What I Wouldn't Do

“Uchiha-san.”

“Gamadoro.”

“A message from Naruto-sama. He says it’s urgent.”

Sasuke grunted. “Considering the time, I would assume so.” He held out his hand for the note while scrutinizing the doors of Orochimaru’s most remote hideout. They were visually unassuming, composed only of basic metals and did not deserve the level of study he was exerting, but Sasuke was well aware of Orochimaru’s paranoia and had no desire to be caught unawares by the likes of his former teacher.

Gamadoro’s mouth opened with an echoing squelch, one that reverberated throughout the otherwise silent cavern, and soon the wet sensation of toad saliva coated Sasuke’s hand. He made a mental note to clean his gloves.

The message was short, much shorter than the previous one, but it still sent at rush of foreboding throughout his body.  

ANBU dead. Sector H-48. BZ12-Hoko-92.

He didn’t dwell on the first part for long. It was no use thinking about dead shinobi. Sector H-48 was where he was supposed to rendezvous with the team. That was far too specific a spot for an enemy to just get lucky. So there was either a spy involved somewhere, or they were followed. Possibly both. The end, however – the Uchiha didn’t know what to make of that. They weren’t a part of any code he knew, nor did they appear to be coordinates. His brow crinkled in thought.

“Uchiha-san.”

“Hmm?” Sasuke broke out of his musings and let his eyes rove around to flash idly at the toad. “You’re still here?”

Gamadoro puffed up in displeasure, but was far too used to the Uchiha’s attitude to comment. Instead, he simply eyed Sasuke disinterestedly and said, “I was not finished, Uchiha-san. Naruto-sama has another message for you.”

“Oh?” He turned his body fully. Now he was curious.

Rather than answer, Gamadoro simply extended his tongue once again and deposited a tiny black box no larger than a thumb into Sasuke’s palm. The shinobi gave the strange item a questioning once over.  

“What is this?”

“According to Naruto-sama, it is an encrypted long-range communicator.”

“A what?”

“An encrypted long-range communicator. It is the newest device out of the Tech Division. Naruto-sama is worried about the delay in correspondence and wishes for you to use this in order to relay your information.”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, flipping the thing over in his hand. “And how am I supposed to use it?”

“It is keyed to a specific frequency and is encoded. Naruto-sama has given you your encryption key.”

“Ah.” The numbers. “Can this be traced?” He asked, because otherwise he would stick to summons.

“Unlikely.”

“‘Unlikely’ is not the same as ‘no’.”

“And my ability to find you quick enough in the event of an emergency is just as limited. ‘Unlikely’ is the best you’re going to get.”

“Hm,” Sasuke’s lips twitched in what might have been approval. “Tell Naruto I’ve received his message.”

“Of course,” the toad bowed his head. “If that is all, I will return to Konoha.”

Sasuke nodded and the summon disappeared in a quiet puff of smoke. The Uchiha stared at the spot for a moment as he allowed the scroll to catch fire and disintegrate. It was hard to believe this box could actually allow him to reach someone in Konoha, but he’d trust Naruto on this. He exhaled deeply and pocketed the device. No use losing it.

He turned back to the dented doors and reached out his hand to open them. The damaged steel moved with little effort. Light flooded into the entranceway, displaying the dark corridor of one of Otogakure’s hidden labs. The concrete was overgrown with weeds and rot, and a pungent odor pilfered through the air. It wafted under his nose; a combined scent of musk and bodily fluids, and, though he couldn’t be sure, he would bet money that it wasn’t water pooling along the stone.

His Sharingan flared to life as Sasuke began a cautious walk deeper into the depths. It was one of the smaller compounds, situated closer to the border of Yama no Kuni and used almost exclusively as a way house for traveling Sound shinobi. Sasuke had only been here twice before, each time briefly. It had been one of those places Orochimaru had deemed unnecessary for his training and had, as such, steered him clear of. As a teen, Sasuke hadn’t put much thought into it, but he was older now, and much wiser to the machinations of his teacher. Orochimaru didn’t build way houses – he didn’t care for his shinobi enough – but he did build labs, and he was particularly skilled at hiding them beneath a façade of innocence.

The halls he was walking down now were the obvious ones. These were the ones he had seen as an immature child. He knew that to turn left near the end would lead him towards the bunks, while turning right would bring him into a lounge. If he instead chose to keep moving forward, he would end up in a small kitchen not even large enough to fit a full genin team. The size was understandable if taken at face value, but Sasuke wasn’t interested in such obvious bluffs.

Konoha and her allies had spent years searching for Orochimaru. They had looked in every laboratory and compound. Sasuke himself had personally lead searches throughout Oto no Kuni. Nothing. All the obvious places were abandoned and rusting, but this half-forgotten hut on the edge of the country pulled at Sasuke’s senses in a way it hadn’t so many years ago. He could see the chakra in this place now, flowing throughout a matrix of seals he couldn’t recall seeing before, and he made a mental note to copy them down for Naruto to study. Unlike his teammate, Sasuke was no expert in fūinjutsu, but that was alright because he was an expert on chakra. It flowed through everything and seals required it in order to function. If Orochimaru was hiding something here, all he had to do was follow the matrix.

Sasuke ignored the flickering pulses of energy as it moved through the weeds and vines growing around him, and instead focused his eyes on the floor. As far as he could see it was just normal stone, albeit very wet and covered in animal feces. Still, he continued on, his suspicions growing with each step. The compound was too small to be worth its purpose. 

He turned left into the bunks but found nothing out of the ordinary besides some filth and broken beds. The lounge was likewise the same. Perhaps a few books were sprawled out as if the reader still planned to return, but on the whole nothing looked out of place. His frustration building, Sasuke moved onwards into the kitchen and stopped.

Dirt and dust filled the room in an even coating of grime, and there was a plate left over in the sink still covered with grease. Sasuke internally grimaced at the thought of opening the fridge, its contents no doubt rotten and decayed. He moved his head around the room slowly, both dōjutsu active as the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Something didn’t add up. The room appeared untouched, but clouds of chakra sat heavily in the air.

It was almost enough for him to wish for a Hyūga or an Aburame, but of course they were all either a country away or dead at the border, so it was of no use wishing. Reflexively, Sasuke’s fingers curled around the little black box Gamadoro had given him.

His eyes scanned the kitchen again, centering on the floors and walls, but the room was so saturated with chakra it was hard for them to focus. Blinking did nothing to stop the irritation. Well, if his sight wouldn’t suffice, perhaps smell would.

“Kuchiyose no Jutsu!”

A puff of smoke and a large snake appeared before him, her body swaying coyly and her green eyes gleeful.

“Sssasssuke-sssama, you called?”

Sasuke rolled his eyes at her obvious eagerness and pointed to the floor. “I need you to find a hidden entrance. Search for the smell of decay.”

“Ohhh, fantassstic,” she sang. Her forked tongue quivered as she gathered odor particles in the air, and she slithered about the room pleased as punch. A quick circle around the space lead her straight to the fridge where she stopped and twitched.

“Decay isss everywhere, Sssasssuke-sssama, but the mossst isss here.”

“Yes, well I assume the idiots left the food to perish. I meant human decay.”

“Yesss, Sssasssuke-sssama. Human rot isss here.”

Sasuke started. “What?”

“Human rot. I sssmell it.”

Damn. That meant he had to get close to the thing. “Thank you, Naga. You’re dismissed.”

“And my fee?”

Sasuke sighed. “What do you want?”

“The job wasss easssy. A sssingle drop of your blood will sssufficcce.”

The Uchiha didn’t even bother with a reply; he just bit his thumb and allowed a drop to settle onto the snake’s waiting tongue.

“Mmm, deliccciousss,” she said, shivering with pleasure. “Until nexxxt time, Sssasssuke-sssama.”

Naga disappeared in the same manner she appeared leaving Sasuke alone with the filth. He made quick strides over to the odious appliance and focused both his dōjutsu on it. The thing was even worse up close and it was completely laced with a dark cloud of chakra. The mass was so dense, Sasuke almost missed it, but no, there it was: a tiny seal on the handle. It was a blood seal if Sasuke’s experience with said seals was anything to go by, but it was so interlaced with separate strands of chakra that it made differentiating them almost impossible.

“Damn.” He supposed blunt force would do the trick, but undoubtedly Orochimaru had placed any number of traps against it. That left the only other option – tricking the seal.

Sasuke slouched imperceptibly on his heels.

“This is going to take a while.”

The longer Naruto kept silent, the higher Sakura’s anxiety rose. Acid burned at the back of her throat and the uncomfortable heat of her office had condensed into a stifling mass that made it hard for her to breathe. She desperately wished to open the window, but the confidential documents strewn about her office made that impossible.

Her hands convulsed around Boruto’s report, crinkling it loudly. Naruto’s face was inscrutable, something so rare she could count the number of times she’d seen him like this on one hand. It scared her – this stranger in her friend’s body, and the longer he sat there the worse it got.

“Please repeat that, Sakura-chan.” His voice was devoid of any inflection and it made Sakura’s heart pound so hard against her chest it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it.

“This document is a forgery,” she began, her tongue unusually thick as she once more showed him the copy of Boruto’s newborn screening. “See here,” she pointed to the upper corner of the paper, which, to Naruto, looked just like all the others. “Now, if I hold it just so under the sunlight,” and she moved the document over a bit to catch the natural rays coming in from the window, “my chop appears.” And indeed, where there had once been a blank space, now a tiny stylized symbol of a slug appeared in the upper-right hand corner.

“This symbol is my personal seal. I put it on every official document in the hospital. It means that I am responsible for the accuracy of the information. But Naruto,” and she looked him dead in the eye, “I never put this seal on Boruto’s screening. When he was born, Tsunade-sama was the head of the hospital. Her seal was the one on Boruto’s files, not mine. Which means–”

“We have a spy in the hospital,” Naruto finished. Sakura could only sag back into her chair and nod.

“Yes; one clever enough to know about the seals, but not to use the correct one. Whoever they are may not even realize it changes with each new director.”

“Or didn’t think you would notice.”

“That too. My seal is remarkably similar to Tsunade-sama’s. Enough so that a quick glance wouldn’t catch it. Even I had to examine it carefully.”

Naruto bobbed his head slowly and Sakura itched to know what was going through his mind. Her own imagination was spinning at the implications and she couldn’t fathom what he was thinking.

“Are there any others?”

Sakura sighed. “Yes.” She picked up six more files and turned them around for him to observe. “Your family and mine. I wouldn’t have even noticed the changes to ours if I hadn’t spent so much time filing during my apprenticeship. Yakushi-sensei’s chop was particularly detailed, and the forgery was dangerously close.”

Naruto’s eyes narrowed. “Dangerously? You’re not thinking Kabuto, are you?”

“Why not? It makes sense.”

“Too much sense. He knows he’d be the first person we’d drag in. Never mind that he’s forbidden from entering the hospital.”

“Like that would stop him,” Sakura snorted. “Frankly, I’m wondering why you haven’t dragged him in already.”

“You know why I haven’t.”

“Do I?” Sakura asked blithely. “I’m starting to wonder.”

“I can’t just arrest him without a reason, Sakura-chan.”

“You have plenty of reason,” she scathed, making no effort to hide her distaste. “He’s an S-rank medic and former traitor with ties to both Orochimaru and the Akatsuki.”

Naruto debated whether or not to remind her that she was married to a man with a similar epithet, but thought better of it. He took a deep breath. “He’s done nothing so far to raise any suspicions.”

“I’d say this was suspicion enough. And need I remind you that he did spend the majority of his childhood as a double-triple-and-quadruple agent. I’d be amazed if he slipped now.”

“But I can’t use that as an accusation. Kabuto wasn’t the only spy pardoned after the war and there are at least a hundred foreign shinobi living in Konoha right now. If I brought him in without cause, I’d have to do that with everyone else, and then we might as well just rip up all the peace treaties and make confetti out of them.”

“I’m not asking you to suspect him without reason,” Sakura stated, exasperated. “But Kabuto has the means, the knowledge, and the history to at least raise a few flags. He was a loyal follower of Orochimaru, for gods’ sake, and don’t you go telling me Orochimaru isn’t at the top of your list of suspects.”

Naruto raised a brow. “How did you–”

“Oh please, give me a little credit.” She shrugged her shoulders. “A child with the genetic potential for a powerful dōjutsu and incredible chakra reserves was abducted in broad daylight without even a hint of forewarning. I know very well Orochimaru was declared MIA after the war, never mind that bullshit excuse that he was pardoned and allowed to return to Oto. If a man like that was able to escape our grasp and then given ten years to plot I’d be an absolute idiot not to suspect him.”

“Well when you put it like that…”

“Kabuto is the best tie we have to that maniac. If nothing else you should at least send someone in to interrogate him.”

“Talk to him, you mean. I can’t just throw him into Ino’s line of fire.”

“So give him to Anko. You know what they’re like when they’re in a room together. I’m sure she’d love the opportunity.”

“I’m sure she would, but I wouldn’t relish the complaints from the builders when I have to explain to them why there’s another building in need of restructuring.”

Sakura snorted. “You wanted to be Hokage.”

“Yeah, well now I’m kinda wishing I could give Kaka-sensei the hat back.”

“Naruto,” Sakura murmured, expression morphing into one of shock and concern. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” Naruto looked to the floor, finding the wood to be particularly interesting. “If I wasn’t Hokage I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit. I could stay downstairs with Boruto where he needs me. Hell,” he threw up his hands, “I might not even be in this situation at all!”

“You don’t know that,” his friend reasoned. She got up from her desk and walked over to stand at his side, placing a warm hand on his shoulder. “If this was about him being the Hokage’s son, you can bet I wouldn’t have found a forgery of something as obscure as his newborn screening.”

“You don’t know that,” Naruto scoffed, throwing her words back at her.

“You’re right, I don’t,” she admitted. “But I do know that if you weren’t Hokage, you’d be throwing yourself into the investigation anyway. Probably with less favorable results.”

“I just–” he broke off, dragging pleading blue eyes up to peer at the woman who had become a sister to him. Sakura kneeled down to take his hand. “There is so much shit I have deal with because of this. I can’t even sit down and hold his hand because there are so many goddamned reports I have to read through. Interrogation is up to their ears in useless information, five shinobi are dead with no explanation, autopsy is moving slower than a damn snail, and now I have to worry about spies in a village where I thought I had a handle on who I could trust. And, to top it all off, what I really want to do is just tell everyone that I quit!”

“Naruto-”

“I want to put him first,” Naruto whispered, his voice raspy and clogged. “I want to tell the village to wait, but I’m the Hokage and I have to put Konoha first, even before my own son. What does that say about me, Sakura-chan? What does that say about me as a father, or a leader? Maybe…maybe I’m not meant to be Hokage.”

“Stop.” Sakura’s voice was hard and unyielding, her eyes narrowed with conviction. “You’re not allowed to doubt yourself like that. Uzumaki Naruto doesn’t doubt himself just because things get a little hard.” The medic shuffled herself around, reaching out to clasp his fake hand so that both were firmly in her grasp. She gave them a slight shake. “You are a wonderful Hokage, and I’m not just saying that because I’m your friend. You’re always working – always giving a hundred-and-ten percent of yourself to this village and everyone knows it. They feel safe under your leadership. You have the respect and admiration of millions of people, and you earned every bit of it. And as for being a father,” she squeezed his hands, “your children love you. They adore you. They know that if they need you, you’ll do everything you can to be there.”

“No they don’t,” Naruto disparaged. “Boruto’s all but said he doesn’t expect me to be home, and Hima’s gotten so used to me being gone that she considers my presence to be a cause for celebration.”

“That doesn’t mean they love you any less,” she said. “They’re young, and they don’t understand just how hard your job is. But they are proud of you. I see it every time I visit. They know they can come to you if they’re in trouble. While I won’t say it wouldn’t hurt to work on your time management skills a little bit, that doesn’t take away the fact that you love them, and they love you, and they know it. So don’t you dare doubt yourself over something so silly as thinking you’re a bad father or a bad Hokage. You are amazing at both, and the village would be lost without you at its head. So I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about quitting or giving Kakashi-sensei back the hat. Got it?”

Naruto smiled tremulously. “Got it.”

“Good.” She let go of his hands and leaned back against her desk. “Now what are we going to do about Kabuto?”

“I will…talk to the other orphanage attendants.”

“And?”

“And I will see what they say and go from there.” He took in Sakura’s expression. “I do have people watching him, Sakura-chan. Just because I’m willing to forgive doesn’t mean I’m naïve.”

“I know you’re not, all I’m saying is that letting Ino or Anko have a go at him can’t hurt.”

“And if I focus all my energy on him while letting the real spy loose, then what?”

Sakura scowled. “If he’s the real spy then that just means you took preemptive measures and caught him quickly.”

“Doesn’t help me if he’s not the spy. You have a whole team of people with better access to those documents.”

“And I will investigate them. But if Kabuto is the spy, then it doesn’t hurt you to bring him in now.”

Naruto heave a sigh. “We’re not going to agree on this are we?”

“Probably not.” She leaned further against the desk. “You said you have spies on him?”

“Yeah. Kakashi-sensei set them up after the war. Technically, he’s still on parole, but his record’s been clean since he was discharged from prison.”

“I still say giving him access to kids was a mistake.”

“You’ll have to take that up with Kakashi-sensei. Besides, he always sends in his reports on time, and the kids’ psych evaluations are all in order. There’s no evidence he hasn’t been completely honest about his intentions.”

“I still don’t like it. And I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”

Naruto’s forehead puckered. “You can throw people pretty far, Sakura-chan.”

“You know what I mean.” She heaved a sigh. “But my distrust for Kabuto aside, someone has managed to sneak confidential material out of the hospital.”

Naruto bit his lip. “I don’t think Kabuto would miss something as important as using the wrong chop.”

“He could be using a proxy. He’s not allowed in the hospital, remember? Not unless it’s an emergency. Just because he knows what to do doesn’t mean his accomplice does.”

“I feel like that would be the first thing an accomplice would be briefed on.”

Sakura shrugged. “Not necessarily. Especially as mine is so similar to Tsunade’s. The only difference is her’s has the Hokage emblem and mine doesn’t. Frankly, the chop is so small even we get them mixed up sometimes. And it’s not like we regularly check any of Yakushi-sensei’s old documents. Honestly, I can see the margin of error.”

“Alright, say you’re right and it is Kabuto using a proxy. That would mean we have two traitors with access to confidential medical documents, both of whom are most likely in league with Orochimaru.”

“And let’s say you’re right and it’s not Kabuto, but someone else spying on the hospital. They could be in league with anyone, either giving the information to Orochimaru or some unknown party who has yet to make themselves known.”

Naruto ran a tired hand down his face. “I’m not sure which is worse.”

“Me neither.” She reached up to rub her brow between her fingers, squishing the diamond on her forehead and only serving to make her head feel worse. “And you haven’t sensed anything recently? No negativity or anticipation or, hell, even fear?”

“No,” Naruto reluctantly admitted. “When Boruto was taken I was so focused on finding his signature I sort of ignored everyone else.”

“What about the last few days?”

Naruto scowled. “I have to actively be searching for negative emotions, Sakura-chan. It’s not just something I’m constantly doing. Don’t get me wrong, I sweep the village every few weeks just to be sure, but–” He paled, blood draining from his face so rapidly it was a wonder he didn’t faint.

“Naruto?” asked Sakura, pushing forward in concern. “What’s wrong? Naruto!”

“I’ve got to go,” Naruto said, breathily. In a daze, he lifted himself from the chair and, ignoring Sakura’s increasingly panicked calls, raced out of the room. He bounded out of the hospital and across rooftops, paying no heed to his scrambling guards.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, he chanted as he thundered into his office. I didn’t–they couldn’t–

With frantic hands, Naruto pushed aside empty ramen cups and unfinished paperwork so that a portion of his desk was left clear. He bit off a piece of skin from his thumb with more force than was necessary, letting blood bead along the extremity as he slammed his hand onto the surface. Instantly, a black seal carved itself onto the desk before vanishing and revealing a hidden compartment.

Naruto wrenched open the wood and pulled out a small black book that looked as if it had seen better days. He flipped open the cover, allowing his fingers to flitter through the pages in a desperate search for information.

“June, September, November. 102, 103, 106, 107.” He mumbled the months and years off under his breath, desperately hoping he was wrong.

He reached the last entry.

“August 31, 108.” The day after Sakura took over the hospital from Tsunade. 

Naruto almost collapsed. With shaking hands, he put the book back in the compartment and sealed it up. Mechanically, he righted the ramen cups and placed the unimportant documents back where they belonged before slowly sinking down into his chair.

Spies. There were spies in his village.

Intellectually, he knew this. Sakura’s evidence was convincing in and of itself, and he and Shikamaru already had a list of known spies sealed up in his desk at home. It was practical; not every country was a member of the Union. Even he was guilty of sending out more than a few of his own, but…

These spies were unknown. They’d gone undetected for at least a year. They’d infiltrated the hospital. They’d infiltrated his office. They’d managed to affect his ability to protect the village. How…how could they possibly have managed that?

Genjutsu? No, he’d long become immune to anything shy of Sasuke’s Tsukuyomi, and even that only worked occasionally. And unless someone was stealing into his house every night to erase his memory, he doubted it was some sort of medical mind technique. Naruto rubbed his forehead. Not genjutsu, not irojutsu; maybe some sort of cursed technique? It certainly bore thinking about. Kakashi would probably know more on the matter. But what else? He needed a Plan B. A kinjutsu? Maybe. Either that or some sort of fūinjutsu.

Fūinjutsu. Tenten found unknown seals on the weapons. Ino found them on the prisoners.

But could seals do that? In all his research, Naruto hadn’t found anything remotely close to a mind-altering seal, at least not one that wasn’t directly administered to a person, and Kurama would have certainly alerted him to something like that. But Naruto was also knowledgeable enough in the art not to put it passed the realm of possibility. Seals could do almost everything.

So, some sort of kinjutsu or a seal. He glanced about his office warily. If it’s a seal it could be anywhere, and if it’s a kinjutsu it could also be anywhere. He needed something more to go on.

They’re breaking a fundamental law of fūinjutsu.

Naruto took in a deep breath, attempting to center his thoughts by spreading out his senses to blanket the village in a way he hadn’t for almost a year. Fear buffered against him, and wariness, and hints of malevolence in the direction of T&I. Naruto brushed passed them all, directing his attention to the edge of the village, in a nice little enclosure that housed the Konoha Orphanage.

He searched through the entire compound, looking for any clue to his suspicions. Once or twice he felt a brief flash of something – anger, disgust – but it was such a pittance he chalked it up to a childish squabble. The object of his search displayed nothing.

Kabuto was a void of negative emotions.

With a growl, Naruto spun his chair around so that he could clearly see the green roof of the Konoha Hospital in the distance. Further beyond that, the main gate of the orphanage stood out starkly against its neighbors. Much as he tried to stop it, Naruto felt his blood bubble at the sight and he shot out of his seat so forcefully it slammed into the desk and sent papers flying about the floor.

It might not be him, he admonished himself. Don’t do something stupid. You’re the Hokage now. You can’t just fly off the handle like child. The truth in that statement only served to make him angrier.

He needed a distraction. He needed a distraction that would get him answers. He needed a distraction that would get him answers right now.

The seals just stop, like they’ve been cut in half.

“Stay here,” he barked to the ANBU stationed about the room. They stilled reluctantly, but there was no arguing with the Hokage’s tone and so hesitantly remained in place as Naruto vaulted from the window.

The blond took it slow at first, but Shikamaru’s report echoed in his brain. Ideas coalesced into questions, his emotions taking control as he altered his pace into a run, feet pounding against buildings as he approached a small red-roofed shop off the main street.

He entered the building at a sprint, taking long strides passed shelves adorned with weaponry. Twisting behind the counter, he wrenched open the door displaying an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign and entered a small side room filled with wet stones and welding tools. It was a cozy room, shaded in reds and browns, and littered with weapons in need of attention. Naruto ignored them all in favor of a worn tapestry. It was of good quality, but showed signs of wear and tear. The colors had dulled over time and anyone else would have regarded it as nothing more than a half-hearted attempt at decoration.

Naruto bit his thumb again and smeared his blood across the sword depicted in the picture. He then flared his chakra in a rapid succession of bright, muted, long, short, bright, short, muted, hold, before the sword began to glow a faint blue light. A seal appeared across the thread and where there had once been a tapestry, now stood a metal door. He walked through quickly, leaving the seal to reset, and soon found himself in a sprawling underground compound filled to the brim with weapons and technology.

Shinobi raced to and fro, only pausing in their actions to salute their leader. Naruto just barely remembered to reply to their greetings as he let his feet carry him down to level six – The Research Division.

The faintest scent of vinegar wafted from the room at the end of the hall, its only occupant a double-bunned woman slouched over an array of weapons. Her hair was askew and her posture weary, but she continued working with a steady hand born from years of practice.  

“Tenten.”

The kunoichi shot up from the table, grease stains visible on her cheeks under the white light, and hastily drew herself up.

“Hokage-sama,” she said. “I don’t have anything new for you yet, but Sai–”

Naruto waved his hand dismissively. “I know. I need to see the seals.”

“O-of course,” she responded, startled somewhat by the abrupt nature of the request, but didn’t argue. “I have one of them here,” she said as she lifted a small blade off the stainless steel table.

For all intents and purposes, the tantō was as normal as any other. Unadorned and functional, it hardly looked like the type of instrument that would worry Tenten. The only thing interesting about it was the shape.

Tenten pointed to the tip. “This style is called a kubikiri. I’ve rarely seen it used in combat simply because there’s no sharp end. Most weapon users consider it too impractical. The blade,” she drew her index finger down the inner curve, “is on the inside rather than the outside, and it’s really only used at ceremonies. When people do use it to fight it’s more of a finishing tool. Your opponent is already down and you use this to lope off the head. Hunter-nin have been known to carry them sometimes.”

“Hunter-nin? Someone sent hunter-nin here?”

Tenten waved his concerns away quickly. “No, no. I mean, I guess it’s possible, but we really don’t think that’s what happened. Hunter-nin usually have a very strict arsenal. Sometimes there are one or two deviations depending on the person or village, but they’re all pretty much the same. The only thing that made us think Hunters were the kubikiri, and even they went out of style decades ago.”

“Can you think of any other reason?”

“Not off the top of my head,” she admitted. “Personal preference, maybe, but we have four of them from four different people, all of whom are related. I could make that argument for one or two, but four is pushing it even taking into account family preference. It’s not like this style is designed for combat. The only way they could make this work is if they were fast enough to get inside your guard at the correct angle to drag the blade across with the inner edge. And trust me, that’s difficult. It would be much more practical to use a sharp-tipped blade.”

Naruto’s leg bounced erratically as he thought. “And they don’t have a bloodline limit, right? Could they be using the seals to change this?”

“Not that we could find, and, again, it’s possible, but unlikely. From what I could tell there’s some sort of stabilizing seal overlapping a transmitter seal, all looped around the most convoluted density seal I’ve ever seen, mixed in with a bunch of other seals I couldn’t determine. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard weapon.”

Shit. Naruto leaned in closer to the weapon to study it, though his knowledge was limited. Weaponry was not his forte. He would just have to trust Tenten’s judgment. “And the seals are on the blade?”

“Tch, I wish. At least that would make sense. They’re on the grip,” Tenten corrected. “The only thing I’ve been able to determine for sure are the stabilizers, but that’s so basic anyone could see it. Just channel a little chakra and they should appear.”

Naruto followed the weapon mistress’ instructions and channeled a tiny trickle of chakra into the grip. Almost immediately a complicated array lit up the leather bindings. The Hokage waited to see if anything else would occur, but the tantō remained otherwise normal. There didn’t appear to be any sort of blood seal, and the density seal remained strangely inert, but what really puzzled him was the way the matrix just cut off around the pommel, as if someone had ripped it in half.

“This doesn’t make sense,” he mumbled.

Tenten snorted. “Of course it doesn’t. If it did we wouldn’t be in this mess. Sai gave me the lowdown on what Ino found and I’ll eat my kunai if they’re not connected. The only problem is we can’t figure out what that connection is. You don’t just break every law on sealing without reason.”

“Well there’s no blood seal so we know it’s not specific.”

“Yeah, if there were it make our lives a whole lot easier. And this is for just these four people. I haven’t even started on the others. Those seals are almost the exact inverse of these, which just doesn’t make sense. I can’t figure out how no one’s blow up yet. These shouldn’t even be stable enough on an object let alone a person.”

“And yet we have seven people in prison covered head-to-toe in them.” Naruto mused, raking his eyes along the pommel. There was something there, something he was missing. He leaned in to get a closer look and almost stopped breathing.

“Naruto?”

“These are Uzumaki seals,” he whispered throatily. What the fuck? Kurama what is this?

Your guess is a good as mine, brat. I know a lot of things, but seals aren’t one of them.

You’re no help.

Tenten blanched. “What?” She leaned in closer to get a better look, but couldn’t see anything even remotely Uzumaki about the design. There were no obvious swirls or carefully constructed chaos to the matrix. In fact, it was decidedly precise – elegant even. All the Uzumaki seals she’d seen were a mess of illogic. Her brow pinched. “What makes you think they’re Uzumaki?”

He pointed to the five transmitter seals broken in half along the pommel. “It’s a hidden swirl. The grip acts as the center of the spiral with each seal point acting as connectors. I’ve seen a few in what my mom managed to salvage from Uzushio, but nothing as complicated as this one. I don’t even know what some of these do.”

“The Uzumaki were supposed to have destroyed their library.”

“Enough members escaped. Who knows what level they were all at or what they managed to sneak off with. In their prime, the clan was said to be able to win battles before the enemy even knew they were there. It took three villages to take them down.”

And wasn’t that a sobering thought.

Tenten scrutinized the innocuous little blade and tightened her jaw. This gave her a lot to think about, and none of it good.

“Tenten, I’m declaring everything you discover here S-rank classified. Only you and Sai are to have access to these weapons. Reported anything you find directly to me. Understood?”

Jerkily, Tenten nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Has anyone else seen these?”

“Just my team. And Karui. Do you want me to remove them?”

Naruto bit his lip. Did he? Removing Tenten’s team would only prevent them from finding answers quickly, but at the same time he really didn’t know who he could trust. So which would it be: speed or trust?

And then there was Karui. Like Temari, she was considered a foreign ambassador, but had lent her hand in enough times with the weaponry department that in a normal situation her aid wouldn’t have raised eyebrows. Only this wasn’t a normal situation, and so Naruto was left with the question of whether he could afford to take the risk of technically allowing a foreign kunoichi access to sensitive material?

She has a daughter here. A daughter who is friends with Boruto. She wouldn’t do anything to put them at risk.

Karui’s first loyalty is to her village.

Her village is allied with ours.

For now, but how long do you really expect this peace to last?

She’s married to Chōji.

Kunoichi have done less for their village.

She loves him. She loves her daughter. She’s our friend.

She’s Kumo.

She’s an ally. She can be trusted.

And Tenten’s team can’t? You trust the foreign kunoichi over your own shinobi?

To that Naruto had no response. Did he trust Karui over his own shinobi? Yes. No. He knew Karui. He’d been at her wedding. He’d been to her house. Hinata got lunch with her all the time. And, push come to shove, he knew her loyalty was to Kumo. If she was going to be spreading information, he knew where it was going. She was an ambassador. She was a known entity.

Well, the voice mused, condescending and not unlike a day years ago at a waterfall in Kumo, if nothing else, her daughter is here. That’s enough incentive to toe the line.

You’re despicable.

I’m you.

The voice retreated back into the depths of his subconscious and Naruto was left with an expectant Tenten and a table full of weaponry. He sighed. “We can’t risk alienating the Raikage. He’s bound to want her in the loop, and she’s good with weaponry. It’s possible she’s seen something like this before. If you can keep her with the rest of your team they can work on the other equipment while you and Sai focus on these. If anyone has a problem with it, send them to me,” and he would straighten them out. If they still had a problem, he’d send them to Ino.

“Understood. I wonder if Sai’s had better luck?” She mused.

“I believe I have, Tenten-san.”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Naruto and Tenten inched around to see Sai standing in the doorway, two tantō in his hands, with an expression on his face that seemed to war between pleased and pained. In his hand he carried a similar weapon, this one slightly smaller to account for a different owner.

“Sai,” Naruto nodded his head. “You have something for us?”

“Indeed, Hokage-sama. It’s a puzzle,” he said as if it was supposed to explain something.

“We know it’s a puzzle, Sai, that’s why we’re confused,” Tenten said with a hint of exasperation.

Sai didn’t blink. “No, I mean it’s literally a puzzle.”

“What, like jigsaw pieces?” Naruto questioned, his nose scrunching as he attempted to understand.

“Exactly. See this?” He shifted the tantō around so as to show them the hilt, and held it close to their faces. Naruto and Tenten leaned in to try and catch Sai’s meaning, but found nothing.

“Uh, what are we supposed to be looking at?” Naruto asked, his face twisting in what could only be termed embarrassed bemusement. He’d spent years learning every seal trick in the book – he shouldn’t be confused, dammit!

“You don’t recognize it?” Sai asked. “It’s really quite obvious.”

“If it was obvious, we’d recognize it,” Tenten growled, not amused by Sai’s probably unintentional dig.

“Oh,” the man said. “I guess I was staring at it for a while. But then I’m not a seal master – only adept – so it makes sense it would take longer for me than for you.”

Naruto’s teeth made an audible grinding sound, but he felt it better to intervene before Tenten threw herself at the man. “Just tell us what it is, Sai?”

“It’s a fusion seal. See?” He twisted the tantō again, positioning it as if he was going to stab them.

“A fusion seal?” asked Tenten, maneuvering herself around to stand next to Sai. “That doesn’t look like any fusion seal I’ve seen.”

“Me neither,” Naruto added, peering over Sai’s shoulder. “You sure that’s a fuser?”

Sai nodded. “Mm. But it’s been cut in half.”

Tenten groaned. “Then it’s useless.”

“If it was useless, they wouldn’t have it,” the former ANBU replied.

“Point,” Naruto admitted, an idea taking shape in his mind. “If the seals are there, they have to serve a purpose. We just need to find out what that purpose is.”

“What do you think we’ve been trying to do here?”

But Naruto wasn’t paying attention. His mind was elsewhere, focused on the meeting he’d had with Shikamaru. “Tenten, Sai, how do you feel about taking a trip with me to T&I?”

“I’m sorry, I must have heard wrong. You want me to do what?”

Ino’s expression would have made Uchiha Madara cower in fear. Her ferocity radiated throughout the spacious office and Naruto would have gladly opened the door for easy escape if doing so wouldn’t disable the security seals. Not for the first time, Naruto wondered how Sai did it. Ino was as terrifying as she was beautiful and here Sai stood, right in front of her, grinning as if Ino’s razor-sharp glare was a common occurrence. If he didn’t know better, the Hokage would swear his old teammate got some sort of weird, masochistic pleasure out of finding the best ways to piss her off.

“Hokage-sama wants you to choose one of the four prisoners and give them back their chakra.”

Ino crossed her arms. “Uh-huh,” she laughed out, thinking them all mad. “You want me to let someone I’ve been torturing for two days have a go at escape?”

“And give them a sword.”

She threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, of course! How silly of me. Of course they get a sword,” she mocked. Her eyes were like flint as she poked her finger at them. “Have you lost your mind? Is this some sort of joke? You don’t just give someone you’ve been raking for information a means to fight back. It’s Interrogation 101: sap them of their strength and watch them sing.”

“We don’t want you to give them all their chakra, just a trickle. Enough for them to think they have a fighting chance,” Tenten tried to explain, but it seemed to only enrage Ino further.

“They’re not supposed to have a fighting chance,” she scathed. “Sure, we might offer them some pretty little promises in the beginning – tell them we’ll go easy on them if they give us what we want, their death will be quick, they’ll go home, yada, yada – but we don’t actually give them a means to go through with it.”

“Ino, this is the only sure-fire way to figure this out,” Naruto said.

“This?” Ino asked, folding her arms. “What is this? Because from my angle, this,” she gestured around them, “is insanity.”

Naruto sighed, pushing down on his annoyance. “I could order you.”

“You could,” Ino agreed, “but you’re not. Which means you want my honest opinion. And my honest opinion is that this is a stupid plan.”

“You have free reign to do as you like, we just need them to be pushed far enough to use the tantō.”

“Think of it as another form of torture,” Sai added. “You’re giving them a sliver of hope before cruelly wrenching it away.”

“Not the same,” Ino rebutted. “You’re putting way too much stock in my ability to control the situation. Have you thought about what would happen if they actually did manage to escape?”

“They all have tracking seals on them, don’t they?” Naruto asked. He could try following their chakra too of course, but was hesitant to rely on his sensing in case these people had done something else to block him.

“Well yes, but even those have a limit. You do realize you’re talking about letting a potentially hostile person loose, don’t you? Are you really willing to risk that?”

“Yes.”

Ino stared. “Why?”

“Because these people managed to get into the village undetected and pluck my son out from under our noses,” Naruto stated, with no small amount of bite. He brushed aside the fact that more of these people could be in the village already with access to who knew how many secrets, and if figuring out the seals under these peoples’ control brought him any closer to figuring out how many, he would take it.

But Ino didn’t look surprised or even suitably rebuked. Instead, she stood akimbo, her pretty face set in a scowl. “Oh no, trust me, I get that I really do, but don’t we have, like, a research division for stuff like this? I didn’t send over those body diagrams for shits and giggles.”

“Yes, and if we didn’t need this yesterday then that’s exactly where I’d be,” Naruto admitted, the bags hanging prominently under his eyes detracting from some of the ire in his voice. “But even Tenten doesn’t know where to start with these seals and she’s the best we have.”

Tenten nodded. “And we could probably figure it out in a few months if this was all we had to work on, but it’s not, and we don’t know if we can afford those months.”

Ino’s scowl deepened. “And let me guess, you think letting them think they can escape will force them to act.”

“Exactly.”

Ino held her frown for a few seconds before sagging back against her desk. “You do realize I’ve cracked only a handful of these people, right? And none of them were very useful.”

“We know,” Naruto admitted.

“Do you?” She eyed him humorlessly. “So you know that we know almost nothing about what they can do. The fact that they’re covered in more seals than a yakuza boss has tattoos is only the tip of the iceberg. The results of their medical exams came back inconclusive for almost everything, and when I say inconclusive, I mean it – bloodlines, strengths, weaknesses, everything else. We know we have four whatever-relations, but not if it means anything. We know their affinities, but not their proficiency. We know the size of their chakra pools, but not their techniques. For all that we do know, we learn even less. You know this?”

“Yes.”

“And you still want to let one loose?”

“Yes.”

She stared at Naruto, wrenching her hand away from husband’s as he leaned in to take it. Another beat passed with neither backing down. Eventually, Ino sighed in defeat. “Fine, alright.”

“You’ll do it?” Sai asked.

“Yes, fine, I’ll do it. But don’t blame me if this blows up in our faces.”

“Never,” said Naruto, relieved.

Ino nodded. She pursed her lips in thought and said, “There’s one person I could use. One of the four. She’s a bit out of it, half-crazed, but she’s vicious enough that I think I could get her to believe escape is possible. So long as you let me do things my way, I can get her to talk.”

Sai smiled. “Did you know your eyes sparkle when you talk about torturing people?”

Ino shrugged, smirking as if the compliment wasn’t two-ways towards creepy, and Naruto and Tenten squirmed uncomfortably. Her smiled remained in place as she motioned to shoo them out. “Alright, if you want this done quickly, get out. I don’t need you all breathing down my neck. Not you, dear. You can stay,” she added towards Sai.

Naruto and Tenten hurried to move, the Hokage reaching out to pat Sai on the shoulder. He motioned gratefully to his fellow blonde. “Thank you, Ino. I guess it goes without saying that everything here is classified?”

“We’d be pretty bad shinobi if we couldn’t figure that one out. I suppose you’ll want to approve the people I bring in for this little escapade?”

Naruto grinned and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

Ino let out a short burst of air. “Fine. I’ll have it for you later, but I hope you know I’m only doing all this because you asked.”

“I know. Thank you.”

“Just go, you knucklehead. I’ve got this.”

Naruto grinned. “Then I leave it in your capable hands, Yamanaka-taicho.”

Ino laughed somewhere between mocking and sincere. “Don’t worry, Hokage-sama. I’ll make her sing.” And with that Cheshire look Naruto didn’t doubt her for a second. He nodded his head and swept towards the door. The last thing he heard before it shut behind him was Ino’s subdued voice asking Sai, “How’s Inojin?”

Naruto didn’t wait to hear any more. He picked up his pace and strode back down the hall. He was late to a meeting with his shinobi.

“Hinata-sama.”

The collective, monotone choir of her name had always put Hinata on edge. Over the years, she’d learned to ignore the feeling, but seeing the large group of esteemed Hyūga elders kowtowing before her still sent her stomach rolling. The high, white walls of the Hyūga Council Chamber did little to settle her nerves, and it was only decades of practice that kept her mask of serenity in check.

“Esteemed elders,” she began, bowing her own head to acknowledge them. “I thank you for taking the time to meet with me on such short notice.”

“We are at your disposal, Hinata-sama,” her grandaunt, Hyūga Hiyori, said. “Though we are wary about where this is leading.”

“Yes,” another elder stated. “Boruto-sama’s nafuda has faded considerably and Hyūga Shinjin’s name has disappeared. Such things do not coincide with Hokage-sama’s statement. Are we correct in assuming there is more to recent events than have been released?”

The nafuda. How could she forget? Of course that would give them away. There’d been a whole ceremony when Boruto was born linking his life force to that damn totem. It acted as a reflection of his health; if he died his name would disappear entirely. Anyone who saw it now would know immediately that Boruto had not escaped yesterday’s debacle unscathed.

And Shinjin. Hinata remembered him, always following Neji about like a lost puppy. She hadn’t known he’d been on Team Nu. Kiba’s bragging had hinted at a Hyūga. Her heart ached with the knowledge – one more family member lost to protect her own; she would have to pay her respects to his parents.

“You are correct, elder. In order to avoid village-wide panic, my husband and his advisors felt it best to keep Boruto’s condition a secret. However, as our family, I have been given permission to expound upon recent events and ask only for your silence until the matter has been resolved. This information is not to leave the Hyūga Clan nor reach the ears of those under chuunin rank.” Preferably not even that, but the nafuda were accessible to the entire clan and so long as it didn’t spread to the outside, Hinata was forced to trust in her family’s discretion.

There was a round of uncertain nods around the room as they agreed to the condition, not that it was really up for question. The rumor mill had been going wild throughout the clan and this was their only chance for real answers. They would be stupid to turn it down, and while the Hyūga elders could be accused of many things, stupid was not one of them.

“You have our silence, Hinata-sama,” Hyūga Higashi said with narrowing eyes. “Though whether we act on the situation depends on what you say.”

Hinata’s lips thinned as she noted the agreement on the faces around her. “These orders come directly from the Hokage, grandfather,” and are to be obeyed without question, were the words left hanging unspoken in the air.

Higashi’s face contorted in displeasure. “Then we hope you explain the situation to Hokage-sama, should the clan feel action is required.”

Oh, I don’t doubt you will, Hinata surmised, already feeling the headache she’d predicted this conversation would indubitably produce. Your pride won’t permit otherwise. Not that I’m fairing much better.

She shook the thought away.

“I will do what I can, grandfather, but the final word is the Hokage’s,” and her’s, but that, too, went unsaid.   

Higashi didn’t look any happier – in fact, he seemed to sour further – but he acquiesced if only so they didn’t spend the next few hours going in circles. “Understood. You may proceed.”

Oh, how kind of you to let me, she thought. Why do I continuously expect better? But she didn’t allow such spiteful comments to pass and only let herself appear submissive and wholly grateful for their time. “Thank you,” she said demurely, as if she meant it. Her knuckles were white against the deep blue of her pants and she took a deep inhalation to steel herself. “Yesterday morning, around seven-hundred hours, my husband and I were alerted to an urgent matter by Aburame Shino. Our son had not made it to class and was nowhere to be found. Scout teams were sent out and Boruto was found around eight-hundred hours.”

“The explosion,” Hiyori remarked.

Curtly, Hinata nodded. “Yes. As we can surmise, Boruto was targeted by an unknown group for abduction. My husband and his team managed to apprehend the perpetrators, but not before they set off explosive tags in an effort to escape.”

“And these perpetrators, do we know who they are?”

“No,” Hinata admitted shortly, glancing down at her lap. Technically, it was true, though it left a bad taste in her mouth, but she frankly didn’t trust many in the room to keep their mouths shut should the name ‘Orochimaru’ be spoken. No doubt the clan would go into an uproar. Had she looked up, she would have noticed the way her grandfather’s mouth twisted.

A ripple of displeasure spread throughout the chambers.

“That is unfortunate,” Yoshiyuki, one of the eldest councilors, remarked lowly.

His fellows agreed. There was a distinct tang of killing intent in the air. Hiyori leaned forward. “Such actions cannot be disregarded. Boruto-sama was tested positive for the Byakugan. It is possible whoever is behind this is after our bloodline. We will have to be vigilant.”

“Indeed,” another elder said. “Until this situation is resolved, we cannot afford to have any member of the clan leave the village.”

“What of Hyūga Shinjin?” Yoshiyuki asked into the silence.

“Hyūga Shinjin was a member of the branch house,” Higashi remarked offhandedly, much to Hinata’s consternation. They’d made progress, so much progress, over the years, but some traditions were harder to dispose of than others – the separation of houses being one of them. All of Naruto’s work on sealing, from the time he first started practicing to now, had been to free the Branch House, but even so many years into the project and they still didn’t have a viable enough seal to convince the elders that unification was possible.

Hinata bit her lip and reminded herself it was only a matter of time until such blatant disregard towards the branch family ended.

Just a few more months, she thought, just a few more months and the next seal will be ready for testing.

“Yes, his seal should be enough of a deterrent. Perhaps we should seal Boruto-sama as a precaution.”

What?

“Absolutely not!” Hinata exclaimed, heart pounding and affronted at the very suggestion. Over my dead body. Her son would not come near a seal until her husband’s was complete. She was pleased to note many of the others were similarly affronted. “I may no longer be the heiress, but my children are still members of the head family. That they are descended from the matrilineal line automatically exempts them from branch house consideration. Besides which, they are the Hokage’s children. To those who do not understand the Hyūga, your proposal could well be considered a threat.”

She eyed the speaker intently – daring him to contradict her – as the air in the chamber thickened uncomfortably. The other elders all kept their attention purposefully elsewhere as her mother’s brother shifted with sudden discomfort in his seat.

He bowed stiffly. “My apologies, Hinata-sama. It was merely a suggestion.”

“You would do well to hold your tongue on such suggestions then, uncle. I would hate for certain parties to interpret it falsely.” Her warning hung in the air like a noose and Hinata marveled at the way she managed to say all of that without trembling. Perhaps it was motherly instinct or her childhood teachings finally taking root, but she found herself experiencing a rather perverse sense of pleasure as she watched the man kowtow before her, begging forgiveness.

“I’m sure Yamura-dono meant no such thing, Hinata-sama,” Higashi said into the silence. His tone was light, though edged with just enough bite to indicate his displeasure. “To seal a member of the main branch, particularly a first-born son, would never be considered in earnest. Such irrationality can only be attributed to the stress of the situation.”

“Indeed,” Yamura said hastily, looking for all the world like he had swallowed a lemon.

Hinata nodded, allowing her expression to slacken into something resembling understanding. No one was fooled. “Of course, grandfather. I am only pointing out what those outside the Hyūga would think.”

“And you do well to do so. However, the point stands. Hyūga Shinjin’s death so close to Boruto-sama’s abduction does indicate a threat towards our family. Young Shinjin’s seal should be enough to prevent theft, however the same cannot be said for the rest of the clan.”

The rest of the clan meaning the Main Branch – the important branch.

There was a wave of nods throughout the room, and Hinata bit her tongue to prevent from speaking. Saying Shinjin had been following up on a lead would only incite the group to ask questions.

“Until further notice, no Hyūga is to be sent on missions outside the village,” Higashi decreed to the approval of the others.

“Hinata-sama,” Hiyori directed, “can we trust you to inform the Hokage of our decision.”

“Of course, elder.” Hinata swallowed harshly. “Anything to prevent the theft of our bloodline,” no matter how nonsensical it sounded to her. If it was the Byakugan these people were after, no doubt they would have gone after someone more assured in its manifestation than Boruto.

Nevertheless, Hiyori looked satisfied. “Good. Is there more we should be informed of?”

Breathing down the heat in her throat, Hinata shook her head. “No, elder."

“You’re sure?”

Hinata narrowed her eyes. The council stared back unflinchingly. “Yes, elder. I’m sure.”

A frown cracked against the woman’s powdered cheeks. “…Very well. Then we must inform the rest of the clan and prepare for–”

“How is Boruto-chan?” The eldest woman on the council butted in, her soft, grandmotherly voice echoing throughout the chamber and shutting Hiyori down with an audible click. The younger woman noticeably tensed, but knew better than to speak over a kunoichi like Hyūga Kaburi.

Hinata’s eyes widened – Kaburi rarely spoke – before allowing her lips to curl into a small, sardonic smile. I should have known. They just never know when to give up, she thought in resignation. Visibly, she soothed her features into something resembling placid. “He is currently recovering in the hospital under the care of Tsunade-sama and Uchiha Sakura.”

“His nafuda is very light,” Kaburi prodded mildly. Her face was gentle with consideration, though Hinata was not so obtuse as to overlook the steel in her eyes or the question in her tone.

Hinata bit the inside of her lip. “Boruto was caught in the blast. He is…quite hurt.”

Kaburi frowned. Her eyes flickered. “Such harm, to necessitate the caliber of skill Tsunade-sama and Uchiha-san wield.” She stared, the weight of her eyes heavy on Hinata’s shoulders. “You understand we cannot allow such transgressions to go unpunished.”

“Elder–"

“These shinobi have attacked not just a child of the main branch, but a child of the head family. Such offences necessitate retaliation.” Whispers broke out amongst the assembled Hyūga, everyone in consensus. Hinata’s stomach flipped.

She swallowed thickly. “You speak of a blood debt.”

Kaburi nodded gravely. “By your own admission, Boruto-sama’s injuries were life-threatening. We are well within our rights to demand the blood of those who have been apprehended.”

“We need them for information,” Hinata reminded, somewhat weakly. “My husband will not permit the clan to kill them.”

“Then you must persuade him. Our enemy can hardly keep their information forever. What is your plan once they are no longer necessary?” Yoshiyuki inquired from his place behind Kaburi. “As Boruto-sama’s mother, right to first blood is yours but, should you refuse, we are willing to take up your cause.”

Either way the perpetrators would die by clan hands.

There was pregnant pause filled with the elders’ heavy stares, all of them waiting for her to give her answer. Internally, Hinata debated between giving into her anger or sticking with her morals, but in the end there was only one response she could reasonably give. “Right now, we need to focus on gathering information. I cannot answer for the events that follow.”

The council didn’t look happy, but Kaburi bowed her head anyway. “Very well. It is your decision. We will pray for your son, Hinata-sama.”  

Oh, I know you are not letting this go that easily.

“Thank you, elder,” Hinata replied at barely a whisper. She bit her lip, willing herself not to respond to the ill-concealed displeasure suffocating the room.

Kaburi didn’t appear insulted, though Yamura sniffed somewhat derisively off to the side. Higashi glared at him.

“Kaburi-dono speaks rightly. We will pray for young Boruto’s swift recovery. Until then, we must remain cautious.” His attention shifted to Hinata. “You will inform us of any new developments, Hinata-sama?”

“As I am allowed, grandfather.”

“Excellent. Then I ask to adjourn this meeting. There is much to do and the day is still young.”

“Agreed.” Hinata bowed, her head to the floor. “Honored elders. I thank you for your time."

As one, they bowed back. “Hinata-sama.”

They left the room in silence.

Sasuke would never admit it out loud, but he was impressed. Even knowing the Snake Sannin as well as he did hadn’t prepared him for the absolute labyrinth before him. It was certainly a lab, but it was also an underground village that put Otogakure to shame. The old Root headquarters in Konoha had nothing on this place and if Sasuke hadn’t learned the kage bunshin he would have had to call in a village of reinforcements.

Rows upon rows of empty gestation pods stood broken and shattered along the surrounding walls, and the only light to be found was what Sasuke had managed to rig from an old, dying generator. More than half of the overhanging lights were burnt out and Sasuke had long resorted to his dōjutsu to prevent himself from falling to a much ignoble death. The scent of decaying flesh and spilled chemicals eroded at his nose the further he delved, and he’d stopped caring about the sorry state of his shoes hours ago.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been down here. By his estimates it had to have been at least half the day, not even counting how long it had taken just to get in, and in all that time he had yet to come across anything resembling human. There were plenty of animals, and the smell was certainly telling, but even with kage bunshin he’d yet to find an end to the seemingly endless cavern. It was beginning to grate on his nerves.

“Kuchiyose no Jutsu!” He slammed his palm onto the table, it being mildly less filthy than the floor, and a plume of smoke obscured his vision for a brief second.

“Sssasssuke-sssama, twiccce in one day,” came the coy high-pitched tone of a python. “I’m flattered.”

“Naga,” Sasuke acknowledged. “I’m going in circles. I need you to find any humans down here.”

“Alive?” She questioned. “Or dead?”

Sasuke’s eyes widened fractionally – not enough to be noticeable by normal standards, but certainly telling on him. “Are you saying there are people still living down here?”

He hadn’t sensed anyone and tensed in preparation for an attack. Suddenly, every shadow appeared alive. How could someone live down here and evade his senses?

Naga flicked her tongue and slowly slid her body to the floor. “Yesss, Sssasssuke-sssama, but barely. There’sss ssso much rot.” She quivered in pleasure, opening her mouth to bare her fangs hungrily.

The Uchiha ignored her, far too used to the snake’s various idiosyncrasies, and swiveled his head around looking for any hidden assailant. He fingered a kunai. “Take me to them.”

“Of courssse, Sssasssuke-sssama,” she said, slithering towards the furthermost door. “I sssmell them. They are near.”

With narrowed eyes, Sasuke followed her further into the dank underground.