Chapter Text
Uzumaki Naruto is many things, but one thing he’s not? Evil .
People assume he’s evil, just like they assume he’s the one responsible whenever something goes wrong, just like they assume he’s going nowhere fast. And true, he might have been behind a fair number of pranks and tricks in the past, and yes, he might be dead last in class, but the demon comments are...weird, to say the least. Even more confusing is the way that the villagers just...whisper about it. Most of the time, when someone yells at him, it’s loud and upfront, but they never call him ‘demon’ to his face. Only in hushed whispers, when they think he can’t hear them. Another assumption to add to the pile, apparently. It’s not like he’s deaf.
He tried asking Jiji about why people call him a demon the last time he visited Naruto’s dingy apartment, but the old man just dodged around the question before handing Naruto his budget for the month, mussing his hair, and shuffling out the door.
There’s not too many other people he can turn to for answers. Within his first month at the Academy, he learned the hard way that most of the staff won’t give him the time of day. They only pay him any attention when he pulls pranks or shouts at them or distracts the other kids. And even then, it’s not good attention like pulling him aside to correct how he holds his wrist when he throws a kunai or teaching him how to do math more complicated than counting on his fingers. ( Force them to look at you, whispers the voice in his heart as he slips an explosive tag full of glitter and foul-smelling smoke into a teacher’s desk, force them to see you, to acknowledge your presence. )
But not Iruka-sensei. Iruka is kind to him, in little ways like offering him test retakes and taking him for ramen once in a while, and he knows that Iruka means well when he lectures him. He also knows that Iruka tried ignoring him like the other teachers do at first, but Naruto figured that something must’ve changed his mind. Sometimes, Naruto thinks that Iruka goes beyond tolerating him. Sometimes it seems like Iruka might even like him.
Even so, Naruto sometimes sees the same cloud of fear flit across his teacher’s face that he’s seen darken so many of the villagers’ expressions. The last thing Naruto wanted to do is alienate the one person who’s willing to give him even the barest scraps of acknowledgement.
Naruto’s been waiting until he has the right words to ask about his demon problem. And now he thinks he might have waited too long. He scuffs his feet in the dirt beneath the swing in the Academy courtyard, grimacing slightly as grit worms it’s way into his sandals and between his toes. His classmates all dance around each other, flashing their hitai-ates proudly to parents and siblings and friends. The teachers mill around, offering their congratulations to everyone.
Everyone but him. Because he failed. Again.
He practiced so hard this time around. He studied all the scrolls he could get his hands on, he poured so much time and energy into training, and he would have passed--his Taijutsu is up to par, he can henge well enough to pass muster, his substitution is decent, and he knows he at least passed the written portion, despite the letters floating dizzily across the page--if not for the stupid bunshin. He hates bunshin. He can never get it right. They’re either too weak or they pop immediately after forming.
Mizuki-sensei had argued in his favor after his disastrous performance, citing his endurance and determination, and Naruto had let himself feel a brief spark of hope, but Iruka had dumped a bucket of cold water on his dreams and summarily failed him once again. Naruto can see him now across the courtyard, standing next to Jiji. The older man is saying something to the scarred chuunin, but Naruto’s hearing isn’t quite sharp enough to hear it over the delighted chatter of his classmates, and he’s never been stellar at lip-reading.
There’s a rustle behind him, and he twists on the swing to see Mizuki-sensei perched on a branch above his head. “Naruto,” the chuunin murmurs, a gleam in his dark eyes. “You must be upset, after failing again. Want to go talk about it?”
(Why do you care all of a sudden? snarls the voice, but Naruto ignores it like he always does)
“’M not upset,” says Naruto thickly, swiping his sleeve across his face. He’s not just upset, he’s devastated, but he knows the shinobi code well enough to recognize that he shouldn’t be showing this much emotion. “I’m definitely not upset. But yeah, I guess we can ditch this joint.”
Mizuki offers him a grin and jerks his head towards the edge of the schoolyard. “C’mon kid, I know a pretty good spot for moping. Even though you’re definitely not upset.” He leaps from the tree, landing light as a cat before strolling off.
Naruto spares one last glance at Iruka, questions he didn’t quite know if he wanted to know the answer to burning in his heart. He can’t ask them today, not after he failed so miserably. Not after Iruka told him he wasn’t ready. He’d try next month. After school started again. Maybe he’ll get it right next time.
He sighs, then darts off after Mizuki.
Ever since he was little, he’s always felt more at home in high-up places. The tops of trees, water towers on rooftops, the Hokage Monument. Partially, he suspects, it’s because he’s out of reach from most civilians. But there’s something else, something about the tug of the wind on his hair and clothes, something about the way his heartbeat roars in his ears and his stomach clenches when he looks down, something about the way the sun glints off of everything when it’s unobstructed by trees or buildings. Up there, he can see beyond the great sea of trees surrounding Konoha. Up here, nobody throws rocks or insults at him. Up there, he feels like he could be Hokage.
He sees shinobi pass through his secret kingdom all the time, but they rarely ever stop and take in the sights. To them, trees and roofs and cliffs are things to be climbed on the way to their goal. He thinks it’s a shame, really, that nobody wants to look at Konoha from above. So when Mizuki takes him to a precarious balcony overseeing the Flower District, he’s quietly relieved that there’s at least somebody in this village who appreciates a good view.
After he’s situated himself in the perfect spot, his feet dangling lazily over the edge of the balcony, Naruto tells Mizuki as such, and his sensei laughs. "The sunset’s absolutely gorgeous in Konoha, when you can actually see it. Too many trees here for that." Mizuki hands Naruto a container full of gyoza as he settles next to him, threading his legs through the balcony’s railing. “Iruka-sensei failed you because he’s worried about you, Naruto. We both are.“
“It’s the stupid fucking bunshin,” Naruto snaps, then ducks as Mizuki flashes a hand out to thump him on the head, hissing 'language!' at him. “I would’ve passed that exam if I didn’t have to make a perfect bunshin, you know it, I know it, and Iruka definitely knows it.“
“I understand that you have trouble with the bunshin, and, well, yes, you would have passed if it were not for that. But every ninja needs to know the Acadamy Three. They’re important fundamentals that lay the groundwork for--”
“Yeah, yeah,” grumbles Naruto, wrinkling his nose as he stuffs a piece of gyoza in his mouth. He scrubs his greasy fingers on the leg of his pants before muttering through a mouthful of dumpling, “Doesn’t mean that I’m not fuckin’ pissed about it, y’know.”
“Language,” Mizuki repeats warningly, picking a gyoza of his own from the container.
“Doesn’t mean I’m not fuckin’ peeved about it, y’know.”
Mizuki laughs, taking Naruto by surprise. “That’s what I like about you, Naruto, you always see a way around the rules.” A thoughtful expression crosses the man’s face, and he taps his chin. “In fact, you might benefit from taking the Scroll Exam.”
Naruto freezes. “The what?”
“The Scroll Exam,” Mizuki says slowly, “is an alternate exam that a prospective shinobi may take in order to graduate. It’s rarely given outside of wartime, but as your sensei, I am authorized to decide whether or not that would be a viable option. And for you, I think it’s your best chance. The test itself is difficult, but for you, it’s absolutely within your power.”
“Okay, but you still haven’t explained what it is.”
“There is a scroll in the Hokage’s library called the Scroll of Forbidden Seals. We talked about it in class at the beginning of the semester, but you may not remember. The scroll is full of powerful jutsu, so it’s kept under lock and key. Usually, the Scroll Exam starts at noon, but I don’t think you’ll have any difficulty if you start at sundown. For the exam, you must smuggle the scroll out of the Hokage Tower, learn a jutsu by midnight, and perform the jutsu for your sensei.”
“Wait. I’d have to... steal? From Jiji?”
Mizuki’s face twists slightly in reproach as he shifts closer to Naruto, smacking him lightly on the head again. “Sandaime-sama, Naruto. Calling the Hokage ‘Jiji’ is rude. And you won’t be stealing the scroll! Not really. It’s a test of your skills, to see how well you can infiltrate, how well you can retrieve an asset, how fast you can learn a difficult technique, and how well you can keep a secret. Lots of shinobi in the past have taken this alternative exam. They’ve just been sworn to secrecy.”
Naruto feels his own expression twist as he bites his lip. “I--I dunno, Mizuki-sensei, this sounds an awful lot like stealing.”
“Well, yes, technically, it will be stealing. But you’re not intending to keep the scroll, just retrieve it, and I’ll smooth things over with the Hokage.”
“But...I’ve never heard about this test. I’ve only ever heard of people passing the exams. I feel like Jij--Sandaime-sama would have told me about this.” And he’s sure he would have heard from someone, especially one of the clan kids. Shikamaru especially would have taken this route in a heartbeat; anything to get out of sitting the exam with their peers. If anybody would know about this, it would be the clan kids, and the clan kids only worried about keeping their clan techniques secret. Not something like this.
And, well...he’d like to think that Iruka-sensei would tell him about it, too, if he thought Naruto would be able to pass this test.
“He probably thought you’d pass the conventional exam. Listen, Naruto, you could be an awesome shinobi if you had the chance, but it’s the bunshin that’s holding you back. You can’t pass the exam the way everyone else does, so you just have to take a shortcut.” He taps his forehead, grinning crookedly at Naruto. “Work smarter, not harder.”
(He wants something from this, the voice says. Be careful.)
“I...guess,” Naruto said hesitantly.
“Good kid,” Mizuki chuckes, ruffling Naruto’s hair. “Now remember, you have to have the jutsu memorized by midnight tonight. Steal the scroll, learn a jutsu, come find me at training ground 17, and I’ll test you.”
“...Ok, sensei.”
The longer Naruto thinks about this whole mess, the more trouble he realizes he’s in.
For starters? Earlier tonight, when Jiji caught him sneaking through the window into the Hokage’s archive, Jiji did not seem like he knew what was happening. He didn’t spend a whole lot of time with the old man, but he knew that when it came to dealing with Naruto, Jiji had a terrible poker face. If he’d been expecting Naruto to be sneaking the scroll out, he wouldn’t have frowned and asked him what he was doing out so late. He might have rolled his eyes or smiled that weird knowing smile, but he wouldn’t have looked so... confused. Naruto can only hope that Jiji was shocked enough by his Oiroke No Jutsu that he wouldn’t think much about Naruto’s presence in the Tower.
And then there’s the fact that the one and only jutsu on the scroll was a stinkin’ bunshin. Mizuki had made a whole big fuss about how the bunshin was holding him back, that he needed to learn a jutsu that wasn’t a bunshin, and now Naruto was expected to learn an even more complicated version of a bunshin? He supposes he could have studied the seals and used one of those, but Mizuki specifically told him to master a jutsu. So he’s been trying. And trying. And trying. But he keeps hitting a wall somewhere, and he’s starting to feel tired and dizzy.
To top everything else off, just as he’s about to give up entirely on this nonsense and just become a shinobi the proper way, Iruka bursts from the bushes and catches sight of him. The chuunin has an angry, frustrated fire in his eyes, and Naruto tries not to shrink back too much from it. “I-Iruka-sensei! I--I’m sorry, I can’t--I’m not--I can’t do bunshins--”
Iruka storms forward, his voice sharper than it usually is during his lectures. “Naruto, that’s no excuse for stealing the Scroll of Seals."
Naruto is now absolutely sure he’s in the most trouble he’s ever been in his entire life. Even more trouble than the time he caught his stove on fire. “I--Mizuki-sensei--”
There’s a flash of silver at the edge of the clearing, and Mizuki slinks from the shadows. He’s got three huge shuriken strapped to his back, and there’s something in his eyes that pitches Naruto’s heart rate into overdrive. “Iruka,” Mizuki purrs. “You found him before he could do any damage with the scroll! Excellent, I was starting to worry.”
Iruka’s face shifts from outrage to puzzlement. “Mizuki? I thought you were ordered to check the riverbanks--”
A fleeting emotion flashes across Mizuki’s features, too quick for Naruto to catch. “I--saw you heading here. You know the demon better than I do, I figured you might know where it would go to ground--”
Something splinters in Naruto’s stomach as a wave of realization washes over him, threatening to drown him. “Iruka-sensei,” Naruto says softly, trying to ignore the wobble in his tone. “Mizuki told me to get the scroll. He told me I could graduate if I learned a jutsu from it. That was--that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
The confused tone in Iruka’s voice when he says “What?” is the only answer Naruto really needs.
Mizuki was framing him. He wanted the scroll, and he used Naruto to get it, and Naruto had fallen for it like the stupid fucking idiot that he is because, what? Mizuki fed him dumplings? Liked the view of the sunset from a rooftop? Told him he could be a shinobi? (As if you can be a shinobi now, hisses the tiny voice in his heart. Too stupid to realize when someone’s playing you for a fool.)
It’s worse, though, Naruto realizes as he slowly rolls the scroll back up and slings it across his back. It’s worse, because for a brief, shining moment, he actually thought that Mizuki believed in him.
“Naruto,” Iruka-sensei is saying, but it sounds muted and far away in his ears. “Run to the Tower. Take the scroll back, apologize to Sandaime-sama, and we’ll have a long talk later about what you did tonight.” There’s a kunai glittering in Iruka’s hand, and Naruto briefly wonders how it got there.
Mizuki snorts from across the clearing. “I don’t know why you’re defending it, Iruka. You’ve gotten soft. Or maybe you were soft from the start.” He reaches over his shoulder and unhooks one of the shuriken, almost idly shifting into a throwing stance, his lip curling into a crooked smile that didn’t seem as friendly or charming in the dim moonlight. A practiced flick of the thumb, and the shuriken is spinning in his hand. “Hey, Naruto,” Mizuki croons as the shuriken dances in the pale light of the moon, his voice slippery with honeyed venom. “Don’t you want to know why everyone hates you?”
“No, I don’t give--I don’t give a rat’s ass--” Naruto stutters.
“Naruto, don’t listen to him. He’s trying to manipulate you for the scroll. Don’t fall for it. Run. Go.” Iruka’s voice is urgent and low, and if Naruto didn’t know any better, he’d swear that there was a note of panic threaded through it. “Go, now.”
“It’s because you’re a demon,” Mizuki sing-songs, an almost animalistic gleeful glint in his eyes. “You’re the Nine-Tailed Fox, Naruto.”
The shattered, splintered thing in his gut twists painfully, and Naruto recognizes somehow that Mizuki is telling the truth for the first time tonight. Everything slowly clicks into place. The whispers of ‘demon’ when he’s barely in earshot. The way people looked at him on adoption days at the orphanage, then passed him over for other kids. The ANBU he remembers following him as a child.
The dreams of giant, flaming red eyes watching him from a golden cage in the dark.
Mizuki’s smile grows wider and sharper. “The Yondaime--”
Iruka interrupts, voice harsh. “Don’t listen to him, Naruto--”
“--the Yondaime, he died sealing the Kyuubi into you. You killed him, Naruto, you killed all those people--”
“--Mizuki, stop, he’s-- ”
“--you killed Iruka’s parents.”
Iruka pauses.
And Naruto remembers. He remembers Iruka telling him I’m an orphan too, you know, over a bowl of ramen late one night. My parents died the night of the Fox attack.
Naruto did that. Naruto did that to Iruka.
Mizuki moves and there’s a terrifying shrieking sound as the shuriken flies from Mizuki’s hands, whirling straight towards Naruto. Iruka is screaming at him to run, he tries to move, he tries to dodge, he tries to do anything , but it’s like his feet are bolted to the ground. His legs jerk awkwardly and he twists around, falling straight on his face, it’s too late to scramble away--
There’s a sickening, wet thud, a pained grunt, and a cruel laugh from Mizuki. “Honestly, Iruka. It’s incredible that you’re defending that thing.”
Naruto’s head whips around. Iruka is crouched protectively over him, Mizuki’s shuriken embedded in his back. Why, Naruto wants to whisper, and maybe he managed to say it out loud, because Iruka answers. “Because we’re the same. You were so--” A rattling cough wracks Iruka’s body, and blood flecks his flak vest as the chuunin hauls himself to his feet. “My parents died. And nobody paid any attention to me, either. I was so lonely. And you are too, aren’t you?”
I’m so lonely, I’m so sorry, Naruto wants to say. I didn’t realize. I just wanted to be a shinobi. I just wanted to be strong. “He’s going to kill you,” he says instead.
Naruto can barely see Iruka’s grimace as the man turns to face Mizuki, but he can hear it in his voice. “I know. Run.”
He wants to fight. He wants to help fix his mistake. He wants to make it up to Iruka somehow.
But he runs instead.
Naruto is absolutely not crying.
He scrubs tears from his face as he tears through the underbrush, forgoing any attempts at subtlety as he tries to put distance between himself and Mizuki. It feels like he’s been running for hours, but it’s probably only been minutes, if even that. His mind is whirling and he’s so dizzy and the tiny voice in his heart is laughing at him--
The voice. Oh. The voice.
He’s heard it all his life, but recently, it’s been easier to understand. When he was little, it was less of a voice and more of a feeling. As he grew older and older, he could hear it better and better. At first he thought it was normal, that everyone had something like that. And then he thought it was because he was lonely, and he’d made up a friend that lived in his heart.
But now he thinks it might be the influence of the Fox.
(The voice is laughing now. It’s loud, louder than it’s ever been before, it’s angry and it just won’t shut up .)
There’s an enraged howl from Mizuki, muffled by foliage and distance, and Iruka suddenly crashes through a bush next to Naruto. “I--sensei, I’m--I’m so--”
Iruka’s hands fly through the henge signs-- dog boar ram --and suddenly, Naruto is looking into his own face. “Hide,” Iruka hisses, and Naruto can barely hear his sensei’s voice layered underneath his own.
He should stand his own next to Iruka, but his traitorous legs run around the base of a tree and collapse under him. Naruto can barely hear what happens next over his own panicked breathing, it sounds like maybe Mizuki tried to henge himself into Iruka to get the scroll from Naruto--
The tree shakes as something crashes into it, and Mizuki is yelling at Iruka now. “He’s going to use the scroll, Iruka, just like he’s taking advantage of you! The Fox--”
“You’re right,” Iruka chokes out, and Naruto’s world spins out from underneath him. The voice abruptly stops laughing, and the silence in Naruto’s head is heavy and terrible, but it’s nowhere near as dark as the yawning pit in his stomach. Iruka hates him. He killed Iruka’s parents, and Iruka hates him for it, how could he not--
“You’re right,” Iruka repeats. “The Fox would take advantage of me. But Naruto isn’t the Fox.”
What happens next is a messy, painful blur. Naruto barely recognizes that his legs are moving until he’s standing in between Iruka and Mizuki. His arms are splayed out awkwardly in front of him, reaching for Mizuki, who is taking rattling, gasping breaths through bloody teeth. Iruka is also breathing heavily, but he sounds much better than Mizuki does. And for good reason.
There’s a giant golden chain coming out of Naruto’s right hand. It’s covered in spikes, and it’s soft, sunshine-yellow light is pulsing in time with Naruto’s rabbiting heartbeat. The chain is taut, drawn straight as an arrow through the clearing, straight to Mizuki’s chest. Not just to his chest. Through it. It pools on the ground behind Mizuki, coated in bright red blood.
Mizuki falls to his knees. Then pitches forward to the ground. Then takes a strained breath.
And dies.
(Like mother, like son, whispers the Fox.)
The chain shatters, each link crumbling to golden, sparkling dust that swirls away in the slight evening breeze. Naruto slowly turns to Iruka, whose face is slack with bewilderment. “What the hell was that,” he manages to say, and promptly passes out.