Disarm
Chapter Five

*

Orochimaru sat at his desk, eyes open but blind. He did not even remember the steaming cup of coffee in front of him, perched on his new bureau - he had ended up breaking the other one into splinters. He leaned back heavily.

It had been a stupid, stupid mistake.

He had returned there, and as Konoha gained Naruto, Orochimaru lost his chance.

He closed his eyes remorsefully. He should have collected those herbs himself. He had just wanted to lull the boy into a false sense of security, let him think he had a scrap of freedom. And look what that had brought! He should have waited. He should have locked Naruto up like -

His eyes opened suddenly --

Perhaps not all was lost.

The man’s eyes narrowed, and he sat up quickly, liquidly. A few seconds and key beats later, the encryption was dissolving and he booted another program to automatically sift through the pieces of code. Strings and queries flashed before him.

He grabbed the phone, dialed a number, and waited two rings before the other end picked up.

“Sir?”

“Kabuto,” Orochimaru nearly purred. “How is my school coming along?”

“Well, sir. The survivors have been delightfully obedient. They are progressing well.”

“How soon will they be stable?”

“I would give it another week, sir.”

“Any… special cases?”

“A good few, sir. No doubt they will be useful to you.”

Orochimaru felt himself become almost sinfully excited. Time was running out, but he’d been fighting it all his life and would never surrender.

*

And so Naruto began to grow.

Initially he had accepted the training with shoulders stiff, yet as the hours passed and he saw the conviction lined along the pursing lips, he began to see clearly.

It had been four days.

The very core of his sessions was, of course, combat. At first invisible stirrings of dawn, he had a crash course in technique with Iruka. They spoke theory and practiced execution in a small training room. Having taught himself to fight, Naruto could only deliver devastating but sloppy blows – It was Iruka’s duty to remedy this. He learned to sense every brush of air against his body as he flew through the exercises, though he had trouble mastering them. At the last possible shred of a moment, his concentration would fail and his limbs miss their mark. But with his growing number of invisible bruises also grew his respect for his first mentor as he corrected him, smooth grace in his exact blows and leaps. Once, Naruto had grinned and asked Iruka when exactly he had taken up ballet as a child. Iruka had kicked him clear across the room. The bruise cleared in three hours, but from that moment on Naruto only had to leer to receive a fresh batch.

With instructions in mind he set out to breakfast, then T07. He practiced hands-on combat for a solid hour with his cell in every man for himself matches, putting to use what he had recently learned. He lacked the finesse Sasuke slid into as he eased from a kick’s path, and his attacks felt like they were plotted by a three year old against Sakura, who would trap him expertly between the rubber pillars. He felt even more shamed when launching at his teacher, fully expecting the calm disappearance and jab to the nape. However, never once did he give in to his creaking limbs. He certainly took more damage than he gave, but each time he was one of the last standing. A few times, when shrouded in desperation and crouching beneath a camouflaged ledge, Naruto breathed in deeper and saw the wide area with crystal clarity. He set off toward his observers with a surprising speed, stunning them, and they’d barely have time to raise an arm to block before being catapulted into one of the padded walls.

He would loudly ignore their gauging eyes as he slid to the floor in a heap, dumping the contents of a water bottle over his head. Iruka tapped his foot impatiently by the training range’s doors, his knees locked but smile free. Naruto would always eagerly return it. Iruka escorted him to his next appointment in the information centre – a slightly more dignified term for the library.

The short hours before lunch flew by with a boy his age named Shikamaru. On top of that surprise was the green jacket the boy dutifully ignored on his own person. Shikamaru, despite his lack of communication skills, still managed to instill in Naruto what Konoha felt he needed to know. Of course, this meant that he simply got a folder lobbed at him and was commanded to read, and ask only important questions when only absolutely necessary. Naruto didn’t mind.

He leafed through the file, knees tapping against the leg of the table. Shikamaru would raise his head to glare sullenly at him, then retreat over his arms.

Naruto learned that Konoha had been established close to six generations ago, as a means for the government to confront and eliminate threats deemed harmful to the public’s awareness. Therefore, despite the undeniable size and power, Konoha’s existence was practically unknown. Though having smaller bases spread throughout the country, their recent focus had called for most of the forces to amass at one of their largest bases, here at the foot of a mountain jeeringly referred to as Olympus - the notes did not identify the official name of the mountain nor its exact whereabouts. This branch, which was not distinguished by name from the others, was under the leadership of Sir Tsunade – who in turn answered to her superior, the hand behind the entire Konoha organization: a man simply referred to as Sarutobi. Naruto read with astonishment that Sarutobi operated alongside the government, not necessarily for it. Yet most shocking of all, Naruto discovered that every first-world country possessed their own version of Konoha. A few allied nations had pledged to lend their own forces to the cause should the threat – the group called Akatsuki – grow too much for Konoha to handle. One of such was the affiliated organization by the name of Suna, from the country over to the west. The notes seemed to bitingly suggest that this was only because Konoha was temporarily housing one of Suna’s soldiers, and desperately wanted him back on friendly terms.

Here the notes grew less specific. The threat itself was a renegade group of scientists by the name of Akatsuki, who referred to themselves the ‘Gods’ of Olympus. Their origins were unspecified and only appeared as a threat once word of horrendous creatures attacking towns near the mountain surfaced to the government. Konoha had immediately moved to pinpoint and enclose the source of the matter, finally locking Akatsuki on their mountain. Many months had been spent building proper offence and defense, as well as trying to defend from and dissect the mutated creatures that had at first prowled near the base. There was nothing else written on Akatsuki save for the composition research on their intent and work. The information gleaned from them implied that they were after what every super villain craved – power, and lots of it. The file dictated that they had found this enchanted mountain and used its temperance to their own advantage, collecting large animals from all over the world to warp and mutate them into “Guards” – brutes that would attack without command. Their exact means to world domination was not clearly defined, but suggested that Akatsuki was using the Guards to wipe out minor threats, and were breeding something far more powerful to pitch against their worst opponent: Konoha. Hence the never ending flurry of objectives and training, not to mention the urgency, Naruto realized. He began to soften his opinion of Tsunade.

Here Shikamaru would shift and flap a hand at the woman who was boring holes into the back of Naruto’s head. He muttered something that sounded like “bother” and “train”, and the woman in charge of the information centre narrowed her eyes and stalked off.

Naruto leaned into the pages upon pages of information again, eyes locking on the document labeled “Guards”. Reading further, Naruto felt a sense of dread and a chill that had nothing to do with the ever-present cold creep upon him. The beasts-to-become-creations were apparently gathered long before Konoha settled here to confront Akatsuki, so the number of creatures were either dwindling or were only a small portion of what still lay in store. The creatures were experimented on and injected with rabid blood, among other slow-acting maddening poisons. Certain creatures had their brains dissected and portions of it sloppily removed, leaving behind dreadful killing machines too stupid to do anything other than attack on sight. At least, this is all the scientists could discover before decomposition took place.

This did not sit well with Naruto. If they were mindless machines, how did they know to avoid the base and vehicles?

And, unbidden, came forth the image of a single rotting muzzle lying in the snow, the decrepit tongue still attached and pale purple, the jagged teeth yellow behind the snowflakes.

Shikamaru looked up at Naruto’s choked sound, but lowered his head slightly when Naruto grinned abashedly. He didn’t wait to hear an excuse and lay down again.

Naruto gripped the papers tighter, on the verge of warping them, and kept reading. No live Guard had ever been able to be taken into captivity. The creatures would decompose at alarming rates once dead, with the hard flesh flaking off or somehow eating itself, and tendons shrunk loose and its organs fell apart or out of the body completely. One case described a wolf-like Guard vomiting its own lung, swimming on the concrete in reeking blood. When quarantined to be examined, a Guard carcass would be reduced to cracked bones and shreds of appendages within two days. On one occasion a cell had literally run over a Guard that was already dead, with no telling marks other than frostbite. The notes volunteered the possibility of this being one of the prototypes, or that all Guards had limited life spans. Given the extreme conditions and lack of any shelter or food outside, both options were just as likely. This meant that absolutely no headway was being made into the nature of the Guards at all.

This indeed made Naruto’s head whirl with the beginnings of questions, but he could not clarify them. All he knew was that there was much, much more to be resolved than the folder could offer.

Shikamaru watched Naruto’s teeth clench and stood up slowly, demanding the folder back. It’s contents were no secret, but it was still classified stuff, he explained. Naruto handed them over and stuck out a tongue at him, asking how they could make him read this stuff right before lunch.

They traveled to the cafeteria together, where they were joined by Iruka. Naruto felt slightly cheered despite himself to note that he could now recognize a few faces flocking around the tables. And his education did not stop during meals - he learned about the satellite dead zone that Olympus, and, consequently, Konoha was locked inside of. Special order cables had been laid from the nearest output, but the operation had taken nearly a month of extreme labor and defense – the Guards had been especially vicious during the procedure. However, the landline still did not always work. A few times a crew had to be sent out to dig out and repair the massive mangled tube, damaged by either frost or claw. The news of this isolation came a surprise to Naruto, who hadn’t really thought about it that way before – that he was indeed locked inside a military base with no option of escape or any hope of outside communication. His throat closed up. Not that he had anyone he would wish to call, or a place he could run to. But Iruka sighed and threw a napkin at his face, and Naruto couldn’t help feel slightly cheered and grin past the food on his chin.

“Hey, ‘Ruka,” Naruto once asked.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. “No, Naruto, we don’t have any videogames here.”

Naruto made a motion of throwing his knife at him. “Shut up, lazy ass. Wasn’t talking to you.”

Iruka made the face of a martyr as he sipped his tea. “What is it, Naruto?”

“I was just wondering, how’d you all come to work in this place?”

Shikamaru pushed his food aside to make room for his head and Iruka frowned at him before turning back to Naruto. “Well, it’s difficult to say. Most people here have worked for Konoha all their lives, like their parents did before them. This… duty is kind of like a heirloom, always passed on. …Still, some children can choose to lead normal civilian lives. Then again, some people, like you, are recruited for their – ah - skills.” Iruka smiled uneasily.

Naruto bit into his lunch and hoped they hadn’t put these other recruits through as much shit as they did for him.

After lunch Naruto was led off to the shooting range for further training – weaponry and artillery, with a girl slightly older than him named TenTen. Her name and hairstyle amused him at first, but when she actually threw a pistol with unnerving accuracy at his head Naruto yelped and retracted his earlier opinion. On the first session TenTen taught Naruto the basic of basics - how to handle the small weapon, and how to aim. He was horrible at it, not able to get the hang of reloading. What took TenTen a few fluid seconds took Naruto a clumsy thirty. Still, eventually it came to him. She was boastful and demanding, but still helpful, and Naruto walked out from that fist session with a powerful tingle in his fingers. By the third session she promised he would be able to operate the Humvees soon, and the tingle had spread to his entire being.

The last portion of his day found Naruto again entertaining his cell’s company. At first they would complete small tasks like washing the tables in the cafeteria (Naruto had nearly thrown his bottle of cleaner at Kakashi when he found out, Sakura had actually agreed with him and Sasuke glared at the corner of the room) but once the menial objectives were done, they would continue to train together. They all noted how drastically Naruto improved from just that morning, especially Naruto himself. He was starting to recognize his cell’s movements and trademark approaches to combat. Their teamwork continued to grow, and faced with Naruto’s undaunted stubbornness, Sasuke and Sakura evolved slightly as well. By the time dinner crept around, Naruto would be teasing Sakura from the ceiling as she threatened his future children, and Sasuke would snidely remark that the training ropes he clung to were not built to resist the weight of Naruto’s stupidity. They were all too fatigued to actually follow through with any threats, and at dinner Naruto couldn’t help but grin widely when seated with them all. Even if Sakura did edge away from him in disgust when he accidentally spewed noodles on her, and Kakashi always tried to feed him something ‘slightly more nourishing’ - some kind of vegetables that had too many spikes on them and smelled pretty repugnant. And Sasuke gave him calculated looks that flickered away instantly when Naruto caught them.

The first day of training had done something to Naruto’s psyche. For the first time in his life he felt capable… and used, perhaps, but appreciated. It did not bother him as he thought it would. By the fourth day, Naruto felt something else.

It was on the fifth day that what Naruto had hoped would become routine was brought to a halt.

“No more training?” Naruto asked, stunned.

The eggs spilled from his fork, centimeters from his mouth, to his lap. “But – w, what –“

Kakashi gave him a disapproving eye. “Let me finish, Naruto. I never said we would discontinue your training. Actually, we are increasing it.”

“But – you said –“

“I said there would be no more afternoon cell training. Instead, now that you have already advanced to the level of intermediate, we will be accompanying you throughout all your training sessions. But now, during your block before dinner, you will be undergoing… specialized training.”

Naruto leaned back on his chair, breakfast forgotten, sweat drying on his brow. Special… “Is this the special forces thinger you were talking about?”

Kakashi cocked his head to the side in amusement. “Yes, it is. Report after Artillery to S12, in the grey hallway.” He nodded with finality and took his leave, leaving Naruto to study his retreating figure.

Special forces…

*

Room S12 was as unimpressive as they could get – plain white walls, uninteresting beige tiles and some chairs by a counter with a sink and cupboards.

And, save for Naruto, it was empty.

Naruto growled as he paced the room, wishing Kakashi and whatever mystery no-good no-show teacher many painful deaths. He had progressed in weapons training and was now able to handle the MKs with passable skill, and itched to continue to learn. He was wasting time. His shoulder hurt. He hadn’t had time to go to the bathroom. And fuck it all, he was cold.

The door opened with a click and Naruto whirled around, accusations already in his throat. But -- they never made it out.

His lips were in a tight line of cold calculation. His hair was a strange shade of brown, almost touching on red, and was wild and spiky despite the short length. His skin was a darker shade as well, weathered and bronze, visible beneath the fishnet sleeves.

Though the heavy application of kohl around his eyes did a lot to hide the purple and tight skin underneath, the weariness still leaked through and spoke silent volumes. The pupils themselves were a dark, unforgiving brown that cut through Naruto like a scalpel.

Something in them flickered.

But this was not what made Naruto’s throat close up.

It was the sudden pressure on every surface of his body, like he was being held down while pulled in every direction. It was the growl building low within him, the tensing of his shoulders, and the red haze hindering his vision. It was something familiar and overwhelming.

It was the voice in his head.

And cutting in, another voice - “Fight it,” the boy said.

Naruto stumbled back, his mind’s eye a flaring red, his own inner voice shrieking no no no. But he pushed it down, and there was a maddened, diminishing roar, then it was over. It only took Naruto a few more seconds to rein in his shivers and frizzled thoughts before he could ignore the static in the room.

The other boy’s fingers were trembling faintly.

“Who are you,” Naruto hissed, his head close to splitting. He resisted the urge to cradle it in his hands and whimper. The boy was a few centimeters shorter than him, but did not need to raise his chin to meet Naruto’s heavy eyes. They flared again.

“One,” was all he said.

Naruto felt slight tremors in his upper back and stomach. Yet before he could react any further, the door was flung violently open.

A thunderous voice cried out, “WHOA, WHOA, BOYS! LET’S NOT break anyyy… …huh?”

A moment passed.

Jiraiya gaped at them. Naruto gaped at Jiraiya. The boy did nothing.

Naruto easily found his voice first. “Old Pervert!” He practically screeched, finger pointing in disbelief. Thoughts scattered from his mind. “What are you doing here?!”

The large, white-haired man scowled at him. “I work here.”

“What –“

“-So why aren’t you guys fighting? I felt a flare of energy earlier.”

The other boy looked at Jiraiya in distaste. “He wasn’t ready, but he managed to control it. Perhaps if you had been on time as required of you, he would have been better prepared.”

Jiraiya didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed as he waved a hand in dismissal. “I was held up by a sweet young woman who needed guidance in the ways of-“

“You were harassing some chick weren’t you!” Naruto cut in.

Jiraiya scowled. “Nonsense! I had her full consent to show her back to her room!”

The other boy in the room did not speak, but a deep breath was enough to redirect the quarrelers’ attentions.

“Oh, yeah. So you’ve met Gaara of Suna. Pleasant boy isn’t he,” Jiraiya said dryly, unmindful of said boy’s piercing gaze. “Gaara, this is Naruto. You are both Carriers.”

Naruto blinked, remembering… He and Gaara eyed each other again, and with Naruto’s sudden understanding came a twinkling of fear. The pressure in the room was stifling.

“You too….” He hissed, mostly to himself, but Gaara lowered his head slightly in a minute nod.

“Has that leak of energy… ever… happened before?” Jiraiya said softly.

Naruto looked aside. “Once,” he said. He had wanted to whisper. He had wanted to not say anything at all.

“…Was it provoked by another Carrier?”

Naruto had to laugh despite himself. “No.”

For another moment, there was silence.

“Well,” Jiraiya cleared his throat. “Okay, we won’t push that. For now – for as long as it takes, we’ll be helping you cultivate your… power.”

Naruto shuddered indistinctly.

Your… power.

Naruto shook his head and looked up to the man. “Hey, so you’ve been working here the entire time, Old Pervert?”

The man frowned but shrugged. “Yeah and no, I have connections to this place, but I just got here this morning. Took me all day and night to get here. Stupid bloody mountain,” he muttered the last part a little more quietly, though Naruto saw how Gaara’s eyes narrowed, just barely.

“So why are you here now?”

Jiraiya started to look a little annoyed. “Money doesn’t grow from trees, son. And - well, you’re here for a special reason, kid. Makes sense to cultivate that reason. I’m not a Carrier but I have a little sixth sense, so we figured you could use a little… stable help to train it.” He said, glancing at Gaara.

Naruto’s eyes grew wide. “Sixth sense? That kind of stuff is real?”

“Of course it’s real,” Gaara bit off, suddenly impatient and tense. “Obviously you’ve-“

Something jolted Naruto, and he interrupted. “Wait! Jiraiya! Orochimaru… does he – has he always known? That – something inside me…”

Jiraiya said nothing, his stance shifting but eyes steadily trained on him.

Naruto waited, to no avail. No one said anything. He felt the urge to sigh. All these questions, all these loose ends. He felt as though he was in some kind of drama. After all, only a few days had passed since he had accepted all this stuff as real.

His musings were cut off as Jiraiya stalked past them to stand in the back of the room. Naruto felt his brain cringe as more questions revolted in his brain, but they halted when Jiraiya addressed them both: “I would like to see you two fight.”

Naruto’s mouth hung agape.

Gaara said, “Very well.”

And that force - that lingering pressure – finally exploded where Naruto had stood one second earlier. He could not even call it instinct, couldn’t call it foresight – his body had just moved, and he only realized it once he was flat on his ass, staring at the crater in the tiles.

Gaara gazed at him with interest. He had not even shifted.

“What the he-!” Naruto started to cry, but his body violently twisted and he found himself rolling away. This time he heard the cracking and shuddering of the floor and the ceramic shards embedded themselves in his arm and upper torso. He felt their entry but no pain.

He quickly rolled to his feet. They were both regarding him silently.

Finally it clicked. Naruto’s remaining rage erupted from the volcano of his frustration, and he launched himself at Gaara. The boy glided back liquidly, and Naruto’s fist missed its mark - but he brought his other fist up mid-fall and felt Gaara’s jawbone creak beneath his knuckles. Gaara’s head snapped backward while his arm flew forward to his neck and knocked Naruto to the side. Naruto landed painfully but sprung up in an instant, watching Gaara and massaging his throat. His opponent had managed to stop his fall, but as he was working his jaw Naruto saw a bead of red appear at the corner of his lips.

Time stood still as Gaara wiped up the small trickle with something akin to surprise. His eyes slowly rose to meet Naruto’s wild ones.

And released a roar.

He did not move but the air around Naruto shattered, turning into itself. Before he could have time to prepare, invisible shards fought into his skin and Naruto felt as though he was encased in a coffin of pain. His legs barely managed to keep him upright but Naruto would not have noticed even if he fell. All that mattered was the solid layer all around him, pulling at his flesh to find purchase in his very bones, his mind going white --

IMPUDENT FOOL

His mind flared as the sensation from before swiftly returned. Naruto recognized it and latched on to it, struggling to remain conscious and aware of the situtation. Dimly he could sense the presence of the others and fuck this, he just wanted to --

Accept me

A trickle of red dripped through his vision, and aprubtly the force behind the pressure combusted, and fire laced through him. As it rippled out it melted the needles of pain and seemed to rip out from his very skin, burning hot but growing and growing, and they had hurt him so Naruto saw no reason to stop it…

YES. LET THEM SEE JUST WHO THEY THINK THEY ARE TOYING WITH - LET THEM BURN AND ANSWER TO ME IN HELL - LET THEM BURN.

The fire grew, tentacles of flame reaching closer.

…NO.

Instantly Naruto’s vision returned, the red melting away. He struggled inside himself to find this source of power and contain it, when all of a sudden there was a flare of energy from the other side of the room. As the red flare rushed to meet Gaara, the air around him crackled and suddenly became tangible, fortifying and enclosing Gaara in what Naruto desperately hoped was safety.

Red crashed into Gaara’s shield, eating away the outermost layers in under a second. Naruto stretched out the confines of his mind, projecting out the need to STOP IT, SAVE HIM and the red vanished as his mind touched it.

Instantly, the pressure dissipated into thin air.

Naruto would have thought he had imagined it all, if Gaara and himself were not facing off, gasping for breath atop piles of debris. A soft noise sounded beside him, and he saw small rivulets of blood sneaking down his arm, wounding around his fingers, and falling to the rubble on the floor. He knew he should not have been able to hear it. He felt extra sensitive, every muscle in his tense frame announcing itself, feeling the air itself lapping against him. He did not object when it gently probed against him, then retreated. He felt calmer and more clear-headed than he ever had since his arrival here.

“So now I see…” a soft breath came from behind him.

Naruto slowly turned his head to see Jiraiya watching him, casually leaning by the door. His eyes never left Naruto’s own.

“Good work, Gaara.”

Naruto’s head clicked into place as he turned to observe the other boy. He was completely winded, but aside from blood leaking through his lips and looking disheveled, he bore no other marks of the surrealism they had evoked.

Ah.

“You were testing me,” Naruto said slowly.

A sigh. “…It had to be done. The force inside you does not react to mere physical assaults.” Jiraiya answered softly.

But Gaara’s lips tightened, and Naruto knew he had provoked the boy to further heights with his punch to the jaw. Truthfully, it had landed harder than Naruto normally allowed, but he had been beyond anger -- and his wrath nearly killed them.

“You’re going to help me control it?” Naruto asked. He was proud that he did not shake. He took in Gaara’s condition, remembered how – amazingly - he had called upon the power to protect himself at will.

He also remembered that day many, many years ago.

Naruto breathed in deep. “Can you…. even do such a thing?”

Gaara hunched over slightly, but replied eventually. “Yes. With application, it can be done.”

Something about the tone gave him pause. Naruto saw the dark rimmed eyes and understood. This boy, too, had suffered.

Jiraiya’s voice broke into his thoughts, amused. “Hey, didn’t I tell you boys not to break anything? Damn it, now that drunkard of a woman is going to be on my ass for damages…”

Naruto almost smiled. He was about to turn his head around to yell at the old man again when a flash caught his eye. At the farthest corner of the room, mounted on the corner of the ceiling and the wall, rested a small black orb.

Minute and barely visible, the red light blinked again.

*

To Be Continued