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Pain was always the first thing to return.
What hit me? Yuto thought blearily, bringing a hand to rest on his throbbing forehead. The moment it touched, the floodgates opened. Waves of pain crashed into him that would've driven him to his knees were he not already sitting down.
"Aaaaahhhh," he gasped, falling forward reflexively. He bolted up a moment later, white hot fire in his ribs necessitating nothing less.
Yuto blinked, his memories reasserting themselves.
A routine mission near the border of Earth Country, leading his three genin.
A warning; the slightest pricking of his heightened senses.
A blur of darkness stark against the red-brown steppes.
"How's it?" a nearby voice drawled. Or was it growled? He could hardly tell with his head throbbing as it was.
Yuto still nearly jumped out of his seat, the sudden motion sending a fresh flood of pain through him. His head snapped up regardless and he ignored the pounding in favor of trying – finally – to assess the situation. Stupid, he chided himself. You're already on the back foot.
A blond man – younger, he's not tall enough – leaned against the stone wall of the room he was trapped in, half shrouded in shadow. The black blur, he confirmed, for everything the boy wore was black; from the tips of his sandals to his thick belt, loose gi, and the half mask covering the bottom part of his face. The shock of pale blond hair atop his head stood out like a beam of sunlight after dark by contrast.
"If you've finished staring at me…" the boy began in a guttural voice that sent Yuto's head spinning. "I've got a couple questions for you."
Violet eyes pinned him in place, a quiet fury in them belying the boy's almost lazy tone.
"What do you want?" Yuto whispered, feeling his heartrate spike. He shuffled in his seat, trying to avoid the violet stare. I'm not in chains, he realized belatedly.
"Nothing you won't be prepared to give," the blur growled.
Yuto managed to withhold a flinch, his faculties returning at long-last. You're a jonin, get ahold of yourself! he commanded. He froze. Where's my team!? The thought clattered through his head, shocking reason and protocol back into him.
A prisoner's first duty was to escape.
A prisoner could only repeat their name and rank.
A prisoner could say nothing about their mission, their comrades, or their village.
A prisoner's final duty was to die.
"Nagatomo Yuto: jonin," he said at length, doing his best to remove all semblance of emotion from his voice.
The violet eyes rolled, though they appeared no less furious. "Oh this's what we're doing here?" The boy sighed, though it came out more like a hiss. "Nagatomo Yuto: jonin of Iwagakure. Sensei to Shibasaki Gatu, Ando Kozue, and Ariyoshi Saori. Returning from a C-ranked escort mission in Grass Country commissioned by Kagawa Shinji. Enough intel for you?"
Yuto blinked, momentarily stunned by the brief deluge of information that no one outside Iwa's mission office and Kagawa-san himself should know. He shook himself a moment later. "Nagatomo Yuto: jonin," he repeated.
"Typical," the blond muttered. A burst of killing intent smacked Yuto across the face, knocking the air out of his lungs as sudden vertigo gripped him. He managed to control his gag reflex in time to hold back vomit, barely. "You're all the same. So much loyalty," the last word was spat like a curse. Yuto blinked his eyes open to see black sandals standing directly in front of him. He started as a small hand fisted itself in his hair. "Kai."
Yuto felt his chakra stutter for a moment as the boy stepped back, revealing a nightmare made reality. His team stared out at the world with horrified eyes, and the sound of hissing made his heart drop to the floor. A snake was curled about each of his students, each one as thick around as his waist. They coiled and uncoiled lazily around his team, the genin's visible shivers of terror not registering in the slightest.
Kozue stared at him, her naked terror pleading with him. Gatu had his eyes locked on their captor, wide and almost disbelieving at the situation. It was Saori that hurt the most; her gaze turned downcast after the genjutsu was lifted, utterly resigned to whatever fate awaited them.
Unbridled fury gripped Yuto. He exploded up from his chair, heedless of the pain, calling his still-free chakra to crush his foolish blond captor–
And barely had a moment to process a sudden pain in his sternum and a brief moment of weightlessness before his back crashed into a wall of solid stone with enough force to crack it. "Uuugh," he groaned, sliding to the floor as fire spread through his chest He blinked once, and felt a vice grip close about his neck. He reached to claw at it impotently, gasping for breath despite the pain, and was unceremoniously lifted in the air.
Violet eyes stared up at him, and if they had been furious before now they were positively livid.
"Strike one," the blond growled. "They must not teach you how to use those thick heads of yours up in Iwa."
He's not using chakra. The realization pierced the haze of panic and pain clouding Yuto's mind. He was a sensor-type; there had been no surge, no rush, and no output of chakra – even now – as the boy effortlessly held him overhead. What is he!?
He dropped back to the stone floor with a thump that set his nerve endings aflame, all the pain that had been in his body before seemingly magnified. Yuto sucked in air like a man dying of thirst, uncaring of the fire in his ribs. "You're lucky I'm in a good mood," the black-clad blond told him, walking back towards his poor, terrified genin. Yuto tried to muster something, anything, to show them they could still make it out of this, but felt himself quail at the immediate memory of being body slammed the moment he had tried to break them free. "Normally I'd have killed one of these three for that dumbass move. Be doing 'em a favor if you're the best Iwa's got for jonin sensei. They let anybody teach genin these days, I swear."
Yuto stared balefully at the boy – who might well have been younger than his students if not for that voice and those eyes – seeing underneath the underneath for the first time since he'd awoken. He's playing you like a goddamn fiddle. He'd been easily provoked into a reckless attack, only been left unbound with his chakra loose to prove a point.
This boy, this monster, was the one in charge here.
His reserves are massive, Yuto noticed, aware enough finally to feel the rivers upon lakes upon oceans of energy lying in wait just below the surface of his captor. His eyes cut to the three snakes restraining his genin, feeling himself go cold. The list of known snake summoners was short, and last he checked Orochimaru wasn't a blond teenager.
"Uzumaki Naruto," he breathed, his beleaguered mind filling in the gaps from a jonin intelligence briefing a year previous. A-ranked nuke-nin… "What d'you want?"
"Finally ready to chat, huh?" Violet eyes glittered, some dark amusement managing to coexist alongside the barely bridled malice. He reached into his back pocket and Yuto tensed involuntarily, only to pull out a…deck of cards?
The blond sifted through them, the cards blurring for a moment, before plucking one seemingly at random from the pile. He deposited the rest of the deck back into his pocket and held the single card up. Yuto sensed an infinitesimal application of chakra, and managed to catch the card on reflex alone as it cut through the air towards his face.
He blinked, staring down at the face of his former sensei. "Haraguchi Shibito," Naruto said unnecessarily. Familiar, scowling eyes stared back at Yuto. His old sensei's beard was a scraggly as ever. "Former elite jonin and A-ranked nuke-nin from Iwa."
Yuto scoffed. "If you're after the Yonbi you're outta luck," he said. He tossed the card back contemptuously and Naruto snatched it from the air with ease. "He always hated his brother."
It was the blonde's turn to scoff. "Understatement right there. Nah, I don't care about Roshi. I just want Shibito. Everything you've got on him," Naruto said, his gravelly voice somehow relaxed. "You can start with his last known location."
"What does a Konoha traitor want with an Iwa nuke-nin?" Yuto heard himself ask.
"Thought I was the one asking the questions…" Naruto said, eyes narrowing. Yuto managed to hold the gaze, refusing to flinch. The blond shrugged. "Well, Shibito ain't your average traitor, is he?" the blond drawled. He had returned to his original post in the shadows, leaning casually against the stone. "One of the Tsuchikage's favorites." And was that actual bitterness in the boy's voice? "Not your normal nuke-nin. Got a pretty good deal, if you ask me. Not everyone can just up and walk away over – how d'you say – philosophical differences."
Yuto kept his face carefully blank, memories of his sensei a rising tide he struggled to keep at bay. Naruto chuckled. "Yeah, I know that whole story, so you don't hafta worry about giving up Iwa secrets. I know a whole lotta things, so don't bother tryna lie either. Cause…well…" The blond sent a meaningful glance toward the three immobilized genin.
"Why do you want to know about him?" Yuto asked, voice carefully modulated. Killing intent knocked the air from his lungs once more, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to fall backwards at a blow that felt almost physical given its potency.
"Nothing about Iwa," Naruto told him as if nothing had happened. Short steps carried the blond to where Yuto was slumped and he crouched down to eye level. The boy's head cocked to the side – he's fifteen, the Iwa jonin finally remembered with horror – peering out with eyes that promised nothing but pain. "Just wanna ask him a few questions, same as you. He works for an organization I'm…investigating."
Yuto cast his eyes toward his students, the final piece of the puzzle clicking into place. "Akatsuki," he whispered.
"Mhmm. You brokered a deal between them and Iwa didn't you, Yuto?" Naruto asked rhetorically. "Reached out to your old sensei to contract some services a couple years ago when old-man Tsuchikage was in a bit of a pinch. Big stuff, that. Kinda thing that'll get you promoted to jonin, hmm?"
Sudden hissing snatched Yuto's attention. His eyes cut to his students, only to see each of the three snakes shifting to place their mouths directly next to each genin's head. Tongues flitted out, tasting the air and barely touching each of the three teens' faces. At their whimpering, Yuto felt whatever was left of his resolve crumble to dust.
"What do you want to know?"
Violet eyes gleamed as Naruto answered with a grin feral enough to be seen through his mask.
/~/