Rolling out of bed, Hinata activated her Byakugan by reflex and immediately frowned. She cocked her head in puzzlement, then pulled her robe on, collected her clothes for the day, and padded down the hall to the bathing room.

"Shino-kun," she said, sliding the door open. "May I ask what you're doing?"

Shino glanced up from where he was elbow-deep in one of the two tubs, sloshing something around. "Good morning, Hinata-chan," he said. "I'm softening this cocoon."

She eyed him askance, then deliberately tipped her head down so he could tell she was 'looking' at the cocoon, then looked up again. "Why are you softening the cocoon?" she asked. "Furthermore, why do you have a four-foot-long cocoon?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't everyone?" he asked, deadpan. "Once it's soft I can unweave it and recover the silk strands. They're useful for nets and tripwires, and I suspect we'll want some traps pretty soon."

Hinata considered that for a moment, then shrugged and hung her robe casually on the peg before turning the shower on and adjusting the temperature. Shino blushed bright red and quickly turned away, ignoring the sounds of his attractive female teammate washing a few feet away.

"These 'showers' are quite impressive," Hinata commented, shutting it off and stepping into the tub to soak. "And water coming out of the walls already hot is amazing."

"Indeed," Shino said, carefully not looking up and focusing on kneading the cocoon to make it flexible.

"By the way," Hinata said from behind him. "I meant to ask you last night—the majority of your colony was absent during our return to the cottage, but now they have returned. I assume you sent them scouting—what did they find?"

Shino read her in on the contents of the morgue and the labs, as well as the conversation he'd had with Anko the previous night. Hinata was just as appalled as he had been.

"On a less horrible topic," he said. "I had a thought—you can see the chakra of my allies with your Byakugan. What's the range of your vision, Hinata-chan?"

"Fifty or sixty yards," she said. "Why?"

"My allies communicate among themselves through chakra pulses," he said. "I can command them by modulating my own chakra, but I can't see the pulses they generate, so I have to receive their replies through visual cues—body movements and flight patterns—or by communion when they are physically inside me. If I want to communicate with them from beyond my line of sight I need to ensure there is a chain of kikai to relay messages to me. Since you can see their chakra regardless of intervening barriers, I think it would make a great deal of sense to teach you to understand their signals. Having two team members who can read information from them would be of great benefit."

Hinata's mouth went wide in an 'O' of surprise. "Shino-kun that's...a great honor," she said. "Thank you."

Anko stuck her head in the door. "Hey, Hinata-chan, I'm the perv on the team," she said reprovingly. "Stop teasing poor Shino with your nubile young body; that's my schtick."

Hinata blushed fire-red and scrambled out of the tub, pulling her robe around her. "Oh!" she said. "I-I-I'm terribly sorry, Shino-kun. I forgot— The Byakugan— The Hyuuga don't have— I'm sorry!" She dashed quickly out of the room, trailing an aura of firey embarrassment behind her.

Anko watched her go in amusement, then turned back to Shino. "You going to be much longer, kid?" she asked. "I could use a shower my own self."

Shino stood up quickly and bowed. "Of course, sensei," he said. "If I may, I'll just leave the cocoon. I can deal with it tonight, after training." He squeezed past her out the door and hurried off to his own room.

o-o-o-o

Given that they hadn't gone to sleep until dawn, the day was half over by the time they ate and got outside. Their first stop was the hospital to visit Naruto; the doctor allowed them all in, but only for a few minutes each and only one at a time.

"Hey, Shino," Naruto said, smiling blurrily at his teammate. The genin was thoroughly doped up on painkillers and not tracking very well. "How's things?"

"Things are well, Naruto-kun," Shino said. "After your injury last night, Orochimaru-sama took pains to ensure that we will not have trouble in the future. We are, of course, still being monitored, but we have reason to believe that no Sound-nin will be bothering us for the duration of our stay."

"That's good," Naruto mumbled. "Is Hinata out there? Did she tell you about last night?"

"Yes, she's outside," Shino said. "What about last night?"

"I thanked her for saving me," Naruto mumbled, his voice getting softer and muzzier as sleep reached up to swallow him. "She was 'mazing...finally tol' her..."

Shino waited for his teammate to finish the sentence; when it became obvious that he wouldn't, Shino stood up and quietly rejoined his team.

When he reached the waiting room, however, it was to find Hinata distracted and frowning.

"Is something wrong, Hinata-chan?" he asked. "Naruto-kun is sleeping now, but if you would like to go in—"

"Naruto-kun's chakra system is...strange," she said slowly. "When he came out of surgery yesterday his coils were refilling at a good speed; when I left last night, they were about one-third full. Today, however, they are nearly empty; there's just barely enough chakra in them to keep him alive. Additionally, his coils are badly...well, call it burned. Instead of being smooth and—" She waved her hands in annoyance, trying to explain color to a blind person. "Smooth and rounded, let's say, they're almost serrated, and completely rigid. I can see a large number of eddies and vortices in his chakra flow; much of his chakra isn't moving at all, it's trapped in small puddles."

"That doesn't sound good," Anko said with a frown. "We should let his doctors know."

Hinata shook her head. "No, that's not the strange part. Any medic-nin should be able to see that. The strange part is that his coils are much less burned than they were yesterday. Yesterday they were burned from top to bottom; today I can see healthy patches, mostly around his root, sacral, and heart chakras. Those are the healed areas, but each of them also has a giant vortex in it, and most of the chakra that flows into those points simply disappears—almost none of it goes out the other side."

Shino frowned. "A vortex like a drain?" he asked. "As though the Nine-Tails were pulling his chakra in for itself?"

Hinata looked appalled. "Yes, very much like that," she said.

"Why would it do that?" Anko said, thinking out loud. "For that matter, how could it do that? The entire point of the seal is that it prevents the Fox from using its powers to affect Naruto or anything outside him."

"Naruto-kun mentioned that he pulled on the Fox's chakra when he...saved me," Hinata said. "Perhaps it's trying to recover what he took?"

"That's not good," Anko said. "If he can't keep chakra in his system he's not going to heal."

Shino scraped one thumb along his jaw. The others noticed and carefully didn't react, but neither did they speak.

"I'm sure it won't be a problem," Shino said comfortingly. "Once the Fox has recovered what Naruto-kun took it will stop draining him and he will begin to heal normally. Given the size of his reserves I would expect him to heal quite quickly, too."

"That's definitely true," Anko said. "According to his medical records he broke both legs when he was three; they healed completely in under a week."

Hinata looked at her askance. "How did he break both legs when he was only three?" she demanded.

"He fell out a window," Anko said casually. "C'mon, if he's asleep there's no point in waiting around here. Let's get out and do some training."

o-o-o-o

Anko led them in a short round of stretching and then a series of laps around Sound to work on endurance; she deliberately set an easy pace, since the point was really more to give them a chance to talk privately. Of course, the moment they set foot outside the limits of Sound, a group of ninja materialized. They didn't directly engage, but they took up bracketing position—three in front, three behind, and half a dozen on the side away from the town.

The Konoha team didn't acknowledge the Sound-nin; instead, Shino pushed a shell of kikai bugs out for a hundred yards in all directions, with orders to bite any human who tried to cross the perimeter. The Sound-nin didn't take long to get the message; they rapidly fell back and gave the team their space, although they were careful to stay in sight.

"Okay, Shino, what was the danger?" Anko asked.

"I wanted to stop the line of conversation until we were somewhere private," Shino said. "If our suspicions about the Fox draining Naruto-kun's chakra are correct, then the simplest solution is to give him a massive transfusion. Once the Fox has gotten what it wants, Naruto-kun should be on his feet again quite quickly, which will greatly expand our tactical options. The obvious source of that transfusion would be the chakra battery in Orochimaru-sama's labs."

Anko winced. "Trying to break in there sounds like a supremely bad idea," she said cautiously. "I was leery enough about your contingency plan, but physically going down to the labs would be an incredible risk...or are you thinking about just asking sensei to donate the chakra?"

Hinata shook her head. "We should avoid asking," she said. "It's unlikely that Orochimaru-sama knows that we are aware of the labs or the battery. Given the lengths he has clearly gone to to keep his labs secret, and the nature of the work there, I think it would be a very bad plan for us to admit we know about them."

Anko nodded. "Agreed. I like the plan in general—if we could get Naruto his transfusion without anyone knowing, he would heal up much faster than any of his doctors would believe possible. As long as he's in the hospital they should figure we're not going anywhere, so security might be a little looser. If we could get Naruto mobile before they expect it, that would be a good time to escape. Let's chew on it for a bit and come back to it later tonight."

They ran until dark; Shino took the time to give Hinata 'language lessons' in how to understand his kikai bugs. Between her Byakugan and her excellent chakra control it was trivial for her to master the signals that Shino used to command them, but the bugs thoroughly ignored her even when she reproduced the signals perfectly. As Shino explained, kikai bugs would only accept orders from their host; even a close family member couldn't issue commands to another Aburame's colony.

Understanding what the bugs were saying was harder; not being able to see the signals directly, the Aburame clan had never compiled a lexicon of the insects' language, so Shino couldn't explain it directly. Furthermore, the language wasn't simple; different bugs seemed to have different 'accents', and multiple signals were used to express a single concept. After a couple hours of practice, however, Hinata was able to understand the message 'threat detected', which seemed like the most pertinent one to master.

Once Hinata had gotten that much, Anko called a halt to the language lessons; it was full dark now, and time to head back to their quarters for dinner.

o-o-o-o

Naruto's eyes drifted open slowly; he glanced around, struggling to push away the fog in his head.

"You're still in the hospital in Sound," Orochimaru said, speaking calmly from his chair at the foot of the bed. "Your friends were here earlier; they left about an hour ago and, according to reports, they're currently running laps around the city." He snorted. "I sincerely hope that they just want to have some privacy in order to plan their escape or my assassination. If my little bird chose to prioritize endurance training above everything else she could be teaching them right now, I will be sadly disappointed in her."

Naruto blinked, forcing himself to focus. "What do you want?" he asked.

"I could make a pretense that I'm here out of concern for your health," Orochimaru said. "In truth, I want to make you an offer."

"Not interested," Naruto said.

Orochimaru shrugged in unconcern. "All right, more for me," he said. From a tray beside him, just out of Naruto's sight, he produced a plate with a wedge of some sort of flaky pastry and a three-tined implement. He took an experimental bite, considering the flavors, and then tucked in more seriously. After a few bites he glanced up. "Are you sure you don't want some?" he asked, lifting another piece into sight and offering it. "It's strawberry-rhubarb pie. It's really good."

Naruto looked from Orochimaru to the pie, eyeing both with equal amounts of distrust. "I'm good," he said.

Orochimaru sighed in annoyance and put the plate down. "Anko did the thing with the spoons, didn't she?" he asked. "Don't be an idiot. You're in a bed in my hospital and you can barely stay awake for ten minutes at a time. If I wanted to poison you I'd have already done it."

Naruto chewed on that for a moment, then shook his head. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm not hungry."

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, then nodded understanding. "Ah, of course. SERE—accept no favors. My apologies, I didn't think. In any case, forget the pie. I wanted to ask you something: what do you consider important?"

"Excuse me?" Naruto said in confusion.

"What do you consider important?" Orochimaru repeated patiently. "For example, you have repeatedly made it clear that you value Konoha enormously and want to protect everyone in it. Why?"

Naruto blinked. "Um...what?"

Orochimaru sighed in exasperation. "Why do you care what happens to Konoha?" he asked, speaking slowly as though talking to a child. "They have treated you terribly your entire life. Shopkeepers don't allow you in their stores because they are afraid of you. Your instructors at the Academy were afraid to give you proper instruction. Your foster parents nearly killed you six times. Your biological parents sealed a monster inside you. Your—"

"My parents saved the village!" Naruto shouted, his face flushed in anger. "Don't you dare talk crap on them!"

Orochimaru raised his hands placatingly. "Very well," he said. "Let that point go. It's true that if they hadn't sealed the Fox away you would have died along with the village, so from a utilitarian perspective sealing the creature inside you was correct." He smiled thinly. "Apparently it's also quite helpful to have a bijuu sealed in you for when you need to pulverize a man's head from three feet away."

The legendary ninja leaned back in his chair, legs casually extended in front of him, hands folded on his stomach. "Back to my original question, then," he said. "Why is it that you care about Konoha? I'm not saying you shouldn't—although I confess I don't see that you owe them anything—but I am curious about your reasoning."

Naruto hesitated. "What makes you think that I care about Konoha?" he asked. "I can't stand the place, but I just don't see an alternative. Even if I were willing to be a traitor, I couldn't survive as a missing-nin."

Orochimaru rolled his eyes. "Please, don't insult my intelligence by pretending you might be open to a recruitment offer. I have an excellent spy network, and your nigh-fanatical loyalty to the village that has treated you so poorly is well documented.

"Honestly, even if you were interested in relocating, I wouldn't be inclined to take you," the Kage of Sound said casually. "You're too hotheaded to be useful in a field position without close supervision and you'd need substantial remedial training to bring your skills to an acceptable level. You also lack the patience and maturity for an administrative position."

Naruto's eyes widened and he clamped down on his face, trying to hide how badly the words had stung. He wasn't fast enough to keep Orochimaru from seeing it.

"I'm sorry," Orochimaru said, shaking his head in disgust. "That was thoughtless. I mentioned to your friend that I'm a psychopath...it's useful for accomplishing goals, but it does mean that I need to remember to act like a civilized person in social situations. I apologize."

He sat forward, elbows braced on his knees and an intent look on his face. "I said that poorly. I said that I wouldn't be inclined to take you, but that's on balance. Accepting a relocation from another village is always a matter of weighing pros and cons, the advantages and risks that the transfer would bring to Sound. Konoha's pride would make them reluctant to face the idea that you had gotten tired of their treatment and intended to leave, so they would probably try to hold on to you even against your will. There would need to be a balancing degree of advantage for Sound.

"You have tremendous potential," he said. "Enough potential that, were it realized, you'd definitely be worth recruiting. So far, though, that potential is not realized. Most of that isn't your fault—in fact, it's fairly impressive how much of your potential you have managed to bring out. The cowardice of your instructors has left you without the training you should have had, which is why your skills need remedial work. You are, as I said, hotheaded and lacking in maturity, but some of that is just your age. Five years from now I'd be extremely interested in having you here." He paused, considering, then waffled his hand in a so-so gesture. "Which actually suggests that I'm not thinking it through—if you wanted to relocate here, I suppose it would make sense for me to accept you now and give you the needed training instead of hoping to recruit you in the future...especially since then I'd be relying on Konoha to change their tune and actually train you properly. If you applied yourself, I could probably bring your skills up to Anko's level in a year, maybe two, and you could develop most of the maturity you need during that time. That would mean getting a highly valuable Naruto-san in one year instead of five." He shrugged dismissively. "Still, it would require some serious thought before I'd even theoretically go forward with it—I don't know if you actually have the discipline to do that work."

He grimaced and shook his head ruefully. "I'm sorry," he said. "I did it again, didn't I? I didn't mean to malign your dedication. In any case, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about." He flicked his hand to the side, brushing away the topic.

"There are only nine jinchuriki in the world," he began. "I would like to understand what it's like to grow up as one of them. If you're willing, I'd be very interested to know what your life was like, and what you think a better childhood would have been."

Author's Footnote: 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.

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