Chapter 9
Strolling behind Naruto as he led her to the library, Reina noticed the odd looks the boy was getting. Some older people would even halt in their paths just to give him nasty glares.
It fascinated her.
She couldn’t understand why these people would ever look like that. Yeah, he had a demon sealed inside him, but that just made him an incredibly strong Shinobi. She figured that people would be afraid that the demon would be released and kill them, but even then, shouldn’t they refrain from causing him stress so the seal isn’t damaged?
She’d have to look into it.
“hey Reina, why are you not joining us in taijutsu practice?” Naruto pouted, “I wanted to see which one of us is stronger! Now that you can no longer do the freaky eye thing!”
Reina walked in front of him, walking backwards with ease, “ Naruto…. We talked about you mentioning my abilities…”
Naruto waived her worry off, “yeah yeah, secret clan jutsu that you can’t use because-”
Reina stuck her foot out in front of her neighbor,
“Mmmph”
Naruto fell face first into the gravel, not seeing her leg before he could move out of the way. Surprised, he laid there for only a second, before he looked up at his new friend with challenging eyes.
They had just had ramen together like friends about a week ago! How could she do this!
Reina stood above him, her face getting better and better at emulating the white haired man that she had grown suspicious of. Her teacher had just acted too weird around him. Plus, her and Aiko had to keep switching training fields because he would always find them. He had made it seem like it was a coincidence, but the most recent time had her teacher acting less like a tomato and more annoyed. She’d joked about him following them, and how “they had nothing to hide from the great copy ninja”, but it was obvious that something was getting on her teacher's nerves.
She still acted like an idiot whenever she sensed him- something Reina couldn’t do at the moment- but other than that her teacher just seemed wary of the man.
Taking a page out of her teacher's book AND Kakashi’s, Reina placed her foot on Naruto’s back-HARD(with what she thought was a cool uninterested demeanor- but really, she still looked kind of constipated).
“I told you to be quiet. If you keep talking about this stuff in public, I won’t hesitate to incapacitate you and never tell you a single thing again.”
Naruto pouted and Reina knew that she got him. The boy would hate to be out of the loop. He was already kept from so many things that the one thing he did know became very important to him. If Reina knew one thing from her time in Konoha, it was that knowledge was power, and that the one with the most secrets was the most valuable. It was a lesson Aiko insisted on the most.
Naruto got up from the ground and resumed leading Reina to the library on his lunch break. She was itching to talk to him, but Aiko had told her to try to stay in character at all times. Her teacher felt it was integral for the face that they had decided she would wear.
Silent. Cool.
Aiko felt that the only way Reina would reign in her ever growing emotions was to act like she didn’t have them. It let people think that she was more in charge than she really was. Aiko had tried for her to work on other personalities, as acting was a huge part to undercover spy work, but they found that it was just not Reina’s thing.
Sometimes, the figurative mask that she had to wear made it hard to communicate with others, but it often left her in the situation where she didn’t have to worry about being the center of attention. Reina was at her best when she could just sit back and observe. Trying to take the ryuuchi out of Reina was harder than both the two of them had thought.
If she didn’t have an exact reference for a social situation, either a book or a person to emulate, it was almost impossible for her to truly act like she was from fire country. This is why Reina liked her front, to be in the background meant that she could just observe the people around her. Despite how frustrating it was at times, she actually quite enjoyed seeing and learning new things.
As the two walked in somewhat comfortable silence, which was rare for Naruto, they made it to the library. Naruto waved her off as they parted ways, him going back to the academy, and Reina skipping training with Aiko.
Reina had Informed her that she had been really behind in school and needed a day off. Aiko had given her a sour look, but then dismissed her “cute little bookworm” to go get some work done.
And she wasn’t even lying. School just got more challenging as the time went by, and her teacher using konoha references to explain things didn’t help. Her adversity to Iruka had lessened since their bad encounter, as he truly was a very nice man, but she couldn’t help but still hold some contempt for him.
It also didn’t help that he kept calling on her in class, despite knowing that she definitely still had no idea what a kilometer was.
Walking into the library, Reina winced at the woman at the desk. Of course the person working the front had to be her old ‘teacher’. In addition to the woman probably already disliking her because she had to waste time with a random orphan, she probably hated her now.
You see, Aiko didn’t take kindly to the fact that a kid who had just lost their family was abandoned in a small apartment. Coupled with the obvious remarks Reina had told her the woman had said about Naruto… well let’s just say that Aiko had gotten the lady demoted and somehow relegated to paper pusher ninja status.
Trying to slip by the woman without notice, which was hard because Reina had grown even taller since she had arrived, she fell through an opening that must have been hidden through genjutsu.
There, a door that was labeled restricted, sat open and just asking for Reina to go inside.
Someone was 100% going to get fired for this mistake, and she had a sneaking suspicion of who it was going to be.
Not caring at all, Reina made her way through the door to a room full of files.
As it turns out, the majority of the restricted section was largely candidate files for the academy and all of the current registered genin & Chunin. There were even some files for jounin, but they were mostly blacked out.
From what she knew about konoha and the other secret villages, It was insane that something like this was able to happen. Information sharing was not a thing(despite Aiko saying that it would better humanity), and the fact that Konoha even had a library was very progressive.
Reina had been to the library a few times before- but it had mostly been with Aiko. Jounin could access the higher levels of the library, which held more shinobi related information than the lower levels, like non-clan jutsu and chakra theory.
She had just planned on going to the lower floors which held non-shinobi materials, information that would be taught to civilians in the civilian schools. It was the part of school that she needed the most work on, but she couldn’t help the temptation of exploring the restricted room.
Not even Aiko had taken her here, and she figured if she wanted to know how konoha really worked-it would be here. Her teacher had said that the academy had largely doctored the events of konoha prior, and that history was largely written through a filtered lense. Reina didn’t really understand how Aiko could know that, but she trusted her teacher.
She was different from most of the people she had met so far. Aiko freely spoke her feelings on issues, much like Naruto did, and her outlook was much more realistic than what she learned at the academy.
‘Rose colored glasses’ Aiko liked to say.
Reina knew that she lacked a lot of knowledge, things like currency, politics, math and science- but she did in fact learn a few things other than fighting from her people.
The ryuuchi were very open as a clan. There was no head, no council of elders, just themselves as a united people. People who were not afraid to speak out(challenge in a fight), and there were very little secrets.
Though there was not many things that had made her people better than Konoha, this was one of them. While people like the hokage would not agree with her, saying some secrets were necessary, Reina disagreed.
Opening a file in the back of the room, Reina found herself with specs of the hokage monument. Included in it was a map of the tunnels, something Reina should definitely not be seeing, and reference photos of the people depicted in the monument. As she flipped through the photos, a picture of the fourth, who she knew to be deceased, stared back at her. Snapping the file closed in shock, Reina slid against the wall.
She was most definitely NOT supposed to see THAT.
In the photo there was a picture of a man with blond hair and blue eyes, suspiciously similar to Naruto’s. However, the kicker was not the fourth, but the woman next to him. It jogged a memory in her mind that she had long forgotten. A simple photograph of her mother and a team that had saved her before she had come to live in the ryuuchi caves.
That woman, if she had remembered correctly, had signed her mothers photo- the first name illegible, but the last being more clear. It was…. Uzumaki. That woman had the same last name as her friend, and that man looked almost identical to Naruto. Which meant…
Naruto was the fourth’s son.
The Hokage monument was made out of stone, so the familiarity between Naruto and him was not too obvious, but with this picture and the name Reina remembered. It was too many coincidences not to be true.
Oh man. Maybe she did understand keeping some secrets. Naruto being a jinchuuriki was one thing, but the son of konoha’s red devil and yellow flash? Kiri and Iwa would be foaming at the mouths.
She HAD to tell Aiko about this room being unlocked. It was suspicious that it had just been left open for anyone to stumble upon.
Oh. And did she mention that she had found a file on the Uchiha massacre? Danzo was looking even more suspicious by the minute! and that wasn’t even including her warning from Aiko to be wary of him.
———
Aiko stormed through hokage tower, the information from her trouble magnet student burning in her mind. Of course she had already known everything Reina had said but this gave her the perfect excuse to confront the man she held in such low regard.
She didn’t like Hiruzen, but it’s not like anyone else knew that. Anyone except her students that is.
She had played her dutiful ninja facade so well, that she had practically fooled everyone into security about her being a non-threat. Someone who didn’t know things about konoha that could topple the government. It’s not like she even wanted to do that, she knew someone more capable would become hokage after the third was done, but it felt like the time would never come.
Now, however, she had the excuse for knowing information she shouldn’t. And she was going to milk it for all it was worth. She owed Reina sooooo many library trips for this golden opportunity. Hiruzen old listen to her, and he would listen to her well.
Not even caring about the consequences, Aiko slapped a seal on the hokage’s door that disarmed all the traps it held and opened the door all in one go. She faltered slightly at Kakashi being in the room, the childhood crush rearing its head in her mind, but she figured it would be beneficial for him to hear this as well. It wouldn’t make him any less suspicious of her, but she figured if anyone figured out she could make jiraiya cry with her fuinjutsu skills, it would be him.
Sensing around the room for ANBU, she smiled when she realized it was Yamato and genma.
Perfect. She could trust them.
Kakashi, not seeming shocked at all from her outburst, walked towards her to study the seal she had just used. Her traitorous face turning slightly pink at his proximity.
He was hot, ok!
Studying the piece of paper she had slapped on the door, Kakashi whistled. It took everything in her not to roll her eyes, because it was a seal she’d come up with when she’d just turned 13. It had been 10 years since then, and she had probably made 5 different versions since then.
“This is some pretty detailed work, Aiko.” He said, causing her to flush even more at the use of her name. “Do you think I could take this to study? I’ve never thought about using the tri-gram seal in this way- very… innovative.”
Despite his words hinting at being impressed, it was probably something he was saying to gauge if her sealing level was really just at tokubetsu jounin level.
She didn’t take the bait, but waved her hand in mock apatheticness “go ahead, you’ve probably already memorized it anyway…. Freaking child prodigies. I already hear enough about that from my students complaining about the Uchiha, I don’t need an adult prodigy giving me any more headaches.”
Kakashi lifted his brows at her statement, but stuffed the seal from the door into his pocket and re-closed the door.
Aiko slapped another seal on the door, and then another on the windows in the room. People surprisingly thought windows were like walls, but she knew better. Then, for good measure, she slapped a seal on the air vent that Anbu traveled in and out of, causing the ones in the room to stiffen and step towards the hokage.
“Relax” she said, pointing to her arm where the Anbu symbol was “I’m not up to anything mutinous, but I do have information that is quite troubling.”
This finally made hiruzen react to the whole situation, he set down his pipe and finally looked at her with serious eyes- eyes that considered her as more dangerous than the copy ninja in the room.
Which she was.
Knowledge was power.
Unfortunately, after her next words, he would go right back to thinking she was just a normal tokubetsu jounin.
“To what do we owe the pleasure, miss Aiko?” He said sickeningly sweet, “as you know, breaking into the office of the hokage while he’s in a meeting with someone ABOVE your rank could be worthy of demerits.”
It was a threat, albeit a stupid one.
“To hell is with that!” She said, causing the men in the room to stiffen more, “I just heard from my not even genin student, that she was able to just waltz into the restricted section of the library! Someone had just left the freaking door open for anyone to walk in! It could not have been a mistake, because the door shuts automatically! Someone had to have manually kept the door open!”
She hadn’t said it outright, but the message was clear.
“Traitors” hiruzen blew out a breath. He went to push a button on his desk-one that would notify the council of an urgent meeting, but Aiko cut him off.
“I apologize hokage-Sama, but that is not all” she steamed herself for the next part, “she found clearly marked maps of the hokage monument. Classified Information that should not be in that room, and pictures of the fourth and his fiancé. My student may not be the most book smart, but she is friends with Naruto. She informed me that the fourth is Naruto’s father, and while I was not in Konoha while he was alive, I find it hard to disagree.”
Hiruzen put his face in his hands, and Kakashi blew out a breath.
“Their resemblance is striking, I am surprised more people have not figured it out” the white haired man said.
Aiko fought to keep her smile from showing, the last of the information he was most EXCITED to share- especially in front of Kakashi.
“One more thing.” She said, voice low, gaining all the eyes in the room to look at her again. “My student found a file on the Uchiha massacre, and the information it revealed showed that it was an inside job instigated by Konoha. It hinted at Itachi just being a naïve boy who was manipulated into killing his family, it was not a psychotic break, but instead a plot from someone high in the ranks”
Sarutobi shifted, the movement caught by no-one except for her and Kakashi. The seed was planted.
“Fortunately, it didn’t say who was the perpetrator or list much evidence. But if this got out and confirmed true, it could wreck the trust of the clans in konoha”.
She had lied of course, the information had clearly implicated Danzo and Sarutobi, but she couldn’t give the whole truth to the people in the room- they’d have to figure it out for themselves.
Boy did she love seeing the hokage sweat. He’d have to answer for his crimes, and would not take the easy way out.