, Uchiha Kurousagi, Akimichi Chouji, Otsutsuki Kurama, Aburame Mika, Umino Iruka, Ichiraku-"

"That'll do, dear," drawled the woman. "I can't do this for everyone you know."

"... What if..." Sakura took a deep breath. I was about to cross a moral line here, but... There are some people worth crossing lines for. "What if I tell you someone you can eat? Can I add a few more names to mark?"

The woman's seemingly permanent grin grew a little sharper. "Oh, I like you. Willing to throw someone under the bus if it gets you what you want. Let's say... double. Give me a nice meal, and you get another eleven names Marked. No more."

"Then..." I took another deep breath, then threw away any pretense of being the better person. "Inuzuka Tsume. You can eat her, and I won't do anything to try and stop you."

"Excellent," said the woman, and I noticed her teeth were a little too sharp to belong to any natural animal. "Eleven more names, as agreed."

"Ichiraku Teuchi, Ichiraku Ayame, Might Gai, Uchiha Itachi, Fujimori Yuki, Fujimori Rin, Fujimori Tsubasa, Fujimori Rika, Fujimori Tanya, Fujimori Momo, Senju Tsunade." That would cover my friends, and most of the people most important to them. If I could have added more names I would have named them until my voice gave out, but I wasn't about to push my luck with this woman, door, thing any more than I already had. At the very least, I'd managed to name the ones most important to Konoha as a whole, and the ones who didn't have the ability to keep themselves safe.

"There we are, I think that'll be quite enough," said the woman. "I don't have all day, and more to the point, neither does someone who I am very sure you will want to speak with." The woman swung the door wide open just long enough for a figure to fall forward into the dirt. Blood immediately started pooling, and I yelped, reflexively darting down to start conducting first aid. "Do try to keep him alive, I'm rather fond of him and his boyfriend. He will probably turn up in just a few, I'm making sure to drop him off down the road a bit so he can't crash our little business deal. Anywho, I'd best be off. You've given me a fair few people to gently nibble on before the meal you have so kindly provided, and I am feeling a bit peckish. Tah, luv!"

And with a mockingly jaunty wave of her over-long fingers, the woman opened the door and stepped through. The door swung shut, and the instant the latch caught, it was gone. Or never exist? Whatever.

I didn't notice, other than a distracted mental note to examine that later. The knife was still in the man's chest, a small civilian hunting knife, utterly unremarkable. Or at least, it would be if it wasn't completely alien in the specifics of it's make and materials. That wasn't important right now, the important part was the gut-hook I felt on the spine of the single-edge blade. If I wasn't careful, pulling the knife out to heal him would just rip his fucking aorta out. I ended up having to jam a finger in the wound, find the tip of the gut-hook, and use my hand to keep anything from catching. Then it was just a simple matter of conducting the standard field surgery- cram it so full of gauze that Kami himself couldn't leak out, slap a few temporary anchor stitches on there to keep it from tearing wider, then leg it to the nearest medic nin so they can fix whatever I fucked up.

I don't know exactly how much time had passed when I was finally found, but the sun had risen a fair distance, and I was finally satisfied that the shitty stretcher I made from some branches would hold under a mad dash.

Kato-sensei looked... haunted. Her eyes were darting left and right as she helped me get the man onto the improvised stretcher, and she kept pulsing her chakra at odd intervals to check for genjutsu.

"That seal... that was a vicious genjutsu," she said shakily. "Made it feel like I couldn't find my own chakra, and I couldn't snap out of it even with a senbon. Where'd you learn that?"

I couldn't help but flinch at the suggestion that I did whatever put that kind of look on my sensei's face. "That wasn't the seal, sensei. The seal should have just refracted your own genjutsu so you got caught as well. Whatever happened on your end, Inner says it was real."

"Then what caused it?" asked Kato-sensei. "From my perspective, I hit the seal, then a yellow door closed behind me and I was in an empty hallway." Kato-sensei shuddered. "It didn't stay empty for long. There was... something in there, following me, and I knew if it caught me I would die, so I tried to find a way out, but it was at the end of every hall, it looked at me in every mirror, it was behind every door, it felt like I was going insane trying to keep track of it."

"The door," I answered. "I spoke with... it. Her. Whatever. There was a woman, she... She came out of the door, was the door, or at least was the lure the door uses to get people to open it. She said you got taken because... Something to do with time? Time between two different worlds, where they aren't connected so they can't even be considered to be at the same time, but some things are similar enough that they can happen at the same time and important enough that they must, and she used that to... come here, I guess." I waved my free hand around wildly. "It was real fucking confusing, and I was too busy trying to figure out what the fuck was happening in the first place."

"Yeah, that sounds about right for a first meeting with Hellen," said a man's voice behind us. Both of our heads snapped around to see a civilian. He was tall, almost two meters, and heavy-set with the kind of fat that comes from a love of good food, and the kind of muscle that is rarely used for anything more than lifting boxes or walking startlingly long distances. His hair was white as snow, with just a couple streaks of ginger. His eyes were a pale, cloud-like grey, and his teeth were the triangular blades of shark teeth. His posture was casual, hands stuffed in the pouch of a pale blue hoodie, but a cold fog around his ankles started spreading out towards us.

"Who the hell are you?" demanded Kato-sensei.

"Ah, right! Martin Blackwood. And you-" Martin cut himself off, glancing at me. Then he sighed, and muttered to himself. "Right, there's a kid. Can't go in guns blazing." The fog, now waist high and spread as far as I could see in every direction, dissipated. A chill I hadn't noticed went with it, and the man spoke up again in a forced-cheerful tone. "You seem to have my boyfriend on a stretcher. Mind telling me where you plan on taking him?"

"The hospital," I answered. Stranger that he was, he didn't strike me as being anything but a man concerned for his friend. Sure, the fog thing was weird, but he cut it out as soon as he realized I was there.

So sue me, I like it when a civvie doesn't assume I'm an adult bloodthirsty serial killer just because I know how to hold a kunai. On top of that, with the way this 'Martin' was eyeing me and my kunai the exact same way he was eyeing Sensei and her kunai, I could tell he wasn't assuming I wasn't able to be just as dangerous as the actual adult bloodthirsty serial killer next to me. Respect feels nice.

"Right," said Martin with a wince. "Best I come along then, Jon hasn't had the best experiences with waking up alone in hospital rooms, and things might... get a little hectic if I'm not there."

"...The fuck is hectic supposed to mean?" asked Kato-sensei incredulously. "His chest is open, he isn't going to wake up for a week!"

Martin paused. "You've met Hellen, yeah? Door-person that hurts to look at and a voice like a migraine?"

"Obviously."

"Jon on his literal death bed could eat her faster than blinking," said Martin, giving Sensei a look that could have peeled the paint from the walls if we were indoors. "He doesn't even need to move. And it's not just Hellen. Name anyone or anything you please, if Jon wills it they die screaming in terror, right then, right there. The world's just lucky that he's a good person who hates that he can do that. So yeah, if he wakes up in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people, you'll be lucky if things are only hectic."

There was a long pause.

"Anyways, how far to the hospital?" Martin asked cheerfully.

Kato-sensei was still in shock from the revelation that this 'Jon' was apparently still dangerous while recovering from a stab to the heart, so I took over. "At the pace me and sensei can go, 15 minutes 12 seconds. At the pace of a civvie, two hours."

Martin pulled a face. "Mind if I speed us up a bit? It won't be particularly pleasant, but Jon needs help now."

I nodded hesitantly, and suddenly fog was rolling in. Not the thin, subtle whisps around Martin a few minutes before, but a deep, oppressively cold winter fog that whited out the sky, dimmed the sun to nothing, and swallowed the world further than a dozen paces away.

I was suddenly and utterly certain that the four of us, five if you count Inner, were the only people in the world. If I dropped Jon, if I lost Kato-sensei, if Martin decided to leave me here, if Inner turned away from me, I would be... alone. I would live, likely for decades if I put in the effort to keep myself fed and watered, but I would live alone, and when I finally died, I would die alone.

Welcome to the Lonely, said a voice in the fog. It wasn't really a voice, just an echo of the wind that sounded sort of like Martin. Technically, it's an alternate dimension shaped by the fear of being, well, Lonely. But for our purposes, it's a shortcut. Follow me.

Martin started walking.

He was walking away.

He was leaving me here.

Alone.

I was alone.

Then there was a lot of clicking button noises, a flash of green light, and something was watching me.

Funny how it's hard to feel alone when you can very literally feel someone's gaze. When the pressure of their gaze alone is very literally pressing your body hair flat. When you are being watched so closely you know that whoever is watching can see everything about you, right down to the way the pacemaker cells in your heart light up with electricity as your pulse starts racing.

There- out of the corner of my eye I saw something blazing with green light. I whipped my head around and there it was, on the second knuckle of Jon-san's right thumb where I had previously noted a particularly deep scar, an eye now blinked. It was watching me, half-lidded with exhaustion.

"-id! Hey kid!" called Martin, jogging back towards me along the path. "Shi- uh, heck, I am so sorry about that, I've been using the Lonely so much recently I forgot how much it- er- sucks in anyone who isn't an Avatar." He paused, noticing the eye. "Aw, Jon," Martin whispered, and I had to fight back a blush at how loving his voice was. He reached over, delicately brushing the back of a finger over the bony angle of Jon's thumb. The eye fluttered for a moment, then finally turned away from me. I sucked in a huge breath; I'd temporarily forgotten that breathing was a thing. The eye gave Martin a wounded look, which was honestly rather impressive for a single eye on an unconscious man's thumb.

"Shhh," crooned Martin, and yeah I was blushing for sure now. Nobody in my family is near as sappy and demonstrative as Martin was being. "I'll have her out in a moment, you don't need to keep an Eye on her. Rest, okay?"

The eye blinked sleepily once, twice, then slowly slid shut. In just a few seconds the bulge of ocular tissue was gone and the lids had melded into the surrounding skin, leaving only a scar once more. Martin's dopey smile held for a few seconds after that before he sighed, set one hand firmly on my shoulder, and walked me through Hell.

When we got to the hospital, the fog faded as though it was never there, and I was immediately bludgeoned with noise. It took me a moment to realize that the hospital was not actually crowded, but fairly empty compared to normal. The Lonely just made any comparison of crowdedness a moot point.

Kato-sensei fell to her knees at the shock, and I was taken aback to see tears streaming down her cheeks. Martin-san noticed as well, and scrubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. He looked down to me.

"I don't suppose you can fetch a doctor on your own? I need a moment with your sensei."

I nodded and set Jon down while Martin-san kneeled down to put a supportive hand on Kato-sensei's shoulder. Then I trotted over to the emergency call button by the door. Button slapped, I returned in time to hear the end of Martin-san's sentence.

"-feeds off that, makes you feel like you deserve to be alone so you keep letting it in. You need to head it off, surround yourself with people that you love and are loved by in return."

Kato-sensei sniffed back something uncomfortably like a sob. "What happens if I can't?"

"Then one day you step into the fog and spend a few weeks starving to death alone in the cold, dying in The Lonely and thinking you deserve it." Martin-san didn't look grim. He just looked... tired. He looked up at me. "Kid, if there's ever a day where your sensei has grey in her eyes or the air feels weirdly cool around her, she needs help. A hug, a hand to hold, whatever you need to do to make her feel wanted and loved." Seeing the doubtful look that was probably on my face, he smirked. "You can't fight the physical manifestation of the fear of isolation and loneliness with violence, kid. You fight it by showing people that they aren't alone."

"I suppose that makes sense," I said thoughtfully. "Kinda like when Jon-san looked at me, but without the magic eye powers."

That was about when the doctors arrived and everything got very busy.

Konoha mednin know full-well how to heal any stab wound that could ever be presented to them. I knew this well, considering all the time I'd spent helping Kato-sensei in the OR.

So, once we got to the OR, I couldn't fathom why none of the six mednin in the room would start operating on Jon-san. They were just standing around the table staring at the hole like they'd never heard of stabbing and were unsure how to handle it. In fact, they stood there so long I eventually got frustrated and stood up from my corner chair to shove someone aside and... well, I had to gulp back a scream. Glancing uncomfortably at the mednins around me, I looked back at Jon-san. "Uh. Jon-san?"

Eight eyes the same acid green as the light they emitted snapped to focus on me from inside the wound. The mednin all flinched. Another eye peeled open over Jon-san's left clavical.

"I-is there a reason you're blocking the mednin?"

A loud cli-chack! rang out from the chair I had been sitting in. I risked a glance, and saw a tape recorder that hadn't been there before.

The first voice was a woman's. "Enough– just– stay still; I’ll get a nurse."

Then a man replied. "I, no, I, uh, I’m alright, it’s–"

Then they spoke over one another- "Stop it!" and "– I’m okay."

Then the woman. "Jon, you are not okay; you have been in a coma."

The tape recorder clacked, whirred for a second, and clacked again.

The man, who must have been Jon, spoke again. "It’s alright."

The woman again. "Stay still. Please."

Tape-Jon sighed, then took a shaky breath.

"How are you feeling?" the woman asked.

"Honestly, I – I, I think I’m alright," Tape-Jon answered.

The woman sighed in exasperation.

"I mean that’s – good, right?" Tape-Jon continued.

The woman just sighed again.

Another clack-whir-clack.

This time it was a different woman who asked "Do you want me to grab you some water, or…?"

Tape-Jon answered "No – ah, the, the, uh, the statement. In your, in your bag."

The woman again- "Oh. Yeah, I uh," I hear her unzip her bag, "I just grabbed one on the way out; I thought maybe you’d need it for-"

Tape-Jon interrupts her quickly. "You, you were right – I, I think it would do me some good. Do you have a tape re– Oh." He sighs.

clack-whir-clack.

A second man jokingly says "Statement of Joe Spooky regarding sinister happenings."

clack-whir-clack

Finally, to my horror, Hellen's voice from what felt like only minutes ago, overlaid with static and distortion. "-̸͔̓I̴̲̓ ̶̼̒a̵̫̓m̷̫͆ ̸̦͊f̸̮͗e̴͍̿ȅ̸̥l̴̛̝í̴̺n̵̥̍g̶̳̍ ̶̝̇a̷̩̒ ̵͖̀b̶̹͋i̴̬̽t̶̮̉ ̷̹̕p̸͕̆e̷̬̿c̴̬͠k̷̙͋ḭ̶̿s̷̺̔ḧ̶̜́.̷̙̿"

The tape recorder gave one final clack.

The silence echoed once the last recording finished playing. Jon-san now had thousands of eyes across his entire body, all staring at me. I felt something pulling, tugging, yanking at my mind, and suddenly all I could do was talk, and tell Jon-san's eyes about everything.

 

ARCHIVIST

Statement ends.

 

[Sakura whimpers slightly, then collapses to the floor]

 

BOTH

Shit.

[CLACK]

 

Notes:

Alternate Title: "In Which Sakura Doesn't Get The Reference"

Don't really have too much to say today, but I do have a couple links to give those unfamiliar with The Magnus Archives an idea of what talking to Helen is like.

her voice: https://tinyurl.com/helenvoice

her weird-ass laugh and how her body moves: https://tinyurl.com/helensform

I tried to find clips that got the right vibes without spoiling too terribly much of the plot, in case anyone that hasn't listened to TMA gets interested enough to give it a listen, and without giving away too much of Jon's powers as well. I couldn't find any clips of Helen's actual laugh, or any animated clips of Helen that weren't wild-spoiler territory, but it's basically Michael's (guy in the second clip) laugh but mixed with the animated version of Maleficent's laugh.

Also for those of you that *do* know TMA, you can pry homestuck-fan-and-vriska-kinnie helen and 4th-wall-aware distortion in general from my cold dead fingers

Oh, and if you're wondering how Sakura is able to recite exact dialogue rather than summing up conversations the way most Statement-givers do, don't forget that sakura canonically has the next best thing to an eidactic memory. Combine that with Jon's spooky powers pulling her story out, and you get a *distressingly* accurate recitation of events.

Chapter 16: Exactly The Right/Wrong Time

Summary:

In Which A Connection Is Made.

Nara Shikamaru has felt many things over the course of his life, but somehow, this is the first time he's felt helpless.

He can't move.

Nobody in the Jounin break room can.

All they can do is listen to the tape recorder, listen to Sakura's Statement (and Shikamaru somehow can feel the capitalization on 'Statement'), listen to one of his friends speak words that aren't hers in a voice that sounds almost disconnected from her.

Sakura shouldn't be speaking so calmly, she should be confused and scared and stressed and swearing her ass off because of it. Her story shouldn't be so well-organized and linear, it should be rambling and backtracking and splitting, with her being distracted by trying to find the right words.

But the Sakura on the tape is being force-fed the right words in the right order by this 'Jon-san', and she can't even try to stop it. By the sound of things, she probably doesn't even know about the petrifications yet, she doesn't know that Konoha is under attack.

Shikamaru is helpless.

He is trapped, listening to his friend have her newest trauma be extracted from her by someone with some strange power he's never even heard of.

He can't even struggle against whatever is keeping him trapped, because he simply... can't not listen.

And then the tape ends.

Before anyone else can so much as blink, Hatake Kakashi vanishes from his spot by the door faster than any other shunshin Shikamaru has ever seen, and something yanks at Shikamaru's collar. An instant later, Shikamaru is flying through the air, towed by his collar by Hatake-san, with Naru-chan in his other hand.

As their momentum peaks and their arc of travel begins to turn back towards the ground, Hatake-san speaks. "I may not have properly met either of you before today, but having spent ten minutes in proximity to you two and knowing how brats like you are? That's enough for me to know you'll be hell-bent on getting to your friend, and with Uzumaki-chan's tag-along being as free-handed as it's been today? Yeah, we don't need that kind of chaos on top of everything else today."

"'Rama-Tou is a dude," says Naru-chan over the wind. Hatake-san nods agreeably.

"Noted," he says cheerfully. "Anything else I should know so I don't get eaten by a bijuu?"

"Mostly just that he wasn't a willing participant in either of the attacks he made against Konoha," answers Shikamaru as they land outside Konoha General Hospital. 

They have obviously arrived at exactly the right/wrong time- right for them, wrong for the staff. The first wave of patients consisting of lightly-injured shinobi and nearby civilians has faded, and the second wave, consisting of shinobi too injured to shunshin and of civilians from further afield, is just starting to reach its peak. All the light bruises from running into new statues have been dealt with, now is the time for those who broke bones trying to escape stone prisons, or who were on the floors below rooftops that were not meant to bear the impact of near a thousand kilos of marble, granite, or sandstone dropping from the sky. These are the victims who couldn't come faster, and as soon as these new victims arrive, all traces of giving a shit about people with bruises vanishes in the wind.

The instant Hatake-san says "None" to a harried demand for "Injuries, NOW!" made by the poor sadsack of a genin on desk duty, the three are given a green triage tag and told in no uncertain terms to "Git outa th' way."

"A green triage tag will ensure we are completely ignored by every staff member until the situation is handled," says Hatake-san. "They only really get pulled out when shit hits the fan on a large scale, so on days like this it's best to go through the front door, even if you aren't supposed to be here."

"Even if yer an enemy tryin' ta sneak in?" asks Naru-chan dubiously.

"Especially if you're infiltrating an enemy hospital," corrects Hatake-san. "You like pulling pranks, yeah? Think about it like you were planning a big one that needs a lot of setup. Anyone without any triage tag is going to be staff, and they're going to be working."

"An' you'll stand out if you aren't!"

"Right, but you're here for a reason, you don't want to be wasting time working, so you need a tag. If you have black and you're moving around, they'll know you're supposed to have a lethal injury-"

"So they'd ignore ya if you sat still, but walkin 'round to do setup would give ya away..."

"And they'd be putting all their attention on yellow and red tags," adds Shikamaru, "so those would be a complete waste of time."

"Yep," confirms Hatake-san. "Which just leaves green: people who have no internal or external bleeding, no noticeably broken bones, just some scrapes and bruises. People that won't die if you ignore them for a few hours, and who don't have anything better to do than wander around and keep out of the med-nins' way."

"Huh," says Naru-chan as the three of them finally manage to squeeze through the throng blocking them from the elevators. "Makes sense. You'd be a good sensei, Hatake-chan!"

Hatake-san blinks.

Shikamaru see's Hatake-san's jaw flex slightly, and he would bet his last ryo that Hatake just mouthed '-chan?' under his breath, but with the mask in the way he can't be certain.

If he's honest with himself, this is Shikamaru's favorite part of watching new people get to know (-hisbeautifulhisperfecthishishis-) Naruto. This is almost always the point where the new person's true colors show. For the bigots and assholes, this is the step too far, where they can't force themselves to keep the mask up any longer. For the well-meaning but inflexible, this is the point where they give up trying to understand and start asserting their own (generally reasonable) boundaries and barriers. But for the few that are willing to set aside their preconceived notions of 'normal' and listen?

This is the point where they become someone precious.

Hatake-san silently stares at Naruto for the entire elevator ride, then, as the doors open to a mostly-deserted hallway, he shows his true colors.

"I think Obito-chan would have loved to meet you, Naruto-chan," he whispers, voice wracked with grief, the likes of which Shikamaru almost never hears from anyone outside of a funeral. "I don't know if you'd love each other or hate each other, but she would have loved the process of getting there. She was weird about gender too, thought it was determined by whether you painted fingernails or not. She didn't like having to explain it though, so between that and her thinking you have to use every honorific that applies, it took our sensei six months to figure out why Obito-chan called him 'Minato-sama-sensi-chan'."

"It-it's hair, 'ttebayo," whispers Naruto-chan. "Privates are private, but everyone sees your hair..."

Hatake-san- no, it's going to be 'Kakashi' now, isn't it- Kakashi smiles. "I don't want to make a mess in the hospital, but..." he flashes a hand seal, and silently casts a henge on himself. Immediately, Kakashi's hair shortens to about two inches long. 

Naruto-chan stares. "You- you're the first person I didn't have ta really explain it to," she says, awestruck.

Kakashi shrugs. "Konoha is a village of orphans. Three shinobi world wars, one on top of the other with barely a few years of break between them? Eventually you run out of relatives to send the orphans to, eventually the orphanages fill up, and you're left with street kids trying to figure everything out on their own. Way I see it, you can either be a dick and force your way of thinking onto people who have never known anything else, or you can show some fucking decency and learn the local language."

Naruto-chan nods, eyes still wide and just a little watery. "'M gonna go check on Sakura-chan, but... can we...?"

"I'll be around," says Kakashi reassuringly. "Your mother may or may not have told me your genin team assignments, so I know we'll be seeing a lot more of each other soon."

Naruto-chan nods again, then, in a most unusual move for her, flees.

Shikamaru looks back up at Kakashi. "You are a very different person from what your public file suggests."

Kakashi snorts. "Three years of twice-weekly mandatory therapy with the head of the Yamanaka clan does that to a man. Under the Sandaime I was always going to be Naruto's Jounin-sensei, but when the Godaime took office and started shaking things up, the Council was still hell-bent on me being Naruto's Jounin-sensei. So she decided that if I was to be her kid's sensei, she was going to make damn certain I was the right person for the job."

"And if you weren't?"

"Then she'd make me the right person," says Kakashi. "Turned out I wasn't, not right then, so she put me in therapy. Said I'd either heal and become the right person, or I wouldn't and she'd be Naruto's sensei herself and make me the Hokage. I was self-aware enough to know what a fucking disaster I'd be wearing that hat, so I went to therapy. That was around the time the Jounin rumor mill started picking up on how many chuunin-senseis your class of monsters chewed through, so I figured it would be a good idea to read up on how to teach kids with different learning styles, and especially how to teach kids with ADHD. I figured if I did well enough, I wouldn't join you heathens' kill count."

Shikamaru snorts. "You're not half bad, sensei. Keep my Naru-chan safe, and I won't go looking through the Nara kinjutsu scrolls for something that will earn me a triple-S in the bounty book when I use it on you."

Kakashi turns his head slowly down to Shikamaru's. "I think you've got this relationship backwards, kid. Minato adopted me after Hatake Sakumo died. It took me a lot of therapy to remember it through all my trauma, but Naruto is my baby sister, not just my future student."

The pitch-black irises of the Jounin's eyes seem to flicker with the uncanny reflective gold of a wolf's eyes.

"You keep my baby sister happy, and you won't learn how the other little deer in this forest feel when the wolves decide it's time for dinner," says Kakashi softly. Quietly. Dangerously. Hungrily.

Shikamaru grins. "Deal."

They part ways there, Kakashi sighing that he should check up on Anko-sensei before she recovers enough to make a Problem of herself, and Shikamaru to follow his Naru-chan.

He finds her in a break room that had obviously been hastily abandoned earlier in the morning. She's found Sakura, obviously, but also the two men he assumes to be Jon-san and Martin-san from the tape.

Sakura, in typical Sakura fashion, is grilling Jon-san for all he's worth on exactly how real his extra eyes (currently nowhere to be seen) actually are, and how much is an illusion or hallucination.

"Completely real," confirms Jon-san. "They even have the correct musculature, ennervation, and blood supply for any other human eye. Illusions and hallucinations fall under a different power set than my own. That sort of thing is what you might find in someone aligned with The Spiral." Seeing Sakura's questioning look, Jon-san adds "That's the power, the Fear Entity, that Helen serves. She feeds on the fear people feel when they think they are going insane or caught in an illusion. In doing so, she feeds The Spiral. And in return, it keeps her alive, and gives her powers that let her inspire more fear for it to feed on."

"That's what she meant by my confusion tasting good," realizes Sakura, and Jon-san nods.

"The entire duration of your meeting with her, she was feeding on you," Jon-san confirms, then sighs. "As for- as for myself, I am bound to The Eye. The fear of being watched, of knowing too much. Normally I am able to be more- more picky with how I feed my patron, but The Fears are so new to this world that other options simply don't exist yet."

"The Statement," Naru-chan says grimly. "You were feedin' on Sakura-chan."

If Jon-san didn't look guilty enough to commit seppuku, Shikamaru would hate him. As things are, Jon-san looks like he wants to die right now, so Shikamaru will hold judgement.

"Yes," whispers Jon-san. "There is no excuse for-"

"Oh shut up," interrupts Martin-san calmly, bringing a double fistful of mugs of tea to the table the others are sitting at. "You know full well The Eye won't let you turn down the nearest meal when you're that injured."

"But I-"

"Shut."

"I should have-"

"Nope."

"I didn't-"

"Tea, Jon. Drink it."

Jon-san drinks his tea meekly.

Shikamaru makes a mental note to try Martin-san's method of dealing with guilt on Chouji the next time his friend accidentally bites someone in the sparring ring.

Also damn this is some good tea. Shikamaru isn't even a tea guy and he can still tell that shitty breakroom tea normally isn't this good, no matter how well you make it. 

"Honestly," fusses Martin-san, "If Sakura had met any other Avatar in the state you were in, she'd be dead right now. If anything, I'm just grateful you managed to wake up enough to just take her Statement."

Jon-san sighs, conceeding the point. "That's- that's true I suppose. Still, I am sorry, Haruno-san. Don't-" he interrupts before Sakura can even finish opening her mouth, "Don't forgive me. Not yet. If I take somebody's Statement, it has... consequences. Wait until after you've felt those consequences, then decide if you want to forgive me. And if you have any questions, if you need company without having to explain why, or even if you just want to yell at me, please come to me. I don't know where your Hokage will house us, but you will be welcome at any time."

Ominous.

Martin-san, who has spent the past minute or so squinting at the label of a snack from the vending machine, mumbles something, then sighs. "I wish these labels were in a different font, something about them is screwing with my eyes."

Jon-san gives him an amused look. "Martin."

"Yes, Jon?"

"You do know you've been both speaking and reading exclusively in Japanese for the past hour or so, right?"

Martin-san stares at him blankly.

Jon-san begins to shake, struggling to hold in his snickers.

"Bullshit," says Martin-san.

Jon-san shakes harder. Shikamaru grins, and he can see Sakura and Naru-chan shaking with laughter just like Jon-san.

"Bullshit!" begs Martin-san.

"Do- do that manga reference you love so much, you'll see," giggles Jon-san, failing to hold back his laughter.

"'You are already dea-' SHIT!" Martin-san swears violently, causing Jon-san to guffaw loudly.

This is of course the last straw for Sakura and Naru-chan, who absolutely lose it at the aggrieved look on Martin-san's face. 

Then an extra eye (and holy shit that looks weird-) opens on Jon-san's cheek, makes direct eye contact with Martin-san, and flashes with green light. Martin-san's eyes flash green at the same time, and-

Martin's jaw drops in offended indignation

"Jon! Did you just use your spooky eye powers to air-drop me a fucking meme?!" Martin-san starts beating Jon-san about the head with a tea cozy, and that is more than enough to make Shikamaru lose it too.

He knows it won't last, though. While Sakura and Naru-chan's laughs are all carefree amusement, Jon-san and Martin-san's laughter has the hysterical edge of people who are laughing only because they don't want to cry. When the adults' laughter begin to turn to tears, Shikamaru quietly bustles Sakura and Naru-chan out into the hall. As he eases the door shut, he can hear Jon-san quietly whispering something, but Shikamaru doesn't listen.

He doesn't need to know every detail of what these men have lost to know just from the juxtaposition of their haggard, scarred faces with their soft civilian bodies that they have lost more than enough to justify a good cry.

Naru-chan must agree, because her left eye keeps flickering purple the way it does when Kurama-sama wants to talk and is too busy being a bijuu to consider what the humans around him (other than Naru-chan of course) might need. She must be arguing with him right now, because her expression is slowly sinking into that stone-stubborn pout she has when she's at her most obstinant.

Sakura must also agree, because she slips into the easy lean Iruka-sensei taught their class for guard duty- casual enough to be comfortable and to reassure the person being guarded that there is nothing to be worried about, but well-balanced enough to allow you to move in an instant if the situation changes, and with one heel subtly planted against the wall to allow you to shove off hard if necessary. Shikamaru trusts Sakura's judgement for what the men need. They may have abilities he can't understand (yet), but Sakura is treating them as though they are civilians in a dangerously unknown place.

So, Shikamaru joins Sakura in his own "casual" lean, and settles in to make sure these two men the time and space they need to pull themselves back together. Figuring out what exactly he needs to plan around can wait. For now, he just pulls an embroidered seal from his vest and passes a sliver of chakra through it. The seal glows white for a second, then crumbles to ash. On Naru-chan's and Sakura's wrists, two identical wrist-watches vibrate for just a second, and Shikamaru knows the hour hands will have swivelled to point directly at him.

There.

The rest of his friends will be here eventually. The seal he used was the least urgent of the three, but the day has barely begun and it's already so troublesome, so even odds as to how soon everyone shows up. It'll take a bit to explain everything to them, especially since Sakura hasn't given him any details about what happened between the end of her Statement and his arrival, but he knows they'll all be ride-or-die for Kakashi and over-protective of Jon-san and Martin-san once he does.

Kami, Shikamaru loves his friends, even though Kakashi is totally right to call them heathens.

Notes:

Alternate Title: "In Which Everyone Is A Little Freak In Some Way"

If the image doesn't load, here it is on imgur: https://imgur.com/a/XGIeflg

About two minutes after Jon and Martin finish their lil cry sesh, Martin almost breaks down the door in his haste to apologize to the kids for using the wrong form of address lmao

Ever since he got far enough along in therapy to realize it was even an option, Kakashi has been working his *ass* off to be Worthy of being Naruto's Jounin sensei. Realizing Naruto might be in the same situation as Obito due to the Sandaime not allowing anyone to adopt her sent Kakashi into a two-day panic-attack-slash-berserker-rage, but then he realized that he's *absolutely perfect* to be Naruto's sensei *because* he has experience with Obito's quirks and was fine.

Also yes, Kakashi, Obito, and Rin were all three desperately pining for each other, it just took Obito's death for Kakashi and Rin to realize that their affections were *all* mutual. Kakashi and Rin agreed to start dating after they'd both had a chance to mourn Obito, but before they could get together, Rin died, and the trauma of it almost took Kakashi with her.

off topic, but triage tags are a real thing! The exact details of color and meaning vary from country to country, but the general idea stays the same. People who cannot be saved are in one group, people who can be saved if you help them *right fucking now* are in a second group, and people who are hurt but not going to die from it are in the third.

Do not follow Kakashi's advice on getting a triage tag just to infiltrate a crisis scene, though. It is *extremely* illegal, and it's also such a dick move that if you go on trial for it, the judge and jury will almost invariably give you the worst possible punishment for every crime they can pin on you. Any interference in crisis management situations like this can cause a *lot* of people who would otherwise survive to die, and you *will* be tried for some form of homicide for *each* of those deaths. Kakashi is going to get away with this only because he does not cause *any* interference in the function of the medical staff, he didn't loiter, he made sure to let *everyone* who had a legitimate tag go before him, and he didn't commit even a misdemeanor while there. Even with all that he could get tapped for medical fraud if it weren't for the med-nin at the front desk giving him a tag despite him saying he was uninjured. He's going to explain all this to Naruto and Shikamaru later, but they're in too much of a rush to go into the legalities right this minute.

Chapter 17: Look At Me

Summary:

In Which The Scope Of The Situation Is Revealed

𝙾𝙵𝙵𝙸𝙲𝙸𝙰𝙻 𝙳𝙾𝙲𝚄𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃

𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙺𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚑𝚊 𝙴𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚕 𝙸𝚗𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙸𝚗𝚟𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙳𝚎𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝.

𝙰𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚂𝚎𝚌 𝚁𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚂𝚂 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚒𝚙𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚐𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙺𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚑𝚊 𝚂𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚘𝚋𝚒 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚢, 𝚊𝚝 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚙𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙷𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢.

 

 

------

 

[CLICK]

 

[WHIRR]

 

GODAIME HOKAGE, SENJU TSUNADE

I understand the events as much as I can without having been there myself, Kami, there were thirteen written reports submitted in the first five minutes, nearly two dozen verbal within another twenty, and the only reason there weren't more is because everyone else that could have seen enough to give a report was too busy dealing with the petrifications from this morning. No, what I am concerned with is what happened in the Operating Room. Sims-san- No, be silent Blackwood-san. I need to hear this from him if I am to make a complete and informed judgement of the matter. Sims-san... Explain yourself.

 

ARCHIVIST

... Right. I- Historically, I have been... targeted... several times. It has made me a little- a little twitchy about sharp objects in my vicinity when I am not in total control of my faculties. Especially with the knowledge I gained recently, that most if not all of said attacks were orchestrated specifically with the intention of turning me into the... thing I am now, I- I cannot find it in myself to consider an overreaction made in the effort to prevent my further descent into monsterhood to be... inappropriate.

 

HOKAGE

That remains to be seen. Certainly it is understandable, but as for appropriate... [Sighs] You say that your powers aren't jutsu, so, using more general terms, use of force on medical staff is only considered an "appropriate" reaction in active-duty shinobi, or shinobi and civilians recently extracted from an active war zone. Especially force applied via means beyond what an untrained civilian is capable of. Even given your wound and... accessory features... you do not display any other sign of such an experience. Danger, absolutely. Trauma, almost certainly. But enough trauma to cause heavy conditioning towards immediate, overwhelming violence upon being startled? I must doubt that until you can provide me with strong evidence supporting your claim.

 

MARTIN

How recently is "recently", then?

 

HOKAGE

For non-combatants, six to twelve months with modern treatment techniques. For combatants and directly-targeted civilians, one to two years.

 

MARTIN

Well then, five hours falls well within either of those. And as for-

 

HOKAGE

[Interrupting] You've barely been here five hours, what do you-

 

MARTIN

[Overriding] As for coming from an active warzone, how does an active apocalypse add up?

 

[ALL PAUSE, CLOCK TICKS IN BACKGROUND.]

 

HOKAGE

If you really did come from an apocalypse, and that's a big fucking 'if', I would consider that as you somehow surviving every active warzone I can think of, simultaneously. But you will need to supply some evidence before I can take it as fact.

 

MARTIN

[Scoffs] And what kind of proof would you even accept? It's not like we can just-

 

ARCHIVIST

Done.

 

[ALL PAUSE AGAIN.]

 

MARTIN

[Suspicious] Jon... What are you thinking?

 

ARCHIVIST

Think about it, Martin. We're here. With Hellen. With our abilities. And that which gives them to us.

 

MARTIN

Oh. Oh... Ah fuck...

 

ARCHIVIST

[Snorts] Indeed. But-! But imagine how much easier it would have been to stop Jonah by just... being informed, p-prepared, being believed right from the start, having those in power know what is at stake and what to do about it. There never would have been a Watcher's Crown. Jonah wouldn't have made it past his first attempted ritual. There's the issue of The Eye feeding off of the fear caused by spreading this knowledge, yes, but the consequences of not telling anyone would be...

 

MARTIN

[Conceeding the point] That would just give them time to gain power all over again. Give it two hundred years, and some idiot will try something.

 

HOKAGE

[Miffed at being ignored] So now that you've both had your little talk, what proof do you have to support your claims?

 

ARCHIVIST

... You won't like it.

 

HOKAGE

There's not much about this damn job that I do like. Go ahead.

 

ARCHIVIST

[Resigned] In that case... Just... Try not to hold it against me too much.

 

[STATIC BEGINS TO BUILD]

 

HOKAGE

Oh what the- [Agonized gasp]

 

ARCHIVE

L̸̡̹͎͐̌o̵̫̒͆͘ǫ̵̟̻̊k̸̤͗̇͆ ̵̻̮͂͛͝å̵͉͓̩̋̕ṱ̷͈̯͐ ̵̮̲̖͐m̴͕̮̊͑͘ę̴̨̏̽.̷̺̭̥͌̒
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̴͔̅͋͂͜S̶̻̀͋e̵̛͚è̴̡̯͑ ̷̳͍͒͛̚ţ̸͎͖̔͑̚h̵̺́e̶̙͂̑̍ ̶̹̈́̌̿ṯ̵̥̾̀͝w̷̨̋̆͒į̸̗͐̓s̷̡̐t̸̜͆͜e̵͎͚̐d̴̳̬̖̍̽̇,̸̜̓ ̸̤͌̂m̵̟͉̉̏ả̵̘̟̝̍l̴̗̰̗͒̍̾f̶̰̽̌ȏ̷͔̪͊ŗ̴̟̉̾m̷̝̦͌͆̒ë̶͕̜́ď̴̜ ̴̡̗̲̇̒̀R̴̦̍̅ù̸̗̞̠ḯ̴̡̤̖n̵͍̪͊͗ ̵̥̿͜t̴̰́̋h̵̨̎a̷̤̻͝t̴̲̬̩͋̑ ̸̳̣̫̓h̵̭̩͕́̿̽ä̶̛̫̖s̷͉̾́ ̴͎̲͗b̸͎̃̈́̃ẽ̶͎̹̞e̵̳͎͘n̵̙͍͙̓̀́ ̴̪̾m̵̻̦͔̈́ä̵̹͔́d̴͉͍̈́͗͝e̷̮͂̀͝ ̷̛̰͓͗ŏ̶͇͝f̴͎̙͗̄ ̴̢͓̊́͂À̶͕͔͉̇͝l̷̩͕̭̃̓̈́l̵͔̰̼̑ ̸̟̈́̐͝T̶͚̞͉̆̅͝h̷̛̻̘̉̒ͅa̸͈̮̟͝t̸̲͈͗ ̴͕̳͐W̶̯̽͜ͅa̴͕͖͒ş̶̽,̷̯̯͗̒̋ ̴̰͇̓̿͝ă̴̰̂̈́n̷͚̽ͅd̶͍̮̜͝ ̸͓̐̈s̴̩͖͖̽͘è̶̹̠̮̚ė̴̠̻ ̶͔̭̚t̸͉̄h̷̯̺͐̌͜é̴͚̮͕̋͠ ̶͓̀̂u̶̼̎͛n̵͍̩̜̓̏͒c̴̨̻̄o̸̧̜̊u̵͎͚͋n̵͚͕͋ṱ̷̾̿͝a̵͖͚̻̽̈b̶͕͎̺͛̆̄l̴̼̘̦̇̑̂ȩ̴͉͂͠ ̷̢̝̉È̸̘̠̒̾y̷̧̚ͅë̵̖́͋͠s̴͙̭̉̋͂ ̶͙͚̂͊t̴̺̦́́ḥ̸̏̓a̷̺͈̯͛͝ṱ̷̭̥͘ ̴̲̃̇W̶̳̓͠a̸̺͛̀ṭ̶͑̊͊c̶̗̔͝h̴̪͓̥̚ ̵̰̃a̸͖̋͠n̶̲͈̭͆͂d̵͔̫̯̀̽̚ ̷̤̹̀͐Ẁ̶̲̽͆a̶̮͚̽́͂t̸͉̬̬̔͋͐c̸̛̱̋̕h̸̢̛̰̠̕͝ ̶͍̣̈͛̚a̵̦͖͒́̔ṉ̵̪͘d̸͇͙̄ ̸̙̎W̶̛̺̣̾̔a̵̭̯͝ẗ̴̲͔̩́͌̕c̶̼͉̚h̴̞̒̽̄͜.̷̭͗͝
̴̢̘́̐͠
̸̗̺̓Ḧ̸͖̖̗́͘è̵̛̻a̷̛͈̲̳̋͝r̵͙̂̏͠ ̶̬̳̣͊̕t̷̲̍͘ḧ̴͚̟̮́ẻ̵͔̥̻ ̴̯̻̼͘s̵̨̒ę̴̜͋͘v̵̨̩̖̅ȅ̷̫̓̔n̶̛̠̉̇͜ͅ ̵̡̱̿̓͆p̴̢͊͠o̶̭̬͎͋ĭ̸̧̀̂ņ̶͙̜̿t̴̢̘͍̀̑ ̷̗͇̙̂̽̄e̸̠͚͘ǐ̴͎͇͑̈́ģ̴̲̝̋͆h̷̰̘͠ț̴̬̱͂̋̑ ̵͇̘̟̿b̴̪̝́ị̸̤̭̈́̆͋l̸̝̄͐ļ̸͇͆̓͒í̴̫̪͜o̶̦̙͑̀n̷̖͠͠ ̴̣̒͒̅v̷̧͑̃o̷̩̫̒̕i̸̦͎͆c̴̥͊̚e̴͉̫͊̈́̃ś̶̼̩ ̸̡̛̟́t̶̙̓̍h̷͔͈͉͂̏̒á̵̽͝ͅt̶̩̥͑̽͝ ̵̢̜̘͆͝p̵͔̪͠õ̵͎̭͓̿͠p̷̳̥͂ǘ̶̼̦͎̓l̵̛͙͚͇a̷̭͖͆t̵̘͇͐͆̓e̷̢̟͐̎͌ ̵̳̬͆͌̊t̴̥̹̹̀h̴̬̋į̴͖̪̀s̸͓͍͈̿̆ ̸̼̪̌w̸̦͎̻̾͂õ̷̧͔r̸̥̺͓̈́l̴̜̤͘d̶̡̘̦́̈̅,̴̜̱̳́̿ ̵̹͙͑̎̇a̸͇̓͜n̵̖̰̈͛d̶̼̹̭̒͠ ̷͍͑k̶͇̗̀n̸̹͒̎̓ȏ̷̢̖̫͂̕w̶͈̍̈́̇ ̶̡̛͙͂͒ẗ̷̢̞́̂͛h̷̖̻̆͑͛ä̴̮̦̮́̽̂t̵̳̮̍ ̵̧̳̬̔t̸̮̩̘́̄ẖ̶̨̨͌͑̕ë̶̼̥̽̾ ̶̦͋̈́͝ȯ̷̧̠̳̈́n̵̡̑̐ľ̸̯y̷̗̬̅͝ ̵̳̠̚ò̵̱̋ń̵̡͍̣ë̸̥s̷̖̞̀͠ ̷͈͈͗t̴̥̀͂̽ͅḥ̵̹̠̐̓a̶̬͘t̶͙̝͠ ̷̧͎̒̔̿a̵̰͕͋r̴͙̊̔͐e̷͕͚̮͐́ ̶͔͜͝n̴͈̦̉̔͘o̴̭̾̓t̷̺̺͑ ̵̼̌̓̚ş̸̲͗̕͝c̸̥̏̒̿r̴̤̈́̽e̴̗̱̾a̵̳̥͕̓͌͠m̶̩̬̿͛͗͜ĭ̸̡̭̜̃̊n̶͎̤̯̐g̷͕̣͚̿̚͘ ̴̡̼̙͋̇͌a̷̭̾̏͝ṟ̸̡̛̳̐̚ë̸̪̱̭́͊ ̶̟̮̈́̇t̷͙̙̐̎̕h̸̪̯̤̿ö̷̟́̾s̶̝̠̠͌è̶̩͚ ̸̙͓̀̆̚t̷̨̺͉̀́̽ò̸̢͍̳o̴̧̜̰̾͛̚ ̵̨̟̻͋̚t̴͈̒͗͛ḙ̴̰̤͝ŗ̸̨͒ȓ̵̡̇͠i̵̳̦̙̍̆͐f̴̛̳̬̳̌i̴͔͔͇͌e̶̡͕͓̿d̵̖̝̹̏ ̸̻͊t̵͖͂̈́͜o̸̖̜̔͜ ̷͓̂͑ś̸̥̀ç̸̄͘r̴̢̦͝e̴͇̹̘͛̽̐ă̸̼̗̐̓m̷͙͕͝,̷̩̣͑̕ ̴̧̭̐a̶͚̼͗̇̍͜n̵̗̝̊͗̔͜d̵̛̹̬͇́ ̴̥̆̍t̸̨̩͎͑h̴̙̺͉̓͂͝o̵̧̡̬̍s̶͍̟̯̐̾ĕ̵̮͔̫̐̃ ̴̝̑w̷̡͚̎͌̐h̸̟͆o̸͖̙̾̀͠ ̸̦̫̰͊͗n̵͔͊ö̸̡̤͔́́̎ ̸̮̟̅̽l̷̫͠o̴̤̮̰͝ṉ̴̛͚̭͌͗ǧ̷͇͉e̶̙̿́ř̶̳̎̓ ̸̲͇͖͂h̴̻̞͎̍̈́́ȧ̷̦v̶̘̪͂̚ë̴̦́ ̷̢͖̂t̴̫͍̖͑͆̈h̵̬̻̾̈̋ȩ̷̹͆ ̶͇͋l̸̢͇̓͆ủ̸̢̘͙́x̵͉͕͚̒͌̿ù̴͍̀r̷̹̭̒̐͊ẙ̸̺̅̚͜ ̸̺̭̩͛͆̽o̵̦̺͛͗f̴̟̥̃́͠ͅ ̶̣̰͊̂̐b̸̩̺̐͊͑e̴̤̳̼͑̆̌ǐ̵͈̍͝ņ̴̀̓̏g̵̼̗͠ ̴̝̔á̸̢͕̼͋͘b̶̟̕͝l̵͈̎e̶̥͂̂̓ ̸̨̱̯́ţ̵̩̦͑o̴̧̎͊ ̴͙̯̏͝s̶͈̦̈́͘c̵̠͛r̷̝̿̄͠e̷͓͙̭̊̑a̸͓͋͂ṃ̶̻̅.̶̧͈̊
̶͈̀
̵̻͙̔͐F̵̜͇̳͝ȩ̵̩̽̃͝e̴̼͋ḷ̸̩́̃̚ ̵̙̘͌̚t̸͎̕ͅh̶̡̿̔͝ë̸͓́͑ ̸͙̓ǧ̷̫̩̭̾r̶̤͓̺̓o̶̥̒ú̴̞̈ǹ̴͇͔͉͝͝d̷̬̺̑͊̋ ̸̙̩̏b̶̢̖̬̅ẻ̷͇͓͎̾̈́ň̷̯̮̉̒e̷̙͝ȃ̷̳͛t̵̢̙̭͑h̵̭͍͈̕ ̴̰̥̽y̷̰̓́͜ǫ̷̥͈͑̍u̴̙͐̐͌ŕ̷̯͎ ̷͍̺̓f̴̫͖̄̈́͜͠e̶̡͈͂̄̂ͅȩ̴̛̋t̵̳̰͒̓̀,̴̨̘̜̄ ̸̘̮̀̏á̷͔̬̆̈́n̴̲͌d̷̩̘̄͊ͅ ̶͓͙̑̕k̵͕̔͑ǹ̶̮͜͜ǫ̵̈͗ẅ̷̨͚́́͋ ̶̩̦̈́̾͆ṱ̶̤̦̃͝ḧ̸͓̮́͘a̵̫̤͙͊̃̍t̴̯̪̱͆͊̎ ̴̡̦̪̎ņ̷̮̃o̷̞̦̾ ̵͉̓́g̷̮̫̈́r̸͎̖̣͂̒͗ĕ̴̢̈́͌ȅ̴̝͋̈́ņ̸̙̘̊ ̷͓̼̍̏l̶͕̗͠i̸̤͛̓̈f̵̹̌̋ē̶͈͔͓͛̚ ̴̫̝̍̄̋͜ẃ̸̟͍͝i̴̥̐͑l̷̝̿̅̐l̷͙̏̄ ̴͂̉͗͜e̶̬̯̽v̴̢̛̟͈̉e̷̦̜͒̚͝r̷̛̩̻̙̒ ̵͎̹̈́g̸̻̀̂r̷̙̋ö̷̱͓́̈w̶͉͆͑͂ ̷̮̹̼̊̆̒f̴̟̏ŕ̶̙̣o̸͓̍̇́m̵̼̣̏́ ̴̗̔̇a̸̱͓͗͘n̵̢̈̊̈y̵̫͆̀̓ ̶̠̾e̸̛͓̭a̷͈̮͠r̴͉͍͗͜t̸̰̋̌h̷͖̋͐̉ ̵̗͔̠̔s̴̞̰̈́o̷̜̦̽͝ ̷̻̾̕c̵̠̤̹̍ḥ̴̥̩͑́͝o̸͙̎͋͆ķ̸̨̙̃͑ê̶̫d̴͚͗ ̸̢͚̉̒̕w̶̡̨̛̠ḭ̶̈́̂̊ͅt̸͉̹̤̽͋ḧ̸̠́ ̴̛̮͝ạ̸̗́̈́s̸̤͎̿̒ͅh̵̳͋́͠,̶̢̡͝ ̷̜̱̖̈́͂ŏ̸̰͌į̷̼͠ͅl̵͕̓͝,̶̭͓̰̃̾͠ ̶̝̿š̶̻̄ȁ̵̝̫l̶̤̿̊͑t̶̗͐̆,̸͍̞̓̂͠ ̸̢̿a̷͕͓̠̍̽ṉ̵̱̓̾d̸̝̭͗̉̋ ̵̝̮̽̏͠f̶̧̛̞͓̑í̷̧̔l̷̻̄t̸̢͍̗̔̔͆ẖ̸̛͒̌.̶̛̬̓̓͜
̸̺̉͝
̴̘͛́S̸̺̅͝m̶̰̞̅̏e̷̝̚͝l̷̢̺̲͒̈́l̷̜͝ ̵̥̲͠ẗ̷̼̞̼́͒h̵͖̙͒͘̚e̸̻̺͔̽̎ ̵̘̥̪͋̐̾s̵̡̡͔̈̑̅m̷͙͈̂̈́̚ő̵̭͊̔k̷̨̳̱͘e̶̯͇͎̔̽͠ ̴̬͎̔̄͝f̸͕̊̆̒ī̷̙̫̹̋l̸̖͎̭̓͝l̷̹̖̂̑̂i̶̟̠͂̕͝n̷͔̠̈͝g̶͕͘ ̷̨̗͍̓̀y̷̻͓͖͆ö̸̪̪̪̆̉ų̸͙̮͊r̵̬̊ ̵̗͓̬̈̚e̷͚͛͆v̵̜̞̬̿ę̵̫̲̿̊r̸̙̗̫̒y̵̰̎̎̚ ̸̝̯̂ḇ̷͝r̵̪͇̃e̷̢̿͘a̸̘̩͝ṱ̸̀͌h̸̡͉͕͌,̵̨̐͠ ̶̲̭͑̉̕a̴͔̺̲̿n̵̞͓̤͂͂ḓ̶̿̕͝ ̶͉̈́́̑ḳ̴͂̊̅n̵̠͌ö̴̘̹́̆ẅ̶̡̥͔́̈́̅ ̶̹̉͝t̵͎̼̩͛̔̀h̴̳͓̄̿ą̴̻̈́t̶͍̋͐͑ ̵͖̃t̸̗̳͑͆̌h̷͓̊͊ẽ̶̳ ̴̯͊͌f̵͚̍̾l̷̫̎͝a̴̙̺̕m̷̞̹̮̊͑͋e̵̦̓̚s̵̩̀̚ ̶̤͕̓ì̴͓̗ͅt̴͈̜̔ ̴͉̮̒͜c̴̘͔̭̀̌ő̷̹m̸̛̹̜̖͒̕ḙ̶̻͔̑̕s̵̨̥̳̃͝ ̶̛̤f̴̩͚̘̏͆̅ȑ̶̲̀̑ô̶͇̝̆m̴̪̥̥͂ ̷͖̌b̵̤͛̾̕ȕ̴͕r̵̡̮̀ṋ̷̱̝̓͘͝ ̸̯̿a̵̟͈̒̌̋n̷̳̤̩̎͠͝ḓ̸̨͂̂̉ ̷̬̫͙̽̐b̸̘̄̉u̵͇͌̆̚r̵̟̼̃n̶͔͗ ̸̩̾̋͌å̵̰̼͇̎̓n̸̩̊̕͠d̸̳̈́̈ ̷̰̣͗̀̚b̸̨͆u̷̢̪̱̾̊͝r̸̬̣̞̃̐ṇ̵̋,̴̦̯̟͋̓ ̵͔͑̾w̶̖̺͚̍̇̏ḯ̸̖͠l̶̢͙̮̆l̴̖̦͛̍͒ ̷̨̈̈́́ṇ̸̯̇̂ę̶͖̯̍v̵̘́ẽ̷̗̏̔r̶̦̈́̒ ̶̢̰̼̃ş̸̡̿͝t̸͇̣͇̔̀̐ő̶͈̥̽̚p̴̼̺̫͊͗ ̶͍͠b̵̗̫̩͗͒̚ų̵̻̈́r̸̞͠n̴͚̂̽͠i̶̧̗̻͐ń̴̨͇͘g̵̱̪̾,̷̥̀͌͊ ̷̙́̆͌w̶̗̱̰͂̑̂i̶͖̞̠̕ḻ̵́́͊ĺ̷̙̺̑͂ ̶̭͚̗̈n̴̥̝̓̊͋e̷̼̤͗͗̕v̷̙̻̄e̵͔͕͌r̶̮͛̀ ̷͍̈́̀͆s̶̱̀ͅt̷̘̜̞̍̑͝o̷̡̢̓͊̿p̷̤͗ ̵̛̰͝͠s̵̮̬̉e̵͖̋ḁ̸͓̫̋̚ŗ̷̭̓̾i̷̢̦̩͒̊n̶̹̫͇͆g̴̨̜̻͂͗ ̵̛̝͋͆ţ̴͔͓́͗͛h̵̪̦̙͐͘è̵̼̬͖̏̕ ̸̧̫̪̑̇f̶̰̬̆l̶͖̇̔͐ě̵̤̼ş̷̪̊̒͝ḣ̸̡̦̪̈́ ̶̮͙̔͜ọ̴̗̫̋f̷̧̨̝͛̆̽ ̴͇̹̂a̷͖̰̯̓̿l̵͍̯͆́̿l̷̛̘̘̦̄ ̸̱͌ẃ̸̜̮̟h̸̢̟͍̅͗ō̴̧͖ ̷̱̯̓̀̆f̸̝̭̏͊͝ą̵͐l̸͕̥̮̍l̶̢̲̈́ ̷̲̲̩͛͌̍b̸̎̒ͅe̵̹͖̯̒̈́f̶̮̻̒̒o̷͉͂͐̔r̶̋͊ͅȩ̷͈̭̔̈̉ ̷̢̪̔͗̈í̵͇t̷̨͛,̶̪̈́̅̉ ̸̞̭̱̋b̸̝͊̆u̷̟̩̼͌̃ţ̸̰͈̈̕ ̴͉̙̞̊͒w̵̩̱̣̅̌̑ǐ̴̫̫̈́̅l̴̫̜̣̎ḽ̴̢̘̐̅̇ ̸̼̍̈ṇ̵̡̈́͜e̷̫͓̋̂v̴͙͍̠͐è̵̫̮̦͐̌r̷̢̦͠ ̷̨̩̋b̴̫̖͐̎̏r̶͙̲͂̅i̷̬͋͠n̶̨̜̖̊g̷͇̿͋ ̷̬̘̍͜ŵ̵̼͕̆̕ä̵̘̣͠r̵̡̬̹̄̈̿m̴̓͜t̵̫͔̝͗h̶̛̜̬͂ ̷̙͋̑ö̷̬́r̸̟͇̬̊͗̕ ̴͈̰̲̓̌̽l̷̘̲̗͝ḯ̶̧̐̔͜g̶̱͑̃̕h̴̦̟̏͌̌t̷̢͋̃ ̴͕̈́̉̊t̵̩́o̸̫̎͂̚ ̴͓̺̜̕a̶̝̱̤̎̍n̴̮̠͊͐ý̸̤̍͛o̷͙̞̮̽ǹ̵̹̊e̶͎̔͛̑.̶̧̛̦̌̋ͅ
̴̢̥̑̕͝
̷̦̖̯̌͠Ť̶̲̰́̓ậ̷s̶͕̺̓̍̇t̴̟́e̶̋͂͜ ̶̼̃͑t̶̟̃̅͌h̸̖͂é̷͎͍ ̷̗̠͚́̋̑a̷̮͐͐s̶͉̲̈h̷͔͍̏ ̶̭̲̉̈̀o̴̼͑͝f̸̪̋̔ͅ ̵̧̖̅͒̇A̵̖̾l̷͓͓̯̽̂l̸̬͍̈́ ̶̦̤̭͊͘͝Ť̸̞͎̫͒ḧ̵͕̼́ā̵̫̲̈t̸͎̖̊̄ ̶̢̑W̴̹̻͆̾̒ͅă̷̞͌̒s̷̪̱͋͆̚ ̶͚̒̀ȯ̴̱̣͓n̶̠̽ ̸̡̹̭̅͊y̷̮͊o̸̦͍̊̄ù̶̬̀r̸̰͒͆̒ ̴̻̮̒͛͜t̸͙͉͐̉͝ŏ̷̡̪n̸̢̲͈̐̔̿g̵̢͈͖͋ú̸̼̠e̸̢̞̞̍,̵̡̦̍̉́ ̸̥̘͐̍ǎ̴̟̼̏̂n̶̢̫̅̾d̸̻̖́̒̆ ̸̟͇̕k̸͍̇̀n̵̨̥͖̍ȍ̴̳̞w̶̩͎̻̿̑̈́ ̴͍̇̚t̴͖̖̽͠h̷͈̄̃̋a̵̩̮̓̔̕͜t̶͎̦̦̉̉̃ ̵̝͝n̸̜͂̓e̴̲̔̏͌i̸̳̊̀̊t̶̜̄͠h̶̫̪̍̏ȩ̵̙̩͌͝r̸̝͊̉͝ ̷͉̰́͗̆ÿ̴̺̭̬́ȯ̵̝̼̮̀̎ụ̷̍̎͑ ̴̙̂̀n̵̛̛̦ò̴͔̦͝ṙ̷̤͍̈̓ ̴̜̹͒͜a̷̦̎̏n̷̳̘̾y̵͚̠̎͂͜ ̵̱̭͐o̷̱̳̩͒͑t̸̪̲̤̃h̸̨̜͖͐͊́e̷͍͓̽̕r̶̖͉̥̽ ̸̡̲͉̃́͘c̸͕̙̤̈́̒̅r̶͙̼͊̓ȅ̷͕̳͆̊͜ä̴͖͎͚́̉͑t̴̖̞͈̋u̴̡̥̟̓͒ȑ̴̛̮̀è̸̟̂ͅ ̶̛͈̮͝í̶̧͈n̵͚͎̬̐̋̾ ̸͈̬̼͛̇ț̵̢͒h̴̹̍͠é̷̞͙͝ ̷̘͚͓̄̄e̴̪͛̈́n̴͉͍̏̍̚t̶̺͝ȉ̶̻͖̲̂̾r̷̛̜̾ȩ̷̧͚͐̑̈́ ̸͕̟͇͆ų̸͎͖̎̈́n̷̩̲̼̅̉͘i̵̘̖̍v̴̭̋͝ȩ̶̲̤͌ṙ̷͖̫̒̈s̸̭̠͈͆̔̂ȩ̸͓̭͒ ̸̢̛̯w̵̦̹͎̐̚i̵̞̎l̷͖͋l̵̯͇̬͝ ̴̨̟̈́͐ĕ̶̡̝͍̅v̵̅͜e̸̙͎̩͐r̸̡͌̀ ̵̛̻̫̟͒t̸̘͎͋͋á̵͙́̚s̷͎̝̗̄̓̋t̵̨͙͐̽͝ͅé̸̪͜͠ ̶͎̺͒̈́̓a̶̦͎̠̽̾ ̷̨̖̠̿̊͐w̷̦̏h̷̺̖̺̿ó̸͔̌̇ḻ̵͛̽e̴̞̹̅͐͊ş̴͖̺́͒̈́o̴̫̻̹̓͗m̷̖͇̞̄ë̷̱̼̿͌ ̴̳̭̉̌͘ͅm̶̭͇̝͝e̸̬̙͇̓̄͝a̴̪̎̃͝ļ̶̎ ̶̲̻̪̃̾ä̷͕́g̵͇͊̽̂ä̶̹́͌i̷̢͊͆ͅn̸̺̣̅͛̍,̷̞̈́ ̷̢̧̒w̵̪̘̮̓̌i̶̢̒l̸̮̬̊̒̐l̷̥͒̋ ̴̘̒n̴̲͉̦̓̈̃ȅ̴͍̺v̸̢̖̜́e̴̥̔̆r̶̫̎̀ ̴̯͂t̵͕͕̜̀͠á̴̤̘̌ŝ̵̜̭̫t̷͇͈̱͋e̸̟̜̋͊͂ ̸͎͉̈ä̶̧̱͖́̾͝ ̸͉̄ļ̸̖̼́o̴̧͍͑̔v̶̩͌ȩ̵͔́͝r̶̜̘͐͜'̶̨͙̆š̵̢̱̬̓ ̷̢̯̋̀̾k̷̰̉͆ȋ̵̺̀s̸͍͝s̶͈͇͊̉̂ ̴͚̤̕͠a̵͈͉̹̚ğ̸̝͓̚͜͠a̴̭̬͌į̵̹̏͌͜n̸͕̅̀͂,̸̡̢̃ ̵͖͖̦̎͝w̴̟̜͂̏͝ǐ̸̖͑l̸̯̑̈̕l̴̻̒͊̉ ̵̡̉̈́́n̷̼͝ë̴̝̜̙́v̶̖̩̖̔ę̵͑̉r̷̢͊̉ ̶̙̂t̷͚̒å̸̡̲͇̈́̃s̸͉̠͈̑t̵̤̪̍̐̄e̸͖͎̔̓ ̶͈̠̩͑̽̕a̸͈̺̎͌n̸͔̔y̷̨̍t̵̛̙̚ẖ̷̅͐ï̴̳͊̇n̸͇̾̄g̷̛̗͉̞͛ ̸̘̒̄͗b̷̡̲̈̄̇ú̸͍͕̰̈́t̸͇̩͕̎̓ ̶̥̀̾͗b̵̬̰̈́l̴̢̙̜̈̂ö̶͙̙̝́o̶͖͗͒d̶͎͕̈̉ ̵̪̬͉̿͘a̵̰̣̽n̸̰̳̩̆̊̕ḑ̸̢̺̔̈́́ ̵͚͒̋͝b̸̰͙̦͂̽i̵̠̐̂͑l̸̨̛̠̯̕e̸͇̓̃ ̴̜̙͔̅̈́̀a̷̬̤̤͗͂n̷͉͑͊̓ͅď̶̺̫̌ ̶̮̈f̵̻̪̋ͅe̵̹̱̋a̸̧̠͚͑̽̚r̶̨̖͎̽̏.̵̍ͅ
̵̲̞̿̐͠
̵̼͇̒L̶̦̋͌o̷͙͙̓̓o̷̲̯͝k̵̮͆̈̕ ̸͎̦̍́a̴̠̓̅͊t̵̮̠͗ ̶̩̞̦͐m̸̤͇̝̑ȩ̶̯̞́,̵̩̮͛͑ ̸̤͚̙͛͋̃ȧ̵̦͕͊̚n̶̞͝d̸̗̜̓̈ ̸̟̈́k̴̼̽͠n̸̞̜̈͗̀ȍ̶̟̈ͅẃ̵̳͑͛ ̸̮͑̒̆t̴͚̭͑͗̌h̸̟͔̱̏͊͝å̵̭͕͇̿͠ṱ̵̯͝ ̴͙̟̟͊ẃ̶͓͙̠͗h̸̰͐́ͅå̶̧͓̻t̵̢̜͉́̃̃ ̶̭̪͌͗͝I̸̮̾ ̷̺̀̄̕h̸̦̓̓ȧ̷̖͍̏v̶̜̜̦̆̔̍e̸̺̲̎͜ ̶̢̥̬͆́s̷̩̣̣̆h̴̞̠͌ö̷̻͓́w̵̳͊̚͠n̴͙̏̓ ̸̢͙̏̉y̵̳͊ọ̵̤̯͌̄̿u̶̢̯͖̎ ̵̘̗̓̍͠i̷̦̞̾s̶̅̈͜͠ ̸͔́̚ͅn̴͘͝ͅo̴͚̗͌͐̈́t̴̠͖̉̕͜ ̴͉͌g̷̲͒̍u̴̗̇́ă̷̱͇r̴͇̿̏̔a̸̞͛̄̕n̸̩̈́̍ṫ̵̖̭̯ȇ̸͔͠e̷̞̓d̴̞͚͆͗̊ ̶̦̈́t̵̞͈͙̓̿̂o̵̡̍̎͊ ̴̢̯͙̄̆̓b̸̥̬̋͆è̸͎̭ ̷̱͋͛̅y̵̬̞̏͆͌ͅo̶̯̝̗̒̈́̒ū̸̱͕̾r̶̫̻̩̐ ̷̢̰̜͌͐̌ḟ̸̧̱̮̚͠ư̷̰̞͚̂̂t̶̛̗̄́ủ̷̼̥̃͗ͅṛ̷͚͕̚ẹ̸̘̮̒.̴̱̉̆.̸̹̮̈́͂̎.̶̬̰͠
̷͙̌̋
̴͓͎̗͐̈̔N̷̡̠͔̕ỏ̷̮t̶͍̽̆̿ ̴̞̥͍̈͆y̶͉̳̏̈́ȩ̴͚̰̀͠t̴̻̉.̸͕̲̪͝

 

[STATIC DIES AWAY, LEAVING ONLY STIFLED WHIMPERS]

 

HOKAGE

[Voice hoarse as though from screaming] ... What are you?

 

ARCHIVIST

[Melancholy] There's- not really any one accepted term for it. But... I'm not human, not anymore. I am what is known among those like me as an Avatar. A person who serves Fear, with a capital 'F'. Not all Avatars know they serve anything, and not all of them chose to, but all of them reached a turning point, and... Became.

 

HOKAGE

[Composing herself] Which entails?

 

ARCHIVIST

Making a choice at the moment of your death- choose to die, and you die human. Or you choose to live, and Become an Avatar. As an Avatar, all your physical needs are replaced by the needs of the Entity you are now bound to. I haven't needed to eat, sleep, breathe, or drink water in... Lord, has it been a year already?

 

MARTIN

If you include subjective time in the apocalypse, I'm pretty sure it's somewhere more like two or three years.

 

ARCHIVIST

Right. Instead, I subsist entirely on... fear. There are specifics, based on which kind of fear the facet of Fear you serve entails. For me, I serve The Eye, which feeds off of the fear of being seen, known, watched, surveiled, the fear of knowing too much, of being destroyed by the pursuit of knowledge. And Martin, while not a full Avatar-

 

MARTIN

[Softly] Jon, about that

 

ARCHIVIST

Hmm?

[Realizes]

O-oh. Oh dear.

 

MARTIN

Annabelle didn't think I would get pulled along with you when we kicked out The Fears unless I was. And I- I couldn't-

 

[RUSTLING OF CLOTH; THE ARCHIVIST HAS PULLED MARTIN INTO A TIGHT HUG]

 

ARCHIVIST

[Reassuring] I-it's okay, Martin. We'll- It's not like it's anything too new to us, is it?

 

MARTIN

[Sniffles] I s'pose...

 

HOKAGE

[Delicately] I take it Blackwood-san... is a full Avatar?

 

MARTIN

Y-yeah. I serve The Lonely, mostly. Pretty self-explanatory, but- well, most of The Fears are, aren't they. There's just- The more you think about something you're afraid of, y'know, dig in to exactly what part of it makes you afraid, the more it seems to boil down to one or two of a few more general, deeper fears. L-like The Eye, Jon said it's about being watched, but it's also about being unable to look away, or knowing too much. They're all more than the name alone would suggest, but they all make sense if you think of them as different parts of the same- What did you call it, Jon? Facet? Yeah, the same facet of fear.

 

HOKAGE

As for this Fear thing, what is it? Is it a creature? A spirit or god or some such?

 

ARCHIVIST

More like... fungus on a tree, if you think of the universe as the tree and of humans as cells within the tree. It's something entirely alien to everything we know, and works on a much, much larger scale than we do, yet it affects us and even feeds on us on a personal level too.

 

HOKAGE

... How the hell does a fungus cause an apocalypse like the one you showed me?

 

ARCHIVIST

If the fungus stays on the outside, sure, some cells will certainly die and the tree as a whole might be a little weaker, but all in all everything's... fine. But if some jumped-up idiot with more knowledge than brains decides to trick some poor idiot into doing a ritual that forcibly spreads the fungus through every cubic millimeter of the tree...

 

HOKAGE

... I see. [Suddenly amused] I take it you were the 'poor idiot' in this hypothetical?

 

MARTIN

[Guffaws]

 

ARCHIVIST

[Sighs]

 

HOKAGE

On a more productive note, what can our world expect, now that this 'fungus' is latching onto our universe?

 
ARCHIVIST

[Static rises, then fades- The Archivist has Known something]

Imagine, for just a moment, if one of every ten people, from all walks of life not just shinobi, were struck with a random genjutsu at some point in their life. There is no warning, no pattern, no prevention. It is bad luck, plain and simple. Some are struck more than just the once, and some practically live in a genjutsu. The genjutsu can be so mild that they don't even consciously notice anything wrong, or so severe they develop severe PTSD, what you know as Shell Shock or Residual Genjutsu Syndrome depending on the circumstances. This one-in-ten is everyone who interacts with Fear or something resulting from it's influence, no matter how small and inconsequential that interaction is. Those who are bound to Fear can sense this in some way, but at this stage the sense isn't defined enough to call to them.

Of those ten, one of every ten are hit at least once with the Tsukuyomi. Again, no warning, no pattern, no prevention. Most encounters of this variety are with objects or locations associated with one or more of The Fears, or are as a witness to someone else's encounter with an Avatar. Awful, life-altering, but surviveable, at least for those who are only hit once. Again, some end up living an entire lifespan within that hell. This one-in-a-hundred are those whose encounter with Fear is something substantial enough to leave a sort of Mark on their mind and spirit, deeply enough that Fear can feed off of it. At this stage, the sense those bound to Fear feel is definite enough to signal that the one Marked is- is food, for lack of a better word, as well as signal what facet of Fear is feeding on them. If you somehow manage to survive your encounter with Fear- survive being fed upon- you will always be targeted to some degree. The more Marks you have, the more tempting a target you become, until eventually you either manage to recover from the experience enough to break the feedback loop, or... or get Marked in a deeper way.

Of those hit with the Tsukuyomi, one of every ten are hit with an endless, infinite Tsukuyomi, with a creator that is proactive and persistent in their torture. This represents those who have a direct encounter with an Avatar. The worst part of this stage is that with a real Tsukuyomi, if your attacker is killed or distracted, or even just gets bored enough to leave, the genjutsu ends. But with a Mark this deep... This deep, you are consumed entirely, one way or another. This one-in-a-thousand represents the people Marked so deeply that they either die during the encounter, or, if they by some miracle survive long enough, Become something not unlike that which tried to consume them.

 

HOKAGE

How many of those one-in-a-thousand Become, then?

 

ARCHIVIST

If they are informed ahead of time, are well-prepared, and have fully-realized Avatars trying to help them through the process? One in five. That's how the few organized groups of Avatars that formed in my world got new members.

 

HOKAGE

And if not?

 

MARTIN

Less than one in a million, I did the math while Jon was in a coma last year. Went through the Institute's Archives, didn't even really read the Statements, just wrote down tick marks every time someone died versus every time they Became. Out of two centuries of records, I only found about five people that Became without someone helping them in some way. It's actually part of how Peter Lukas managed to convince me to work with him, the odds of Jon Becoming were just-

 

ARCHIVIST

But I did, Martin. I'm here.

 

MARTIN

[Smiling] You did, didn't you.

 

[THE CEILING CREAKS SLIGHTLY; EVERYONE GOES SILENT]

 

ARCHIVIST

[Snort of exasperation and begrudging amusement] Curiosity will get you killed, you know.

UZUMAKI NARUTO

[Muffled through ceiling tiles] Not if I have anything to say about it!

 

[MUFFLED SLAP]

 

NARUTO

[Yelps] Sakura-chaaaan! That was my tit!

 

HOKAGE

[Through gritted teeth] Uzumaki Naruto if you are not standing in front of me in THREE-

 

[LOUD CRASH]

 

[DEBRIS CLATTERS TO FLOOR]

 

NARUTO

[Whining, no longer muffled] What happened to three seconds?

 

HOKAGE

[Shrugs] I got tired of waiting. Now you lot get the hell out of my office and don't come back for at least two hours. This is extremely classified information-

 

ARCHIVIST

[Interrupting] There's no point in sending them out. It's too late for ignorance to protect them.

 

[SILENCE]

 

HARUNO SAKURA

[Softly] I- I know it's too late for me, going by how you described the Marks I definitely have the second level, but-

 

ARCHIVIST

[Equally softly] The issue is that I am something of an exception among Avatars. Thanks to being made into the keystone of the ritual that caused our world's apocalypse, I am so deeply bound to The Eye that I am the next best thing to a human incarnation of it. Meeting me counts as a second-level Mark.

 

MARTIN

[Realizes] That's why you were so ready to tell Tsunade-sama everything- it was already too late to protect her from it!

 

ARCHIVIST

Yes.

 

[TENSE SILENCE AS EVERYONE ABSORBS THIS]

 

YAMANAKA INO

[Aghast] You're basically an AOE infohazard aren't you!

 

ARCHIVIST

[Wilting] Technically I also present a cognitohazard, but- yes, in-

 

INO

[Interrupting] Oh hush, nobody gives a shit, kami, a good third of us aren't fully human! I'm more worried about where you're gonna live!

 

HOKAGE

She's right, you know. I was going to bring it up at the end of the meeting, but- Konoha has a surprising amount of precident with interacting with objects that present an infohazard, a combination of security clearance and regular mandatory psych evals, but we've never had to house a person that presents an infohazard.

 

INO

With an object, you can just lock it in a box, and put the box in a locked room in any building with a strong security presence. But with a person- don't even get started, I saw that wince, Sims-san, you may not be human but you are absolutely a person- with a person, even if they don't have physical needs, they still have psychological and social needs. Enrichment, companionship, the works. You technically could put them in solitary confinement, but even a few days will damage their psyche really badly, and long-term? You'd be lucky if they didn't commit suicide after enough time.

 

MARTIN

Maybe that was the case before we got here, but now that The Lonely is able to influence things? Honestly I'd be surprised if your prisoners in solitary are all still in their cells.

 

[SILENCE AS EVERYONE PROCESSES THIS]

 

[STATIC FILLS THE AIR FOR JUST A MOMENT]

 

ARCHIVIST

You might want to get a pen, Hokage-sama, I have- [He is interrupted by the click of a tape recorder] ... Never mind, seems The Eye is still hungry.

 

[STATIC RISES]

 

ARCHIVIST

Statements of Ichiban Rumu alias Prisoner KMGSJ003701, Tomoro Senshi alias Prisoner IWGSG049371, Mizure Inomaru alias Prisoner KMGSC000272, and Kodama Konan alias Prisoner KNGSG112730, regarding a hungry mist in the Solitary Confinement wing of the Konoha Military Prison. Statement extracted from subjects post-mortem by Jonathan Sims, The Archivist, August 3rd, 1023.

Statement begins.

 

[CLACK]

 

Notes:

Alternative title: "In Which Ino Is Martin's Favorite"

i meant to post this like, two weeks ago, but work has been kicking my ass.

anyhoo.

So yeah, for those of you not familiar with TMA, thats the scale of the problem being introduced. For those of you that are, poor Martin :( at least he had Annabel genuinely determined to make sure he survived Becoming, since Jon would have called in the *really* big guns on her if she didn't.

Yall may be wondering when Hellen is gonna come by and Mark the people Sakura named, especially if a bunch of them are being Marked just from meeting Jon. Here's a hint: do you *really* think Hellen is stupid enough to deliberately attack children when The Spooky Antichrist isn't bleeding out and is sitting *right fucking there*?

apropos of nothing, something i do for shits and giggles is i try to make in-world serial codes and acronyms actually hint at some lore-based flavoring. Any time you see a random quasi-official-looking alpha-numerical string in my writing, it almost always actually means something. Usually not *much*, but enough to give a little easter egg. For instance, the prisoner identification numbers at the end of this chapter are an abbreviation of their home village, followed by their rank, followed by their four-digit incident number and two-digit capture number. The first prisoner, Ichiban Rumi, is from KuMoGakure no Sato, is a Jounin, and they were the first prisoner taken in the 37th Konoha-Kumo incident that resulted in the capture of a Kumo nin. Tomoro Senshi is a fairly young genin from Iwa, Mizure Inomaru is a very old chuunin from Kumo (second incident was prolly same year as Kumo was founded), and Kodama Konan is a genin from Konoha (his high capture number is bc he was part of ROOT)

so as a fun little game, yall should comment what you think other seemingly-random serial codes and acronyms mean! anyone that gets close will get to name a one-off background character