"I don't think he was," said Mayu quietly. "They were probably traveling separately."
"Why the hell would they do that, when she's got that technique?"
But none of them had an answer for that.
...
Once their vision was finally restored, they began to press forward again. However, Mayu soon stopped them as her birds informed her that there was an impassable pit up ahead, and they turned around. As they silently walked back along the same path, Naruto's mind buzzed over the recent unexpected turn of events.
He hadn't taken the exam seriously enough, obviously. The other team's plate had initially been as easy to capture as expected, but they'd barely had time to even look at the number before it'd been taken back by that girl – she'd said her name was Fū. He hadn't been able to gauge her offensive ability, but she'd exuded a kind of confidence that only came with years of experience. Naruto had chosen not to follow her, explaining it to his teammates that their time would be better spent hunting down other teams, but he had to wonder – had it been influenced by doubt...by fear, at all? He didn't doubt his own abilities. He believed that in a direct confrontation, he could take the girl down so long as he avoided her strange powder.
Nevertheless, something about her unsettled him.
With Rai still fuming and Naruto lost in contemplation, Mayu was the first one to spot the obstacle in their path. She let out a small 'oh!' of surprise, and stopped. Returning to his senses, Naruto peered ahead at the dimly lit path, and saw the two genin they had left behind still tied to the boulder. From the way they were sitting, he could tell that the blonde – the one he had knocked out – was still unconscious. However, the dark-skinned one that Rai had handled was now awake, and glared at them hatefully. A trickle of blood had dried halfway down his face.
"Did she not see them or something...?" muttered Rai, walking over and nudging the blonde experimentally with his foot. He turned to the dark-skinned genin. "Oi, did your third teammate pass by?"
"That...thing's not a teammate of mine," the genin said coolly. Despite his obvious anger, he seemed more level-headed and in control than his teammate.
Rai scratched his head. "Well, she took your team plate back from us," he confessed. "Wouldn't it have been logical for her to have freed you guys while she was at it?"
"Monsters aren't logical."
"'Monster'?" repeated Naruto. He noticed Mayu stiffening in surprise beside him, but ignored it. "What do you mean?"
The genin looked up directly at Naruto, and for a moment, he thought that the genin wasn't going to respond. Next to him, the blonde genin suddenly twitched, his eyelids fluttering as they struggled to open. He let out a low moan.
The genin's features twisted into one of utter loathing, and his eyes burned with a look that Naruto somehow found familiar. "She's a jinchūriki."
"What's a jinchūriki?" asked Rai.
Just then, the blonde jerked and his eyes snapped open. Looking around wildly, he spotted Naruto standing by with his arms crossed and flinched. Gradually, as he took in the scene, a look of horror began to dawn on his face.
"She's got a monster sealed inside of her...she's Takigakure's weapon," explained the genin. Upon hearing his teammate, the blonde's head whipped back as though he'd been slapped.
"Mushimi! What're you doing?!" he hissed. "That's a village secret...and what about the plan?!"
"I don't care," the genin, Mushimi, growled. "That thing killed my parents before they sealed it away. I want it dead. And I have my doubts about the plan."
The blonde's mouth dropped open. "I know how you feel! But remember what Haike-sensei said to us about telling anything to outsiders! Do you even realize what you're doing right now?!"
"If it means I have to betray our village, so be it." The conviction rang loud and clear in his voice.
"By monster...what do you mean?" asked Naruto slowly.
As Mushimi opened his mouth, the blonde genin struggled in vain to release himself from his bindings. "Shut up! Mushimi!"
"A tailed beast. The Seven-tails," said Mushimi, glaring up at them. "So go tell your village and your Hokage. Go tell them that Takigakure's raising up a weapon, in order to become one of the five great villages. Come and destroy it for us."
...
October 10th, the day of Naruto's eight birthday and every birthday before that, was Memorial Day at Konoha. It was always a cold, dark and somber day, as though the skies themselves were in mourning. The sun hid itself behind its clouds, which loomed heavily and slowly over the village. The villagers, all garbed in black, gathered around the memorial marker for the fallen heroes of the day the Nine-tails attacked.
Even at the Academy, there was always a special history lesson to begin the day for every class. The year before, when Naruto had been in Iruka's class, the chūnin had recounted for them how the shinobi of the village had fought bravely, holding off the Nine-tails from the rest of the village as they waited for the Fourth to arrive. Then, they had a moment of silence, before they resumed normal class activities.
But Naruto had been transferred to a new class two years his senior, and he found this year that his new instructor, a chūnin named Mizuki, conducted the lesson rather differently. Glossing cursorily over what the ninja had done, the man seemed to relish in describing the Nine-tails in detail.
According to him, it was a colossal leviathan and each lashing tail rained destruction on the world every time it was swung. It was an uncontrollable force of nature, with fangs as long as a grown man and eyes that seethed with the burning fires of hell. The Nine-tails was a roiling, churning ball of evil, with only one intention in mind: to destroy anything and anyone in its path.
A student raised his trembling hand and asked, "But the Fourth killed it, right sensei?" A murmur of uncomfortable agreement spread throughout the classroom. The students had all of course grown up hearing in their bedtime stories about the monster that had terrorized the prior generation, but they'd never had reason to fear it.
Because always, at the end of every story, their mother or father had finished the story by saying, "The Fourth Hokage, a hero who loved his village and who was loved by the village, was able to protect us.
At the cost of his life, he defeated the Nine-tails so that the future generation ... so that you, could in turn grow up to be fine shinobi and continue protecting Konoha." With a kiss to their forehead, and a click as the light turned off, they had always fallen asleep with smiles on their faces and dreams of becoming the next hero to save their village.
But a strange, sly smile stretched across Mizuki-sensei's face as he heard the student's question.
"Well," he said, "the Fourth certainly...dealt with it for us. And that is why he is today, a hero." The chūnin bowed his head downwards in a show of respect, and all the students automatically copied his gesture. However, just before Naruto obediently complied, Mizuki tilted his head and glanced in his direction.
And for a moment, Naruto thought that the chūnin's eyes had lingered on him with a cold glint. But an instant later Mizuki's gaze moved on to look fondly over the students. After a moment's hesitation, Naruto thought it more likely the fault of his overactive paranoia: Mizuki-sensei had treated him fairly over the past year, and seemed to bear no ill will against him. It wouldn't do for him to poison the opinion of his instructor, when he had so little support as it was.
As he lowered his head, Naruto wondered briefly what Mizuki-sensei had meant by 'dealt.' He hadn't directly answered the student's question – could that mean that the Nine-tails was still alive and roaming the wilderness? Naruto's head hurt at the possibility, and he instantly dismissed it.
The Fourth had been too great a man to have simply chased the beast away. He would have dealt with it in the best way possible for the village. And what else could that be, but to kill such an untamable monster?
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