Earning My Stripes (Naruto SI as Mizuki)

[Bakkughan]

I don't know if it was already asked but, is it just me or does his initial power up plan sound like he's trying to become Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez?
It includes regeneration, armor that sounds like it fuses to you (not sure here) and feline traits, so when I put that along his hair colour, it just sounds like Grimmjow.

Click to shrink...

Lol I never made that connection but, yeah kinda?

 

[Bakkughan]

Step 3.4​

​

---

Rather than answer the question, Furido drove his foot into Chiriku's chest and sent him skidding backwards. I moved between them before he could follow, slashing at his shoulder and forcing him to bring the staff up across his body. My claws scraped against metal, sending sparks flying. He twisted the shaft against my wrist, trying to lever me sideways, and I let go before he could dislocate anything.

Chiriku was still staring at him.

"How… how are you alive? You died. Asuma killed you himself…"

Kazuma rolled his jaw, blood showing at the corner of his mouth. "You should ask him then. He was the one who left me on that battlefield, so long ago."

Sora had reached the bottom of the steps, having caught the tail-end of the conversation between the two men, his eyes wide and thin frame trembling. "What did you call him?"

Chiriku looked towards the boy, and that was enough to give Kazuma an opening. The metal head flew past me towards Sora. I caught the cable with both hands and hauled it sideways, feeling it cut into my palms as the weight struck the steps beside him.

"Get back!" I shouted.

Kazuma yanked at the staff, then abandoned the attempt when I planted my feet, my enhanced strength trumping his. He made a single-handed seal with his free hand instead ('Damn, I gotta learn how to do that, all the cool missing-nin do!') and the earth behind me split. A corpse heaved itself out of the paving, reaching for my thigh. I kicked its head away, but another caught my other leg while the cable remained stretched taut between us.

Chiriku severed it with a chakra-coated strike. I staggered backwards with the loose length in my hands while Kazuma used our distraction to leap over the dead men rising between us. He landed beside Sora and caught him by the covered arm.

The boy cried out. Red chakra leaked out from between Kazuma's gripping fingers, spreading through the sleeve before he pushed two fingers against Sora's shoulder. The glow receded, leaving the boy staring up at him in startled silence.

"There," Kazuma said. "You see? I know how to help you."

I wrenched my ankle out of a corpse's grip and crushed its elbow underfoot. Chiriku was trying to reach the stairs, but the dead had come up around him as well, forcing him to clear them with broad sweeps of his staff. More were climbing over the courtyard wall, their numbers compensating for their weak frames just so they could fulfill their purpose, to keep us busy until Kazuma could put his hands on the boy.

Sora tried to pull away but the white-haired man held on tight.

"Let go!"

"Sora, listen to me. You heard the monk correctly. My name is Kazuma. I'm your father."

The boy's struggling stopped. He looked towards Chiriku, who had just broken free of the corpses surrounding him.

"You said he was dead." The boy said, his words equal confused plea and pained accusation.

"We believed he was," Chiriku answered, breathing hard. "Sora, step away from him."

Kazuma pulled the boy closer, positioning him between himself and the monk. "You've had years to tell him what you think of me. You can allow me a few minutes with my own son."

Sora was still looking at Chiriku. His face had lost what little colour remained, and for a moment I thought he was going to be sick. Then his gaze dropped towards the hand holding his arm.

"Where were you?" he asked in a small voice.

"I was recovering. By the time I could return, they would never have let me near you." Kazuma answered as he half-turned to answer his son, though he made sure to keep both me and Chiriku in sight.

"You could've sent something." Sora's voice cracked. "A letter. Anything."

"I couldn't risk them finding me before I was ready. My so-called 'murderer' is that despot, the Hokage's son, Sora; nowhere in the Land of Fire was safe for me, even if I could never abandon my homeland completely. Abandon you."

A corpse lurched towards the stairs. I pulled it up by the neck and drove its face into the paving, watching Kazuma over its shoulder. He had loosened his grip slightly, though his other hand was still hovering near Sora's shoulder. Whatever he'd done had quieted the red chakra. I couldn't tell whether it would do the same thing if he touched him again.

"So you left me here," Sora said.

"I left you somewhere safe."

"You don't know what it's been like!"

Kazuma's gaze passed briefly over Chiriku. "I can see enough."

The monk flinched, and I hated that the bastard had managed it. There was plenty wrong with how the people here had treated Sora, but the man saying it had brought an army of corpses to their front door. Hardly proper father-material; I was standing ankle-deep in the evidence after all.

"You can leave with me now," Kazuma continued. "I can finish what I started. You won't have to hide that arm again."

Sora looked up at him. "What you started?"

Chiriku went still.

"The chakra," Kazuma said, apparently deciding he'd already said enough he might as well continue. "It came from the Nine-Tails. I collected it after the attack on Konoha. I sought to bring salvation to the Land of Fire from the Hidden Leaf's ashes; to that end, I had to place its lingering demonic energy… inside you."

For several seconds Sora didn't move. I heard a staff crack behind me and the wet thud of a body falling onto the veranda, but couldn't bring myself to look away from his face.

"You.. put it in me?"

Kazuma's fingers tightened as the boy tried to draw back.

"You survived it. Everything I'd hoped for—"

Sora hit him.

His good fist caught Kazuma across the mouth, snapping his head sideways. The grip on his other arm loosened and Sora tore free, stumbling back against the steps. Red chakra flooded down his sleeve, burning through the cloth as the flesh beneath it swelled.

"All this time," he said, his voice shaking. "You did this?!"

Kazuma wiped his mouth. "Sora, calm down."

The boy screamed at him and swung his demonic arm. Wind chakra stretched beyond the fingers in long, uneven blades, red leaking through the pale edges. Kazuma ducked, losing a section of hair as the strike passed over his head and cut deep into the wall behind him. Sora followed, his second blow catching the remaining length of staff and breaking it across the middle.

I started towards him, but Chiriku caught my shoulder, his expression tight and his worried eyes glued to the boy.

"His arm! Don't touch the chakra."

Kazuma retreated beneath another wild swing, throwing aside the broken shaft. Sora's claws scored his chest, tearing through the robe, and the man's expression hardened. He caught the boy's wrist with one hand, forced it upwards and pressed the other against his shoulder again.

This time the red chakra spread.

"I had hoped to save this for a more opportune moment… unleash these demonic forces where it might strike against that den of traitors and threats to the Daimyo that calls itself Konoha. Poetic justice, if you will, considering how the suffered at the hands of that true demon. But this will serve as a nice prelude if nothing else."

Sora's back arched, his mouth opening in a scream that carried above the noise of the fighting.

"Yes! Show me your true power, Sora! Lay waste to these fools, who think themselves your captors and your tormentors!"

"For a guy that says he wants to save the Land of Fire, you sure are happy burning most of it down, you crazy bastard!" I interrupted as I finally managed to barrel through the last of the shambling corpses, swinging down a claw at the man's head.

Kazuma released Sora at once as he effortlessly dodged away, but the chakra kept pouring out, crawling across the boy's chest and up the side of his face. I grabbed the back of his robes and tried to drag him away from the steps before the corrosive energy reached the wounded inside the hall.

I knew the Tailed Beasts weren't demons in the literal sense; they were chakra constructs, with names and fears and dreams, hunted down and used by humanity ever since their creation by the Safe of the Six Paths.

But standing so close to even a small part of the Kyuubi, feeling that sheer mindless rage burning in the air like napalm, it wasn't hard to see why the monks had thought Sora had been cursed by one.

The cloth disintegrated in my hands and heat seared across my fingers. I let go with a curse as Chiriku swept Sora's legs out from under him and drove a palm towards his back. Golden chakra flashed between them, briefly flattening the red aura against his skin before Sora twisted and struck him in the shoulder.

The monk landed hard beside me. We barely managed to duck before a ragged wave of chakra ripped through the railing and carried part of the veranda into the hall.

"Clear the entrance!" Chiriku shouted.

I got a hand beneath his arm and pulled him up while monks dragged the nearest wounded deeper inside. Sora crouched in the space we'd just left, fingers digging into the stone. His altered arm had grown larger, the skin darkening to burnt-orange scales beneath the red chakra, and when he raised his head I could see his teeth had lengthened.

He was crying. It was difficult to make out beneath the changes spreading across his face, but his good hand kept reaching towards the other arm as if he could somehow pull it off.

"M-make it… s-stop," he gasped.

Kazuma stepped towards him. "I can—"

Snarling, Chiriku hit him with a palm strike to the chest before he got another word out, driving the man backwards as the enraged monk followed him closely. Kazuma caught the next strike on his forearm and retaliated with a kick, forcing the monk to turn his hip away. I stayed by Sora, uncertain how to approach without losing the skin off my hands. He saw me move and tried to shuffle backwards, leaving bloody marks where his fingers scraped across the stone.

"S-stay… Stay away from me!"

"Sora, look at me."

His eyes found mine for a moment. I crouched, keeping my hands where he could see them, though the right one was already beginning to blister.

"The abbot's coming, he can help you, I promise. But you need to stay strong until he can get here. Can you do that for me Sora?"

I had no idea whether Chūkaku was coming. I hadn't seen the old man since yesterday and he was presumably still occupied with preventing the Temple from being annihilated by the Limelight jutsu. But Sora's frantic attempts to move had stopped at least, and I needed him to keep listening.

"It hurts…" he cried and even a manipulative bastard like me couldn't help but get his heartstrings pulled at the helplessness in the boy's cries.

"I know. I know, kiddo. Try to keep still, Chūkaku is coming, just… stay strong, alright buddy?"

A fresh surge of chakra forced me back before I could say anything else. It spread across the courtyard, lifting grit from the paving and tearing the remaining sleeve off Sora's arm. Something elongated behind his back, the suggestion of a tail forming out of the aura, and the boy's next attempt to speak came out as a strangled growl.

'Fuck. Please be coming.'

Lightning flashed in the south, followed by a second flare from the west. For a moment a bright line held above the roofs, then an explosion broke it apart and a section of the outer barrier flickered out. The ANBU were still fighting. Even if I could have called Tiger, there was nothing he could spare us.

Two monks came down the steps carrying lengths of prayer cord. One threw his around Sora's upper body while the other caught it, and together they pulled him away from the hall. The beads along the cord glowed as the boy struggled, but several cracked almost immediately. I grabbed the loose end and helped them drag him into the open, planting my feet while he tried to pull us towards him.

The heat travelled up the cord. I shifted my grip, smelled burning skin and held on, even as the beads slowly began slipping from my clawed hands, one by one by one by-

Golden hands closed around Sora's shoulders.

Chūkaku stood at the entrance, supported by the monk who'd been directing the wounded. Blood had dried beneath his nose and his robes clung damply to his chest. Behind him a many-armed golden figure made of the purest, thickest chakra I had ever seen rose tall and imposing above the doorway, several of its hands already reaching past us to pin the boy's limbs.

"Move away from him," the abbot said through clenched teeth.

We let go of the cord and I stumbled backwards as one of the golden palms pressed Sora's demonic arm flat against the paving. He howled, red chakra boiling up between its fingers. Chūkaku sank to one knee, keeping his own hands pressed together as if in prayer while the monk beside him tried to stop him falling further.

"Abbot!" Chiriku called, turning briefly from Kazuma, though the distraction almost cost him as the villain struck out with his blade again, almost taking the taller man's head off.

"Keep that man away." The ancient monk said in a strong voice, brooking no argument.

Chiriku did, catching Kazuma's wrist as he tried to form another seal. Their fight moved towards the far wall, the monk pressing hard enough that his former comrade had to give ground. I could see Kazuma trying to look past him towards Sora, but Chiriku caught him across the jaw for his trouble and forced his attention back.

"Mizuki!"

I turned at Tsubaki's voice. She came through the side passage with blood down the front of her clothes and a shallow cut along her cheek. In one hand she carried a severed head, held by the ragged remains of its neck, the long red hair gathered over her forearm to keep it off the ground.

I stared at it for a moment, then looked back at her face.

"Fū?"

"With the monks. The other woman tried to collapse the passage to the kitchens. Fū went after her." She was breathing hard, her eyes moving over the burns on my hands before settling on Sora. "What happened?"

"His father." I jerked my chin towards Kazuma. "He opened something in the boy's seal."

"Put me down, you fucking bitch!"

The monk nearest Tsubaki recoiled so sharply that he tripped over the abandoned cord. Fūka's eyes were open, her face twisted in fury as she tried to turn towards the woman holding her. Her hair tightened around Tsubaki's wrist. Tsubaki grimaced and fed chakra into her hand until the coils loosened again.

"I kept it intact," she told me, though the strain in her voice made it clear what that had cost her. "Can you take it?"

The head's eyes shifted towards me. "You. Tell your bitch to let go of me!"

I reached out and caught a loose strand between two claws. It curled away from the contact, responding to my chakra before I'd pushed more than a trickle into it. I looked towards Sora's arm. Beneath the abbot's golden hand, the flesh was still holding together despite enough chakra pouring through it to strip the skin off mine. I had been wondering how his body had adapted to the Kyuubi chakra fused to him on a cellular level. More than that, I'd been wondering how I could separate that potent energy without taking off the whole arm. Now with this living, chakra-absorbing hair I might finally have a way to do so.

"Tsubaki, I think I can draw it out."

Her eyes dropped to the tattoo on my right forearm. We'd spent enough time going through those diagrams together that she didn't need to ask where I meant to store the volatile chakra.

"Can you survive it?" she asked, worried.

I looked back at Sora. A crack opened across one of the golden fingers holding him down, and the abbot coughed behind me.

"This hair will function as a substitute for Jiongu threads, while the Chimera Technique will facilitate absorption and integration."

"That isn't what I asked." She pressed.

"I know." I met her eyes. "I don't have a better answer."

She held my gaze for a moment longer, then nodded stiffly and followed me towards the boy. Fūka began struggling harder as we approached, her hair writhing in Tsubaki's grip.

"Get me away from that!"

I knelt beyond the edge of the golden palm. "Chūkaku-sama. Can you expose his forearm? Just that much."

"What are you doing, Mizuki?" the old monk asked, his voice strained.

"Trying to remove the chakra. I need you to keep suppressing it."

He looked at the head in Tsubaki's hand. Fūka bared her teeth at him, and whatever question he'd been about to ask went unanswered as Sora convulsed beneath the restraints. The abbot pressed his palms tighter together. One golden hand shifted, sliding towards the boy's elbow while another closed around his wrist.

I gathered Fūka's hair near the roots and forced my chakra into it.

She screamed, the strands lashing against my forearms. I held on and worked the crude connection formula I'd managed to reconstruct from Taki's notes and Hiruko's research into the fibres. Resistance caught at it, the woman's chakra fighting mine with an awareness that made my stomach turn. Her consciousness was in there. I was holding her very soul between my hands.

"Wait!" she cried. "I can help you! You don't have to—"

I pulled, bracing my wrist against the back of her skull while Tsubaki tightened her grip on the neck. The scalp tore loose with the hair. Fūka's eyes rolled towards me, her mouth working around a sound that stopped as I forced another surge of chakra through the roots.

The head went slack in Tsubaki's hand. Something kept struggling in the hair for a few seconds longer, a frantic pressure against the pattern I was forcing into it, then that gave way too. I held the fibres until they moved when I wanted them to, then loosened my grip enough to separate a few strands.

Tsubaki lowered the head to the ground. Neither of us looked at it again.

I laid one end of the hair across my tattoo and separated the rest into several narrow bundles. They stiffened as I fed chakra through them, and I guided the tips beneath the edge of the golden hand towards Sora's skin.

All those days in Konoha Jail practising with Chakra Threads were finally good for something.

I tried to keep the sharp-tipped bundles shallow and gentle at first, but the pressure coming off Sora's arm made the strands whip sideways. The abbot's shoulders shook with the effort of forcing it down further.

"Whatever it is you're up to Mizuki, I would suggest you do it. Now." he managed.

No way to make this less invasive then. I roughly drove the strands of hair in, punching through the skin.

Sora jerked against the restraints. The fibres sank through his subdermal tissue and I felt the connection catch as I spread them out like a veiny network, a brief impression of heat and pressure before the other ends burrowed into my own forearm.

I'd expected it to hurt, but what I hadn't counted on was just how wrong the writhing tendrils felt as they dug underneath my skin and burrowed through my flesh. It took all of my willpower to keep myself from tearing the whole fucking thing out when the chakra hit.

My right hand slammed against the ground hard enough to break two claws. Red spread beneath my skin, following the veins up towards my elbow, and for a moment I couldn't remember how to breathe. The hair pulled taut between us as my body tried to recoil. Tsubaki caught my shoulder, keeping me beside Sora while I forced myself to hold the connection open.

Too much was coming through. I'd made the tattoo on my forearm into somewhere for the chakra to go and it was pouring into me far faster than I could work, burning through tissue that had never had to contain it. I felt a split open along my wrist and watched blood run into the black markings.

'The arm. Take the fucking arm first.'

I forced the hair deeper into Sora's flesh, drawing on the Chimera Technique Hiruko had left me. The fibres spread beneath the skin, fine enough to pass between the larger vessels, and began carrying more than chakra back through the connection. Blood darkened the red hair. My own flesh tightened around the roots as the technique reached for what I was bringing into it.

I was by no means a seal master and even after literal days spent pouring over his notes and schematics, I couldn't reproduce Hiruko's work from scratch. But I was a better thief than scribe; I may not have been a seal master, but Orochimaru was and thankfully I didn't have alter much, as Hiruko's foul potion had already made my body capable of accepting foreign tissue. Over the past few days, I'd pulled enough from his notes to work his intricate seal work into the elaborate tattoo Orochimaru had placed on the original Mizuki, (hopefully) supplementing what the technique was missing.

I could feel the process of the combined Chimera Technique and Jiongu integration already beginning as the first of Sora's cells reached my arm. The difficulty was keeping enough of myself intact for it to finish.

The skin along my wrist split further. Tsubaki said my name, sharply this time, and I tried to answer before discovering I'd bitten through the inside of my cheek. I swallowed the blood and concentrated on the tattoo instead as I fed my own chakra into the its entry point, trying to give the arriving tissue somewhere to settle, keep it from spreading where I did not want it to go. It should halt the unceasing tidal flow of foreign chakra and contain it there.

'Should…'

My fingers curled against the stone. Muscle cramped all the way to my shoulder, then began to change. Darkened skin spread beneath the stripes, thickening around the wrist. The split stopped widening. It still hurt enough that I could barely keep my eyes open, but the flesh nearest the connection was holding now, the same adaptation that had let Sora survive beginning to take in my own body.

The chakra kept coming.

Something hot and furious pressed into my chest, and for an instant I wanted to tear Tsubaki's hand off my shoulder. No, not just off my shoulder, tear it off completely and the thought frightened me enough to break my concentration. Red flared up my neck. I heard a low growl and realised it had come out of my own throat.

'No. The arm. Keep it in the fucking arm.'

I dragged the flow back towards the tattoo, following the paths Orochimaru had laid there and that now stood empty since the formula had been extracted and used by Hiruko. The sealing array gave me a route, but it wasn't closed. Chakra escaped through the points that should have carried the transformation into the rest of my body, pushing against my own network wherever it reached.

I caught my wrist with my left hand and pressed two fingers into the blood covering the markings. Drawing the connections was clumsy with claws and a shaking arm, but I knew where those outlets were. I'd spent enough nights tracing them while trying to work out how Hiruko had first changed me. I joined the first connection point back into the outer edge of the formula and forced chakra through the altered path.

The pressure in my shoulder eased.

I did the next, then the next, smearing blood across the black ink while Tsubaki held me upright. Each change trapped more of the chakra in the tattoo's pattern. My forearm swelled beneath my grip, the adopted tissue straining as I forced the remaining flow into the same route.

Chūkaku groaned. One of the golden hands broke apart beside me.

I closed the final connection around the original activation point.

For a moment the whole formula lit red. My arm jerked so violently that Tsubaki nearly lost her hold, and I felt the chakra batter against the altered pattern, looking for a way back out. I kept feeding my own chakra into the trigger, holding it shut until the pressure stopped spreading.

Beside me, Sora went limp.

The red aura had thinned to a faint haze around his arm. I kept the hair in place a little longer, drawing the last of the loose chakra and genetic material through while the abbot lowered the remaining golden palms. Then I withdrew the fibres from the boy's skin and pulled the loose lengths into my own forearm, sealing the connection behind them as the living hair burrowed beneath my tattooed skin, becoming a part of me just as the threads of the real Jiongu would have.

Just… much, much creepier and more disgusting. Which was saying something, considering the original technique.

Sora's chest rose beneath his torn robes. His arm was still misshapen, pinpricks of blood welling from thousands of tiny punctures where the hair had burrowed into his skin, but it had shrunk back towards normal proportions at least. I touched two fingers to his wrist with my good hand and felt a pulse, weak but steady.

Tsubaki let out a shaky breath beside me. She eased him onto his side while one of the monks hurried down from the steps to help her. Behind us Chūkaku's chakra construct faded, leaving the old man leaning heavily against his attendant.

I sat back on my heels and looked down at my arm.

The tattoo was darker, its markings thickened by the connections I'd worked into it. Beneath them I could still feel the Kyuubi's chakra, contained for the moment and pushing insistently against the closed trigger, an endless circuit looped in on itself. More than the energy, I could feel the weight of its hatred and I had to forcibly remind myself that there was no fox in there. I hadn't acquired a Bijū of my own just by grabbing a handful of somebody else's hair and shoving it into a seal tattoo.

If it were that easy, every minor village and major lord would have dozens of fully empowered jinchūriki running around and the Great Nations would feature a lot more man-made craters than it already did.

But I'd successfully taken the chakra Sora had carried for years, along with the means his father had evolved within his body to survive it, and managed to shut it all inside myself (without blowing myself up, which according to both Hiruko's and Taki's notes, had been a distinct possibility).

As of now, I was no longer just Mizuki, semi-missing nin from Konoha. Now I was something that transcended rank and loyalty entirely. Something dangerous.

A pseudo-jinchūriki.

'Assuming I haven't just given myself a particularly elaborate way to explode.' The sudden thought sobered me and I pumped the breaks on the growing megalomania that had been building as I stared at the sealing array on my arm.

I was more powerful than ever, I knew, yet compared to the real monsters walking this world, it was akin to a lake after a bit of rainfall next to an ocean during a flood. I had a long ways to go yet… but admittedly, this was the first real step I'd made and despite my exhaustion, I couldn't help but feel a bit giddy.

"Mizuki?" Tsubaki's hand settled against my cheek, turning my face towards her. "Look at me."

I did. Her thumb brushed blood away from the corner of my mouth and I became aware that she was checking my eyes.

"I'm here. It's me," I managed, surprised to find my voice haggard and throat raw.

'Have I been screaming? I didn't even notice…'

She searched my face a moment longer before looking down at my arm. "Can you stand?"

A crash from the other side of the courtyard interrupted my attempt to answer. Kazuma had driven Chiriku back against the wall, a blade flashing in his hand as he struck at the monk's stomach. Chiriku turned the wrist aside at the last second and drove his forehead into Kazuma's face, briefly forcing him back before he regained his footing with a spinning back kick that embedded the monk further into the wall.

Kazuma looked towards Sora, knocked out and looking pitiful, but also distinctly un-demonlike. His gaze followed the trail of blood that connected Sora's mangled arm to mine, settling on the altered tattoo and his eyes widened before he snarled.

"NO! You dare!?" He started forwards, only for Chiriku to burst from the rubble and catch his shoulder, throwing him back with a roar.

I pushed myself upright, keeping my left hand on Tsubaki's shoulder until I trusted my legs. My whole body ached, but beneath the pain there was a pressure I could feel through every beat of my heart. I touched the tattoo's trigger with a little chakra, opening it as carefully as I could.

Red spread over my forearm. The muscles swelled, claws lengthening from fingers that had already darkened beneath the stripes, and the broken tips grew back as I watched, grateful for the added confirmation I had incorporated Sora's genetic adaptations. Otherwise, just activating my arm would've crippled me instead. Heat climbed towards my shoulder before I narrowed the opening again, keeping the flow to something I could bear.

Tsubaki withdrew her hand from my arm, watching the chakra gather over it.

"Stay with Sora," I said, a harsh growl in my voice that hadn't been there before.

She looked towards Kazuma, then back at me. I waited until she'd moved away before shifting my weight, balling my enlarged fist until the knuckles stood out, my eyes on the two former Guardian Ninja.

Chiriku struck at Kazuma's head with an open palm. He ducked beneath it, caught the monk's sleeve and tried to drag him off balance, but Chiriku stepped into the pull and drove his knee towards his ribs. Kazuma twisted away, releasing the cloth and jumping clear towards the open side of the courtyard, sealing through the air with the effortless grace only elite ninja possessed.

I pushed off, breaking the paving beneath my foot. I crossed the distance before I'd quite adjusted to how fast I was moving, catching Kazuma just as he was in the middle of his dodge, suspended in the air. His eyes widened as I planted my left foot and turned my hip into the strike, just as Chiriku had been beating into me over the past two days. He tried to bring his arm up between us, but my fist had already struck his chest.

His ribs broke beneath my knuckles, and I kept going, driving my demonic arm straight through him until my fist tore out of his back.

---

AN: Got a bit more written than I had anticipated, so a double update for now. You can read up to five chapters ahead over on my Patreon

 

[Spearow]

The chapter was great, thank you for the work

 

[Bakkughan]

Step 3.5​

---

By the time somebody finally found me a bucket of clean water, most of the blood on my arm had dried.

I sat on the edge of the steps and worked a wet cloth between my fingers, trying to get at the bits caught beneath my claws without thinking too hard about what or whose they were. The water had already turned an unpleasant shade of pink. Beside me, Tsubaki was carefully unwinding the bandage she had put around my other hand, her brow furrowed as she examined the shallow cuts beneath it.

"These have almost closed," she murmured.

"Good. I was rather attached to the skin there."

She gave me a small smile, though her fingers remained gentle as she turned my hand over. The cable had made quite a mess of my palms. Holding onto the prayer cord while Sora tried to cook everyone nearby hadn't helped much either, but the burns were already healing. Bijū chakra worked fast apparently.

My right arm was another matter entirely.

It looked mostly like itself again. The swelling had gone down, the claws had shortened and the stripes were back where I remembered them being. Unfortunately, beneath the tattoo I could still feel something moving whenever I concentrated on it for too long.

Fūka's hair.

'Wonderful. I've given myself worms. Very expensive, highly useful, fucking disgusting worms.'

I stopped trying to follow the sensation and rinsed the cloth again. The Kyuubi's chakra was just as easy to keep track of, more so even. Less because of its disgusting body-horror creepiness factor, but because it sat behind the altered formula like a furnace someone had forgotten to turn off, hot enough that Tsubaki had noticed it through my sleeve. I had checked the trigger three times since sitting down, then decided I should probably stop poking the thing keeping me from setting myself on fire.

Across the courtyard, two monks lifted Kazuma onto a stretcher. Somebody had covered him, though the cloth caught on his broken ribs as they moved him and one of the men had to stop to pull it free.

I looked back down at the bucket.

Despite the fight he had given Chiriku and I, the moment I had gotten my hands on Biju chakra (pun intended), it was already over for him. As it turned out, killing him had been considerably easier than getting my arm out afterwards.

The fighting throughout the Temple grounds had stopped a little over an hour ago. When Kazuma died, most of the corpses had simply collapsed where they stood, which had been a relief for everyone except an unfortunate monk caught underneath one of them. The four dead Guardians had gone still as well, though Tiger's people had taken considerable time making sure of that before anyone went near their bodies.

Apparently, even long-dead, the Guardian Ninja had given everyone just a fearsome fight as their remaining living counterparts had.

Now the ANBU were bringing the remains in while the monks tried to work out how many of their own needed burying alongside them. There were fewer than there might have been, considering how sudden the attack had started, from inside the walls no less.

That was about the best thing I could say for the whole cluster-fuck.

A pair of novices passed us carrying an armful of broken staffs. One of them had a bandage around his head, the white cloth stained above his ear, while the other kept glancing towards the covered shapes beneath the far veranda. Further along, men were clearing the entrance to the kitchens so that somebody could get a fire going. The living and the wounded still needed feeding, and apparently being attacked by an army of the dead didn't exempt anyone from washing rice.

Tsubaki finished with my hand and reached for a fresh strip of cloth. I let her wrap it, watching as Fū came out of the hall behind us.

"Well?" I asked.

"Still sleeping." She sat down on my other side, pulling her knees up. "They said I should let him."

"They're probably right."

"It wasn't as if I was waking him up." She muttered as she glared at the floor.

"I know you weren't." I said in a calming voice that saw her shoulders relax minutely.

She rested her chin on her knees. There was a dark patch on the hem of her clothes that she kept picking at, despite it having dried too thoroughly to come off. She had washed her hands and face, but there was still dust caught in her hair.

"What about that woman? The one with the weird terrain altering Technique? What happened?" I asked quietly.

The young jinchūriki had gone after Kazuma's last accomplice by herself once she and Tsubaki had taken Fuka down together, allowing my fiancée to cut off the immortal woman's head and bring her soul hair over to me.

Just part of your everyday marital duties in the Naruto world, I suppose.

Fū's fingers stopped.

"She died." She said simply.

I nodded, waiting in case she wanted to add anything. She didn't. A monk had already told Tiger where to find the body, and from the look on the girl's face I doubted she particularly wanted to go over the details again for my benefit.

"I'm glad you're alright, at least."

That got a glance in my direction, followed by a small nod and a wan smile before she went back to worrying at the stain.

For a while we sat without speaking. There was plenty to listen to anyway. Orders from the far courtyard, the scrape of timber being dragged clear, somebody calling for more bandages from inside the hall. Each time one of the wounded cried out, Fū's shoulders tightened a little.

Then Raijin came around the corner carrying half a man.

For a brief, horrible moment I thought the morning had somehow managed to get worse, until Fūjin followed him into view with the other half still firmly attached.

Their opponent hung between them, face towards the ground, with each Brother holding a wrist and an ankle. They had stretched him out enough that he looked like a man about to be drawn and quartered. From his upside-down position, he couldn't get much leverage, though that hadn't stopped him trying. As I watched, the man twisted violently and attempted to kick Fūjin, who shifted his grip with the mild annoyance of someone carrying an awkward sack of potatoes.

"Stop that," he complained.

"Put me down!"

"No."

Raijin looked towards me. "Boss! What do we do with him?"

I stared at the prisoner, then at the two men holding him.

"You're still fighting?"

"He won't break," Fūjin explained, sounding genuinely put out by this.

"We hit him lots."

"Yeah, like a lot of lots!"

"I heard." I said with an exasperated smile.

Practically everyone in the Land of Fire had probably heard. The guest house certainly wasn't going to recover from it any time soon.

The man lifted his head enough to glare at me. Dust covered his dark hair and most of his face, though the triangular markings on his cheeks remained visible beneath it. A faint sheen caught the light along his neck when he strained against the Brothers' grip.

'Right. The armour.'

"Have you tried asking him to take down his technique nicely?" I suggested.

Both Brothers just… blinked at me for a long moment.

"Right, of course." I said quickly. "Never mind. Bring him over here."

Tsubaki moved the bucket out of the way as I stood, and I took a moment to make sure my legs intended to cooperate before approaching. They ached, my ribs hurt and something unpleasant pulled across my shoulder whenever I lifted that arm too high. Whatever healing I had acquired apparently still had a washlist of issues to work through before I was back in fighting shape.

The prisoner watched me come closer, his eyes dropping briefly towards my tattoo.

"Fudō, right?"

The burly man blinked at my question, before his expression settled back into a stubborn frown, clearly not intending to talk. Chiriku had emerged from the adjoining passage. His robes were torn at the shoulder, dried blood marking one side of his neck, but he held himself straight as he approached us. There was something about his expression though that set me off, though I couldn't put my finger on it.

"That's his name?" the monk asked before I could question him about it.

"Well I think so. Not that this big bastard will tell us anyhow." I shrugged.

The monk ignored me, studying the way the Brothers held their captive. He reached out with two fingers towards Fudō's shoulder, then paused as the man jerked away. Light rippled across the exposed skin.

"Earth Release," Chiriku murmured. "Powerful too. To have such a potent effect running for so long is impressive indeed. This is a level of skill with the Earth Release even few Jōnin from Iwa possess."

"Very good," Fudō spat. "Now tell these idiots to let go."

"Hey!" Raijin protested, tightening his grip.

Fudō sucked in a breath, then frowned. I followed his gaze towards the hand wrapped around his wrist. A red mark had begun to form beneath Raijin's fingers and I could almost hear the man's ankle bones grind together.

Or that could've been the guy's teeth, considering how hard he was clenching his jaw.

Chiriku noticed his discomfort too.

"Keep him up." He instructed coldly.

The monk pressed his fingers against Fudō's shoulder. This time gleam flickered into a existence again, but slower and after several long moments where Chiriku visibly kept upping the pressure, it shattered like a soap bubble popping. Quick as a viper, the former Guardian Ninja's hand closed around Fudo's shoulder and the prisoner flinched as Chiriku dug his thumb into the muscle.

"Put me down!" The man began struggling with renewed vigor as we all looked at him for a long, considering moment.

Even the Brothers, which just made the terrorist struggle even harder, true fear beginning to creep into his eyes.

"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me." I glanced from his dangling feet to the ground beneath them and huffed in tired amusement as everything fell into place.

All those broken walls and shattered roofs. An entire guest house turned into a demonstration of why the Brothers should never be allowed near load-bearing structures, and apparently the answer had been to just… pick the bastard up and wait.

The properties he'd drawn out of the earth had held for an impressively long time, but with no contact to replenish whatever the technique needed, the armour was finally giving out.

Raijin looked down at the man in his hands with renewed interest.

"Can we hit him now?"

"No," Chiriku and I said together as the head monk was already beckoning sharply to a passing acolyte carrying a satchel of talismans.

The big lug's face fell and his brother patted him on the shoulder with a hand larger than a dinnerplate.

The monk with the satchel knelt beside us, sorting through several strips of paper before passing them up to Chiriku. Fudō bucked hard enough that Fūjin had to take a step sideways or risk getting a big toe in the eye, but neither Brother came close to losing his hold. With his hands stretched apart he couldn't form seals, and Chiriku wasn't giving him time to think of much else.

One talisman went beneath his collar, another around each wrist. The monk traced a pattern between them with an inked brush, pausing whenever Fudō struggled too much for him to work. For good measure, another talisman was slapped against the man's forehead. By the time he finished, the prisoner's breathing had grown laboured and sweat shone along his brow.

Only then did Chiriku allow the Brothers to lower him.

Fudō immediately tried to dig his fingers into a crack between the paving stones. Nothing happened. The paper at his wrists darkened as the sealwork took hold, and two monks pulled his arms behind his back before binding them.

Fūjin watched with evident disappointment.

"That was it?"

"You did well," I told him. "Both of you."

Raijin brightened. "Thanks Boss! Does that mean we can we go eat now?"

"The kitchens are being cleared. Go help them move the rubble and you might get fed sooner."

That proved considerably more motivating than any appeal to their better nature. Both men headed off at once, leaving Fudō kneeling between the monks while Chiriku checked the talismans.

I was about to sit back down when a stretcher came through the passage behind him.

Fūka's body had been covered. Her hairless head lay beside it beneath a separate cloth, though enough of the redhead's torn clothes remained visible for Fudō to recognise her. His gaze followed the stretcher, then shifted towards the other three already laid beneath the veranda.

"Fūen?" he asked.

Nobody answered immediately. Fū's fingers closed around my sleeve and the small motion caught the man's attention immediately. Fudō looked at her hand, then at the blood on her clothes, before his dark eyes settled on the girls drawn expression. The colour drained from his face.

"And Furido? What of our glorious leader-!"

Chiriku stepped into his line of sight as the terrorist tried to work his way to his feet, despite no longer being able to call on his chakra.

"You will answer questions in Konoha." The monk stated sternly.

Fudo stared up at him for a long silent moment. Something flashed through his eyes, before he straightened his shoulders. His jaw moved, his cheeks pulling tight and for a moment I thought he was about to spit in the monk's face.

Chiriku's fist shot out like a viper and struck him in the mouth, hard.

There was no warning. One moment the monk was standing over a bound prisoner, the next his fist had snapped Fudō's head backwards hard enough that the men holding him had to brace. Something white hit the paving beside my foot. Two more teeth followed, along with a string of blood as Fudō slumped forwards, choking.

Chiriku caught him beneath the jaw and forced his mouth open.

"Hold his head."

The nearest monk obeyed after a moment's hesitation. Chiriku examined the bloody mess he'd made, then reached for a folded length of cloth from the satchel and placed it between the bleeding jaws of Fudo like a demented version of the world's most cruel dentist.

I realised I was staring.

So was Tsubaki. Fū had gone very still against my side.

"He was trying to bite off his tongue, probably to swallow it. Common suicide technique for bound prisoners trying to prevent interrogation," Chiriku said clinically, as though explaining an error in my stance. "Keep his mouth secured. Check it regularly until he is in the hands of the interrogation unit."

The monks nodded. Fudō made a wet, furious sound, then groaned as they worked the cloth into place properly to force his jaws apart and tightened his restraints.

My eyes dropped to the teeth again.

"Remind me never to complain about your bedside manner again."

Chiriku wiped his knuckles on a clean corner of his robe.

"I have walked the path of the monk for most of my life, Mizuki, but not all of it. I served the Daimyō before I came here. Taking prisoners for the Court's interrogators and goalers was part of my duties. I learned what to watch for."

"Yes. I gathered that."

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, delivered in much the same voice he'd used to correct my footwork yesterday. I might even have believed that was all there was to it if his hand hadn't kept rubbing at the blood long after it was gone.

He noticed me watching and lowered it with an uncharacteristic jerk.

"Excuse me. There is still much to do." He said stiffly before turning on his heel and I let him go as the monks hauled Fudō upright and took him towards Tiger's people, leaving me looking after Chiriku as he disappeared into the hall.

There was no need to confront the man for answers since I got the dawning suspicion I knew what had upset the normally unflappable man.

Chūkaku had been carried inside less than an hour ago.

At the time, I had assumed somebody was putting the old man to bed.

---

They had laid him in a small room overlooking the inner garden.

It had escaped most of the damage. Through the open shutters I could see a rake lying beside a patch of carefully combed gravel, its pattern spoiled by a single fallen roof tile. Someone had set a bowl of water near the bed and folded the abbot's outer robe at his feet.

I stood in the doorway for a moment, uncertain what I had expected.

Chūkaku looked (even) smaller than he had that morning. Without the robes and the enormous golden figure rising above him, he was simply an old man beneath a blanket, his hands resting together over his stomach. It wasn't moving.

There was still a little dried blood beside his nose.

"Did he ever wake up?" I asked.

The elderly monk beside the bed shook his head.

"He spoke briefly after they helped him inside. Then he asked to rest."

I looked at the bowl. The cloth beside it had barely been used.

"And nobody could…?"

I stopped. There wasn't a particularly polite way to finish that question, and the man's expression told me he understood it well enough anyway.

"He had been sustaining the defensive arrays since the attack began. When he left them, others took his place, but he had already expended a great deal of chakra." The monk adjusted the edge of the blanket, though it hadn't needed moving. "Holding the boy after that was too much."

I remembered the golden fingers cracking around Sora's arm. Chūkaku sinking to one knee, the monk beside him trying to keep him upright while I struggled to make the connection work.

I'd been so fucking relieved when he arrived, jumped on him to do the heavy lifting in order to make sure I could extract Sora's powers.

"He never said..."

"No. He would not have."

I looked down at my right hand. Under the fresh sleeve Tsubaki had found me, the tattoo was warm.

"What about Chiriku?" I eventually asked.

"With Sora. The boy woke a little while ago."

I nodded, though I didn't immediately leave. Instead, I bowed towards the bed, deeper than my ribs particularly appreciated, and stepped back into the corridor.

As it turned out, Sora's room was only a short distance away. Fū sat outside it with Tsubaki, turning a cup between her hands. She started to rise when she saw me, but a small voice from inside made us both pause.

"He died because of me."

Chiriku answered quietly enough that I had to move closer to hear him.

"He died helping you. There is a difference, Sora."

"Would he be dead if I hadn't been here?"

Through the partly open door I could see the boy sitting against a pile of folded bedding. His right arm had been wrapped from wrist to shoulder, the hand resting stiffly on his lap. It was smaller than it had been during the fight, though the shape beneath the cloth still wasn't quite right. The 'curse' his father had placed on him would be a wound he'd carry for the rest of his life, in more ways than one.

Chiriku sat beside him.

"Your father brought those people here," the monk said. "He attacked the Temple. He released the chakra knowing what it would do to you. None of those were your decisions."

Sora stared at his bandaged hand.

"But he came for me."

"And we would protect you again."

The boy's mouth tightened. For a while he said nothing, and I almost stepped away before Chiriku continued.

"Nobody here blames you for what happened."

"They blame my father. Again." The child shot back immediately and I could see the monk wrestle with what to say to that.

"Yes," Chiriku admitted after a long moment.

Sora finally looked up at him.

"How long before that's the same thing?"

The monk opened his mouth, then closed it. I thought of the boys turning away from the training yard, of Sora shrinking back against the wall as though he could make himself less noticeable by sheer effort.

Chiriku might mean every word. That didn't mean everybody else would find it so easy to separate the boy from the man who had killed their friends.

"You were wrong anyway," Sora muttered.

"About what?"

"Someone from the Temple does blame me." He swallowed, staring hard at the folds in his blanket. "I do." He finished in a small voice.

Fū looked down into her cup. Beside her, Tsubaki pressed her hands together in her lap.

For once, I couldn't think of anything to say either.

Chiriku stayed where he was. After a while he rested a hand on Sora's uninjured shoulder, leaving it there when the boy failed to pull away.

"You have a place here," he said. "That has not changed. Even if it is difficult to feel that at the moment."

Sora rubbed at his face with his good hand.

"… I know."

He didn't sound as though he believed it, but Chiriku didn't force him to say anything else.

I moved away from the door, giving Fū room to take the water in. Tsubaki followed me a few paces down the corridor and slipped her hand into mine. I held it, being careful of the claws.

---

We left the following morning.

Tiger had made it clear that our return to Konoha would tolerate no further detours, extended visits or sudden discoveries of dangerous missing-nin who might need dealing with. He looked directly at me for that last part.

I had considered pointing out that yesterday's attack hadn't exactly been part of my travel plans, but decided I had probably used up my allowance of cheeky remarks for the week.

Besides, the Temple had enough to worry about without continuing to feed the Brothers.

They had proved remarkably useful during the cleanup once somebody explained which walls were meant to remain standing. By evening, the main paths were clear and most of the salvageable timber had been stacked beside the ruined guest house. Raijin had even carried a wounded monk to the infirmary without dropping him, though the man had reportedly spent most of the journey asking to be put down.

Apparently Raijin's idea of a 'fireman's carry' was to just… pick someone up by the ankle and swing them over his shoulder like they were a mouthy knapsack.

Fudō would be travelling under even less comfortable circumstances. The ANBU had checked the monks' restraints, added some of their own, and spent the night making sure their prisoner couldn't find another way to deprive Ibiki of a conversation.

While our company double-checked our prisoner and gear, Fū lingered beside the gate, looking back into the compound every few moments.

I'd seen Sora once more before bed. He had thanked me for helping him, his eyes fixed somewhere around my shoulder, and I had told him he was welcome with all the eloquence of a man trying very hard not to mention the enormous hole he'd put through the boy's father.

We hadn't found much to talk about after that.

Now I watched a pair of monks replace the broken latch on a side door while Tiger spoke with Chiriku beneath the surviving gatepost. Neither man had slept much. Everybody noticed (and of course nobody commented on) the new necklace of prayer beads that now hung heavily around Chiriku's neck. The same ones that had denoted Chūkaku's position as abbot of the Fire Temple. Meanwhile Tiger's mask concealed most of his exhaustion and battle wounds, but there was a stiffness to the way he held his shoulder that hadn't been there before the battle.

"Make sure Asuma hears it from you," Chiriku said.

Tiger inclined his head.

"He will."

"All of it. About Kazuma. And Chūkaku-sama."

"I'll speak to him."

There was something about the answer that caught my attention. Not the words themselves so much as the ease of them, the assumption that speaking privately to Asuma was simply something Tiger would do when he got home.

It made sense. Asuma had served alongside Chiriku and Kazuma. Of course he deserved to hear what had happened, preferably from somebody who had actually been here instead of a report passed around the mission office.

Still, Chiriku hadn't asked Tiger to inform the Hokage and have him tell his son. He had asked him directly, with the same familiarity they'd shown each other since we arrived.

I looked at the mask again.

'Asuma. Sarutobi Asuma.'

The Hokage's son.

One of the Hokage's sons.

My hand stopped halfway through tightening the strap of my backpack.

Of course. Konohamaru. How could I have forgotten the Honored Grandson? Obviously for the kid to have a famous grandfather, he'd need to have a father first and since Asuma was his uncle, that meant there was another Sarutobi son somewhere, one who had somehow managed to escape my notice and had somehow never featured in my memories from another world, beyond vague rumors and implications that the guy was either in ANBU or just… straight up dead.

Tiger was about Asuma's age. An ANBU captain. Familiar with the Fire Temple and its abbot, comfortable enough with Chiriku that the man barely seemed to register the mask between them.

'Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.'

Tiger turned his head, which is when I realized I was standing there with my mouth open.

For a moment neither of us moved. Behind his mask, his eyes narrowed slightly, tracking my glance towards Chiriku and back again.

I shut my mouth.

Then I looked at Tsubaki's pack with the sudden, desperate interest of a man discovering that luggage was actually a fascinating subject worthy of his undivided attention.

"Ready?" I asked her.

"Almost."

"Good. Excellent."

She looked up at me, puzzled by my apparent enthusiasm for walking back towards a potential prison sentence.

Over her shoulder, Tiger was still watching.

I had spent weeks needling the Hokage's eldest son. Complaining about him, arguing with him, occasionally taking considerable pleasure in making his day worse. The man reporting my behaviour to the old monkey probably did so over fucking dinner.

'Well done, Mizuki. Outstanding work. Any other career opportunities you'd like to strangle in their crib while we're here?'

More importantly, he was wearing a mask for a reason, and I had no intention of finding out what happened to people who started announcing the identities of ANBU captains in public, especially said identity was being the Hokage's fuckin' son!

When I finally risked looking back, Tiger hadn't moved. He held my gaze long enough that I began wondering whether I should pretend to have suffered a delayed head injury.

Then his chin dipped by the smallest fraction before he turned away, said something quietly to Chiriku and walked towards the front of the group.

I let out the breath I'd been holding.

"Mizuki?" Tsubaki asked.

"Nothing! Just… remembered something."

She smiled uncertainly and offered me the strap she'd been trying to tighten. I took it with my good hand, grateful for something to do that didn't involve staring at what basically amounted to royalty within a ninja village.

We had just started through the gate when somebody called from behind us.

"Wait!"

Fū turned immediately, a smile already forming on her face.

Sora came down the path carrying a small bundle over his left shoulder. His right arm was back beneath a loose sleeve, held close to his body, and the metal claw hung at his waist. He slowed when he reached Chiriku, suddenly aware of how many people had stopped to watch.

"I wanted to ask something."

Chiriku looked at the bundle, then at the boy.

"Go on."

Sora shifted his weight. For a moment his eyes found Fū, who had already taken several hopeful steps back towards him, before returning to the monk.

"Thank you. For yesterday. For telling me about him."

Chiriku's expression softened a little.

"You deserved to know the better side of him. Before… before everything…" the monk trailed off.

"I kept thinking about it." Sora rubbed his thumb against the strap over his shoulder. "About what he wanted. Before all of this."

The monk waited.

"You said he loved the Land of Fire. That he wanted to protect it, keep it strong."

"He did. All of us Guardians did; it is why we joined that Order. But, as years passed, your father… Your father came to believe very strongly that only he had the path to peace and strength for our country."

"And this… Asuma, he disagreed."

Chiriku nodded gravely.

I glanced towards Tiger. He stood a little apart from the rest of us, listening without interruption.

"I want to ask him about it," Sora said. "About my father before he… before he was like that."

"Asuma may find that difficult." The monk cautioned.

"I know. But there's only you and him left."

Chiriku looked away briefly, towards one of the four corners where his resurrected comrades had been raised against their wishes and made to threaten their former friend. When he turned back, Sora was watching him closely.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now," the boy admitted. "He had all these plans for me, and I didn't even know he was alive. I don't know what I want to become. I just… I think I need to find somewhere I fit first."

"You can do that here."

"I know." Sora swallowed. "But I'd like to try somewhere else first."

The monk was quiet for a moment, then his eyes moved towards the pack again.

"In Konoha, perhaps?"

Sora nodded.

"He got the chakra there. When the Nine-Tails attacked." His good hand closed around the strap. "People died, and he took what was left and put it in me. I've never even seen the place."

There was no easy response to that. Chiriku seemed to recognise it too, because he let the boy continue.

"…And… well, Fū's going." The boy admitted under his breath.

The girl smiled at once. Sora's ears reddened slightly, but he held his ground.

"I know it's different now. I don't have… whatever was making us the same. But I'd still like to go with her." The boy soldiered on as he glanced at Taki's jinchūriki from the corner of his eye.

Fū looked as though she was about to launch herself at him. To her credit, she remembered his arm at the last moment and settled for coming to stand beside him instead.

"Of course you can still come," she said firmly.

Chiriku's mouth curved faintly, though he looked towards Tiger before answering.

"If arrangements can be made, I have no objection. But this remains your home, Sora. You do not need a reason to return."

The boy nodded, blinking hard.

"Thank you."

Tiger folded his arms.

"The boy has only just recovered consciousness. He should be examined before—"

"We're going to Konoha," I pointed out. "I'm fairly sure we've got somebody there who can manage that. Best hospitals on the continent, even now that Tsunade left. That's what all our commercials say, anyways."

His mask turned towards me.

"I was not asking you, Mizuki."

"No, but I thought I'd save us some time." I looked at Sora. "You're welcome to travel with us. Provided you don't mind the company."

The boy's eyes flicked towards my right arm.

It was only for a moment, but I noticed. So did he, judging by how quickly he looked back at my face.

"I don't."

There was a stiffness to the answer that I doubted either of us particularly enjoyed. Still, he hadn't withdrawn the request, and I wasn't going to make him explain himself in front of everybody.

Tiger considered us both. Then he looked towards Chiriku, who inclined his head.

"He can travel. I would have stopped him before he packed otherwise."

Another pause, long enough for Fū to start looking offended on Sora's behalf.

Finally, Tiger sighed.

"Stay with the group. Tell someone if you become unwell."

Sora nodded quickly.

"I will."

"And no detours," the captain added, looking at me again.

"I haven't even said anything!"

"Good. For the sake of my blood pressure and your continued freedom, let's keep it that way."

Chiriku managed a tired smile. He rested his hand briefly on Sora's head, then stepped aside to let him pass.

Fū fell into step beside Sora, asking him what he wanted to see in Konoha, before launching into her own list before the boy had a chance to answer. Tsubaki greeted him warmly and offered to help with his bundle, though he shook his head and kept hold of it. I moved ahead a few paces, giving him room to settle beside Fū without having to decide whether to stand next to me.

When I looked back, Chiriku was still beside the gate, one hand resting lightly on the heavy prayers beads resting against his chest. Behind him, reconstruction continued.

---

By the time Konoha's walls came into view, I had thought of at least six reasons why bringing me inside them might be considered a terrible idea.

Unfortunately, I doubted the Hokage needed help coming up with any of them.

The journey had been uneventful, which I appreciated considerably more than Fū did. She had spent the first stretch pointing things out to Sora, then gradually accepted that he wasn't going to contribute much beyond the occasional nod. After that she'd mostly talked for both of them, leaving enough pauses that he could answer when he felt like it.

Once or twice, he had.

Tsubaki walked beside me, looking increasingly pleased as familiar landmarks appeared along the road. She had mentioned a bath, clean clothes and somewhere proper to sleep, each with such quiet longing that I hadn't had the heart to remind her my accommodation might already have been arranged by the prison service.

The Brothers were less optimistic.

"Are we going back?" Raijin asked as the gate grew larger ahead of us.

"To Konoha? Yes."

"No. Back."

I glanced at him. For once, neither Brother was looking for food. Fūjin watched the walls with a frown, his hands opening and closing at his sides.

"Let's find out what the Hokage has to say first."

It wasn't much of an answer, but it was the only honest one I had.

Tiger glanced back, then continued towards the gate.

The guards noticed him before they noticed the rest of us. One straightened from behind the desk while the other took a step towards the road, his attention moving past the captain to the bound prisoner and the two enormous men following him.

Then he looked at me, his hand stopping halfway to his pouch as I smiled at him. It was only when he couldn't quite suppress a flinch, that I remembered the teeth and made an effort to display fewer of them.

Tiger handed over a document. The guard read it, looked at me again, read the document again (to Tiger's visibly growing exasperation) then checked something in the ledger with his colleague. Neither man seemed particularly pleased by what they found, though apparently the paperwork outranked their personal opinions.

'Please let that continue being the case for the rest of the day.'

We passed through without anybody drawing a weapon and deciding to be optimistic for once, I counted that as a promising start.

Inside, the village was getting on with its afternoon. A delivery cart occupied half the street while its driver argued with a shopkeeper about where to put the crates. Two children darted around it, one chasing the other with a stick, until a woman caught them both by their collars and gave them an earful.

I knew this street. Or at least, the old Mizuki did. The narrow shop on the corner sold writing supplies, the alley beside it led towards a cheaper place to buy kunai, and the woman sweeping her doorstep further along had once shouted at him for tracking mud over it.

It was an odd collection of things to inherit from a dead man.

Tsubaki's fingers brushed mine. I looked over and found her smiling at the familiar buildings, her shoulders easing for the first time since the Temple bell had rung in alarm, what seemed so long ago now.

Fū had already spotted three things she wanted to investigate. Sora walked beside her, looking up at the rooftops and the carved faces beyond them, his mouth slightly open. Coming from the more rural parts of the continent, Konoha was a veritable metropole of industrialization and modern advancement to them.

While the kids (and the Legendary Stupid Brothers) were distracted, I spotted how an ANBU peeled away from the group with Fudō, taking him down a side street. I slowed automatically, watching them go until I realised Tiger was continuing on without me, and hurried to catch up.

"Sooo…," I began cautiously. "I was under the impression I'd be going with him." I nodded towards the street where Fudō had disappeared. "Holding cell. Uncomfortable bench. Somebody explaining that all my personal possessions are now evidence?"

"The day is still young, Mizuki. Don't give me hope."

I looked at him as I ignored one of the ANBU not even bothering to suppress a snicker behind me.

"Young? It's the afternoon." I gasped, offended.

"And I've learned not to underestimate how much trouble you can cause in a limited timeframe."

I opened my mouth, considered the last several weeks, and shut it again.

Tsubaki tried to hide a smile. She didn't do a particularly good job.

We stopped where the street widened, allowing the cart behind us to rattle past. Tiger spoke briefly with the remaining ANBU, assigning one to see the Brothers settled and another to make arrangements for Sora. Fū immediately announced that she was going with the boy, apparently unwilling to risk him being put somewhere she couldn't find him.

The captain accepted that with the weary air of a man choosing which arguments were worth having.

"Get some rest," he told us. "Wash. Eat. You'll be informed when you're needed."

For a moment I simply stood there.

'That's it?'

No cell. No restraints. No immediate demand that I explain why the arm beneath my sleeve now contained enough stolen fox chakra to make any sensible interrogator reconsider sitting too close.

Tsubaki touched my elbow.

"Come on. I got myself an appartement in town after you… Well, the old house is still considered a crime scene, so the apartment will have to do for now. It isn't far."

I nodded and turned to follow her, when a hand settled on my shoulder.

"Not you, Mizuki."

I froze in place as Tiger's grip remained pleasantly, firmly immovable.

"The Hokage has requested to have… words with you."

---

You can read up to five chapters ahead over on my Patreon.