"Right. I've memorized the seal sequences and all the precautions. All that's left is the actual training."
Hinata rolled the Scroll of Seals back up—it was a massive, unwieldy thing—and looked at the two boys beside her. "And I think it's safe to say none of us plan to practice where the others can see. Correct?"
"Hmph. I only learned this jutsu to beat you. I'm not about to give you a free preview."
Sasuke turned away with a petulant little huff. Naruto scratched his ear, found he couldn't think of anything cooler to say, and settled for a deflated nod. "Yeah~! Next time we meet, I'm gonna shock you both so hard your jaws drop!"
"Very bold. But right now, there's something else we need to think about."
Hinata shook her head and tossed the scroll to Naruto with the casual air of someone disposing of a grocery bag. Her voice was flat and even. "Like, for instance, how to plausibly explain away what the two of you did tonight."
Stealing the Scroll of Seals was no minor offense—and Hinata had zero intention of taking the fall for it, even as a performance. Letting Naruto or Sasuke shoulder the blame wasn't realistic either. That meant finding someone else for the role.
"Huh? But nobody saw us! Can't we just put the scroll back and call it done?"
Naruto stared at her blankly, zero grasp of the gravity of the situation. Hinata's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Are you sure nobody knows? Put that brain of yours to work. Who was it that sent you to steal the scroll in the first place? Doesn't he count as the only witness?"
"Oh—!"
Naruto went rigid. After a long, strained pause, he managed: "But... Mizuki-sensei did this for my sake..."
"You absolute idiot."
Hinata stepped in, threw her left arm around the blond airhead's shoulder, and wagged her right index finger in front of his face. "What if he set you up? Say he's had it out for you all along—so he tricks you into stealing the Scroll of Seals, then goes straight to ANBU with the tip. You know what happens? He gets to be the hero who exposed a thief, and you? Best case: ANBU hauls you off and you spend the rest of your life doing hard labor. Worst case—heh heh heh—I hear ANBU is full of cold-blooded, mentally warped killers. They might stage it—pretend during the skirmish that you attacked them—and then—"
She raised her right hand flat and brought it down hard onto Naruto's neck.
"Crack!!"
The chop made Naruto flinch so violently he practically rattled. She could hear his teeth clacking. Without question, Hinata's threat—detailed, deliberate, dripping with malice—had carved itself directly into Naruto's psyche.
"So—wh-what do we... do??"
Naruto was trembling hard enough that his outline seemed to ripple. Before he could stammer out another syllable, an irritated voice cut through the dark from nearby.
"Hinata!! I didn't know you'd picked up the habit of bullying people!!"
Iruka appeared, slightly breathless and clearly furious, at the edge of the clearing. As the one who actually cared about Naruto, he'd found them first—and walked straight into the tail end of Hinata's full crime-boss induction speech.
"Oh my, Iruka-sensei. Out for a midnight stroll?"
Hinata released Naruto without a trace of guilt. If anything, she looked mildly disappointed to be interrupted. She'd been wanting to get a rise out of this kid since back when she'd watched the anime—the boy never stopped screaming. Tonight had been genuinely satisfying.
"You three! What happened here? Why did you steal the Scroll of Seals?"
Iruka was beside himself, but not hostile. Sasuke, who'd quietly moved a hand toward his weapons pouch, hesitated—then let it drop. He tilted his head with practiced cool. "Hmph. We heard it from Mizuki. He said the Scroll of Seals would let us learn powerful jutsu to get stronger. So we came to get it."
Sasuke's intelligence kicked in immediately: defend yourself, and bring down the instigator in the same breath. Iruka's expression collapsed into disbelief. "That can't be—Mizuki knows full well how serious it is to steal the Scroll of Seals..."
"Of course he does!!"
As if the universe had been waiting for its cue, a vicious laugh rang out—and a volley of shuriken ripped through the night air, aimed straight for the group.
"Look out!!"
Iruka didn't have time to shove them aside the way he would have in the original story. He just crossed his arms and put himself between his three students and the blades. Predictably, every shuriken tore through fabric and flesh, scattering brilliant red against the dark.
Naruto's face went rigid at the sight of the blood blooming in front of him. He was a child who'd never seen real violence—he couldn't process it.
Sasuke's black eyes contracted sharply. The moment he saw Iruka take those shuriken for him, red bled into his dark irises, and the single tomoe in his left eye began to slowly rotate. He bit down hard, yanked a kunai from his pouch, and lunged—
Hinata's arm shot out and blocked him. Flat. Cold. Wordless. She glanced back once—and the emptiness in her eyes stopped him in his tracks. Something about that look put him straight back to a blood-soaked night years ago. The same eyes. Like something wearing human skin.
Mizuki sauntered out of the tree line, grinning. He'd just gutted the only chūnin on the scene. As far as he was concerned, his plan had gone perfectly.
"Mizuki... why—why would you—!!"
Iruka wrenched a shuriken from his own arm and planted himself in front of Naruto, blood at the corner of his mouth. Naruto stared, barely coherent. "Why... Mizuki-sensei..."
"Why? Because I needed to use you, Naruto! And it looks like you delivered the Scroll of Seals beautifully!"
Mizuki dropped all pretense, voice ringing with contempt. "Oh—and those two castoffs from their great clans beside you! Tonight is a fine night for clearing out leftover garbage."
"Shut your mouth!! Mizuki!! Don't you dare say what comes next!!"
Iruka roared it with everything he had. Mizuki just smiled and shook his head. "How could I not? As payment to Naruto for his services—I owe him something in return. Like the truth. Naruto—do you know what you really are? And do you know the truth about those two beside you?"
"Me... and Sasuke and Hinata too?"
Naruto had gone completely still. "What are you talking about?"
"Not hard to understand, is it? Haven't you ever wondered? Why does the whole village hate you? Why was Hinata always the one other kids targeted? Why does everyone keep their distance from Sasuke?"
Mizuki spread his arms wide, savoring Naruto's blank face. Iruka hurled the kunai in his hand. "Shut up!! Mizuki!!"
"The reason is simple!!"
Mizuki sidestepped easily. His voice dropped to something cold. "Because you, Naruto, are the Nine-Tailed Fox that tore through the Hidden Leaf Village eleven years ago!! The monster that nearly tore the whole village apart—that caused countless deaths!! That's what you are!!"
Naruto's pupils slowly expanded. The truth of it was too large—he couldn't even begin to take it in.
Hinata stood beside him, expressionless. Sasuke, whom she'd stopped with her arm, was equally wide-eyed. He'd always known the village shunned Naruto. He hadn't imagined the reason was this.
Mizuki laughed with triumph at Naruto's frozen face, then turned his gaze to Sasuke.
"And your two little companions! Uchiha Sasuke—do you know the truth about your family? Years ago, someone inside the Uchiha Clan turned traitor and slaughtered every last member. Parents. Uncles. Everyone. The only one he deliberately left alive was the wretch standing right here. Oh, and by the way—the one who wiped out all the Uchiha? I believe his name was Uchiha Itachi. And I believe he was Sasuke's older brother?"
The scar tore open. The red in Sasuke's eyes sharpened; dark tomoe deepened in his irises, and the single mark in his left eye rotated slowly—mirroring the hatred he had never once been able to bury.
"And lastly—that Hyuga failure over there. Am I right?"
Mizuki's tone shifted to contempt. "The Hyuga Clan respects only strength. Once upon a time, this girl was set to be the next clan head—but she turned out to be a complete failure. Couldn't even beat a little sister several years younger than herself. So the Hyuga Clan gave up on her long ago. Now you know the whole picture."
He set his hands on his hips and grinned. "You three!! One of you is a monster-fox nobody wanted!! One of you is a pitiful wretch they chose to keep alive!! And one of you is a discarded failure!! Birds of a feather, that's all this is—that's exactly why you ended up together!!"
Naruto stared at the two people beside him. The truth of what he was had knocked the air from his lungs—but something stubborn and instinctive in him kept him rooted right here, beside these two and their equally terrible fates.
"Are the three of us... the same kind...?"