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Obito-Sensei (A Sakura-Centric Naruto AU)

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Chapter 40: Wasted Potential
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    • Best Intentions ​

    After Kisame left, Obito considered the outpost from a distance.

    Tucked into the mountains, it was a little unconventional for shinobi; the primary entrance was a cave hidden by bristly mountain plants, doubtlessly equipped with traps to deter anyone recklessly approaching and warn anyone inside of new arrivals. All hideouts like this had another exit or entrance, that was just common sense, but in this case Obito wasn't sure where it would be. The mountain above was sheer, so any sort of ladder or vertical space meant for wall-walking would extend rather far up and make a quick getaway that much slower. A back entrance would have the same issues, which pricked the possibility in his mind that the cave entrance was a red herring: big and obvious and defendable, but not the actual way into the outpost.

    But Kisame had seen the Cloud team, two men and two women, enter the cave, not some other secret entrance, so Obito had no choice but to confront the fact that no matter how much everyone wished otherwise, sometimes things just weren't made perfectly. This outpost probably did not get much use: Frost was the only land border with Lightning, true, but it did not have any shinobi of its own. Any large-scale shinobi movements towards Cloud would be detected long before they reached a runty outpost like this by sources within the nation's various governments, so it was hardly an important listening post. It probably did just have a crappy evacuation route that had never been sincerely considered as useful.

    After a minute of thought, Obito stood up with a sigh and shoved his hands in his pockets. An old and insincere trick, but it had come in handy a couple times, so there wasn't any reason not to use it. Even shinobi were less paranoid if your hands were clearly occupied.

    He ambled towards the cave entrance, keeping a careful eye out for any hidden ninja or traps. His Sharingan burned in the night, finding nothing, and after a second of hesitation he slipped through the brambles and branches blocking the entrance. The cave was warmer than the brisk mountain air, and Obito took a breath in, smelling rot. It went deep, he thought, peering into the impenetrable darkness as his Sharingan rendered it with supernatural clarity. There were probably several branches, and at least one of them had mold in it. Most likely, the outpost had been set up inside of an existing cave instead of some Earth Jutsu user making one.

    As he soundlessly walked forward, he noticed a wire strung across the ground and rolled his eyes. An amateur trick that could only deter any non-ninja who wandered this way. His foot passed through it and he looked from side to side, looking for anything more. The passage was growing broader and taller, all natural light obscured at this point. And yet, there was still some light. So faint that only the Sharingan could detect it, spilling from one of the smaller caves that branched off to the left.

    Obito continued wandering, following the faint light, and it grew brighter. As he walked through the dark, he wondered what his team was up to. They'd been in this country just recently, after all. Were they happy? Were they healthy? Had they learned anything new? If they were trusted enough to leave the Nation, even with company, they must have been doing well in their mission, but were they just being strung along or was it true success? He didn't know, and it filled him with a tremendous frustration. He hadn't regretted his decision yet, but moments like this midnight introspection made him want to burn the world down.

    Minato was the best of the Kage, he was sure. And yet, the best of the Kage had put this in motion, given away children, to find out if another war was necessary or not. It made his gut twist. He never had heard from his sensei about the Hunter team sent after Sakura: had they given up, or been chased off?

    Obito was so absorbed in thought that he almost missed the source of the invisible light, silently padding right past a stone that was flush to the wall. He stopped, backing up a couple steps, and followed the play of dust particles dancing in the air to the top of the stone. It was a separate piece, he realized. The outpost was hidden behind it, and lit by what was almost certainly torchlight.

    He pressed his ear against the stone, closing his eyes and focusing. He was rewarded with a murmur. One, two, three voices, quietly speaking behind the wall. The words couldn't be distinguished from each other, but they sounded relaxed. They should have: Obito understood now that the outpost's location was focused on concealment, not escaping an engagement. It was no wonder they'd stopped here instead of pushing on back to Cloud: this was a place where you could bunker up and never be found by most ninja.

    But Obito wasn't most ninja, so he just stepped through the wall.

    The stone wasn't too thick, a little more than a foot, and the transition from darkness to light was near instant. Obito found himself in a small and spartan room with bunks lining the walls, a circular table surrounded by chairs in the center, and a single adjoining room connected by a rough hewn door. There were three people seated at the table, two of them wearing Cloud's symbols; a woman with dark skin and purple hair, and a pale, tall man with knives strapped to both his shoulders. The last was a young man with square glasses and a squarer face, his features jovial and bright.

    The Cloud shinobi had impressive reflexes. Before Obito had even fully cleared the wall, they leapt to their feet, eyes wide with fear. One of them tugged the knives from his shoulder, holding both in a reverse grip: the other ran through five hand-signs and slammed both her palms to the floor as the man with glasses tripped backwards in his chair and sprawled across the floor. Obito watched the sequence with interest; he knew most of this jutsu. It was a modified-

    The roof collapsed, dumping several tons of stone directly on top of his head, and Obito felt a sick, squirmy feeling in his chest that was something between nostalgia and agony. He didn't take a moment to dramatically pause and let them wonder if they'd gotten him, which he'd never admit that he'd definitely done a couple times when he was younger. Instead he just kept walking forward, and a knife sheathed in lightning flew through his clavicle and buried itself in the new pile of stone behind him.

    The shinobi who'd thrown it stared, bug-eyed, as Obito emerged from the rubble. The woman was making a similar expression, scrambling back towards the doorway.

    "Oh fuck," the man said. "It's Obito Uchiha."

    Obito crossed his arms, glancing between the two of them. "Good thing too," he noted as the man straightened up with an uneasy expression. "You'd have a corpse on your hands otherwise."

    "A corpse we could get rid of," the woman said, her eyes darting back and forth between Obito and the square-faced man who was pulling himself out of his fallen chair. "That's not quite an option here."

    "How cold!" Obito grinned, watching her eyes. He always felt more confident with people he didn't know; they didn't know the real him, only the reputation. As he spoke, another two shinobi, a man with a glaive and a woman with burning orange eyes, rushed out of the other room and slid to a stop, faces going pale.

    "Why are you here?" the man with the knives said, and Obito gave him a curious look.

    "What's your name?" he asked, and the man flinched.

    "Shinzo," he said, and Obito clicked his tongue.

    "Well, Shinzo, I'm not here for anything nasty," he said, and the other shinobi in the room only grew more tense. "And I'm not interested in starting a fight." He glanced over each of them in turn, and noted that the woman with orange eyes had horrible bruises all over her left arm, which was held in a sling: probably broken. The one that Haku had almost frozen? Almost certainly. The others had small injuries as well, mostly more bruises or little cuts. They'd been roughed up, but nothing more.

    "You followed us here." The man on the floor spoke up, propping himself up on his elbows. He really was young, probably barely twenty. "Are you chasing after me too?"

    Obito smiled and stepped forward, extending a hand to help the man up. "Katasuke Touno?"

    Katasuke gave an uncertain smile and started to reach out before Shinzo snapped at him. "Don't touch him," he told the man, keeping his eyes fixed on Obito. "He'll eat you."

    Katasuke withdrew his hand with an alarmed look, and Obito laughed. "I definitely would not," he said, not showing that he had been considering it. Well, drawing him into the Kamui, not eating him. "But I understand."

    "So what, you're here to snap him up?" the woman who'd buried him said. "Konoha doesn't have anything better for you to do than tracking down no-names?"

    "Hey!" Katasuke protested, scooting back away from Obito and climbing to his feet. The woman rolled her eyes.

    "If I were here to grab him I already would have," Obito said. "The Hokage tries to avoid kidnapping; people usually just end up running anyway, right?" He took a step forward and pulled one of the chairs towards him, settling down in a casual position, one arm hung over the back of the sturdy wooden frame. "I'm just here to get a feel for him."

    "Huh." Katasuke righted his chair and took a seat across from Obito as the Cloud shinobi watched from the sides of the room, ready for anything. "Well, I'm glad you're not here to grab me." He moved a little stiffly, and Obito looked him over, searching for a wound. He couldn't see anything, but the man's left leg was dragging a little. Maybe an old injury? "I was worried that the Daimyo was being a sore loser," he finished with a grin.

    "A sore loser, huh?" Obito leaned back and crossed his arms. "Did they reach out to you or something?"

    Katasuke shrugged, his eyes flicking downward. An obvious tell, or a good fake one. "No, nothing like that. But there've been more people paying attention to me in the last week than in my whole life." He laughed, a full-throated and sincere sound. "I guess as soon as you pick a village all the other start wondering what they're missing, huh?"

    "So you picked Cloud?" Obito asked. "I was told the Land of Lightning reached out to you."

    The flick downward again. Unless Katasuke was so good an actor that he could fool even the Sharingan, the uncertainty was real. "It was half and half, I guess. Why do you care?" He tried to imitate Obito, to lean back and look at ease, and failed miserably.

    "Like I said, I was sent to get a feel for you," Obito said, scratching at his scar. "The Hokage is very curious why Lightning would reach out to you, especially when Cloud has been so focused on building its strength internally in the last couple years." He glanced around, gauging the other shinobi. They all were frozen, entirely unsure what to do. He couldn't blame them. He'd caught them off guard, tracked them down; he was calm now, but Obito Uchiha was still the Hokage's personal hitman, the man who had bathed in the blood of a hundred ninja from Stone before he turned fifteen. They probably thought that if they intervened, he'd bury their bodies beneath the mountains.

    Katasuke gave him a doubtful look. "Even I've heard of you," he said instead of answering Obito's implied question. "I guess I'm just shocked I merited this."

    Obito shrugged. "I had a quiet week," he said with a grin, and Katasuke chuckled.

    "Okay, well, hey, if you're just here to understand…" he said, glancing at his Cloud escort. Shinzo pursed his lips and nodded, and Katasuke reached down, grabbing the hem of his pants. Obito cocked his head as the man rolled his pant leg up, exposing the skin of his left leg.

    Except there was no skin. Instead, there was dirty metal in the shape of a leg. Obito leaned in, resting his elbows on his knees as he peered at Katasuke's leg, fascinated. It was like tarnished stainless steel, with cables running above and below it like muscles, an unerring facsimile of a real leg. More than that, his Sharingan saw what someone else could not: Katasuke's chakra was running through his leg, just like it would a normal limb. The artificial leg had an artificial chakra system.

    "Wow," he whispered, and the look of pride that crept across Katasuke's face was unmistakably genuine.

    "Thanks," he said, rolling his pant leg back down. "It's my pride and joy."

    "I'd bet," Obito said, blinking. A completely artificial leg, and all he had was a little stiffness? He couldn't believe it. "You made that? I've never seen a prosthetic like it." Ninja and civilian alike lost limbs as a fact of life, but the most advanced Obito had ever seen were plastic and polycarbonates that could never fully mimic a limb, and even those could only be afforded by the rich. Katasuke's leg was light-years ahead of anything of its kind in its construction, and having a chakra system that integrated with his?

    Inconceivable.

    "It took years to develop," Katasuke admitted, drumming his fingers on the table. "I lost my leg at the end of the Third War, and I couldn't stand it. So I decided to make a new one." He leaned forward, looking a little desperate. "Lightning's agreed to give me all the materials I'd ever need. All the funding. No one else seemed as interested, so I said yes." His lips twitched. "You understand, right, Obito Uchiha? No one deserves to live without a limb, no matter what Hidden Village they work for. If I had it my way, I would make them for everyone."

    He sat back, his face falling. "But that's not the way the world works, right?"

    "No," Obito admitted, looking the man over. "It's not." He looked over at Shinzo, the apparent captain of the Cloud squad. "So, that's what Cloud wants him for then? To make prosthetics?" He frowned. "To expand your weapons program, maybe?" Katasuke gave him a dour look.

    Shinzo's eyes narrowed. "We weren't informed," he said curtly. "Our mission was to escort him, not hear his life's story."

    "You should have asked more questions," Obito said, playing Katasuke's words in his head. The man had no loyalty to any village, only to his dream: that made him both an effective and dangerous spy, should he choose to become one. "He's clearly a genius. Did you know his leg has an artificial chakra system? It's a miracle."

    He stood up, and the other ninja flinched. "You better keep him safe," he warned. "Don't let him waste his time making weapons, if that's why Lightning reached out to him. He's someone that could change the world." He'd never heard of a machine that could store chakra of any sort. A couple years ago, he would have kidnapped Katasuke without hesitation, despite his words.

    But today, he was a different man.

    "I've got one more question," he said, and the woman with orange eyes grumbled under her breath. "I was told you four ran into a team from the Nation of Rain up here. Sounds like they were interested in Katasuke as well."

    "Those bastards?" the woman spoke up, stepping forward. Shinzo shot her a look.

    "Kiyou..." he muttered, and she hissed, shifting her broken arm.

    "I thought I recognized one of them," she said with a sneer, looking Obito over. "And if you're here, I must have been right. That was the Hokage's son, wasn't it?" The sneer deepened. "Come looking for the ones you lost?"

    "Maybe," Obito said, wondering how she knew he'd been their sensei. Cloud hadn't attended the Chunin Exam, but it was a no-brainer that they'd sent agents of the village or Lightning to observe the competitors, and it wouldn't have been hard to learn that from there. "I was told there was a girl with pink hair with them as well. She had a water sword." The other male Cloud ninja rubbed at his neck. "Was that true?"

    "True enough," Kiyou said, baring her teeth. "They chased us all the way to town, and a little beyond it when that fish freak ran us off. Real bloodthirsty bunch: you must have trained them well."

    Obito took a step forward, and despite her bravado Kiyou flinched. He spoke quietly and clearly.

    "How'd they look?"

    The woman blinked. "Eh?"

    "How'd they look?" Obito said, trying to exude patience. "Healthy? Happy? Like they were eating their vegetables?" Another step, and this time the woman backed up. "I would like to know. Now. Tell me."

    "We didn't get a good look," Shinzo interrupted, drawing Obito's attention away from the now wide-eyed woman. "But they were well coordinated, and strong. If those kids were fourteen, it could have fooled me. They acted like they were twice their age." He gestured. "That girl almost cut Daisuke's head off."

    "If she'd wanted to cut his head off," Obito said dismissively, "she would have." The man, Daisuke, looked offended. "Still, that's good to hear. I wouldn't want Rain to mistreat them."

    "Is it true she killed Waterfall's leader?" Daisuke asked, and Obito gave him an incredulous look. "Hey, if anyone would know-"

    "I heard she beat him up," Obito said, still not sure if that story was fact or fiction. It was a crazy rumor that had started making the rounds recently, spread from who knew where. Sakura wasn't the kind of person who went around beating on foreign leaders, so far as he knew, so the whole thing seemed ridiculous. "Where the hell did you hear that?"

    "You knew them?" Katasuke asked, and Obito looked back at the still-seated man. He shifted under the sudden attention of the Mangekyo Sharingan. "I mean, it sounds like it. Were… you their teacher or something?"

    "I was," Obito said shortly, and the man paused.

    "You don't hold a grudge?" he asked. "If they went to Rain…" He laughed under his breath. "I heard the Hokage's son had defected, I didn't know it was to them. That's a little crazy, isn't it?"

    "I don't hold a grudge," Obito said, ignoring the second question. "I'll start thinking about it if they don't come back."

    "Why does it matter?" Katasuke asked. "What village they're working for, I mean."

    "They abandoned their friends and family." Obito's voice was curt, driving the man's eyes down towards the table. "They abandoned me. I can forgive them for that, if they realize it was a stupid decision." He grunted. "It was nice to meet you, Katasuke. I hope you find success in the Land of Lightning."

    Katasuke looked up at his name, and Obito flexed one of the non-existent muscles behind his eye, relishing the supernatural feeling of burning chakra coiling inside his eye. As they made eye contact, he pushed a mild genjutsu directly into the man's brain, and the genius twitched, an involuntary muscle reaction.

    It was a simple and direct illusion, only auditory. For a moment, Katasuke would have continued to hear Obito speak.

    'And, if you find that it's not going in your favor, you may find a home in the Land of Fire.'

    With that, he stepped backwards through the wall, out of sight, and immediately whipped himself away into the Kamui. That one always freaked people out, he thought. He looked around his inner world, reaching down and picking up a candy bar wrapper with a frown. He'd dropped this miles away, but a gust of wind must have come through his Kamui and thrown it all this distance.

    Probably bad luck to litter in your private dimension, he thought, looking around and wondering how much junk there really was sitting around in here. It wasn't something he'd ever cared about, but that had been when he was young and convinced he would die an early and blind death. He just hadn't modified his habits since then, like so many other things. He sat down, crossing his legs and propping his chin on his knuckles.

    Katasuke had surprised him, he had to admit. "And why not?" he said to the emptiness inside his eye. "He's a good guy. A shame that Lightning reached out before Fire did." He scratched his chin. "Or that Fire's offer wasn't good enough, maybe."

    Prosthetics. That was a thorny issue, he thought. Benign on the surface, but he knew many shinobi who'd consider that an unacceptable escalation. Prosthetics like that meant that a shinobi who lost an arm or a leg would be able to be deployed at full strength, or close enough to it, as soon as they were fitted with a replacement. It was no wonder Lightning was so interested in the man, and Rain as well. Technology had never been able to keep pace with chakra; Obito had seen experimental technology before, flamethrowers that could mimic fire jutsu, mechanical contraptions that could detonate like explosive tags, but nothing that was as convenient as a ninja or as easy to mass produce.

    But Katasuke's leg wasn't like the technology Obito knew: it was more like the elegant and deadly puppet jutsu of Suna, used to assist the real body instead of making an autonomous one. Perhaps a puppet master could do the same thing, he wondered, making an artificial limb or even body for themselves, but it would be the result of a lifetime of work: Katasuke was young, not even thirty, and his limb had been a seamless integration of his body's chakra system. It was unbelievable.

    He probably should have grabbed the man, what he'd said be damned. He could go back and do it now. But kidnapping someone just because he'd be useful wasn't the kind of person he was. Or, he amended, wasn't the kind of person he was trying to become. Sensei had understood that when he'd sent him; if he'd want Katasuke taken no matter what, he would have sent someone like Gai, who would have done it with a smile and an apology.

    Obito sat there in the dark for some time, pleasantly losing track of time in the dim and silent malaise of the Kamui, staring out into the endless abyss. It mirrored the real world, so far as he knew: if he walked far enough, he'd circle around and come back to this exact point. No matter how far you moved forward, eventually you'd arrive at where you began.

    Eventually, thousands of moments of introspection and mindlessness combined later, Obito stood up. His mission was complete, but he didn't want to head back quite yet.

    He wanted to visit the coast first.

    ###

    Nine days later, Rin Nohara was in her office, watching the sunset and wondering where the hell Obito was.

    It had been a pretty long day, even by the standards of medical administration. Nothing too dramatic in terms of injury, but there'd been a goddamn heart attack of all things that had been rushed in the door after noon, and dealing with that had taken the rest of the day. How any shinobi could slack off hard enough to get any sort of heart disease boggled Rin's mind, but she'd long ago given up on trying to understand people's unhealthy habits. The paperwork hadn't been terrible today either, only boring, and boring she could handle.

    She sighed and sat back in her large and uncomfortably comfortable chair, glancing up at the clock. She could afford to leave now; she'd gotten enough of her stack cleared, enough that she wouldn't feel guilty leaving it. Requisition, treatment approvals, drug experimentation: Rin's position as a Head Medical Ninja sounded like an exciting one, but she was always more jealous of the people actually doing that sort of stuff, creating new treatments instead of rubberstamping them.

    As she started to sit up, a young man stuck his head through her office door, fixing his ice blue eyes on her. Tanjiro Tanaka, one of her many assistants and a competent doctor in his own right, if a little too nervous for his own good. "Lady Nohara," he said, and she glared at him. He swallowed. "The Lord Hokage's wife passed a message to me. She wanted to meet you after work."

    "Oh." Rin twisted her frown into a smile, apparently unsettling the man. "Thanks, Tanjiro. Did she give a place?"

    "Her home," he said, bowing and retreating. Rin let him go and then sighed, finally pushing herself up and from behind her desk. Even if her last mission outside of the village had ended in a minor village burning down, she found herself thinking she'd rather have another one like that than another week of sitting behind a desk.

    Kushina, huh? She wondered what the woman wanted to talk about as she organized her desk a final time and left her office behind. Maybe Obito. There hadn't been any word from him in eight days, and even that had just been him dropping a note in Minato's office.

    'Didn't know when he'd be back' is what he'd said, and Rin snorted at the memory as she made her down the halls of the hospital. Obito had probably thought finding Myoboku would be just another jaunt for him: he'd been able to teleport wherever he wanted for more of his life than he hadn't been able to, and she was positive it had twisted his sense of time. But apparently, the hidden Mountain of the Toads was a little tricker to find than a hidden village or a cowering clerk. Knowing Obito, he'd be far too stubborn to return before he found it.

    He could be gone for a while.

    It was funny. He'd never shown any interest in acquiring a summoning contract before now. As Rin took the stairs, she stared out over the bustling village and smiled. Even if Obito hadn't admitted it, the reason was obvious. Just like everything else, he'd been devoted to working alone. Like he'd said up on the Hokage Monument, he was a ghost; relying on others would only put them in danger, he thought. Summons wouldn't have fit that style.

    And maybe, she thought, just maybe he'd been moronic enough to think he didn't deserve it. He was definitely thick enough. She still found herself remembering the night before he'd left with an embarrassed, disbelieving clarity.

    Had he really not seen what she was doing? Or had it been a polite rejection? She had no idea, and that fact scared and amused her in equal measure. Obito could look at a prepared position and instantly pick out everywhere a ninja could be hiding or a trap could be laid, could flawlessly keep track of thirty shinobi attacking him from every angle, but god forbid he notice someone taking an interest in him.

    Why had that happened anyway? Just from their conversation on the Monument? It was a little sad, Rin thought. Obito had only had eyes for her when they were young, but she'd been interested in Kakashi, not the klutzy Uchiha. Then, afterwards, she'd been too hurt and he'd inherited too many responsibilities, becoming too strong too fast for the both of them. They'd continued that dance for more than a decade now, never mentally in the right place at the right time, and now, when he'd reawakened the version of himself she was interested in as more than a friend, he couldn't take the hint.

    Her own fault just as much as his, she chided herself. If she wanted him, she'd have to catch a ghost. That was a little exciting, right?

    There were other reasons he was on her mind. The note he'd left had included details about the work of the man he'd been sent after, Katasuke Touno. A rogue ninja born in the Land of Fire, but who'd never been a Shinobi of Konoha. Chakra conductive prosthetics were something that Rin had considered in the past: she'd had to make battlefield amputations before, and tell several ninja that no matter what she did, they wouldn't be getting that limb back.

    But from what Obito had written, Katasuke's work was unbelievably, unfairly advanced. A metal limb with an artificial chakra system was a game-changer in every sense of the word. Rin was a little irritated that Obito hadn't dragged the man back, or taken his leg; a cruel thought, but the idea that Cloud of all villages would be the one to get their hands on such technology was crueler. They'd certainly never share it. Kumo was always interested in military superiority over every other consideration.

    Their best hope was that the man would defect, or that the opportunity would arise to take him. Rin would kill an arbitrary amount of people to acquire prosthetics like the Katasuke had; the suffering it would prevent was incalculable.

    But then, she thought, maybe sensei's plan would eventually come through, and even a place like Kumo would see there was more to gain from sharing technology like that rather than hoarding it. It was a pleasant and idyllic thought, and it carried Rin down the rest of the stairs and out into the street.

    Once she was there amidst the pleasant bustle of Konoha, her thoughts drifted once more. Still stuck on the subject of limb replacements, they wandered over to her last teacher.

    How long had it been since she'd seen Tsunade Senju? Five years, Rin was pretty sure. It had been a strange relationship, half teacher-student and half owner-thief, done more out of a sense of obligation to the Sandaime than anything else. What Tsunade hadn't been willing to teach her she'd stolen, and she honestly couldn't tell if the woman had ever forgiven her. Prosthetics had never been one of Tsunade's focuses; the Sannin had always been more focused on saving people's lives than fixing them up afterwards, though Rin was pretty sure her regeneration could replace a limb if push came to shove.

    Hopefully it never would. Rin wondered where Tsunade was now, if she was still traveling with Shizune. The level-headed girl would keep the older woman safe, she thought, but it was still a tragedy for such an incredible medical ninja to have cut herself off from the world that had created her. She was sure the only thing that could possibly bring the Sannin back to Konoha would be a war, and even that wasn't a sure thing. Rin had helped cure her fear of blood, but it was more than just phobia that kept Tsunade from coming home.

    Halfway between the hospital and Kushina's home, she spotted a familiar face in the press of the crowd. Kurenai Yuhi made eye contact with her from across the street, and Rin refused to look away, pinning the woman with her eyes. Kurenai blushed, and altered her path to intercept her. There was someone with her. Hinata Hyuuga, a little taller than last time she'd seen her. Girls grew so fast at that age; Rin knew she had.

    "Rin," Kurenai said as they met up in a lul in the crowd and moved to the side of the street, Hinata trailing them with a curious look. "I'm so sorry. About Asuma."

    Rin crossed her arms. "You don't have to be sorry if he's learned his lesson," she said. Kurenai frowned.

    "It won't happen again," she said. 'We made sure of that. But you have to understand… what he was feeling."

    "I don't," Rin said, unimpressed. This is what she'd been taken aside for? More half-assed excuses? "None of this was Obito's fault. If you blame him for it, you're only showing your own mediocrity."

    Kurenai's gaze went cold. "They were his responsibility. It can only be his fault," she hissed. She glanced back at Hinata. "Everyone in the village lost something when they left. A symbol, a friend, or something more. All those wounds fall on Obito. That doesn't mean Asuma should have done-"

    "Hit him?" Rin asked flatly.

    "Hit him," Kurenai said. "It doesn't, but it's also understandable. No one wants to drive Obito away; his loyalty to the village is unquestionable. But when something like this happens… it's hard to be rational. You must know that, right?"

    Rin narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, regarding the woman. "What do you think, Hinata?" she said, not even glancing down at the girl, and Kurenai jolted, caught off guard. The Hyuuga flinched as well, looking up at Rin. She dropped her gaze and softened her expression, looking into Hinata's pupil-less eyes. "Do you think Obito deserves any of this?"

    Hinata stayed silent, looking up at her and chewing on her lip. When she spoke, her voice was soft but sure.

    "No," she said, and Kurenai looked down at her with a neutral look. "No," she said again, shaking her head. "Sasuke and Naruto and Sakura made their own decision. Obito-sensei's only failing was being unable to catch them." She narrowed her eyes, an uncharacteristically harsh look, and Rin cocked an eyebrow. "If it was their own decision."

    Interesting thing to say. Rin kept eye contact with the girl for a moment longer before looking back to Kurenai. She smiled.

    "From the mouths of babes, etcetera," she said. Kurenai twitched. "Did you think it was someone else's decision, Hinata?"

    "I don't know," Hinata said, her courage failing. She looked down to the street, her bangs falling across her eyes. "I hope so. It wouldn't be as…"

    Her voice failed, and she clasped her hands together, twisting them and staring at the ground.

    "Wouldn't be as bad," Rin finished for her. "Yeah. Let's hope, huh?" She strode past Kurenai, turning to fire a last volley over her shoulder. "Tell Asuma that if he pulls something like that again, he'll be talking to me instead of his mommy." She grinned, not even trying to not look nasty. "I won't be as gentle."

    Kurenai watched her go with an unreadable expression, and Rin lost herself in the crowd again, not caring about the occasional look she received. The opinions of the ignorant and fools was not something she concerned herself with; after you made a decision like which life to save between two ninja bleeding to death in front of you, something like people judging you for what company you kept was revealed as completely pointless.

    Eventually the crowds thinned out as Rin entered the residential zone, and she rotated her shoulder, working out a kink. What an infuriating woman, she thought. Kurenai was one of those people who looked reasonable but Rin couldn't respect at all; always flip-flopping, following the prevailing wind. An exemplary ninja, but that was it.

    Not a fair assessment, Rin knew, but it was hers.

    Kushina's home was a relatively short walk past other, larger houses and over two of Konoha's canals, and Rin allowed herself to enjoy the journey, the whisper of the water and the caress of the wind. When she arrived at Kushina's home, the gate to the front yard was already open. Rin let herself in, knocking twice sharply on the door before opening it as well.

    "Rin?" Kushina's voice came from deeper within. "Is that you? Come in!"

    Rin wandered down the hall, avoiding the picture of Kakashi as always, and stopped dead at the end of it. Kushina was seated in the living room, normal enough, with a huge scroll stretched out in front of her.

    But Mikoto was kneeling on the other side of it, observing Kushina's work, and Rin felt her heart rate spike at the side of the Uchiha's perfect black hair. She was filled with the urge to bury her fist in the woman's brain.

    Kushina looked up at her, and Rin wondered just how much time she spent working on Fuinjutsu like this. Her jealousy spiked again, quickly buried.

    "Hey!" she said, stepping fully into the room and pointedly ignoring Mikoto. "What's up?"

    "Right back atcha," Kushina said with a grin, turning her attention back to the scroll as Mikoto remained silent. "I wanted to check in with you, see how you were doing." Her expression softened a little. "Things are still rough out there. Obito still hasn't come back?"

    "Nah, he's still out and about," Rin said, leaning against the wall. "Who knows how long it will take him."

    "Yeah, he didn't pick something easy for himself," Kushina said, furrowing her brow.

    "What's she doing here?" Rin asked, gesturing at Mikoto. The Uchiha didn't look back at her, just kept her head lowered and eyes fixed on the scroll. Kushina's eyes narrowed.

    "Cause she's my friend," Kushina said, severe as a cliff. Rin stiffened at the older woman's look. "Deal with it."

    She'd stepped in something that went beyond just her own anger, Rin realized. She backed off, raising one hand and dropping her head, and Kushina grinned. It wasn't a very nice smile, but it was enough for Rin to know she was forgiven.

    "She asked for my help with a new barrier," Mikoto said, her tone level. "I'm always happy to help. It's the least I can do."

    "A new barrier?" Rin asked with an aside look. "Another?"

    "This is for my personal use," Kushina said with her normal smile. "Not something for the village." She twirled a finger through her long red hair, and Rin wondered, as she had many times before, if she could even come close to pulling off something like Kushina's style. She'd grown her hair out after training with Tsunade, but Kushina's went all the way down to her waist, and the woman owned it with infuriating elegance. "It's for the Kyuubi."

    "The Kyuubi?" Rin felt a chill travel down her arms. "Kushina, is the seal…?"

    "The seal's fine," Kushina said, dismissing Rin's concern with a wave of her hand. "Mito's work was one of a kind."

    "She's determined to bring the Beast out," Mikoto said, turning to face Rin. Even with the contempt filling her heart, Rin couldn't help but see the deep sorrow in Mikoto's eyes. And why not? Even if the woman was a traitor, she was a traitor whose whole family had died or fled. "Kushina believes that the next step in her development is to master the Nine-Tails."

    "Seriously?" Rin laughed. "Has anyone ever managed that? That thing doesn't seem like something that… can be."

    "It might not," Mikoto said with a shrug. "No one has been able to control the Kyuubi since Madara Uchiha, and that was only with the power of his Mangekyo Sharingan."

    "No one's been dumb enough to try," Kushina said. "That's what I'm going to fix." She slapped a palm down on the scroll with a proud grin. "Minato's helped me with this too, though obviously he's being a little bitch about it. It's a really simple concept, Rin: if I can't control the Kyuubi, this will keep anyone from getting hurt." The smile grew a little fiendish. "Well, anyone who I don't want getting hurt, anyway."

    "So what, it's a second cage?" Rin asked. Kushina nodded.

    "Sure," she said. "To set up a cage match. I've been drawing more and more of the Kyuubi's chakra out. I put this up first; it's a nice and simple grid, only a hundred by hundred, barely takes any of my chakra. Then I can use the Fox without worrying. If it gets too much for me…" She shrugged. "Then Minato or Obito can handle it. Or Mikoto."

    "That seems risky," Rin said. "Its chakra is pretty toxic, isn't it?"

    "It is," Mikoto said. "But she won't be dissuaded." She offered a smile, her scars crinkling. "I tried."

    Rin cocked her head, not sure what to think. Eventually, she sighed.

    "I miss him," she said, and Kushina gave her a funny look. "Hey, don't give me that. I'm worried about him. I don't know what he's up to out there, beyond looking for the Toads." She scratched her temple. "And I'm surprised at how well he's handling everything. When he told me he'd let them go…"

    "Obito had more faith in our sons than anyone else," Kushina said. "And he still does. So long as he's got that faith, it doesn't matter how much of it the village loses in him. He'll stand by it." Her eyes faded a little. "But it's getting hard. Not knowing how they're doing." She rubbed the back of her neck. "I wonder what he's learning there, you know? I hope it's good lessons."

    Mikoto started to speak, paused, began again. "I'm sure they're fine," she said, clearly not believing it. "Sasuke would…" She stopped again, looking fragile. It made Rin uncomfortable; Mikoto Uchiha wasn't supposed to look fragile. "They'll keep each other on track. That's why they went together. They'll come back together too."

    "Of course," Rin said, feeling insincere even if that wasn't her intent. "It's what he trained them to do. And Naruto and Sasuke will always have each other's backs. You two made sure of that. And Sakura…"

    She hesitated. And Sakura, right?

    But for a long time, Sakura had been the only one of the trio that unsettled Rin, and so for a second she found herself doubting her words.

    A girl who Obito had transformed from a meek and humble child into an ambitious and angry teenager. Rin didn't know Sakura well enough to know if the potential had always been there, though it must have been. But at the core of it, Sakura freaked her out. Maybe because she reminded Rin of herself, or a version of herself she could have been, or maybe just because of the influence the girl had had on Obito's life in such a short time.

    She had near perfect chakra control, Rin thought. That was the core of it. Sakura Haruno was a born medic, the once in a generation kind who could have helped an incredible amount of people. She still had that potential, of course, but Rin could never escape the feeling that Sakura had chosen a path of violence. She'd turned her perfect control into a literal sword.

    She'd never told Obito about just how much that distortion of talent disconcerted her. What point would there be? It was just a gut feeling, and a silly one that didn't respect the realities of Sakura's life. She'd been pushed down that path by the Chunin Exams, and Gaara of the Desert. Where she might have ended up if she hadn't had to fight for her life in a battle before the entire village was immaterial: it hadn't happened and never would.

    And yet, every time she saw Sakura, thought about her and the rest of Obito's team in the Nation of Rain, Rin couldn't help but see that scalpel transformed into a sword.

    "Sakura will finish her mission and bring them home," she finished, her pause barely more than a half second. Mikoto gave her a smile.

    "I hope so," she said, and Kushina nodded at her side, both of the women subdued and grey. "It's all I'm waiting for now."

    "Every day, we're waiting for them to come home."
     
  • Threadmarks
    • This was a pretty interesting look into Obito and Rin's minds. I appreciate Obito's continuing efforts to be a better person.

    Her lack of self-awareness is interesting, and it especially shows in her interactions with Kurenai and her opinion her. I don't think Kurenai is right, but Rin is unwilling to even consider her perspective, much less actually make an effort to get Kurenai to come around to her side. Rin simply dismisses the other woman as not worth her time one way or another. And while that's understandable given the context with Asuma and Obito, the fact is that Kurenai's belief about Obito's failure is no worse than a lot of the more questionable things that Rin herself honestly believes.

    The tidbit about Rin's complicated relationship with Tsunade is also interesting, and sort of paints her as a dark(ish) mirror of Canon Sakura. Rin's relationship with Tsunade is toxic and cold, with both sides not being particularly attached to each other beyond Rin lamenting the loss of Tsunade's usefulness to Konoha, in contrast to Canon Sakura and Tsunade, who are arguably the healthiest and most successful teacher-student relationship in canon, with only Gai and Lee as competition.

    Beyond that, there's also how asocial Rin is compared to Canon Sakura, and not just concerning her team. Team 7 might have been Sakura's second family, but she was friends with basically everyone in her class and particularly close to Ino. Rin basically just has Obito, Minato and Kushina, and all those relationships come with sort of complication.

    All in all, it paints an image of Rin as what Canon Sakura could have become if she'd not only been hardened by war and wholeheartedly embraced the shinobi lifestyle, but also closed herself off from other people.
     
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    Yeah was pretty neat to see what Obito and Rin have going on, always fun to get the perspective of the Hokage's hitman and see how people react to his reputation.

    Loving Mikoto and how everyone agrees that Naruto & Sasuke will have each other's backs :)

    fun chapter wooo
     
    That's a dark analysis on an alternative rojte Sakura in regards to the medical talent being turned towards war, yet its fitting for the story in that the ninja system creates hellish cycle of endless war. Big theme of weaponisiation this chapter that's pretty fun when you regard rains philosophy
     
    That whole paragraph about 'the scalpel turned into a sword' is the kind of characterization and comment that only really works when in stuff like fanfiction/alternate reality stuff. Love it.
     
    Chapter 41: Gift of Prophecy
  • Threadmarks
    • Mount Myoboku​

    When the small voice disturbed his focus, Obito jerked up, the sand around his hands flying in every direction. For a second, he thought he might have had a breakthrough. Or maybe a breakdown.

    "What're you doing?"

    But when he swiveled his head to the right, Sharingan flashing, all he found was a little boy, maybe eight years old, in a bright blue bathing suit. The kid was staring at him, arms crossed imperiously, and to Obito's surprise didn't jump back at the sight of his eyes. He blinked, obviously surprised, but stood his ground.

    Kneeling in the sand as the tide licked at the leg of his pants, Obito stared back. "What?" he asked.

    "It's rude to say 'what,'" the boy said, trying to sound older. "You should say 'pardon.' Or 'excuse me.' My mom taught me that."

    "Well, my mom's dead," Obito grunted, shifting to face the kid and looking around. He really had been zoned out: when he'd arrived at the beach a couple hours earlier, it had been completely empty, but now it was full of bustling people, dozens of families arrayed across the sand under tons of multicolored umbrellas. "And you're the rude one for sneaking up on me like that."

    "I didn't sneak up on you!" the kid said, sounding genuinely offended. "I made a bunch of noise!"

    "Uh huh," Obito said, scanning the beach. If the kid's parents were nearby, they weren't paying any attention to him. After a second, he caught a glimpse of a gaggle of slightly older children farther down the beach staring and giggling. He nodded in their direction. "Did they put you up to this?"

    "They bet me ten Ryo," the boy said, clearly thinking his friends were morons. "They said you were a shinobi. But there's no way. I bet you're just another bum. Why're your eyes all messed up anyway?"

    Looking down at himself, Obito had to admit the kid was right. After ten days scouring the beach, he looked like just another guy who didn't want to go home. His outfit was covered in dried sand and seawater, his hair was stuck up in bizarre patterns, and he probably didn't smell too great either.

    He'd barely slept, chasing after an insubstantial feeling. His sensei had been right. Obito's Sharingan had let him track the play of Natural Energy across the northern coast of Frost, and eventually he'd been able to discern a pattern in it. The Dark Sea was swimming with it, but the unrefined energy twisted and turned in ways that resembled exactly what Minato had called it: paths. Like a tangle of roots competing to come out on top for the most nutrients, the serpentine energy was in constant, violent competition.

    So, seeing that was easy. But finding the path to Myoboku was harder. Obito had seen it, or at least thought he'd seen it, three days ago on this very beach. There'd been a twist in reality, like a desert mirage, and a toad that had swam out to sea without a care in the world, a complete incongruity in the Dark Sea. But when he'd chased after it, all he'd gotten for his troubles was a mouthful of saltwater.

    He'd stayed here since then, trying to find a pattern in the energy's movement. But this was the busiest the beach had been in that time.

    Oh, duh. Obito had to resist the urge to slap himself. It was the weekend. Of course that would make a difference.

    "I am a shinobi," he said, and the boy scoffed. He gave the kid an amused look. "Well, they owe you ten Ryo regardless, right? You could at least tell them they were right."

    "If you're a shinobi, do a shinobi trick!" the kid demanded, and Obito rolled his eyes. "Like jump really high or something!"

    "You think shinobi just jump really high?" Obito asked. The boy sneered.

    "That's what they do in the movies," he said.

    "You know they just do that with wires and stuff."

    "Nuh uh! They hire real shinobi! Plus if there were wires then you could just see them!" The kid looked at him incredulously. "Man, you really are just a bum. I bet you're on drugs or something!" He turned and ran back to his friends, and an enormous amount of bickering ensued.

    Obito, feeling not the slightest need to prove himself to a literal child, turned his attention back to the sand. He'd been getting somewhere before he'd been interrupted, he was sure. The invisible energy coursing through the beach jumped from each individual grain of sand to the next with unmistakable intent, swelling like the tide.

    But that was the frustrating part. Even if he could see the intent, he couldn't divine the timing, or the location. This beach was a nexus for at least one of the path's to Myoboku, but right now Obito was like a worm trying to figure out what a hotel was. To him, it was just another large space, but there was a construction here that he had not and maybe could not understand.

    He closed his eyes, trying not to rely solely on his Sharingan, and reached out with his chakra. The sounds of the beach, screaming children, arguing adults, joy and frustration and anger and boredom, all faded away, leaving only the waves.

    They were almost deafening by themselves, a constant series of crashes and withdrawals like two warring armies. Obito focused, the sound of the waves almost painful as the water skittered across countless grains of sand, destroying and reforming the beach with every repetition. He pressed his hand deeper into the sound, grasping at something that didn't exist.

    No wonder no one found this place. Who had the patience for this bullshit? Who in their right mind would come to a place like this and sit around all day listening to the sounds of the world?

    Obito opened his eyes in frustration, about to give up, and found a pair of small yellow eyes staring up at him from the sand in between his fingers.

    It chirped. The thing lurking beneath the sand that the eyes belonged to chirped, a high pitched sound like a kettle momentarily coming to boil, and then it blinked and retreated. Obito blinked back, feeling adrenaline shoot throughout his body like a freezing fever. All of the Natural Energy in the sand was coursing around him, like a vortex or a whirlpool, draining down towards something out of sight.

    With a sudden frantic determination, he started digging down with all of his strength, ripping huge chunks of sand out of the beach and tossing them away without concern.

    "Hey! What the fuck?!" A woman twenty feet behind him screamed as a clump of sand struck her, but Obito was possessed. He kept digging, faster than any human possibly could without chakra, and tunnelled straight down into the sand. Five, ten, fifteen feet…

    And suddenly he was falling. There was a hole beneath the beach, the sand above it refusing to collapse in blatant defiance of gravity. Obito caught a glimpse of it as he tumbled: it was a shifting, impermanent thing, the light folding around it so that the center was impossible to see. Even his Sharingan's sight could not penetrate the distortion of space.

    But his Kamui could, and as he fell he felt himself pass the event horizon. Indescribable forces that he was sure he alone understood better than anyone ripped his sense of self in two as the laws of physics briefly forgot about him, and then he slammed into the ground, so hard he almost bit his tongue. It was like a fall from a hundred feet instead of five.

    Obito gasped and scrambled to his feet, nursing his bruised side. He didn't know where he was: the place defied easy description. It was a tunnel, but there were no walls or ceiling. Instead, there was a swirling typhoon of Natural Energy surrounding him, a hurricane of every color and some that did not exist which hurled itself all in one direction.

    Without conscious thought, Obito started running. When he looked back a moment later, he realized why. The tunnel was collapsing behind him, the hurricane crashing down and erasing everything in its path. Without the Kamui, he would have no idea what he was looking at, but the unfortunate truth was obvious to him immediately.

    He was in a superposition of two realities. The Natural Energy was creating a unique dimension of its own inhabited solely by the raw energy of proto-chakra, carving through the world like water would stone, and the physical world wasn't happy about it. As soon as the energy passed, the basic laws of physics resumed and crushed anything that remained, eliminating the sudden vacuum of matter. All of it was being drawn inexorably in one direction, towards the largest vacuum of all.

    As Obito sprinted at full speed, he realized that he'd probably fucked something up. He doubted this is what his sensei had been envisioning. It was way way way way way too dangerous. His entire body was screaming: he had no doubt that even with the Kamui, if he was caught in the point where the superposition collapsed, he'd be annihilated. He threw himself forward without another glance back, following the same twisting path as the energy.

    It was all going towards one point, and he had no choice but to make that his destination as well.

    The Kamui was helping him along, he realized. The space he was crossing was not purely physical, and the Kamui was moving even faster, providing yet another dimension imposed over the top of this one. Just like everywhere else, taking one step was anywhere between a hundred and a thousand, and it kept him well ahead of the collapsing energy.

    Obito raced ahead and the energy surrounding him grew more vibrant and chaotically energetic until it was almost blinding. He could pull out, jump entirely into the Kamui and simply sprint away, but instinct drove him on. This was why he was here; this was what he was looking for.

    As the thought banished all doubt and pain, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Not the coruscating false light of the Natural Energy all around him, but real light, sunlight. He pushed on one last time, throwing everything into a final sprint-

    The light ate him without warning, and once again, Obito found himself falling. He sucked in a breath, looking around. He was high in the air, ridiculously high. He was at the top of a waterfall of gorgeous green water, cascading down to a lake nearly a thousand feet below. The water was coming from a tunnel above him, rapidly receding.

    He fell, gaining speed but still so slow compared to his Sharingan's perception. The land stretched out before him was bizarre and impossible, covered in twisting spires of stone and monstrous plants and fungus so large they defied imagination. In the distance, a series of mountain peaks rose so high into the sky they pierced drifting yellow clouds, and everywhere Obito looked things became only more strange and spectacular.

    This was Mount Myoboku, without a doubt.

    He hit the water without touching it, the Kamui sparing him the force of the fall, and there was a muffled crump as his body reoccupied the space filled by water, forcing it aside as his molecules violently asserted their right to exist.

    Obito swam to the surface, soaked and exulted, and headed towards the shore. He felt clean for the first time in a week. The water was sweet, almost like tea. He had no idea what to think of that.

    There was a toad in here as well, a small one barely bigger than Obito's hand. It glanced back at him as it swam towards the other shore, its beady yellow eyes holding obvious surprise. Obito stared back, amused.

    "Hey," he said, stopping and waving. "Are you a summon, or just a normal toad?"

    The toad blinked, stopping to tread water as well, and its tongue flickered out at something on the surface of the water, a bug or a bit of algae. "I don't know man," it eventually said, its voice as deep and sonorous as a man twice Obito's size. "I just live here."

    "What…?" But before Obito could do more than mutter in confusion, the toad turned and continued swimming for the distant shore, diving beneath the placid green water and out of sight. Obito watched it go with the slightest bit of concern, and then continued on his way as well, clambering up out of the water hand over foot and walking across the surface the rest of the way.

    The shore was rocky, countless small pebbles and larger stones forming a half-ring around the cliff the waterfall sat atop. Obito peered around, his clothes soaked, and looked into the Kamui as well. There didn't seem to be any issue: like his sensei had said, Myoboku was a physical place, not moving like the path that had taken him here had been. He should be safe to step through his personal dimension.

    He took a moment to do so, shedding his clothes and finding a spare, dry set that he always kept tucked away in the eternally cold and dry Kamui. To his relief, he returned to the same place, still on the shore a couple minutes later.

    Obito looked around, trying to figure out where he was on the mountain and where the heck he should go. There was nothing here resembling civilization, just oversized plants and fungus and bizarre and unnatural outcroppings of rock. However, there was an obvious path from the lake he'd fallen into leading deeper into the plant… jungle… fungus growths. It looked like it had been carved by titanic creatures.

    Toads, and his Sharingan confirmed it: the tracks were unmistakable, even long faded by time. If they came and went from this place, they probably returned to wherever they lived. Obito started walking without a clear goal in mind, content to follow the path. He'd searched for more than a week: he could handle some more wandering.

    Obito walked for a little more than two hours, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of Mount Myoboku. It was definitely on a mountain, he started thinking: the entire place gently sloped up going what he was pretty sure was north, and gently sloped down to the south. That meant that the towering mountains that lay to the north were the tip of the mountain, and where he was was a sort of plateau that lay atop the existing edifice.

    There was a yellow tint to the air that had infected even the clouds, and occasionally Obito had to take an extra deep breath. He was certainly at a high altitude, higher than he'd ever been before, but it was difficult for him to estimate. Everywhere he went following the path the gargantuan plants remained a constant, casting enormous swathes of shade as they viciously competed with one another for sunlight. They and the yellow air were an obvious hint to Obito, even without the occasional confirmation with his Sharingan, that the whole mountain was absolutely soaked in a ridiculous amount of chakra.

    Natural Energy had coalesced here by design or coincidence and its constant presence had swollen everything it touched to enormous size, driven by the supernatural energy to grow beyond what any ordinary plant could achieve. This sort of thing wasn't uncommon in the nations: Obito had seen more than his fair share of ridiculously large trees, of course, with one of the most striking being Waterfall's, and equally large creatures weren't out of the ordinary either.

    But this many sharing one space certainly was. Most chakra enlarged species like this rapidly outcompeted each other and established themselves as the sole champion, with the exception of carefully maintained ones like Konoha's founding trees. But here at Myoboku there was more than enough energy to go around, and so the plants grew and choked out the sun without a second thought.

    The animals were the same. There was more here than just toads: Obito saw insects of every description, some normal sized and others terrifyingly huge. A dragonfly the size of a person was certainly not something he'd ever wanted to lay eyes on, but the creature had been flighty and unconcerned with a single human wandering the jungles. He was an intruder here and somehow just about everything was smart enough to know it; he was left to his own devices as he followed the path.

    A little bit after the two hour mark, when the sun was high in the west, Obito found the first sign of civilization. It was as humble as it was unusual: a small statue of a man with toadlike features, covered in moss and set aside a small stone staircase leading up a hill. Obito climbed the stairs, coming to the top of the hill, and found a much more definite path at the top, more than forty feet wide and winding out beyond his line of sight towards the distant cloud-piercing mountains.

    "Just keep following the road, I guess," Obito muttered to himself, the sound drowned out by the sounds of the jungle around him, and did just that. As he walked, he wondered how things were going back home, if Rin was alright. Every once in a while, a shadow crept across his thoughts.

    Where was Itachi? In Rain, as he'd professed, or following his agenda? What was he up to?

    'A run away to a tropical paradise vacation?'

    He laughed at the memory, a momentary solace from the darker thoughts. Goosebumps raised themselves up on his arms as he recalled her tank top, the way it had stretched.

    Obito was so absorbed in his pondering, his feet moving on his own, that when his instincts alerted him his head jerked up and he looked around with obvious confusion, not even knowing what he was responding to. His feet had carried him far along the path: the mountains were probably only a couple hours away.

    He looked up, realization dawning, and leapt back as two enormous toads fell out of the sky.

    The earth below them exploded, and Obito shielded his eyes as he landed and stayed low, staring past the cloud of dust as the towering forms of the toads unfurled themselves. They were so large that even seeing them move was intimidating, the air rushing around them with their deceptively quick motions, and as they stood up they blocked his path as surely as a wall.

    One of them was tremendously muscular and as wiry as a toad could get. Its skin was pale green, growing darker at the shoulders and back, and it had a tremendous orange haramaki stretched across its stomach. Two swords, each easily twenty feet long, were sheathed across its back. The other toad was bulkier and wider, its skin a dull red, and fully clothed in a billowing black kimono. It had a pole-sword with two prongs clutched in its left hand, while its right was occupied by a shield the size of a building.

    Both of their enormous yellow eyes swivelled down to gaze at Obito, and he stood up straight, feeling that he was being judged.

    "Human," the green one rumbled with a voice like a landslide. "You have intruded on Mount Myoboku. State your intentions."

    "Hey," Obito said, deciding to give a little wave. The toads did not blink, just continuing to stare. "I'm Obito Uchiha. I came to make a contract with the Toads of Mount Myoboku."

    "A summoning contract?" the red one rumbled, and Obito nodded. To his shock, it inclined its head. "Forgive me for clarifying, for I am clumsy with words…"

    "A summoning contract?" the other toad repeated, sounding a little incredulous. "You traveled all the way to the Mountain of Toads for a mere contract?"

    "Ummm… yes?" Obito said, and the toads glanced at one another and grumbled in low, incoherent voices. As one, they readied their weapons. Obito blinked.

    "Any human who requests a summoning contract without the consent of a current summoner must pass a test," the green toad said in an authoritative voice. "Had Gamabunta been here, it would be your duty to defeat him. But since he is occupied, we shall be your opponents." Two swords four times Obito's height thunked into the ground, sinking several feet into the thick dirt, and the toad crossed its arms imperiously. "I am Gamahiro."

    The other toad slammed its catch-pole into the earth as well with the force of a small earthquake. "And I am Gamaken. In the boss's stead, we shall be your opponents today, Obito Uchiha."

    "Seriously?" Obito said, looking between the two gargantuan creatures. "Would I make the contract with you afterwards?"

    "That would not be our duty," Gamaken said. "My apologies, we did not explain it." It gestured with the pole to the northern mountain peaks. "The Great Toad Sage would determine the final contract; we are merely his guardians. It is confusing, for which you have my condolences."

    "So I'd have to beat you and then talk to him?" Obito asked, feeling a little irritated. He didn't want to fight, and especially not against creatures he was trying to make allies of. Is this what Jiraiya had gone through to make the contract in the first place? No wonder the man was such a weirdo.

    "That is precisely the case," Gamahiro said with a deafening chuckle. "But do not speak of it so easily; Gamaken and I have not been bested in years. As the guardians of Myoboku and the Great Toad Sage, we have stood watch for longer than your Hidden Villages have stood. Why, the last human to try was forced to-!"

    As the giant toad was boasting, Obito started walking forward. The toad stopped, watching him come with attentive eyes.

    "So, you meet the challenge." It removed its swords from the ground, upending the earth. "Gamaken!" it shouted, and the other toad slammed its pole-sword into its shield, the sound so loud and the force so powerful that the earth before them was further ripped up by the violence of it. "Let us show this human off!"

    They both swung, a joint attack that had probably been practiced hundreds of times, and the air screamed with the violence of their blows. The sword and pole struck the path and obliterated it, throwing up so much debris that sight became impossible and shredding beyond all hope any creature at the center of the strike.

    Obito, of course, just walked right through it. The toads drew back in obvious confusion, eyes rolling, and readied their weapons again.

    "What?" Gamahiro bellowed as Obito kept walking, heading for the space right in between them. "What shinobi trickery is this?!"

    "Forgive my clumsy interjection, but he is no clone or illusion, Gamahiro," Gamaken interjected. His eyes narrowed, and Obito smiled up at him. "This is Obito Uchiha, the Ghost of the Leaf. Lord Jiraiya has spoken of him. I foolishly did not believe-"

    "A ghost!" Gamahiro laughed, the sound loud beyond belief. The whole jungle shook with it. "One of the few things my swords have not slain! Have at you!"

    They swung again, and the result was the same. Obito walked through the catastrophe and, without ceremony, passed between the two toads. They turned with incredulous eyes as he walked right past them, imperceptible to their weapons.

    "He doesn't even fight back…" Gamaken muttered, before raising his voice. "Obito Uchiha, my apologies for asking, but why do you not fight back?"

    "I don't want to fight you," Obito said over his shoulder, and Gamahiro bristled. He shrugged in response. "What'd be the point? I'm here to make allies, not enemies!"

    "What disrespect!" the toad roared. "To skirt the challenge in such a cowardly manner! Do you really believe the Great Toad Sage would deign to speak to an unproven creature such as yourself?!" As it shouted it leapt forward, and Gamaken followed its lead, leveling a tremendous series of blows at Obito.

    They were fast and unbelievably coordinated. Obito did not even have a second of respite as he continued forward, their monstrous weapons scything through his immaterial body with such ferocity that he was never able to become solid.

    He frowned, glancing back at them as both of the toads shouted their war cries and shredded the earth. How long could they keep it up? His Kamui could only keep him intangible for a minute at most, maybe more if he really pushed himself. When neither of the toads had slowed down in the slightest after thirty seconds, he started running.

    "Ha!" Gamaken cried as Obito picked up the pace, leaping after him as his long legs let him keep pace effortlessly. "Forgive me for presuming so Gamahiro, but he flees! If he is indeed a ghost, he is not a permanent one!"

    "Astute!" Gamahiro called back, the both of them leaping after Obito like a pursuing crack of thunder. "We will force you to your limit, Obito Uchiha! Such a technique will be exhausting: no creature alive has more stamina than the Toads of Myoboku!"

    Obito grit his teeth as he picked up the pace. "Shut up, would you!" he shouted back, and the toads laughed as they continued their relentless assault. "I don't want to hurt you!"

    "Then we will put that to the test!" Gamahiro exulted, and the chase continued.

    Obito retreated back into his mind as he passed through countless attacks and began dodging several more. He was running at full speed now, but the toads could keep up indefinitely. Every time his Kamui was brought to its limit he returned to the real world, just barely dodging a blow that could crush him or send him flying. He was already sweating, the exertion of running, dodging, and keeping the Kamui constantly running working down into his core.

    Despite that, he squashed the urge to turn and beat their faces in. His stubbornness was stronger than his instinct, and perhaps for the worse. No matter what, he thought, he wasn't going to give these jackass animals the satisfaction of a fight.

    And so he ran, the toads pursued, and the mountain drew closer.

    ###

    Three hours later, Obito collapsed.

    Gamahiro's blade whickered right over his head, the air pressure decapitating a distant toad statue, and the swordsman rasped in horror.

    "Oh goodness," Gamaken said at his side, looking down at Obito. The other toad was gasping and crawling: he had shed its kimono and left his shield behind earlier in the chase, and his hands could barely grasp its catch-pole. Its skin had gone pale: toads couldn't sweat, Obito was pretty sure, but he had no idea how they regulated their temperature otherwise. "You've removed Master Murayama's head."

    "We can put it back on!" Gamahiro gasped, his whole body shaking and his chest and stomach flushed and pale. He sucked in another desperate breath, sounding like it would be his last. "You've finally fallen, ghost! And at the steps of the mountain!"

    It was true, Obito thought, looking up. He'd made it all the way to his destination, and the relief had made him weak. His legs were burning, his heart pounding so hard it hurt his ribs, and his eye ached: he'd never pushed the Kamui this hard, and it felt like his Sharingan was reaching down into his body and scooping out his organs in recompense. His legs shook as he tried to force himself to his feet, but he collapsed once more. He growled, furious with himself, and started crawling forward. There were countless huge steps made for a creature of the toads' size that led up the side of the mountain to a cave a couple hundred feet above. He was right there.

    "It's pointless," Gamahiro gurgled, trying to lift his sword and barely managing it. The blade dipped, the toad unable to hold it fully aloft. "You're… caught!"

    He swung down, and Obito rolled out of the way, the blade sinking deeply into the ground. He looked left at the shining steel, unmarked by the exhausting chase, and kept hauling himself forward. Gamahiro groaned and tried to pull the sword loose, but his enormous hands slipped. With a cry of alarm, he fell forward, slamming into the earth with a crash that bounced Obito's body several inches into the air. His other sword skittered away, out of reach.

    "Damn you!" he cried, reaching out for Obito, but the Uchiha had crawled just out of reach. Gamaken watched the both of them, sinking down and clutching his pole-catch like a cane to keep himself upright. "Don't think you've…" Gamahiro gasped for air, his eyes slipping closed. "Won!"

    "Didn't I?" Obito flipped over on his back, his vision swimming, and grinned. He propped himself up on his elbows to get a look at the toads. "Looks like…" he coughed, and was alarmed to find blood in his phlegm. He must have bitten the inside of his cheek. "Looks like... I'm moving... and you're not."

    "Forgive me, Obito Uchiha," Gamaken said, pulling himself up and taking a ponderous half-step forward, practically dragging himself with his weapon. "But I still am."

    Obito collapsed on his back, staring up at the sky and far too tired to move. Gamaken's shadow fell across him, entirely blocking out the sun. The toad stared down at him, his weapon slipping from his grasp.

    "Well, shit," Obito grumbled, and then passed out.

    ###
    Rough sheets, rock hard mattress. Obito grumbled and rolled over, pulling them farther over his shoulder. His sheets at home were silky and cold, but these were rough and warm. Total downgrade. He should lodge a complaint…

    He froze, slowly opening one eye. He wasn't in his bed. He was laid out on a stone slab with a brown taupe covering him, like a corpse in a morgue. He looked around, his brain trying to catch up to his eyes. Small room, very low ceiling. A short wooden table set in the center, no chairs, nothing on it. Door leading into another room, and a little beyond that, the sounds of a waterfall. There was still daylight coming in from that door.

    Mount Myoboku; Toads; the three hour chase. Obito blinked, smacking his lips and realizing how dry his mouth was. He'd either been asleep for just an hour or almost a day. Neither option was good, if he was being honest. He tried to pull himself up off the slab and found his arms and legs shook with the effort. He'd been hollowed out and filled with a dull, aching pain.

    A short toad with purple splotches on its head and pale white skin wandered into the room on two legs, muttering something under its breath, and stopped in its tracks when it made eye contact with Obito. They stared at each other, neither sure what to say, and then the toad huffed.

    "Well, finally!" she said, her voice high-pitched and unmistakably female. "Up and at it, sleepyhead!"

    "Eh?" Obito said, turning to face the toad. When both his feet met the ground he felt a little more sure of himself; being upright, even if he was still sitting, got the blood rushing the right ways. Chakra exhaustion was never fun, but it had been a while since he'd felt this messed up. "How long was I out?"

    The toad frowned. "Not even a thank you?" she asked slyly, and Obito laughed, his throat hurting. "Even little Jiraiya was more polite than you."

    "I have trouble believing that," Obito muttered, and the toad laughed. "But thank you for bringing me here, I guess. What happened to the others?"

    "Gamahiro and Gamaken?" The toad laughed. "Prostrating themselves before the Great Sage. They can barely walk, the poor dears." She looked Obito up and down with an obvious bob of her head, and was apparently satisfied. "We haven't met, Obito Uchiha, but little Jiraiya and Minato have told us about you." She inclined her head, very slightly. "I am Shima. I'm here to escort you."

    Shima. Obito didn't know the name, but he didn't know the names of most of his sensei's toads, so that didn't mean much. What did have some meaning was the toad's obvious authority, and how it addressed Jiraiya and one of the six Kage. Familiar and diminutive: Shima was doubtlessly ancient.

    "It's a pleasure," he said, standing on unsteady feet and bowing so low that his head was almost level with the toads. He looked up just in time to catch an amused smirk slipping away. "Escort me to where?"

    "Well, you came here to make a contract didn't you?" the toad asked with an incredulous look. "Where else would you be going? We were told you were bright, you know!"

    Obito chuckled. "Lead the way, then." He paused. "Though seriously, how long was I out?"

    "Only a couple hours," Shima said with a wave of her hand, turning to leave the room. Obito followed after her, stooping over to avoid hitting his head. "You've had a busy day, so I suppose there was nothing for it." They passed through what was unmistakably an entryway sized for creatures barely higher than Obito's knee, and then another door. "It's not far, don't worry."

    Obito straightened up as they cleared the door, looking around. The home they'd just left was compact but wide, stretching out away from this for a fair distance, and was set inside a small lichen filled cave. They were in the mountain, he was pretty sure. The air was even thinner, and the sunlight that streamed in from the many entrances to the cavern was starting to turn a peculiar purple color. Looking out of one of them, just about the size of his leg, Obito could see Myoboku stretching out below him in a colorful tableau, and the dark blue ocean beyond it.

    The sound of the waterfall was even louder here, but he couldn't locate it. There was a stream bubbling past the home, its water filled with oil-like droplets of some vibrant green liquid, but it didn't seem to come to a sheer fall at any of the entrances.

    Without a word Shima led him deeper into the cave, over the bubbling stream and past the glowing lichen that covered the walls. Obito looked about in wonder, his thoughts foggy and unfocused. The tunnel twisted and turned, growing wider and splitting in many places, but Shima always followed the widest and most obvious path as they traveled higher and deeper into the mountain. The air was sweet and thin, and Obito drank it like water as he followed the little toad.

    "Through here," Shima said, ducking through a smaller passage, and Obito shuffled after her, always conscious of the size difference. However, the passage quickly widened into a huge cavern, the ceiling so high that it vanished into the shadows.

    Obito came to a stop, struck by the atmosphere. The cavern was tremendous, with a single towering entrance and exit to his right, tall enough to admit a building. That was the top of the steps, he realized with a start. He could just barely see the path he'd followed over the lip of it. The lair was filled with deep shadows cast by the purple light and choked with incense and other scents, absolutely overwhelming to every sense. Smoke and light caressed Obito's skin, and he felt a shiver run all the way down his body, his chakra responding to the ridiculous amount of Natural Energy that permeated the cave.

    There were three toads here. Shima, who had hopped to the back of the cave and taken up position on one arm of a gargantuan throne five times Obito's size. Another toad her size, with green skin and white hair, mirroring her on the throne's other arm. That one, Obito had met before: it was Fukasaku, the toad who had given Konoha the mission to locate Jiraiya. The little creature was watching him impassively, his wide yellow eyes unreadable.

    The last was ancient, its leathery red skin wrinkled like paper that had been folded thousands of times. It sagged in the stone chair, so massive that it took up the entire throne, and made small, feeble movements, like a baby squirming in its crib. The toad's eyes weren't bright like all of its fellows: they were a dull amber, like a stone visible at the bottom of a river, and he wore a colossal necklace with a bright red bead at the center. The kanji for 'Oil' was inscribed on it in bold dark strokes.

    The ancient toad was sitting in some sort of liquid, Obito realized. Every time it shifted there was a subtle splash, and its legs were soaked in a thick green sludge. Oil, he realized after a second, the same kind that had been carried in globs by the bubbling stream. Even without his Sharingan, he could tell the stuff was humming with chakra.

    "Approach, Obito Uchiha," Fukasaku called out, and Obito did. His legs weren't quite as shaky anymore, but there was something else pushing him down now. These toads were ancient, all of them. It wasn't even the comparison between an adult and a child; that could only be a difference of decades. Humans just didn't live long enough to make it otherwise, and Shinobi even more so.

    This was a separation of centuries, and Obito could feel it with every step.

    He stopped before the throne and the ancient toad in it took a long, rattling breath. Its eyes slipped closed, so gradually Obito thought it might not open them, and then it peaked out at him from beneath their lids.

    Obito felt his body respond to the toad's gaze. Its eyes were suddenly sharp, sharp enough to cut him, and the contrast put his instincts on edge.

    "What are you doing here, little ghost?" the Great Toad Sage whispered, and Obito stood stock still, carefully weighing his words. This creature predated him, Konoha, and perhaps even shinobi themselves. It was the least he could do to think before he spoke.

    "Great elder," he said, trying out the title, and when the toad didn't immediately respond he continued. "I've come to make a summoning contract with the Toads of Mount Myoboku." He knelt as he would before his sensei on a more official occasion. "As both my teachers have been, I wish to be an ally of Myoboku."

    "Hmmmm," the Sage rattled. Fukasaku and Shima were like statues at his side. "Hmmmmmmmm. But why are you here?"

    Obito blinked. "Well, this is where you all live," he said, and the ancient toad chuckled, a wheezing sound that made Obito's chest ache in sympathy. "I wanted to seek you out."
    "But why…" The Sage paused, shifting, and some oil spilled out of its throne, running in thick rivulets down the sides. He sighed. "Why come to Myoboku at all, little ghost?" he continued, his voice deep and soft. One of his eyelids was slipping farther open, revealing the keen brightness behind it. "You are the heir of two of Myoboku's human sages. Jiraiya the curious, and Minato the unstoppable. If you had wished a contract with us toads, you merely could have asked them." The eye was fully open now, and Obito was transfixed by it, staring into the amber iris the size of his head. "They would surely have offered with glad hearts."
    Why hadn't he just asked? Obito clenched a fist, and the toad chortled softly.

    "I could have just asked," he said. "But I wanted to do this for myself." He pulled himself up straight, looking the Great Toad Sage in the eye. "I'm more than just the student of Jiraiya and Minato. If I was going to forge a contract with you, I wanted it to be by my own merit, and not because of my connection to them."

    "Ahhhhhhhhh…" The Sage sighed and leaned back. "You seek to define yourself by separation. I see, I see…"

    The last words dribbled from his mouth with a bit of drool, and the huge toad slumped and began loudly snoring, his head lolling against his chest. Obito, unsure of what to do, looked to Fukasaku and Shima.

    Fukasaku snorted. "You were a real moron," he said, and Obito raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't matter who you are or who you came from, Gamahiro and Gamaken would have cut you down if you'd failed the challenge. That was their duty."

    "And that was how I wanted it," Obito shot back, and the toad gave him a mean grin. "Everywhere I go, I am Obito Uchiha, even here. If someone was willing to treat me as just another jackass, that was exactly what I came here for." He paused. "Are they alright?"

    "Of course they're alright," Shima said dismissively. "It's their job, you know? And besides…" her eyes narrowed. "You didn't lay a finger on them. Why was that? You could have beaten them, and probably come out better than the pathetic mess you were by the end."

    "I thought it'd be stupid," Obito said. The toad laughed. "I came here to make allies, not prove I could beat them in a fight."

    "And yet by doing that you proved you didn't need them at all," Fukasaku said sharply. "What is the purpose of a contract when you have no use for their power? You claim you came here to separate yourself from your teachers, but why choose us toads at all then?" He squatted, propping his fist on his chin. "There are countless summon clans in the world, and you chose your teachers' while refusing the easy path."

    Obito dove deep, trying to dig up every ounce of sincerity that the world had pressed out of him. "I trust Myoboku," he said, and Shima tilted her head. "The toads have served both my teachers well, and been served well in kind. I'm not the kind of guy who needs help in a fight, that's true: I doubt I'll ever summon Gamabunta because there's something too big for me to handle by myself." He sat down, crossing his legs. "But I've spent the last decade relying only on myself, sure that if I asked for help other shinobi would only get in the way and be put in unnecessary danger." He laughed. "Maybe for you a decade seems silly, but that's almost half my life. It took a lot for me to even think about changing myself."

    He shrugged, a helpless gesture. "I wanted to make a contract so I would know that no matter where I was, what I was doing, I could ask for help."

    Both of the toads regarded him with curious eyes, and Shima started to speak.

    "Gah!" As she did, the Great Toad Sage jerked awake, thrashing slightly in his throne of oil. It croaked, looking around with foggy eyes, and then refocused on Obito, its sharpness returning.

    The Sage took a deep breath, his chest rattling. "A commendable pursuit," it muttered, and Obito leaned forward. "I will be more than happy to authorize this contract. Fukasaku, Shima, fetch the scroll."

    "At once, Great Sage," Fukasaku declared, and then he and Shima both vanished from the throne's arms. Obito watched them depart with curious eyes and then turned back to the Sage as the giant toad titled his head, watching him with tired, amused eyes.

    "It is ironic that your students leaving would inspire your own separation," the Sage mused, and Obito's blood ran cold. "But loss often recoils, and shinobi either shatter or redefine themselves. In that, they are just the same as toads." He sank back in his throne, eyes clouding over. "Jiraiya has created interesting men…"

    "What do you mean, great elder?" Obito asked, and the toad coughed.

    "No human has produced so august a lineage," he croaked, his voice sinking deeper. The ancient was slipping back towards sleep. "Three summoners, all of tremendous power and vision, all fulcrums around which the world could pivot…"

    "Three?" Obito asked, not fully understanding what the toad was saying. "Including myself?"

    "Of course," the Great Toad Sage said, lower than a whisper. His exhalations carried the hint of words, nothing more. It was as if he was muttering in his sleep. "Yourself, Minato Namikaze, and angry little Yahiko. He did the same thing as you…" he wheezed, a barely audible laugh. "Though he defeated Gamabunta. Perhaps that will be the difference that defines your era, Obito Uchiha." He settled, all but submerged in sleep. "After all, so much revolves around you… and all because of one falling stone."

    A falling stone? At a loss for words, Obito tried to speak and found his throat hollow. Even if he had, it would have been too late: the Great Toad Sage was fully asleep, not even snoring, only the slight rise and fall of his chest betraying any life at all. Obito sat there alone but for the slumbering ancient for a long time, and tried to figure what the hell he could possibly be talking about.

    Eventually, Fukasaku and Shima returned. They carried a tremendous red scroll precariously balanced between the two of them, and let it fall to the floor of the cavern with an impressive thump right in front of Obito. He flinched, his reverie broken.

    The scroll rolled open as if it had a mind of its own, and Fukasaku gestured, a wet brush held in his hand. "Think carefully before you sign," he said, handing the brush to Obito. Obito cocked an eyebrow at him, and the toad grinned. "Even if you have the Sage's consent, this will be a contract that will endure for the rest of your life. Mount Myoboku will be your ally, but you will be its as well. Some shinobi can find splitting their loyalties difficult."

    Obito leaned forward and considered the scroll. He had a fresh page: a fresh start. He began tracing his name in long, thick strokes of the brush.

    "I won't," he said, and Shima chuckled. "But I do have a question."

    "A question?" she asked, and Fukasaku gave a quizzical grunt as well. "So late?"

    "Not about this," Obito said, finishing the final stroke of his family name. "He said something," he continued, gesturing to the snoring ancient toad, "about a falling stone. It didn't make any sense to me. That's all."

    "Hmm." Fukasaku didn't have lips, but he pursed his mouth the same way a human would. "The Great Sage does not always make sense. That is part of his wisdom, but also a curse."

    "He's been blessed with a gift for prophecy," Shima croaked. "He sees things that were, are, will be, could be, could have been." She blinked, peircing Obito with a peculiar look. "He gazes into the river of the future and past and sees the current, but little else. It produces more torment than anything else."

    "Huh." Obito didn't know what to say to that. Prophecy was out of his wheelhouse. He didn't believe in fate, because the idea of some things being destined to happen was far too cruel for even a shinobi to consider. Or at least, he thought that was how it should be. But there were only so many ways the world could go; it made sense to him that something so old could see what had come before and predict what would come after. "Does sensei know that?"

    "Of course," Fukasaku said. "Both of them." He narrowed his eyes. "Little Jiraiya is one of the few humans the Great Sage has given a direct prophecy, you know."

    "Oh? What about?" Obito asked, feeling a guileless curiosity bubble up. The toad laughed.

    "He was told that one of his students would save the world. That they would bring a great revolution that would change everything." When Obito blinked, his lip curling back in the beginning of a grimace, Fukasaku's laugh tapered off into a chuckle.

    "Don't look so serious. That's the amusing thing about prophecy, Obito Uchiha." The scroll rolled closed, the ink drying supernaturally fast.

    "They rarely end up so straightforward."

    AN:

    I don't usually do author's notes much anymore except to apologize for delays, and I think that's a shame. But in this case, it's more to explain myself a little. I usually like to keep a chapter and some as a buffer, but since I fucked up my leg and started recovery from surgery, I've found it hard to write. Maybe because of the distraction, or maybe because it made a handy excuse? I dunno, but at any rate, I'm burning my boats with a bizarre-for-me middle of the day middle of the week update. I have like, 300 words of non-outline content written for the next chapter, so I guess we'll see if not having that buffer will kick me into gear or not. If it doesn't, I'll have learned something new, and if it does, we'll be back on track. That's a win/win, imo.

    Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • Well, that's some timing. Just finished reading the story so far today.

    Ser_Serendipity said:
    He took a moment to do so, shedding his clothes and finding a spare, dry set that he always kept tucked away in the eternally cold and dry Kamui. To his relief, he returned to the same place, still on the shore a couple minutes earlier.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I assume "later", or did he suddenly travel through time?
     
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    That prophesy though. 'Akatsuki, or Minato?' thinks Obito. But the readers are all "its Naruto".
     
    Chapter 42: Life of Luck
  • Threadmarks
    • Here's Your First and Final Test​

    About a month after Obito returned from Mount Myoboku, Naruto was sitting in a sterilized room with a dead fish in his hands. He looked up at Kabuto Yakushi with a frown, and the older boy shrugged.

    "That one happens a lot," he said, his tone nothing but kind, and Naruto couldn't help but grimace. "Clots are always tricky."

    "I hate that," he said, looking down at the fish. It was a large trout caught right out of Kakō Lake, the huge lake that surrounded Amegakure, and it had a long, clean cut running the length of its stomach. Some of its blood had stained his hands. "Everything else I've ever worked on, if I messed up I'd just be tired, or a little beat up." He grit his teeth. "I hate that if I mess up the fish dies."

    "Don't worry about it too much," Kabuto said as he took the fish from him. "These are loaned out anyway. They go straight to the market one way or another; it's just a matter of whether they get eaten today or tomorrow in the end."

    That didn't make Naruto feel better at all. He had been working with Kabuto and his mother Nonō for months now, trying to wrap his head around medical jutsu, and it felt like for every step he took forward he got pushed back another. Kabuto had trained him how to control his chakra to a finer degree than he'd imagined, even after learning the Rasengan; he could separate milk and water down to the last molecule now, and had taken to probing other people's bodies with enough skill that even Nonō had been surprised. She'd told him he was a natural in combining different chakras, which was apparently a rare skill.

    Naruto was good at receiving compliments (actually, he loved receiving compliments) so that hadn't bothered him. He'd always taken his own skills for granted. He didn't know or care if it was natural talent or having two parents who were so far beyond normal he hadn't understood the concept until a ways into the academy, but he'd always been able to master something when he put his mind to it. Even a secret A-Rank jutsu. That had only taken him like, what, four months?

    But it had been almost as long as that now and he still felt no closer to really understanding Iryojutsu. Naruto didn't think he had any illusions; all his previous accomplishments had been just from bettering himself. If it was just learning another Ninjutsu, he was sure he would be done months ago.

    But with medical jutsu, it wasn't just about knowing yourself, you had to know what you were working with. Naruto had read more in the last two months than he had in his whole life prior, which wasn't saying a lot but was definitely part of the difficulty. Kabuto had explained to him back during the Chunin Exam that you needed to know everything about the natural healing process or else things could go really wrong, and he hadn't been exaggerating. A couple of the fish Naruto had worked on were proof of that.

    His head was always swimming with medical and physiological terminology; he went to bed muttering about tendons and woke up stuck on the chakra system that twined through his whole body like a mirror to every organ. He couldn't even brush his teeth anymore without thinking about the complexity of his tongue, how ridiculously developed and delicate everything about his mouth was. Rain had opened up a bunch of new worlds to him, and how crazy the body was was just one more to try and understand.

    But it was frustrating. It didn't come to him naturally, and that bothered him. So did the fact that it bothered him at all. Was he that spoiled? He slumped forward, head resting on his crossed arms, and groaned.

    "How long did it take you?" he asked, and Kabuto shrugged. "To start saving the fish?"

    "A couple months," the older boy said, and Naruto groaned again. "Trust me, I get it."

    "I don't wanna take a couple months," he said, standing up and glancing at the fish. He'd given it an embolism when he'd tried to seal the laceration in its stomach: he'd known right away when he'd messed up, the blood clotting too quickly and continuing to circulate through the system. Kabuto had told him before that it wasn't that simple to hurt shinobi with Iryojutsu, not that he ever would, since their bodies were well trained to fight off foreign chakra. Being a ninja was like a lifelong series of vaccinations in that respect.

    But for a dumb flopping fish, or a civilian with an untrained chakra system? Bloop, blood in the brain, dead. It made Naruto feel a little sick. Dying was one thing, but dying in such an innocuous way made him uncomfortable.

    "Can we get something to eat?" he asked, before amending the thought. "Not fish. I wanna give it another shot after a break, if that's alright."

    "No problem," Kabuto said, standing up. They'd stayed late at the hospital, one of the many scattered throughout Rain. This one was called the Ward of Our Immaculate Lady, which was apparently some local goddess: Naruto had never really cared about that sort of stuff, but the name was cool. It was apparently the only one run by actual natives of Rain, the people who'd lived here before the Land of Rain had been founded by people from up north. So far as Naruto could tell, they were pretty much the same as everyone else in the Five Nations.

    Six. Six Nations, he internally reminded himself. It was hard to change your habits, but rain was good at erosion. He was getting better at it.

    "We'll come back after," Kabuto said. "So what're you thinking? Noodles? Karin knows a great ramen place."

    "That'd work!" Naruto brightened up a little, trying to forget the dead fish. "I wanted to talk with her anyway, maybe we can all go."

    "Oh?" Kabuto said, a mischievous glint in his eye. "About that fuinjutsu you guys were discussing?"

    "Yeah." Naruto shrugged. "I mean, if she's like my mom… I mean, I don't know if she is, but that'd be cool, right?"

    "Very cool," Kabuto said with a smile. "We'll drop by her place then."

    They left the sterile room and the fish behind, but Naruto couldn't forget its flat, dead eyes.

    ###

    Thirty-seven days after that, in the very same room, Naruto saved the fish. It flopped in his hands, struggling to breathe, and he tried to show off by oxygenating its blood as soon as the laceration on its stomach was healed. He immediately realized it wasn't a good idea, and to his relief the fish's heart only missed a beat before it kept gasping and flapping, searching for water that wasn't there. He gave Kabuto a grin that might have been a little too smug for its own good, and the boy smiled back, still all sincerity.

    "Very good!" he said, sweeping the fish off the table and into a little bucket. He gave it a moment to swim about and orient itself before running his hand across its back, sparkling green chakra running through the water like an aurora borealis. "Actually… very good, Naruto. Heart rate is great, and it won't even scar." He grinned, a little meaner. "You didn't cheat, did you?"

    "As if!" Naruto said. He was sweating a bit; even if it had just been a fish, he'd still been putting in his best. "How the hell am I gonna help anyone if I cheated on my medical exams?"

    "It's a good point," Kabuto said with a laugh, "but you'd be surprised. Some people are just desperate to succeed, not to do good." He leaned against the table. "But you're different. You always have been, I guess. That's why you came here."

    "I guess so," Naruto said. He shifted, his hands feeling empty. Keep busy, get stronger. That's the only way home. "Well, I don't wanna sound like a weirdo, but what's next?"

    "For that, we'll want to talk to my mother," Kabuto said. He scratched his chin, looking uncertain for the first time in a while. "I moved on to working with humans at this point, but I was unusual in that respect."

    "Why unusual?" Naruto asked, stepping up and out from behind the stainless steel desk. Kabuto started moving towards the door, and he shrugged and followed: apparently they were just gonna leave the fish here to the mercy of the Ward. "I mean, why were you unusual?"

    "Cause I didn't have much regard for myself or others," Kabuto said. He shrugged and flashed a grin. "To me, there wasn't really a difference between working on a fish and a person, or myself. I don't think you'd be the same way."

    Naruto frowned as they worked their way through the corridors of the hospital, saying their goodbyes to the staff. He smiled and waved at the receptionist at the front door, a girl with auburn hair and bright blue eyes, and she blushed. "No difference?" he asked. "I don't really get it."

    "I don't really get it either," Kabuto said as they stepped outside. It was late and cold, but the weather was mild and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Still, Ame's light pollution hid all but the brightest of stars through the gaps in the buildings, turning the sky pure black. "Or more than that, I don't really understand how you, how most people see other people, Naruto."

    "Huh?" Naruto asked intelligently, and Kabuto continued.

    "As like, more than meat." He looked around at the street, gesturing at the people who were still out this late as they made their way down Ame's. "Okay, that's a little repulsive to say, putting it like that. But that's what we all are, Naruto. Meat machines being driven around by a brain and a soul. Mother told me that level of dissociation helped me succeed with Iryojutsu." He smiled. "I'm not like you. I don't have your natural talent, you know. I don't think I could ever learn something like the Rasengan so easily. But medical jutsu was simple for me because of that. Even on myself, like at the Exam. All you're doing is fixing a machine."

    "I… think that's a little over my head," Naruto said, trying not to overthink what his friend had just said. Kabuto said strange stuff sometimes, but 'meat machine' hadn't been a part of his vocabulary before, or Naruto's for that matter. "And if that's the way you think, how come you don't like hurting people? Wouldn't that just be, you know, beating up the meat?"

    Kabuto tilted his head. "Well, because people don't like getting hurt. And it's their body, after all, so they should get a say in it. And with medical jutsu…" He pursed his lips. "It's like killing someone with a shovel, I guess. It's the wrong tool for the job. If you're going to dig a hole, grab a shovel, if you're going to kill someone, use a weapon. The same would go for Ninjutsu and Iryojutsu."

    "Doesn't really make sense to me," Naruto admitted. Kabuto laughed.

    "Don't worry, it doesn't make sense to most people." He hesitated as they waited at a crosswalk for a cart covered in banners and vegetables to rumble past. "I guess that's why I didn't tell you till now. I was worried you'd think I was strange."

    "Well, I do," Naruto cheerfully admitted, and Kabuto raised an eyebrow. "But I don't really care, so it doesn't matter. If it helps you with your medical jutsu, that's great. Maybe it'll help me too."

    "Maybe," Kabuto said, stepping into the street. "I wouldn't try to adopt a mindset you don't understand. It could cause issues."

    Naruto paused, feeling something percolating in his overwhelmed brain. "I think that's the whole point," he muttered, and Kabuto looked back at him in confusion.

    "Pardon?" he asked. Naruto shook his head.

    "Nothing!" he said, pretty sure he was being honest. "Let's go find your mom then. I wanna get on this while I remember how to do it."

    ###

    Fortyish days after Naruto saved his first fish and two days after he'd brought his first back to life from a brief death, he, Sasuke, and Sakura had another one of their illicit-feeling but probably perfectly innocent meetings. They did it in a popular coffee shop off of one of the six main streets that ran to Amegakure's center like the spokes of a huge metal wheel, which felt appropriately mature and covert but was really sort of stifling and uncomfortably close quarters.

    And expensive. Naruto was getting enough missions that he didn't have to worry about money, but eighty Ryo for vanilla milk with little tapioca balls in it seemed a little crazy. Sakura and Sasuke didn't say anything, so he didn't either.

    "I heard you moved on from fish, Naruto!" Sakura told him quite cheerfully, and Naruto blinked. It was jarring to move from smalltalk to something real and he didn't know why. Sakura looked happy, happier than she had in a long time. Her hair had grown out even farther, long and pink past her shoulder blades, and right now she was just a tiny, tiny bit taller than him. His mom had told him once that girls grew faster than boys; he hadn't been sure if she had been messing with him or not at the time, but Sakura was definitely proof of it.

    Even if the proof was only an inch, for now.

    "I did!" he confirmed, trying to match her cheer. "Who told you?"

    "Master Zabuza," she explained, "but I'm sure he heard it from Kabuto's mom. That's exciting, right?" She grew sly. "I guess you were right about whining helping you out, huh?"

    Naruto laughed, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head. "Well, it still took longer than I'd have liked. But I actually brought one back to life the other day! That's what made them decide I was ready to move on." He felt his mood sink a little, and he was sure Sakura noticed it. "Nonō didn't want me moving on to people until I was more advanced. Something about my, I dunno, mentality was what she called it."

    "You brought a fish back to life?" Naruto would have paid a lot of money, a hundred boba milks easy, to have Sakura look at him with the same kind of impressed astonishment she was now. Weird thought: he tried to shake it off and answer the question. "How the heck did you do that?"

    "Well, it wasn't dead for too long," Naruto explained, leaning forward with a grin. "Only four minutes. It wasn't in pieces or anything: I just had to restart its heart and keep the brain from getting damaged. So I just had to oxygenate the blood supply and manually feed the brain while I repaired the heart and jolted it back up."

    Sakura stared at him, and Naruto shifted. "What?"

    "She's wondering if you're the real Naruto," Sasuke said, and Naruto turned to him with mock alarm. His friend had been quiet for a while. "Can you imagine saying something like that a year ago?"

    "I wouldn't have known what to say," Naruto admitted, and Sasuke chuckled. "But it makes sense, right? Like, the process."

    "It makes sense." Sasuke took a sip of his water; he'd never liked sweet things. "I'm impressed."

    "Ooh, he's impressed!" Naruto said, rolling his eyes. Sakura giggled. "And what're you so busy with, bigshot? We haven't seen you in like a week." He leaned in. "C'mon Sasuke, I wanna know~"

    To Naruto's surprise, Sasuke looked a little uncomfortable. "I got approached," he said, "for a sponsorship."

    "A sponsorship?" Naruto took a sip of his milk, and Sakura picked up the question.

    "Do you mean for a business?" she asked, and Sasuke gave a slow nod. He'd turned fourteen the month before and made Chunin the month before that, and both occasions had passed without much ceremony: Sasuke had never been a big birthday guy, especially after what had happened to his family. But it had felt even more subdued than usual with just the three of them. They hadn't brought together any of their new friends, and they'd all felt the weight of time passing in a foreign country more than ever.

    Sakura had turned fourteen the day before they'd left; Sasuke had four months later. If this kept up, Naruto would be next in another three. It made everything that much more concrete and inescapable. Amegakure would always be a part of them now, no matter what.

    Naruto hadn't thought that fourteen was that big a jump, but sitting there in the crowded coffee shop and seeing Sasuke talk about something like a sponsorship, he felt like both his friends were definitively older than him now. Bringing a fish back to life didn't feel as impressive as it should have.

    "It was for an independent academy," he said, his teammates nodding along. Ame had an official academy run by the Nation's government just like Konoha, but it also had many schools that had sprung up in the wake of so many foreign ninja immigrating to the country that taught independent specializations. Naruto figured it made sense; getting an apprenticeship in a place like Amegakure had to be chaotic, especially when new people (like him) were coming in all the time. They'd gotten privileged treatment from the Amekage for sure. "They wanted me to teach. Older shinobi. And to put my name on the place, I guess."

    He shifted, looking even more uncomfortable. Maybe a little angry. "They wanted an Uchiha to advertise for it."

    "Teach older shinobi?" Naruto asked with a blink, and Sakura gave him a meaningful glance. "Seriously? That's crazy. Who'd the heck you impress?"

    "I dunno, but I wish I hadn't." Sasuke narrowed his eyes, giving Sakura the same kind of look she'd given Naruto. "I didn't think it'd be appropriate. That's not what I'm here to do, you know?"

    Sakura took the shift in stride like a professional. Naruto guessed that she basically was now. She was most at home in Rain among them. That was probably why she'd been picked for the mission in the first place, right?

    "I've been asking about the Akatsuki, but Haku keeps telling me I'm not ready," she said with a frown. "And I don't want to seem too eager, or else they'll just keep me out longer. They want us here as long as possible so we'll be as good as permanent." She mulled over her words as Naruto felt a bizarre mix of disappointment and joy at the notion of staying. "But Sasuke, I did hear you're already being considered for Jonin."

    "And my brother?" he sneered. Sakura shook her head, and Naruto was surprised his friend could have just ignored news like that. His brother must have really been on his mind, more so than usual.

    "It's always the same story. No one has seen Fuu, Itachi, or Kakuzu the Immortal. Neither of them ever worked for Rain either." Sakura shifted. "I think there's really only one way I'll be able to prove that though."

    "How?" Sasuke bit out.

    "How?" Naruto asked at the same time, much more innocently, and Sakura smirked. She waited for the noise of the shop to intensify as some new people came through the door and set off the bell before leaning in just slightly, everyone at the table mirroring her.

    "There's only one person in Rain who can prove if something's true or not beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that's Nagato Uzumaki," she said, and Naruto found himself nodding along. Sakura had a way of speaking now that was confident and enthralling: sometimes he could barely remember the hesitance that had defined their time together before her match with Gaara.

    "That jutsu he used to interrogate me makes you tell the truth, and it's a two way street," Sakura continued. "That's why it…" she paused, her face twisting. "Right, you guys couldn't see it, right?" When they shook their heads, she grimaced. "It created this giant face, like a demon, and grabbed my tongue. Well, not my tongue: I think it was my chakra, or my soul, or something. But it grabbed my tongue so I couldn't talk and ask him questions right back."

    "You want to convince him to leave your tongue free," Sasuke said, finishing Sakura's thought before she could, and she sat back with a serious nod. He pursed his lips. "That would work, if you pulled it off. But how would you convince one of the Amekage to let you ask any question you wanted, let alone about something like that? If Rain really did use my brother…"

    "Maybe one of us could do it?" Naruto asked. He forged ahead even as Sakura frowned. "I mean, they know we were just following you, so maybe they'd be less, you know, suspicious isn't the right word but like, hesitant."

    "They'd treat us all the same," Sakura said. "They are right now, anyway." Naruto had to concede that with a nod. "I think that and joining the Akatsuki could happen at the same time," she said, tapping a finger against the wooden table. Naruto noticed that, for the first time he could remember, her nails were painted. They were the same shade as her hair, bright on her slender fingers.

    "I think at that point, I'd be trusted enough that I could reveal the full mission, and use that as leverage," Sakura continued. Now, Sasuke was nodding too. "I could tell them that I could inform the Hokage that I had the highest proof that Rain didn't have the Nanabi, and that a Yamanaka could confirm it. Then, suspicion would move from Rain to Itachi, like it should, and they would be in less danger. It could even become a joint venture to hunt him down, to prove their sincerity."

    "Unless they want people to think they have the Nanabi no matter what. Or they do have Fuu. And what if they just said no?" Naruto asked, and Sakura smiled sadly.

    "Anything like that would prove that they did, or that they wanted us to think that badly enough that it didn't matter either way," she said. "Either way, the mission would be accomplished. I think it's our best bet. What do you guys think?"

    "It's simple, which is good," Sasuke said. "And they trust you, Sakura, which will help." He crossed his arms. "But it still relies on you getting into the Akatsuki. And right away might be too fast. You may have to wait longer."

    "I will," Sakura said, mirroring him. "I'll do whatever it takes. And if I had to wait, if we had to wait, we could." She smiled. "We already have plenty of practice."

    ###

    On a sunny day in early October, just a week before his birthday, Naruto was told he'd be going to the border with the Land of Earth.

    "Why're you telling me?" he asked, feeling the urge to pace and suppressing it. The room wasn't too large, with a couch dominating one end of it, and he felt a little trapped with only two doors, one on either side. "Nonō usually gives me my missions."

    "And she'll be leading you on this one." Konan had been waiting when he'd arrived, wearing what he could only describe as a suit. It had been months since Naruto had seen any of the Amekage, but they always greeted him like it had just been yesterday. The woman was always kind, but particularly to him, Naruto thought. Even if Sakura was the reason he was here, the compliment she'd given him on that night they'd defected had been heartfelt. "You and Kabuto. More people shouldn't be necessary."

    "Okay, that's cool, but why isn't she the one telling me?" Naruto asked, giving in and standing up. He wondered why three medics were being sent: he and Kabuto sometimes went on the same missions, but never the both of them and Nonō. Konan smiled.

    "Because Yahiko and Nagato wanted me to check in with you," she said, and Naruto frowned. "Sakura and Sasuke have all been making incredible progress, and you have as well. Nonō has reported that your medical jutsu has become incredibly impressive."

    He didn't buy it. "But I'm still having trouble with people," he said. Konan conceded with a graceful nod.

    "You're still having trouble with people," she acknowledged. "Have you thought about why that is?"

    "Yeah," Naruto said, looking at his hand, seeing its anatomy laid out in his mind. "No. I don't know. It's not the chakra. And I've never had a problem with responsibility. With hurting people…" He remembered the rogue ninja in Waterfall, the way he'd slammed the Rasengan into her hand and destroyed her arm, bones exploding out of her jacket as her entire body twisted, ribs and spine probably snapping beneath the skin. "I don't get it. I can visualize everything, but as soon as I try, I just lose focus." He let out a frustrated breath. "I was doing good until I wasn't. I dunno what's stopping me. I'm sorry."

    "You're not a natural medic," Konan said, and Naruto felt his heart sink. "You have cooperative chakra, just like your personality, but that's only part of the equation when it comes to Iryojutsu." She held up a hand, clenched it into a fist. "Medical jutsu is about forcing the other person's chakra, their body itself, to follow your commands."

    Her smile faded. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I believe it's the same reason you're still a Genin while Sakura and Sasuke have both already been promoted. You're not good at asserting yourself, Naruto."

    "Well that's a bunch of bullshit," Naruto groused. Konan laughed. "I used to bust in on my dad all the time. Obito was always complaining about me putting my nose where it didn't belong-"

    "You were asserting your privilege," the woman said patiently. "You were the son of the Hokage, and acted with surety. But you never pushed beyond the pale. I bet the most you ever went against anyone's wishes was coming here, and that was because you didn't want Sakura to be alone. And here, you're just another shinobi." She crossed her arms. "You can heal yourself, right?"

    "Of course," Naruto said. That had been the first thing he'd tried when he'd started having trouble months ago, and it had only made his frustration more acute.

    "Because it's your own body. But when it comes to others, you don't like forcing them to do what you want. You prefer to convince them. You've got the charisma for it." Now, Konan's smile was a little fierce. "But you're a shinobi. You're the son of the Fourth. That's a bad habit to have in your position. Break it."

    "You're saying I can hurt people but can't heal them," Naruto said. "It doesn't make any sense."

    "It doesn't," Konan said, sweeping around the couch and pinning him with her golden eyes. "People like to pretend chakra is a science, and it can be seen that way." She let part of her hand morph into a butterfly, flapping once before it returned to its normal form. "But at its core, it's an expression of our bodies and souls. Even if it can be studied and replicated countless times, there will always be an individual element that cannot be accounted for." Her gaze grew heavy. "That was what Ninshu was; that individuality. Ninjutsu is its replication. Iryojutsu stands on the line between the two. Even if its principles can be taught, no one will heal the same way."

    Naruto shifted, uncomfortable with Konan's intensity, and the woman broke eye contact. "You'll figure it out," she said, quiet and confident. "For now, be ready for your mission in two days."

    "Yeah," Naruto said, turning to leave. "I'll be ready."

    ###

    Four days later, Naruto Namikaze was stalking a woman who was probably only a little older than him.

    The woman didn't look like a thief, Naruto thought as he sidled through the crowds congregating around the bright pinstripe tables. She had none of the nervous energy that he associated with people who stole, even habitually. She was just slouched over at a colored table on the other side of the room, looking bored and smoking a cigarette held between her slender fingers.

    "Sure that's her?" he muttered, trying not to stick out even though that was impossible. He was a kid in a literal casino; even if he was wearing casual clothes, black shorts and an orange tee-shirt, he was still getting weird looks from some of the adults around, trying to figure out if he was going to be a problem or just someone looking for his parents. Someone laughed and gestured at him, and he tried to melt into the background, keeping the woman in his peripheral vision. The floor was long and wide, and there was a sweeping balcony made of dark wood overlooking it from the second floor.

    "Absolutely." Nonō's voice was quiet in his ear. The radio-piece he'd been given was smaller than anything he'd seen in Konoha, but its battery apparently ran out quickly. He'd only switched it on five minutes ago and the woman's voice was already getting tinny. "She's got the scars." She did: Naruto could see the mottled tissue twisting in a curve from below the woman's ear to the edge of her lip, and another on the side of her neck.

    "I thought the Kaguya clan had rapid regeneration capabilities." Kabuto's voice was clearer than his mother's, probably because he was closer. Naruto didn't glance his way, but he knew his teammate was just across the floor on the other side of the building.

    "That's a gift reserved for those who've awakened the bloodline," Nonō said, "like Kimimaro. The rest scar like anyone else."

    Naruto hadn't known that, and judging by his silence Kabuto hadn't either. They and Nonō had been sent out here in search of the woman with a scar, and Nonō had only told them more about the VIP when they'd arrived in the city of Ishima. The city was small and new, and sat right on the border with the Land of Earth. Everywhere Naruto had looked there was new construction: he got the feeling this place had been knocked down a lot in the past, and now Rain had the money to put it back together. Right now, it seemed to be a tourist town with lots of hotels, restaurants, and casinos, with a lot of them advertising tours of the nearby mountains.

    The city was set in a valley surrounded by towering mountains, like sharp stone teeth, and that was pretty cool. It did make Naruto think of being inside the mouth of a giant monster though, which was less cool. When Kabuto had started asking around about a woman with obvious scars, they'd been directed to this casino. Naruto hadn't caught the name, but Kabuto had laughed at it.

    The woman was Kagami Kaguya, apparently a part of the same clan that Commander Kimimaro was. As Naruto had been told, most of them were dead now, but there were still some left and she was one of them. The fact that Konan had given them this mission herself meant that the Akatsuki were interested in her; since she was related to the commander, Naruto felt that was a no-brainer.

    But if bringing Kagami back was their goal, they were definitely going about it in a really suspicious way. Naruto had the feeling Nonō was worried the woman would run for it the second she knew she was being followed.

    There were other shinobi here, Naruto was sure. He'd seen one young girl with dark hair and a Hidden Stone headband loitering near the door, but she hadn't seen him. He felt like he was getting better at not sticking out ever since he'd come to Rain, or maybe that was just because it had always been impossible back home. He was taller now: he was less than a week from turning fourteen. Maybe even people back home wouldn't recognize him right away now.

    Had it already been that long?

    "Naruto." He straightened up at Nonō's tone; she was somewhere on the second floor, keeping watch over him. "Make the approach. Kabuto will back you up. We don't know if Kagami will want to return with us or not, so just get a feel for her."

    "So what, just say hi?" he muttered, and he heard Nonō laugh.

    "Charm her," the woman suggested coyly. Naruto shrugged and started moving in, picking his way through the crowd. He tried to approach from an angle that would let the woman see him coming, but if she did see him coming she didn't react. She just kept smoking her cigarette and said something to the man in a suit manning her table. He pulled a contraption on the side and a ball began spinning around the colored wheel in the center. It stopped after a second, settling into a depression.

    Whatever the result was, it wasn't good for Kagami: she grimaced and pushed a large pile of her chips towards the dealer. There were others at the table, mostly older men, and one of them let out a hearty laugh. Naruto drew closer from the side and the woman finally turned to acknowledge him, her cigarette drooping from her lips.

    "Jeez," she said, clicking her tongue. He wondered how she did that without dropping the cigarette. Now that she was facing him head-on, he could see the scar on the side of her face wasn't the only one: there were other smaller ones dotting her cheeks, and more gathered around her clavicle, all thin and pale. She wore a deeply cut dress that revealed them without shame.

    "Not having a good day?" Naruto asked, and Kagami laughed.

    "Even worse now. Are you even old enough to be allowed in here?" she asked. Naruto shrugged.

    "No one stopped me from coming in," he said, peering over the table. Everyone else there was regarding him carefully. He had the Nation of Rain's hitai-ate tied around his right bicep, and he saw one of the men recognize it, his eyes flickering with vague concern. "What kind of game is this?"

    "It's a roulette wheel," Kagami said. "It's pretty simple. You make a bet on where you think the ball will land."

    "What, that's it?" Naruto cocked his head. The woman wasn't surprised by him approaching: she'd might have noticed him a while ago, which meant if she hadn't run then, she wouldn't run now. He wondered how old she was; it could have been anywhere between twenty and thirty. "What kind of bets?"

    "You know, colors, numbers, evens, odds, that sort of thing." Kagami put out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray, shifting to glance at him. She had short white hair, and it made her look older than she was. "Why are you here? You're a shinobi with Rain, right?"

    "I dunno," Naruto said, standing beside her. The table had turned away and back to the wheel, apparently losing interest in their conversation. Two ninja muttering to one another wasn't worth worrying about "Apparently to talk to you. I didn't get much else."

    "Talk to me about what?" The wheel spun again: the ball fell into a double-zero, and the whole table groaned.

    "About coming back to Rain with us, I think," Naruto said. "You're a Kaguya, right? Someone from your clan is already big news there. I bet they'd be happy to see you."

    The woman stared at him, her pale eyes unreadable.

    "Do you believe in luck?" she said, the question sudden and nonsensical, and Naruto cocked his head.

    "Well, yeah, doesn't everyone?" he said. She snorted.

    "There's people who believe in luck and there's people who believe in random chance. In other words, there are people who understand how things work and there are people who are fools." She glanced at the table. "Make a bet, why don't you?"

    "I don't have a lot of money," Naruto said, and the woman scoffed. He grinned. "How about… if I win, you've gotta keep talking to me?"

    "That's not worth much," the woman noted sourly, and Naruto didn't let his smile falter. He examined the wheel. Part of him was looking it over with an eye for how it tilted, where it was most likely in terms of the speed of the rotation for the ball to end up given where it was inserted.

    But Sasuke had always been better at that sort of stuff, so Naruto ended up going with his gut.

    "Red twenty-eight," he declared. It was a lucky number and a lucky color, after all. The dealer shrugged; the wheel spun, and the ball clattered.

    It landed right on the red twenty-eight, and Naruto blinked. He turned back to Kagami, not even trying to hide his surprise, and found her just as shocked as him.

    "Jeez," she muttered again. She scooted back, making more room for Naruto to sit besides her. "Now I'd be stupid not to."

    "Just cause I got lucky?" Naruto asked, plopping down on a stool and stretching his arms, and the woman gave him a wry look.

    "I've been unlucky my whole life, so maybe you'll cancel it out," she said. Naruto couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

    "Is that why you're here?" he asked. "And if you're unlucky, I don't think you should be gambling," he continued with a frown.

    Kagami laughed, a rough sound. "Gambling isn't about luck." She glanced at the table. "Usually," she amended. "It's about playing the odds. As for why I'm here, they really didn't tell you jack, huh?" She cupped her chin in one palm. "Or maybe Rain just heard a rumor and sent you off?"

    "That might be it," Naruto admitted with a shrug. He could see Kabuto checking on him from across the room, and smiled at both Kagami and his teammate. "But we did hear that you stole something from the Hidden Stone."

    "Stole something?" the woman said with amusement. "If that's what you heard, it's backward. They're the ones who stole from me."

    "What do you mean?" Naruto asked. Kagami shook her head.

    "It doesn't really matter," she said, nodding up towards one of the raised galleries. "They're probably just going to drag me back anyway. I was lucky to make it this side of the border."

    Naruto followed her line of sight and found who she was looking at: it was the girl from Stone, the one with dark hair and darker eyes. She was watching the both of them, he realized, leaning against the railing and taking in the whole casino.

    "She's from Stone," Kagami said, looking back at the table. "I'm sure you can tell. She's been following me for a while; her and some others, but she's the only one I've seen. They didn't stop me from leaving the country, but now that you guys are here, they're probably going to make their move."

    "Why wouldn't they stop you?" Naruto asked, his face screwing up. The woman shrugged.

    "Most likely they were worried about me getting hurt. But now they won't have a choice." She sighed. "Morons."

    "Do you know who she is?" Naruto asked after a second. He could see Kabuto starting to make his way over to him from across the room, apparently drawn by the revelation of the Stone shinobi. He was sure he and Nonō could hear the whole conversation.

    "No," Kagami said, looking irritated. "Some kid. Does it matter?"

    "I guess not," Naruto admitted. "But we might have to talk to her. A name might have helped, you know?"

    Kagami gave him a strange look, and Naruto cocked his head and smiled uncertainly. Her pale eyes narrowed.

    "You said there was another Kaguya in Rain," she said, and Naruto nodded. He could tell the Stone girl was watching him. He hoped Nonō was doing something about it. "What's their name?"

    "Kimimaro," he said. Kagami laughed.

    "Figures." She noticed his confused look. "That guy was the first in a generation to fully awaken the Shikotsumyaku. He was the reason the clan got themselves killed; they were so excited for him." She reached for the cigarette she'd left in the ashtray, and then thought better of it. "Bunch of morons."

    "But you were okay?" Naruto asked, and Kagami cocked her head. "If your clan had something happen to them…"

    "I was defective," the woman sneered. "I wasn't around for that shitshow."

    "Okay…" Naruto said slowly, realizing he'd stepped into something way beyond what he was ready to talk about. "Well… I guess that was kinda lucky, huh?"

    Kagami froze. Naruto realized he'd said the wrong thing. Everyone else at the table drew back a little, sensing the tension and trying to distract themselves with louder conversations with one another. The dealer was starting to look irritated, probably getting ready to push them somewhere else.

    "You really don't understand," the woman eventually said with a sneer. "I bet you're the kind of kid who grew up with a silver spoon shoved down your throat, huh?"

    "Hey." Naruto held up his hands. "That's not what I-"

    "The Kaguya were a pack of lunatics," the woman said, slowly turning on him with smoldering grey eyes. "They were convinced they were the sole inheritors of the world, and that it was every other ninja's duty to die. They made the women bear countless children in the hopes that one would manifest the Bloodline, and the ones that failed were treated like scum for not getting lucky." Her hand shot out, grabbing Naruto by the collar, and he frowned back at her snarling face. "Or worse, the ones like me-!"

    "Let go of me," Naruto declared, trying not to bare his teeth, and he knocked Kagami's hands from his shirt with a single quick strike. Her hands were delicate, he felt from just a touch, the bones thin. If he'd hit too hard, he might even have broken them. She withdrew in obvious pain, and he felt an immediate stab of guilt. "Sorry! I didn't mean to-!"

    "You acted without thinking, like all ninja," Kagami hissed, curling back in her chair. She was obviously afraid of him now, and the guilt in Naruto's chest threatened to choke him. "I saw you making yourself obvious, trying to act friendly, but this was always how it was going to be. You came here to drag me back to more people who want to use me. Just like my clan, just like Stone. Rain is exactly the same as the rest."

    Naruto was forced to step back, as if the woman's words were a physical blow, but before he could say anything Kabuto was there, gently taking hold of Kagami's shoulder. The woman flinched away. Now, everyone else at the table was studiously ignoring them. Ninja business, Naruto was sure they were thinking. No reason to get involved; better to stay a bystander. He felt nauseous.

    "Ma'am," Kabuto said respectfully, and Kagami snorted at the appellation. "Please don't misunderstand the situation. If you wish to return to Stone instead, we'll be happy to let them take you."

    To that, Kagami didn't say a thing. Kabuto looked over her shoulder at Naruto. "Naruto, mother is keeping an eye out for the other Stone shinobi. While she's doing that, she wants you to approach the other. I'll stay with Kagami." He ran his hand lightly over her wrist, chakra flaring for an instant, and the woman blinked, her bruised wrist healed in an instant. "Find out if we can negotiate. The village has given us as much credit as necessary to resolve any situations like this."

    So Konan had known this was a possibility. Naruto didn't know what Kagami had been up to in the Land of Earth, but the Amekage clearly had. He nodded, once, curtly, trying to quell his nausea, and turned and walked away, searching for a way to the second floor. There were several winding spiral staircases of beautiful red wood that twined their way up various pillars to the balconies above, and he went up the nearest one, brushing past people and eliciting a rude remark from an older woman.

    The girl from the Hidden Stone didn't move as he approached. She glanced at him, and then looked back to Kagami, keeping her face blank. Naruto stopped alongside her and leaned onto the balcony, his arms crossed and his chin resting on them. To anyone else, they would have looked like two kids just hanging out. She was a little younger than him though, maybe twelve or even eleven.

    He wondered if Stone was graduating kids earlier than Konoha was.

    "Hey," he asked. She still didn't move. "What's your name?"

    The girl looked over at him, and Naruto smiled. Her facade broke. Even if she tried to hide it, her lip twitched a little, a return smile ending before it could begin.

    "Tamako," she said flatly, regaining her cool. "And I probably shouldn't be talking to you."

    "Why?" Naruto asked. "Just cause I'm from Rain?"

    "Just cause you're from Rain," she confirmed. "We were told not to talk to you guys."

    "Well, we can be pretty persuasive," Naruto said with a grin. Tamako rolled her eyes, and Naruto snorted. "You guys are after Kagami too, right? My… teacher's hoping we can figure something out. We don't wanna fight or anything like that." He tripped over Nonō's title: he'd never really called her that before, even if it was accurate.

    "She belongs to the Hidden Stone," Tamako said, trying to sound much older than she was. "She can't leave just because she doesn't like it anymore."

    Naruto frowned. "Well, I don't think someone can belong to a village," he said, a little offended on Kagami's behalf. "If she doesn't want to stay there, why should she?"

    "Because she agreed to," Tamako said, and Naruto was all of the sudden very aware of the difference two or three years could be. "But you're from Rain. You guys don't understand loyalty."

    "You shouldn't assume things like that," Naruto said with a frown. "First off, it's kinda rude, second off, we can totally grab her and run if we want. It's just you here." He smiled, trying to look smug and stupid.

    It worked. The girl rolled her eyes again. "Yui-sensei would catch you guys in a second," she said, before she blinked, realizing her mistake.

    "Yui-sensei?" Naruto asked innocently. "Who's she? She sounds cool."

    "None of your business," the girl grumbled, turning back to look over the balcony. Naruto laughed.

    "Well I mean, how much do you think your village would want for Kagami?" he asked, trying not to think about bartering over a person. Tamako blew a raspberry in response. "C'mon, be serious. 100,000 Ryo?"

    The girl looked over at him in obvious disbelief, and he raised his eyebrows. "What, too low? What about 200,000 then?"

    "She's worth more than money," Tamako said slowly, like she was talking to a toddler, and Naruto felt a faint flush of anger creep up his neck. "Is that really how Rain ninja think? That you can just buy someone?" She gave him a pitying look, obviously stolen from an adult. "Is that how they got you? Or were you born there, too dumb to see what was around you?"

    "Nah," Naruto said, trying to defuse his own anger. "I just liked the weather."

    Again, Tamako barely managed to control her smile. "Forget it then," she said, sinking into her folded arms. "If you wanna take Kagami, feel free to try. We'll stop you." She sighed. "She's not even a real ninja, so don't imagine she's going to help you or anything."

    "I don't really wanna fight you," Naruto said, mirroring her posture. "You're just a kid."

    "You're just a kid," Tamako shot back. "What're you, twelve?"

    "What're you, ten?" Naruto jabbed, and the girl went red.

    "I'm eleven!" she declared, obviously proud of the fact, and Naruto laughed.

    "Well, imma be fourteen next week, so you're a kid and I'm a teenager," he said, enunciating the word. "So I still don't want to fight you."

    "You'll only be a teenager next week," Tamako sulked, and Naruto shook his head.

    "Thirteen," he enunciated again, and Tamako sighed.

    "Who cares," she said in the tone of someone who didn't want to acknowledge they'd lost a dumb argument. "We're both shinobi. Shouldn't that be what matters?"

    "Why should shinobi be more willing to fight than anyone else?" Naruto asked. The casino was still bustling, and it looked like Kabuto had calmed down Kagami somehow. They had retreated from the table and were quietly talking near a large potted plant that looked like someone had stolen a whole tree and plopped it down in the middle of the floor.

    "Cause it's our job," Tamako said, giving him a look that clearly said he was stupid, and Naruto stuck out his tongue.

    "It's our job to follow orders," he said. "Complete missions. No one told me to fight anyone when I came here. Just to come back with Kagami."

    "Well, I got told the same thing," Tamaki said quietly. "And we can't split her in half."

    "Gross," Naruto said with a smirk, and he finally got a laugh out of the smaller girl. "But I guess you're right about that. If we can't resolve it another way… we might have to fight."

    "Yeah. We might." Tamako seemed more withdrawn now; maybe he'd actually said something that had gotten through to her. Naruto hoped so: he didn't want to spend the week before his birthday beating up a younger girl. She pushed herself off the bannister, and he caught a glimpse of something in her ear. An earpiece? If it was, it was the same size as his, and so similarly short ranged.

    "I didn't get your name," she said, still a little sad, still withdrawn and young, and Naruto spoke without thinking.

    "Naruto," he said. He spoke without thinking, and instantly regretted it.

    Tamako did not do anything very obvious, but any shinobi could see the way her entire body tensed and then forcibly relaxed. She blinked, subconsciously shifting just an inch away from Naruto, and glanced over at him. He mutely watched as she scanned his hair, his face, his eyes.

    'You look just like him.' The distant words, delivered with such hatred almost a year ago, made Naruto's entire body squirm. It wasn't true. He looked like his mom. But he did have his dad's hair and eyes, and he could see in an instant that Tamako had seen it.

    "I have to go," she said. She sounded scared. As she turned, Naruto reached out.

    "Wait-" he started to say, but it was far too late. Tamako practically ran from him, bowling over a younger guy in a suit who was making his way along the balcony. He snatched after her as well, hopelessly slow, and scowled in her wake.

    "Nonō," Naruto said, pressing his finger to his ear with a grimace. "I fucked up."

    "I heard," Nonō's voice came through even quieter. "Kabuto is securing Kagami. Meet up with him. We should leave. I'll keep watch on you two." He looked around the casino, not seeing her. Nonō had a way of melting into the background that was outright supernatural.

    Naruto made his way back downstairs. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He couldn't stop thinking it the whole time. You remember what happened last time you met people from Stone, right? Kabuto and Kagami were still by the tree, both subdued.

    "We're leaving," he told them, and Kabuto nodded. Kagami just stared at him, mute. "I messed up."

    "Let's hurry then," Kabuto noted, and he and Naruto began pushing towards the exit. In the crush of the crowd, Naruto felt a bit more secure. Kagami walked between the two of them; he could tell she was taking long, deep breaths, and shot her a questioning look.

    "You alright?" he asked, and she rolled her eyes.

    "I'm being kidnapped," she said. Kabuto chuckled.

    "Yes, but very politely," he said, steering them between a row of garish slot machines covered in mostly nude women. Naruto tried not to stare. "Hopefully that takes some of the sting away."

    "It really doesn't," Kagami said. Naruto could feel her clenching and unclenching her hand rhythmically, like she was trying to keep her arm under control, the same as her breathing. "You don't understand what you're doing. I'm not worth taking."

    "Stone has a team watching you," Kabuto said, still all smiling sincerity. "So I doubt that's completely true."

    "She's following," Nonō noted over their headset. "Naruto, stay calm. I'm on her. Keep an eye out for the other one, you two."

    Naruto nodded, and Kabuto gave him a concerned look. "You didn't know her, right?" he said, speaking over Kagami's shoulder. "That shinobi?"

    "No way." His throat was dry. "It's my dad. I've met… it's just like that team in the Exam. Remember them?" He laughed, trying to relax but keenly aware that he might have started a stone rolling that he couldn't stop. "Shouldn't have told her my name."

    "Your father?" Kagami asked. They were close to the exit now, and she looked him over more carefully now, her eyes growing just a little wider. "Who's your father?"

    "Does it matter?" Naruto muttered, pushing them all out into the sunlight. It was barely past two and the sun was only just heading for the horizon, casting short shadows through the city streets. Ishima was covered in towering traditionally constructed buildings and gleaming new concrete and glass structures standing side by side with empty lots and half-built piles of concrete and rebar, and Naruto glanced around, trying to figure out the best way to go. The street was mostly empty. Right now, that was actually really bad.

    "I didn't see the other," Kabuto noted. "Mom will be fine; we should start running." He released Kagami's sleeve, turning to her. "Are you going to try and escape?"

    "How far would I get?" the woman asked bitterly, and Kabuto shrugged.

    "That depends on how fast you are," he said guilelessly, and the woman let out a choked laugh.

    "Maybe they'll chase you," she told Naruto, "If they care about your father that much. Give your friend here a better chance to carry me off."

    "That'd be a bad idea," Naruto grunted. "And I don't talk to my dad anymore."

    "Ha!" The same choked laugh, but it was filled with genuine amusement. "Maybe tell them that." Kagami's tone grew a little colder. "But I think you know that sometimes people only care about who you're related to, don't you Naruto?" He looked back at her, and she crossed her arms. "After all, you dragged me out of there without a second thought."

    He winced, trying not to think about the full implications of that, and as he did Nonō emerged from the building.

    "Wherever that girl's sensei is, she's well concealed." She came to Naruto and Kabuto's side, giving Kagami a brief nod. The other woman didn't return the greeting. "We'll have to stick together."

    Because he was a VIP to the Stone ninja now too, Naruto knew. That meant Nonō had two people to keep an eye on. He felt dumber than ever.

    "Any law enforcement we can inform?" Kabuto asked, and Nonō shook her head.

    "None that could stop shinobi, and Ame doesn't have any other teams in this area." She pursed her lips. "Our best chance is to just run for it, and hope they're not dumb enough to chase us. The closer we are to the village, the safer we'll be. It's only a day from here."

    "But once we leave the city…" Naruto said, trailing off.

    "Precisely. They won't have any reason not to engage us," Nonō confirmed. "So let's go, now, before they have time to think about it."

    "We've had plenty of time."

    Nonō stiffened and turned, and Naruto turned with her, looking across the nearly empty street. There was a building under construction across from the casino, probably yet another future hotel: a concrete and steel skeleton more than ten stories tall, with nothing but floors put in yet. Standing on the third story, staring down at them with her arms at her sides, was a woman with deep purple hair held in a long ponytail. She wore a dark red hoodie and black pants, and had a Stone hitai-ate wrapped around her left bicep.

    She was staring down at all of them with her face twisted in obvious hatred. No, Naruto realized, not at all of them.

    Just at him. A chill ran from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head.

    Kabuto looked around, his face placid, and Naruto followed his gaze. There were three more shinobi, he saw, each at an exit to the intersection. Tamako, the girl he'd talked to, and two more boys, one tall and grim with a shock of red hair and the other short and unremarkable. They all looked younger than Naruto, but the way they'd set themselves up around them without attracting any attention showed some skill.

    "Take some more then," Nonō called up. Naruto watched as a couple of the people who'd staggered out of the casino with them decided that literally anywhere else would be a better place to be. They didn't seem surprised, just in a hurry. Was this how the borders were in Rain? Did shinobi from Stone do this sort of thing often?

    Or just for him?

    "Rain and Stone have no quarrel," she continued, and the woman on the building, who Naruto had no doubt was the Yui-sensei that Tamako had mentioned, laughed.

    "You're right!" she said. "But you're trying to take something that belongs to us, so we're about to have one." Her face twisted. "And even worse, you brought him to do it. The Amekage must be even bigger idiots than we thought."

    Naruto moved to speak and Nonō shut him up with a single curt wave of her hand. "Kagami has the freedom to leave the Land of Earth," she said. Naruto was sure he could hear Yui's teeth grinding. "You have no business stopping her. You don't want to cause an international incident, do you?"

    "We're not going to stop her," Yui said. She smiled, her dark eyes crinkling up. "We're going to kill Naruto Namikaze, and we're going to politely convince her to return with us before something that ugly happens to the rest of her new friends." She squatted, hands hanging over the edge of the building. "Isn't that right, Kagami Kaguya?"

    Naruto narrowed his eyes, his heart speeding up. Yui had kunai hanging from each finger, eight in total that had suddenly appeared as if by magic, but the knives alone didn't interest him. Each was covered in a thick whorling script, ink worked into the very metal of the blades. Jutsu formula, and complicated enough that it would take a day's worth of work for just a single knife, he was sure. He couldn't make out their designs from this distance, but they all swirled with a uniform spiral, converging on a single point at the tip of the blade.

    Kagami lowered her head, her breathing speeding up. She looked like she was on the edge of a panic attack. Nonō sighed, turning to Naruto while keeping her eye on Yui.

    "Naruto," she said, and he looked up at her. She gave him a cheerful smile. Behind her, Kabuto was slowly rotating, watching the other Stone ninja. He gave Naruto a half-grin as he completed his spin, pulling a kunai and some ninja wire from his pocket.

    Nonō's smile faded. "Get ready to run, okay?"

    And then everyone moved at once.

    ###

    AN: In the spirit of trying to get back in author's notes and actually engage with the audience more directly, one of serial fiction's greatest strengths, I thought I'd pick up an old habit of talking about how a chapter developed and what about it worried me. I've always found medical jutsu pretty fascinating, particularly right now while I'm recovering from surgery and wishing I could just hit up a teenager with magic hands, so this chapter was pretty exciting for me, and I was glad to see that the Boruto anime has expanded at least a little on the mechanics of how exactly it works: very neat stuff.

    But on the flip side, OC heavy chapters always make me nervous. A lot of people read fanfics for familiar characters, especially fics like Obito-Sensei that are all about seeing where people have ended up in dramatically different circumstances. So when you start bringing in new names like Kagami, Tamako, Yui, it's gotta be a delicate balancing act. They have to feel real, at home in the universe: if they stick out, it breaks SOD immediately, and that's just about my worst nightmare. Hopefully they fit in here, and hopefully you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reading!
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Interesting stuff! I like this take on Naruto, and his delving into medical ninjutsu is interesting. Looking forward to where it goes.

    Your OCs are neat too. Always feel like an organic part of the world.
     
    Ser_Serendipity said:
    "Because it's your own body. But when it comes to others, you don't like forcing them to do what you want. You prefer to convince them. You've got the charisma for it." Now, Konan's smile was a little fierce. "But you're a shinobi. You're the son of the Fourth. That's a bad habit to have in your position. Break it."
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    Ser_Serendipity said:
    Her face twisted. "And even worse, you brought him to do it. The Amekage must be even bigger idiots than we thought."
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    So they have sent Naruto to get the softness beat out of him.
     
    This is definitely a lesson or philosophical point being made to Naruto, and I'm interested to see if he figures that out?

    I also wanna know more about these new characters though! I hope that Kagami doesn't end up going to Rain, I think. Her autonomy is being stomped over a bit, and even if it's for her own good, and keeps her out of stone...
     
    I do wonder how good our kids are, comparatively. Naruto is stuck at genin (as always, it seems), but Sasuke just said he might be getting Jonin soon, and Sakura is being awesome, so I'm sort of adrift in comparisons. Naruto is younger than post Shippuden, but he seems to be doing better than immediately after the timeskip.

    It does make me wonder, if people like him can be held back due to lack of certain skills, how indicative Chunin/Jonin truly is as a measure of skill or power.


    Anyway, Go Rain! Rain is the best! Rain, Rain Rain! Love them in this, even if they're not completely clean. Who is in this world?
     
    Unseelie said:
    Interestingly, all images of roulette wheels I could find had black 28s.
    Maybe it's different in the elemental nations.
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    Yes... let's go with that.
    curiosity said:
    So they have sent Naruto to get the softness beat out of him.
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    What a harsh and suspicious assumption! Why, that would be almost sinister, especially depending on how this goes, lol.

    That said, it is strange for a team to be comprised of three medics :thonk:
    NemoMarx said:
    This is definitely a lesson or philosophical point being made to Naruto, and I'm interested to see if he figures that out?

    I also wanna know more about these new characters though! I hope that Kagami doesn't end up going to Rain, I think. Her autonomy is being stomped over a bit, and even if it's for her own good, and keeps her out of stone...
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    Kagami is definitely a tragic figure. More on that, uh, next chapter.
    Estro said:
    I do wonder how good our kids are, comparatively. Naruto is stuck at genin (as always, it seems), but Sasuke just said he might be getting Jonin soon, and Sakura is being awesome, so I'm sort of adrift in comparisons. Naruto is younger than post Shippuden, but he seems to be doing better than immediately after the timeskip.

    It does make me wonder, if people like him can be held back due to lack of certain skills, how indicative Chunin/Jonin truly is as a measure of skill or power.
    Click to expand...
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    Team 7 is pretty stronk compared to the average ninja atm, but that's been the case for a while. Mastering Rasengan alone is a big jump in control and power, and they all have that under their belts. Ranking is never really about power, but responsibility and discipline.
    Estro said:
    Anyway, Go Rain! Rain is the best! Rain, Rain Rain! Love them in this, even if they're not completely clean. Who is in this world?
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    Glad to hear that! If Rain weren't somewhat sympathetic the story just flat out wouldn't work, right? Thanks for your comments, and thanks for reading!
     
    Ser_Serendipity said:
    Here's Your First and Final Test
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    The question is if he's failed it, and this is to 'toughen him up' or maybe...

    Maybe he's passed it? The pure medic team comp is suspicious, but then again it's been said he doesn't quite have to right mindset maybe... But independent techniques/self healing could still be pretty valuable in an operative, and maybe it's a test to see if his attitude will crack or he can keep going strong. Both would be valuable i think.

    Wondering if Naruto can actually salvage this clusterfuck, but then again he's also fundamentaly a different person to the og- his differing sense of loyalty for one.
     
    Last edited:
    Woah, it's really nice to be back with Naruto! Missed him and our team 7 development. Love to see Naruto get targeted for his dad haha should be fun.

    Really fun chapter with nice OCs :)
     
    Chapter 43: Some Context
  • Threadmarks
    • A Shinobi Is Hatred​

    Naruto and Kabuto went the same direction, carrying Kagami between them like a heavy package. The girl had gone limp, her breathing uncontrolled and rapid, and she dragged them a little as they broke into a sprint. Naruto only had to glance at his friend to know that he was thinking the same thing. As they began to move, Kabuto threw out his kunai and the wire he'd spooled around it in an underhand toss.

    Nonō hadn't followed them: she'd begun advancing towards the Stone shinobi. She caught the kunai without looking and rotated it, the wire unspooling. She was going to buy them time to get out of Ishima, Naruto realized. If it came to a fight here, right in the middle of town, people could get hurt. That meant that if the Stone shinobi were too stupid to realize that or too mad to care it was their job to move first, to make sure no citizens of Rain were caught in a crossfire.

    All that and more passed through Naruto's mind in the blink of an eye, and then there wasn't any time for thoughts, just running. He and Kabuto both pushed themselves to full speed in an instant, tearing down the streets as people pressed themselves to the walls and the Stone team chased them. Naruto looked back at the rapidly receding crosswalk; Nonō had caught Tamako and thrown her across the street, but the woman, Yui was moving right at her. He couldn't see the other two: they must have been chasing after him instead.

    "Naruto!" Kabuto shouted. "I'll take her!" Naruto acted on instinct, dropping Kagami. She yelped: Kabuto scooped her up in both arms before any of them could miss a step and poured on more speed, a bit of his chakra leaking out and cracking the concrete below his feet as he exploded forward. The other boy was older and taller. He could carry the woman without any issue.

    They flew through the streets heading east, deeper into the Nation of Rain. The mountains that surrounded the city of Ishima would be the perfect place to hide, and beyond them were endless plateaus and deep valleys to get lost in. If the Stone team continued to chase them into the countryside, Naruto was sure that he and Kabuto would be able to ditch them, even with Kagami as a handicap.

    Plus, Nonō could call backup. There was no way Rain would just let Stone get away with this.

    Naruto chanced a glance back again after two minutes, when they were at the edge of the city. It was all new construction here, huge pits filled with half-built foundations and shaky looking skeletons of buildings made of rebar and concrete. In a year this would be a big commercial district, but right now it was just a whole bunch of dirt and holes and material.

    "Just leave me behind," Kagami muttered, and Naruto and Kabuto both glanced at her. She was bundled up in Kabuto's arms like a child, but the look on her face was utterly cold. "I don't want this."

    "So what, you wanna go back to Stone?" Naruto shot back as they vaulted over one of the pits, a forest of rebar beneath them, and Kagami shut her eyes tightly, looking even paler than before.

    "No," she said. "Not there…" As they landed, she let out a long breath. "I'll just kill myself. Then they won't chase you-"

    "They're chasing me, dipshit!" Naruto shouted, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Don't use me as an excuse! If you wanna die that bad-!"

    "I should never have been born!" Kagami screamed, loud enough that Kabuto almost missed a step. "You couldn't possibly understand!"

    As Kagami screamed in Naruto's face, there was an even louder BOOM from back in Ishima, and he and Kabuto both glanced back. Naruto blinked: a building had collapsed in the middle of the city, throwing up a thick plume of smoke and dust. He could see broken glass from nearby buildings shimmering in the air plummeting to the street below, like razor-sharp rain. Had that been Nonō-?

    In that moment of distraction, as both Naruto and Kabuto were looking back and racing past a particularly deep pit that would probably be a hotel's ground floor one day, someone hit Naruto from his blind side, hard, and sent him flying towards Kabuto.

    His friend's eyes went wide, and he just had time to let out a startled "Crap!" before Naruto crashed into him and Kagami and sent them tumbling down the steep slope. Naruto was close behind, going head over heels: after the second rotation, he took stock of the situation and came to a screeching halt, loose gravel crumbling away beneath his feet as his chakra tried to create a secure foothold.

    The guy who'd hit him was already right there: he'd thrown himself headlong down the slope after Naruto, his teeth bared. It was the tall Stone kid with red hair, his hitai-ate flapping in the wind.

    He was young, but Naruto could already feel a bruise forming on his ribs, and that banished whatever doubt the other ninja's age grew in him. The kid threw himself into a full-body kick and Naruto ducked and spun, the both of them still sliding down the steep hill, and put the enemy above him.

    He punched up, trying to knock the shinobi away, and the redhead snarled and caught Naruto's fist in his, making eye contact for a moment. His eyes were bright orange and full of anger; he twisted his whole body around the punch, releasing Naruto's fist, and threw another kick. Naruto had to be a little impressed as he watched it come.

    The guy was obviously a taijutsu specialist. He'd caught up with them even though they were running at mostly full speed, and had hit Naruto from the side without making a sound as soon as he was distracted. If he'd led with a knife or something, that coulda been really bad. For someone his age, it was super impressive.

    But he wasn't as fast as Rock Lee.

    Naruto caught the kick in the side, dropping back into the slope to lessen the impact, and locked his arm around the Stone ninja's leg before the guy could realize his mistake. Chakra kept the younger ninja from even pulling his leg back: the redhead tried one tug before his eyes went wide.

    "Sorry!" Naruto shouted, and then he spun with a roar, putting his entire body into the rotation and dragging the Stone ninja along in a clean arc. They reached the bottom of the slope at the same moment Naruto completed his spin: he smashed the kid headfirst into the gravel incline, digging a clean divot through it, and then tossed him away straight into a bundled pile of steel stakes. The bundle came apart with a loud crack as the shinobi smacked into it, and he lay there for a moment, obviously dazed, as stakes skittered away from him across the dirt.

    Naruto took a second to take in the situation. He and Kabuto were at the bottom of the pit, half-laid foundations and construction material all around them. It was a square, each side about thirty feet, with a twenty foot climb out. The Stone ninja was alone down here, but Naruto could hear more gravel shifting up above: someone else was coming, and not able to fully conceal themselves. Probably another kid.

    Kabuto was on the ground, Kagami on top of him. He'd shielded her with his body. She really wasn't much of a ninja, Naruto realized; the gravel had cut up one of her arms, and she was bleeding from a dozen scratches.

    By the time Naruto made his decision, his body was already moving. He charged the kid on the ground as he was unsteadily rising to his feet, determined to lay him out before he could collect himself. The redhead saw him coming and threw himself to the side, sliding across the dirt, but Naruto was on top of him, throwing his entire body into a brutal kick.

    "Takeshi!" someone called out from above, and before Naruto's eyes the Stone ninja sunk right into the ground before his kick could connect. He landed and spun, staring up towards where the voice had come from, but there was nothing up there but the sky.

    "Kabuto!" he called out; his friend had just made it to his feet. "They got away, into the ground. I think they've got some ninju-!"

    As Naruto was finishing his warning, a foot shot out from the ground and kicked him in the crotch.

    He wheezed, all the air knocked out of his body in an instant as the kick sent him a couple inches into the air. He was already scrambling forward when he landed, desperate to relocate: another blow came, a punch from his peripheral vision, and he rolled out of the way. By the time he turned back to look, whoever had thrown the punch was gone.

    "They're coming out of the ground," Kabuto said, apparently unruffled, as he stood amidst the half-finished foundations with Kagami at his side. He had released the woman's arm, but she wasn't running. Or killing herself, for which Naruto was definitely grateful. They both stood stock still, waiting for the Stone ninja to make a move. "Like a mole." He frowned.

    "But it's strange… they're not-"

    As Naruto watched another other Stone ninja, the short and unremarkable boy with black hair and black eyes, leapt from the ground behind Kabuto and stabbed him in the back. Kabuto swung back, but the boy ducked and was back underground in the blink of an eye. It was fast, Naruto thought. Way faster than he'd ever seen before. Even Obito had never been that fast.

    So how the hell was a kid like that doing it?
    "You okay?" Naruto called out. He had a couple bruises, but nothing serious. Kabuto coughed and yanked the knife out of his back, waving Naruto off as Kagami looked back and forth between the two of them with frightened eyes.

    "Fine. I got it," he said. The older boy took a deep breath, apparently waiting for something. Then, he sneered. Naruto cocked an eyebrow. It was a weird look for Kabuto; he spent enough time smiling that an expression like that looked fake on him.

    "They're just children, after all," he said, the sentence so unlike his friend that Naruto almost laughed. As he did, the redhead emerged from the ground behind him once more. Naruto twisted, kicking out at him, but the younger ninja dodged the attack with the same impossible speed his friend had. He returned the favor with a punch to Naruto's gut, and he fell back, feeling his whole torso curl up with the force of the blow.

    "Kai," Kabuto muttered, and then as Naruto leapt back from the other Stone ninja spun towards something Naruto couldn't see.

    "Gotcha~" he said, suddenly himself again, and thrust out a hand formed into a claw. Naruto blinked, and suddenly the empty space that Kabuto had moved towards was occupied: the other, black haired Stone ninja was there, with Kabuto's hand wrapped around his throat.
    The kid, even smaller than the redhead that Naruto had been fighting, scrambled for another knife at his waist, but Kabuto didn't give him a chance. He pulled him in and buried a fist in the Stone ninja's stomach before lifting him up. With one hand choking the kid and the other still embedded in his gut, Kabuto slammed him into the ground so hard that every loose piece of steel in the construction site jumped into the air.

    Naruto blinked again, not quite sure what had happened; in the same instant Kabuto had slammed the Stone ninja into the ground, the other one with red hair had appeared right in front of Naruto, mid-haymaker. He was about a millisecond away from getting a black eye.

    Once again, his body acted before his mind could catch up. Naruto dropped, sweeping the kid's legs and completed his rotation as the ninja began to fall, focusing all the force of his spin into his right elbow.

    Naruto didn't see the other ninja react to the hit: he just felt their nose break as he slammed his elbow into their face with enough force to crack concrete. The ninja from Stone flew backwards, tumbling across the ground and leaving a trail of blood behind him; when he came to a stop he rolled back and forth kicking his legs, hands pressed to his face as a high pitched whine of pain emerged from his mouth.

    "Hideaki…" he hissed from behind his hands. "Sorry… you gotta run…"

    "He's not going anywhere," Kabuto said conversationally, standing up and leaving the other kid, Hideaki, on the ground. Naruto panted, checking over both of them. Hideaki looked like he was completely unconscious: Kabuto hadn't held back. "That was a really impressive genjutsu you two put together. It must have taken a lot of practice."

    Genjutsu? Oh, duh. That was how they'd been so fast. Naruto looked around and realized the same thing that Kabuto must have: the ground wasn't disturbed anywhere. The illusion had made it seem like the Stone shinobi were tunnelling beneath them, but in reality they'd just been concealing themselves until the moment they struck. The technique had ended the moment Kabuto had knocked Hideaki out.

    "Hey," Naruto grunted, and the redhead peaked out from under his hands. They were both smeared with blood, and Naruto felt a twinge of regret: he'd hit him really hard. "Are you Takeshi?"

    "Yeah," the kid said, apparently bewildered. His voice was thick and nasally, slurring his words. "Why do you care?"

    Naruto walked towards him, and Takeshi flinched. He stopped; he didn't like that reaction at all. Actually, he outright hated it. "Sorry about that," he said, before frowning. "But you started it."

    "Sensei's gonna finish it," Takeshi muttered. He moved sporadically, too stunned to make real progress in any direction. "You're gonna regret this."

    "Why?" Naruto demanded, taking another step forward. "I didn't do a damn thing to any of you!" He bent down over Takeshi, looking him over. "You're not too beat up. My friend's a medic. If he fixes you up, will you guys leave?"

    Takeshi gave him an incredulous look. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked. Naruto grit his teeth.

    "Kabuto, would you heal these guys?" he asked over his shoulder, and Kabuto shrugged.

    "If they weren't our enemies," he said, and Takeshi looked back and forth between the two of them with something like panic. It was ridiculous, Naruto thought. Why the hell was he so scared? Just because of his dad?

    "Takeshi! Hideaki!" The familiar voice came from the top of the incline and Naruto cursed, jumping back to keep both Takeshi and the slope in his line of sight. He looked up and his heart sank: Tamako was there, and the Stone team's sensei, Yui. They were both staring down into the pit, assessing their teammate's condition.

    Tamako looked different though. The sun painfully reflected off her skin; it took Naruto a moment to realize that the girl's whole body was sheathed in something that looked like steel, even her hair. He blinked, reassessing the situation. That was either another illusion, a really impressive ninjutsu… or a Bloodline Limit. He'd heard about all sorts of Kekkei Genkai that could modify the body from his parents: turning to metal wouldn't be the weirdest one.

    And if that was the case, that meant this team was a pretty good taijutsu guy, an advanced genjutsu specialist, someone with a Bloodline Limit, and whatever sort of jutsu specialist Yui was with those custom knives of hers; three were hanging from her fingers now. That was more than ordinary: it was no wonder they'd graduated despite their age.

    He wondered how it worked. It couldn't be just a steel sheath because then force would still get through and it would only be cosmetic. The girl had to be transforming or coating her organs too… and muscles, or else her body would collapse under the weight. But her eyes were normal: he watched her blink as the sun reflected off her own arm, and noticed that her eyelids were normal too. Soft tissue didn't change then.

    She'd blinded herself for a second with her own glare? He frowned at the realization. It was like she wasn't used to her own body.

    "Where's Nonō?" Kabuto said placidly. Naruto couldn't help but admire him for staying so calm when talking about his own mother, but if he was feeling honest he was kinda the same way right now. Everything felt so distant and surreal; he honestly couldn't believe that it had come to this.

    "She's fine," Yui called down. "We have no interest in killing any shinobi of Rain. Only Naruto Namikaze. Doing otherwise, well, that wouldn't be very neighborly." The woman smirked. "I doubt a building being dropped on the Wandering Nun would do much more than slow her down, right?"

    Naruto hadn't heard that epitaph before. Nonō must have had a reputation before she went to Rain if the Wandering bit had any truth to it. He locked eyes with the woman, and her smirk transformed into a sneer.

    "You trying to act brave?" Yui asked, and she and Tamako began descending the slope. The younger girl was carefully keeping a neutral expression, but Naruto could see the cracks in her facade. She was worried, maybe even scared. "It won't make a difference."

    "I'm more just confused," Naruto admitted, and Kabuto laughed. He'd slowly come to Naruto's side, leaving the unconscious Hideaki on the ground.

    "It's simple," Yui said with a sincere smile. "The Nation won't start a war over one dead ninja. It can't afford to." The smile vanished. "Do you understand now, Namikaze?"

    "I mean, not really," Naruto said as the woman and her student reached the bottom of the pit. "But you don't seem to care."

    Without answering, Yui and Tamako charged.

    Yui didn't go for Naruto, but for Kabuto at his side: she left Tamako for Naruto. He honestly wished it had been the other way around. Kabuto and Yui didn't have a moment of impact. The Yakushi wisely chose to dash to the side, drawing Yui away from Naruto and deeper into the forest of rebar in the center of the pit.

    But Naruto wasn't so wise: he and Tamako smashed together like two runaway horses and his whole body shook with the impact.

    Her steel body wasn't for show. Even though the girl was smaller than him, she was definitely not lighter, and Naruto felt a bruise begin to form where they'd clashed arms. He pushed forward, trying to overpower her, and the girl grit her teeth and shoved back, spikes of steel emerging from her skin and nearly piercing him. Naruto blew out a breath and jumped back. He'd been trying to save chakra for their escape, but they were way past that point now. If they wanted to run, they'd have to win the fight first.

    "Kage Bunshin!" As Tamako ran forward, her arms forming into swords, Naruto created another ten of himself. He glanced over at Kabuto. His friend seemed to be fending for himself in a brutal taijutsu duel with Yui. The woman was fast, but so was Kabuto, and every blow that landed on him healed with supernatural speed.

    They could do this. They only had to hold out for Nonō. Naruto refocused on his opponent.

    "We really don't have to do this!" all eleven of him yelled, and then they rushed forward, surrounding the girl. She spun, raising her sword-arms as her steel-colored eyes darted back and forth. She had good awareness, Naruto thought: even surrounded, she was managing to keep tabs on all of his clones.

    "That's where you're wrong," the girl said, her young voice desperate. She was scared, more than he was. "I'm a sword of the Hidden Stone, and the village wants me to strike you down!" She advanced with surprising speed, and one of Naruto's clones was dead before it could get enough distance as Tamako's arm left a swift slash in its chest.

    The others scattered, some charging in and others falling back. The ones that bought some distance began picking up clumps of dirt bound together by chakra or pieces of loose concrete and chucking them at Tamako as explosive formulas began racing over their impromptu bombs. The other clones pressed in, beating on Tamako from every angle. The whole time, Naruto watched from the back, trying to get a sense for his opponent. Distantly, he heard someone slam into some rebar and knock it out of the ground: Kabuto or Yui, he couldn't tell.

    The steel girl weathered all the clones' attacks without complaint. Explosions, punches, kicks, kunai and shuriken: all of it was deflected by her metal skin as she shielded her eyes and struck back at every opportunity. Another three clones died before Naruto was satisfied that the younger girl was essentially invincible to small scale stuff.

    That was what made him charge in himself, a screaming Rasengan forming in his hands.

    Tamako spun in shock as his clones dogpiled her, trying to keep her still as he closed the distance, but steel spikes erupted from her body once more and skewered them. There was an explosion of smoke, partially obscuring her form, and Naruto thrust the Rasengan forward, aiming for the girl's side.

    He was hoping it wouldn't kill her, but it did even less than that because both of Tamako's hands shot out of the smoke and fastened around the Rasengan itself. Naruto blinked in shock. Her hands squeezed around the spinning jutsu like a baseball, threatening to disrupt the balance of chakra and crush it out of existence.

    The Rasengan's violent rotation blew the smoke away, revealing Tamako standing in a wide stance and glaring directly at him. She grit her teeth and squeezed harder, and Naruto was forced to bring his other hand down to keep the Rasengan from being crushed. They both stood like that for a moment, holding their breath as they struggled over the jutsu. Naruto managed to push it an inch closer to Tamako before she locked her legs, stopping them both in their tracks.

    Scraps of molten metal were starting to fly off of Tamako's hands, ripped away by the Rasengan, and Naruto could see patches of bloody skin beneath. She was literally tearing her own skin off holding the jutsu back.

    "Let go!" he shouted, and Tamako gaped at him. "Let go, and I will too!"

    "Don't treat me like a kid!" Tamako screamed back, pushing forward and trying to force the Rasengan into Naruto's own chest. He felt his arm buckle as sparks from her hands showered his body, and realized the girl's steel jutsu had to extend even into her muscles. "If you were going to use something like this on me, use it!"

    Naruto let out a yell of frustration and let the Rasengan pop.

    With both hands on it, he had enough control to let it squash as an oval first, going along with the pressure Tamako was applying. The jutsu distended, stretching out, and then exploded, all of the considerable pressure built up inside of it erupting out and slamming directly into Tamako's chest.

    The girl from Stone went flying back as though she'd been shot from a cannon, spinning like a pinwheel the whole way, and smashed through four rebar poles before embedding several feet into the gravel of the side of the pit. She sagged and hacked up a gout of blood, bright against her steel skin.

    Naruto straightened up; his palms were raw, almost like when he'd been burned in Waterfall. He healed them with a gesture, replacing the red skin, and resisted the urge to retch.

    "Sorry," he muttered. "Fuck, what-"

    There was a crash, and Naruto snapped out of his momentary fugue, jerking to look.

    Kabuto was down, one of Yui's knives buried up to its hilt in his thigh. The woman was pinning him with her knee, one hand free to knock away his counterattack and the other keeping the knife in. Kabuto lashed out, in obvious panic, and Yui knocked his arm away: the moment Kabuto's arm was knocked aside, she retrieved another knife from her hip pack.

    "Kabuto!" Naruto started forward as Yui raised the knife. For a single, terrifying heartbeat he was sure she was going to drive it down into his friend's throat, but instead, she threw it to the side. It slammed into a pile of loose concrete slabs and stuck fast.

    "Don't move!" she barked at the both of them. Naruto, naturally, didn't listen, continuing to charge forward. Yui raised a hand in warning, her fingers wrapping around themselves in what Naruto thought might be a modified one-handed Rat sign.

    There was a small sonic boom behind her, and the pile of concrete slabs collapsed.

    Naruto stopped, only understanding what he'd seen in hindsight. His whole body vibrated with tension, but he kept himself from moving forward.

    "Kabuto!" he called out again. "Listen! Don't move!" Kabuto looked back and forth between him and the woman who had a knee on his chest, his eyes narrow. He was clearly calculating his odds, but after a moment, his trust in Naruto won out. He slowly dropped his arms to his sides.

    The kunai had collapsed first, Naruto thought, the moment playing in slow motion in his memory. Ink had exploded out of the formula engraved on it, forming a sphere about a meter in diameter. The formula had expanded across the sphere; something about it had looked familiar to him. Then, the whole thing had instantly decompressed.

    The kunai, and everything within a meter of it, was gone. No, not gone. His mom had told him plenty of times that no matter what you couldn't destroy matter. That meant that it had been compressed so dramatically that he just couldn't see it anymore: squished down to the size of an ant without regard for its composition.

    It was a seal, Naruto thought, but with a philosophy like nothing he'd ever seen before. Destruction instead of preservation… and one just like it was in Kabuto's thigh. If Yui activated that, Kabuto would lose everything up to his ribs before he even knew what was happening. The shock would kill him instantly, and even if it didn't he'd just be half a torso and a bit of feet afterwards.

    "The knife's a jutsu formula for a seal, huh?" he said, shifting a bit to the right as Yui stood up, leaving Kabuto on the ground. The boy stayed still as Naruto scanned the area. All the other Stone ninja were down, but Yui didn't even seem winded. Kabuto, meanwhile, had had the crap beaten out of him. He was slowly healing though. Naruto could tell he was running rejuvenating chakra through his core to regenerate his wounds. He had to buy them more time. "That's pretty neat."

    "You know some fuinjutsu?" Yui asked. She didn't seem concerned about Nonō arriving soon. Either she'd lied about not killing her, or there had been more to slow her down than just dropping a building on her.

    The woman sneered. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised." She crossed her arms. "Well, impress me Namikaze. You figure out anything besides that?"

    "Will it help me out if I tell you?" Naruto asked, trying to keep his breathing even. The woman was so obviously filled with hatred that it hurt to even look at her. What the hell had he done to deserve anyone looking at him like that?

    "Probably not," Yui muttered. "But I'm curious what kind of kid Namikaze made."

    "From the sound of it," Naruto said cautiously, continuing to rotate so he wouldn't have any of the unconscious Stone shinobi at his back, "you don't have an issue with me. Just with my dad. Right?"
    "You're not wrong," Yui said. She stepped away from Kabuto. Naruto was weighing his odds. She hadn't triggered the knife, so she must want something. If she wanted him to just kill himself, she would have told him to by now. So it was something else. "But if someone has an issue with your dad, they have an issue with you."

    "Well, that's stupid. I'm not him. I left him and Konoha behind," Naruto said. The woman's eyes narrowed. "And your team is pretty beat up." He gestured to the unconscious Hideaki, and then to Takeshi and Tamako. Both of them were still moving, but obviously in no shape to fight. Takeshi had dragged himself to Tamako's side and was feebly checking her over, bandaging her shredded hands. "They're just kids, and you dragged them into this. Can't we just… do this another time?"

    "That's not happening," Yui said.

    "Then what do you want? You're not going to kill Kabuto," Naruto continued, trying to sound calm. The lady was crazy, that much was obvious. A whimper drew his attention, and he realized with a jerk that Kagami was still here, apparently forgotten by all parties. She'd propped herself up against one of the rebar poles, her arms cupped over her legs as she glared out at the shinobi fighting over her.

    "Maybe I'll risk it. More to the point," Yui said with a smile, "you can't risk it. So." She straightened up, falling into a taijutsu stance Naruto didn't recognize. "Come on, son of the Yellow Flash. Or I'll kill your friend."

    Naruto began stalking forward, resigning himself to a fight and letting his anger burn away some of his fake calm. Yui had hurt Nonō and Kabuto: he'd be lying to herself if he said he didn't want to return the favor. The woman smiled and moved towards him as well.

    Without warning, Naruto put his hands together and broke into a run. Four more clones appeared, all of them already forming Rasengans. Yui cocked an eyebrow, speeding up as well.

    "You say you left," she snarled, and before Naruto knew it she was among his clones. He jerked back, searching for a kunai to throw as he gained distance. She was fast: not the fake speed that her student's genjutsu had been, but actually ridiculously fast. One of his clones looked down to fight it already had a knife in its throat, and popped. "But that's your father's jutsu."

    There was a mad scramble as Naruto's clones reoriented themselves, turning to attack Yui, but she was already going after the next. A kick snapped the other Naruto's head back, and then another knife covered in jutsu formula flew out, perfectly between the last two charging clones.

    As both clones tried to jump away it imploded, tearing their nearest arms off, and both died in an instant. In the time it took all that to happen, Naruto had fallen back, pulled a knife from his pack, and thrown it directly at Yui as an explosive script wormed over the blade. It was a delayed charge, banking on her trying to avoid the blast. As he threw it, he flinched, the pain of his clones being torn to pieces by Yui's seal making him hesitate. He wasn't used to that sort of agony.

    The woman charged and slapped the blade out of the air, and Naruto cursed. No shit, idiot. She's a fuinjutsu expert: of course she'd know that the timer was the main weakness. The blast went off, the explosion large enough that Naruto took a step back, but Yui just rode the shockwave forward.

    He realized it as the woman loomed over him, too close for him to grab another weapon or form a Rasengan.

    She knows you're playing it safe.

    Her eyes were full of malice as she lashed out with another knife.

    Naruto ducked and struck out with his fist. Fourteen clones already, plus a bunch of Rasengan. He wasn't feeling tired at all, but he'd just be wasting chakra at this point if he kept that up. It was obvious Yui was beyond him.

    But he couldn't help but notice there was a stiffness to her movement. She favored her left side; her hip and shoulder on the right were slower. Not slow, just slower. Her torso was more rigid than it should be. An old injury?

    And there was something else about that seal...

    He needed help.

    "Slow!" Yui barked as his blow hit nothing but air. She danced back, in, and hammered a kick into his chest. Naruto went flying backwards, all the air knocked out of him once more, and rolled head over heels. As he righted himself he turned his momentum into a sprint, circling the pit and looking back towards where Yui had been.

    She wasn't there. His instincts screamed at him and he threw himself back as the woman struck with an axe kick from his blind spot. She was aiming for his neck, and her kick blew a foot deep divot in the earth.

    Naruto realized in an unfortunate moment of clarity that he was starting to panic.

    "Seriously!" he shouted. He was ashamed to hear his voice break. Kabuto was still on the ground, still too hurt to rise. He must have been hurt more than he looked. Another minute until he was up? More? Naruto's heart and mind were both racing. "I haven't done anything to you!"

    "You haven't," Yui said, yanking her foot out of the earth and turning to face him. "I don't care about you at all."

    "Then-?!" The seal, the seal, it looked familiar, that was the thing-

    "Children never leave their parent's hearts," Yui said. Her voice was so cold Naruto thought he might freeze. "Even if they run away. Your father loved you enough to teach you that Rasengan; how do you think he will feel when he learns that you're dead?"

    "That's… crazy," Naruto whispered. The woman glowered at him. "That's…" He blinked.

    "Wait," he said, half to himself. "That's an Eight-Trigram Seal."

    "Very nice," Yui said with a mocking lilt. "Most people don't get that far."

    "That's not possible though," Naruto said, straightening up. "Unless… you're an Uzumaki?"

    "What?" For the first time, the woman didn't look angry, just confused. "No, of course not. What do you take me for? Some useless refugee?"

    Naruto did his best to ignore the unintended insult to his mom. Being angry wasn't helping. He needed to stay calm, get smart, but he just couldn't.

    Fine, he decided. If you're going to be angry, be like Sakura then. Be so angry you'll beat a Jinchuriki half to death but stay smart while you're doing it. He could make that work.

    "Kabuto!" he called out. "You okay?"

    "Been better," came the answer after a moment, and Naruto looked over and cursed. Tamako and Takeshi had moved at some point and gone to his friend's side. They had him at knifepoint now; even if Kabuto was able to remove the knife quick enough to avoid Yui activating it, her students would get him. His friend was sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, ignoring the knives at his throat. He looked Naruto in the eye.

    "Naruto, you should just run." Kabuto was so calm that Naruto was sure he was putting on an act. "Leave Kagami: she's not worth this. Leave us too." He looked over at Yui. "She's obsessed with your family: you're not even human to her. We're not going to be able to reach an agreement here."

    Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto saw Kagami flinch, drawing herself up.

    "I don't get it," he murmured before raising his voice. "I still don't get it! Did my dad piss you guys off that bad? You're really that mad that you'd kill me just to make him feel bad?"

    All of the Stone ninja stared at him. Yui's glare was so intense that Naruto felt the urge to shrivel up for a moment. Her chakra was breaking over him like a wave. He straightened up, hardening his face and clenching and unclenching his hands. "This is stupid."

    Without breaking eye contact, Yui reached down towards her waist. Naruto tensed, expecting another knife, but instead her hand wrapped around the hem of her hoodie on her right side and began slowly pulling it up.

    Both of Yui's students looked away, Takeshi closing his eyes. Naruto didn't know well enough to, so the reality of Yui's side caught him totally by surprise.

    The entire right side of Yui's torso was covered in bandages, but bits of her skin were visible through the dense wrap. What showed was cracked and grey, covered in thick knots of scar tissue, boils, and small bloody fissures. Naruto's stomach flipped, too many anatomy lessons coming back to him. No wonder she had been moving stiff: the entire side of her body was numb for sure. The pain would be too much to handle otherwise. It looked like the woman had suffered a targeted third or even fourth degree burn. Even medical jutsu couldn't restore nerve endings that had been destroyed like that.

    The burn extended up past where Yui had lifted her hoodie, vanishing out of Naruto's sight below the woman's armpit. After a moment, she lowered the hoodie, hiding the injury once more.

    "You really don't understand a thing, do you?" Yui said, her voice soft and deadly. "Naruto Namikaze, your father did this to me."

    Naruto furrowed his brow. "That looks like a burn. Dad doesn't use fire jutsu." It was all he could think to say: the woman's injury was as horrific as one of the worst case scenario illustrations he'd seen in some medical books, but seeing it in real life was a whole different thing.

    "No. He's not that merciful." Yui's voice could melt through steel. "I'll tell you this so your death doesn't feel arbitrary, Namikaze." Naruto cocked his head. Was that a flicker of hesitation? She hadn't had any interest in explaining a thing to him before.

    "The formula for the Hiraishin never vanishes," Yui continued. Naruto didn't dare talk back, but he was shocked that the woman knew the jutsu's name. "It's a jutsu formula that burrows into the flesh and chakra system alike: a curse mark that cannot be removed without destroying everything that was connected to it." She laid her hand against her side.

    "Fifteen years ago, I received that curse. Your father slaughtered my team and marked me. He let me run. At the time, I didn't understand why. I was young and stupid, and I ran home to the nearest base for the Hidden Stone." Her lip curled in disgust. Naruto could only stare, feeling his heartbeat throughout his whole body. How old would she have been? His age?

    His dad used the Hiraishin to grab breakfast so it wouldn't get cold on the way from the kitchen to the living room.

    Something like this had never even crossed his mind.

    "He used me as a knife. Where I went, shinobi died. Almost thirty, by my count. I thought the only way out was to kill myself, but my family knew a ninja in the medical division. He risked his life to burn off your father's mark, and all it cost me was my body." Yui was shaking now. Naruto took an involuntary step back. "That was the only way I could return to active service. I studied everything I could from the flesh that had been taken from me. I couldn't recreate the Flying Thunder God, but it led me towards the perfect jutsu to make your father vanish from the world."

    Eight Trigrams, Naruto thought as he tried to shove what the woman was telling him down, far enough down that he'd stop wanting to throw up. His dad had perfected the Hiraishin with Uzumaki formula techniques like the Eight Trigrams, and this woman had stolen them for her own jutsu. But a Reverse Eight Trigrams Seal like that would be so temperamental it was almost unbelievable. Just a little bit of foriegn chakra, even, and-

    "That's the kind of person your father is, Namikaze. He invited every village to his Chunin Exam and allowed the only team from Stone to be murdered by his allies." Naruto blinked at the assertion. He couldn't even deny it. The team Gaara had killed had been the only ones who'd died. There was no way Stone could have known how furious his dad has been about that.

    "He's a shinobi who makes knives out of people. It's what made him a perfect Hokage." Yui's face went flat, all emotion pressed out of it. "So now, I have no choice but to be the knife your father made me."

    She stepped forward. This time, Naruto held his ground. He'd given up on Nonō arriving in time, but he was starting to figure it out. There was a way out of this.

    "And slit your throat."

    Yui charged. Naruto put his hands together.

    There was an explosion of smoke, and the pit was filled with Shadow Clones.

    The woman didn't slow down; she continued plowing forward through a sea of clones, scattering them with her charge and slashing any that got in her way to pieces. Naruto staggered back, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over him. Nearly a hundred clones all at once; he wasn't sure he would have been able to pull it off on any other day.

    But right now, he was too determined to care about chakra exhaustion. He broke into a run, getting lost in the crowd of himself. None of the clones hesitated: many formed Rasengans and countercharged Yui, while more began picking up debris and marking it with detonation jutsu. Two worked together to wrench a piece of rebar from the ground and transformed it into an explosive spear.

    The woman started throwing knives as the pit descended into complete pandemonium, all of which imploded to take out the densest presses of clones, the most dangerous groups of ranged attacks. The explosive spear vanished in midair before its tremendous payload could go off. Yui wasn't the clones' only target; both Tamako and Takeshi were being attacked as well.

    The memories flooding in from their constant destruction almost made Naruto miss a step. The woman was like Obito, just too much bigger and faster for him to win up close. Her hatred was like a perpetual motion machine, driving her to kill more and more copies of him. He scrambled through the diminishing press, breathing heavily, nothing in mind but his goal.

    A gap opened up like his clones could read his mind and Naruto dove through, right into a startled Tamako. The girl stabbed her sword-arm through another one of his faces and turned, but Naruto was quicker than her: his roundhouse slammed into the side of her head and the smaller girl went flying, nearly taking out Takeshi as she went.

    "Tamako!" Yui roared. She sounded even more furious than before. Naruto didn't have time to care. He feinted for Takeshi's broken nose and then when the boy flinched slammed his palm into his solar plexus instead. The boy from Stone tumbled away and suddenly it was just Naruto and Kabuto.

    "Hold on!" Naruto shouted down at Kabuto, who gave him a bemused look. He dropped, seizing the kunai in his friend's thigh and yanking it out as Kabuto winced and leapt to his feet. Across the pit, another five clones died: there were probably only fifteen or twenty left now. Yui let out a triumphant yell.

    "Moron!" she shouted, making the modified seal. "It's done!"

    The next moment of Naruto's life felt like a day.

    'You're not a natural medic.'

    Ink began spraying out of the kunai, and Naruto clamped his hands around it, feeling the grooves of the engraving as the milliseconds ticked by. Eight Trigrams, eight points: each of the fingers on both of his hands found their natural resting point at the edge of the seal array.

    The strength of the Eight Trigrams array was its stability. Old lessons with his mother flooded his mind, making him sick with nostalgia. He wanted to be sitting in the living room watching her work again. No matter how big or strong something is, an eightfold array can seal it away tighter than anything, but that strength is also a weakness. The structure can be easily subverted because it has so many points of control. Like a lock that's unbreakable from one side but can just be flipped off from the other.

    A Five-Pronged Seal would cancel and destroy the jutsu, but that was the point of a Reverse Seal in the first place: its structure collapsing and taking everything within its parameters with it. The ink covered Naruto's hands. There was an imaginary sensation of being drawn in and crushed: imaginary because when it happened, it would be too quick for him to perceive.

    Naruto focused. Squeezed. His whole body hummed with chakra, enough that it became visible as a faint orange aura that made all his hair rise up on end.

    There was a whump of displaced air as the seal collapsed.

    Yui killed the last of his clones, stopped, and stared. Everyone in the pit was staring at him, even Kagami.

    Naruto was still in one piece.

    "What…?" Yui whispered. He smiled, feeling sweat drip down his face.

    Naruto held the knife out, turning it over in his hands; faint marks of burning orange chakra shone at each of the seal's eight engraved points.

    "You based this off the Hiraishin," he said as Yui gaped. He couldn't help but take some vicious satisfaction in the look on her face. "And dad finished that jutsu with my mom's help." He brought the knife to his side in a neutral grip. "And I know my mom's techniques. I know exactly how you made this thing."

    Naruto smiled. "This knife is mine now."

    "You…" Yui seethed. "Insolent, little-!"

    "For the last time, I'm Naruto Namikaze!" Naruto declared, pointing at her with all the force and determination he could muster. Her whole face twitched; she looked like she was having a stroke. "I'm a ninja of Amegakure, and the son of the Yellow Flash! If you've got a problem with that, it's not mine! Go tell my dad about it!"

    "Damn right!" Naruto practically jumped at the voice, turning to look behind him.

    Nonō had finally arrived. She staggered into sight at the top of the incline, staring down at them all in a fury. She was covered in blood but standing steady, and Naruto sucked in a breath at the state of his teacher. Her limbs were misshapen, healing before his eyes: the blood had come from her head and coated most of her upper body. She must have been knocked out and bled a hell of a lot before fixing it.

    It was no wonder Nono had been taking so long, Naruto thought; one of her limbs was still grotesquely twisting itself back into place under her gentle touch. He didn't have a doubt she really had had a building dropped on her head. She was still hurt. Still slow. She'd come as soon as she could, before she was even close to fixed up.
    Nonō's eyes went wide, and she jumped forward. Naruto spun, realizing what she was looking at.

    Yui was already in his face.

    "I took too long." She smashed him to the floor, and Naruto wheezed, the whole world going black for a moment. His grip went loose on the knife before he seized it with all his strength. Yui kicked him in the stomach, so hard his vision flashed again, and then in the hand.

    There was a snap: two fingers broke. The knife skittered away. Naruto rolled, not knowing up from down. The next kick got him right in the face.

    "Takeshi! Tamako!" The voice rolled over him, barely comprehensible. "Five seconds!"

    One. She struck him four more times, lightning fast attacks aimed at his vital organs. All he could do was curl up on the ground and try to protect himself as she hit him so hard it was like the sky was falling upon him.

    Two. He could hear more fighting. The Stone kids were hurt, but so was Nonō, barely walking, and Kabuto couldn't take them alone. He didn't like fighting. Yui Tono kicked him in the gut again, and Naruto finally lost his lunch.

    Three. She broke the rest of the fingers on his right hand. She was on top of him, striking relentlessly, trying to stove in his throat. Naruto could only cover his head. He'd thought the knife would be his trump card, but he'd been naive. He'd gotten distracted for a single second, and that had been all it took.

    Four. He'd been naive. He'd been naive all his life, just like Konan had told him. Even after everything he'd done, he might still be about to die. Even leaving his home had been proof of his naivety. He'd followed Sakura thinking everything would go right, that they'd find Fuu and stay together as friends and teammates and...

    Maybe something more.

    But that had been stupid. Now he was getting beaten to death by a crazy lady who didn't care about her students and didn't see him as anything but a tool to use against his dad and his team was a hundred miles away. That's what being a ninja was. Sometimes you just died and there was no good reason for it.

    Five. Naruto could feel himself about to black out. Yui reared up, hand forming into a spear. She was going to shatter his throat. Even Nonō wouldn't be able to help him if that happened.

    Someone caught her hand. Naruto blearily blinked, feeling blood drip into his eyes. He thought it was Nonō at his side at first, but when his vision cleared…

    It was Kagami. She'd run to his side. Yui wrenched her hand away. There was a scream of steel on steel; Tamako was still fighting, Naruto thought fuzzily. The girl had known this would happen from the beginning, but she'd still seemed nice enough in the casino.

    "I don't want to hurt you any more," Yui said to Kagami, still kneeling over him. "You're valuable to the village. Step away."

    Kagami's wrist had broken, Naruto saw. Even Yui ripping her hand away had been enough to snap the girl's wrist. She glared at the Stone ninja, her eyes red. Had she been crying? Nothing made sense. He tried to breathe in, to clear his mind, and choked on blood.

    "You're killing him!" Kagami screamed, and Yui cocked her head. Of course, her expression said, wasn't that self evident?

    "I said back off," she warned. "We want you in one piece." She was turning to face Kagami, Naruto realized, like she would any other ninja. But it was ridiculous. Kagami wasn't a threat. She was fragile, like her bones were hollow.

    "He's got nothing to do with this!" Kagami's whole body was growing paler, like her blood was vanishing. "Nothing to do with you! You're killing him just because of his parents!" She doubled over, and Yui started to back up, her eyes going wide.

    "It's people like you who should die!"

    Ah, Naruto thought as he watched, feeling like everything was happening to someone else. His body hurt too much for him to give credence to anything else.

    Right now, we're the same, right?

    Kagami's chest exploded; dozens of spears of bone erupted out of her, shooting forward with unbelievable speed. Yui jumped back, but too slowly. Everything was going too slowly, like Naruto was watching it happen underwater. The glistening white bone, covered with mucus and blood, slammed into Yui's right side and arm, skewering her in ten different places. One punched deep into the woman's torso, and two went clean through her arm.

    The woman screamed, so loud Naruto thought the world might split in half. She'd been stabbed in her burned side; even if those nerves were dead, Naruto couldn't imagine the pain.

    She jumped back, away from the bones, and Kagami pursued her, stumbling forward as more and more bones burst from her body. Yui was stabbed twice more before she turned and fled, blood gushing from her open wounds.

    "Sensei!" A young, terrified scream. Kagami collapsed, and Yui fled out of Naruto's sight. There was more running, more screaming.

    Nonō's voice was like a volcano. "God might forgive you for this, Yui Tono!" There was a tremendous crash, someone slamming to the ground. "But I certainly won't!"

    "Retreat!" Yui's voice, choking and stuttering, cut through the chaos. Naruto couldn't see what was happening: he could only see Kagami.

    Her body was bucking, more bones breaking out of it and staining the dirt with her blood. She turned towards him, her face a picture of agony.

    "They're running," she gasped as her collar bone pierced through the skin. That was where the scars had come from, Naruto suddenly understood. Something like this. But it must never have been this bad before, or she would have died a long time ago.

    He crawled towards her as bones continued to rip away skin across her body. "This is perfect," she gasped, and he paused, staring at her and wondering if he had brain damage. Or if she did. "I wanted to die, but I didn't want you to. It's perfect." She rolled onto her back, closing her eyes as her shoulders sliced themselves up. "It's perfect."

    "Oh…" Naruto groaned, finally dragging himself to her side. He felt his whole body twitch in pain, defiance, and fury. "Just shut up, you moron."

    Kagami's eyes fluttered back open.

    Naruto lay his broken hand on her chest, feeling her chakra. Her whole body was coming apart, her chakra system rebelling and sending random spikes of energy in every direction. Whenever it spasmed, more bones emerged.

    This was what she'd meant by defective. The Kaguya's Bloodline Limit was controlling their own body, Naruto now understood, and their bones in particular. But Kagami could only start the reaction; once her chakra got going, it started rampaging without concern for her health, and like Nonō had said, she didn't have the necessary regenerative abilities to fix the damage. She was literally tearing herself apart.

    "Don't," Kagami wheezed. "This is what I want."

    "I don't care," Naruto spat back, feeling blood dribble from his mouth. "I'm not going to let you just kill yourself." Her chakra spiked once again, and her elbow pierced through the skin, a physically impossible compound fracture.

    "Because Rain wants me?" she snarled back, her voice growing weaker by the second. Another one of her ribs extended, cutting deeply into Naruto's palm. His broken hand screamed, but Naruto just closed his eyes. He didn't need to see. He just needed to feel her chakra. His own pain fell away. All that he cared about was the chakra system he was feeling under his hands. He began massaging it, pouring his own chakra into Kagami's body.

    "No," he said, scared at how weak his own voice sounded. "Cause you don't deserve to die." There was another spasm, and he seized it like an animal in his hands, crushing it with his chakra. "Even if you want it, I can't let you die right in front of me. Not when I could do something about it."

    He opened one eye to find Kagami staring at him. Blood tears were leaving bright crimson trails down her face.

    "It hurts," she whispered, and Naruto sighed.

    "Yeah," he said. "Me too."

    He didn't know what had changed. Maybe it was because Kagami's suicidal words had pissed him off. Maybe it was because he was in so much pain himself. Maybe it was because she was a Kaguya, and had the potential inside her even if she couldn't use it herself. Maybe there wasn't a good reason at all, and his chakra had just decided that for now it wouldn't jerk him around anymore.

    But slowly but surely, he rebuilt Kagami's shredded body. The bones protruding from her chest withrew, some slicked with his own blood, and her ribcage mended itself, returning to something like normal. Her elbow was drawn back up into her body, and her knees as well. Her wrist popped back into place. Her spine, two of the vertebrae popping out into fin-like spikes, straightened out. The internal injuries, pierced organs, scratched and bruised and torn muscles, flattened out like paper and stitched themselves over.

    Naruto didn't know how long he was there. It felt like the entirety of his life beforehand; there had been all of that, being a kid, playing pranks, spending time with his parents, becoming a ninja, the C-Rank, the Chunin Exam, Waterfall, coming to Rain, and then there was this, divided by a perfect line and taking up the exact same amount of time. When he opened his eyes again, Nonō was standing over him, still covered in her own blood. Her limbs were fixed now. She looked down at him from under her glasses with an expression he couldn't decipher, and Naruto gurgled.

    "Kabuto?" he asked. Kagami was asleep. The faint rise and fall of her chest under his hand was uninterrupted and pain-free. He wished he could say the same for himself. Nonō bent down, looking the both of them over.

    "He's coming," she said. "He was chasing them off." She took Kagami's pulse and blinked. "Naruto, did you do this?"

    "I think," Naruto slurred. "Is she okay?"

    "She's fine," Nonō said, and he slumped. He was empty, totally empty. He'd never been this empty in his life. Someone had scooped out all his blood and bones and filled him up with mud and dirt. He felt like he'd sink into the earth and never come out. "We're gonna have to talk to the police. They're coming too."

    "That sounds boring," Naruto said, and then he blacked out.

    ###

    The sun shone in his eyes, and Naruto woke up.

    He blinked, smacking his dry mouth and trying to figure out where he was. It was dark but there was a distant light, bright red and blinding. He looked around, head swimming, and realized he was tied down. It took him a second to realize why. He was suspended against a sheer cliff face, secured to a narrow path by ropes tied around his body attached to kunai that had been embedded in the stone.

    He was in a canyon, the kind that crisscrossed the western side of the Land of Rain. The sun was rising to the east, glaring down into the canyon. This was a good place for shinobi to rest, but usually they had more space; his team must have secured him for fear of him rolling over in his sleep.

    Kabuto was farther down the path, slumped down against the red-rock wall and snoring loudly. Before him was Kagami Kaguya. She was sitting with her legs crossed, and as Naruto shifted to look at her she smiled.

    "Hey," she said. "You're finally awake."

    "Bluh," Naruto said, before shaking his head and trying again. "What happened? What time is it? Where are we?" He blinked slowly, nothing responding like it should have. "Where's Nonō?"

    Kagami leaned back against the cliff. "The guys from Stone ran away. You slept for the rest of the day. We're about halfway back to Amegakure." She patted her dress and gave up after a moment with a disappointed look: maybe she'd been looking for another cigarette. "Your teacher's patrolling the perimeter. She wanted to give Kabuto time to rest."

    Naruto reached over; they'd left his hand free, and he was able to jerk the knife from the stone at his side and unravel the ropes around him. He sat up, his head aching, and he winced as the sun caught his eye again. He rolled over, trying to shield his eyes.

    "Ow," he muttered. "Never happened to me before."

    "You've never run out of chakra before?" Kagami asked as she scooted over to see his face. She raised an eyebrow. "You're even more of a freak than me."

    "Don't be mean," Naruto whined, trying to will the headache away and definitely failing. "Not my fault you were so greedy."

    He froze, not sure how Kagami would take that, but the woman only let out a light laugh. "Nonō said you worked a miracle," she said. "But you didn't strike me as a medic. I didn't realize what you were doing until your hand was on me."

    "I…" Naruto paused. "I wasn't, really. I knew medical jutsu, but I wasn't able to fix anyone up before. You were the first person that worked on."

    "Huh." Kagami blinked. "Guess I was lucky. So everyone in this team is a medic then?"

    "Yeah, that was weird," Naruto said. "But with what happened to you, I guess that was the idea from the start. That we'd be able to make sure you were okay on the way back."

    Kagami stared at him, her expression unreadable, and Naruto drew back a little.

    "I thought you'd be mad," he said. "The way you…" He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling his arm creek with the motion. It was like everything needed some oil to get moving again. How the heck had someone like Obito pushed himself to exhaustion so many times when it felt so supremely shitty?

    "Well, you know."

    "I was at first," Kagami said, looking back at the rising sun. "But I had some time to think about it. It wasn't fair of me to put that on you." She half-smiled, the corner of her mouth twitching up. "Even if you were rude about it, I'm glad you saved me. I thought it would bring me some peace, but when I was lying there on the ground, I realized that all it did was…"

    She paused, and Naruto filled the gap. "Hurt."

    "Yeah." Kagami frowned. "There wasn't any closure. It just hurt." She sighed, leaning back. "I wonder if things will be different in Rain."

    "What were you doing in Stone?" Naruto found himself asking. "I mean, no offense, but you're not much of a ninja. You almost died just from using that weird… bone… thing."

    "Shikotsumyaku," Kagami said. "But they were still interested in me for it, even if I can't use it without, uh, dying." She shifted her legs under her body. "Like I told you, I'm defective. The Shikotsumyaku gives someone mastery of their skeletal structure, but I can't control their production, and my body can't regenerate the damage it causes. Someone like Kimimaro could pull a rib out and use it as a sword: you saw how that would go for me."

    Naruto failed to hide how queasy that image made him feel, and Kagami scoffed. "Oh, like stabbing someone with a knife is better," she said, and he couldn't help but laugh.

    "Well, if that's the case, how come the Hidden Stone wanted you back so bad?" Naruto said. He twitched. "Yui was really strong. That means they thought you were important."

    Kagami bit her lip. "Stone has been really interested in Kekkei Genkai," she said. "Old and new, even dead ones like mine. I wasn't the only one from an extinct clan that I met there; there were others, Iburi, Yata, even an Uzumaki like Yui mentioned. I was paid to provide my body to their Medical Division. They thought they could fix my defect, or copy it. So they had me… donate material, I guess you'd call it."

    "They paid you for that?" Naruto said, incredulous. Kagami laughed.

    "Ten thousand a week for as long as I stayed," she said. Naruto whistled. Ten thousand was really only as much as you'd make on a D-Rank in Konoha, but getting that every week was still a pretty sweet deal. Hell, he'd probably take that deal if someone offered it.

    "So they were trying to make new Bloodline Limits?" he said, and Kagami shrugged.

    "Not just trying. That girl you fought, Tamako… I think she was one of their experiments. Her jutsu reminded me of my clan's." Naruto remembered the way Tamako had accidentally reflected the sun in her own eyes. He hoped she was alright. Her sensei had pushed her into a fight she wasn't ready for, and he'd hurt her pretty bad.

    Kagami blew out a breath. "There are plenty of people in the Land of Earth who'd risk everything to gain that kind of strength. They're terrified of the Hidden Leaf over there."

    "Why?" Naruto asked. Then he remembered what the side of Yui Tono's body had looked like. "Oh."

    "I guess you're the Hokage's son," Kagami said, sounding like she couldn't quite believe it. "So you probably didn't really think about it growing up. But the Hidden Leaf is the strongest in the world without question. And since you ran away to it, I'm sure you know that Amegakure scares the hell out of people too."

    "I guess so," Naruto said. "What're you getting at though?"

    The woman looked at him like he was stupid, and Naruto felt she wasn't wrong. "All of the villages are trying to gather more strength to stand a chance," she said after a moment. "Stone is full of traditionalists. It probably doesn't help that their Kage is older than dirt. I met him." She held her hand up at her seated head height. "He's so shriveled up it's a wonder he hasn't been put out to pasture. So because of that, they've turned to traditional shinobi powers."

    She dropped her hand. "To a lot of people in this world, shinobi are defined by their genes. Maybe they're not wrong. But it goes beyond that. In the Land of Earth, people are just another natural resource, like the metal in the mountains. What they don't have… they'll import." She yawned, slumping. "That was why I left, and why I stopped Yui, and probably why you got told I was a thief. I was sick of people thinking of me, or anyone else, like they were just another tool."

    Naruto couldn't decide if he admired her or felt pity. He settled for both. "It is different in Rain," he said, and the woman shrugged.

    "We'll see. I hope you're right." She closed her eyes. "I'll have to see how my cousin is doing. And if it's not, I'll find somewhere else. The world is full of hiding places for someone like me."

    She drifted off, and Naruto watched the sunrise. Eventually, Nonō came back. She checked in with him, looking him over and making sure everything had healed properly. It took her about ten minutes to be satisfied.

    The whole time, Naruto was thinking of the burn on Yui Tono's side and of his father, cheerful and smiling and wise. He was thinking of the piece of paper Sakura had brought to a family breakfast. The way she'd cried when she'd shown it to him. Her tear streaked face followed him all the way back to the Village Hidden in the Rain.
     
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    • I like that Naruto found his own way to heal people, instead of the suggested method. It's very him, I feel.

    also I kept getting Colossus vibes from that little kid. Really, in some ways Stone isn't just keeping to standard shinobi practice, but almost starting something new, with how their investigation of bloodlines seems to be the start of a systemic treatment. Even if a scientist like Orochimaru, as... irrational as his methods can be, would probably turn up his nose at them.
     
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