Author's Note: I skipped the previous update to focus on the 'The Change Storms: Induction', the rational superhero novel I'm working on (read it for free on bit. do/dks-). The next day I got a PM asking if anyone had offered to take over the story now that I'd abandoned it. A few days later I posted on the /r/changestorms subreddit (the one created for my series) and got a response saying "hey, feel free to use any of [multiple good ideas], as long as you post another chapter of Team Anko sometime this year, okay?"

Man, you skip one update and everyone goes berserk! :) I guess that's what I get for reliably posting on schedule.

Anyway, I'm still working on Induction; I really need to get it finished so I can move on to doing the thing I was planning to do for NaNoWriMo 2015, and I'm more than a week behind already. Despite that, I wanted to take some time on Team Anko instead of skipping another update, so here you go.

This chapter is a third to a half the usual length, but it's what I had time for and I think it ends on a good note. Complaints about the shortness will not be received with appreciation, but the next chapter will be along in the regularly scheduled two weeks, so you don't have to wait too long for more.

Naruto appeared on the familiar pedestal in his mindscape to find Kurama sitting up, tails wrapped around his feet, watching him.

"Hey," Naruto said quickly. "I need to borrow some of your chakra, there's a big fire—"

"I've been watching," Kurama interrupted. "No."

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"No, I am not going to loan you chakra so that you can walk into a firestorm," Kurama said. "Furthermore, if you try to take it by force, I will fight you and you will not have the concentration left over to survive the fire."

"But, there's people in there!" Naruto said.

Kurama shrugged. "And? They aren't my people. They aren't yours, either. Why are you so determined to do this?"

"I'm a ninja!" Naruto said. "The whole point of being a ninja is to save people!"

"No," Kurama said. "It's not. The point of being a ninja is to further the goals of your village as determined by your Kage. Saving people is a 'nice to have' if it happens to not interfere with your mission. When you become a Kage, are you going to focus on saving enemy civilians or on accomplishing the tasks that will best protect and enrich your village?"

"But...," Naruto said.

"You do not have the skill to protect yourself from that fire, let alone protect your teammates and a group of stumble-footed civilians who are likely to panic and get you all killed," Kurama said. "Speaking for myself, if you die I go to Hell for a hundred years, and I have no wish for that. Speaking with less self-interest, if you die, Hinata dies. Do you want that?"

"What? No...but...I can't..." Naruto said. "I'll make sure she stays behind where it's safe!"

Kurama sighed in disgust. "I really wish this net was loose enough to let me smack you," he said. "Don't be an idiot; there is no way in Earth or Hell that you could make Hinata stay behind as you walk into a firestorm. Where you go, she goes. Where she goes, Shino goes. Where the three of you go, Anko goes. If you go in there, you all die. No, I am not giving you chakra for this."

"But I can't just let them die!"

"Yes, you can," Kurama growled. "This is exactly what it means to be a ninja and, later, a Kage: keeping your goals prioritized and making difficult choices when some of them aren't compatible. Right now you should be running for Konoha as fast as you can, because that is your duty. Saving these people is a nice-to-have at best."

"But I can save them!" Naruto said. "Their lives matter; I can escape later, but I can only save them now!"

Kurama sighed. "Look," he said. "The major goals that I've seen you act on are: become the best ninja you can, become Kage, become Hinata's boyfriend, become Shino's friend and Anko's protége, be liked by everyone, save people. You can only have one top priority: which is it?"

"I..." Naruto trailed off, his face conflicted.

"Life is full of unpleasant choices," Kurama said. "This is one of them. You have three main options right now: run for Konoha, go back to the tent and let Hachimoto use you as a chakra battery, or go into that fire. Which of those options furthers your top priority?"

Naruto sat down, chewing the options over like a sour meal.

"The whole reason I became a ninja was to be Hokage," he said. "Because, if I'm Hokage, I'll have the power to make the world better, to make sure that no one grows up like I did. But if I let these people die, I haven't fulfilled that goal."

Kurama sighed again. "Are you familiar with the trolley problem?" he asked.

"The what?" Naruto asked.

"I'll take that as a no," Kurama said. "The basic idea is that you need to make a choice as to whether to sacrifice one person or five people." He flicked a tail and the translucent image of a hill appeared, a small train poised at the top. "Behold, a trolley about to roll down the hill out of control. There's no one at the controls, and you're too far away to stop it. There's a little girl on the track in front of the trolley." Another tail flick conjured a life-sized image of Chiyoko, the badly burned eleven-year-old girl Naruto had helped to heal. She was unhurt now, smiling, her pigtailed hair clean of soot.

"Thank you for healing me, Naruto-sama!" she said, bowing deeply. Ropes appeared from nowhere, binding her tightly and dragging her backwards to the trolley tracks. "Eeeeeee!" the girl screamed as she was tied down. "Help me, Naruto-sama!"

The trolley teetered at the top of the hill, then started rushing down, headed directly for the young girl.

"Stop it!" Naruto said, surging to his feet.

The trolley froze, still a dozen yards from the weeping child.

"Now, the trolley is going to hit the child and kill her," Kurama said implacably. "You can't stop it yourself, but you have a lever." An illusionary red lever appeared at the edge of Naruto's platform, within reach from the edge. "If you pull the lever, the trolley will be diverted to a separate track"—a new track appeared, with five old men tied to it—"and the girl will live. Five old men will die, though. What do you do?"

Naruto stared, horrified.

"Oh, yes," Kurama said. "I almost forgot: you hate these old men." Their features shimmered; the leftmost became old man Tsukuda, the hateful shopkeeper who wouldn't let Naruto into his store. The other four became other merchants and teachers who had discriminated against and reviled him throughout his childhood. "So. Take no action and allow the death of one young girl who is both beautiful and good? Or, take action and kill five old men whom you quite reasonably hate."

Naruto stared, unmoving. The trolley reversed itself, rolling back to the top of the hill where it sat, teetering.

"The lever is there," Kurama said, nodding to the device that hovered just at the edge of Naruto's pedestal. "The trolley falls in three...two...one..." The illusionary trolley plunged forward, headed directly for a screaming Chiyoko.

"Doton: Multiple Earth Wall!" Naruto cried, raising his hands to erect a barrier in front of the trolley. Nothing happened except that the trolley rolled to the end of its track, cutting off Chiyoko's screaming with a wet crunch.

"This is a mindscape," Kurama said. "Ninjutsu doesn't work in here," Kurama said. "Now, this should demonstrate that deciding not to decide is a decision. Let's try again."

The trolley rolled back to the top of the hill and Chiyoko started screaming again. "Save me, Naruto-sama! Please, please, please! Don't let me die!"

The trolley plummeted.

Naruto concentrated, wordlessly raising his clenched fist. An earthen wall appeared in front of Chikoyo; the trolley smashed into it, crumpling like an egg carton.

"This is my mindscape," Naruto snarled. "It'll damn well do what I tell it to!"

"Indeed," Kurama said. "Congratulations, you saved both the child and the hateful old men. However, you destroyed the trolley, which was the only way that Mrs. Izuma had to get to work." A matronly woman in her late fifties appeared at the top of the hill, looking down in dismay. She was the only one of Naruto's neighbors who had ever been kind to him, and the expression of misery on her face tore at his heartstrings.

"Mrs. Izuma's employer is a terrible old man," Kurama said. "Because you destroyed the trolley, she arrived three hours late to work and was fired. She had no savings and had been living from paycheck to paycheck; because she was unable to make rent, her landlord evicted her. She is too old to easily get another job and is now homeless because you didn't think fast enough. Let's try again."

The trolley scene shifted a few feet so Naruto's earth wall was no longer interfering. Once again, Chiyoko was screaming on the tracks as the trolley plunged down.

Naruto raised a ramp on the track in front of the trolley, quickly sculpting it to make a catchment that would bring the trolley to a harmless stop.

Before the trolley reached the ramp, the scene shifted over so that the ramp was no longer in place; Chiyoko's screams were once again cut off.

"Stop it!" Naruto yelled.

"Not until you learn the lesson," Kurama said relentlessly. "You need to make a choice. You have two unpleasant options, and you have to pick one."

"I. Said. STOP!" Naruto snarled, his hands curling into claws and snapping down. The net tightened, yanking Kurama to the floor and pinning him tightly.

"Not, unf, stopping, unf, until you learn," Kurama grunted, struggling to breathe against the strictures of the net. In the small free space between his paws the trolley scene reappeared and the trolley plunged down towards the screaming girl.

Naruto threw himself off the pedestal and down onto Kurama's tightly bound body, determined to put himself in the way of the runaway train. The net was in his way, the mesh too tight to let him past, so he grabbed it with both hands and yanked, tearing the mesh wide enough so he could fit through. The instant the threads parted, the entire net unraveled like mist in the sun, its strands dissolving into nothing.

Kurama rolled to his feet and shook himself, fluffing out the fur on a body the size of a large hill.

"Well now," said the Nine-Tailed Fox. "Isn't this interesting?"

Author's Footnote: The way that Kurama presented the trolley problem is the opposite of the way it's normally presented. Usually it's "five people are going to die unless you explicitly cause the death of one person." Why Kurama presented it the way he did is left as an exercise for the reader.

Part of what Naruto should take from the lesson (but not necessarily Kurama's primary intent) is "you need to think ahead so you don't find yourself in the heat of the moment forced to make snap decisions about what your priorities are and what you're willing to do." It's a good lesson for real life, too; before you close this tab, maybe take a minute to think about it?

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