It was a blindingly exhausted pair of genin who dragged themselves through the door of their cottage. After visiting Naruto, Anko had insisted they go back to training—specifically, waterwalking while simultaneously detecting and defeating genjutsu that Anko would periodically cast on them. Just to spice things up, she would occasionally throw shuriken at them or attack with taijutsu and expect them to kawarimi out of the way.

All three of them took a moment to drink water and then Anko pulled them into the main room for debriefing. They knelt in seiza before her, waiting expectantly for Anko's criticism.

"Not bad," Anko said, giving them both a small nod. "Still plenty of work to do, but not bad. You got much faster at kawarimi and you did okay with detecting and defeating the genjutsu." She flicked her gaze to Hinata and gave a millimetrically deeper nod. "Your use of the Byakugan to spot the incorrect ripples on the water behind you was good. Shino, I was impressed with the way you used your allies; I didn't realize you'd told them to fly predetermined patterns so that you could spot the difference once you were in the genjutsu. Be aware that I'll get it the next time though, so you'll need to change it up.

"So, next step," she began, pulling a pair of books out of one of her storage scrolls and tossing them to the genin. "Here's a journal for each of you; I was appalled to find that the Academy didn't have you doing this. Seriously, what sort of idiots are running that place?

"Anyway, start recording the details of each day; keep notes on your training, write down any ideas you have for battle tactics, whatever. Review them every day to remind yourselves of particular movements we practiced in taijutsu or heandseals and visualizations of new jutsu. Consider them top secret; keep them in a scroll, keep the scroll on your body at all times. Don't show them to anyone, not even members of this team. If you want to share some of what you've written, you either pass it on verbally under conditions you are absolutely certain are secure, or you write that section down separately and hand it to them. If someone passes you such a note, you read it under secure conditions and then you destroy it completely—burn it, eat it, whatever." She pointed sternly at both of them to emphasize the point.

"Head to bed," she told them. "Write down today's training and events, then get some sleep. Hinata, turn off your Byakugan for the next twenty minutes so we can write unobserved. If I find out it was on, I'll put you in the hospital for a week. Write fast, both of you; you'll be up early." She gave them another nod and then went into her room and shut the door.

The two genin looked at each other, shrugged, and sat down on opposite sides of the room to write.

Hinata's Byakugan allowed her to see everything within sixty yards, including what her teammate and her sensei were writing. She had intended to turn it off in order to grant them privacy in accord with Anko's orders, but she didn't. When she pointed at them, Anko's other hand had twitched very subtly in Konoha battlecode: 2 overwatch. With that command, Hinata paid careful attention to what Anko was writing in her journal:

Hinata, I'm so sorry. I hate this. I hate treating you like this. This is what Orochimaru did to me; it's horrible, but it works. It will make you strong, unless you break. Please don't break, I need you all to be all right. You were right, this is a good plan; getting you into Orochimaru's service convincingly will be an excellent way to gather information, and will help us all escape, but it doesn't mean I don't hate my part in it. You're doing well, all three of you. I'm so proud to have you as my students.

Assume we're being watched at all times. Even if you can't see anyone, even if Shino's bugs can't find anyone, even if Naruto's clones have a complete perimeter around us, assume we're being watched. I don't know how, but sensei always surprised me before, did things I didn't think were possible. No matter how paranoid you're being, be more paranoid.

I'm going to wake you both up in about three hours. I'll come into your room quietly and start banging pans together right over your heads and kicking you. You should sleep in shifts so that one of you sees me coming and you can be awake before I come in. I won't let you eat breakfast. When we have lunch it will be dosed with a strong nausea-inducing drug. You'll both be puking for hours unless you can convincingly spot me putting it in, in which case you won't eat. No matter what, I can't let up; we'll start with taijutsu and I'll beat both of you as badly as I did today, then make you do simultaneous waterwalking and jutsu practice while I throw poisonous snakes at you. The only rest I can give you is to work with one of you at a time on academic topics while the other is assigned to do intense strength- and endurance-building. Less than perfect performance on the academics will be punished harshly, so you'll need to focus.

Again: all three of you are brilliant, and I'm so very proud of you. I hope this can end soon.

Anko closed her journal, sealed it in a scroll, and put the scroll in her flak jacket. She unsealed a ninja field alarm; it used a timing seal and a tiny lightning jutsu to shock the user awake without noise or light. She hooked it to her finger, set the alarm for three hours, rolled onto her pallet, and seemed to fall immediately into sleep. Only the Byakugan allowed Hinata to see the tears rolling down her teacher's cheeks.

o-o-o-o

Naruto dreamed.

In his dream he once again floated in the darkness, comfortable and safe. Slowly he once again drifted downwards until once again found himself upon the stone pillar with the Fox seated before him.

"Hello, Naruto," Kurama said. Unlike last time there was no mockery in his voice.

Naruto looked at him suspiciously. "Hello, Kurama," he said. "Why are you suddenly so polite?"

Kurama shrugged. "The last time you were here I was angry. I'd been locked away in this room, alone, with nothing to see but stone walls, nothing to hear except myself, nothing at all to smell." He paused, head cocked in reflection. "I think it was the absence of scent that was the worst," he said. "Foxes are not like humans. Our noses are vastly better, and we rely on them more. Scent is different from vision; when a person leaves a place you see nothing of the person, but you can scent them for minutes, sometimes hours. The world's history is engraved in its scents; you smell layers of the past as well as the present. Being deprived of scent is very...difficult. It makes the world seem so narrow. When you opened the window for me, I could smell again. Not much, because I'm limited to your senses, but some. I can't tell you what a relief it was.

"The other reason I was angry is that I'd been alone here for so long. When I was first placed inside her, your mother and I were friends, and she left the window open for me. We had a falling out, and she closed the window and locked me away for a decade. I would get the outside while she used my power, or a occasional flashes here and there when she wasn't paying attention, but mostly I was alone and nearly blind."

Kurama looked away in embarrassment. "I'm afraid that when I got out I was, ah...rather furious, and I kicked over a couple houses. Then every ninja in the village started firing jutsu at me and I fought back." He shrugged. "Not my proudest moment, I admit.

"At the end of the battle I was sealed into you and you kept me locked away for twelve more years. I assumed you were doing it deliberately, and it made me even more furious. After your visit and your willingness to open the window, I realized that I was wrong. You kept me alone down here from ignorance, not from cruelty."

Kurama's face worked in what would have been a rueful smile if he'd been human. "I do apologize for my terrible manners on our previous meeting. I'd like to make it up to you, if I may."

"How?" Naruto asked.

"I'm literally older than your world, child," Kurama said, his tongue lolling out in a vulpine grin. "I remember what it was like to watch this planet coalesce from cosmic dust. I remember what it was like to be the Ten-Tails, the most powerful creature in existence barring a few of the gods. The Sage of Six Paths tore me apart and forced the various parts into the nine jinchuriki, but I still remember. Not all of my jinchuriki have kept me imprisoned in solitary. I've seen more than you can imagine, and I know more than any human alive. History, people, knowledge of every human art, secrets of the gods and the demons...and, of course, jutsu."

Naruto perked up at that. "Jutsu?" he asked. "Like what?"

"Well, for a start, your father's signature move," the Fox said. "I was locked into Kushina for her entire life, and she left me a window for much of it. I saw most of her marriage, and I watched your father create the Rasengan. I'd be willing to show it to you as an apology for my execrable attitude on our previous meeting."

Naruto frowned. "Wait...the Rasengan was the Fourth Hokage's technique. Are you saying the Fourth Hokage was my father?"

Kurama blinked in surprise. "Well, yes," he said. "You didn't know?"

"Of course I didn't know!" Naruto shot back. "How would I know?! No one ever talked to me about my past, except to tell me that my parents died sealing you into me and Kushina was my mother!"

Kurama frowned. "But...the monument," he said. "I mean, Minato's face is right there...you never looked at it and noticed how much you look like him?"

Naruto stared, open-mouthed. "I do?" he said.

Kurama nodded. "Of course. When you get back to Konoha, look at it and you'll see. You need to grow into your face a bit, but it's already obvious."

Naruto sat down, stunned and gaping.

"My father...," he said. "I know who my father was." He blinked. "And he was the Fourth Hokage...?"

Kurama nodded. "Yes," he said. He paused, studying Naruto carefully. "Would you like me to tell you about him?" he asked tentatively. "I'm not sure if that would be better or worse than not knowing, but I'd be happy to if you want to know."

Naruto's eyes locked to those of the ancient bijuu and he nodded frantically. "Yes!" he said. "Yes, please! Tell me!"

Kurama nodded. "All right," he said. "Well, let's see. He and Kushina met back in 1093; she arrived in Konoha and was put into Minato's class at the Academy despite being four years older. She was brilliant, but not quite as much of a genius as he was; he graduated in a year, she took two. I wasn't there to see him test out, of course—I heard about it third hand later, so it's possible that I've got that wrong."

He lay down and started to grow, then stopped and looked up at Naruto. "I don't suppose I could convince you to give me a pillar of my own, could I? Talking to someone who's different in size is a little disconcerting."

Naruto nodded and gestured. A pillar of stone grew up next to his own; Kurama shrank as it did until he was only slightly larger than a normal fox. "Ahhh, thank you," he said, stretching out. "Maybe a pillow?" he asked hopefully. "The stone isn't exactly comfortable."

Naruto smiled and a dog bed grew under Kurama, lifting him up. The Fox rolled on his back and wriggled with a happy sigh. "Ooh, so much nicer. Thank you.

"Anyway, where was I...? Ah, right, your parents' meeting. Let's see..."

Kurama talked for hours, telling Naruto stories about his parents—personal stories, not just history. The way Kushina was always running her fingers through Minato's hair, trying to get it to look like something other than a haystack. The way he liked to cook breakfast for her, but was a terrible cook of anything except eggs and toast—and sometimes not even toast. The flower arrangements that filled their house, and how much Kushina enjoyed creating them—how, whenever she came home grumpy from a bad day, she would make a new arrangement to calm down. How she could actually cook, and usually did. How she always teased Minato with the idea that if she left the cooking to him, they would both starve.

It was the best night Naruto had ever had.

o-o-o-o

"ON YOUR FEET, CADETS!" Anko yelled as she came through the door...only to find both genin already up and dressed. She paused, glaring at them.

"Hmph," she said. "Well, that sucks. I was looking forward to kicking your asses awake. Guess I'll just have to do it on the field. Get out there and start doing doing sets: fifty pushups, fifty crunches, ten laps around the field in one minute or less, repeat. No rests. I'll be there in a few minutes; I'm headed to the hospital to tell Naruto where to meet us if Huge-Balls-san lets him out today. When I get out there, I expect to see you damn well soaked in sweat! Go go go go!"

She shunshined away.

o-o-o-o

It took fifteen minutes to get from the cottage to the training ground at a fast run. Anko arrived thirty minutes after the genin; by the time she did, both genin were, as ordered, soaked in sweat and staggering through their laps.

The taijutsu training was just as brutal as the previous day; Anko targeted kidneys, liver, groin, face, knees, and shoulders as well as continuing to humiliate them with slaps to the face. By the time she finally let up both genin could barely move.

"Hmph," she said with a disparaging sniff. "Pathetic. Not quite as pathetic as yesterday, but still pathetic. Hinata, sets. Shino, seiza. We're doing poisons."

For the next half hour, Anko spouted a rapid-fire description of various poisons: the visual and scent descriptions of the base elements and the prepared appearance, viscocity, ideal application, unworkable applications, miscibility in various liquids, and required storage conditions.

"Got all that, cadet?" she demanded.

"Sensei, yes sensei!" Shino shouted.

"We'll see," his teacher said. From a storage seal she brought out eight small vials and set them in front of him. "Seven poisons, one not," she said. "Pick one, drink it."

Shino looked at the vials. Four of them looked like water, one like honey, and two like wine. Any one of them could contain poisons that caused any combination of vomiting, hallucinations, unconsciousness, pain, or death.

He carefully pulled his sleeves over his hands before he uncapped them so as not to touch the vials with his skin; he remembered the spoons all too well. Eight kikai swirled in and crawled into the bottles; five of them crawled out and flew to Shino. Two of those dropped to the ground before they could reach him. The last three crawled inside his sleeve.

A moment later, Shino reached out, took one of the wine-colored vials—still being careful not to touch the vial with his skin—and drained it. He sat back, looking expectantly as Anko.

"Hmph," Anko said in disappointment. "That's cheating. Smart, but cheating. Good job. Now, repeat back the effects of each poison we covered."

Shino hesitated for a moment, then began reeling off the information.

"Incomplete!" Anko said, slapping Shino in the ear so hard he tumbled a complete roll. "Ricin also induces seizures! Try again!"

It was an extremely long morning.

o-o-o-o

Shortly before lunch, Hinata was running—rather, staggering—through the ninth lap of her current set. Suddenly her head whipped around and her face lit up. "Naruto-kun!" she shouted, running to him and hugging him tight.

Naruto hugged her back, then leaned back just enough that he could cup her face in both hands and kiss her gently on the lips.

"Hi, beautiful," he said with a smile that made her heart flutter. "Miss me?"

Before she could reply Anko was on them. She kicked Hinata in the head with a roundhouse that sent her flying, finished the turn and mule-kicked Naruto in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards.

"Less smooching, more running, princess! And don't you dare break orders again or I'll put you in traction!" Anko yelled. "And you! Squats until you fall over!"

Naruto lay on the ground, staring at her with wide eyes. "Sensei?" he said. "What—"

She blurred to him—not a shunshin, just physical speed too fast for him to respond—and dropped an axe kick on his stomach that left him clutching the impact point and retching.

"Shut your mouth, genin!" she yelled. "You want to keep that hitai-ate? Move your ass or I'll bust you back to cadet like these two losers!"

Naruto pushed himself to his feet as fast as he could, still clutching his stomach, and started doing squats.

"Arms out!" Anko shouted. Naruto extended his arms in front of him. From yet another scroll, Anko unsealed two heavy bags of kunai and looped the drawstrings over his wrists. Naruto's arms dipped as as the weight hit, but he brought them back level and held them as he continued the squats.

Anko spun on her other two students. "You two! Handstand pushups! Count 'em off!" she ordered. They immediately went vertical and started pumping them out, calling out the number for each. "Louder!" Anko ordered.

"Shino!" she said, squatting down in front of him with her elbows resting casually on her knees. "Names for aconite!"

"Sensei, monkshood, wolf's bane, leopard's bane, mousebane, women's bane, devil's helmet, queen of all poisons, blue rocket, sensei!" Shino grunted, breath too short to shout. His arms were trembling and his balance was wobbling.

"Incomplete!" Anko said, punching him in the hip joint and knocking him over. "It's also known as aconite, you idiot! Tuck jumps!"

Shino lumbered to his feet and started doing one of the most unpleasant and exhausting exercises ever invented.

Anko watched them working out with a vicious smile on her face. When Hinata finally fell over from her handstand in exhaustion Anko began giving her another 'taijutsu lesson'. The girl was too exhausted to move her arms and had to simply dodge, shunshin, and kawarimi to stay clear.

"Sensei, stop!" Naruto yelled, abandoning his squats and dropping the weights. He shunshined between the two of them just in time to eat a punch to the cheek that sent him to the ground.

"Kage Bunshin No Jutsu!" he yelled. Clones flooded the training area; as one, they pulled kunai and leaped at Anko, trying to club her with the hilts.

Anko laughed and leaped. In midair she called out, "Katon: Grand Fireball!" A blast of flame exploded across the field, frying scores of Narutos. "Katon: Grand Fireball!" she called again; most of the clones who remained vanished in a brief burst of smoke, the chakra they were made of disrupted by the damage. A couple of dozen managed to shunshin or kawarimi away in time, and a handful simply dove clear or weren't in the area to start with. The survivors converged on the spot where Anko would touch down.

No sooner did Anko's feet touch the ground than she snapped her fingers and shunshined. The surviving Narutos converged on where she'd been and started stabbing each other left and right, trapped in the grip of the genjutsu she had effortlessly dropped on them.

The real Naruto had been at the back of the crowd—not from cowardice, but simply from having been farther away from Anko's landing point than most of his surviving clones; she grabbed him by the collar before he could get into the melee and punched him in the side of the head, knocking him into semi-consciousness. Before he could shake it off she'd dragged him over to Hinata and thrown him face-down in the dirt. Planting a foot on the back of his neck she turned to the Hyuuga heiress.

"That's enough physical conditioning," Anko said with disturbing politeness. "I think it's time for something different. Your file said you had both a lightning and fire affinity; impressive. Most people only have one. Now, as you've just seen, the Grand Fireball is an area-effect attack with decent range. It's primarily useful against large numbers of opponents, but it will work for a single target as well if necessary. It's moderately chakra-intensive, making it not optimal for you, but I think it will be a good complement to your taijutsu skills; it gives you some range and the ability to make a hole in a rush of attackers if you can't evade directly for whatever reason."

Hinata stared from her sensei to her teammate, a look of sick horror on her face, but didn't say anything. She'd already learned very painfully that Anko responded poorly to requests or speech out of turn.

"Now, the handseals are either Tiger or Snake, whichever you prefer, followed by Ram, Monkey, Boar, Horse, and Tiger," Anko said, still in that calm, polite tone that was more disturbing than any shout. "The visualization is a sun growing within your hara. Picture it expanding, flooding through your body from the inside, and converting to a solid bar of flame that travels up your throat and out before spreading out like steam from a boiling pot. Begin."

Naruto had shaken off the stunning impact and was starting to struggle; Anko held him down effortlessly. When he tried to reach up to push her foot off she simply twisted her foot on a nerve juncture in his shoulder that left his arm numb. She didn't even look down as she did it.

Hinata flew through the seals with perfect shaping, and paused, physical eyes closed in concentration. "Katon: Grand Fireball!" she yelled and opened her mouth to expel the flames.

Nothing came out.

"Pathetic," Anko said in a voice that was more disgusted than angry. Looking down at Naruto she said, "Stay right there and don't move or I'll make you watch while I beat her unconscious. Princess, keep working. I'm going to get a switch to provide proper motivation. If you can do the technique before I get back, you won't need to find out what 'proper motivation' means." She jogged off towards the surrounding woods.

"Hinata, what the hell happened to sensei?!" Naruto asked, carefully not even twitching a finger. "She's gone crazy!"

"She's trying to make us stronger so we can escape," Hinata said. "Please, Naruto-kun, don't distract me. I need to get this." Again she ran through the handseals, focused on the visualization, and called the jutsu. Again nothing happened.

Naruto was facing away from her, towards Shino, and didn't dare look around. Shino paused for a moment while in plank position for the next pushup and met Naruto's eyes. He shifted his weight slightly to free one hand and stroked the hand along his chin. He nodded in the direction that sensei had gone before doing the push up, hopping his feet forward, and completing the leap-and-bring-knees-to-chest that was the next part of the tuck jump.

Naruto frowned. That was the 'I hold strong' sign that Shino had assigned when he was first appointed Communications Officer...but what did it mean? That Shino could stand up under sensei's madness...or maybe that sensei was the one who held strong? Maybe that she was determined to make the genin stronger?

To his left, Hinata tried the Grand Fireball a third time; again she failed. This time she staggered, her chakra nearly exhausted. She ignored it and tried again. Again she failed; this time she dropped to one knee.

"Hinata-chan, please! You'll hurt yourself!" Naruto said.

"I need to get this," Hinata said stubbornly. "It's important." She took a deep breath, gathered herself, and tried again. Again she failed; her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed to all fours, her chest heaving as she tried to suck in air.

Kikai bugs descended on Naruto, covering his back in a veritable blanket of insects for long seconds before swirling to Hinata and pushing chakra into her in a steady river.

Hinata pushed herself back to her feet. "Thank you, Shino-kun!" she called. Shino waved one hand towards her in acknowledgement, too out of breath to say anything. He too was staggering in exhaustion, his jumps getting him only a few inches off the ground.

Anko sauntered out of the woods, using a kunai to peel the bark off a thin and flexible branch. Hinata hurriedly ran through the technique twice more before her teacher arrived, still without success.

"Show me what you got, princess," Anko said. "Better be good." She raised the switch to her eye, sighting down it to check for straightness, then flexing it; it easily bent into a 'U' shape.

Hinata gulped but gamely tried again. Still she got not even a wisp of smoke, let alone fire.

"Hold out your hands, palms up," Anko said calmly.

"Sensei, stop!" Naruto called from the ground, still not moving.

Anko looked down, considering him like an interesting species of insect that she was contemplating crushing. "I'll deal with you in a moment," she said. "In the meantime, she gets three whacks instead of one because you spoke out of turn." She turned back to Hinata, absentmindedly flexing the switch while maintaining eye contact.

"This is going to hurt," Anko said in a friendly tone. "A lot. I suggest you convince your boyfriend to keep his trap shut in the future. Also, I suggest you stop screwing around and do the technique. I'll give you five minutes and then we go again." She raised the switch slowly, letting Hinata see it coming. She held it upraised for a long moment, a sickeningly cruel smile on her face, then slashed it down like a sword, lashing it across Hinata's outstretched palms.

Hinata screamed and instinctively pulled her hands back, cradling them against her chest.

"Oops," Anko said. "Looks like we're adding one more for breaking position. Hands out."

o-o-o-o

Anko left Hinata sobbing on the ground and dragged Naruto up by the hair. As soon as he was upright she swept his feet out from under him. He twisted in midair so he landed on his side instead of his back and slapped out to take the sting from the impact. The moment he hit he rolled smoothly back to his feet, backing away in a defensive stance and eyeing Anko carefully. "Sensei, what are you doing? This is crazy," he said. "You weren't like this before."

Anko shrugged one shoulder. "The Hokage told me to be gentle with you," she said. "I'm done with that crap. Eventually sensei will get tired of playing around and he'll either kill us or torture us. I don't have time to screw around anymore, so the gloves are off. Now, you and I are going to do a little taijutsu and then you're going to practice that earth jutsu that sensei showed you. You'll have five minutes to get it right; if you don't, Hinata gets the switch. If she can't get the Fireball in the next five minutes, you get the switch. Take your stance; I'm going to punch you in the face and your job is to block. You've got fifty punches to get it right and then Hinata gets the switch. Remember what sensei showed you; he's a rat bastard and I hope he burns in a very special layer of Hell, but he's an incredible taijutsu master. With that said—" She blurred forward, landing her punch before Naruto could react. He was spun in a circle and knocked to all fours.

"On your feet, maggot," she said. "If this takes too long I'll get bored and go back to working with Hinata." Without turning her head she called, "Cadet! Get those feet waist high or Hinata gets the switch!" Shino nodded, sweat flying from his hair, and tried to jump higher.

Naruto had little success with the blocking exercise; Anko's punches either wove smoothly past his defenses or simply plowed through them by brute force. He finally managed to stop the forty-third punch by twisting down and to the side while blocking with his left arm; with his right he fired a punch at Anko's belly. She turned smoothly to the side and dropped a hammerfist on his wrist; Hinata and Shino were forty feet away and they clearly hear the resulting crack! Naruto went to his knees, cradling the broken wrist in his left hand.

"Oops," Anko said uncaringly. "Looks like you're going to be weak on the right. This wasn't a riposte drill, so I guess Hinata needs a couple whacks to correct your poor behavior."

Naruto looked up.

Red flames poured from his eyes and whiskers had drawn themselves across his face.

Anko's eyes went wide; she kawarimied away just in time to avoid Naruto's growling rush. A claw made of pure, fire-red chakra lashed out, anchoring in the ground and slingshotting him towards her like an arrow from a bow. His spearhand strike touched her throat before her contingent kawarimi yanked her away, switching her with one of the logs that had been left in the training ground from Shino and Hinata's kawarimi practice the previous day.

She came out of the kawarimi and shunshined so fast her eyes barely had time to focus; a split second later, Naruto went through the spot where she'd been, his punch hitting the log she'd switched with and smashing it to splinters.

"Naruto-kun, stop!" Hinata shouted, running for him with hands outstretched in entreaty. Naruto's head turned to her with mechanical precision; he saw the red and swollen switch marks across her palms and gave a ripping growl. An aura of fox-red chakra erupted from him, a pair of giant claws springing from his shoulders and reaching greedily for his teacher.

"Naruto-kun, stop!" Shino called, racing towards his teammate as fast as his exhausted legs would carry him. "Please, fight it!"

Naruto ignored him. He charged Anko again, the fox claws grabbing chunks of dirt from the ground around him, crushing them into solid boulders, and flinging them at the jonin.

Anko went aerial, leaping for the trees and moving fast away from her student, firing senbon needles at him as she went. Two more fox claws sprang from Naruto's shoulder, lunging forward and smashing the tree that Anko was about to land in even as Naruto raced for where she would land. Anko twisted in midair, snagged a nearby branch with her ninja wire and swung herself away from his charge, firing more senbon at him.

The fox claws lashed most of the needles out of the air, but four of them stuck into Naruto's chest. He paused, looking down at the needles casually, then looked up, absently brushing them out of his skin.

"Sleeping poison, sensei?" he said, the words echoing as though another voice spoke the same words slightly out of sync. "You think that will work on Me? Die, bitch."

Shino's entire colony swarmed onto Naruto, hoping to suck off the killer red chakra. The instant they passed through the red aura the whole swarm was turned to ash; Shino collapsed to the ground, screaming.

Anko was bouncing from tree to tree, moving in an arc around Naruto while firing weapons and jutsu at him furiously. He howled and leaped for her; a Wild Wave Wall knocked him out of midair and into a Syrup Trap.

"Naruto-kun, STOP! Please!" Hinata shouted, closing on him quickly but being careful to keep her palms turned down so the marks were hidden.

Naruto didn't seem to hear her; he struggled to pull himself out of the Syrup Trap but couldn't. An experimental kawarimi failed.

A dome of earth rose up, sealing him in; seconds later, the red aura blasted out in a hemisphere, smashing the dome to fragments.

Naruto smiled in satisfaction and sent the claws of the Fox's chakra lancing down into the earth. The first ripped up the ground he was standing on while the other three extended, lifting him up. The claws held him suspended in mid-air, still stuck to the dirtball but now mobile. A single swipe of a claw smashed the dirt off his feet; the claws scuttled towards Anko at inhuman speed, bearing Naruto with them. Two more claws appeared from his ribs and lashed out at her.

"Hinata, get back!" Anko yelled, kawarimiing fast to evade the attack. "He doesn't know you right now! The Fox is in control!"

"I wouldn't say 'in control', sensei," said Naruto calmly, his voice echoing as though a second person spoke the same words slightly out of sync. "I think 'in agreement' would be more accurate. I want you dead and he loves killing bad people. It works out well for both of us."

Five claws extended, reaching for Anko and every branch she could easily jump to from her current position. The center claw exploded through her chest before she could move.

She fell apart into chunks of rock.

Naruto snarled. "A rock clone. Very clever, sensei, but it won't save you."

"Naruto, you really need to calm down," Anko's voice said from deeper in the trees. "Everything I've done today has been very carefully gauged; it can all be healed in minutes back at the hospital. Hinata's hands, your wrist, everything. I'm not trying to damage you, I'm—"

Naruto started to rush towards the voice and then froze, so suddenly it was as though he'd run into a wall. He overbalanced and dropped to his knees, arms windmilling as he tried to catch his balance.

"Be still, child," the Fox said to his jinchuriki. "Think. She values her students. Would she move away, out of sight into the trees, and leave them to Our mercy? It seems unlikely. The idea that she would flee and then give away her position seems even less likely. That voice was either another clone, or she has trapped us in a genjutsu. Disrupt it."

"Kai!" Naruto shouted.

A dome of red chakra blasted out of Naruto, spreading faster than thought until it disappeared in the distance. The world splintered and fell away like shards of glass, revealing a surprised Anko standing in a tree a few yards to the left. Shock held her in place for a split second, just long enough for the Fox's chakra to leap forward, claws the size of swords outstretched. She started to move, but everyone could see she would be too late.

Hinata hurled herself in front of her teacher.

Naruto had no time to stop the attack; the claws lanced right through Hinata, impaling her body and tearing it practically in half all at once. The strike continued on and shattered Anko's rock clone.

"NOOO! Hinata!" Naruto screamed, falling to his knees in horror.

"Ignore it, Naruto," said the other voice. "That was a bunshin. My claws made no contact."

"Then how is it that she's bleeding? Any attack would have disrupted a bunshin," Naruto demanded.

"Focus on the enemy," said the voice of the Nine-Tails. "Your vixen is unharmed. The body you see was a bunshin, a mere illusion...no, wait, you're right. A bunshin would have been disrupted. Your sensei must have trapped you in another genjutsu after you broke the first. Disrupt again."

A soft hand touched him gently on the shoulder. "The Fox is correct, Naruto-kun. That was just my bunshin. Please, I'm here. Stop, please."

He turned in surprise to find Hinata standing over him. The red chakra blazed like a fire around Naruto; it poured through her and clearly wracked her with pain, but she refused to move. The moment he saw her the flames shifted, folding into wings of flame that wrapped protectively around her but didn't touch.

She fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, tucking her face into his neck. "Please, Naruto-kun, fight the Fox. Please." She was clinging tight and sobbing; her skin was scorched from passing through the Fox's aura, and the welts on her hands were worse than they had been.

Naruto stared at her in horror for a split second, and then his face set in determination. "Go back, Kurama," he said.

"I will go if you will it, my host," said the Fox. "But I tell you again—you are in an illusion. I very much doubt that this is your vixen. Shall I check for you? A touch of my chakra will tell you for certain."

Naruto shook his head. "Illusion or reality, she wouldn't want me to hurt sensei." He paused, an idea flicking through his mind. His face got hopeful and he opened his mouth to speak.

"No, my host," Kurama said before Naruto could ask. "I cannot heal her. You, yes, but not her. First, you lack the control to use my strength for healing; you would explode her coils. Second, my touch might well burn her—your bloodline allows you to adapt my chakra, entwine it safely with your own and use it to heal yourself, but she has no such protection. Almost certainly, our efforts would cause more harm than good."

Naruto nodded tiredly. "Okay," he said. "Just...go back, all right? We'll talk later. And...thank you."

"Of course, my host. Should you need my help again, you have only to call." The red aura vanished.

Reality dripped away, Hinata disappearing with it. Anko stood on a branch twenty yards away, holding Shino and Hinata firmly by the collars. She let go and both of them raced towards their teammate, Hinata in the lead.

Naruto couldn't do more than gape stupidly as she threw herself on him, wrapping her arms tight around him and sobbing. "Naruto-kun, don't do that!" she said. "Don't ever do that! It could have killed you."

"I would tend to agree, Naruto-kun," Shino said gravely, kneeling beside the other two at arm's reach. "The Fox is clearly an excellent weapon, but it is a kunai with a sharpened handle. Avoid it."

Anko approached more slowly, carefully walking in from within Naruto's line of sight so as not to surprise him. She stopped several yards away, out of easy lunging range.

"You all right?" she asked quietly.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. Um...sorry about that," he said, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Anko nodded. "It's understandable," she said. "Although I think perhaps we should work on some anger management techniques."

"So...what exactly happened?" Naruto asked. "How much of that was real?"

Anko shrugged. "Everything up to the Earth Dome was real. While you were out of sight under the Dome I made a rock clone for you to chase, then threw a genjutsu on you so that you would see the same things you'd seen before the Dome went up. I grabbed these two and got them into the trees. After that it was all illusion except for you destroying my clones; that added verisimilitude."

Naruto nodded thoughtfully. "The Fox said his claws touched nothing when he hit Hinata, so he could identify the illusion. How come he didn't recognize the genjutsu before that?"

"The evidence seems to support the idea that the Fox can only see through your senses," Shino said. "Apparently, it has no additional sensory abilities while trapped in the seal, and therefore can be deceived by a human genjutsu. As soon as it had evidence, however, it was quick to recognize that it was in one."

"He," Naruto said absently, rubbing Hinata's back. "Kurama is a he."

Shino raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Anko clapped and rubbed her hands like a woman getting down to a job of work. "Okay, now that that's over, time to get back to training," she said. "Hinata, can you see any of the Fox's chakra left in Naruto?"

Hinata studied him for a moment. "Yes, sensei," she said. "Just traces of it, small threads wound in among his own chakra."

Anko nodded. "Okay, we'll need to burn that up," she said. "Naruto, how much do you have to henge yourself before you start to feel it?"

Naruto blinked in surprise at Anko dismissal of the fact that he'd just destroyed most of the training field, but he stopped and considered the question. "Well...it starts to feel really noticeable around fifty pounds, but it's not that big a deal; I can hold it for as long as I want once it's up. I've never gone more than fifty pounds heavier, though, so I dunno what that's like."

Anko shook her head and laughed. "Kami, kid, if I tried to go forty pounds it would knock me flat. Okay, henge yourself fifty pounds, then immediately release the henge and tell me how you feel. Hinata, watch him and tell me when the red chakra is gone."

Naruto concentrated for a moment and grew four inches before snapping back to his normal four-foot-six.

"Much of it was used up, sensei," Hinata said. "There's still some."

Anko laughed and shook her head again. "Okay, kid, do it again."

It took three more repetitions to burn up all the leftover bijuu chakra, but eventually Hinata pronounced him clean.

"How you feeling, kid?" Anko asked him. "Sit down and rest for a bit. Any nausea?"

Naruto looked at her in puzzlement, then shrugged and sat down. "I feel fine," he said. "Why?"

Anko just stared at him, bemused, then burst out laughing. "Kid, you never cease to amaze. Right, on your feet. Time to get back to practice."

She gestured at all three of the genin. "Now, all things considered, I think we'll go with a model where you each get punished for your own failures. Not as motivating as having a teammate punished, but perhaps safer for the poor trees. Okay, Shino, I want you to start working on a bug clone. Hinata, keep going on the Grand Fireball. Naruto, you're on the Multiple Earth-Style Wall that sensei showed you. You each have ten minutes, and then you get the switch. Oh, and, of course you'll be waterwalking while you practice; need to get that down."

She pulled out one of her scrolls and unsealed a large picnic basket. "Before that though, time for some lunch..."

Author's Footnote: The field alarm is something I got from another fic, "Team 8", chapter 4. If you haven't read Team 8 you really, really need to. This story owes its team composition (Hinata / Naruto / Shino) to T8, as well as the idea that Hinata is so shy because she was being abused. Everything else, including Anko as the jonin leader, is mine.

In addition, I've added a new Author's Note at the start of Chapter 1 to clarify certain words and describe the differences between this story and canon. If that happened after you started reading, you should go back and check it out. (It was added in July, 2015, for all you future readers.)

Author's Other Footnote: Also, I have a mailing list. (bit. do /dks-list for those who can't see links.) List members receive copies of all my work before it is posted for sale on Amazon, at which point Amazon's Terms of Service require that it not be available anywhere else.

Speaking of Amazon, you can look there for my other writing (bit. do/books-dks for those who can't see links).

Finally, there's also a campaign (bit. do/dks-) should you feel generous and have a few disposable dollars. No worries though; I'll keep publishing stuff with or without donations.