Chapter Text
In a common perspective, the swing isn't really the best. The wood is so old and rotten that its red coating flakes off and floats to the softest breeze; the ropes so frayed that they creak at the slightest movement, as if bemoaning a tiredness that could only stem from countless years of service. Quite honestly, it is a lonely, sorry thing, abandoned for the sake of shiny toys and comfortable beds. But it is that, precisely, what makes it the best swing in the entire world, because it makes it completely and utterly his, in a way that nothing has ever been his before.
After all, Naruto is also a sorry, lonely thing, at least when hit by the correct light. When thinking about it like that, the sting of his most recent failure subsides a little – not passing the exam means staying with his swing, watching the golden glow of the afternoon day after day after day, until the year loops around him and he gets a new chance to become a genin, only this time for sure.
Those are his favorite, the afternoons when the sunshine is soft and lazy, when Konoha turns into a watercolor dream and even the impossible dares to approach. He is no failure then. No, Naruto is invincible, running through the streets with the warm palm of the sun on his back, until the fresh dew of night dissolves the scene. This might be why, on this particular date and time, seeing a smiling Mizuki slowly approach him does not seem so absurd. But absurd it is, even if the boy himself doesn't immediately notice, due to mainly two things: the assistant teacher never stays at the Academy a second longer than needed, and he surely never interacts with Naruto unless strictly necessary. The opposite of Iruka, though he doesn't really want to think much of the man who just failed him.
Again. He failed again.
The rest of the children have all gone back to their home cooked dinners and parents' arms, leaving the playground by the school completely empty, except for him and Mizuki. The teacher's steps are confident and unhurried, their soft rhythm a beacon of his presence – and a direct consequence of his distance from the field. A ninja must always be silent in their approach, or so had Iruka-sensei advised them. Naruto is glad for the warning, though, because the sound gives him a few precious seconds to prepare for human interaction. It's one of those days when masks take a little time.
A blink, a breath, and there the man is, right next to him, touching his shoulder to get his attention. In all honesty, even with his intrinsic need for human contact, Naruto is not looking forward to whatever conversation Mizuki might be willing to offer. The reason's pretty simple, too. All types of communication with the older ninja fatefully culminate into one ultimate occurrence, which is, in the most ordinary of terms, misery. Plus, if the intense moping was not clue enough, Naruto has already had enough of that for one day, thank you very much. Unfortunately, it seems the other man does not quite think so, because there he is, stupid syrupy smile slapped to his stupid face like a stupid sticker. Somehow, trying to smile benevolently at the student you just helped fail reaches a whole new standard of low.
As it turns out, that interaction he so wishes to avoid is going to end up changing his life a great deal.
"Hello, Naruto-kun. How are you today?" The man's question has him bristling, all scrunched up nose and squinty eyes. What the hell does the dude expect him to feel like? Like the cat who caught the damn canary? Like Uchiha Sasuke with his godforsaken superiority complex or something?
"What do you want? Come here to gloat?" He's not totally sure to whom that was directed towards: Mizuki, or the imaginary Sasuke that currently swims around in his head, calling him an idiot.
"Quite the opposite, really," Mizuki retorts, grin now congealed, eyes crinkling distastefully. "I actually came here to congratulate you. You did a good job on the exam today, Naruto." The assistant teacher then awkwardly pets the top of his head, and the boy blinks. And then he blinks again.
Wait, what?
"Wait, what?" Hearing these kinds of words coming out of his mouth – any mouth – blows him out of the water, and Naruto has no idea how to act.
Carefully ignoring the child's surprise, the shinobi continues, "Yeah! I know clones are difficult for you, so all things considered, you did well. Also, between the two of us," and then he shifts just that bit closer, hand cupping his mouth and voice dropping conspiratorially, "That was pretty cruel of Iruka-sensei, don't you think?"
Using the word cruel as a descriptor for his teacher is something that has never, in all the time they have known each other, crossed Naruto's mind. Sure, the dude's a little annoying sometimes, with all his scolding and confusing teaching methods. And sure, he might be a little blind, to have missed all those times when the other kids call him stupid or try to throw his lunch down the toilet. But he always tells the boy not to get home too late, and he sometimes keeps him company during the punishments which are sure to follow one of his pranks – usually to scold him senseless, but still. So, even though he's pretty pissed at the guy right now, Naruto doesn't get why anyone would call Iruka a cruel man, and he makes sure his confusion is perceived by the one in front of him.
"Well, I mean," Mizuki starts, furrowed brow and suspicious eyes, "There are so many other jutsu out there, you know. Why choose one he knew you would fail in performing? It makes no sense to me," he continues as the boy freezes and looks him sharply in the eye, "Unless...".
"Unless he wanted to fail me on purpose."
The realization comes fast and painful, following a path that was already fleshed out right in front of him, but leaves him reeling anyway. Naruto has never imagined that his teacher would be the type, but hey, joke's on him, because everyone in the village is the fucking type. He should know better, at the end of the day. Every single person he has ever met has some kind of secret vendetta against him, and there is no logical reason why Iruka should be any different. Even so, it makes his eyes water and his lower lip wobble, like a fucking baby, because he doesn't even know what he's doing wrong.
"I would have used softer words, but yes, I think so. Don't fret, though! I was thinking that we could beat him at his own game." The sound of those words, the sudden show of camaraderie, it all grants Naruto the bizarre feeling that the day is progressing backwards. Maybe he rolled over one too many times during the night, or put his shoes on in the wrong order, or did literally anything, in his small worthless life, to tilt the world on its axis just enough so that everyone's brains are now scrambled to the point of justifying whatever is happening. But, through the confusion, Mizuki seems to be – unexpectedly – on his side, and he plans to milk that all the way through.
***
Konoha's hidden library is angry as the pout of an overlooked child, stout and short and squared, because that is precisely what it is. The building has no distinction from the grayest, dullest construction of all, with its thick window frames drawing indignant lines across the walls and two sad potted plants adorning the entrance. There are no pretty lamps or elaborate letters; knowledge is only as much as a sharp blade in a shinobi's rough hand, undeserving of the soft velvets and bright golds appointed to the beautiful things in life. It is no surprise, then, that the man who works there has absorbed the dead pallor and bitter appearance of the ambient in which he has been immersed, and slipping something inside of his coffee is almost second nature. Naruto figures the archivist won't be leaving the bathroom for a while. He doesn't even feel all that bad about it – everything is Iruka's fault, anyway, since he's the one who condemned his student to maintaining his civilian status.
Although it has a bare exterior, the entrails of the library are completely covered in bookcases, which, during the later half of a Friday, make up his only companions amidst the quiet. Naruto wipes his hands on his trousers as he makes his way through the room. Along the last corridor on the right side of the building rests a big, ugly rug. The only reason why it doesn't stand out is because there are several ugly rugs adorning the cold stone of the floor, and the only reason it does is because this ugly rug is thicker and heavier than the rest. And suspiciously cleaner, he notices while touching both of his knees to the floor in order to get the green monstrosity out of the way. Fortunately, after an expected dust cloud that never rises, he can finally locate the trapdoor that will take him to the secret levels underground. There are seals on it, of course, but Mizuki has given him a temporary counter for them. And so, under the somber, accusing stares of the books around him, the boy begins to descend.
He runs all the way down, one hand sweeping at the walls, but can't help but pause at the sight before him. In direct opposition to the floor above, the underground stretches forward with the grace of a satiated beast. The whole place hums with a quiet show of power, from the myriad ornaments hanging on the stone walls to the infinite reading materials who seem to whisper quietly in his ear. It seems to him like the open maw of a leviathan, inviting him to step inside and bask in its greatness, so that maybe he can take back some of that grandiosity with him once he leaves. Naruto has to swallow down the dust that sticks to the back of his throat and rub his sweaty hands over his pants all over again.
Being down there almost makes him want to read a book.
If Mizuki hadn't thoroughly instructed him on where to search, he doesn't think he'd have been able to find it anytime soon. But he does, and the scroll feels heavy on his hands, a warm weight that scratches at the insides of his palms. Its appearance pales in comparison to the rest of the items, faded and crinkled, and even in that Naruto can find comfort, because no one really misses the small things. He decides then that he likes the presence of it, a piece of what he's been denied, right here, strapped to his back. And then he is walking back with careful – reluctant – steps, which gradually give way to exhilarated breaths and running, running, glorious running, until the village turns to mist at his back and he finds himself surrounded by trees. He has only stopped once, with a plastic cup he stole from the library, because the plants by the door look like they haven't seen a single drop of water in days.
The forest hums like it is greeting an old friend, and in many ways it is. The trees reach towards him with their spindly fingers, longing to press him into a tight embrace, and the earth hugs his feet in welcome. Naruto finds a warm stone to sit on and resigns himself to waiting on Mizuki, who told him he would come to meet him at some point.
Admittedly, it is a short resignation. Not because the man arrives, by any means, but because patience isn't something Naruto is very well-versed in. After what surely has been ages of spying on the yellow bits of sky that shine through the leaves and listening to the gentle buzz of the insects, but can just as well have been insignificant minutes, the heavy blanket of boredom begins to brush at his shoulders. The assistant never told him exactly when he'd come to teach him, and who is to say it would be anytime soon? Maybe, if he starts early, Mizuki will even be impressed with his progress by the time he finds him. So, as the last dregs of the afternoon caress the lines on his cheeks, Naruto pulls on the red string of the document and begins to focus.
The script is small and tight, but the diagrams are helpful, giving him a sense of the way his chakra's meant to shift and bend. But, even then, clones are hard. Give them too much, and the shape won't hold the amount of power it receives; give them too little, and the jutsu doesn't even form his shape at all. That is always the toughest part: the push and pull, like trying to squeeze the entirety of a lake into an eyedropper. What did Iruka-sensei say about clones, anyway? That they were the image of the person, a mirage, only there to deceive the enemy's eye. It's just – that has always felt wrong, somehow.
Especially now. Maybe it makes sense in the basic form they were taught in classrooms (even though Naruto will argue that no, actually, it does not), but the feeling he gets from the kage bunshin technique is distinctly different. The hand seals are strong and confident, and the whole process feels like it needs something, for the lack of other words, more substantial. After squeezing out all he can from the theory, he concludes that the best course of action is, in fact, to put the reading aside and go with his gut. It's not like he has the willpower to face the paper for more than five minutes at a time, anyways.
The first time he tries, there’s nothing. Completely anticlimactic, not a single change in the atmosphere around him. At the second try, on the other hand, the chakra flowing through his hand signs promptly explodes in his face. And that's exactly how he spends the next few hours, alternating between absolute failure and simply failure of another kind, so absorbed he barely notices the time passing without so much as a sign from the shinobi. By the time he manages a half formed version of himself, the stars are already peeking curiously from their blankets of darkness. They are the only ones to blink at the shy quiet of night, trying their best to light up his way with no help from the moon. Looking at them, those countless shimmering diamonds, makes Naruto start to wonder if his problem is about quantity. Maybe the whole exploding thing was because there was way too much power, and sharing it between a bigger number of clones could be simpler than just reducing it altogether.
By the time he finally gets it right – five of them, all at once! – his shoulders have long taken the appearance and feel of two wooden blocks, and he almost releases the jutsu in pure reflex. But, nonetheless, there they are, five pairs of eyes staring at him quite blankly. Silent. Surprised.
The quiet surrounding them is of the oversaturated kind, fragile in its existence, and so cleaves itself into nothing at the first external stimulus. As it so happens, the catalyst responsible for the sudden flood of exasperated conversation between the six Narutos (for they are all Naruto, from the first strand of hair to the last drop of sweat) is only a mild rustling between the trees. It goes unnoticed, as is the nature of things whose essence is of no particular importance beyond the ability of setting other events into motion. So the small, soft murmur is lost to the winds, while the original Naruto contemplates how the hell he made it work, amidst the cheering and babbling of his clones.
The end results are the same, more or less, but the cloning process is totally different between the basic technique and the kage bunshin, in his humble and uneducated opinion. While in Iruka's classroom, the jutsu had his head running in endless loops, trying to catch the tail end of the smoky image he was supposed to replicate, only to let it slip through his fingers and lead him to the very beginning once more. But there, under the twinkling, watchful stars, Naruto only has to push his chakra out through his pores, let the wave in his blood swell and burst and reach out of himself, forming what it has always been in the first place. No image. No thinly veiled emptiness, either. It's only him, all the way to the thick of his being, with his thoughts, feelings, and mannerisms. Honestly, it feels pretty great. He doesn't understand why people would do it any other way.
It's been years, but it still baffles him, how other people's brains work.
And then that rustle of movement between the leaves, the gentle one that disturbed their fragile silence, makes itself known once again, the soft whisper of something approaching. The origin of the noise had not mattered before, but it does now, and its effect is the exact opposite as it had previously been, because all six parts of Naruto notice it for what it is, this time. It leads them to bury any semblance of conversation and let their six pairs of eyes ricochet to the edge of the clearing, where a figure steps out of the coverage of the trees. They all freeze as the man soundlessly comes near. He's in the middle of deciding if they're supposed to turn around and run when the stars do what they have been tasked with, and let soft light fall upon the man's features, allowing Iruka-sensei to stare at him with a hardness he isn’t used to. But that doesn't matter, not the strict face and not the previous betrayal, because he did it, he succeeded all on his own, and when he shows him that he can do this, everything will be okay again, just like Mizuki said.
Except that his clones are already all around him, a token of his success, but the hand that clutches at his shoulder is tight and harsher than usual. His teacher does not look approving, and Naruto is utterly confused for the second time that day. Why does nothing work like it's supposed to? Iruka is watching him with those furrowed eyebrows like he is preparing for something he's certain he won't like, and the world is rotating backwards, and where is Mizuki when he needs him? Finally, he settles for releasing the jutsu, besides closing his hands so tightly the knuckles creak, while the shinobi in front of him strengthens his resolve.
"What are you doing here, Naruto?" Following the rest of his state, Iruka's voice is grim as it reaches his ears.
"I'm practicing," he answers around the lump in his throat, biting down on his rant at the last possible second. What the hell is up with this dude, anyway? First, he chooses a test he knows damn well Naruto is going to fail. And then, when he actually puts in the work to learn – even though he'd always tried, but never managed to get it right – he gets mad. Seems like no matter what he does, he can't win.
He knows that already, of course. It's the same thing as when he tries to help an old man carry his shopping, or when he offers to share his lunch with someone who's forgotten theirs – the look he receives is always the same.
"You know that's not what I'm asking," is what he hears in return, and oh, this is probably about the scroll. He moved it from the rock he originally rested it on, once the sun had stopped warming the paper and the drawings were impossible to make out in the dimness of the forest. It's hidden now, tucked carefully into a hole under the trunk of a tree, at least until he talks to Mizuki or finds a way to put it back in the library. Naruto didn't expect that it'd be missed so soon, but here they are. The cat is out of the bag.
"Then what the hell are you asking?" The fact that Iruka doesn't even blink at his language lets him know that something is wrong. His hand is still around one of Naruto's shoulders, but a hard step back breaks off the contact without much protest from the adult.
"I'm asking why 'the hell' you're acting like a thief, is what I'm asking! I know you like your pranks, Naruto, but this has gone too far." Which, no. He’s not a thief, and he knows that because he’s always made sure of it, of only taking things that are thrown away. That is, in fact, one of the only things he can safely be proud of, living a life like his. No matter how much they hate him, no matter how hard it gets, Naruto has never tried to harm anyone. The scroll is borrowed.
"I'm not a thief," he starts to say, and god dammit, his voice is already wobbling.
"You just stole –"
"I didn't steal anything, I borrowed it! And he – he said it'd be okay," and isn't that just the icing on the cake of this senseless day, that Naruto has never taken anything from anybody before, and then the one time, the one time he tries because he thought it would be fine, and no one would miss it, and he would put it right back, it makes his teacher's warm face crystallize into anger, cold and statuelike as it peers at his hunched form.
Or it did, just a second ago, but now Iruka-sensei's shoulders jerk a little and his eyebrows furrow once more, returning him to the state of looking alive and human again, albeit confused.
"What? Naruto, who else knows about this?" The hand to his shoulder is back, followed by one on his elbow, and Naruto is once more considering if he should just take off running and avoid this entire interaction, but he's not sure he could get out of the man's nervous hold without an altercation now.
"Uh... My imaginary friend?"
By the look the boy's greeted with, the shinobi doesn't seem to be very much amused. Naruto bites nervously on his tongue before trying again.
"Fine, it's Mizuki." Is he imagining the way the man stiffens?
The bastard seems to respond to his own name, apparently, because as soon as he finishes his sentence the assistant teacher walks into the small clearing they're in. Well, finally. Maybe if he had showed up, say, ten minutes ago, this whole thing could have been avoided, but Naruto tries to ignore that in favor of being glad that the dude is here to clear things up. He'll need him to put the scroll back, according to their deal from earlier.
"Oh, Iruka, you found him, good," he keeps walking in their direction, slow as the turn of the Earth, and there's a hint of something to his expression that makes Naruto uncomfortable, though Mizuki doesn't even glance at him. "Shall we take him back to the village? I'm sure Hokage-sama will want the scroll safe as soon as possible." The Hokage? For the first time, the student reconsiders the gravity of what he's done. Meanwhile, Iruka seems to have returned to his previous stiffness.
"Mizuki, what is the meaning of this? Naruto says you knew about this entire thing."
In a manner that proves everything Naruto should have already known, Mizuki laughs.
"Oh, that's a good one, Naruto-kun!" His voice is sweet and patronizing, and it occurs to Naruto that maybe he shouldn't have been such an idiot. Adults are liars, after all. When the brunet silently moves to stand between them, the other ninja pauses. "What are you doing?"
"You know, that is a very valuable scroll; I just don't see how he could have learned about it without any outside help," he says to the light-haired man, "My only question is what you need it for." And looking back to his student with a kind of authority that Naruto has never seen before, not even during a particular harsh scolding, Iruka mouths a single word:
Run.
Naruto doesn’t move.
His stubbornness is nothing new, but when he doesn't immediately leave, his teacher yells at him again, worried exasperation soaking his expression. There's no way he's leaving Iruka alone to deal with a mess he made in the first place.
"But I want to help." As he says it, Mizuki – assistant teacher, mediocre Mizuki, hasn't-been-on-the-field-in-ages Mizuki – moves before Naruto can even notice. He takes the other shinobi's distraction as an opportunity to attack, moving forward with a kunai in each hand. The brunet blocks them, hurriedly, one by catching the hand holding it and the other by positioning his own blade in between. The other man falls back.
"Then go back to the village and come back with more people. Go!"
Albeit unwillingly, Naruto listens. Before he becomes a target for a long distance jutsu or flying shuriken, he turns on his heels and starts to run. The quiet forest zooms around him as he pushes everything he has into his feet, a blur of dark green and wind. There is no time to think about how stupid he is, or how bad he fucked up. He understands, sort of, that Mizuki's intentions are questionable, and, if the way his teacher is behaving is any indication, it would be a bad thing to let him get what he wants. He's suddenly glad that all of his previous wishes for the bastard to show up soon went unanswered, because he's not so sure he would have been able to see through whatever this is on his own – he still doesn't understand most of it, to be quite honest. An idiot through and through. What will they think of him, once he reaches Konoha?
It's not a new thought, but now it's hit by a different kind of light, and it glues his feet to the ground in a sudden cease of movement; the forest around him snaps back into shape. He doesn't even properly know what is happening, nor how he's supposed to explain it to anyone else. Also, by what he can gather from the previous conversation, Naruto is believed to be the one to steal the scroll, which is true, in a way, but he didn't know. What will they think once he gets there, safe and sound while his teacher is fighting, and claims that this is actually not his fault? He's almost there, but his legs won't move; maybe they shouldn't. He stands under the smooth darkness of the trees and ponders, a thought wriggling to the surface of his mind: Naruto is a prankster. He's famous for it, a fact that does not go unnoticed every time someone does something they don't want to get in trouble for. An open can of paint staining the ground. Trash strewn on the front of a restaurant. A beat up dog cowering in the smudged dirt of an alley. It wasn't me. And the question remains, pinpricks at the base of his skull: if they never believed him before, why would they believe him now?
He slowly turns around in the clearing's direction, steps gradually turning back into a sprint. The wind echoes in his ears and Naruto is determined, because Iruka needs help, and he wasted too much time. His heart is halfway up his throat and his fumbling fingers form the seals for the kage bunshin, more familiar by the minute. He's not sure why he makes those clones. Maybe it's just because he worked very hard to learn, and some part of him is still waiting for the opportunity to show it off. Maybe it's so that his steps are not the only ones he hears as he runs. It might not matter now. He's almost back to the clearing with the stone that used to be warm and thoughts like these are useless, echoing faintly in the quiet amongst the natural sounds of the woods.
It's strange. Quiet is not what he'd expect from a confrontation, but it's explained as soon as he reaches a point where the men are visible: he hasn't even been gone that long, but one of them is already down, tied and thrashing. The brown haired shinobi keeps a firm foot on the space between his shoulder blades, safe. Iruka’s safe, though the confrontation was alarmingly quick, and relief floods Naruto’s veins at the sight of him, unharmed, standing over the captured man.
Both bear the signs of a scuffle, but Mizuki bears more. There are senbon lightly scattered through his entire back, bleeding sluggishly into his torn vest in a way that makes the blond cringe; bloodstains and holes are always the worst to get rid of, not to mention the entire missing sleeve that showcases wreckage: the visible skin of the arm is already purple and split, the bones bent awkwardly underneath. His silvery-white hair fans across the plant litter as he struggles, expression obscured from view.
Approaching the scene, the blond makes sure to leave a healthy distance between himself and the body on the ground with its muffled shouts, but he still manages to kneel down and blow a raspberry towards the dude's head. He can't blame Iruka for gagging the man, really; now that the pretending is over, Mizuki must be as insufferable as ever. His teacher – split lip, shuriken scratches by his hip, light scorch marks on the left side of his pants – rests a hand on his shoulder before saying, "Hey, Naruto. Let's get the scroll and take him to the Hokage, okay? And then we can sort this out."
He's already turning to the right direction as he answers, "Yeah, yeah, let me just," and starts moving through the soft earth and the dead branches, guiding the other man to the tree with a hole under it. His teacher leaves the hostage and follows a few steps behind until the scroll is almost in direct view. The tree trunk is large, made of thick, knobbly wood that looks steady and dependable, somewhere he can lay his back on to escape from the heat. He found it years ago, during a scalding summer, and has spent much more than an afternoon under its giving branches. It’s a good hiding place, he thinks, that hollow space under a massive root, easily concealed with fallen leaves or other debris. For anyone who has no reason to try and differentiate them, there’s not much that sets this specific tree apart from the rest, and that’s the biggest advantage.
Something gives Naruto pause. The woods are still alive, the crickets are still singing, the wind is still causing the soft murmur of moving leaves, but he still pauses. Something is wrong. He doesn't know what it is, only that a feeling, hot and urgent, is swirling in his belly and telling him to stop. So he lets his eyes roam over the scenery one more time, trying to pin down the reason for his panic, and it isn't until Iruka moves closer to ask what happened that he figures it out. His teacher's face is peering down at him, crinkled the way it gets when he is trying to find a way to help, legs apart and knees softly bent as a way to come closer to Naruto's eye level. A line of dirt has his cheek all smudged, and there are little scrapes all throughout him, born from the previous scuffle. All in all, the man looks completely genuine.
But his steps are noisy.
"You're not Iruka, you bastard!"
In the following seconds, the face before him slowly melts into a smile that definitely belongs somewhere else, features curving into self-serving mirth and that small touch of cruelty Naruto knows so well. Even before Mizuki is completely back to his form, he's already talking in that acid tone of his, like this doesn't bother him in the slightest. Amuses him, even.
"Now, now, I'm just trying to keep you from making a stupid mistake, Naruto-kun", and his posture is different now, cocksure, "Because you don't really want to give that scroll to anyone but me."
Naruto scoffs in a mixture of anger and betrayal he's becoming very familiar with very quickly. “No way!”
That statement makes no sense.
Mizuki looks up and sighs, making a show of it, as if he can't believe his opponent hasn't connected the dots yet. That one turns out to be a look Naruto is quite used to seeing. He swings out a hand. "Oh, alright. Then humor me, you stupid piece of garbage: when were you born?"
This is a really confusing day. "What does this even have to do with –"
"October tenth, twelve years ago, right?”
“How do you even know that?”
“Of course I know,” Mizuki snarls in disgust, “Everyone knows. What else happened that day?”
On his birthday, the entire village mourns. The shops close with a whisper, the streets dry up, and the air silently suffocates them all under its weight. Naruto knows that if leaves the apartment, he won't come back to it intact. And yet, he still doesn't understand how any of this is connected, but answers anyway, voice cracking like old paint.
"The Kyuubi attacked the village."
"Precisely! The Yondaime fought it, of course, and you know what he did? You know what he did?" Mizuki's voice rings out, delighted. Naruto doesn't understand.
"He killed it." Everyone knows that the fourth Hokage sacrificed himself to beat the Nine Tails. But the man just laughs.
"No, he didn't! That's only what they told you, because the Sandaime kept the village from saying otherwise, but what happened is this: the Yondaime never killed the demon fox. He sealed it, into the body of a fat, blond baby, who just happened to have been born that same day. You following?"
Suddenly and against all odds, his life starts to make sense.
"Did you really never realize you're a monster? Ha! And if you were just some monster, maybe it would be fine, but you're the monster who tore apart everything this village cares about."
He takes off running, running back to Iruka, but Mizuki is hot on his heels with that dreaded laugh, and nothing's the same anymore. Everything is hot, his body on fire, and some part of his brain's screaming at him that you can't panic, you can't, but his breaths are coming faster by the second. The trees are hurting him, gnarled and mean, cutting at his face and catching in his hair, his blonde hair, as his steps ring noisily into the night, and he hates it, because liars have noisy steps, but maybe Mizuki lied about this too, maybe it will be fine, he just needs to go help Iruka, and he's almost there. That word, almost, is probably the only thing that keeps him in the semblance of a human, flashing over and over and over in his brain in order to push away everything else, until it's not almost anymore, and he can see his teacher on the ground.
He doesn’t want to be a monster.
His throat makes a small cry, almost a sob, but it's enough to make the brunet's face turn in his direction and his gaze catch on Naruto's, making him still. Iruka looks at his student, small and trembling and unable to breathe, and he flinches. It's a small movement, nearly as small as the boy's noise, and just as enough to be noticed. Naruto is reminded that his teacher's steps are soundless, and that he never lies, and isn't that answer enough, too?
The child doesn't notice that his body is in pain, or that all his senses are suddenly sharper. He doesn't notice that his fingernails, previously chewed, are now sharp enough to cut quite deeply into the meat of his palms, or that the blue of his irises has given way to a crimson red that compresses his pupils into slits. His body is irreversibly changing, but the only things that warrant Naruto's attention are the dread that drifts around his teacher, and the big, fat, warm tears that are rolling down his own face. That, and Mizuki's laugh, which is already upon him again, high and abrasive to his sensitive ears.
"You see, Naruto? Even to your precious teacher, you're nothing more than a monster." The man creeps closer, clutching his trembling shoulders in his big hands. He ignores Naruto's flinch in order to continue: "But we can fix this. You just have to give me the scroll and then we'll make them all pay, and after that, we can leave this place forever, and no one will ever look at you this way again. No one needs to know what you are."
Is it bad that, for a moment, he doesn't know what to do? Naruto doesn’t want to make anyone pay. He doesn’t want to exact revenge on anyone, and neither does he have enough cause for it. But it would be nice, he thinks, to go where no one knows the meaning of his existence. Maybe, if he pretends just right, someone might even love him.
He notices, through the red mist surrounding his brain, that Iruka is crying too. Both their tears are falling freely to the forest floor, though they are absorbed too quickly to leave a mark. It might be childish and silly, but that knowledge seems to matter somehow, that their tears are now part of the same ground, while Mizuki isn't crying at all. He reminds himself that even though it's all his fault, that all those people are dead, the grief is also in his blood, a weighted lead that presses down every time he turns older. He can't undo anything, but maybe he can give the village this small, sorry thing in return. He is part of Konoha, after all, and maybe he is the bad part, but a shinobi's job is to protect. So he breaks the man's grip on him, and tries to salvage some part of his bravado.
"Like I'd help you, asshole!" He's on Iruka in a second, grabbing a kunai to release the man from the bindings as Mizuki yelps at the foot Naruto just stepped on. In the second that gives him, he rushedly performs the signs for the Kage Bunshin, along with throwing a few shuriken for good measure.
Seven perfect copies of Naruto spring forth out of thin air, rushing to fill the space he has just vacated while he grabs his teacher by the waist and jumps on top of a tree branch, desperately looking for a few more seconds of advantage. He takes that moment to curse when the rope doesn’t fray under the edge of his blade, metallic sheen buzzing lowly with chakra reinforcement. Iruka thrashes against it, but the way his limbs are positioned doesn’t allow for any leeway of motion, leaving him completely defenseless against whoever approaches.
He floods his kunai with his own chakra, desperately hacking away at the bindings, but can’t cut through fast enough, having to stop every few seconds in order to make more clones. In his haste, feeling the press of Mizuki’s presence wander closer and closer, Naruto mistakenly goes for the hands last, since they’re harder to reach. He has just managed to free his teacher's legs and his face when the remains of his jutsu at last pop out of existence with a sigh and a soft rift of pressure dissolving away. The other man reaches them then, a crazed smile pinched on his face while he curls his fingers in the fabric of the boy’s clothes and bodily throws him face-first into a tree. Naruto falls for a brief period, nails digging into the rough bark. The impact is jarring, but his body has reflexes that are sharper than usual, narrowly keeping him from breaking his nose on the wood. The scrapes sting, though.
"Oh, I see how it is. You're just a poor little stray, aren't you, Naruto-kun? They can kick you and scream at you and call you names, but at the first sign of scraps, there you are, wagging your tail at them again." The smile slits Mizuki's face, the blade of a silver knife, as he finishes, "Just like a dirty, useless dog. That's disgusting."
“Shut up,” Naruto calls out reflexively, so used to this kind of speech that it should roll off like water off a duck’s back. He hates that it still hurts to hear it said like that, the way it rings true and clear like a bell inside of him.
Mizuki’s voice grates on his ears, his laugh gives him a headache. He can hear so many things at once, so much more than his brain can keep up with, information that swirls and mixes into a sludge he can’t make heads or tails of. Most of the noise he can’t even recognize, has never experienced enough to catalog, and so makes the barrage of sound something distracting, disorienting, that only adds to all of the other factors weighing him down. “You don’t know anything!”
“Pick on someone your own size, Mizuki.” Iruka, partly free, starts making his way to Naruto, but the imprisonment of his arms injures his balance, which slows his movements by a slight fraction. It’s enough to have his legs promptly kicked off from under him by the other man, and he falls down below, bringing the fight back to the ground. As soon as his body hits the grass, the other shinobi comes down to meet him with a kick to the ribs that echoes in the space of the clearing. Naruto, still perched on a tree branch two times his size, hears the crack as if he had his ear pressed to the skin over those bones, along with the cut off scream his teacher tries to hide.
That’s not where it ends.
“Okay, then,” the captor responds easily. The shinobi’s crazed feverishness, the fire that burns his eyes when he so much as looks at Naruto, gives way to a cold amusement under the heavy weight that is Mizuki’s foot on top of his teacher’s chest. “I guess I’ll pick on you.”
He proceeds to add force to that leg with an almost detached curiosity, calm, calculating, by all means enjoying the lethargy of it. Naruto watches, frozen, as Iruka’s chest slowly caves into his left lung, the first initial crack spider webbing under muscle until the boy’s beastly sight can pinpoint the slope where his ribs ought to fit, and no longer do. The Chuunin screams, then, really screams, a grunt that grows louder as the moments tick by until it properly fills his mouth, forces its way out into the world in such a manner that brings out one more laugh straight from the assistant teacher’s throat.
Move.
He tuts, crouching low with feet planted on top of the brunet until their heads are on the same level. “Now, now, don’t be like that. You’re going to scare off your student, you know? Teachers are supposed to radiate confidence.”
At that moment, the men look at Naruto, still perched on a thick gnarly branch, fingers rooted so deeply into the bark there’s no longer any sign of his elongated nails. They both look at him in very different ways. His blood has been transformed into poisoned ice in his veins, body turned to stone like he’s the one who’s been struck by the senbon in his teacher’s back. The needles are coated in a paralytic he can smell all the way from his spot, sinking deeper into flesh by the minute due to being trapped between the ground and the weight of two grown adults. He’s betraying Iruka. He’s betraying himself.
Move.
“Why?” The voice comes out full of gravel. From the agonizing position under the man, brown eyes meet dark gray. Naruto can smell copper, along with adrenaline and the particular, acidic intensity that he immediately associates with a frenzied predator.
Blood rolls out of a split lip reopened by smiles. “That’s none of your business.”
It's when Mizuki retrieves a kunai and angles it to his teacher's throat, though, that he really understands. The starlight catches and sticks to the blade like it's something solid, clashing with the red blooming from the ninja's tanned neck, who's only alive because his attacker isn’t quite done playing. It's a strange type of clarity he finds himself in, brought on by the burning roar of despair that blinds him to everything but the tiny drops of blood, pooling slowly like tree sap under the hands of the collector. The strange fear consumes him, cleanses him, frees him from this cage of terror he has found himself under. He trades one dread for another and is glad for it, because this one screams at him to do something.
If he doesn’t? They’re going to die.
His body unleashes like the snap of a band. Naruto shapes his hands into whatever he thinks about first, the thing that is still fresh in his mind. He’s getting better at it, the technique more fully sinking under his skin with each attempt. As the mayhem of countless clones floods the space beside him, a number he hasn’t even considered before, the world mostly returns to normal. The sheer volume of his jutsu is enough to overwhelm Mizuki, as well as grant his teacher a momentary peace. The bodies, his bodies, pile and pile and pile on top of the enemy, who manages to destroy them almost as quickly as they come. That results in the rapid build up of smoke in the clearing, the perfect moment to sneak past the fight and go after the scroll, although completely unplanned. Iruka may have thought so too, because Naruto can't pinpoint his location anymore. Before his number of copies dwindles too much, the boy casts the jutsu one more time, taking care to blend in with the crowd while he silently moves towards the edge of the area.
The cold truth that settles in his gut is: he can’t get the scroll back to Konoha and still make sure his teacher comes out of this alive. Ironically, despite all he has trained today, all the progress he has made, Naruto can’t be in two places at once.
Mizuki still punches through his clones like they’re made of stuffing. Some of them implode on their own, unstable like reactive chemicals stuck in a glass bottle, some never make it to anything resembling human shape. It’s not enough to ensure the scroll’s safe arrival in the village. It’s not enough to ensure protection, really, no matter the subject of it, which means at least one objective is up in the air, enslaved to the whims of chance. In the end, it boils down to what Naruto would bear to lose, and Iruka is…
His brain conjures up the sharp edge of the kunai pressed against his sensei's throat, and a shudder blooms from the very bottom of his spine.
There’s not even a choice to be made, really. He doubles down on the man, folding his hands and calling for more copies. The technique, along with the required hours of training for it, is steadily gobbling up his chakra reserves. He can feel the absence in an intensity he hasn’t ever gotten to, trace his fingers through the bottom of a well he hasn’t ever had to fear before. Change of tactics, then.
"Hey, asshole! Want a piece of me?"
The plan right now is simple and straightforward, just the way he likes it: wiping the floor with a certain motherfucker's face. He doesn't have any other choice.
"Little fox. Here to give me what I want?"
The nickname earns him a punch to the face. Mizuki spits out the blood in his mouth, laughing. Ever since his arrival in the clearing, minutes or hours ago, that's all he ever does. His strange focus allows him to smell the red spit that now stains the ground from meters away. He's not sure he can really call it focusing, though, because all of his senses seem to be on overload, and it's almost like the information is too much for his brain, stretching it further and further until Naruto becomes certain that, eventually, it will reach a breaking point.
Before it does, the sting of a kunai opening the skin of his cheek brings him back to the world of the living. It's a rather deep cut, the biggest wound he has gotten so far, spilling thick warmth over the planes of his face, which dribbles all the way down his neck and onto his bright orange jumpsuit, which is a bitch to get bloodstains out of. He's about to set that observation into a tight little box, to be considered at a later time, a time when he's not facing a real possibility of death, except...
The wound starts to burn. It's not an overreaction – there is actual steam coming out of his face.
This day is so messed up.
And then it dissipates. Naruto touches the smooth skin where, seconds ago, he would have been able to feel the inside of a muscle and maybe a sliver of bone. He's not sure how he feels about his sudden (and quite painful) regenerative abilities. Look at the bright side, a part of him offers humorlessly, you might be a monster, but at least that makes you hard to kill.
Lucky for him, though, they jump back into the fight before he finds the time to think about it. His shadow clones are the only thing keeping him afloat at the moment, and each time the jutsu comes a little easier to him; a brawl is the perfect time for practice, right? None of it changes the fact that Naruto never seems to get any close to winning, though. Yes, Mizuki seems a little more frazzled with his torn clothes and wild hair, but Naruto is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The amount of chakra swirling around in his gut is the lowest it's ever been at, and his limbs have started to grow roots into the dark forest floor, heavy, somnolent. Between a punch and a flutter of shuriken, Naruto wonders if Iruka ever made it home. If he told anyone about the children-hunting psychopath who's currently prowling around in the woods. Once again, it begs the question: if they knew, would anyone come? Maybe they would; it is apparently a very important scroll.
The answer would never come, though, because Iruka never did quite make it to the village.
It happens as the fruit of a mistake. All it takes is a branch, positioned just well enough to snag on the fabric of his jumpsuit, just above his right ankle, to make him lose his balance. And that is just enough to give the older man the breach he needs to corner Naruto between himself and a particularly large tree stump. Which, in turn, is enough to enable a powerful kick to his outstretched leg; he screams at the shattering of bone. Maybe, if the boy had given him what he wanted at the very beginning, they wouldn't be here right now. But here they are, with the blond bent over himself in the ground, small and defiant as he holds out a kunai to his chest as the last line of defense. And here they are, with the gaze of a predator falling onto its prey with the shine of a sudden realization. Mizuki was provoked over and over again throughout the evening, only to find himself with nothing standing between his hands and the strong pulsation of a child's jugular. Naruto just stares at the man in front of him while his brain, already stretched thin, looks for a way out.
He has never been a fan of planning.
He can't get up. During the confrontation, little by little, the healing started to slow. The break on his leg is particularly nasty, sinking any expectations of moving for a few minutes. Another, last round of shadow clones is able to offer him another few seconds of reprieve, creating a distance between his slumped body and the shinobi's attacks. But they don't last near as long as Naruto needs them to, and he's left scrambling to find another solution as the man barrels toward him with a weapon in hand.
He can't focus. There are so many things jumping out at him that he doesn't know what to do with, useless sensations that etch themselves into his brain as the moments go by. His heart is fluttering furiously, desperately, as if trying to free the breath trapped inside the flesh cage of his lungs. His hands are cold and sweaty, sticking uncomfortably to the kunai they're holding onto. But it doesn't end there. He can smell his own blood staining the grass around his wretched right leg. Feel, and hear, the interminable healing from the inside out, the shards patching themselves together in order to form a semblance of bone. His awareness extends to the smell of dampness on Mizuki's skin, the muttered cracking of his joints, the small glow of a single drop of sweat that trickles down his temple. He can hear the rush of air pushing against the man's body as he runs toward him from the edge of the clearing, increasing in momentum as he goes, the edge of his blade glinting under the starlight.
He's aware of everything, which just makes it harder and harder to think through anything more than his heightened senses and the terrible knowledge that he is, most likely, going to die. He's aware of everything, but it's all so much that he can't process anything at all, not even the presence that dashes out of the trees at the last possible second, angling their body between a frozen Naruto and a very sharp, deathly weapon. And then the last remnants of the leg wound fade to nothing, the scorching chakra fizzling out under his skin and allowing him to return to a less saturated world, where he can't properly see the red rivulet flowing down Iruka's back. The pained gasp that comes out of his mouth is quite audible, though. Mizuki's thrust, backed by all of his forward momentum, was so forceful that the tip of the kunai can be seen protruding from the skin that lays atop his teacher's spine.
The shinobi laughs in utter delight at noticing who fell to his blade.
"See, little monster? This is what happens when you don't listen to me," he says as he rips his hand out of Iruka's entrails. The brunet falls to the ground, body crumpling forward onto Mizuki's feet. Naruto cramps himself backwards, legs bending protectively in front of his body as he cowers against the tree bark behind him.
"Naruto," his teacher manages to choke out, a hand reaching towards his student, but can't say anything else before he's kicked in the head.
"Shut up," is Mizuki's snarled response, "I've always hated you, you know."
The pool of blood under Iruka grows and grows. Naruto doesn't know what to do.
As he struggles to stand, the shinobi steps over the body, walking in the boy's direction. A rough hand wraps around his neck just as he's turning around, yanking him until his back is against Mizuki. The taller man angles himself so that his face rests just behind Naruto's ear, in order to whisper.
"Where do you think you're going?" Naruto turns his body to the side and throws back an elbow, aiming at the man's face, but the blow never reaches its target. A laugh grates his ears.
He's tired. His moves are weighted down and sluggish, incapable of measuring up to the adult's, but he still tries. With each attack and defense, Mizuki's laugh increases in volume and pitch, shrill and delighted, an expression of the man's thorough enjoyment of the hunt. It rises even more once Naruto's attention is caught by Iruka's pained grunt and he receives a punch in the nose. Balance lost, he stumbles.
"Such a pathetic child," Mizuki spits out with a saccharine tone. His behavior drastically changes once he gets what he wants, victorious at last. No more rush, no more fever. He stands there, for a moment, watching as the boy returns to his feet with a grin manic and unhurried. "Not a thing you can do right, hmm, little monster?"
Then he pointedly stares at Iruka's slumped form and the blood that stains the ground around him. "But I'll make you a deal."
In a blink, the assistant is standing over his teacher's body. Before Naruto can react, the man hovers a glowing hand over a scratch in Iruka's face, which quickly closes without so much as a mark. “You see that? That's medicinal chakra. If you bring me the scroll, I'll make sure he makes it to the village alive, hm? But if you don't…”
“Don't do it, Naruto.”
The sentence is barely finished before Mizuki shifts his stance, sliding the hand down, no longer glowing, to the hole he has made in Iruka's abdomen. Using both of his hands, he grips the edges of the wound and starts pulling them in opposite directions. Iruka screams, and then passes out. With his own scream, Naruto hurriedly moves towards both men, but before he can reach them, Mizuki already has a kunai angled towards his teacher's chest, right above his heart.
“So,” Mizuki says in a bored tone, “What will it be?”
The forest looms around them like nothing is amiss. Naruto wants to trash and scream and stomp his feet, but he's powerless here, and can find no answer hidden between the trees. If he was stronger, Mizuki would be the one bleeding on the ground; if he was smarter, none of them would even be here in the first place.
But as it is, he is none of those things, and therefore the only person to ever slightly care about him is now in fatal danger because of his own idiotic actions. He has no other choice here. His own lack of power made quite sure of that.
Silently and with the taste of tears on his tongue, Naruto nods and moves for the tree with the hole in it.
“Not so fast, stray,” Mizuki calls out. He slings Iruka over his shoulder, unbothered by the red that sluices sluggishly down his clothes. There's a faint murmur of pain. “Now take me to it.”
He does. With an exhausted, unsure gait, Naruto retraces the same steps he took earlier, this time with something slimy and cold swirling in his gut. Belatedly, he realizes he has never hated anyone before.
He does now.
Naruto guides Mizuki towards the spot he spent so many sunny days in and is not sure he is ever going to want to see again. His trembling hands locate the hidden hole by the roots, removing the scroll with great care. The moment the shinobi reaches for it, he feels his fingers clench and crinkle the paper in an act of unplanned possessiveness.
Mizuki leaves his hand open, waiting. He makes no move to take it from Naruto, standing still and smiling with teeth. There's a satiated hunger to his stare that makes the boy's shoulders tremble under the gaze – Mizuki takes from Naruto the last shreds of his rebellion. This is no last stand, no minor opposition. Mizuki no longer needs to take anything forcefully from him; has already established a predator's dominance. Instead, it is of Naruto's own volition that he releases his grip on the scroll, letting it fall into the man's waiting grasp.
The shinobi's eyes are glinting with a fire that comes from inside. Oh-so-slowly he lowers himself to Naruto's height in order to whisper in his ear, “Well, well, well. You never learn, do you, little stray?”
His stomach sinks into the floor.
“Come after me and he bleeds out right here.”
Without a backwards glance, Mizuki disappears into the trees. Naruto runs to Iruka, tired feet stumbling on the way. The injured shinobi blinks up at him sluggishly amidst the crimson puddle. His labored breathing is the loudest sound, overpowering the squelch of the blond's steps. He's trying to talk, Naruto notices, but the strength needed for something like that seems to elude him. No shame in that – Naruto can't talk either. His throat is too busy trying to keep his beating heart from jumping out as he carefully reaches for the pouch strapped to Iruka's leg and thanks every deity in existence that there are bandages in there. His fumbling hands drop them twice while he tries to cover the shinobi's wound. Iruka passes out once more during the endeavor, and Naruto cradles the sound of the man's shallow breathing close to his chest, because it's not over yet. He can get him back to the village, he knows he can. And then they'll be okay.
There is so much blood.
He's so small. It's not something he usually notices, but it means he can't carry his sensei over his back. His feet would drag on the ground, and that would jarr his wounds a lot. With that in mind, Naruto gathers the broken body in his measly arms and stands up as best as he can. Somewhere in his mind, he's screaming at his body to run, but walking is all that is left. His knees buckle at the beginning and end of each step. He can't tell if his arms are trembling from the effort, or if they're simply following the cue of the rest of his body. It doesn't matter – all that matters is the next step. One foot in front of the other.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The forest is quiet, hushed, as Naruto makes his way. The trees are rigid in their waiting, watching as the boy stumbles forward.
One foot in front of the other.
One foot in front of the other.
One foot...
At some point, the bandages stop being enough. The red is hot and sluggish as it stains his hands.
And Naruto walks.
He walks until Konoha's walls tower over him through a distance, and then he stills, because Iruka starts to talk. Naruto doesn't know when he woke up, or why his voice suddenly decided to stop failing him, but this is bad. Talking means I'm Sorry. Talking means goodbye. Naruto doesn't want to say goodbye.
He wants to tell him to stop, that they're almost there, but there is no sound. Even if Iruka got his own voice back, Naruto's still remains tightly locked at the edge of his throat. He can only clench his hands and watch as the words bubble up from the man's mouth, accompanied by red foam. With some difficulty, the boy notices that there are tears spilling down his face. They are warm, like blood, and they make his face sticky, like blood. With impossible strength, Iruka lifts up a hand to his student's cheek and wipes them away. Everything smells like copper.
"It'll be okay, Naruto. I promise."
His chest loosens up enough to allow him to sob.
"You did so well today. I'm so proud." Iruka is smiling up at him. His teeth are red.
Stop.
He starts walking again, slowly, desperately. He needs to move, but his body is crumpling under the weight, and the tears render the world into a blur. This time, it's enough – he manages to come out of the dark cover of the trees, and suddenly there's a man running towards him at full speed. He doesn't recognize him. He might be saying something as he takes over Iruka's weight, or he might not. It's hard to tell, between the mask and the rushing in Naruto's ears. The only voice he can hear is his teacher's, asking the man to wait, and then calling Naruto's name. Somehow, he manages to get a hold of his headband and drop it onto his student's lap. He smiles as he looks down at him from the other man's arms, soft eyes crinkling.
"This is yours now. Take good care of it for me, okay?"
Then the shinobi runs, and Naruto can't follow. Later, they will tell him that Iruka's last breath was at the doors of the hospital, gone between one moment and the next. Later, they will tell him that his last words were both a declaration and a wish, stating that this was not Naruto's fault, and that his last student passed the test, after all, and should be considered a genin by his own right. Later, they might ask him for what happened, and he might even be able to tell them.
But now, collapsed halfway between the trees and the proud walls of his village, Naruto clutches at the headband, and he trembles.