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.

 

[Bakkughan]

STEP 4.1​

​

---

Two days after leaving Konoha, I finally got to see the sea.

I also got to see Raijin eat his way through a fisherman's bait bucket, which put a bit of a damper on the occasion. By the time I'd paid for it and explained that, yes, he did usually eat like that, Tenzō had already found someone who could take us across to Wave.

We'd come south to the shore of the inlet, with the long arm of Fire Country stretching away on the opposite side, hidden behind the far-off horizon. Somewhere beyond that was Tea, and beyond that, the islands we actually wanted. First, however, we had a certain jōnin and his three little genin to check on. I'd sent Tsubaki her promised letter from the last town, assured the Brothers that we were getting closer to their feast, and spent most of the morning wondering whether I was about to meet Zabuza Momochi in the flesh or visit his grave.

Our prospective ferryman settled that question for me.

"Tazuna? He'll be up at the bridge with your people. Went out early." He squinted towards the unfinished span, half of it swallowed by a bank of white mist. "Don't like the look of that, though. Was clear when I came back."

Tenzō turned towards the water. Before he could ask anything else, a high, shrill chattering carried across it.

I'd never heard a Chidori in person before. Apparently, I didn't need to in order to recognize that signature chirping sound, heralding one of the most famous one-hit kill techniques known in this world.

"With me," our captain immediately ordered, his voice tense and we were off.

Water kicked up beneath my sandals as I followed the ANBU into the mist. Fū swept past my shoulder, already rising clear of the surface. Another burst of that awful, piercing noise came from above, and I drove chakra into my legs, hit one of the bridge supports and ran straight up it.

I cleared the edge just in time to see blue lightning tearing through the fog.

Kakashi was advancing on a very large man with a very familiar sword lying out of reach, several dogs chomping down hard on his arms and legs to lock him in place. Further along the bridge, Naruto stood beside the shattered remains of an ice mirror, his clothes torn and his face turned towards a soft-featured boy in a ruined hunter-nin mask.

He looked towards the lightning.

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

I knew that look. I knew where he was about to go, which was fortunate, because by the time the slender boy actually moved, I could barely follow him.

There was no chasing that. I'd grown well beyond the traitorous chūnin who'd been thrown into the cell I woke up in, but speed was still a problem, and Haku would've left me grasping at empty air. Fortunately, I'd watched this particular death years before I'd ever had reason to worry about being on the wrong end of a kunai. I knew where he'd put herself. I knew whose chest he intended to offer up in Zabuza's place.

So I stopped trying to follow where he was going, predicted where I knew he'd be instead, and threw myself at it.

The Shunshin nearly tore my footing out from under me. White fabric flashed across my vision as I slammed into Haku from the side, my shoulder catching him beneath the ribs. My right hand closed around his upper arm, claws biting through cloth, and a few strands of Fūka's red hair slipped out from underneath my fingernails and bit through his snow-white skin.

Then the entire world became elbows, flying hair and the rough concrete of Tazuna's unfinished bridge.

We struck the ground hard. Haku twisted in my grip, a needle already driving towards my throat, and I caught his wrist with my left hand while we skidded through the grit. Something cold and sharp rushed up into my veins through the threads buried in his arm. Beneath the familiar sensation of chakra, I could feel the changes in Haku's cells that I was actually after.

The genetic adaptations that allowed him to combine Water and Wind into Ice were there, although identifying them was proving considerably harder than I'd expected. I'd only done this once before, with Sora, and I was still getting used to the strange sensations my stolen technique produced when it started picking apart someone else's genetic material.

As it was, the whole thing was a bit more… invasive than I'd hoped it would be as I took some of Haku's flesh and blood, though with how banged up he was, I was fairly sure you'd need to be a medic on Tsunade's level specifically looking for tissue-theft to spot the small punctures amidst all of his other wounds. Even so, I hurried to pull the hairs back before either of us had finished sliding. The Chidori stopped, and Haku went still beneath me.

For half a heartbeat, I thought he'd struck his head. Then I noticed his eyes had moved past my shoulder, and I turned far enough to see Kakashi standing in front of Zabuza with his arm buried in the man's chest.

Zabuza was looking at us.

Blood ran from beneath the bandages around his mouth. His lips moved, though if he managed to say anything, I couldn't hear it. Kakashi withdrew his hand and caught the large man as his knees gave out, lowering him onto the bridge.

Haku made a small sound, scarcely more than an interrupted breath. I let him go, and he scrambled past me so quickly that he left one of his sandals behind. He reached Zabuza and pushed Kakashi aside with both palms. The exhausted jōnin moved with the shove, his Sharingan fixed on the boy as he knelt and began pressing his hands against the wound.

"Zabuza-sama?" His voice sounded awfully frail. "Zabuza-sama, please. Y-you… you have to stay awake…"

I got up slowly. Tenzō stood a few paces away with a tanto in his hand, while Yūgao had placed herself between the rest of us and the far end of the bridge. The medic took one look at Zabuza and lowered the hand she'd started to raise.

Haku noticed.

"Help him." He looked from her Hawk mask to Kakashi, then back again. "You're a medic, aren't you? Please, he's still warm. You can—"

"I'm sorry," the woman said.

Haku stared at her for a moment before turning back to Zabuza. His fingers shifted uselessly over the missing nin's chest, looking for somewhere to put pressure that might make a difference.

Naruto stumbled towards us, looking about ready to collapse on his feet. There was dried blood beneath his nose, his clothes had seen considerably better days, and something wild still lingered in those strikingly blue eyes. He seemed to be looking for Kakashi, judging by the way his attention passed over me without stopping.

Then he did a double take.

His next step faltered so badly that he nearly tripped over his own feet, and for a moment he simply stood there, staring at me with his mouth hanging open.

"M-Mizuki?!"

Ah.

'Well, this is awkward.'

I'd known this moment was coming eventually, of course. There were only so many ways to avoid meeting the most famous blond-haired troublemaker in the Elemental Nations when you were a shinobi of Konoha (even as a newly 'promoted' genin), though I'd certainly never imagined our first meeting would happen in the middle of a mission gone horribly wrong.

Still, I had to admit there was something deeply surreal about standing face to face with the Naruto Uzumaki himself. I had spent a ridiculous amount of time following this kid's life, knew things about his family that he wouldn't discover for years, and was embarrassingly curious about what he was actually like when he wasn't having the worst day of his life.

Unfortunately, I had arrived wearing the face of someone who'd already helped provide one of those.

The boy's whisker marks were more pronounced than I'd expected, especially with his cheeks drawn tight like that, and his forehead protector sat slightly crooked above a pair of very blue eyes. Iruka's forehead protector, actually, given on the same night that the previous occupant of this body had kicked off the plot to one of the best-selling manga of all time by revealing the tragic backstory of Konoha's Number One Knucklehead Ninja before an audience of millions.

The actual Main Character.

And he looked like he'd just seen a ghost.

'Well, technically speaking, he isn't far off.'

"Hello, Naruto," I greeted him, raising my hand in what I hoped was a perfectly innocent wave as I smiled (all the while hoping it wouldn't draw too much attention to my claws and fangs). "You've... grown."

Naruto's mouth opened and closed several times before he finally managed to find his voice.

"YOU?! What are YOU doing here?!"

I winced at the volume.

"Lovely to see you too. Sooooo... hey, I had a chat with Iruka before I left the Village. He seems to be doing well, in case you'd like to know-"

"DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT IRUKA-SENSEI!"

'Right. Probably should've expected that one.'

Naruto's hands curled into fists, and for a moment he looked ready to throw himself at me despite his obvious exhaustion. His eyes darted over my face, taking in the markings on my skin, the thick claws and elongated canines, before returning to the Leaf headband I was wearing.

"Wait... why are you wearing that?! You're supposed to be in prison!"

'That's your first question? Forget about the stripes and dental work, the headband is what got you so worked up?'

"Ah, yes. That's come up a few times. About that—"

"Did you escape?!"

There was a brief, uncomfortable pause.

"Not.. this time."

His expression suggested that had been precisely the wrong answer.

"The Hokage authorised me to accompany the ANBU on their mission," I added quickly. "There are orders and everything. I'm officially a Konoha shinobi again."

"The old man let you out?" Naruto gasped, eyes wide and his expression hurt at the Hokage's betrayal, yet all I could do was nod and shrug helplessly.

"He did."

"You tried to kill Iruka-sensei! You tricked me into stealing that scroll! And now you're just…" the blonde sputtered, too angry for words. "You're walking around like nothing happened?!"

I rubbed the back of my neck, increasingly aware that several people were watching us. Explaining to Naruto that I was technically an entirely different person from the man who'd attempted to murder his favourite teacher was going to be a little difficult, since I doubted Naruto even knew how to spell amnesia, much less understand what it entailed.

And that was without even opening the whole can of Isekai worms, which I intended to keep hermetically sealed shut until my final dying breath.

"Look, I realise we didn't exactly part on the best of terms—"

"Best of- YOU TRIED TO KILL US!"

"Yes, Naruto, so I've been told. And for what it's worth, even if I cannot remember it... I apologise." I tried with a small smile.

"Cannot remember?! What, you're saying I kicked your butt so bad you forgot all about that night?!"

"Well, according to my medical files... yes."

He looked so thoroughly outraged by my response that I briefly wondered whether he'd forgotten about his injuries altogether. His hands had started moving towards each other, fingers shifting into a position I recognised with an immediate and entirely reasonable sense of alarm.

I raised both palms.

"Easy. Just… breathe, Naruto. One of you is plenty."

His eyes snapped to mine, and was that my own imagination (or just paranoia), but was there a hint of crimson in those blue orbs as his gaze searched my features?

There had been a thousand of him the last time this face had given him a reason to be this angry. I had absolutely no desire to find out how many he could manage while exhausted, injured and convinced he'd just watched his teammate die.

For all my curiosity about meeting the main character, getting personally introduced to his signature technique could wait.

"Naruto."

Kakashi hadn't raised his voice, but there was enough steel in it to stop the boy before he could take another step.

"Later."

"But Kakashi-sensei! That's Mizuki! The guy who—"

"I know who he is, Naruto."

The certainty in Kakashi's voice brought him up short. Naruto looked between us, apparently finding that answer even more offensive than my continued existence, clearly struggling with the concept that his teacher understood the situation and still hadn't reached for a weapon.

"Then why aren't you arresting him?!"

"Because," Kakashi replied, finally turning his attention towards Tenzō and the ANBU accompanying him, "I suspect there's a more complicated explanation for his presence here, and we have more immediate concerns."

Naruto still looked ready to argue, but Kakashi's expression put an end to it. The boy retreated a reluctant step, keeping his eyes fixed on me as though he expected me to make a run for it the moment he looked away.

Given my reputation, I supposed that was fair.

Kakashi glanced at Tenzō, taking in the mask and uniform.

"Reinforcements?"

"We were ordered to make contact. Your earlier report concerned the Hokage."

"Ah. I can see why." His gaze flicked to me again, then down to the boy kneeling by Zabuza's cooling corpse. "Haku, is it? I'm sorry for your loss, but there's nothing we can do for him."

His hands stopped moving.

For a moment he stayed bent over the body, loose hair hanging across his face. Then he looked at me, and whatever gratitude I might once have imagined earning for saving his life became a very distant prospect.

"You… you stopped me."

"He was going to put that through you," I said, more than willing to throw the Copy Nin under the bus, although he was clearly aware of that part. "I saw you move and—"

"I know what he was going to do!"

He was on his feet before I'd finished drawing breath. Senbon flashed between his fingers, and the moisture around his sandals whitened into frost as his eyes flitted from me to Kakashi and back as if he couldn't decide who he wanted to impale more.

Tenzō moved. So did Naruto, which was considerably less reassuring.

"Get out of the way," Haku told him through gritted teeth.

Ninja Jesus had planted himself between us, arms spread, despite the fact that the distraught Ice user was holding enough needles to turn him into a pin cushion (... again). His heart was clearly in the right place, even if the rest of him was currently in a very stupid one.

"I'm not letting you do that," Naruto said. "You start fighting all these guys and they'll kill you!"

"Then move!"

He flinched at the force of the scream, but his feet stayed where they were.

"You think that makes it alright? You were just asking me to kill you! You can't keep doing that because—because he's—" He glanced at Zabuza and swallowed whatever he'd been about to shout. When he looked back at the crying Haku, his voice had dropped. "I know he was important to you. I heard what you said. But you're still here."

"... I wasn't supposed to be."

Haku looked past him towards me, and I had a pretty good idea what was going through his head. I'd watched enough Naruto to know what Zabuza meant to the boy, and somehow I doubted he'd appreciate my opinion of the man's career choices or (lack of) parenting skills.

Naruto stepped closer. Tenzō's tanto remained where it was.

"You told me about the person who gave you a reason to live," Naruto said. "In the woods. You looked so happy when you talked about him. I didn't know it was this guy, but I remember that much. So don't stand there and tell me you've got to die now too."

Haku's mouth trembled. He looked down at the needles in his hand as if he'd forgotten picking them up, then back at the body behind him.

"I was supposed to protect him."

Naruto reached for his wrist slowly enough that Haku could've pulled away. When he didn't, he eased his hand down. Haku finally let the senbon fall from limp fingers and sank to his knees beside Zabuza again. He shakily took one of the Demon's large hands and held it between both of his.

I became painfully aware of how recently I'd watched Sora kneel beside his own dead father.

I'd managed to save a second child by helping to get his father killed in front of him. At least this time someone else had been responsible for shoving an arm through the man's chest.

'I hope this isn't going to become a theme...'

"Mizuki."

Tenzō had come to stand beside me. His voice was low, and his mask still faced Haku.

"When I order you to follow me, that does not mean overtaking me to tackle an unidentified combatant to the ground."

"He was heading straight in the path of a Chidori. I didn't think there was time to explain."

"There wasn't," he agreed. "Which is why you will explain yourself as soon as there is."

Before I could snark back and ask if he required it in triplicate as well, slow applause drifted out of the mist.

"Well, look at this. The formerly great Demon of the Mist."

A short man in an expensive coat emerged at the head of a crowd armed with an enthusiastic assortment of blades. He stopped when he saw Zabuza, planted his cane and clicked his tongue.

"Dead already? I paid for a ninja, not some useless lump of meat."

Naruto's head snapped around.

'And there's the rest of the episode.'

Gatō had brought enough men to fill the width of the bridge and spill back into the fog. Several at the front began to slow when they noticed the masks among us, but the ones behind kept pushing, encouraged by the sheer number of people who would have to die before it became their problem.

Their employer seemed even less concerned. He was staring at Zabuza with the satisfaction of a man who'd found a rounding error in his favour on a bill.

"And you," he said, noticing Haku. "Still alive, are you? Couldn't even finish the job between you."

He stood, Zabuza's hand slipping from his. Naruto had to catch his sleeve to keep him from moving forwards.

"You… how could you talk about them like that? He was fighting for you!" Naruto shouted. "You sent him here!"

Gatō looked offended by the accusation.

"I hired him to deal with a bridge builder, boy. If he couldn't manage that, I don't see why I should pay for the privilege." He waved his cane at the men behind him. "These gentlemen understand the arrangement. You let the expensive ones kill each other, then you clear away whatever's left. Saves all that unpleasant haggling afterwards."

It took a moment for his meaning to reach Haku. I saw it happen in the way he stopped straining against Naruto's grip and just stared at the little sleazeball.

Gatō smiled at him.

"Oh, don't look so surprised. Did you really think I'd keep a pair of stray dogs after they'd served their purpose?"

Beside me, Tenzō made a small movement with two fingers. Yūgao bent and picked up Zabuza's sword.

I watched her turn the hilt in her hand, testing the unfamiliar balance. Even knowing what she was capable of, seeing that enormous slab of metal in the grip of someone her size made me briefly reconsider several assumptions about how leverage worked in this world.

"Move back," she told Naruto.

He hadn't heard her. He'd let go of Haku and taken a step towards Gatō, fists clenched, his face twisted with an anger I recognised a little too well. The skin beneath the wrapping on my right forearm prickled.

Fū caught him around the shoulders before he could go any further. "Come on. Over here."

"Let go of me! He was going to kill them anyway! He was—"

Yūgao disappeared from beside us.

The first man had just enough time to lift his sword. Kubikiribōchō went through it and kept going, throwing him sideways into the men trying to get around him. Someone screamed. A spear jabbed out of the crush, and Yūgao stepped past its point, turned her hips and swept the blade across the space behind it.

Naruto stopped struggling.

I'd seen people die before. Hell, I'd killed people myself. Watching an ANBU swordswoman work her way through a crowd of hired thugs still gave me a fresh reminder for what the headbands were supposed to warn people about.

There was no room for the men in front to retreat and no room for the men behind them to bring their numbers to bear. A few tried to climb over the railing. One got far enough to jump into the fray before Yūgao reached him and split him skull to groin in mid-air with a single swipe of that terrifying sword. The others were still looking for somewhere to put their feet when she cut through them.

Gatō had lost his smile.

"Stop her!" he shrieked, retreating behind a man with a hooked axe. "What am I paying you for? Kill her!"

The man looked at the massive sword cutting through the lines of men in front of him like a scythe through stalks of wheat, then at the gap beneath the railing, and chose the sea.

Yūgao caught Gatō by the front of his coat before he could follow.

Whatever he tried to offer her didn't reach us. His cane clattered against the ground as the blade flashed once, and she let his body fall onto the bridge. His head came half a second after.

After that, the men who could still run did so. Yūgao followed them into the mist until their shouts faded into the distance.

Naruto swallowed. His eyes stayed fixed on the place Gatō had fallen, although his feet had begun to carry him backwards without any help from Fū.

"She didn't have to..." He stopped, looking at the bodies, then at Haku. "They weren't all—"

Fū moved with him, keeping herself between him and the worst of it. "Hey, look at me. You don't have to watch. Come and sit down before you fall over."

"I'm not going to fall over." He tried to shrug off her arm, then winced when it brushed his shoulder. "And who are you, anyway?"

"Fū. We're cousins, sort of." That distracted him enough to make him look at her.

"What? No, we're not. I don't know anyone with green hair-"

She leaned closer and said something in his ear even my enhanced hearing couldn't make out. Her hand touched her own stomach briefly before she nodded towards his.

Naruto's eyes widened.

"You too?"

"Mine's got better manners," she whispered, just loudly enough for me to hear. "Most of the time. Come on, cousin. Your friend needs a bit of room."

He let her lead him away, still staring at her face. Tenzō watched them go before turning back to Kakashi, who'd finally allowed the medic to look at the wound beneath his torn vest.

"You could have announced yourselves sooner," Kakashi told him. "I'd have put some tea on."

"We arrived as quickly as we could, senpai."

"Yes, I noticed. Very dramatic timing." The Copy Nin said breezily, before he narrowed his visible eye at Tenzō. "… you haven't been practising with Gai, have you?"

The medic pressed two fingers against his side. Kakashi's next breath hissed through his teeth, spoiling the effect.

"Hold still," the woman said. "You've lost blood, and your chakra is badly depleted."

"That sounds serious. Tenzō, did you hear that? And you were about to complain about my hospitality."

"I hadn't said anything."

"You were thinking it." Kakashi let the medic pull his vest aside, then caught the woman's wrist before he could begin. "There's a boy with multiple senbon wounds further down the bridge. Check him first. I can sit here and annoy my kōhai for a few minutes."

The medic looked past him. So did I.

Sakura was kneeling over Sasuke, one hand braced against his chest, her shoulders shaking. An older man with a bridge builder's tools stood nearby, holding a kunai as though he hoped nobody would ask him to use it. I'd been so occupied with Haku that I hadn't even properly registered the pinkette's crying.

The medic crossed the distance in a few quick strides. She crouched beside Sakura, spoke to her, and laid a hand against Sasuke's neck. "He's alive."

Naruto was up before Fū could stop him.

"What? He's alive? Sakura!"

"Naruto, stay back!" she snapped, although her voice broke halfway through his name. "Let the ANBU work!"

He stopped just short of colliding with them. Haku had turned at the commotion, and for the first time since Zabuza had fallen, something moved across his face besides grief.

"The needles," he said. "I didn't..."

"I can see that," the medic replied, already working. "Thank you. You are highly skilled with them; none of these wounds should be permanently damaging."

Haku just lowered his head again. Naruto looked back at him, his mouth opening, then closed it and knelt beside his teammate.

I stayed where I was. There were enough people crowded around the boy without adding the face of his former teacher's attempted murderer to his recovery.

Sakura leaned close to the medic's hands, tears still wet on her cheeks.

"Why isn't he waking up? Is it the one in his neck? I thought I should take them out, but I didn't know if—"

"You were right to leave them. Watch where this one sits." She shifted so she could see without getting in the way, green chakra gathering around her fingers. "Hold his head steady for me. I'll tell you when you can let go."

She did as she was told, her attention following every movement of Hawk's fingers.

Behind us, something heavy thumped against a bridge support, followed by a bellow of "Mizuki!" I closed my eyes.

'Ah. Shit.'

"Did we win?" Raijin called from below. "The boat man says we're too heavy to stay here!"

In my defence, when somebody fires up a Chidori within earshot, checking whether everyone remembers their water-walking exercises does slip down the list of priorities. This would have been a stronger defence if the Brothers had ever learned to walk on water in the first place.

Tenzō silently turned his mask towards me, since technically they fell under my command and not his.

"I… kinda forgot about them," I admitted.

He looked over the railing. Our ferryman stared back from a boat sitting so low in the water that the man was risking his livelihood every time he waved a fist at us. Fūjin had one hand braced against the support to keep them from drifting, and Raijin was trying to climb out without tipping the whole thing over.

Between the Brothers' own strength, a length of rope and a good deal of shouting from the ferryman, we got them onto the bridge. Fūjin took one look at the bodies and edged closer to his brother.

"We missed all of it?"

"Most of it," I said, passing down enough money to make the ferryman reconsider several of the things he'd been calling us. "Stay with Tazuna. And don't touch anything until he tells you it's safe."

The bridge builder looked from them to a stack of beams waiting further along the span. I could practically see the thought forming.

By the time Yūgao returned, Sasuke was breathing evenly and Naruto was arguing that twitching definitely counted as waking up. She'd wiped the worst of the blood from Kubikiribōchō, though a dark line remained around the hole near its tip.

She stopped in front of Kakashi and offered him the hilt. The sword was long enough that, even holding it up at arms-length, its tip still scraped against the bridge's concrete.

"The sword is yours, senpai. You killed Momochi. The bounty will be recorded accordingly."

Kakashi took it, settling the flat across his knees. For a moment, I allowed myself to hope that he might remember who'd so helpfully prevented a last-second interception of his killing blow.

He glanced towards his students instead.

Sakura had noticed the sword. Her hand tightened around Sasuke's sleeve, and Kakashi with deceptive casualness turned the edge away from them before handing it back to the purple-haired swordswoman.

"Keep it. I'd have to change the way I fight to make proper use of it, and I don't think my students would enjoy having it around."

'I can learn! Where's the form? I'll fill out another bloody form if that's what it takes!'

"Hey, wait!" Naruto looked up from beside Sasuke. "What about Haku?"

Everyone turned towards him. He hesitated under the attention, then nodded at the boy still sitting beside Zabuza.

"It was his, wasn't it? Whatever else he was, Zabuza was basically his only family. Shouldn't Haku get to say what happens to it?"

I expected a patient explanation about enemy equipment, or perhaps a slightly less patient reminder of who'd been swinging said sword at his head only a week ago.

To my surprise, Kakashi simply looked at Haku and waited.

He stared back at him, apparently as baffled as I was. His eyes moved to the sword, lingering on the long hilt and the broad, pristine face of the blade, it's edge looking sharper than ever after having had a small lake's worth of blood to absorb. Yūgao held it with the tip resting on the ground and made no attempt to hurry him.

"I don't know how to use it," Haku said eventually. His voice was hoarse. "He tried to show me once, but I... it was too heavy."

He wiped at his face with the heel of his hand, noticed the blood he'd smeared there, and let it fall back into his lap.

"It should be carried by someone who can. A real swordsman." He looked up at Yūgao. "You killed Gatō. He was going to betray us, and you..." His breath caught. "You avenged him, in part at least. Please, take it."

Yūgao went very still at that for a long moment, before she respectfully inclined her head.

"I'll look after it." The normally stoic woman promised with a heartfelt tone.

Haku nodded, then bent over Zabuza's hand again. His shoulders began to shake. Naruto started towards him, but he spoke before he reached him.

"May I ask for something else?"

"You can ask," Kakashi said carefully, "whether it'll be granted is a separate matter."

Haku tried to draw himself up, apparently determined to get through the request properly. It only made him look younger than he already was, even with the blood smeared across his porcelain features.

"Please let me die beside him. You can bury us together. I don't need..." He swallowed, tears running down his cheeks. "I don't need anything else. I know where he'll go. I just don't want him to be alone there."

Naruto stopped dead. Even the Brothers had fallen quiet.

Kakashi looked down at Zabuza for a long moment, his face unreadable, before answering.

"I can agree to half of that. We'll bury him properly, and the sword will go where you've asked. You're going to stay with us, for now. Not as a prisoner, at least, not entirely, though Konoha will have questions for you."

"But there's nothing for me to—"

"You don't have to decide that today." He leaned forwards, his voice still level. "Right now, I need you to let the medic look at your injuries. After that, we'll find somewhere for you to rest."

Haku's gaze shifted towards the medic, then back to Zabuza. He pulled his hand closer.

"His body..."

"Will be buried whole," Kakashi said. "I know how the bounty is usually claimed by Kiri Hunter Nin. In this case, my report and the sword will be enough. Nobody is taking his head."

The boy watched him as though trying to find the part he wasn't saying. Whatever he saw finally allowed him to let go of Zabuza's hand.

Naruto sat beside him while the medic finished with Sasuke. He didn't try to tell him everything would be alright. He just stayed there, close enough that he could reach him if he wanted to.

I looked at the sword in Yūgao's hand and managed to keep my disappointment to myself (admittedly with some difficulty).

Even I would've felt like an exemplary piece of shit trying to call dibs after that.

---

AN: You can read up to 5 chapters ahead over on my Pa Treon

 

[Arkon]

Mizuki:

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[Spearow]

no rematch? i expected naruto to just jump him

 

[Aenar Sov]

Mizuki:

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Click to shrink...

The fact that its wolverine makes it like 10x funnier

 

[Bakkughan]

Chapter 30​

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---

We buried Zabuza on the hill overlooking the sea that afternoon.

Haku chose the place. He knelt beside the grave while the others stood back, and when Naruto finally persuaded him to come away, he kept turning to look until the trees hid it from view. Yūgao had offered to leave the sword there for the ceremony. Haku had shaken his head and asked her to carry it.

I was beginning to suspect that we wouldn't be leaving quite as quickly as Tenzō had intended.

"Three days," Kakashi said that evening, propped against the wall in Tazuna's house with a blanket over his legs. "Possibly four, if these injuries take a turn for the worse."

The medic glanced up from his notes.

"Three should be sufficient."

"There you are." Kakashi gestured towards him. "A medical opinion. You wouldn't want to argue with a medical opinion, would you, Tenzō?"

Our captain stood by the open door, looking like a man who'd made the mistake of visiting someone he owed money to.

"I have a mission to complete, senpai."

"And you'll be able to complete it knowing you didn't abandon an injured comrade and his three students in a country full of unemployed mercenaries." Kakashi shifted, winced, and spent just long enough finding a comfortable position that Tenzō's shoulders tightened. "I'd hate for something to happen after all the trouble you took getting here."

"You are not being abandoned. I was going to leave the medic with you and send—"

"Our instructions give his team's safety priority," I offered helpfully.

Tenzō turned towards me. I met his mask with an expression of earnest concern for our wounded brother-in-arms.

"Besides, Tazuna thinks the Brothers could have the heavy work finished in a couple of days. Once the bridge is open, people can get here without relying on Gatō's boats. That ought to make things easier for everyone."

Kakashi looked at me for a moment, his visible eye curving.

"A very practical suggestion. You should listen to your genin, Tenzō."

I decided I could forgive that one under the circumstances.

Tenzō took a breath, then asked Tazuna for a map of the remaining work. By the time he'd finished looking it over, we had three days, a schedule and an agreed departure time. Kakashi waited until our captain had stepped outside before reaching for his tea without the slightest sign of discomfort.

I pretended not to notice. He pretended not to notice me noticing. It was the most agreeable conversation we'd had all day.

The next three days passed in a blur of timber, medical examinations and more fish than I'd ever wanted to pay for.

The Brothers were magnificent. With somebody to tell them where things went, and a steady supply of food to keep them interested, they shifted loads that would've taken entire crews half a day to move. Tazuna quickly discovered that innocently questioning whether a beam was too heavy for them resulted in the beam being carried wherever he wanted, usually accompanied by an indignant explanation of how many more beams they could carry if he let them.

I asked him not to encourage that part after Raijin nearly took out a railing while demonstrating.

Sasuke woke up furious about how pleased Naruto was to see him, which seemed a promising sign. Sakura followed the medic whenever her duties allowed, asking questions that became steadily more specific. Fū appointed herself responsible for keeping everyone company, a duty she approached with enough dedication that even Kakashi found excuses to leave the room occasionally, though she tended to spend the most time with Naruto.

The Nine Tails jinchūriki was simultaneously over the moon at meeting someone who shared his burden and at the same time completely out of his depth on what to even ask her, though Fū chattered enough for the both of them.

Seeing their similar sunny dispositions (and monstrous stamina levels) it really was like looking at a pair of cousins and I was secretly pleased at how much good this did both kids.

Though it did a lot less good for the rest of our state of minds; Naruto had quickly taught Fū the Kage Bunshin technique. Fū had quickly pointed out to Naruto that their clones sent back their memories.

While back in my old life, this aspect of Naruto's most famous jutsu had been completely abused to turn fanfiction protagonists in absolute training monsters, Naruto used it… to send clones around town checking which shop sold his favourite instant ramen the cheapest.

Meanwhile, Haku stayed close to the house. Sometimes he helped Tsunami prepare food. Sometimes Naruto persuaded him to walk as far as the bridge, where he would sit with him while he talked. Once, I saw him smile at something Fū said. It lasted only a moment, but Naruto looked so pleased that I had to look away before he noticed me watching.

He stayed far away from Kakashi and still wouldn't meet my eyes. I gave him as much room as I could.

My arm, meanwhile, had kept what it had taken from the Ice user with none the wiser. There was a faint coldness threaded through the usual heat when I concentrated, along with something I couldn't yet make sense of. Haku's speed was another matter. Whatever advantages his body possessed, I hadn't stolen the years he'd spent learning how to use them. A few drops of blood were unlikely to make up for that.

Still, I'd come looking for a sword and acquired the beginnings of something considerably more difficult to come by. Amachi might be able to tell me what to do with it, provided I managed to get through this detour without giving Tenzō another reason to write a report about me.

Which is why I took great care to conceal from everyone that had I started visiting the docks.

Gatō had been dead less than a day and his local manager was already preparing to leave. Unfortunately for him, he'd chosen to take the wage chest, the account books and every transferable document in the office. A man attempting to carry his employer's entire business through a back door tends to attract attention, particularly when half the dockworkers are waiting to be paid.

I helped him reconsider his escape route.

It took two evenings to get anything useful out of the resulting mess. Gatō's company had ships beyond Wave, debts beyond those ships, and enough people skimming money from both to make his murder seem almost redundant. I couldn't take control of all of it from a rented room above a warehouse. What I could do was keep the local office open, get the captains already in port paid, and make sure their next instructions came from someone who owed his continued employment (and life) to me.

The manager was very willing to become that someone once we established how little sympathy the dockworkers had for his proposed retirement.

I put up enough of my bounty money to cover the wages he hadn't already stolen. The next day's cargo sailed under the same papers, with the same crews and a different account receiving the proceeds. Behind the manager's desk, an increasing pile of signed agreements established who had financed this miraculous recovery and what share of future earnings he could expect.

There would be more to do. Rival claimants, missing ships, whatever relatives Gatō had neglected to alienate before his death. For now, however, I had the local routes, access to his records and a man who understood that stealing from his new backer would involve a much shorter trip than the one he'd planned.

As an added benefit, cutting the worst of Gatō's fees made Tazuna's neighbours enthusiastic supporters of the company's mysterious change of heart. It was amazing what people would do for a business once you stopped making starvation part of its pricing policy.

By our last night in Wave, the bridge was nearly finished and I was starting to think I might actually come out of the detour ahead.

Which was when I found Naruto waiting on the road back to Tazuna's house.

He was sitting on a low wall, picking at a scab on his knuckle while one heel knocked against the stones. When he heard me approach, he stopped and stood.

"Been waiting long?" I asked.

"I wasn't waiting for you." He glanced towards the house, then back at me. "Well, I was, but I was out here already. Sakura told me to stop pacing."

He watched me for a moment. I stopped a few paces away, leaving the path between us clear. With the house behind him and the sea beyond the trees, it should've been a perfectly pleasant place to have a conversation.

My last private conversation with one of Mizuki's former acquaintances from his days at the Academy had ended with an apology that made me feel worse than being shouted at. I wasn't especially eager to discover what Naruto had prepared.

"Kakashi-sensei told me some stuff," he said eventually. "About why you're here. And what happened to you after..." He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking much younger than the boy who'd bravely stood in front of Haku's needles. "He said you aren't the same person anymore."

"He told you that?"

"Sort of. He kept saying it was complicated, and then he said I could ask you if I wanted." Naruto frowned. "Which wasn't very helpful. People say that when they don't want to explain things."

I considered the likelihood that Kakashi had somehow failed to anticipate this exact conversation and decided it wasn't worth considering.

"The short version is that I woke up in a cell without any memories. All the Mizuki you know left me was his face and a great many people who had good reasons to dislike it. I'm still working on what to do about the second part."

Naruto studied me, his eyes narrowing with a concentration that would've been flattering in almost any other situation.

"You sound like him," he said. "Even when you say stuff like that."

"I know. It's the same mouth, after all. I'm still getting used to looking at it in the mirror."

"And you do this thing with your eyebrows when you think somebody's said something stupid." He gestured at his own face, attempting an impression I suspected was embarrassingly accurate. "You used to do it in class when Iruka-sensei wasn't looking."

I pressed my lips together as I raised an eyebrow at the kid. Naruto pointed at me. "That! That's what I mean!"

"Alright, I'll try to stop. Though if you can tell me what I'm doing wrong before I've done it, that would help."

He looked briefly satisfied, then seemed annoyed with himself for being distracted. His heel scraped against the wall.

"I don't know if I believe it," he admitted. "I mean, Kakashi-sensei wouldn't lie about something like that. But you tried to kill Iruka-sensei. You told me..." His fingers tightened around the edge of his jacket. "You said all that stuff about me, and now I'm supposed to act like it was somebody else."

"You don't have to act like anything. Iruka's having much the same problem, if that helps."

"You talked to him?"

"Just before we left. He was very polite about how much he didn't trust me."

Naruto looked down at his sandals. For a while, the only sound between us was the scrape of his heel and the distant knocking from the bridge, where somebody was still working despite Tazuna's assurances that everyone could go home.

"Haku doesn't like you either," he said.

"I'd noticed."

"But you saved him." He sounded almost accusing. "You could've just let him get hit. You didn't know him."

"No. I didn't."

He looked at my right arm.

It wasn't the first time he'd done that. Over the past few days, I'd caught him glancing at it whenever we ended up in the same room. Naruto seemed to notice it without knowing he'd noticed it, the way you might turn towards someone saying your name in a crowd.

Something warmed beneath the bandages.

'Of course. It's you.'

I resisted the urge to cover the arm with my other hand. Apparently one bit of Tailed Beast chakra was enough to make me an honorary member of the jinchūriki family. Naruto couldn't have explained what he was feeling, but there was a familiarity in the way he kept looking at me that hadn't been there on the bridge.

It would be convenient if that made him more inclined to trust me. It was also an uncomfortable thought to have while he was standing there trying to work out whether the man wearing this face would hurt him again.

"Kakashi says you're going back to Konoha after your mission," Naruto said. "And that you ran away from prison, but that you helped Konoha's friends before coming back."

"I've been busy."

"Yeah, well. So was Iruka-sensei when he came looking for me that night." He lifted his chin, meeting my eyes properly. "I'm not saying it makes everything alright. But if he can give you a chance, I guess I can too."

I found myself at a loss for something suitably flippant to say.

Then Naruto folded his arms and spoiled the effect.

"So I won't beat you up again. Unless you do something bad."

"Very generous of you." I felt a smile pulling at my mouth despite myself. "Though I must admit; I'm stronger now than I was back then, Naruto."

"Then I'll just grow even stronger than you, dattebayo!"

There was so much certainty in it that, for a moment, I could see the man he'd become. The boy leaning against the wall had no idea how far away that future was, or what it would cost him to get there. He just knew that he would, no matter what.

"...I'm looking forward to your progress, Naruto. I hope you find the strength you seek."

His grin faded. I wondered if I'd managed to make that sound condescending until he looked towards the house.

"Haku said you only get really strong when you've got someone precious to protect," he said. "When we met in the woods, before I knew who he was. I thought he was just somebody picking herbs, but I can't stop thinking about what he said."

"Sounds like good advice."

"I think so too." He was quiet for a moment, worrying at a loose thread on his sleeve. "But he was really strong already, and he still couldn't..."

I followed his glance towards the house. There was a light in the room Haku was sharing with Sakura.

"Sometimes the other person is just stronger," I said. "Wanting it badly enough doesn't always fix that."

Naruto's mouth tightened. I expected an argument, possibly a promise to become so strong that it would never happen to him. Instead, he looked back at me.

"What about you? What's precious to you?"

I thought of Tsubaki standing beside the gate, her fingers on the fastening of my pack. The image came so quickly that I almost answered before I'd thought about it.

"I've got someone waiting for me back home," I said.

Naruto blinked, then leaned forwards with sudden interest. "A girlfriend?"

"You asked what was precious to me. You didn't ask for an introduction."

He grinned, and I looked out towards the water while I tried to decide what to do with my own answer. Tsubaki had been in my life for barely any time at all. Somehow, the idea of getting back to her had slipped in among the list of things I wanted out of this new life of mine.

"I want to see the world, too," I continued. "There's a lot out there I've never seen. Places I'd like to visit, things I'd like to learn. I'd like to be able to go and do that."

"You can, though. You're doing it now."

"With three ANBU following me around." I glanced at him. "Don't get me wrong, it's better than a cell. Waking up in one gives you a very quick appreciation for being able to choose which side of a door you're on."

Naruto glanced towards the trees, as though he expected one of the masks to be waiting there. I wouldn't have blamed him. I'd checked for them myself on the way over.

"So you want to go everywhere, but you've got somebody waiting at home?"

"People do come back from trips, Naruto."

"I know that! I just meant..." He gave up with a small huff, then looked towards Haku's window again. "Kakashi-sensei says Haku's coming with us when we leave. He hasn't really said much about it."

"He probably hasn't got much to say yet." I shifted my feet. "Keep doing what you've been doing. Sit with him. Ask him along when you go somewhere. Let him know he can say no without that being the last time anyone asks."

He nodded slowly.

"He came to the bridge today. Just for a bit."

"I saw. That was good."

"He doesn't eat much, though. Tsunami keeps saving things for him, and he says thank you and then hardly touches them."

"Then sit with him for that too. You don't have to find something clever to tell him every time."

He considered this with the solemnity he usually reserved for announcing his ambitions for the Hokage hat. Then a voice called his name from the house, and he straightened.

"That's Sakura. She gets mad if I come in too late and wake everyone up." He took a few steps, paused, and looked back. "If you are different now, you should go see Iruka-sensei again when you get home. He'll probably still worry about you, even if he says he doesn't."

Before I could find an answer to that, Naruto turned and jogged towards the house.

I stayed beside the wall, watching until he'd gone inside. Through the open window came Sakura's voice, followed by Naruto's indignant attempt at whispering. A moment later, a different, much quieter voice joined them.

Haku.

I let out a breath and rested my left hand on the wall. Perhaps I'd managed to do something useful without completely ruining it afterwards.

"That went well."

I nearly went over the other side.

Kakashi stood a few paces behind me, hands in his pockets as he leaned back, looking up at the stars and seeming entirely too pleased with my reaction.

"How long have you been there?" I asked, once I'd convinced my heart that it could stay where it was.

"Long enough." He glanced towards the house. "He's been trying to decide what to say to you since the bridge. I thought it would be good for him to have the opportunity."

I looked at him, then back towards the road I'd come along.

"You told him when I'd be back."

"He asked." The Copy Nin shrugged.

I rubbed my face. Between Hiruzen, Tiger and now Kakashi, I was beginning to miss dealing with people whose intentions could be established by looking at which way they were pointing their weapons.

"Was this part of the reason you asked us to stay?"

Kakashi inclined his head.

"The bridge needed finishing, and my team needed time to recover. But yes. I wanted to see how the two of you would get along. Tenzō's reports can tell the Hokage what you've done since leaving the village. They can't tell me what Naruto sees when he looks at you."

"And you couldn't have just… asked him?"

"I did. He didn't have an answer." His attention returned to me. "I also wanted to see what you'd do when you thought he was alone."

The irritation that had been building in my chest began to cool.

"Why?" I asked, although I was starting to think I'd have been happier without an answer.

"Because Naruto is my student."

Kakashi said it with the same unhurried ease he'd used to tease Tenzō. His posture hadn't changed. His hands were still in his pockets, his visible eye resting on me as though we were discussing tomorrow's weather.

And yet, I couldn't help but feel as if I was standing at the precipice of a bottomless ravine.

"Iruka trusted you. Naruto trusted you. I know what the Hokage has concluded, and I know about the work you've done since then. I'm pleased you were here to help us." He paused. "But if anything of the man who tried to murder that boy remained, and you gave me so much as a hint that you intended to hurt him again, I would have killed you. Not even Tenzō and his ANBU would be able to find your body, not in the least because he wouldn't even bother to go look for it if I asked him not to."

I couldn't think of anything to say.

There was no sudden wave of killing intent to push against. Nothing to tell myself I could endure, or resist, or answer with some impressive boast of my own. He was simply explaining what would've happened, and I believed him so completely that I became aware of the sweat cooling beneath my collar.

I'd spent the last few days listening to Kakashi complain about his side while other people brought him tea. It was easy to forget I'd also watched him put his hand straight through Zabuza Momochi's heart.

"Naruto is under my protection now," he continued. "Whatever happens with the rest of your arrangements, you should keep that in mind."

"I wasn't going to hurt him." My voice came out more quietly than I'd intended. "I don't want to."

Kakashi watched me for another moment.

Then his eye curved, and he took an orange book out of his pouch.

"Good. I'd have hated to explain to Tenzō why I'd killed one of his genin."

"... just how long do you intend to keep making that joke?" I asked wearily.

"Well, until you're promoted, of course! Possibly even afterwards, should you get demoted at some point, but we'll see, won't we?"

He opened it at a folded corner and started towards the house, leaving me beside the wall with the unpleasant feeling that somebody had just removed a blade from the back of my neck.

I let out the breath I'd been holding. The sheer audacity of the man nearly dragged a smile out of me.

"Oh, and Mizuki?"

The smile gave up before it got anywhere.

Kakashi hadn't looked up from his book.

"The village will of course expect a share of the proceeds from Gatō's shipping operations. You'll want to make sure your manager allows for that before he starts promising money elsewhere."

My hand tightened against the wall.

"I'm not sure what—"

"And please, do make sure to check the cargo manifests first." Kakashi continued as he idly turned a page. "The Hokage and the Daimyō both have strong opinions about what can be carried through their waters. We can't have our shinobi involved in transporting prohibited goods."

I stared at the back of his head, trying to work out how much of those two evenings he'd spent making himself comfortable within earshot.

"On shipments that can be traced back to us, at least," he added. "Goodnight."

He disappeared in a Shunshin before I could answer.

For a while, I stayed where I was. I'd come to Wave knowing how the fight would end. I'd stolen a little of Haku's potential, helped save his life and walked away with the beginnings of a shipping business, not to mention the potential to learn one of the most broken jutsu in the setting once I'd convinced Fū to teach me (which shouldn't be that difficult all things considered).

Somewhere along the way, I'd started thinking I was getting good at this sort of business.

Then Kakashi, in one conversation, revealed he had let me finish my secret little plans, checked whether I needed killing, and arranged for Konoha to collect a share of my profits.

I looked towards the house, where he was presumably settling in to read his pornography. For the first time since leaving Konoha, I wondered whether there'd been a single moment in that conversation when I could've got my arm up fast enough to matter.

The answer wasn't particularly comforting, so with a despondent sigh I went inside to amend the accounts.

---

AN: You can read up to 5 chapters ahead over on my Patreon

 

[Noctus]

I'm genuinely surprised at the amount of leeway konoha are giving him, since he keeps doing shit behind their backs lol. though its not like there were any orders to take over Gato's company from the leadership. also the AI usage is less obvious this chapter, outside of a few lines of dialogue, so good job

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 31​

​

---

By the following morning, Tazuna's house was in an uproar as everyone prepared to leave. Naruto was loudly accusing someone of stealing his things, Sakura was trying to get him to look in his own bag before making a fool of himself, and the Legendary Stupid Brothers had somehow managed to eat most of the food Tsunami had packed for the journey. The poor woman was already back in the kitchen, no doubt wondering what she'd done to deserve us.

I was in the common room, checking that I hadn't left anything behind, when to my surprise Sasuke approached me.

"Can I talk to you?"

I stopped, intrigued despite myself, and gave a hesitant nod. He glanced towards the others still packing around us, then lowered his voice.

"Outside?"

"Sure. Just let me put this away."

I tucked the last of my things into the bag and fastened it before getting to my feet. Sasuke was already waiting by the door. I followed him out into the morning air, past the little pier where the boats rocked against their moorings and a short way down the path towards the woods.

Once we were out of earshot, he turned to face me and I studied him curiously as I tried to imagine what could possibly be going through the little Avenger's head.

He'd spent most of the past few days keeping to himself. After years of comfortably outclassing his peers in Konoha, Wave had introduced him to Haku, who'd put him down with a handful of needles, only to be saved in the nick of time by whatever Naruto had done inside those mirrors. Then there was Fū, wandering around with enough confidence to make even Naruto seem modest.

I doubted he knew what a jinchūriki was, but he wasn't stupid. All that talk about cousins had probably given him a few ideas about what she might be capable of.

I was trying to think of some stupid but harmless icebreaker that wouldn't sound condescending when he spoke.

"Is it true you don't remember anything?"

I blinked at the sudden question, wondering where the troubled kid was going with this.

"You mean, before I woke up in prison? Yes. Well, mostly yes. There were... vague imprints. I knew what chakra was, how to hold a kunai, that sort of thing. But no names. No... incidents. No history."

"Kakashi-sensei said that's why you aren't being held responsible. For what you did to Naruto and Iruka-sensei. Because you're a different person. Legally at least." The raven-haired child reasoned, though I still couldn't tell where he was going with this.

"As far as anyone can tell. It's what the Hokage has decided."

Sasuke looked down the path. His mouth tightened, and for a moment I thought he considered the conversation over.

"But you don't want to do those things any more."

"No. I can't remember wanting to do them in the first place."

"And before that, you…" He stopped, visibly struggling with whatever he wanted to say.

I waited.

"Never mind."

He took a step back, his expression closing up. I almost let him go, then hesitated, still trying to work out why he'd approached me in the first place. He'd gone to the trouble of getting me alone, and whatever he'd wanted from this conversation, judging by his expression, I hadn't given it to him.

I went back over his questions, wondering what he could possibly have expected me to say. Was he suspicious of me? Looking for something he could take back to Kakashi? That would've made sense, given my history, but he'd seemed personally invested in the answers in a way I couldn't quite account for. We barely knew each other.

Then I remembered who else Sasuke had once thought he knew. He wasn't asking out of interest for me: he was asking about Itachi.

He'd spent years trying to reconcile the Itachi he'd grown up loving with the man who'd slaughtered their family. That one terrible night had destroyed Sasuke's entire life and shaped everything that followed. I could hardly blame him for wondering whether they might really have been two different people. Or for hoping that there was some way of getting rid of the second. Now here I was, walking around in the body of a man who'd tried to murder two people, with the Hokage's permission to be out and about, outside the Village's walls even.

'Oh. Ohhhh... oh, what the hell do I say here?'

I opened my mouth, thought better of it, and spent another moment considering how badly this conversation could go if I'd misunderstood him. One careless answer and I could have the boy running off to find an S-rank missing-nin, convinced he knew how to get his brother back. I swallowed, suddenly feeling very poorly qualified for this conversation.

"Sasuke. Are you asking whether what happened to me could also happen to your brother?"

The child went rigid.

"I didn't say that." He said stiffly as he looked away.

I simply waited, watching his fingers curl against his palms. Eventually, the silence became too much for the young Uchiha.

"He wasn't always like that."

The words were so quiet I barely heard them.

Sasuke looked down almost immediately, his hands curling into fists at his sides. For a moment I thought he was going to say something else, but he only swallowed and looked back at me, all his earlier reluctance forgotten. The troubled Uchiha seemed almost afraid of what I might say next, but there was an eagerness in his expression that made me wish he'd asked someone else.

The worst part was that I did actually know what had happened to Itachi, enough to give Sasuke answers he'd spent years looking for, but explaining it to him would mean revealing how I'd come by knowledge I had no business possessing. Worse, how could I be sure he'd even believe me? I wouldn't, and I had actually watched that shit go down in flashbacks. The last thing I wanted was to send this poor kid chasing after his brother with a head full of half-understood answers.

Besides, what would Sasuke do with that knowledge? The Last Uchiha was already obsessed with finding his brother. Giving him a reason to believe Itachi had been acting on someone else's orders might only change who he went after first. None of it would give this boy back the brother he remembered.

No, telling him could be a terrible mistake. There were people in Konoha who had gone to considerable lengths to keep the truth buried, and I had no intention of finding out what they'd do to someone who started digging it up. Unfortunately, several of those people were still alive, and one of them had an entire organisation of shinobi answering to him.

I had no idea how much Hiruzen knew, or how much he'd deliberately chosen not to know. Either possibility made me reluctant to open my mouth. The Uchiha massacre was one of Konoha's darkest secrets, and I doubted Danzō, for one, would appreciate a former prisoner sharing it with its sole survivor.

"I don't know why Itachi did those things, Sasuke," I lied carefully. "I can't tell you whether he'll ever change, either."

"But you did."

"Yes. Though I don't know how, and I doubt it's something you could reliable replicate."

He was watching me again, so intently that I had to resist the urge to look away.

"Even if you could," I continued, "think about what you'd be taking away. He wouldn't remember you. He wouldn't remember growing up together, or anything you wanted him to remember about being your brother."

Sasuke's lips parted, then pressed together again.

"You'd have someone new," I said. "The same face, the same voice, but you'd still have lost the person you once knew."

For a moment Sasuke just stood there. His eyes dropped, and I saw his jaw tighten before he managed to compose himself. When he finally spoke, his voice was almost unnaturally steady.

"So… it wouldn't fix it."

"I don't think it would. I'm so sorry."

He nodded once, staring past my shoulder towards the trees. I gave him a moment, hoping he might say something more, but Sasuke seemed to have decided he'd heard enough.

I wanted to find something else to say. Something that might make him feel a little better about what I'd told him, or at least soften the disappointment I'd just dealt him. Unfortunately, the only comfort I could think of involved making promises I couldn't keep, and I suspected he'd had enough of people telling him things he wanted to hear.

"Was... was there anything else you wanted to ask?" I asked, almost sounding hopeful.

Surprisingly, it hurt to see him hurting like this. It had been easy to dismiss Sasuke as an emo little bastard when he was just a 2D animated character on a screen, but standing across from him now, I barely noticed the unsettling hardness in his onyx eyes or the ridiculous spikes of his hair.

I mostly just thought he looked... small. Like a kid.

'God, he barely reaches past my waist…'

"No." He answered without looking at me, then stepped away before I could do more than incline my head.

I watched him head back towards the house with his shoulders drawn up, looking very much like he'd regretted coming to speak to me in the first place.

I couldn't say I blamed him. I hadn't particularly enjoyed the conversation either.

At least he hadn't immediately started talking about killing Itachi again, or inflicting his Curse of Hatred upon the world like the more fucked up teenaged version of him would end up doing at the drop of a hat. He'd listened, and seemed to accept the answer, however little he'd liked it.

I hoped that meant I'd handled it reasonably well. It certainly hadn't felt like it.

---

By the following morning, most of us were ready to leave, though Fū and Naruto were making a determined effort to delay us.

"You'll come and see me when you get back, right?"

"Yes, Naruto-kun. I already promised."

"I know! I just meant, before you go back to Taki."

Fū stopped adjusting the strap of her pack, looking almost offended at the possibility.

"Of course! I'm not going to leave without seeing you first."

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed by how relieved he was.

"Good. Because I said I'd take you to Ichiraku's, and you haven't had proper ramen yet."

"I can't wait! I want to see this place you keep talking about."

"Old Man Teuchi won't believe me when I tell him I've got a cousin." Naruto said with such a bright smile, it was as if the dawn itself had come to land on the nearly finished bridge.

Fū grinned at that, then stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around him. Naruto hesitated for barely a moment before hugging her back, his face disappearing against her shoulder as he wrapped her in a tight hug that belied just how short they'd known each other.

Three days or not, he didn't seem in any hurry to let go.

"I'm glad we found you," Fū said quietly.

"Me too."

I turned towards the boat, giving them a little privacy while the Brothers argued over where to put their provisions. We'd found something considerably sturdier than the fishing boat they'd nearly sunk on our arrival, though the boatman was still looking rather worriedly at where they sat.

Sakura stood beside our luggage, looking as though she wasn't entirely sure what to do with herself.

She'd spent years trying to discourage Naruto's attention. Now that someone else had occupied most of it for a few days, she seemed to be left floundering a bit.

There had been a few other adjustments as well. Even as a boy, Haku was prettier than her. Fū was considerably stronger, with a self-assuredness that made Sakura's own attempts to seem confident painfully obvious. And Yūgao stood nearby with Kubikiribōchō strapped across her back, having demonstrated exactly what a kunoichi could do to a small army of mercenaries when properly motivated and equipped with one of the Legendary Swords of Kiri.

After having gotten used to being the only girl in the group, Sakura seemed to be taking the sudden competition poorly.

Still, the pinkette had at least done something useful with the experience. She'd badgered our medic at every opportunity, until he'd started giving her exercises to work through between questions. According to him, her chakra control was nothing short of absolutely perfect, and she had considerable promise in the medical field if she chose to pursue it.

I didn't much care what Sakura did with her life, but I found myself pleased all the same. Clearly watching her teacher nearly die (twice), followed by her crush being left a comatose pin cushion in front of her, had apparently given her a fresh appreciation for the healing arts.

She'd already asked the medic three more questions that morning, and somewhat to my surprise, the rather stoic ANBU was currently writing something down for her on a small scroll.

'She really must have some amazing potential as a medic if an ANBU is willing to part with their knowledge, even if it's just the fundamentals for now... then again, Tsunade is the greatest medic this world has ever seen and she took the girl as her personal apprentice, so it makes sense I guess.'

Haku waited a little apart from the others, holding a small bag Tsunami had given him. Naruto had managed to coax a few words out of him over breakfast, but that was about the extent of his participation so far.

I trusted Naruto to Talk no Jutsu his way through to the poor boy eventually. Once they reached Konoha, he'd hopefully have room to grieve without constantly having to look at the man who'd killed his father. As of this morning, he'd at least be rid of the one who'd stopped him from saving him.

I shifted the strap on my shoulder, conscious of the arm beneath it.

With the genetic material I'd taken from him, sufficient Wind and Water affinities should eventually let me use Ice Release myself. I could already manage some Wind chakra despite Mizuki's original affinity being Earth and already I could tell the wind-claw trick I'd picked up from Sora came much easier to me these days; getting both Wind and Water to the point where I could combine them was another matter. Then there was learning to do anything useful with the result.

Those mirrors were worth the effort, though. Speed had been the original Mizuki's downfall, and I still had trouble with opponents who could move faster than I could follow. If I could learn to travel between mirrors the way Haku did, I might finally have a way around that.

"Wait! I've got an idea!"

Naruto had finally released Fū, although they were still standing close together.

"I could send a Kage Bunshin with you!"

Tenzō turned towards him.

"Mine can stay around for ages," Naruto explained eagerly. "And if something happened and it disappeared, I'd know straight away! Then we could come and help."

"Oh! And I could leave one with you!" Fū added. "Then we'd both know!"

It wasn't a bad suggestion. As far as I could tell from my past knowledge and the brief time I've spent near him, his clones did in fact last far longer than they had any right to, and had more of a personality too. Likely a consequence of them being granted more access to chakra (especially it's spiritually aligned Yin side) per individual than a regular run of the mill chūnin would use in a lifetime. There were plenty of things that could dispel a clone without requiring a rescue, but having someone able to instantly report everything it had seen the moment it got popped was considerably more useful than waiting for a messenger bird.

Our captain even appeared to seriously consider it.

"Keeping in contact is sensible," he eventually said. "But some of our work will require us to go unnoticed. I'd prefer to keep the group as it is."

Naruto's shoulders dropped.

"It'd only be one." He muttered, seemingly not aware that the difference between one Naruto and a dozen was merely the concentration of orange-ness in a particular spot and not it's sound levels.

"I understand. The answer is still no." Tenzō said surprisingly gently.

Fū watched Naruto scuff a sandal against the dock, then caught his wrist.

"Here. Hold your hand out. Palm up."

"What for?"

"Just do it." the girl rolled her striking orange eyes playfully.

He obeyed, looking puzzled as she placed her palm against his and bowed her head. For a few moments nothing happened. Naruto glanced towards us, then back at her, apparently deciding to wait.

Then his eyes widened.

"That is so cool! And so weird! But so cool!"

'Ah. The Wave Transmission Technique. At least it's subtler than having Ninja Jesus tag along I suppose…'

I remembered the first time Fū had spoken inside my head back in Taki. Apparently she'd decided that whatever practical objections Tenzō had to taking an extra Naruto along, they didn't extend to talking to the one we were leaving behind.

"How far...?" Naruto asked.

Fū smiled conspiratorially and his grin grew wider.

"Really?"

"Naruto?" Sakura had come closer, the medic's folded notes tucked into her pouch. "What's she doing?"

The blonde eagerly opened his mouth, but Fū withdrew her hand and planted both fists on her hips, giving a sharp shake of her head. Whatever Naruto had been about to say died in his throat with a strangled wheeze as she stared him down, lower lip pushed out in a pout that did very little to make her look intimidating. She didn't say a word, but he winced anyway.

Sakura looked between them, eyes narrowing.

"Well?"

"I, uh…"

His eyes darted towards Fū. Whatever she added in his mind made him shuffle his feet.

"Sorry, Sakura-chan. It's... a secret."

"A secret? Naruto, we're on the same team! You can't just stand there shouting about how amazing something is and then refuse to tell me what—!" Sakura began shouting as she closed in on an already wilting Naruto

Fū caught her by the front of her dress and lifted her clear off the dock.

"You leave my cousin alone, you banshee!"

Sakura's protest broke into startled syllables as Fū shook her back and forth fast enough for her hair to become a pink blur, her sandals swinging uselessly above the planks. Naruto dropped to his knees and wrapped both arms around Fū's leg.

"Fū-neechan! Put her down! She didn't mean it like that!" he begged tearfully.

"She was shouting at you!"

"It's a misunderstanding! Please, cousin!"

A short laugh came from behind me.

Sasuke looked almost as surprised as everyone else as we turned to stare at him. He glanced at our faces, scowled and shoved his clenched hands into his pockets.

Fū lowered Sakura, apparently satisfied by Naruto's pleading. The pinkette stumbled back a step and smoothed her dress, clearly slightly dizzy, her face nearly as red as the fabric. Naruto got up between them, still trying to explain to both girls why neither ought to be angry.

A few paces away, Kakashi leaned towards Tenzō.

"Are you sure you won't leave the medic?" he asked, the amusement in his voice suggesting he already knew the answer and was enjoying asking anyway.

"You no longer require treatment, senpai," our captain replied with the weary patience of someone who'd already explained this several times.

"I was thinking of my peace and quiet, actually. Sakura's only just found someone to bombard with all of her endless her questions. And this guy actually answers back!"

Tenzō looked towards his medic, who had already boarded the boat.

"I could request you again for our next mission, you know…" Kakashi continued. "Our respective genin seem to get along so well."

Our captain straightened with something approaching relief.

"Everyone aboard! We're leaving. Right now."

Fū gave Naruto one last hug before following us. By the time she stepped into the boat, he was grinning again, and I suspected she was making good use of their new telepathic arrangement.

I glanced back while the boatman cast off.

Naruto waved enthusiastically. Beside him, Sakura managed a smaller, more polite wave, while Kakashi lifted a lazy hand that I assumed was intended for his former ANBU comrades more so than me.

Haku had already turned away, his back to Kakashi as he looked down the shore.

Sasuke, to my surprise, was watching me intently.

He held my gaze when I noticed, his hands still buried in his pockets. I wondered briefly whether there was something he hadn't managed to ask yesterday, then shrugged and found a seat.

The boatman turned us towards Fire Country's peninsula, on the far side of the inland sea. From there, we'd head south to the Land of Tea.

---

The crossing took most of the day, though getting the Brothers and their luggage off the boat seemed to take nearly as long. We landed on Fire Country's peninsula with enough daylight left to put the harbour behind us, then spent the following day heading south.

Tenzō kept us off the larger roads wherever possible. By the time he led us along a narrow trail towards the Tea border, I'd almost forgotten we were supposed to be entering another country. The trees hadn't changed, the weather remained pleasantly warm, and Raijin was still asking how long until we stopped to eat.

The checkpoint occupied an old stone building overlooking a footbridge. Tea had shinobi of its own, even if its village barely deserved comparison with Konoha, and the men stationed here seemed thoroughly accustomed to processing Leaf teams. Tenzō presented our papers, the duty officer checked the seals, and we were directed towards a shaded bench while he recorded our passage.

I was considering joining the Brothers in their impromptu brinner ("it's breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one!") when a conversation inside the building caught my attention.

"Still almost two months until the shrine race, and they're already at each other's throats. My brother says the Wagarashi have hired people specifically to interfere with the qualifying races."

"Careful who you repeat that to. Their Head's threatening to take anyone spreading those rumours before the magistrate. Keeps saying they're just hired guards."

"What does he need that many bodyguards for?"

"Ask him. Apparently he fears for his safety."

"Pah, 'safety'! I've seen them. They're no samurai. Never met a rōnin who looked like that, either. The tall one with the green hair? Purple eyes? There's something... wrong with him."

'Aoi.'

I stopped listening to Raijin, trying to catch anything else the guards might say. I'd been hoping we might find the man here, although I hadn't expected to hear about him before we'd even cleared the border.

He'd bought himself a jōnin title by delivering the Second Hokage's stolen lightsaber to Amegakure. How he'd managed to retain possession of it afterwards was a question I still couldn't answer. I certainly wouldn't have trusted something like that to a man who'd stolen it from his last employer.

Still, Ame's questionable judgement was my potential good fortune.

"Those bodyguards you were talking about," I called through the open window. "Do you happen to know their names?"

Both men fell silent. A moment later, the older one appeared in the doorway, looking at me considerably less amiably than he had when we arrived.

"What's it to you, stranger? Why do you ask?"

"We'll be travelling through the area. I'd rather know who's likely to cause trouble."

"If you have a complaint about another shinobi, you can submit it to the duty officer. We don't give out details from the entry register."

He remained there until I inclined my head, then went back inside. Tenzō, who'd watched the exchange from the bench, waited until the door had closed before speaking.

"Something you wanted to tell me?"

"Possibly. Could I have a look at your Bingo Book?"

That earned me a longer look, but he eventually took it from his pouch. I worked through the relevant section with more patience than I truly felt until I found the face I wanted.

"What about him?" I asked as I tapped the photo with a claw.

Our captain glanced at the page, then took the book back. He read the entry properly before approaching the desk himself, leaving me to wait with the others.

The duty officer was no happier about the request than his subordinate had been. He pointed out that foreign shinobi entering Tea under valid contracts were entitled to the same discretion we expected concerning our own movements. Tenzō let him finish before setting the open book on the desk.

"We're asking you to confirm a possible sighting of a wanted Konoha deserter. I can provide a written request and the reference for his outstanding warrant. His employer's accounts are of no interest to us."

The officer read the entry. His attention lingered on the list of offences before he looked up at our captain.

"I'll need your signature."

Once the request had been written and signed, the officer fetched the register and checked the entry himself. He confirmed that Aoi Rokushō had entered Tea in Amegakure's service, with the Wagarashi family listed as his employer. Where he'd been staying, who'd accompanied him and the particulars of his contract remained confidential.

Unfortunately, Tenzō didn't immediately announce that we would be relieving him of his stolen belongings.

"We'll include the sighting in our next report," he said, taking the southern path.

"And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime, we continue our mission."

"He's wanted for killing two of your colleagues."

"I read the entry, Mizuki."

There was enough warning in his voice that I reconsidered my next argument.

From what I remembered, Aoi's support consisted of a few non-descript NPC Rain genin whose faces and names escaped me. Neither they nor their superior should have been much trouble for our group. Getting our captain to see it that way was proving significantly more difficult, particularly since I had no way to explain why I was so sure.

"We're passing through Degarashi anyway," I tried. "The Wasabi family are supposed to be the ones suffering from all this interference and they're loyal customers of Konoha. Certainly one of the wealthiest customers in all of Tea. We could ask whether anyone's actually seen him recently."

"We have confirmation that he entered the country. That is sufficient."

"But it tells us very little about what he's doing here. If another village is using a local dispute to establish itself next door to Fire Country, wouldn't that be worth checking out?"

Tenzō kept walking.

"And we need supplies," I added. "A family with warehouses and trade connections should be able to sell us enough to last until our next stop."

Behind us, Fūjin became abruptly interested. He'd been lagging for the past half-hour, but the prospect of restocking brought him up beside me.

"Are we buying food?"

"Yes." I answered before Tenzō had the chance to shut the big man down.

"Good. Raijin ate tomorrow's."

"I keep telling you, it was in today's bag!"

Our captain looked back at them, then at the map in his hand and despite the mask covering his face, I could tell he was seriously weighing his options here before he let out a frustrated sigh.

"Captain Tiger warned me about this..." I could hear him mutter under his breath and I valiantly fought to keep a toothy grin off my face.

"One visit," he said. "One. We purchase what we need, make our enquiries and leave. You will allow me to conduct those enquiries."

"Of course."

He held my gaze for another moment before folding the map.

---

We reached Degarashi the following morning. Jirōchō Wasabi had a servant bring tea as soon as he saw the masks, and asked Tenzō which of Konoha's officials had sent us. I let our captain answer while I settled onto a cushion in the room overlooking his courtyard, grateful for the chance to put my pack down.

Once Tenzō explained that we were merely passing through, the Head of the Wasabi family seemed a little disappointed. The news that we were looking to purchase provisions brought back some of his hospitality, although it faltered when he watched the Brothers carry in their empty food baskets.

"For... how many days?" he asked.

"Three," Tenzō said.

Jirōchō looked at the baskets again before calling for someone to fetch his quartermaster.

The conversation turned to the races while we waited. The smaller families were still competing for places in the final stages, although Jirōchō expected the eventual contest to be between his own runner and the Wagarashi's. Several competitors had already suffered accidents serious enough to withdraw.

"Accidents?" Tenzō asked, curious despite his earlier misgivings.

The wealth of the mansion had impressed upon him that, yes, the Wasabi really were good clients of Konoha and one should take a bit more care for its golden goose if one wanted to keep access to its eggs.

"That's what they're being called." Jirōchō set down his cup. "A bridge gives way during a practice run. Someone follows a marker that was moved overnight. A young man from the eastern fishing families wakes up too ill to stand after accepting a drink from a stranger."

"Have you reported these incidents?"

"Repeatedly." Jirōchō gave a humourless chuckle. "I've also been reminded, just as often, that suspicion is insufficient grounds to search another household. Apparently, having strangers follow my people through the streets and threaten our suppliers isn't enough to warrant an investigation."

I could sympathise. Nothing quite like being told to come back with proof by the very people who were supposed to help you find it.

Jirōchō let out a long breath, reaching for a thin folder beside him. He opened it on the table and turned it towards our captain, revealing several neatly stacked reports. "I can give you copies, if you'd like. At least then someone else might read them," He said as he tapped the papers with one finger.

Tenzō glanced through the first few pages without commenting. Jirōchō watched him, occasionally leaning forwards to indicate a name or date, though he eventually sat back when it became apparent our captain intended to take his time.

I occupied myself with my tea. Whatever Jirōchō hoped we might do about his complaints, Tenzō was being careful to promise him nothing.

"Have you been able to identify any of these men?" Tenzō eventually asked, indicating a set of blurry photographs.

"Some. Most aren't from around here, though they've been careful about showing their faces. Wagarashi's always been willing to hire a few rough characters when he needs something done, but lately he's had people coming and going from his estate who don't look much like ordinary hired muscle."

Tenzō exchanged a glance with Yūgao before reaching into his equipment pouch. He withdrew a folded sheet of paper, smoothed it out and placed it on the table between them.

Jirōchō leaned forwards to examine the picture.

"I've seen him," he said almost immediately. "Twice this week, both times beside Wagarashi. The first time was outside the magistrate's office, and yesterday I saw them together near the docks." He looked up at Tenzō. "Is he the reason you're asking?"

Our captain didn't answer immediately. I could practically see him reconsidering how much of our business he ought to share with a civilian, even one who'd just confirmed that a wanted Konoha shinobi was operating in the country.

Before he could make up his mind, hurried footsteps sounded in the courtyard.

"Boss!"

A young man came running towards the open doorway, apparently too preoccupied with whatever had brought him here to notice the unfamiliar voices inside.

"Boss, they've changed the starting order again. If they expect us to keep putting up with—"

He stopped so abruptly that one of his sandals scraped against the wooden threshold as he caught himself against the doorframe.

His eyes moved across the masks around the table, then caught on the Leaf symbol among our equipment. Whatever complaint he'd been about to make seemed to desert him entirely. His mouth remained slightly open, and I saw his grip tighten against the wood of the doorframe.

I began lowering my cup, looking from him to our captain as Jirōchō turned in his chair.

Tenzō was on his feet before I'd even finished putting it down.

"Idate? What's the matter?" Jirōchō looked between them, one hand resting on the open folder. I doubted he understood what had just happened, but the boy's expression told me he knew exactly how much trouble he was in.

The young runner didn't answer. His attention had shifted to Tenzō, who took a step forwards, tension visible in his shoulders. Idate took an involuntary step backwards. He looked towards the courtyard, then at the masked shinobi standing between him and the rest of the room, evidently trying to decide whether he could still make a run for it.

Not that I much liked his chances at this point.

Tenzō had recognised him too.

"Idate. Morino Idate."

---

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[PotatoKannonShunter]

Ooooooh. Someone is in troooouuuble!