Kaiya was standing to one side, Ichiro's unconscious body at her feet, glaring furiously at Shino as Anko bandaged his cuts. "She'd better be able to undo it," she snarled.

"Unwad your panties," Anko said without looking up from where she was tending to Shino's injuries. "After Hinata finishes kicking your other kid's ass she'll unseal Meathead's tenketsu. You might want to give him some remedial training, though; it's got to be embarrassing being taken out that fast by a little girl."

Shino started to say something—probably something like his tenketsu will reopen naturally in a few hours—but Anko shook her head and he fell silent.

Kaiya growled. "Who says she's going to win? Sachi will clean her clock."

"Want to bet?" Anko asked, still not looking at the other jonin. "Given how my team did against your other two, I'm not holding out a lot of hope for your tagalong. Poor little Sucky is probably taking a dirtnap right now...hopefully not a permanent one, though." She finished tying the final knot in the bandages and straightened up.

"A thousand ryo says...ah, damnit," she said, an expression of disappointment crossing her face as Hinata came into view, dragging Sachi's limp body behind her. "Rats, coulda made some bank there. Ah well. Oy, kid! Leave the meatbag and get over here!"

Hinata gratefully dropped Sachi just outside the dissipitating smoke cloud and limped over to her team, one hand pressed to her side where the broken ribs were shrieking in pain from dragging Sachi's unconscious body.

"Damnit, Hinata, didn't I tell you to watch out for those ribbons?" Anko said, fists on her hips. "I said she would grab you and pull you in to get beat on! Why did you let yourself get grabbed like that?! I'd expect that kind of dumbass carelessness from Naruto, but I thought you were smarter than that!"

Hinata blanched. "I-I-I'm s-s-sorry, s-sensei," she stammered. "I t-th-thought I c-c-could r-reach the t-tree—"

Anko sighed and waved her to silence. "Whatever. We'll work on it. Come on, let's leave these four losers to clean up while we get some lunch." She took the genin by the shoulders and began shepherding them back towards town.

"Hey, Anko!" Kaiya snapped. "Get your kid over here and have her undo whatever she did to Ichiro!"

Anko didn't even break stride. "They'll be better in a few hours," she called back over her shoulder. "Have fun lugging them back to town."

o-o-o-o

"If you'd been fighting smart, you wouldn't have gone ballistic for your escape, you would have kawarimied," Anko said. "And why in the name of all the kami were you moving away from Nariko? You were smart to take down Ichiro first, but you should have kept the pressure on and immediately gone after the next most dangerous instead of giving her the chance to contain you. 'Speed and mobility are the key to ninja combat'; how many times did you hear that at the Academy? That's basic!" She thumped Hinata on the hitai-ate with two fingers to drive the point home.

"Yes, sensei," Hinata said, head down and hunched in on herself. There was a bowl of teriyaki chicken in front of her but she was merely pushing it around instead of eating it.

"Sensei, you are being unreasonable," Shino said. "Hinata-chan did brilliantly; she disabled Ichiro quickly and cleanly and took down Sachi with little difficulty."

Anko flashed him a wintry glare. "Don't tell me what's reasonable and what's not, genin," she snapped. "I am your jonin commander. It is my job to keep the two of you alive, and the first step in that is to teach you to think. You need to lose these stupid showboat reflexes; leaping around the battlefield is flashy, dramatic, and stupid. It leaves you on a ballistic trajectory for up to a second—more if you're being especially stupid. While you're helplessly flying along you can't easily defend yourself. Sure, sometimes it's a good move—for example, it allows you downward angles of attack which can be useful if you're firing into a melee. Even then, it's only smart if you have a contingent kawarimi prepped so that you can evade attacks. Since you three don't have the skill for a contingent kawarimi, don't let me catch you hopping around like brain-dead bunnies anymore."

She glanced at Hinata's virtually-untouched bowl and Shino's barely-touched bento and blew out an irritated breath.

"You two are soft," she said. "Delicate. You in particular, princess; that family of yours taught you a lot about being a pretty flower with your nose in the air, but not much about kicking ass for real. Family or not, neither of you are any good at dealing with reality; the Academy coddles you too much. Lunch at specific times, start at specific times, break at specific times, the instructors fight at your level, they won't really hurt you...that's all bullshit. You two need to learn the realities of ninja field life. Things happen whenever they feel like it. Enemies attack when it's convenient for them and inconvenient for you. They aren't nice and gentle like your instructors, they're there to break your bones, blind you, and kill you. You don't have nice regular meal times. You eat, drink, piss, and sleep whenever you can, and you do it fast. You never know when the next assault will be. Speaking of assaults, you have until I finish eating to get your food down and then we go back to training."

With that she turned back to her own bowl of udon and started gulping it down like a hungry wolf. Shino watched her wide-eyed for a moment and then began shoveling in his own food. Hinata tried to follow suit but couldn't make herself eat more than a few bites before Anko shoved the empty udon bowl away.

"Back to the training area! Go go go!" Anko bellowed, grabbing both genin by the collar and hurling them in the direction she wanted them to move. They took off, running at their best pace with their sensei a few steps behind chivvying them along.

At the end of the block Hinata went straight at street level, heading back to the training ground they'd been using. Shino ducked into an alley and leaped for the rooftops, bouncing along in their direction of travel.

Or, at least, that's what any eyes but the Byakugan would have seen. Hinata watched Shino's bunshin bounce along the rooftops as the genin himself shunshined back to the food stall where they'd been eating. He scooped up the remains of Hinata's teriyaki, dropped it into a storage scroll, and shunshined back. Moments later, his bunshin bounced down into an alley and the real Shino went back up the other side.

o-o-o-o

"That was pathetic," Anko snapped as her team staggered to their feet. She hadn't held back at all during their spar, aside from not actually striking the killing blow. Both genin had been down in seconds, then hauled back to their feet and kicked around the field again. And again. And again. By now, both of them were so battered and bruised they could barely defend themselves. She had made the beating as humiliating as possible, literally kicking their asses or slapping their faces over and over.

"Shino, you are still weak on your left, and you're still overextending your kicks," Anko said. "How many times do I have to kick your ass before you get it through your head?"

Shino panted and said nothing, assuming the question was rhetorical. He was disabused of the notion when Anko darted behind him and snap-kicked him in the butt, sending him sprawling.

"I said 'How many times do I have to kick your ass before you get it through your head?'" Anko snarled.

Shino dropped into a defensive stance, eyes narrowed, but didn't attack; today had taught him that attacking in a rage was a good way to get booted in the groin. "I'm working on it, sensei," he snarled.

She shunshined behind him and kicked him in the butt again.

"How many times—" she began.

"Zero more times, sensei!" he snapped.

She sniffed disparagingly. "We'll see," she said, before rounding on Hinata. "And you!" she said. "What is it with you Hyuuga and refusing to learn anything except that stupid Gentle Fist style?! I taught you new forms for a reason, princess! So help me, if you don't start widening out your repertoire I am going to start beating you unconscious instead of just kicking you around the field like a training dummy!"

Hinata stared at the ground, hunched in on herself. Her shoulders heaved once, twice, and her breathing caught in a sob. "I'm s-s-s-s-s-sorry s-s-s-s-sensei," she stuttered.

"'I'm s-s-s-sorry, s-s-s-sensei," Anko mimicked in a nasty sing-song. "Grow some ovaries and lose that stutter, princess," she said. "You think you can afford to stutter on an undercover mission? It would attract attention and your cover would be broken in seconds."

Hinata nodded, not trusting herself to reply.

Anko glowered at her for a moment longer, then clapped her hands with a gleeful smile. "Okay, time for a little E&E training," she said. "Here's how this works: you two have just stolen some important document from my village, and you need to escape and evade back to your base—meaning our quarters in the village. You were spotted on the way out, and I'm one of the village guards. You've got a thirty second headstart—"

Shino grabbed Hinata's hand and sprinted for the trees.

"Hey, I wasn't finished!" Anko called after them, laughing. "You're learning!"

Once they were in the woods, Shino released Hinata's hand without slowing down and went for the trees, turning hard right away from the town and moving fast with Hinata right beside him. Multiple shells of kikai bugs leaped out of the young Aburame, flitting off in all directions.

"My apologies, Hinata-chan," he said, glancing briefly at her before turning back to watch where he was putting his feet. "I suspected that sensei would start her 'thirty seconds' from when she said that, instead of from when she finished the directions."

Hinata's grimaced. "I bet you're right, Shino-kun. Thank you; I would not have realized." Between one leap and the next, she reached out and stroked a gentle hand down his arm in gratitude. He startled, then relaxed and smiled.

"It was no trouble," he said.

The raced on for another ten minutes before Shino spoke again. "I think we've come far enough for now," he said. "Let's stop for a bit; I have two things for you." He slowed to a halt, climbing farther up their current tree until he reached a set of branches convenient for sitting.

Hinata settled beside him, looking at him quizzically. "Is it safe to stop here, Shino-kun?" she asked in concern. "I cannot see sensei, but she can cross my range of vision very quickly."

Shino nodded. "I think we'll be all right," he said. "Before we started running I planted a set of female kikai on her so that I could track her; she's currently that way—" he pointed back the way they'd come and off to the side—"about half a mile. Her clones are spreading out through the woods along an arc behind us."

Hinata's eyebrows went up. "How do you know about her clones?" she asked.

Shino smiled. "I left orders with my allies that if they detected any other sources of sensei's chakra nearby, one of them should move to that source immediately. There are currently four clones tracking us."

He reached into his thigh holster and brought out his storage scroll. "I thought you might want these," he said. He pushed a tiny bit of chakra into the seal and out popped Hinata's nearly-untouched teriyaki chicken...and Nariko's chakra ribbon.

Hinata looked at the food for several long seconds before bursting into tears.

"Hinata-kun, what's wrong?" Shino asked in a near panic. Angry sensei? Sure. Enemy ninja? No problem. Crying Hinata? Help!

"I th-th-thought I could do this," Hinata sobbed, throwing herself into his arms with tears pouring from her eyes; he barely managed to reseal the chicken and ribbon before they went flying. "It m-m-made s-sense to have s-sensei treat me viciously s-s-so that it w-w-would be b-b-believable to l-l-let Orochimaru-sama recruit me. I knew it would be hard—she told me w-w-what to expect. I just c-c-couldn't really understand how h-h-hard!"

Shino stiffened when she first threw herself at him, then relaxed and put his arms around her and lay his cheek on her head. "It will be all right, Hinata-chan," he said softly, rubbing her back gently. "You'll be all right." He laid a comforting kiss on the top of her head and then froze when she murmured a pleased noise and cuddled into him. He felt his body reacting to the scent of her hair and the feel of her body; quickly, he forced himself to think about the most mind-numbing lecture from his most-hated Academy class, History of the Fire Kingdom.

Were he holding a girl who didn't have the Byakugan he might have gotten away with it. Hinata saw what was happening and went still, then pushed herself upright, wiping away the tears and giving him a watery and apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry, Shino-kun," she said. "I didn't mean to—"

"No no, not your fault, I'm very sorry, it was nothing, just an involuntary thought—reaction, I meant reaction!—I wasn't thinking about you at all, I mean, it's not that you're pretty, I would never think that way about you or that you're pretty, because you're my teammate and it was just involuntary and obviously I would never have the slightest interest in you romantically or physically!" Shino babbled, staring at her in horror as his face went brick red.

Hinata pulled back slightly, looking hurt; Shino felt his panic and embarrassment rising.

"I mean, it's not that you're ugly or anything you are pretty and you smell good and it's not...oh kami—" he put his face in his hands, shaking his head in humiliation.

Hinata laughed, kissed him chastely on the cheek, and hugged him. "It's all right, Shino-kun," she said comfortingly. "I'm flattered. And I think you're very handsome yourself. Come on, we should start back towards the town."

Shino groaned, not looking up. "Please just leave me here," he mumbled. "I would like to die for a little while."

Hinata laughed again. "No dying allowed, I'm afraid," she said. "Come on, we really should start back before sensei finds us."

Shino sighed and lifted his head, scrubbing his face hard with both hands. "Yes, you're right. Eat first," he said, unsealing the teriyaki again and passing it to her.

The physical exercise and emotional cleansing had left her ravenous; the chicken disappeared in seconds and when she was done she licked her fingers in complete defiance of Hyuuga manners.

"Thank you, Shino-kun," she said with a smile. "I really needed that...both the food and the help."

"Don't mention it," he said. "Ever. Please." He sighed again and looked around. A group of kikai came into sight and fluttered in front of him for several seconds.

"This way," he said, dropping down the tree to where the leaf cover opened out a bit and made it easier to run.

Hinata looked confused, but followed along gamely. "Where are we going? The village is the other way."

Shino nodded without looking at her. "Yes, but this is the way we need to go on our mad dash back to Konoha that will unfortunately take us right past some of Sound's finest ninja."

Hinata blinked, startled, then gave a bell-like laugh. "Of course. Very clever." She frowned in concentration for a moment then turned thirty degrees to the right. "This way!" she called. "I see footprints."

They made it barely a hundred yards further before being captured.

A squad of Sound chunin appeared from the trees around them. The moment they were in sight Shino cried out, "Hinata-chan, run! I'll hold them off!" He leaped at the nearest ninja, screaming madly and waving a kunai.

Both genin were disabled and bound within seconds. Without a word they were thrown over a pair of broad shoulders and carried at speed back to Sound. Half an hour later, they were dumped unceremoniously at the feet of Orochimaru.

The three chunin who had captured them took a knee before their Kage, heads bowed and one arm on the upraised knee in respect. "Chuikage-sama, we caught these two attempting to escape," the leader said. "What should we do with them?"

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow and looked down at the two genin. "Explain?" he said calmly.

"With respect, Orochimaru-sama, we were not attempting to escape," Shino said, looking up at Orochimaru calmly and not making any effort to escape from the cocoon of ninja wire that bound him. "Anko-sensei wanted to do E&E training, so we need to get back to our quarters before she catches up to us. She is an extremely brutal teacher; it seemed expedient to get an escort."

Orochimaru stared at him for a moment and then laughed. "Very clever," he said with a nod of respect. He waved at the ninja squad that had captured them. "Untie them and let them go." He turned and left.

The chunin glowered daggers at them and were not gentle about removing their bindings, but they did it. Once they were back on their feet, Hinata bowed deeply to the Sound squad.

"Thank you for your assistance," she said. "I apologize for the deception."

The leader of the squad glared at her for another moment, then gave it up and snorted. "It was a pretty good trick. I'll be sure to tell Anko-chan; I'm sure she'll be impressed. Don't worry though—I won't tell her until tomorrow, when you two are safe." He gave them a brief nod and a wink, gathered up his team by eye, and shunshined away.

"It is still surprising to me how many people here know Anko-sensei personally," Shino said. "I understand why the elders in Konoha distrust her."

Hinata glanced at him in surprise. "Shino-kun!" she said reprovingly. "Sensei is perfectly trustworthy! She would never betray Konoha."

Shino nodded. "I agree. I still understand why the elders distrust her. She has too many close connections within another village. A village that was founded by the greatest traitor Konoha has ever spawned."

She glared at him, hand on hips. "Orochimaru-sama is not a traitor!" she snapped. "Before he left he was doing good work that was helping the village—Hokage-sama even recognized that, in the beginning. After he left, Orochimaru-sama still served Konoha's interests; remember that all the ninja here are former missing-nin? Well, now they're localized to a specific village and responsible to a command structure that Konoha can negotiate with. And they've never taken missions against Konoha or we would have learned about that in the Academy."

Shino considered her calmly. "The fact remains, Hinata-chan: the man was conducting experiments sufficiently terrible that the Hokage ordered him to stop. He was given a lawful order by his Kage, and he went missing-nin rather than obey. That is the definition of treason."

She glared at him, then spun on her heel and stalked off. "Come on," she said over her shoulder. "We need to get back to quarters or we aren't actually safe from sensei."

Unfortunately, when they got back to the cottage it was to find Anko lounging on the porch with a bottle of sake in one hand, a plate of dango on her stomach, and a large bag of kunai beside her.

"I was wondering how long it would take!" Anko said, before hurling a barrage of kunai at them. They frantically dodged the first wave, blocked the second, and kawarimied with some nearby rain barrels to avoid the third.

...only to be hit by blunted training kunai before they could move from their destination.

"No, no, no, no!" Anko yelled. "Front and center, you idiots! Form on the line!"

They quickly shunshined to the porch, standing at attention like first-day Academy cadets.

Anko stood up and eyed them consideringly. Her hands blurred as she plucked the hitai-ate off their heads. Both genin nearly choked; the hitai-ate was the mark of a ninja, a sign of accomplishment. It was never taken away except as punishment for failure so great that the next step would have been permanent ejection from the ninja corps.

Anko absently spun the headbands around two fingers while striding back and forth in front of them. "'Speed and mobility are the key to ninja combat,'" she said in an unnervingly calm voice. "Your Academy intructors told you this every day. I have told you this repeatedly—most recently an hour and a half ago when we started this exercise. Despite these repeated lessons, you allowed yourselves to be pinned down. You blocked and dodged the first two waves of attacks instead of relocating. And when you finally did relocate, you swapped with the most obvious kawarimi targets, without considering that I would assume that was where you were going. Finally, to put the icing on the cake, both of you still need to focus for an instant before you can kawarimi, meaning that I was able to tell that you were about to do so, guess where you would go, and have attacks already on the way when you arrived."

She stopped pacing to glare fiercely at them. "You are the top graduates from the top ninja academy in the most powerful ninja village in the world. You will not shame that tradition with such shoddy skills. We are going back to the training ground and we are not going to leave until the two of you can kawarimi properly. Until then, since your skills are inadequate for professional ninja, you will be treated as cadets."

She looked around for a moment, then faced them again. "I am going to finish my dango and police up the kunai. I will then move at speed to the training ground. When I arrive we will begin kawarimi practice; failure to perform to standard will result in pain. I suggest you have your act together before I arrive."

"Sensei, yes, sensei!" they barked, both of them sweating and keeping their eyes locked rigidly ahead.

"Sensei, cadet requests clarification, sensei!" Shino shouted. He remained properly stone-faced, but someone who knew him well—and had the Byakugan so that she could see him without turning her head—would have seen just how much it hurt to be treated like this.

"Speak, cadet," Anko said.

"Sensei, with respect, what is the expected standard?" Shino asked loudly. "Both Hinata-chan and I exceed Konoha Academy standards by a solid margin, sensei."

Anko stepped in front of him, hands on her hips, and eyed him consideringly. "Where is the nearest kawarimi target?" she asked calmly.

"Sensei, the rain barrel is approximately ten yards behind me at my seven'o'clock, sensei!" he barked in reply.

She nodded once, then punched him in the face, knocking him off the porch in a heap.

"That's the standard, cadet," she said calmly. "Move out."

Both genin turned and fled.

o-o-o-o

Naruto dreamed.

In his dream he floated in warm, comfortable darkness. He rested there for some unknown amount of time, enjoying the lack of demands. Here in the darkness there was no pain, no broken body that refused to obey his commands. There were no demands or obstacles—no villagers with fear in their eyes, no Academy instructors refusing to answer his questions, no Jiji looking disappointed (yet also amused!) at Naruto's latest prank, no beloved teammates about to die...just calm, quiet, peaceful darkness.

There was nothing to see in order to mark position or movement, but he had a sense of drifting, of fluttering like a leaf soaring on a gentle breeze, winding slowly down towards the earth far below. When the darkness finally lightened he was oddly unsurprised to find himself standing on a pillar of polished granite in an immense room. A trail of blue smoke ran from his chest down to the floor below.

The ceiling soared into near-invisibility above him, and the walls were so far away he couldn't even judge how far away they were. The room was utterly featureless, except for the immense Nine-Tailed Fox shackled to the floor in front of him.

The beast was larger than the entire Academy building, seeming so large he could have eaten the moon out of the sky for a snack. Had he been standing upright the pillar would have put Naruto on a level with his eye; now, with the Fox lying sprawled on the floor below, Naruto found himself looking down on the creature.

The Nine-Tails lay under a net of thread-thin lines of gold and green and blue metal that flowed as though molten, yet retained their shape and position. His fur was as red as that of an earthly fox, with white under his jaws and belly. He was in bad shape; his tails were sprawled limply behind him, his eyes were closed in apparent exhaustion, his breathing was a series of panting gasps, and the red fur disguised but did not completely conceal the massive bloody rents in his flank. The trail of blue smoke from Naruto's chest flowed down into those wounds in a steady river.

"Time we had a little talk, ape," the Fox rumbled, not bothering to open his eyes. His voice was so deep it was a physical impact. "Specifically, we need to talk about manners, and why it is impolite to grab massive chunks of a person and fling them at your enemy like poo."

"Uhh...what?" Naruto said, struck nearly dumb by finding himself talking to a creature of legend.

The Fox flicked an ear in irritation and briefly opened one eye to consider his human interlocutor; the eye was about the size of a small apartment. "You don't even know what you did, do you?" he said. "Rotten little meatsack," he grumbled.

"What do you mean, grab chunks of a person?" Naruto said. He was stalling more than anything; the massive damage to the Fox's flank was obvious and, the more he studied it, the more disturbing it got. There was a giant chunk missing; around it were five rents, four parallel and one opposed...all of them in much the same position that one might expect if an immense human hand had closed on the Fox's flank and torn the flesh off.

The Fox grumbled deep in his throat, then lumbered to his feet, sitting with his tails curled tight around himself. The net shifted around him, providing just enough freedom of movement to change position, but no more. The height of the pillar left Naruto on a level with the beast's now-open eye at a range of oh-kami-that's-too-close!

"Look, ape," the Fox said. "There's a couple of ways that this can go. Like it or not, you're my jinchuriki, and we're stuck with each other. Up until now that's been easy enough and I've been content to just let things ride. Now you're starting to try things that even those stupidly massive reserves of yours can't do, and grab my chakra to make up for it." He paused, licking at the bleeding wound in his side, before turning back and continuing.

"You took me by surprise once," he said. "I admit it, I wasn't expecting you to go all grabby like that the first time you leaned on me, and it was over before I could react. That's not going to happen again. The next time you try to use that much of me all at once, I'm going to rip your arm off."

"Um...sorry?" Naruto said weakly. "I didn't intend to hurt you..." He paused, frowning. "Hang on, you're sealed inside me. How can you rip my arm off?"

The Fox studied him, narrow-eyed, for a long moment. "I can't tell—are you actually this stupid, or are you just being difficult?" he asked. "It's a metaphor, idiot. Let me simplify it for you: you play nice, I play nice. You try to tear chunks off of me, I fight back and then things really go to hell for both of us. Quite possibly literally. Do we have an understanding?"

"Uh...yeah?" Naruto said with a helpless shrug. "I didn't mean to do it in the first place. For that matter, how did I do it?"

The Fox eyed him sourly. "You know what this seal is all about, right? Weaponizing my chakra. Sure, the seal keeps me locked away from your pissant mortal world—which is actually pretty stupid, when you think about it—but more importantly it lets you siphon my chakra off to power your own techniques."

He paused for a moment to lick his flank again before continuing. "Here's the thing," he said. "I don't have chakra, I am chakra. When a normal jinchuriki decides to blow up the landscape with my power, he's drawing against the equivalent of my body heat, maybe giving me a bad case of the itches if he's really cutting loose. You, on the other hand, decided to take the single least weaponizable ability in your very limited arsenal and weaponize it. You couldn't just create a clone to tackle the guy, make a bunshin to distract him—shoot, even throw a piece of pointy metal at him! Oh no, you needed to use treewalking. Had to be flashy, didn't you?"

"Ummm..." Naruto said.

"Do you have any idea how much chakra it takes to treewalk on a person—especially a jonin ninja?" the Fox growled. He nodded to the giant rents in his flesh. "About that much. Now, you're going to repay me for that. The seal is a two-way street, and until I'm healed up I'm going to be slurping down your disgusting human chakra like Jiraiya slurps sake. Right now I'm pulling on it slowly, drawing out just enough to leave you alive. I strongly suggest you not try anything similar in the future, because if you do I'll suck you dry and damn the consequences. I ask again: do we have an understanding?"

"Abso—"

Naruto paused. Sensei had been teaching him to think. Shino had demonstrated that there were specific techniques for analyzing information and coming to good conclusions—the Aburame's prediction markets, Shino's probability calculations. Before he agreed with a human-hating monster, maybe he should pause and consider.

He sat down cross-legged on the pillar in the meditation pose sensei had shown him. It had been useful for calming an unsettled mind, and right now he was definitely in condition 122. Time to see if he couldn't boost that Mental digit up a couple points.

"WELL?!" the Fox demanded.

"Shut up, I'm thinking," Naruto said.

The Fox reared back in shock, then snarled. "Don't you talk to me like that, you pissant little meatsack! You're a putrid bag of stinking flesh and I am the most powerful Bijuu in existence! I was ancient when your ancestors were crawling out of the oceans! Show some respect!"

Naruto opened his eyes and looked up at the Fox. "If you could kill me and not suffer any consequences, you would have done it the moment you were sealed," he said. "Just shut your trap for a minute and let me think."

Oddly, smack-talking a primordial monster helped calm him down. The creature clearly couldn't attack him here—that was the point of the net-that-was-really-the-seal. He could obviously draw on Naruto's chakra, but if the Fox hadn't killed him by now, chances were that he couldn't.

So, what did he know?

The Fox was sealed, and couldn't kill him—either physically couldn't, or couldn't afford to. He could draw on Naruto's chakra, but he had never done so before that Naruto had noticed. Why not?

Well, he'd said 'disgusting human chakra.' Probably it tasted foul to him; maybe it was actually painful, the way the Fox's chakra had burned Naruto's coils.

"I Said. Show. Respect," the Fox snarled. The trail of smoke from Naruto's chest intensified, thickening and flowing faster. Naruto shuddered as pain and nausea ripped through him; if he hadn't been sitting down he would have fallen but even so he had to put out a hand to steady himself.

Two could play at that game. He reached out a hand and pulled on the Fox's chakra. A river of red flowed from the creature's chest into his hand and the nausea and pain vanished.

"Cut it out," Naruto said. "We've already seen that I can hurt you. I bet I can pull chakra out of you faster than you can pull it from me."

The Fox smirked at him. "You want to play, ape? Let's play." The river of red flowing into Naruto intensified, turning into a howling flood. It surged into him before he could cut the connection, burning through him like fire and lightning and oh kami it hurt it hurt it hurt. He felt his skin heating up and barely managed to cut off the flow before it could actually burn him.

"You use a minimal amount of my strength, no problem," the Fox said. "Your body can handle that. Take too much, you'll burst your coils and die. I'm a Primordial, you stupid little meatsack; you think you can mess with Me and live? You really are too dumb to live."

Rage filled Naruto, burning as hot as the Fox's chakra. "Shut up!" he yelled, surging to feet with his fists clenched. With all his soul he wished for some long-range jutsu, some way to hurt his tormentor.

The net constricted, yanking the Fox to the floor. The beast yowled in pain.

Naruto blinked.

"Well, well, well," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Looks like someone isn't quite as all-powerful as they thought they were."

The Fox snarled. "Let me go, slime, or I'll suck you dry and to Hell with both of us. I'll be trapped there for a hundred years; you'll just be dead." The trail of blue chakra being pulled out of Naruto became denser, draining him faster.

Naruto concentrated, pulling his chakra back into him and forcing it to flow through his coils in the pattern he chose. It was the most basic Academy exercise, the foundation of every jutsu there was. The stream cut off.

"How long can you keep that up?" the Fox said snidely. "You think you can focus every minute of the day? You have to sleep, worm; I don't."

"Shut. Up," Naruto said, closing his hand as though clamping the Fox's muzzle shut. The net tightened, wrapping itself around the tree-sized jaws and tying them closed.

Naruto stared down at the bound Fox below him with satisfaction, then sat down and resumed his thinking. A portion of his mind, trained through thousands of hours of practice, kept his chakra inside himself, refusing the ongoing pull from the Fox.

The creature couldn't hurt him directly or it would have done so just now. It could draw on his chakra, but it had never done that before now—at least, not that he'd noticed. What was different? Obviously, the wounds.

According to the Fox, the seal was designed to weaponize the creature's chakra. The Bijuu was hardly a reliable source, but that seemed reasonable; clearly, drawing on the demon's chakra could hurt, so if it wasn't intended as a weapon why would the seal allow him to do so? Surely it would have been simpler just to lock the beast away in an 'airtight' container instead of setting up this complicated channel through which chakra could flow.

Why would the Fox be allowed to draw on Naruto's chakra, though? It had to be a flaw in the seal, right? There was no reason it would be constructed such that the Fox could kill him—that would get rid of the weapon that the seal was designed to create. And that meant that the seal was failing; how long would it be before the Fox broke loose and killed everyone Naruto cared about?

He felt the panic rising and forced it down, taking a minute to just breathe and let his mind go blank in meditation the way sensei had taught. When he felt slightly calmer he went back to thinking.

Maybe the seal wasn't failing. Maybe there was another explanation, one that didn't mean that his precious people were doomed. What other reasons might there be for the Fox to be able to draw on Naruto's chakra? The beast was wounded. Work from there, come up with ideas. Don't try to judge them yet, that would just lead to panic. Just generate ideas.

Okay, maybe it could normally pull on Naruto's chakra, but the stuff was 'disgusting' and so it didn't do it until it was badly hurt; that was a reassuring thought. Alternatively, maybe the seal acted to keep its prisoner alive; if the intent was to weaponize the creature, then it wouldn't do to have him die. If that were the case, then it was the seal that was draining his chakra, not the Fox, and the creature definitely wouldn't be able to 'suck you dry' like he had said. The seal would need to keep both of them alive, so it would restrict how much of Naruto's chakra the Fox could draw. Or, maybe the Fox was the one draining him, but there was a maximum rate at which he could pull chakra from Naruto, and that rate was less than Naruto's natural regeneration.

He felt reassured; there were plenty of ways that he could explain what he was seeing without it meaning calamity. Furthermore, he'd discovered that he could prevent the draw if he focused; once he went back to his body he'd be able to let himself refill and his chakra would be able to heal the damage he'd taken. In the meantime, was there any way to determine which of the possible explanations was correct?

He pondered that for a while, but didn't see one. Shino's technique had depended on assigning probabilities to possible outcomes, but Naruto had no information to work from here, no way of judging how likely the various scenarios were. For now, he'd just have to operate on the assumption that disaster wasn't actually looming and both he and the Fox could survive this situation. When he got back to the real world he'd talk with sensei and the others; maybe they could figure out what was really going on.

In the meantime, he had an angry and tied-up Bijuu to deal with. He took an extra minute to meditate, then scooted forward so that he could look over the edge of the pillar.

"Look, I'm sorry about this," he said. He opened his hand, willing the net to release the vulpine jaws; it obeyed. "Can we talk without all the angry and shouty? Like you said, we're both stuck together. I don't want to hurt you; maybe there's a way we can work this out?"

"Let me go," the Fox snarled, struggling against the net that still bound it straitly to the floor.

"Oops," Naruto said, blushing. He spread his hands and the net relaxed, allowing the Fox to sit up. "Sorry, wasn't thinking."

"Interesting move, monkey," the creature said. "Most jinchuriki don't come down here, and the ones who do don't generally want to do more than posture and demand."

Naruto grimaced. "Sorry," he said. "This situation kinda sucks for both of us," he said. "You're stuck down here, and most everyone hates me because of what I am. Can we at least try to not hate each other?"

The Bijuu snorted. "You want to make nice with Me, little ape?" he said. "Expecting Me to be your friend is like you trying to befriend an ant."

Naruto frowned. "Look, Fox," he began, then paused. "I'm sorry, do you have a name? It seems rude to just call you 'Fox'."

One vulpine 'eyebrow' went up. "Kurama," he said.

"Hi, Kurama," Naruto said with a smile. "I would shake, but I'm afraid your paw is a little big for that."

Kurama snorted in amusement. "Like I would shake with a stupid monkey like you," he said.

"Could you please stop calling me names?" Naruto asked. "I'm trying to be polite, here." He paused then grinned. "I mean, you think you're so much better than me in every way—do you really want to be worse than me at something as simple as manners? I just want to talk."

The Bijuu's tongue lolled out in a vulpine smile. "Very well, my jailer," he said. "Was there a particular topic upon which you would like to converse?"

Naruto shrugged. "Well, I suppose 'jailer' is an improvement over 'meatsack'," he said. "Look, I hurt you and didn't mean to. That was wrong of me, and I'd like to make it right. Is there anything I can do?"

Kurama blinked, then narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What are you trying to do, fleshbag?" he growled. "Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?"

"Would you prefer I be mean?" Naruto asked. "I mean, I can clamp you back to the floor if you really want. Then we can growl at each other and circle around like angry dogs, but that doesn't seem like fun to me. I've been treated like crap all my life, and I'd rather not do that to anyone else."

Kurama cocked his head, eyeing Naruto consideringly. "You are a very strange human," he said.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Naruto said. "I know you aren't ready to be friends just yet, but can we at least try not to be enemies?"

The Fox lay down, paws crossed comfortably in front of him. He grew larger so that his eyes were still at a convenient height to talk; the net stretched to allow it.

"All right, Naruto," Kurama said, leaning hard on the name. "You want to talk, let's talk."

"Thank you, Kurama," Naruto said, leaning just as hard but doing it with a smile and a nod of acknowledgement. "I'm happy to keep feeding you chakra until you're healed, but I'll need to hold back a little so that I can heal up, train, fight, that sort of thing. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

The Bijuu considered the question. "You could open a window," he said. "If I make a real effort, or if you're drawing on my chakra, I can see through your senses. The rest of the time there's nothing except the room." He waved a paw around to indicate the bare stone that surrounded them. "It's boring."

"Sure," Naruto said. "Um...how do I do that?"

Kurama rolled his enormous eyes. "It's your mindscape, twit," he said. "Just imagine it and will it to exist."

Naruto frowned in concentration, willing a window to open. Nothing happened.

"Well?" Kurama demanded.

"I'm, ah, having a little trouble with this," Naruto admitted. "I don't really know how to do it."

Kurama sighed. "Ridiculous creatures; can't even control their own mindscapes," he grumbled under his breath, in a still-clearly-audible voice. "Close your eyes," he instructed. "Imagine a window that you know very well, then imagine yourself opening it."

Naruto closed his eyes and pictured the window of his apartment. Nine panes of glass held in a square frame; the bottom left pane had a hole in it from a rock someone had thrown; he'd sealed it with some waxed paper and glue to keep the wind out. The paint was peeling; he kept meaning to get around to painting it but never did. The frame was a little warped from years of weather, so it tended to stick. It looked out onto a view of the street, with the small green house on the left and the big square warehouse on the right. Right below the window was hard-packed earth from where he'd jumped in and out so many times.

He opened his eyes and there was the window, hanging just above the center of the pillar, big as life.

Kurama cleared his throat disapprovingly; it sounded like a rockfall. "A bit larger, if you please?" he said acidly. "I'm not a tiny little monkey-boy like you."

Naruto blushed and pictured the window expanding until it was sized for the immense Fox.

"Better," Kurama said. "Now, how about making it actually show something interesting instead of a painting of your street, hmmm? Just imagine that you're back in your body and you're standing in front of the window, looking out."

"Right," Naruto said. He closed his eyes and did as the Fox had said. The window darkened to blackness and he frowned.

"What happened?" he said. "I did what you told me to..."

Kurama sighed. "Your body's eyes are closed, twit," he said.

"Oh. Right," Naruto said. "That makes sense. Okay, there's the window. Anything else?"

"Yes, open it," Kurama said. "I'd like to actually be able to hear and smell, even if it is with your pathetic human senses."

"You could lay off the insults, you know," Naruto said, folding his arms and glowering. "I'm being nice, why can't you? No open window unless you apologize and promise to be nice."

Kurama growled. "Apologize to you?" he said. "You? A little bit of ape-flesh with delusions of grandeur? I am a creature of ancient power, and you expect me to apologize? Dream on, worm!"

"Fine," Naruto said, dismissing the window with a wave. "We can go back to being enemies, then. I think it's time I leave anyway."

"Wait," Kurama said. He looked like he'd just eaten an entire orchard of lemons. "Very well. I'm sorry that you were offended. Now put the damn window back."

"Hmph," Naruto said. "You call that an apology? That was a fake apology. And you were rude at the end."

Kurama growled. "I am sorry I offended you," he said, each word coming out like a tooth being pulled. "Now, would you put the damn window back...please." The last word was sarcastic and unwilling, but at least it was there.

Naruto smiled and waved the window back into existence. With an effort of will he forced it open, pushing hard to get it past the warped spot in the frame. The scent of antiseptic and the beep of chakra monitors filled the immense room.

Kurama took a deep sniff, sampling every nuance of the acrid smell. "Ahhh," he said. "Much better." He hesitated, then gave Naruto a respectful nod. "Thank you," he said. The words were only slightly reluctant.

"You're welcome," Naruto said. "I think I should probably be getting back to my body," he said. "Before I go, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"You could leave a channel open so I can talk to you," Kurama said. "It gets boring down here; it would be nice to have someone to talk to, even if it's a dumb mon—er, even if it's not one of my own kind." The change at the end came out sour.

Naruto laughed. "Nice save," he said. "And thank you for the effort." He hesitated for a moment. "I'm not comfortable giving you access to my mind just yet," he said. "Let me talk to sensei and the others first, okay? Maybe we can set that up later. In the meantime, I'll keep sending chakra down to you so you can heal up. We're in the middle of an enemy ninja village right now, though; if I need to borrow a little bit of yours, is that okay? I promise I won't do that treewalking trick again."

Kurama waved a paw, his attention still focused on the scents and sounds coming through the window. "As long as you don't take too much, it's fine," he said. "Keep it to the amount that you pulled a few minutes ago and it won't be a problem."

"Great, thanks!" Naruto said happily. "Okay, I'm going to go back now." He paused. "Um...how do I do that, exactly?"

Kurama glanced at him with an amused snort. "It's your mindscape, twit," he said, but the tone was more chiding than rude. "Just will yourself back...if it helps, picture yourself floating up into your body. Or jump. Whatever."

"Right!" Naruto said. He closed his eyes, pushed chakra into his legs, and leaped straight up. The ceiling rushed towards him at ridiculous speed; he imagined it swinging open in front of him like a door, and it did. He shot through like a festival rocket, arrowing through the darkness until he jounced back into his own flesh.

Suddenly the pain was back. He opened his eyes and moaned, glancing around to take in the hospital bed he lay in and the white-walled room around it. He didn't have the energy to do more than roll his head slightly, but there didn't seem to be anyone immediately around.

Turning his focus inwards he ran through his chakra coils, feeling the burned areas and the three vortices around his root, sacral, and heart chakra points. With an effort of will made difficult by the distracting pain, he forced his chakra to flow around the vortices instead of into them. He immediately felt better as the drain was cut off and his reserves began to refill.

o-o-o-o

It was a painful afternoon for Shino and Hinata. Anko wasn't kidding when she said she expected them to be able to dodge before an attack could land, and she proved it by punching them repeatedly in the face. The genin knew, in theory, how to establish a contingent kawarimi, but neither of them could manage it. It wasn't a question of chakra reserves or control, it was simply an extremely complicated set of chakra manipulations that were hard to set up and keep balanced. Kawarimi worked by fitting a solid layer of chakra around one's body, throwing out a bar of chakra to the target object, and then rotating the bar around its center, very quickly. A contingent kawarimi, on the other hand, worked by establishing the chakra skin, attaching an array of chakra bars to it, and then compressing the bars with a second chakra skin. The outer skin needed to be sensitive to physical forces and fragile enough that any force above a very minimal level would rupture it and allow the bars to expand; the first bar that touched a valid target would trigger the kawarimi. It was ridiculously complicated, and not usually taught before chunin level.

Nor was it taught here. Anko expected them to be able to read her body to see when she would strike and kawarimi just before the attack was launched. Even with Hinata's Byakugan and perfect chakra control, the sheer speed that was required was beyond her. Shino was even more lost.

Anko kept them at it until night fell. For the first couple of hours she threw the punches herself; mid-afternoon she took a break, pulled a bento box out of a storage scroll and had lunch while making the genin practice on each other. Each of them was extremely reluctant to hit the other; the blows they struck were half-hearted at best and thoroughly telegraphed. A few times one of them managed to do the kawarimi before the attack landed. Anko wasn't having any of that; she instructed them to punch for real and, when Shino didn't hit realistically enough for her, she beat Hinata badly and told him to get back to it. After that they both punched for real, although carefully aiming outside the most painful targets.

Once she finally allowed them to stop, the three of them went to the hospital. Both of them were badly hurt; both of them could hardly walk after being kicked repeatedly in the thighs, their eyes were swollen mostly shut, and their torsoes were a solid mass of bruises. The med-nin who healed them glared disapprovingly at Anko and informed her that Shino had a moderate concussion and three cracked ribs and Hinata had a broken cheekbone and orbital ridge, a concussion, six cracked ribs, and a bruised liver. Both of them were suffering massive chakra exhaustion; kawarimi didn't take much chakra, but it did take some, and they'd been doing it without a break for hours. Hinata in particular was so exhausted she'd had to turn her Byakugan off for the first time in days.

Anko shrugged. "Maybe next time they'll finally learn to dodge," she said uncaringly.

Once the two genin were healed and resupplied with chakra, Hinata was quick to turn her Byakugan back on. Immediately her no-longer-bruised eyes went wide.

"Sensei, Naruto-kun is awake!" she said. "His chakra coils are full, most of the burns are gone, and he's sitting up! Please, may we visit him?"

Anko looked at the doctor who'd worked on the genin. "Can we?" she asked.

The doctor raised his hands in a warding gesture. "Hey, don't ask me. He's Hashimoto-sama's patient, I'm not authorized to make decisions on him."

Anko glowered at him. "Then get Hashimoto in here," she said rudely. "I expect to see my trooper in the next fifteen minutes." A slight haze of killing intent leaked out; the med-nin gulped and hurried out.

It was half an hour before Hashimoto showed up. He wore his usual lab coat and a sour look. The doctor who had fetched him scurried along behind him, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

"What the hell is your problem?" Hashimoto demanded. "You want to see me, you ask politely at the nurse's station, you don't go threatening my doctors. Understood?"

Anko glared at him. "I'll threaten anyone I damn well please. The little bastard shouldn't have made me ask, he should have just gone and gotten you."

Hashimoto snorted. "Right, that'll happen. You talk like that to my doctors again, or go spraying your killing intent around to scare my people or my patients and I'll bar you from seeing the kid until I release him. Now, apologize to Kaito-san for your rude behavior."

Anko snarled but gave the doctor a short bow. "I apologize, Kaito-san. Please excuse my rudeness." The tone was polite, but the look in her eyes said that refusing the apology would result in death.

Kaito gulped. "No trouble at all, Anko-san," he said quickly. "I must apologize to you for not being responsive to your very justifiable concern for your trooper. As you say, I should have volunteered to fetch Hashimoto-sama. I hope that—"

Hashimoto waved him to silence. "Stop babbling," he growled. "She's the one at fault. Now, get back to your rounds." Kaito gratefully hurred away.

"All right you three, come along," Hashimoto said, turning and stalking off towards Naruto's room. The Konoha-nin were right on his heels.

The grouchy doctor pushed Naruto's door open as though it had personally offended him and stalked over to the blond genin. Angry as he seemed, his hands were still gentle as he ran a quick check on his patient.

"Ridiculous," he grumped. "This morning the kid is practically crippled and his coils are empty as your stock of manners." He waved disparagingly at Anko. "Now his damn eye is so completely healed I can't tell it was ever hurt. His bones are mostly fused, and that stupid burning in his coils is clearing up fast." He glared at Naruto as though the genin had personally offended him. "I'm holding you overnight," he said, "but if you continue healing at this rate I'll consider letting you out tomorrow afternoon."

Naruto smile was bright as sunshine. "Thank you, doctor-sama!" he said. "No offense, but I hate hospitals. I'd really like to get back to training with my friends."

Hashimoto snorted. "If you hate hospitals so much, try not to go unconscious and fall off any more buildings," he said. "Coils the size of yours, you have no business exhausting them. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have patients who are actually in need of a doctor." He gave all of them a glare just on general principles and stalked out.