Naruto : Path of Wind

But it turns out that I'm right regardless when his mask bobs. "It's true that I'm not affiliated with any village in particular," he agrees. "But I'm far from alone, and I think you'll find that quantity isn't always what makes the difference."

...

He shakes his head suddenly. "Too much. That was too much," he murmurs to himself in a scolding tone. My eyes widen as the light around his hand flickers out, and the sound of sandals on stone scrape towards me.

"Wait a second!" I say in alarm, struggling uselessly against Kazu's seal's hold on me. "Let's not do anything rash, yeah? We can work something out. I'm a reasonable guy, you seem like a reasonable guy-"

"Calm down, Naruto-kun," he says laughingly. "I'm not going to kill you. I just need to make sure you don't make things more complicated than they have to be."

His bright red eye appears above me, not a foot away, and suddenly I notice the three black tomoe encircling the pupil. My mind grinds to a halt.

That's impossible. There are no rogue Uchiha. That's impossible.

And then as if that weren't enough, the other eye opens up. It's different than its counterpart, though. Where the other is a sharp red, this one is a light, glowing purple. Where the other has a normal pupil surrounded by tomoe, this one is one big swirl, with no pupil or sclera in sight.

And where the other one is still, this one is spinning.

My eyes begin to drift shut, laboring under the weight of a thousand nights spent with no sleep, and my head slumps back against the dirt. I fight it for all of a few seconds before they close completely, and I can't find it in myself to open them again.

"Rest now," Kazu's smooth, soothing voice urges above me. "We'll meet again soon enough, I promise you."

So I do.

...

I wake up in a hospital room.

My eyes crack open, taking in a blurry white landscape of nothingness, which eventually takes the shape of a ceiling. How long have I been out? There's no way I could have been unconscious the whole way back to Konoha, is there? And ow, what is wrong with my stomach? I inhale deeply, reigning my thoughts in and easing the strain on my aching middle slightly, and get a nose full of too-clean hospital smell in the process. Bleh.

I crane my head, observing my room. I immediately glide right over the usual affair and light upon a small vase filled with some yellow and white and orange flowers on the nightstand beside my bed. Huh. I don't think I've ever gotten flowers before. I shimmy an arm out from under my paper-thin blanket to pluck one out. It takes three tries, and by the time I get one, small, dainty and yellow, I'm too busy scowling at my useless arm to admire it.

"Ah, you're awake."

I start in my bed, hissing at the pain that flares up in my stomach as a result, and crane my head around to the other side of the room. The owner of the voice is sitting in a cushioned chair by my bedside, a scroll in his lap and a smile on his face. "Old man," I say in surprise. He's wearing his Hokage robes, like he always does, and his hat is hanging off a peg in the corner above a chair currently occupied by my Uchiha teammate's sleeping form. Over his shoulder a shinobi stands tall and silent, a porcelain mask obscuring his face decorated with the likeness of a weasel. A fine, pure white cloak covers the rest of his body. The Anbu Commander.

I turn back to the old man. "How long have I been out?"

His smile fades. "Just over a week," he says, and the words hit me like a physical blow to the head.

"What happened?" I ask dazedly.

"My question exactly," he says. "You arrived here suffering from extreme chakra exhaustion, intensive shock damage, and a debilitating concussion. Kakashi tells me that you engaged in single combat with a B-ranked nukenin from Kumo, and Sasuke tells me that you were briefly kidnapped by a man wearing an orange mask and a black cloak."

He holds the scroll up which the Commander instantly reaches out to grab, and leans forward intently. "I have already received debriefings from Team 9 and the rest of your team, and have allocated the proper punishments to Hyuuga Neji and Rock Lee for disregarding the protocol of joint missions and endangering you and Sasuke, but that has not made me any more knowledgeable. Your official mission debriefing will not take place until you're cleared from the hospital, but in the meantime would you mind telling me just what in the world happened to you?"

So I tell him. I tell him all about my fight with the nukenin from start to finish, going over each of the jutsu he used in extensive detail, Kakashi's intervention, and mechanically relay the killing blow I inflicted upon him. The old man listens to the whole thing without interruption, and nods when I'm done.

"You were very lucky," he decides. "Your chakra defect makes you the perfect counter for raiton specialists like Raiakuzu of the Electric Fist. If it had been either of the other two B-ranked shinobi..." He shakes his head and sighs. "I suppose it doesn't matter at this point."

"Yeah," I agree. My eyes flicker over to my teammate again. "Hey, how long has Sasuke been here?"

"Since you were checked in here," The old man says, a smile stealing back onto his face. "Besides eating and training, he's spent all of his time in this room. Now, how much of this was out of concern for you and how much was because of his discrepancies with his clan I can not say," he finishes exasperatedly.

I snort. "Sasuke would tag along with me to my grave if it meant getting away from his folks."

"Indeed," he murmurs. "Now, I believe you have one more thing to tell me before I can leave you to your recovery."

I grimace. "It was... weird. When he grabbed me, everything turned dark, and it felt like I was falling through nothing, even though he was pulling me through the ground. The only thing I could feel was his hand on the back of my shirt. Then we dropped into this little cave, and I hit my head. Hard." I reach up and lean forward, prodding gently at my head, and find thick bandages in the way.

"He didn't really do much to me. Just-" I stop short.

"Yes?" The old man presses. My eyebrows furrow.

"He just-" Poked at my stomach. "He, uh." Told me he wanted to bring peace to the world. "He..." Had a sharingan.

He called himself Hirakazu, or Kazu for short. He has other people following his cause, and they might be as strong as him. He had a doujutsu I've never seen before.

It all sticks in my throat. It isn't a matter of me wanting to keep his secrets for him, or not being sure how to put it into words. I just can't sayit. I stare helplessly at the old man, feeling panic well up in me. "I can't."

Alarm steals across his wrinkled face. "Commander," he says sharply, and the man behind him steps forward, reaching up and plucking the mask off his face, revealing smooth, pale features and two fully matured sharingan eyes, not unlike Kazu's. He gets in close and locks eyes with me, and the tomoe in each eye start spinning, like Kazu's purple one had. After nearly a minute of tensely holding the impromptu staring contest, he steps back, a troubled expression on his face.

"I didn't find anything, Hokage-sama," he reports quietly. The old man frowns.

"Naruto," he says. "Can you recall your captor performing any handseals during your time with them? Making any strange gestures? Anything at all?"

Of course I do, I try to say. He wasn't exactly being subtle about it. He mind-fucked me with his purple eye, and now I can't talk. None of it comes out, of course.

"I can't," I repeat. His frown deepens, and he suddenly stands up, holding out a hand. The Commander hands the scroll back to him, and he crosses the room, grabbing his hat off the peg and putting it on.

"I'm sorry to leave you like this, Naruto, but I need to contact a few people. In the meantime, try to figure out what you can and can't say. I should be back by tomorrow at the latest." He turns in the doorway, notices my wide-eyed look, and gives me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. We'll have you fixed up before the end of the week." And then he's out the door, off to gather an entourage of shinobi to puzzle out the specifics of the molestation of my mind. Joy.

I drag my eyes away from the door and pluck irritably at the tubes peppering my body, try to ignore the simultaneous hunger and pain warring for dominance in my gut, and wonder when my head will stop pounding. God I hate hospitals.

A small clearing of the throat snaps me out of my disgruntled musings, and I find the Commander still standing by my bedside gazing at me solemnly, his now black eyes inscrutable.

"Hey," I say awkwardly. He nods. "What's up?"

"Were you lying to the Hokage?" He asks bluntly. Woah there.

"What? No!" I say indignantly. His eyes bore into me, somehow even more intimidating than their crimson counterparts.

"You swear?" He presses.

"Of course I swear. I'd never keep secrets like that from the old man," I reply heatedly. A long, tense staredown ensues, until finally he nods again.

"Hokage-sama trusts you," he says seriously. "More so than even some of his jounin. Do not abuse that trust."

"Got it," I snap. He sighs.

"Pride means little in matters such as these. Just keep it in mind," he insists. I roll my eyes but acquiesce anyway.

"I will."

"Good." He turns his and studies Sasuke, curled up in the corner, and something like affection appears on his face. "He's very fond of you, you know," he says quietly. "Sometimes I think he spends more time with you than he does at home."

"He does," I confirm, a knee-jerk response more than anything, before his statement actually clicks in my mind. I stare at him, surprised. "You're his brother."

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