Chapter 38 -> Part 38

After changing into my uniform, minus my haori and weapons, I took the route across the rooftops and landed in front of the Hokage tower. No one stopped me as I strode inside and headed directly up to his office. I knew the answer I was going to give about ROOT was flimsy, but I wanted to be sure to face the Hokage's interrogation on my terms instead of being caught unaware. I was about to open the door, but thought better of it and knocked instead. There was no need to be overly rude.

"Come in," the Hokage called.

I opened the door. He glanced up at me and did a double-take as if he was expecting someone else.

"Kichiro-kun, I wasn't expecting to see you this soon."

I closed the door and took a seat in front of him, my arms crossed while he continued to write in a scroll.

"What can I do for you?"

"I heard a significant part of your conversation with Kagami outside of my hospital room."

He stiffened and slowly put down the pen and set aside the scroll. "You should have still been unconscious."

"I honestly wish I was, but that can't be changed now. I believe you have questions for me."

He studied me for a long time. "You are in no condition for me to interrogate now," he concluded.

"The minute I'm healthy enough to be interrogated you're most likely going to send me off to fight Iwa as a medic instead. I can't do my job if you suspect me of treason. I'm here, ready to voluntarily answer your questions truthfully, and I am fully aware of where I am and what I am doing. This is the deal, take it or leave it."

He continued to study me. I leaned back in my seat and stared at the ceiling above his head. Finally, he spoke. "How much of the conversation did you hear?"

"Enough to know that you believe Uchiha Madara-level Genjutsu to be at play in this war, you are scared by the supposedly unintelligible memories and thoughts I have floating around my mind, and are extremely suspicious that I know sensitive information about this village and potentially shared it with Iwa, because, honestly, who expects a kid to hold up for more than a few seconds under torture."

"Is that all you heard?" He asked, cautious.

"Yes."

He sighed. "Would you like some tea before we begin?"

"No thank you."

He made a gesture with his hand and two ANBU appeared beside me, kneeling. "No one except Uchiha Kagami is to enter my office until Kichiro-kun leaves. Dismissed."

The ANBU vanished.

The Sandaime stood and disappeared briefly into an adjacent room before returning with a teapot, two teacups, and tea leaves in a separate cup. "You're not one to be impressed by formalities, so I'm not even going to try." He poured the tea and handed me some.

I took it but didn't drink any, slowly swirling it in the cup.

"If you were anyone else, I would have returned you to the hospital for showing up here before you recovered."

It wasn't a question so I didn't respond. He turned my chair so that he could face me directly from the second chair in front of his desk and sat down.

"A lot of things about you and Kushina-chan don't quite add up."

"Leave Kushina out of this. She has no responsibility for anything you could possibly want to know."

"Then tell me how two children managed to nearly master Fūinjutsu between them and teach it to another child with no one having any inclination of what was going on?"

I bit my lip thinking of the best way to phrase my answer.

"Am I correct in concluding you stole much more than clan records before the massacre?"

"Yes."

"How much information did you manage to take?"

"I'm pretty sure it was the entire library."

He managed a rather spectacular spit-take. "Just to be clear, you managed to save almost the entirety of the Uzumaki records and Fūinjutsu, and told no one."

"I'm pretty sure Minato knows, and Kushina might have told the rest of the clan, but otherwise, that is correct."

"And no one caught on to your scheme?"

"Not that I'm aware."

"That's quite the accomplishment to pull off in a shinobi village. I should court-martial both of you for it."

I sat up straight, glaring at him. "As I said, the entire thing was my idea. Leave Kushina out of it."

"I don't believe you would condone a stunt of that magnitude in the first place, though hiding the fact that you had the information I'm certain was entirely your idea."

"The theft of the information had absolutely nothing to do with you or Konoha, and the deception began before Kushina and I arrived here. None of it can be blamed on her since her contract had no requirement to release information from before her arrival."

"Calm down, I'm not going to punish either of you. You've more than made up for withholding the information, though I recommend you share it with your clan. A living Uzumaki clan with secret techniques they can use is much more valuable to Konoha than a bunch of paper with potentially indecipherable scribbles."

I relaxed back against the back of the chair.

"Next question: how did you know Mito-sama and I were planning on placing the Kyuubi into either you or Kushina?"

"I knew it was an eventual possibility, but that was all."

"How did you know about the Kyuubi in the first place."

"The fight between the Shodai and Uchiha Madara is nearly common knowledge."

"How did you know about the Uzumaki affinity for containing tailed beasts?"

"There was a significant section of the Uzumaki records focused on sealing tailed beasts, much of it was dated before the Shodai distributed the tailed beasts to the other shinobi nations. One of the required attributes for Jinchuuriki is lots of dense chakra. There were also several notes that mentioned Uzumaki Mito had a significantly easier time controlling the Kyuubi in comparison to the Jinchuuriki of lesser tailed beasts, even those around the same age and caliber as her. It wasn't a difficult conclusion to arrive at."

"Was Kushina's potential as a kunoichi the primary reason you pursued the Kumo kidnappers?"

"The primary reason I pursued them was because she is my sister, but yes, I was aware of her potential. It was why I immediately began pursuit, so I could shift the attention off her and onto myself." That was stretching it a bit, but whatever worked.

"You put some thought into it. Is that why you made some of the outrageous statements you did? In order to make me focus on you instead of her?"

"No, I made the statements because they needed to be made."

"Why didn't you kill the Uzumaki Fusō, Ise, and Nagato when you first saw them?"

"I'm not going to kill someone who doesn't try and kill me first. They approached me as an old friend and family member. I wasn't going to kill them for it."

"What made you think that Nagato has a dormant Rinnegan as opposed to a different, unknown Dōjutsu, or a mutated version of the Sharingan or Byakugan."

"I've healed shinobi with both the Sharingan and Byakugan, as well as children with a dormant version of the Sharingan. The Sharingan is the important thing right now. I've healed people with almost every stage of the Sharingan and as it advances it follows a distinctive pattern. From what I can tell there are four stages that have been publicly confirmed and I'm almost certain of another two stages beyond that."

"Explain those stages."

"The first stage is dormant, the Uchiha can't access any of the power, but there are several seeming erroneous or redundant nerves that seem to be just waiting for the right stimulus to activate. The next stages are the three tomoe. When each tomoe is gained, more nerves are formed in the eye, making it increasingly sensitive whenever chakra is channeled there. I think there is slightly less chakra required to use the Sharingan at each of these stages, but that's irrelevant. In each transition, the number of nerves doubles. There's a lot more that goes on, but if I go by the number of nerves, Nagato's eyes are the seventh stage of the Sharingan. The problem is that it's not the Sharingan anymore. There's clearly Uchiha DNA in the eye, but there's someone else's DNA as well. I can't read it very clearly with just chakra, but the person closest to it that I've healed is Tsunade's little brother, Nawaki, but it's only a passing resemblance—Senju DNA with a huge twist in it. There's this old story in the Uzumaki archives about the Sage of Six Paths and how his sons were the founders of the Senju and Uchiha clans, and well, if you look at it from a hereditary perspective, it looks like both sons were born with only part of the Sage's genetic code for the Rinnegan, so neither manifested it. Put them back together and bam! The Rinnegan is back."

The Hokage's face was completely blank by the time I finished.

"It's a bit of a stretch, but it makes sense," I insisted.

"A stretch you made from an old myth, Kichiro-kun," he reprimanded.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Every story, no matter how crazy, has a grain of truth in it somewhere. Unless you can offer something equally plausible, my theory is the only one out there and you can only disprove it if Nagato manifests an entirely different Dōjutsu. Question: have you told Nagato or his parents about any of this?"

"I assumed they were already aware."

"Do you honestly believe they would let some stranger replace Nagato's eyes? They don't know about it, but I'll tell them later today."

"No, you will not tell them anything. Moving on to my next question. How did you know about Danzō's organization?"

"I didn't."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I had no idea that whatever the hell he had existed in the first place."

"So you're saying you made an accusation against an elder of this village with no basis whatsoever in fact, and it just happened to be true."

He wasn't buying it.

"I've watched you say things you don't believe in, boy, and that statement had too much conviction."

I scrambled for an acceptable answer. "Fine! I meant it in an entirely different context. Every major shinobi in this village has a base of loyalty among the shinobi and civilians, individuals that would support them over you in the case of a coup." I was bullshitting so hard, but it technically wasn't a lie. "As far as I can tell, the base of power between you and Danzō is almost perfectly equal. The only difference between you is your perspective. Because Danzō still openly supports you, the point is moot. From my perspective, Danzō was trying to imply that you answered to him, which entirely turned the tables. The difference between you and Danzō, at least the difference I care about, is that I can persuade you to change your mind, or at the very least make you listen to my point of view. Danzō would smack me down the second I disagreed with him, if he had the authority. I didn't think he actually commanded ninja that operated independently of you. At least, I didn't expect it until after this war is over and your pet policies begin to take effect."

He wasn't satisfied with my answer, but he accepted it. "That's an interesting perspective."

"I'm an interesting person." I rolled my eyes, but inside I let out a mental sigh of relief that my BS was accepted.

"What do you know of Uchiha Madara?"

"The crazy co-founder of Konoha? I know enough about him that I don't want to be caught anywhere near him. I have a theory that he is still alive, but it doesn't have any proof." If I didn't have the Sandaime's full attention, I had it now.

"Why do you think that?"

I shrugged. "Because it supports my theory on what would have happened if the Kyuubi had been sealed in Kushina instead."

He gave me an odd look.

"What? I swear it's legit!" And would have happened if I wasn't there to screw things up.

"I just want to hear why you think Uchiha Madara is still alive."

"The bad guy never dies and Uchiha Madara being alive would be one of the worst things that could happen to Konoha considering the Shodai is dead, you know, Murphy's Law and all that. If you asked me whose eyes Nagato has in his head, my guess would be that they are Madara's. There aren't any other Uchiha with Sharingan that could be advanced enough, and none of them have been buried without their eyes in recent years."

"Murphy's Law?"

I almost laughed at his strange pronunciation. Almost. "Yeah, it states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

I probably sounded like I was spouting nonsense but the Hokage parsed through it well enough. "Do you honestly think Madara is still alive?"

"Yes," I answered truthfully.

"Do you think he had anything to do with the Genjutsus placed on you?"

"I don't know. I've never knowingly been under a Genjutsu strengthened by the Sharingan." What do you think? I asked the Kyuubi.

He just growled and ignored me.

I flinched as the Hokage snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Kichiro-kun, I need you here right now, not lost in whatever you're thinking about."

"I'm listening," I slapped his hand away, or tried to, he pulled back before I could hit him.

"No, you weren't, I asked you the same question three times and you didn't react. A lapse like that could leave you dead or worse."

Well, that wasn't good. I didn't even realize I had spaced out. "What was the question?"

"When the Yamanaka looked into your head, your memories for your first year and a half in Konoha were almost entirely indecipherable. Do you have any explanation as to why?"

I thought for a while before coming up with a plausible explanation, being that for most of that time I continued to think and process things in English. It wasn't until several months before I took the Genin test that I truly mastered Japanese for myself, not by borrowing the original Kichiro's knowledge. It still didn't explain how nearly everything could be indecipherable. "I have a possible explanation, but what part was indecipherable? I can remember it all just fine, I'm almost certain a Genjutsu can't alter something that happened that long ago, unless there was something specific they were after, but that doesn't account for the widespread effect."

"The only thing the Yamanaka could retrieve were three images." He wasn't telling the entire truth. With extremely deliberate movements, the Sandaime stood and picked up a slim folder from his desk. He pulled out the first one and handed it to me while I set the teacup on his desk. "Can you identify these people?"

I looked down at the page in my hand as the Hokage retook his seat. It was the picture of my army buddies, taken on the last day of basic training. I wasn't completely taken by surprise that it came up. I was constantly drawing parallels between Sakumo's training and basic training for the U.S. Army. I had no idea what the other two images could have been.

"This image makes little sense, but the Yamanaka drew it as close as he could."

The Hokage placed the next image on top of the first. It was a sketch of an ultrasound of a baby about to be born. I recognized it immediately. At the top of the picture was my former last name, Jordanson, if I had any doubts. I sat stiffly looking down at the picture, glad that my bangs were long enough to hide my face.

"This last image appeared the most frequently."

He held it up in such a way that would force me to look up so he could see my reaction. I didn't move. I was fairly certain of what the last image was. I brushed the face of the infant in the ultrasound. The baby girl's heart had stopped shortly after her mother's. I had gone to the hospital that morning with a wife and a child ready to be born, and went home with two coffins that afternoon. I never understood, nor did I care about what had went wrong. They were just gone.

"Kichiro-kun?"

After a moment, during which the Hokage waited for my response, the door opened. I stood up sharply, the papers falling to the floor, and marched towards the door.

The Hokage grabbed my arm, but I twisted and struck the underside of his wrist as hard as I could, jerking free in the moment his grip loosened. "Stop!" He ordered sharply. I ignored him, my vision blurred by tears, and started to make a hand seal to shunshin out of the office.

Someone else grabbed my wrist and twisted my right arm behind my back while sweeping my feet out from underneath me, one of the very few non-lethal Uchiha takedown moves. I countered automatically, attaching my disabled arm to the back of my vest with chakra and throwing my entire weight onto the assailant's grip, pulling him slightly off-balance. I used the assailant as leverage to twist and swing my free arm into his elbow. The strike connected and I could feel the bones begin to crack under the strength of the strike, before his other hand grabbed my wrist and redirected it. By that time, I had already untwisted the arm behind my back and had both of my arms crossed in front of me, while still falling backwards. I attached the bottom of my feet to the straps of his right sandal and used all my strength to pull my hands to my feet. They figured out what I was trying to do before I could finish the movement and knock him off-balance. They released my hands and pulled up their leg, sending my head flying towards the ground.

I tried to twist to avoid the concussion, but I was falling too quickly. By the time I finished blinking, I was on the floor as if the maneuver had succeeded originally, surprisingly not-concussed. I started to twist out of the hold, but was released. Before I could react, a needle was stabbed into my thigh. I felt the drug entering the muscle and twisted, tearing it out of my leg and grabbing the hand that held it, shattering the object with a burst of chakra.

"What did you give him?" The Hokage demanded as I clamped my hand over my leg and tried to neutralize it.

"It's just a paralysis. With how much I gave him, he should be unconscious in a few seconds," Kagami answered as he pulled my hand away from my leg, causing me to lose control of the healing chakra.

"He's still a child! A paralysis that powerful could kill him!"

"It won't, there was barely enough in there to kill someone his age, and he has the Kyuubi on his side. He might not remember most of this morning, but he'll be fine by tomorrow."

Someone crouched and peeled open my eyelid. I tried to look around, but even the muscles of my eyes had been paralyzed. I could barely make out Kagami above me, before he gently closed my eyelids. He was lying to the Sandaime, he wanted me to hear what was going on.

"He's unconscious. I suppose that altercation answers the question of whether or not his skill slipped. Kid actually managed to hit me, and I had my Sharingan on and everything!"

I was most certainly not unconscious. I was dizzy, but not unconscious.

"Shut up, Kagami."

Good idea. Shut up so I could concentrate on trying to get rid of it, not that I could do jack shit with my hands on either side of me, open. I might have been able to heal if my hands were in a fist, but I needed to touch the injury to heal it, and for contaminants in the bloodstream, I needed to be within an inch or two of a major vein or artery, preferably with a hand over the heart of the victim.

"Come on, that's an impressive accomplishment for a full-grown Jōnin, much less an eleven-year-old medic, who should be relaxing at home. Give him some credit!"

"Kagami!"

"Fine, I'll get to the point. How the hell did you upset the boy this time? Also, why is he here? Where's Sakumo? And why did you change the time you were supposed to meet with him?"

"The boy came to me."

"Did you at least get your questions answered before you upset him?"

"Some of them. He and his sister have a scroll with pretty much the entirety of the Uzumaki library sealed in it. It explains a lot of the strange things coming out of his mouth. We assumed Hatake had just been boasting about the boy's intelligence, but I no longer believe he was exaggerating. The boy thinks on an adult level."

Probably because I actually was an adult, even if childhood hormones sometimes messed with my judgement and made me much more impulsive and antagonistic than I would normally be.

"That doesn't answer how you upset him."

"I think it has something to do with that damnable code he writes in."

"Meaning?"

"These were the only three images the Yamanaka could recover from the memories that are corrupted. On the clothes of these people, in the corner of this image, and on the collarbone of this woman, are all text in that code."

"The middle image, what is it?"

"I don't know, but he touched the picture here as if it meant something to him."

"It's a child, an infant," Kagami concluded with certainty after a long pause. "If I had to guess, I would say this is a picture of a child in the womb. The woman has the same text on her collar as in the corner of the picture. They're connected. They might be the same person, but she's clearly an adult. No, they're two separate people, most likely mother and child. It could be Kushina-chan and her mother, but the woman has no physical resemblance to Kichiro-kun or Kushina-chan. It must be someone else. The boy worked in the maternity ward of the hospital for some time, could it be someone he treated?"

"No, I already checked with the people he worked under at the hospital. None of them recognize the woman."

"She's definitely not ANBU or connected to it in any way. Speaking of ANBU, are you still considering officially keeping him in the program?"

"Yes, I see no reason to anger Tsunade any further and too many ANBU have been forced to return to regular duty injured because there isn't a medic that can treat them properly. Most of the organization is already familiar with him, so the transition shouldn't be a problem."

"Putting him with ANBU will place him in proximity to the two Iwa Jinchuuriki and the child from Kumo. Are you sure you want them all in the same place?"

"He is in the Iwa Bingo books as an S-ranked threat and we know he was in contact with both Iwa Jinchuuriki while there, somehow getting close enough to them that they brought him back here. I don't understand what or how he did it. Either way, he's our best shot at controlling the Jinchuuriki, and possibly containing the tailed beasts without resorting to the Shiki Fūjin, even if he needs the help of his clan. We'll keep them separated as much as possible."

"The other countries won't like it if they find out the Iwa Jinchuuriki came here."

"Suna and Kiri are in no shape to rebuild a military. Kumo wouldn't dare turn against us, not while their Jinchuuriki is still fixated on Kichiro-kun and we hold four of the Bijū. Our only worry is Iwa, and I don't think we can salvage the situation anyways."

"Ōnoki might come around."

"Not after this. What are you doing here so soon?"

"I like to be early."

"Liar."

"Spoilsport. Either way, the Gobi Jinchuuriki is not liking his accommodations with the Yonbi Jinchuuriki downstairs. Both still refuse to give their names or cooperate until they speak with Kichiro-kun. 'Indisposed' isn't going to last much longer as an excuse. Both Jinchuuriki are still showing the effects of Genjutsu manipulation, but not like what was put on our problematic little redhead. There is evidence on the Nibi Jinchuuriki of the same, though not nearly as strong. Good call in checking the rest as well. Iwa is most likely not responsible."

"Yes, how much do you know about the Sharingan?"

"Quite a bit, why?"

"Kichiro clams that beyond the three tomoe, there are two more natural stages of the Sharingan."

"Where did he hear this?" Kagami snapped defensively.

"He also claims that the Rinnegan can be gained if Uchiha DNA is combined with Senju DNA."

"There are two more stages, you know this, but only an old story supports that last claim and the clan is of the opinion that the story is implausible."

"Is it?"

"I'll take the pictures to Sakumo and see if he knows what's so important about them, he knows Kichiro-kun the best. For the time being, I think you need to back off the boy. Ask your questions and convey orders through messages or intermediaries. Every time you meet, he ends up worse for wear and with the worst luck in the village."

"It's not my—"

"No, it's not always your fault, sometimes circumstances force your hand, but he is an eleven-year-old boy under the scrutiny of the five major villages. You're the common denominator in it all. Stop wondering why the boy hates you."

"Consider yourself on take-care-of-Kichiro-kun duty," the Hokage muttered sourly.

A paper crumpled and a second later Kagami picked me up off the ground. "I know this war is stressful for you Hiruzen, but this immaturity needs to stop. Find a hobby, or get a punching bag that is not Kichiro or something. You are the Hokage and this is insulting to both the village and your predecessors."

Kagami opened the door and slammed it shut before a retort could be made.

"Come on, kid, you should be moving around soon," he grumbled at me before shunshining out of the tower.