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​

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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​

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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.

 

[Bakkughan]

Interlude 4​

​

---

Apparently, being allowed back into Konoha didn't automatically mean I was allowed to go home. Tiger marched me straight up to the Hokage's office, where I found the old man waiting behind his desk. To my surprise, Asuma was already present, occupying a chair to the left of his dad's desk, one ankle hooked over the other and an already lit cigarette turning between his fingers.

I glanced from one Sarutobi to the next as Tiger closed the door behind us, then silently took up position at the Hokage's shoulder. Father and both sons, all here just for me.

'Lovely. A family gathering.'

All we needed was Konohamaru running in to kick me in the balls and we could call it a reunion.

"Mizuki. Sit down," Hiruzen said, indicating the empty chair.

I obeyed, taking care not to aggravate my ribs (even further) as I sat. From the way his eyes followed the movement, I might as well have screamed for a chiropractor.

"Would you prefer to be examined first?" Hiruzen surprisingly offered with a raised eyebrow.

"Depends. Would that get me out of this?" I asked hopefully. His expression answered for him, and I settled against the back of the chair with a sigh. "Then I'm comfortable, thank you."

Asuma leaned forwards before I'd finished settling, taking a deep drag of his dog-eared cigarette.

"How's Chiriku?"

"Alive. Busy. There's a lot to put back together after all. Right now, he's probably hitting someone with a stick for sweeping incorrectly or something."

That got a small smile out of him, though it disappeared when his father opened the folder on his desk.

"We have received Captain Tiger's preliminary report. Asuma has some questions concerning the attack on the Temple."

Of course he did. It involved his dead colleagues, his former friend and the man he'd apparently failed to kill properly the first time around. I'd have had a few questions myself.

"Chiriku confirms you fought beside him against that traitor, yeah? Did Kazuma say anything about coming here? To Konoha?" Asuma asked.

"Mostly it was just ranting about using the Kyuubi's leftovers to wipe Konoha off the map properly this time. All to make the Land of Fire stronger, of course. Bad guys like that got some sort of savior-complex; they think in order to save something, it's justifiable to burn it down first. Fucking weirdo…"

Asuma's fingers tightened around the cigarette, but Hiruzen looked unsurprised and unconcerned.

"Captain Tiger has given us his account, but he was coordinating the defence of the outer shrines during Kazuma's assault on the Temple. I would like you to describe your encounter with Kazuma."

"From when?"

"From the point at which you became aware of him."

That took longer than I would have liked as I got on with explaining what had happened. The dead Guardians at the shrines, the zombies digging their way out of the ground, Furido turning out to be Kazuma… By the time I reached the climatic reveal, Asuma was rubbing his forehead with a drawn expression, his cigarette burnt to a smoldering nub without him even noticing.

"Chiriku never should have had to face Kazuma again. That is my fault, I should have made certain he was dead."

There wasn't much I could say to that without being either insulting or dishonest. I settled for continuing the account and Asuma let me finish without interrupting again, though his expression got steadily worse as I described Kazuma's reunion with his son. Which was fair enough. Most fathers brought presents when they came back after a long absence. Sora's had turned up to peel his skin off and point him at a hidden village like a living natural disaster.

"And you were able to remove the chakra from the child?" Hiruzen asked once I'd finished.

I nodded, shifting my right arm off the armrest and giving a little wave.

"And then you took it for yourself." Asuma's gaze followed the movement of my arm before returning to my face. "What made you decide to do that?"

"Leaving it where it was wasn't doing anyone much good," I shrugged, "Neither would putting it in somebody else if he couldn't contain it."

Asuma leaned forwards, his forearms resting on his knees. "I'm asking why you thought that somebody should be you."

Beside him, Hiruzen remained still, watching us over the open folder. I looked between them, then let out a breath.

"Had to be me, someone else would've gotten it wrong. I had a way of actually containing the chakra, a… highly experimental Technique. There wasn't time to teach somebody else, assuming they'd have been willing to try."

That briefly seemed to mollify the Sarutobi men as they exchanged quick glances before Asuma leaned forward again.

"Are you certain of this… Technique of yours? You really did take all of Sora's implanted Bijū chakra?"

"As far as we could tell." I nodded. "Tsubaki examined him afterwards. The arm's back to normal… -ish."

"He'll need another examination here," Hiruzen said. "As will you."

I'd been expecting that. Rather less fond of the idea now that it was actually being said out loud, but still, it had been easy to see this one coming.

Asuma flicked the long-spent cig into the ashtray on the Hokage's desk with a deep sigh, already fishing into his flak jacket for a new one as his gaze turned distant, before he sat back, dragging a hand down his face.

"Chiriku should have sent word sooner."

"He didn't know who the man was until the fight. The hair, the scar… Apparently he'd changed quite a bit since you last saw him."

"I meant about the boy."

"Ah."

Asuma looked towards the window. A shinobi flitted past, jumping home across Konoha's rooftops while there was still daylight left to do it by. I tried not to envy them too much.

"I knew Kazuma had a son," the bearded ninja said eventually. "I didn't know he'd left him at the Temple. Certainly didn't know about any of this."

"Sora wanted to come here," I said. "He knows you served with his father. He asked to meet you," I added.

"Chiriku told him about me?"

"About all of you. The Guardians, serving the Daimyō together, that sort of thing. He'd like to hear more about his father."

That went down about as well as I'd expected.

"Mizuki, I tried to kill his father." Asuma looked back at me, his expression becoming less encouraging.

"Yes, well, I actually managed it, so all things considered, you're still an improvement."

Tiger made a small movement beside the desk. I wasn't sure whether it was a warning or an attempt not to laugh and chose to ignore it either way.

"He's had a rough few days," I continued. "Finding out his father was alive just in time to watch him get killed five minutes later hasn't exactly helped. He thought you might be able to tell him something about the man before all of that," I continued. "Chiriku told him there was a time when Kazuma actually wanted to protect people. He's trying to work out what happened between that and… well."

"I have a team," Asuma backpedaled. "Three genin who already take up most of my day. I can't just take responsibility for every child who arrives with a dead parent and a sad backstory. The Konoha Orphanage is already overflowing with those."

"Nobody's asking you to adopt him. Just… go see him. Tell him something about his father that doesn't involve trying to murder the Hokage." I rolled my eyes at him, getting somewhat annoyed now on Sora's behalf by Asuma's evasiveness.

"Suppose I don't have even that much? I respected Kazuma as a strong shinobi and a fellow Guardian, but we were not close. Chiriku knew him longer than I did."

"And he's the one who encouraged Sora to talk to you. Unless you've got another old teammate tucked away somewhere, and with four of them having just been buried in their graves again I doubt that, we're running a bit short on alternatives. Everyone else died. Apparently, some of them twice now."

Asuma stared at me. Behind him, Hiruzen closed his eyes for a moment.

'Right. Maybe could've phrased that better.'

"I know you weren't exactly friends by the end," I continued, somewhat more carefully. "But there must've been something before that. Training together, missions, whatever you did when the Daimyō wasn't looking. The boy's had plenty of people tell him his father was a monster already and I worry it'll poison the way he views himself too. He could use… I dunno, another perspective or something. There must have been some reason you all put up with Kazuma. Hell, half of you even followed him in his madness."

"…He cheated at cards."

I blinked.

Asuma was looking at the window again, a faint, unhappy smile pulling at one corner of his mouth.

"Badly. Thought getting angry when we accused him made the act more convincing." His fingers rubbed at his beard. "Chiriku used to make him empty his sleeves before he'd sit down."

"That would do." I said encouragingly.

It was something at least. Not quite the glowing character reference Sora might've been hoping for, but probably preferable to another account of his father's plans for mass murder.

Asuma's smile faded, but after a moment he nodded.

"I'll speak to him. I'm not promising I'll be any good at it."

"I doubt the kid cares."

Asuma clearly debated with himself for a long moment before he somewhat reluctantly nodded, then looked towards his father.

"Where is this boy staying?"

Tiger gave him the address. I recognized it as the place where we'd left Fū and Sora earlier, though I doubted they would remain there long once Fū discovered the nearest distraction. Asuma rose from his chair and gave his father a slight bow, which Hiruzen acknowledged with a small gesture. He then patted Tiger on his good shoulder before heading for the door.

"And write to Chiriku," I called after him. "Or visit, if you can. He's… well. It's been a rough few days for him too, what with needing to replace Chūkaku…"

The jōnin paused with his hand on the door, then nodded again before leaving.

I watched him go with some relief. That was one thing taken care of, at least. Sora had been polite enough on the journey here, but every time he looked at my right hand I got the distinct impression he was remembering what it looked like sticking out of his father's back.

Understandable, really. Also made it rather difficult to ask him how he was feeling.

"You seem concerned for the boy," Hiruzen observed.

I turned back to find the old man studying me over his folder.

"Sora asked to speak to Asuma," I said. "I was already here. Seemed a good time to bring it up."

"Indeed." His fingers rested on the cover. "Mizuki, the original Mizuki, I mean, was a competent instructor. Patient when he wished to be, well prepared, capable of explaining difficult concepts to children who struggled with them."

The change of subject made me sit a little straighter.

"He was considerably less patient when there was nothing to be gained by it." The Hokage finished, pinning me in place with those old eyes of his.

"What? I wasn't self-serving enough for you just now? Would you rather I took him under my wing?" I cocked an eyebrow at the elder Sarutobi.

Tiger answered before the Hokage could, reflexively tensed up already.

"No. God no."

'Rude.'

Hiruzen's mouth twitched, though he didn't disagree. Instead, he set the thin folder aside and reached for a much thicker one, which did very little for my hopes of getting home before dark.

"There is a certain irony in a man defeated by the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki returning to my village with some of that same beast's chakra inside him."

"I wasn't exactly trying to complete a set if that's what you're asking." I said, cagey now as I eyed the file on the old man's desk warily.

"No. I imagine you had other priorities." Hiruzen mused idly as he opened the folder and drew out a sheet. "Now, Mizuki. Let us discuss what you have been up to since we last spoke."

---

It was well after dark by the time they let me leave. Hiruzen had gone through everything from the prison onwards, occasionally returning to an earlier question just when I thought we'd finally finished with it. Tiger supplied times, locations and the occasional correction, usually when I tried to make one of my less inspired decisions sound like a stroke of sudden genius. The two Sarutobis seemed to find his version considerably more believable, which was beginning to make me regret having any witnesses at all.

At some point a woman entered with tea. Later, another person lit the lamps. I remained in the chair the whole time, answering questions about Taki, the Temple, Fūka's hair and the extremely inadvisable collection of things currently occupying my right arm.

Two seal specialists (thankfully pulled from the Cryptology Department, and not Jiraiya himself) and a medic had also been called in to examine my arm. They traced the outside of the formula, compared it to the account I'd given and argued quietly over a section near my elbow. The first seal master stopped reaching for it when I explained what I had done to Orochimaru's original array.

The second asked me to repeat how I'd used Fūka's hair, stood there for several very uncomfortable moments as he just… stared at me before he practically ran out of the room, surprising even the Hokage, before he ran in again with a whole stack of fresh notepads, then made me repeat everything again while he wrote it down.

When the medic pressed two fingers against the skin, I could feel the living strands beneath it responding to the chakra in his hand. The moment they did, he withdrew his hand quickly, as if afraid he'd lose a finger or something.

"Does that hurt?"

"No. Should it?"

He made another note instead of answering, which I chose to take poorly.

By the time they left, Hiruzen had added another page of questions. When I finally ran out of answers, the Hokage sat back, displaying none of the exhaustion I was feeling.

"For the present, you will remain within the village. You will make yourself available for further questioning and refrain from attempting any additional modifications to your body."

"Can I still eat?"

Tiger's head turned towards me.

"Don't push it, Oniyuri…"

"I was being serious! I meant medically," I explained quickly.

"You may eat," Hiruzen said. "You may also sleep. I recommend both."

I pushed myself upright before he could reconsider, pleased I was at least allowed to leave his office through the front door and on my own two feet instead of, say, in a body bag. At the door, he called my name again. I stopped with the awful certainty that we were about to begin once more from the prison escape.

"Do not mistake a lack of restraints for a lack of supervision."

I looked towards Tiger, standing beside the desk with his arms folded.

"Believe me, Hokage-sama. That particular misunderstanding has never been a problem."

---

Tsubaki opened the apartment door before I finished knocking. Her eyes went over me quickly before returning to my face.

"Did they…?"

"More questions tomorrow. I'm allowed to stay here until then."

She nodded, visibly relieved, and stepped aside to let me in. Our bags were tucked into a corner, a clean shirt lay beside the washbasin, and she'd left a covered bowl of ramen on the table.

"I wasn't sure when you'd be back," she said. "It'll need warming up."

"Thanks. They gave me some tea, but apparently letting me stuff my mouth would've interrupted the interrogation."

She smiled a little and took the ramen into the kitchen while I washed. By the time she brought it back, I'd settled at the table and was seriously considering how much trouble I'd get into for sending a clone to tomorrow's meeting.

Probably quite a lot. Especially if it inherited my mood.

Tsubaki sat across from me while I ate, listening as I gave her an abbreviated account of the evening. She asked about Asuma and seemed pleased that he'd agreed to visit Sora, though I had to promise to tell her the rest tomorrow when she caught me almost planting an elbow in the broth and she sent me off to bed.

I was asleep before my head had even hit the pillow.

By the time I'd washed and dressed the following morning, a messenger had already come and gone. They were still comparing reports and would send for me when they were ready.

"So we're just supposed to wait?" I asked over breakfast.

"We could go into town," Tsubaki suggested. "There are a few things we need, and… it would be nice to look around while we have the... time."

I considered that. We were home, neither of us was currently under arrest, and for the first time in weeks there wasn't someone trying to either kill me or arrest me. Or both.

"You know what? Alright. Let's go."

It wasn't exactly how I'd pictured celebrating my freedom, but then again, wandering around an actual ninja village without someone telling me where to go (and especially where not to) had a certain appeal.

The ANBU on the rooftops would just have to be patient.

By the time we'd bought fresh bandages and found a shirt that didn't feel like it was trying to strangle me whenever I raised my arms, I'd decided this was a considerable improvement over running across the continent as a missing nin. Food everywhere, no sleeping on the ground, and the last person to stop us had wanted directions rather than my head. Even the staring was manageable, though I was starting to wonder whether everyone in Konoha had received a description of me in advance.

A woman outside a fabric shop stopped talking to her companion as we passed. The younger one followed her gaze, took one look at us and caught her by the sleeve as they began talking in hurried whispers.

I sighed.

"Do I have something on my face? … you know, other than the stripes, I mean."

Tsubaki glanced up at me, then back towards the women.

"No," she assured me, though she seemed as puzzled as I was. "Perhaps they heard about yesterday?"

Wonderful. My triumphant return, featuring two overgrown superstrong toddlers and enough ANBU to make people wonder if we were back on war footing, had apparently become talk of the town. I'd hoped the Brothers would have drawn most of the attention, but apparently there was enough to go around.

We continued down the street until Tsubaki slowed beside a bookstall, her eyes catching on a display near the front. I nearly kept walking before noticing she wasn't beside me anymore.

"Tsubaki? What is it?"

She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she picked up one of the books and turned it towards me.

A silver-haired man stood on a bridge above a sea of lava, his shirt apparently having failed to survive whatever terrible ordeal had left the rest of him so impressively oiled. He carried a dark-haired woman in his arms. Her dress hadn't fared much better than his shirt and her hair was put up in an impressive fishtail braid.

The title read Heart Beyond Memory, Vol. 3: The Tiger's Bride.

I looked at Tsubaki. Then at the book. Then back at Tsubaki.

"Is that… supposed to be us?"

"I think so," she said faintly.

I thought back to the woman who had been staring at us. Something about them had tweaked my senses, but I hadn't been able to put my finger on it until now; it wasn't me they had been staring at, but Tsubaki.

I took the little volume from her hands. Whoever had drawn me had been generous. Very generous. I wasn't entirely sure there was room for all those muscles under my skin, and the woman in my arms seemed to have lost half her waist somewhere in the escape.

'Well. That explains some of the staring.'

Beneath the title, smaller lettering announced this as the third instalment of a tale of love, betrayal and a bond that even death could not sever.

'Third?!'

I opened it somewhere in the middle and found myself confronting a wicked prison officer on top of a tower. Apparently we'd paused between attempts to stab each other so he could explain his jealousy of my undying love. That was news to me. Genda had seemed considerably more interested in pleasing his snake-themed creepy master.

Then a certain brave, broad-shouldered gaoler intervened, moved by the heroine's devotion and unable to stand by while injustice prevailed.

"Oh, Jūrō, you didn't…"

Tsubaki leaned closer to look at the page. "The guard? The one who fought alongside you when we escaped?"

"The one who kept crying back when you turned yourself in, yes."

A memory surfaced of him leaning against the ruined tower, bleeding from several places and telling me he was going to be the next Jiraiya. At the time I'd assumed he was joking. Or possibly concussed.

Apparently he'd been outlining his business plan.

"Can I help you find something?"

The bookseller had emerged from behind the stall, wiping his hands on a cloth. His gaze went from the book to my face, lingered there for a moment, then dropped back to the cover.

"… Oh."

"Yes. Oh." I held it up. "You sell many of these?"

"Oh, yes," he said happily, before seeming to reconsider whether enthusiasm was appropriate. "They're ehm… quite popular."

"How popular?" I pressed, a growl creeping into my voice.

"The second printing of the first volume sold out last week."

I stared at him.

Jūrō had actually done it. While I'd been trying to survive Hiruko, missing-nin and a small zombie apocalypse, he'd been getting rich selling people pictures of my oiled up pecs and (I briefly checked to count again) all of my no less than twelve abs.

I'd even offered to sign copies for him, the bastard.

"What happens in the first one?" Tsubaki asked with a tone of horrified awe, looking at the other books.

"Well, that's where she finds out he's alive," the man explained, visibly relieved to have a question he could answer without upsetting anyone. "Everyone's told her he's a traitor, of course, but she refuses to believe it. Then she reaches the prison and discovers he doesn't remember her."

Tsubaki's fingers stilled on the edge of the display.

"She sets out to restore his memories," he continued. "The second volume follows her search. Across the border, through the mountains, into the sanctuary of the blind priestess…"

"The what?" I interrupted.

"The blind priestess. She tells her how to mend a broken soul."

I glanced at Tsubaki, who was staring down at the cover of the first volume. That one showed her standing in the rain outside a great iron gate, holding a red ribbon against her chest. Very tragic. Very romantic. Also gave her considerably more cleavage than I remembered from our time in prison.

"I don't recall a priestess," she said quietly.

"Neither do I. Though, in my defence, I'm the one with the amnesia."

The bookseller gave a nervous little laugh. Behind me, someone gasped.

"It is her!"

I turned to find the women from the fabric shop standing a few paces away. The younger one had both hands clasped over her mouth, while her companion looked rather embarrassed at being caught following us.

"I'm sorry," the older woman said. "We didn't mean to interrupt. It's just… are you… her? The Tsubaki?"

Tsubaki nodded hesitantly, holding the book against her middle like a shield.

The younger woman lowered her hands.

"I knew it! I told her when I saw you. Your braid, and him, and—" She stopped herself, then looked at Tsubaki with an expression I'd previously only seen on people meeting their celebrity idols. "I've read them all."

"Oh," Tsubaki said. "Thank you?"

"I cried so much when you gave the priestess your wedding ribbon."

Tsubaki glanced helplessly at me.

"We haven't actually read them yet," I explained. "Only just found out about them, actually."

"You haven't?" the younger girl gasped in sympathy.

"No. Been a bit busy living through it to catch up on the latest releases, you see." I said blandly, though the two crazy ladies just nodded solemnly at that.

"When everyone told you to give up on him," the older woman said to Tsubaki, "and you said you'd volunteer to take his punishment for yourself if that was what it took to bring him back… Did you really say that?"

Tsubaki looked down at the book again. For a moment I thought she might simply agree and save us all the trouble, but she hesitantly shook her head.

"I don't think I said it… quite like that."

"But you did turn yourself in at the prison, all for him?"

"Well, I suppose if you put it that way, but… Yes. Yes, I did."

"Even though he'd forgotten you?"

A small nod.

The woman let out a breath and looked at her friend as though this settled some long-standing argument between them. I was beginning to feel rather like an outsider to this whole conversation, which was a novel experience considering how much space my nipples occupied on the cover of the book the younger woman was clutching to her chest.

"See?" she said. "That's what I mean. She didn't just sit there and wait for him to remember. She went and found him."

Tsubaki's cheeks coloured. "I didn't think about it like that. All I knew was that… well, he needed help."

That, at least, was accurate. I'd needed a great deal of help, most of which she had provided while also having to put up with the Brothers and me. Unfortunately, I doubted there was much demand for a book in which the heroine spent half her time trying to keep everyone fed and the other half trying to stop the hero bleeding through his bandages.

The younger woman seemed quite satisfied with the answer anyway.

"I keep telling my husband he should read these instead of those orange things he hides in his tool cupboard." She huffed.

"Orange things? You mean Icha Icha?" I asked.

She pulled a face. Beside me, Tsubaki lowered her eyes, though I caught the small smile before she did.

"The women in those might as well be interchangeable," the older one said, apparently deciding it was time she joined in too. "At least in these ones, you know why they love each other beyond just breast size."

I looked down at the book in my hand, where I'd left a finger between the pages detailing Genda's previously unsuspected romantic grievances back on that watchtower.

'Well, someone does, I suppose.'

The conversation might have continued for some time if the bookseller hadn't cleared his throat and pointed out that we were blocking his display. Both women apologised, though the younger one hesitated before leaving.

"Would you…?" She produced a copy from her bag, looking hopefully at Tsubaki. "Only if you don't mind."

Tsubaki looked almost alarmed. "You want me to… sign it?"

The bookseller was already reaching for a pen.

I stepped aside while she did, watching her write her name carefully inside the cover. The woman accepted it with both hands, thanked her several times and finally allowed herself to be steered away by her friend.

Neither of them asked for my signature.

Not that I was offended. Of course not! … well, maybe a little bit…

Tsubaki watched them go, then looked down at the pen as though unsure what to do with it now. She returned it to the bookseller with a quiet apology.

"No trouble at all," he assured her. "If you'd like copies of your own, I have the complete set."

I looked at Tsubaki, who still hadn't put the first volume down.

"Want to find out what else you've been up to?"

"If… only if you don't mind." She hesitated, glancing back towards the women disappearing into the crowd. "But yes, I'd like to know what they've read."

A sensible precaution, considering she apparently couldn't even go shopping without being asked about her adventures with a blind priestess. I told the man we'd take all three, then tried not to wince at the price. Cheap individually. Less cheap once someone had thoughtfully split my misfortunes into a series.

"Do you know the author?" I asked while he wrapped them.

"Only through the printer."

"Next time you speak to him, tell him Mizuki's back. And that I'd like a word."

The bookseller's hands slowed.

"Nothing unpleasant," I added. "I just think, considering how much of me he's using to sell them, I ought to get a share." I explained as a I tapped the oiled version of me on the cover of the latest volume with a sharp claw that saw the bookseller flinch back.

He nodded quickly. I wasn't sure he believed me, but as long as the message got through, that was fine.

We made it several shops further before Tsubaki spoke again.

"They seemed nice."

"They seemed very disappointed that I was wearing a shirt this time."

"Oh come on, Mizuki. It's not that bad…"

"What? You saw the covers."

She shook her head, though the smile returned as she tucked the parcel more securely beneath her arm. I glanced back at the bookstall, where another customer had already picked up a copy.

"Does it bother you?" I asked. "All that stuff about the priestess and crossing countries?"

She considered it for a few steps.

"It's strange," she admitted. "They spoke as though they knew me."

"Well, they know the version with the ribbon."

"I suppose." She looked down at the parcel. "At least they understood why I went."

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. There wasn't much I could say to that. Most of the people she'd explained herself to had responded by telling her Mizuki wasn't worth it, locking her up, or both. Finding someone who thought she'd done something admirable probably made a pleasant change.

Even if Jūrō had been required to invent an entire supporting cast to get us there.

We stopped for lunch at a place Tsubaki remembered, taking a table outside while there was still room. She opened the first book once we'd ordered, and I busied myself with the menu rather than reading over her shoulder. I'd already had quite enough surprises for one morning.

Naturally, that was when an ANBU dropped down beside the table.

"The Hokage requires your presence."

I looked at him, then towards the kitchen, where someone was finally bringing out food.

"Of course he does."

Tsubaki closed the book. "Shall I come?"

The mask turned towards her. "Only Mizuki has been summoned."

"Finish your lunch," I told her, getting up with a sigh. "One of us might as well."

She nodded, accepting my shopping bag when I handed it over.

"I'll take these home afterwards."

"Thanks. If I'm not back by dinner, assume he's found another jail to throw me in, this one with better security."

That earned a small smile, and I followed the ANBU out into the street, leaving my food to arrive without me.

---

AN: Sorry this came out later, I tried uploading this week but then site was down and I've only now been able to sit down and try again. I know Interludes are usually from outside POV's, but I was just on a writing streak and I kinda... forgot. Sorry 'bout that. You can read up to five chapters ahead over on my Patreon.

 

[Spearow]

Had to be me, someone else would've gotten it wrong.

Click to shrink...

Nice reference!

Spoiler: The goat!

 

[Noctus]

"He thinks he can lead because people like him," one man muttered near the edge of the chamber. "That's not the same as understanding what holds this village together."

A woman beside him snorted softly. "He left most of it to the Elders anyway. Now he wants to take it back piece by piece."

"That's not leadership," someone else said. "That's a powerplay."

The first Elder allowed the disgruntled murmuring to build for a moment before speaking again.

"Shibuki has been given room to grow into his role," he said evenly. "Clearly, our efforts in this matter have paid off. But room to maneuver does not mean freedom from guidance."

Another Elder, slightly further back, added: "Or correction."

Click to shrink...

I dont understand why the story's voice has suddenly become more AI. This plus the next chapter, especially the dialogue. You do better with the Elder Monk's speech but I really hope this is a one time thing.

The start of the story's been great and the premise is fascinating.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 28
​

---

Tiger was back beside the Hokage's desk when I entered. Fresh clothes, same mask, same posture. If it hadn't been for the slightly stiff way he held his shoulder, I might've thought they'd just left him there overnight.

Hiruzen indicated the chair and waited until I'd sat down before speaking.

"We have compared your account with Captain Tiger's reports and the messages from Takigakure and the Fire Temple."

I waited. Thankfully, it seemed I'd managed to tell the same version of events as everyone else.

"Your actions have been of considerable service to Konoha. Both in assisting our allies and in recovering information concerning several dangerous missing-nin. That will be reflected in your treatment here." He set the paper down. "The restrictions we discussed yesterday stand, but there will be no further detention."

"So… no prison?" I asked hopefully.

"No prison," he confirmed. "Provided you continue to cooperate."

I let out a breath. I'd been fairly sure that was where we were heading, but it was still very nice to hear him actually say it. Even with that last bit tacked on.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

"Your registration will need to be addressed. There will also be restrictions on the use of your new abilities until we are satisfied they can be employed safely."

"Which is actually something I wanted to ask you about."

Tiger's mask turned towards me.

Hiruzen leaned back. "Go on."

"I'd like permission to go to the Land of the Sea."

The old man looked at me for a moment, then at his son.

"How long has he been back?"

"Since yesterday afternoon, Hokage-sama."

'Yes, thank you, Tiger. Very helpful.'

"And already our flight risk wishes to leave again." Hiruzen looked back at me. "Mizuki, the last time I tried to authorise your release, you escaped before I could even stamp the paperwork. I had hoped you might at least wait for the ink to dry before attempting to leave the Village again."

"Wait, you actually tried to release me?" I could feel my mouth fall open as I tried to comprehend that.

Hiruzen gave me a long look. "I had the stamp in my hand when a guard came running in to inform me you'd escaped."

"Oh." I blinked at him, genuinely taken aback. "Well... in my defence, nobody told me."

"You were hardly in a position to receive the good news, Mizuki. I believe you were already halfway through the prison wall by then."

I opened my mouth to argue, thought better of it, and tried to work out whether I owed the man an apology for escaping from a prison he'd apparently been about to release me from.

"Anyway," I said, deciding that was a problem for another day, "I'd be leaving on a mission this time. There would be paperwork and everything."

"Oh, of that, you can rest assured."

Tiger's mask remained pointed at me. He didn't need to say anything. I'd spent most of yesterday arguing that returning willingly ought to count in my favour. I could see how asking for permission to cross two borders before the Hokage had even finished deciding what to do with me somewhat weakened my point.

"It's about Amachi," I continued before either of them could press the point further. "The researcher Hiruko told me about."

"I remember. We discussed him at some length last night."

"Then you know why I need to find him."

"I know why you wish to find him. Whether you need to is another matter."

Hiruzen reached for his pipe, taking his time filling it while I tried to work out how much of yesterday's explanation he expected me to repeat. Quite a lot, apparently, judging by the expectant look he gave me once he'd lit it.

"Hiruko never finished what he did to me," I began. "The lesser Chimera was supposed to let me transform. Instead, I've got a body full of alterations and no way to turn them off. But I'm stuck halfway through the process. There should be another transformation beyond... this." I gestured at myself.

"Which you cannot perform."

"Amachi worked on the early versions. If anyone can tell me what went wrong, can fix the transformation so that I can control it, it's him."

"What exactly do you expect the completed technique to do?" Hiruzen asked, interest now clear in his voice, the Professor intrigued despite himself at this new shinobi science.

"Let me trigger the rest of it when I need it. Full hybrid transformation, more strength, probably faster healing. Then I change back before it eats through all of my lifeforce and leaves me old enough to call you young man."

"Assuming Hiruko represented his abilities accurately."

"He thought enough of the man to send him to Orochimaru. Amachi worked on Hiruko's early experiments. According to Hiruko, he's since managed a complete transformation of his own. Aquatic rather than feline, but he can go all the way from human to… sea monster, fish man, whatever he calls it, and change back afterwards. That's what I need him to work out."

"So you said." The Hokage puffed on his pipe and I didn't dare push further as the old man considered my words. "The laboratory will be investigated," he said at last. "If Amachi can be recovered, he will be brought here for interrogation."

'Ah. That wasn't quite what I had in mind.'

"Wouldn't it be easier if I went with them?" I tried.

"For whom?" the old Sarutobi raised an eyebrow.

"For whoever has to work out which parts of his research are relevant. I've actually been through Hiruko's procedure."

"And you will be available for examination when the man is brought to Konoha."

"I also studied the technique. I could help identify—"

"You may include that information, in writing, in your briefing. My ANBU are perfectly adept at reading, I'll have you know."

I glanced at Tiger. He appeared entirely content to stand there while my plans fell apart, which was disappointing but hardly surprising.

The problem was that Hiruzen wasn't wrong. Send ANBU, collect scientist, drag scientist home and find out what he knew. Very sensible. Also involved me sitting around inside the walls while the old man decided when, where and whether I got to do anything about my condition.

"Your medics couldn't tell me what would happen to the arm if I transformed," I said.

That got his attention.

"They have only just examined you."

"I know. I'm not complaining about them." Much. "But that's what I need Amachi for. The Chimera Technique is supposed to change my body, and I've since added something rather important that wasn't in the original design." I raised my right hand, keeping the fingers loose. Even covered, the seal tattooed across my forearm drew both their eyes.

"Have you experienced any instability?" Tiger asked sharply.

"No. And I'd prefer to keep it that way."

Hiruzen set his pipe down.

"Mizuki. If you have any reason to believe the containment is failing—"

"I don't," I said quickly. "I'm talking about the treatment. That experimental technique I used to transfer the Bijū chakra… It works now, but I don't know what happens when someone starts adjusting things in my body. Neither did your specialists."

"And you think Amachi will?"

"I think he knows more about the part I need fixed than anyone here. Let him examine me in his own laboratory, with his equipment and his records. If he can't help, fine. Bring him back anyway. But if he can, I'd rather find out what that involves somewhere we don't have half of Konoha sitting on top of us."

The Hokage looked at my arm again. I left it resting on my knee, resisting the temptation to give him another little demonstration of just how physically wrong the thing could get. It was a bit of a coin toss on whether or not it would help my case though. Might get me chained to a hospital bed with a permanent full squad of ANBU for surveillance stuck on my ass (if one hadn't been assigned to do precisely that already).

They do not fuck with Kyuubi chakra here in Konoha.

"An isolated site can be arranged within the Land of Fire," The Hokage eventually said.

"After you've moved everything here all the way from the Land of the Seas. And found somewhere to put it. And worked out how much of his laboratory he needs to use. Why not start where he's already working?"

"Because that site is in enemy hands."

"Which is why you're sending ANBU to take it."

Tiger unfolded his arms, though when he spoke, it was to his father.

"We would need to assess the facility before bringing Mizuki inside. But if the equipment is specialised, moving it may indeed delay matters."

I tried not to look too grateful. Didn't want him changing his mind out of habit.

"Can our flight risk here be transported safely?" Hiruzen asked sceptically and I blinked a bit sheepishly at the use of my moniker.

"Under the same restrictions as the journey here. I would recommend a medic and someone familiar with containment seals."

The old man considered that while I did my very best to keep my mouth shut. He was looking at me again, and I wasn't under any illusion that he believed my desire to leave was entirely medical. Still, I had a real problem, there was a man who might be able to fix it, and that man was conveniently located very far away.

There were worse reasons to ask for a mission.

"Very well, Oniyuri Mizuki. You will accompany the expedition," Hiruzen said finally.

I sat up a little straighter.

"Under supervision," he continued before I could thank him. "Amachi will be taken into custody, his research secured and the facility assessed. Any examination or treatment will require the approval of the officer in command. If they order you to return without it, you will return to the Village and we'll have this Amachi explain his work under controlled conditions, in a secure facility."

"Yes, Hokage-sama. Though, I have an additional request, if you don't mind?"

"Don't push your luck, Oniyuri…" Tiger growled from behind the Hokage and I hurriedly raised my hands in surrender.

"No alteration to the mission parameters, I promise! I just wanted to ask if it's alright if Fū can accompany us? You know, not just as extra muscle, but as a safe-guard against this battery of Bijū charka I stuffed in my arm here? Better to have an expert along, no?"

Judging by his stance, if it weren't for the porcelain mask being in the way, the younger Sarutobi would be pinching the bridge of his nose right now.

"And why exactly do you think that the leader of Taki would agree to a request from us to send his jinchūriki on a trip towards the islands to the south of the continent just to babysit on of our own shinobi in case he goes berserk and unleashes demonic chakra of his own? What's stopping me from sending that young man a letter and asking him to come retrieve his living weapon of war as the Shodaime intended?" Hiruzen rumbled.

The way he said that suggested he might already be composing the letter. I leaned back, trying to think of an objection that didn't amount to pointing out how reassuring it was to have a friendly jinchūriki nearby when things inevitably started trying to kill me.

"There's also the chakra itself. My altered sealwork kept it from burning my arm off, but that didn't do much for what it does to my head. I'd already put a hole through Kazuma's chest and I still wanted to tear him into smaller pieces. Are you sure you want to risk one of your own people trying to contain that, when we have a functioning jinchūriki at our call?"

And the little I'd used back then was only a fraction of what I'd taken. Kazuma had collected the foul chakra left behind before the Fourth divided the fox, which meant that, unlike Naruto, I apparently had a bit of both halves to work with.

Wonderful potential. Shame about the homicidal rage that came with it.

"Fū is a foreign shinobi and in fact not at our call. We have other specialists within our forces well-versed in combating that corruptive chakra you've so foolishly taken into yourself." Hiruzen countered, "Meaning I do not see the added benefit that a foreign jinchūriki can bring outside of the additional firepower."

"Well, Fū has been isolated and neglected by much of her own village. I've promised her to show her more of the world and Shibuki agreed that it would be good for Fū's development and mental health," I tried, pulling on the man's famous weakness for a certain blonde who had suffered under remarkably similar circumstances.

Somewhat to my surprise, invoking the memory of Ninja Jesus actually seemed to finally pull the sentimental old Hokage over the line.

"Fū's participation will require Takigakure's approval," Hiruzen eventually conceded after a long pause. "I'll send word to Shibuki today, but until he answers, she stays here."

Alright, that was fair enough. Hopefully the agreement would come quick enough for Fū to leave with us, but even if it came a day or two late, the Seven-Tails jinchūriki was one of the few humans capable of flight and with her telepathic communication, she would be able to catch up to us in no time either way.

The Hokage's next comment took me off guard though.

"You shall be accompanied on your journey by the Legendary Stupid Brothers." He said sternly and I blinked at his insistence as I looked at Tiger.

"They have been fed," he reassured me.

"… How much?"

"Enough."

Judging by the Hokage's expression, someone had already brought him the bill and I could imagine Konoha was pleased to make them someone else's problem for once. Well, at least that part of the negotiations had gone smoothly.

"And Tsubaki," I said. "Obviously."

"No."

I looked back at him, genuinely surprised this time.

"What? Why not?"

Tiger shifted beside the desk and the movement made me realize I had already half-risen out of my chair. I caught myself and sat back, making an effort to keep the irritation out of my voice.

"She's my medic. She knows what Hiruko did to me, she's been there for everything since, and she's the one who examined Sora after I took the chakra. Surely she's exactly who you want coming along."

"Her findings will be made available to the medic assigned to your team."

"Why assign someone else?"

"Because your team will require expertise she does not possess."

"Then send both."

Hiruzen didn't answer immediately. He picked up his pipe again, giving me time to think about how that had sounded. I tried a different approach.

"She's handled herself well. Tiger can tell you that. Hiruko's men, the Temple… She won't be a liability."

"I have not suggested that she would be."

"Then what's the problem?"

The Hokage looked at me over his pipe. Beside him, Tiger had become very still.

'…Oh.'

I looked between them, then down at the mission notes on the desk.

"You want a reason for me to come back."

"You already have a reason to come back. You are a shinobi of Konoha now, burning bright with the Will of Fire. Tsubaki… she is the fuel to that fire. I would hate to see it go extinguished. Do not call it coercion, call it… motivation." The old Hokage mused slowly, his face lax but the glint in his eye was harder than steel and I was starkly reminded that I was sitting across from the man who had lived to see his village survive three world wars, in a profession were hitting your thirties was considered fortunate.

There wasn't much room to manoeuvre around the man's final verdict. I could hear it in his voice, and from the way Tiger was watching me, so could he.

For a moment I considered pointing out exactly how much Tsubaki had done for Konoha despite everything Konoha had done to her. Arrested for helping her fiancé, threatened by prison guards, dragged through one disaster after another… Now she'd finally made it home, and apparently that made her a convenient bit of insurance.

Except Hiruzen had read the same reports I had. He knew all that already.

"She'll ask to come," I said.

"And you will explain that she has not been assigned to the mission."

I looked away, jaw tight. Tsubaki would accept it if I told her she had to. She wouldn't like it, but she'd stay, and that somehow made the prospect of telling her even worse.

I'd spent a fair amount of time reassuring myself that bringing her along was simply practical. She was a medic. She was loyal. She was one of the very few people I could turn my back on without wondering what they'd put in it.

All excellent reasons. None of them explained why the offer of a better-qualified replacement had only made me angrier.

'I want her there. Apparently that's reason enough.'

Unfortunately, the old man across from me seemed to have worked that out first.

"She will be free to go about her business," he said. "You may write to her, and there is no reason for the expedition to take any longer than necessary."

Very generous. Perhaps he'd like to recommend a nice spot where she could wait at the gates for me too.

I swallowed the response and nodded once. Continuing to argue wasn't going to help Tsubaki. It would, however, give Hiruzen an increasingly accurate idea of just how hard he could pull on that particular leash.

"Who's leading the team?"

"An officer selected from ANBU."

My eyes went to Tiger.

"I have other duties," he said, just a tad too quickly.

'Of course he does. Probably wants a mission where the person he's protecting doesn't keep acquiring forbidden techniques on the way to lunch. Selfish of him, really.'

I wasn't especially pleased about the prospect of someone new, though. For all his faults, Tiger had repeatedly kept me alive, and I was fairly confident he wouldn't deliver me to a secret underground laboratory the moment we were out of sight of Konoha.

Whoever replaced him might be rather more open to suggestions from a certain bandaged old man.

"Do not trouble yourself. The appointment will be made by me," Hiruzen added, watching me. "Personally."

I went still.

Neither of us said Danzō's name, so for him to offer that reassurance out of the blue was making me question the rumours that the aged Hokage had some sort of mind reading capability. As the Professor, he was rumoured to have knowledge on every jutsu in Konoha after all, and that Village just so happened to house an entire clan's worth of mind-readers…

"Thank you," I said eventually.

He inclined his head and pulled a map from beneath the reports, spreading it across the desk. Tiger moved a paperweight onto one corner while I leaned forwards to see.

"Your information places the laboratory here." Hiruzen touched a collection of four islands south of Tea. The smallest one was called Demon Island, just a speck on the map, but the largest one, Mother Island, was larger than most of the islands where the Village of the Hidden Mist made its home. "The final approach will depend on what we learn upon arrival. Until then, your team will travel south through the Land of Fire."

My eyes followed the road down the peninsula. That was rather less convenient than the route through Rivers I'd originally had in mind, but then something else on the map caught my attention instead.

"Could we cross here instead?" I asked, pointing to the water between the mainland and the western side of the peninsula.

Hiruzen looked at the spot where my claw rested on the paper.

"By boat?"

"Unless you want the Brothers running across it."

"You know they cannot walk on water," Tiger said.

"Then definitely by boat." I traced the line, keeping my finger well clear of a particular little island. "Head down to the coast, cross over, then continue south. We'd cut out the bend in the road, save ourselves multiple days of travel."

"The coastal route has its own delays," Hiruzen replied. "Finding a suitable vessel, for one."

"We'd need one eventually anyway. And if we land down here, near the border, we could carry on along the coast rather than take the main road through the border checkpoint."

"You wish to enter Tea without declaring yourselves?"

"I'd rather not tell every clerk between here and the islands that we're coming. Amachi works for Orochimaru these days. Who knows who's been paid to watch the road?"

Tiger leaned over the map.

"Tea is accustomed to Konoha shinobi travelling through its territory. A small party would attract little attention."

I looked up at him, then at the Hokage.

"Have you seen the Brothers?"

Hiruzen removed the pipe from his mouth. I couldn't tell whether the small movement at its corner was amusement or something less encouraging.

"This is an officially authorised expedition, Mizuki, not an assignment to cut throats in the dead of night. You are not being sent to start a clandestine war with the Land of Tea."

"I wasn't planning to start any kind of war. I just thought we could avoid advertising ourselves."

"Your captain will decide how best to approach the border. We have arrangements with Tea which need not involve presenting your entire party at a public checkpoint."

"That works too."

"But the crossing itself…" His gaze followed the stretch of water I'd indicated, pausing where I had hoped it would. He reached for one of the reports beside him, read through it, then passed it to Tiger. "Captain. Your assessment on… that mission?"

The younger Sarutobi glanced between the paper and the map.

"Ah, I see. That mission. They still haven't sent any missives back after the request for a pick-up of the two missing nin they encountered."

"Something wrong?" I asked with feigned innocense.

"Nothing requiring your input," Tiger replied.

"I only meant with the route."

"And your suggestion has been heard," Hiruzen said, without looking up.

I sat back in my chair. Apparently getting permission to leave hadn't earned me a say in whatever else was sitting on the Hokage's desk. Fair enough, though I would've appreciated knowing whether I'd managed to point him in the right direction or if he needed further convincing.

Tiger returned the report.

"The crossing would bring them close," he said. "Depending on where they embark."

Hiruzen nodded, studying the map for another moment before drawing a fresh sheet towards him.

"Include a stop in the Land of Waves. I want contact established with Hatake's team before they continue south."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

'And there we go.'

I kept that satisfaction to myself while the old man wrote. Tiger remained beside the desk, watching me rather than the brush.

When Hiruzen finally looked up, I made sure I looked as nonchalant as possible.

"There will be an addition to your orders," he said. "Hatake Kakashi is escorting a client to Wave with his genin team. Your captain will make contact with him and establish whether assistance is required."

"The Kakashi's in trouble?"

"He has not requested reinforcements."

That wasn't quite an answer, but after the last exchange I decided against pointing it out.

Hiruzen tapped the report.

"He has, however, encountered opposition beyond the scope of the original contract. Two missing-nin attacked the party before they reached the coast. Former shinobi of Kirigakure, known as the Demon Brothers."

I frowned, trying to portray an aura of polite confusion, which wasn't especially difficult. My recollection of exactly when things happened in Wave was somewhere between poor and nonexistent. Naruto had graduated before I'd woken up in Mizuki's cell. Since then there had been prison, Hiruko, Taki, the Temple and a frankly unreasonable amount of walking.

I knew Kakashi and the kids had gone to Wave. I just didn't know whether Zabuza was currently confined to his bed, preparing his grand return, or already buried in the dirt beside Haku.

Either way, there might still be something there worth collecting.

"Kakashi dealt with them," Hiruzen continued. "After questioning the client, he elected to proceed. I trust his judgement, but the man who hired those two may well have stronger shinobi available."

"And he's got three genin to look after."

"Yes." Hiruzen rested his brush across its stand. "Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. None of whom should have been facing enemy shinobi on a C-rank mission."

I looked back at the map, letting my eyes settle on Wave now that I had a legitimate reason to be interested.

"So we check on them before heading for the islands."

"Your captain will speak with Hatake and determine what is needed," Hiruzen said. "You will follow the orders you are given."

"Understood."

"The full report will be included in the captain's briefing," Tiger added. "Along with the client's name and their intended destination. You will not need to make your own enquiries."

Apparently he'd noticed my interest. I nodded before he could decide it warranted any enquiries of his own.

Hiruzen returned to the orders, adding another line.

"Amachi's laboratory has been there for some time. It can wait a little longer if necessary. The safety of Hatake's team takes priority over your treatment."

"Of course."

I meant that. I also meant to make the most of the opportunity if there was still a notorious missing-nin trying to murder them when we arrived. Saving Konoha's golden jōnin from a bad day would do wonders for my standing in the village, particularly with Hiruzen's precious Naruto involved.

And if I'd missed the fight, there was always the sword.

Kubikiribōchō had no business being left stuck in the ground rusting over a grave. Someone was going to steal it eventually. Might as well be someone who had a use for it.

'And if Zabuza's still alive, I'll have to find some other way of asking him to part with it.'

Preferably one involving Fū and several very large fists.

Tiger took the completed sheet when Hiruzen held it out. The old man watched him check the orders, and for a moment I found myself remembering an ANBU charging into the purple barrier Orochimaru had raised around Hiruzen in the original timeline. A moment of determination, then fire and a body falling before anyone could stop him.

I'd never been certain that man was the one standing in front of me. There had been several masks involved, and I'd watched the scene a lifetime ago. But Tiger was Hiruzen's son, and Konohamaru's father was conspicuously absent by the time the old man died.

The possibility had been bothering me more since I had figured out his secret identity.

It was bad enough that Hiruzen might die fighting the student he'd failed to stop. Having his own son fall trying to reach him would make an already miserable day considerably worse.

Tiger looked up from the orders, his mask tilted slightly and I realised I'd been looking between them for just a tad too long.

Hiruzen noticed. The brief softness left his expression, though something else took its place as he studied me. Curiosity, perhaps, but it felt harder than that somehow. I resisted the urge to fill the silence.

Some things were much safer left unsaid.

"Certain deductions are best kept to yourself," the Hokage said at last, clearly agreeing with my train of thought.

"Of course, Hokage-sama."

"You will not share them. You will not raise them with anyone, not even your closest comrades." His eyes remained on mine. "And you will not mistake private knowledge for leverage."

"I assure you, Hokage-sama, I wasn't planning to."

"See that you don't," Tiger said.

I nodded as the ANBU Captain placed the orders down and rested one hand on the edge of the desk. He hadn't moved much, but I was suddenly rather aware of the distance between us. I sat back trying to take stock of what I'd actually managed to get out of the old Sarutobi. No prison. Permission to leave and keep growing stronger.

It should've felt like a win. Would have, if I didn't still need to go home and explain to Tsubaki why she couldn't come.

Hiruzen set the mission notes aside and opened a drawer.

"Now, your registration."

He placed a stack of forms in front of me. I looked down at them with the growing suspicion that we weren't nearly as finished as I'd hoped.

"You already have my records."

"We have Mizuki's records," he corrected. "You have been quite insistent that you are not the same man."

"Yes…"

"Then a new file seems appropriate. Name, address, next of kin. A new photograph, of course." His eyes passed over my face. "I doubt anyone would find the previous one particularly useful."

'Fair. Annoying, but fair.'

He added another sheaf to the pile.

"Your account of the prison escape and subsequent events. Include the techniques recovered, their sources and any modifications you have made."

"We spent half of yesterday going through all that!"

"Then you should have little difficulty remembering it."

"But… Tiger wrote the reports already!"

"Captain Tiger has completed his paperwork, as befitting an enlisted shinobi of Konoha. You have not."

I looked towards the captain, who had suddenly found something interesting to look at out of the window.

'Oh, don't think I can't see you enjoying this you smug nepo baby bastard.'

Hiruzen pushed the stack closer. I pulled the first sheet free, scanning it for whatever fresh inconvenience he had hidden in the small print, and stopped at a box beneath the space for my registration number.

"Why is my rank left blank?" I asked suspiciously, briefly worrying I had been saddled with the first ever 'probationary pseudo-missing nin' status.

As it turned out, the truth was much worse.

"Ah yes, you'll have to fill in your new rank there. As a recent addition to the Konoha armed forces, it comes of course with the corresponding rank. Congratulations on your promotion, Oniyuri Mizuki… to Genin."

I looked up.

"… Sorry?"

"Genin," the Hokage repeated, looking altogether too pleased with himself.

"I was a chūnin!"

"Mizuki was a chūnin. An experienced instructor, in fact. Shall we use his record after all?"

I opened my mouth, remembered what else was on that record, and closed it again.

Tiger's shoulders shook.

"I killed Hiruko," I tried instead. "And Kazuma. I helped save Taki!"

"And I look forward to reading about it, in triplicate," Hiruzen said, tapping the stack. "Have these returned tomorrow."

I stared at the paperwork, then at the old man smiling at me from behind it.

He'd let me argue my way out of the village, kept Tsubaki to make sure I came back, and used my own defence to demote me to the same rank as a bunch of twelve-year-olds. All before handing me enough homework to ruin what remained of my day off.

'Is this… no way, it cannot be! To think that he would use such an S-Rank technique on me, a Genin of all things! Truly, Sarutobi Hiruzen, your Paperwork no Jutsu is beyond compare! … you old bastard.'

---

It was a very despondent man who left the Hokage's office, and even though I had (somehow) managed to remain a free man, you wouldn't be able to tell by the look on my face (if you even managed to catch a glimpse of it from behind the stack of papers in my arms).

If anything, I looked like a man currently on his way to the gallows.

All in all, the demotion wasn't the end of the world, even with the measly pay check considering I had gotten a larger cut of the pay-out from the bounties on Hiruko and Suien than I had thought. Hiruko's henchmen barely had bounties of their own, but somewhat to my surprise I had gotten a small reward for returning the Legendary Stupid Brothers back to Konoha, though the payment got slashed since I hadn't actually returned them to their cells.

No, it was something else about the re-registration that had killed what should've been a good mood.

'I really fucking hate paperwork…' I groused as I shifted the stack higher against my chest.

Just then, I rounded a corner and nearly walked straight into Iruka. He stopped so abruptly that I half-suspected him of instinctively using Wall-walking to literally stand rooted to the floor.

The scar across his nose was exactly as I remembered it. So were the dark eyes fixed on my face, though I couldn't recall them ever looking at me quite like that before.

"Mizuki."

"Iruka." I tried a smile, though it didn't get very far. "Sorry. Wasn't watching where I was going."

His gaze dropped to the papers, then returned to my face. I wondered how much he'd been told. Enough to know that I wasn't supposed to be in a cell, presumably, since he hadn't reached for a weapon or started shouting for help.

"The Hokage spoke to me," he said, clearly having caught on to my train of thought, "About what happened to you. In prison, and afterwards."

I nodded, waiting for him to continue. Behind him, a classroom door opened and several children spilled into the corridor. One called a greeting to him before noticing me. The boy slowed, his friends doing the same until Iruka turned his head.

"Books on your desks, please. I'll be there in a moment."

They hurried past us while I stepped closer to the wall.

"He did say you would be registering again." Iruka spoke after the kids had rounded the far corner, his voice still utterly flat and carefully neutral.

"As a genin," I said, attempting another smile. "Apparently I'm getting the full fresh start."

Iruka glanced at the papers in my arms. "The Hokage mentioned that as well. I didn't realise you'd already agreed to it."

"There wasn't much negotiating involved." I shifted the stack against my chest, then hesitated, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the heavy silence and the man's flat stare. "How's Naruto? I heard he's out on a mission." I eventually tried for a lack of a better thing to bring up.

"He is. He was very pleased about finally being allowed to leave the Village and see the world." A little warmth entered his voice before he seemed to remember who he was talking to. "He's doing well. Kakashi's looking after him."

"I'm glad." I meant it, though from the way Iruka was holding his folder against himself, I wasn't sure he believed me. "Look, I know what he did to you. The other Mizuki, I mean. You and Naruto both. I'm not expecting you to forget any of that just because the Hokage's letting me walk around again."

"I haven't forgotten." He said it quietly, then let out a breath and glanced towards the classroom. "But I am trying to take what he told me into account. He explained that you aren't… that things are different now. And I've heard about what you did at Taki. I'm not pretending that doesn't matter."

"But you're still looking at me and wondering what I'm up to."

Iruka looked back at me, and I wished I'd managed to keep that to myself. He was standing here making an effort to talk to the man who'd nearly killed him, so a bit of leeway was warranted here.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he replied.

"Nothing. I just…" I adjusted the papers again, one loose sheet beginning to slide out from under my arm. "Look, if I was still planning something, why come back? I was already outside the village. I could've gone anywhere."

Iruka gave a small shrug. There was no accusation in it, which somehow made it worse.

"I don't know, Mizuki. I honestly don't know what you're playing at anymore."

"What, you make it sound like I'm playing the long game or something?" I tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow even to me.

Iruka didn't laugh with me.

"Pretending to be an academy instructor, a good one, for years was the long game. Pretending to be my friend, a comrade I trusted with my life, with the lives of my precious students, the future lifeblood of Konoha… That was the long game."

I stopped trying to smile.

"Compared to this?" He glanced at the papers in my arms. "Who is even to say anymore?"

A child laughed inside the classroom behind him. Iruka's eyes moved towards the door, then back to me, and I wished I'd let him go while he was still merely being polite.

"For all our sakes, Mizuki. For mine, for Naruto's, and even for yours… I really hope those days are behind you. Truly, I do. I just…" He shook his head. "I can't bring myself to believe that. Not just yet. I'm sorry."

The bell rang before I could find an answer.

Iruka straightened, tucking the folder more securely beneath his arm.

"I have a class."

"Yeah. Of course."

He nodded once and hurried away. I watched him reach the classroom, pause outside it to collect himself, then open the door. His greeting carried back into the corridor, answered by a chorus of children's voices.

---

The next morning, Fū was explaining something to the gate guards when we arrived, gesturing enthusiastically while one of them subtly leaned back to keep her hands out of his face. His colleague had taken a sudden interest in the register, though that hadn't stopped her from including him in the conversation.

Behind her, the Brothers were making plans for lunch.

"I want crabs," Raijin was saying. "The big ones, with butter all over them. We didn't get enough yesterday."

"You ate mine," Fūjin reminded him.

"Because you were eating the rice! They would've gone cold."

Fūjin seemed to accept that as a reasonable explanation, though he still wanted a crab of his own this time. I'd promised them a feast in the Land of the Seas to get them packed and out of the house without incident. Since then, their expectations had grown considerably faster than my ability to pay for them.

"We should get an octopus too," Fūjin continued. "One of those big ones, so there's enough legs for both of us."

"They've got eight," Sora supplied as we approached. "Each. That should be enough, shouldn't it?"

Raijin began counting on his fingers while his brother considered the question.

"Depends how big the legs are. Little ones won't fill you up." Fūjin spread his arms, nearly catching a passing merchant in the head. "We could get a whale instead. Roast the whole thing over a fire."

"With butter," Raijin added, abandoning his counting. "Like when we had that pig on a stick, only bigger."

"You can't put a whale on a stick," Sora said. "It'd snap as soon as you lifted it."

"Then we'll use a tree. We can pull one up on the way."

Sora opened his mouth, then looked at me for help. Unfortunately, I'd seen what the Brothers could lift. Finding a tree large enough was probably the least objectionable part of their plan.

"We'll see what's available when we get there," I told them, which they apparently took as permission to continue planning their whale roast. By the time we reached the guards, Raijin was trying to work out how much butter they would need.

I was beginning to regret that promise.

Tsubaki stopped at my side and checked the fastening on my pack. When I'd explained that Hiruzen had already decided she would be staying behind, she'd gone quiet, then started packing the things I'd forgotten. I still hadn't told her why I thought he'd insisted, though it didn't take a genius to figure out.

"Your notes are in the inner pocket," she said. "I've wrapped the copies for the medic separately. Give him those before he examines you, especially the account of what happened at the Temple."

"I will. You've included what you found when you examined Sora?"

She nodded. "Everything I could think of. He might see something I missed."

"At the least he'll save himself a few hours by reading what you've already worked out." I settled the strap more comfortably over my shoulder. "Thank you. For all of this."

Her eyes briefly met mine before returning to the fastening.

"Just write when you have the chance. Even if there's nothing to report, I'd like to know you've arrived safely."

"I'll send something from the coast. Assuming I can find a messenger willing to carry a letter that smells of whatever the Brothers have decided to eat."

That earned me a small smile. Beside her, Sora had gone quiet, his left hand resting on the claw at his belt while the Brothers continued planning their whale roast.

"Keep up with the exercises while I'm gone," I told him. "And give Asuma a chance. He knows what he's doing."

"I am giving him a chance," Sora said, sounding rather put upon. "Everyone keeps telling me that, and we haven't even had a lesson yet."

"Then you've got nothing to complain about so far. See what he can teach you. You can show me when I get back."

He looked down at his claw, flexing his fingers around it.

"He said we could work on my wind chakra."

"There you go. Just do it outside. Tsubaki's only just got the place back in order, and I'd like to come home without finding holes in the furniture."

"I wasn't going to practise in the house," he muttered, though there was a small smile beneath the hair hanging across his face.

Tsubaki glanced towards the guards, where Fū had apparently moved on to describing the insects she'd seen on the road. One of the men caught my eye over her shoulder. Judging by his expression, he'd been waiting for someone to rescue him for quite a while.

"Fū, come over here and let them get back to work. Sora's going to think you're leaving without saying goodbye."

"I already said goodbye! Then this guy asked about beetles." She pointed at the guard, who looked as though he was beginning to regret ever taking an interest.

"I asked whether they were poisonous," he explained. "You've answered that. Thoroughly, thank you."

Fū seemed to consider this for a moment before deciding he was probably right. She bounded over to us, already promising to bring Sora something back from the islands. Shibuki's approval had arrived the previous evening, and she'd barely waited through the instructions about regular reports before starting to pack.

"We'll find something for you too," she told Tsubaki. "Something nice. Mizuki can help me choose."

Tsubaki thanked her, and Fū had already moved on to asking whether she liked shells when three ANBU dropped onto the road beyond the gate.

The guards straightened behind their desk. Even the Brothers paused their conversation to look.

One of the newcomers was a woman with long purple hair gathered behind her mask and a sword across her back. Yūgao Uzuki, unless Konoha employed considerably more purple-haired ANBU swordswomen than I remembered. I kept that recognition to myself however. After yesterday's conversation with Tiger and his father, I was developing a healthy appreciation for not prying into people's hidden identities.

The operative beside her carried a compact pack, and as they approached, I caught the faint smell of antiseptic.

'Kabuto?'

My stomach tightened before I remembered that I'd already blown his cover while Tiger had been rummaging through my head in prison. Hiruzen might have a soft spot for his former student, but surely even he wouldn't knowingly assign one of Orochimaru's spies to oversee my visit to another one of Orochimaru's spies.

Still, I watched him for a moment longer. His mask gave me very little to work with, and his attention seemed to be on the Brothers rather than me.

Their captain stepped forwards, taking in our assembled party before stopping in front of me. His mask turned briefly towards my bandage-covered arm.

"Your paperwork has been cleared, Mizuki. We have everything we need, so we'll leave as soon as you're ready."

"We're all packed." I glanced back at Tsubaki and Sora. I gave her hand a brief squeeze before turning to Sora. "Look after her for me, alright?"

He glanced at Tsubaki, then straightened a little. "I will."

Fū waved to both of them as she fell in beside the Brothers, who had apparently concluded that ANBU weren't likely to contribute anything useful to their discussion of seafood. I shouldered my pack and joined our new captain.

"I'm Tenzō," he said. "I'll be leading the expedition. The Hokage tells me you've already been informed of the restrictions on your participation."

For a moment, I barely heard the second half of that.

'Tenzō. Yamato.'

I looked at him again, then at the swordswoman waiting a few paces away. Hiruzen had put rather more thought into my escort than simply finding the three most conveniently available ANBU.

Yūgao would make an excellent bodyguard, certainly, but she was also very conveniently equipped to separate me from my new acquisition. It would be difficult to call on my demonic arm if said arm was lying several metres away from the rest of me. The medic could presumably keep me alive afterwards, and if matters had already progressed beyond anything a sword could resolve, our captain possessed the First Hokage's Wood Release.

The old man had sent someone who could suppress the fox's chakra, along with two people who could help him deal with whatever was left of me afterwards.

I was beginning to understand why he'd finally been willing to let me leave.

In Konoha, they did not fuck with Kyuubi chakra.

---

AN: This became much longer than I wanted it to, I actually wanted Mizuki out of Konoha by last chapter, but the Hokage was being annoyingly reasonable about letting Flight Risk Mizuki out of his sight, so here we are. Thankfully, the next arc is rather action packed, with no less than 10 items (and two traumatized children) that Mizuki will collect before he's back in Konoha again. Also, I couldn't find a named medic ANBU. This does not need to be a bad thing, as Konoha is stated to have one of the largest standing forces of shinobi, so it'd make sense Mizuki runs into the occasional background character, but if you guys know of a named character that could fill that spot, I'm all ears!

 

[BaffledSatire]

story was a bit crazy at some points, the surreal comedy routines may have scared people away, everyone usually engages more with super power fantasy of omega op protagonist, porn or angst and suffering, a more jovial light hearted story has more difficulty to get engagement, that's just my opinion.

Click to shrink...

Counterpoint. Beware of Chicken.

Personally, I feel like the weakest part was Sarutobi debating the morality of keeping Mizuki when he claimed amnesia. He is a military dictator at the end of the day and Mizuki tried to kill Naruto, a kid who he sees as family adjacent at the very least. I would expect more realpolitik and for him to keep Mizuki locked up out of an abundance of caution even if he did buy the excuse, which he also bought way too easily with more extensive interrogation, to be honest. Lots of potential for this story but the early chapters came off as way too cracky.

 

[Arkon]

For a moment I considered pointing out exactly how much Tsubaki had done for Konoha despite everything Konoha had done to her. Arrested for helping her fiancé, threatened by prison guards, dragged through one disaster after another… Now she'd finally made it home, and apparently that made her a convenient bit of insurance.

Click to shrink...

I see new details for the novels.

"… Sorry?"

"Genin," the Hokage repeated, looking altogether too pleased with himself.

"I was a chūnin!"

"Mizuki was a chūnin. An experienced instructor, in fact. Shall we use his record after all?"

I opened my mouth, remembered what else was on that record, and closed it again.

Tiger's shoulders shook.

"I killed Hiruko," I tried instead. "And Kazuma. I helped save Taki!"

Click to shrink...

Dont worry the rank doesnt determine how strong you can get, just ask the 7th Hokage.