“Why do I have to stay back after school? I wanna go home!”
Umino Iruka sighed for the umpteenth time today. “We’ve been through this, Naruto. The final test attempt is around the corner, and you still can’t produce a half-decent clone. You’ll be held back a year and won’t be able to become a shinobi. Do you understand?”
The yellow-blond kid with faint, whisker-like markings on his face stilled as a nervous look flashed past his face before irritation came flooding back. “I’ll figure it out on my own. I know I’m almost there. Just you wait, I’m going to blow your socks off at the test, believe it! And this is the third time this week I’ve been held back. It’s not fair!”
“That’s because you painted graffiti on the Hokage Mountain, Naruto. You brought that on yourself.” Naruto gulped at the scary expression on Iruka’s face, which said he wasn’t happy about his latest prank, even though he had spent two evenings cleaning up the paint by himself. “I don’t want any more pranks until graduation. I want you to be serious about this, Naruto.”
“What about—”
“Not even the small ones.”
They arrived at the training field attached to the academy. It was empty. All the final-year students, except Naruto, had already passed their test and no longer used the field after hours. The academic year for the lower classes was already over, and no child wanted to be anywhere near school during their vacation.
“So, training?” Naruto asked, even though moments earlier he had been unwilling.
“Yes,” Iruka said, looking around.
“Oh! Is there a special technique that will help me learn the Clone Jutsu?” Naruto asked eagerly, spinning tails in his hyperactive imagination.
“Hmm? No, I’m not going to teach you anything.”
Iruka reasoned that Naruto’s enormous reserves made it difficult for him to control his chakra. He had struggled to do so ever since they had begun practising Leaf Concentration Practice in the academy. While his peers started out with manageable levels that grew alongside their control, Naruto was at an enormous disadvantage, as no matter how much he tried, his reserves were too large for him to wrangle. Even when his control improved, his reserves grew more, rendering his progress insufficient.
Iruka knew that Naruto was a hard worker. His Transformation Jutsu—which, much to Iruka’s dismay, he liked to call Sexy Jutsu—was the best among his peers. Naruto had somehow managed to gain enough control over his reserves to use ninjutsu, but there was just something about the pathways required for the Clone Jutsu that eluded him.
Honestly, he wasn’t expecting much when he told the academy principal about Naruto’s inability to use the Clone Jutsu. Over the years, Iruka had tried to implore the principal to give Naruto some extra help, but his requests had fallen on deaf ears. There were rumours that the principal, in a drunken moment at a party, admitted that he didn’t want Naruto to attend the academy or become a shinobi.
Iruka had done whatever he could on his own. He had paid extra attention to Naruto during school hours. He regularly asked for updates from his other teachers. He even took advantage of Naruto’s pranks to force him into after-school detention so they could study some more.
However, he could only do so much because he didn’t know what it was like for Naruto. He didn’t have gigantic reserves, nor did he know how having a tailed beast sealed inside his body affected his physiology. He just didn’t have the time or tools to properly help Naruto, no matter what he tried.
It didn’t help that Naruto had the patience of a toddler waiting in line.
So, it came as a spectacular surprise when the principal informed him that the Hokage wanted to see him regarding Naruto’s problem. According to the principal’s secretary, he couldn’t stomach the idea of Naruto spending another year at the academy, in case he was held back, and thus spoke to the Hokage about him.
“What? Then what are we here for?”
“Lord Hokage has arranged for a special instructor for you… They should be here by now. Are they running late?”
“What? Can’t you teach me?” Naruto said, suddenly apprehensive as he pulled on Iruka’s sleeve.
It was at that moment that both of them suddenly caught sight of a young man standing before them. He wasn’t there one moment, but then appeared the next.
“It’s you?” Iruka said, a smile of surprise on his face.
“I know you.” Naruto held his chin, eyes narrowed, before recognition struck. “Ah, you’re the chocolate big brother! Your name is Taku—Taku—Takumo!”
“It’s Takuma,” Iruka sighed.
Takuma smiled at the interaction. “It’s been a while, Chūnin Iruka. I hope you’ve been well.”
They heartily shook hands. Iruka patted his shoulder as he looked him up and down. “Look at you. You’ve grown so much since I last saw you. I remember when you were his age.” Iruka ruffled Naruto’s hair, who seemed lost in the affectionate touch, before snapping out and smacking the hand off his head.
“You’ve put on weight,” Takuma said, tapping Iruka on the side.
“Hey! It’s the flak jacket.”
Takuma returned his attention to the kid dressed in the bright orange tracksuit.
“Hello, Naruto. My name is Takuma. I’ll be teaching you how to make clones.”
Naruto looked at the extended hand for a moment before shaking it gingerly. “Yeah, hey. Nice t’meet ya, I guess. Why did the old man ask you to teach me?” he asked, frowning.
“I assume you mean the Hokage?” Takuma asked, chuckling while Iruka sighed, covering his eyes with his hand. “You can thank your teacher here. He thinks you have what it takes to be a shinobi, but you just need a teeny-tiny bit of help. He asked Lord Third, who asked me to help you.”
“But why you?”
Takuma caught Naruto glancing at Iruka. The kid was more comfortable with his teacher than with a practical stranger.
“Chūnin Iruka, a clone if you would,” Takuma said. Iruka weaved hand seals, and a duplicate stepped out from the thinning smoke. Takuma signed as well to produce a clone of his own. “Naruto, please try to touch your teacher’s clone and then do the same with mine.”
Naruto was sceptical but did as he asked and touched Iruka’s clone, only for his hand to pass right through. “Duh, everyone knows you can’t touch clones. I know that.” He walked to the other clone and looked at Takuma as he swiped his hand across the clone only to widen his eyes when it didn’t pass through. He stepped away from the clone, slack-jawed, looking between his palm and the clone.
“You have too much chakra, Naruto. That’s usually a fantastic problem to have, but in your case, it has made it difficult for you to control your chakra. I have no doubt that if you continue working on the Clone Jutsu, you’d be able to do it sooner or later. But for now, we want to take advantage of your enormous reserves to teach you another kind of clone. A better type of clone—”
Takuma’s clone put a heavy hand on Naruto’s shoulder.
“—one that can hit back. Would you like to learn that, Naruto?”
Naruto’s eyes widened even more as a hundred thoughts sprang up behind his eyes.
A toothy grin stretched on his face.
“You betcha!”
———
.
Aburame Genji looked up from the spread of incriminating documents on the table before him to gaze at the ANBU sitting across him. He waited for him to say anything, but the man behind the badger-motif mask just sat there staring at him.
“What do you want?” he asked, unable to bear the silence.
His day had started just like any other until he received a letter in his mail. Inside were a couple of documents alongside a short letter telling him to show up at an address if he didn’t want them leaked. The location was an abandoned warehouse where a pair of ANBU were waiting for him with proof of everything he had done over the past few years.
“The question is what you want, Chūnin Genji. Do you care if these documents are leaked?”
Genji bit the inside of his cheeks in anger. He was being mocked. Of course, he didn’t want the information to be leaked. For the past few years, he had been embezzling clan funds by using his position as the leader of a sizeable investment project. He even expanded the scheme to a couple of his friends in similar positions; they helped each other by establishing false trades to further enrich themselves.
When things got a little too big, they invited an academy classmate who didn’t amount to much as a shinobi, but had a keen mind for numbers. He helped them hide their gains and create a system that could safely siphon off more money without risking detection.
Clearly, the system wasn’t good enough or he wouldn’t be here now.
“I don’t want these documents to be leaked,” Genji said through gritted teeth. He took long, deep breaths to calm himself because his mood was affecting the bugs he was harbouring inside his body.
“Then we are on the same side. I, too, don’t want to leak these documents; they’re so much more valuable hidden. It’s the right choice. Your co-conspirators made the same choice.”
Genji’s eyes sharpened behind his shades. Inuzuka Goken and Nara Kuren were his academy classmates, and if the ANBU had gotten to them, it could only have been because of Katsuji Jiro. Genji had immediately contacted Jiro the moment he read the letter, but found that the accountant and his family were on a “vacation.”
The fact was that all of them were bound tightly to each other. If even one of them decided to betray the others, it would mean taking everyone down—and that had been a perfect deterrent. However, their arrangement only protected them from each other.
It wasn’t equipped to protect them from outside interference.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Information, much like we have in front of us. There are a few things of interest to us regarding the Aburame. All of your deeds can remain unnoticed as they have been if you agree to cooperate.”
“… You want me to betray my clan? My family?” Genji said as insects threatened to pour out of him.
“Is that a surprising ask? Are you not used to it because what else is this if not betrayal?” The ANBU pointed nonchalantly at all the documents on the table.
“This is blackmail. What if I refuse?”
“I understand if you regret your actions and want to come clean; better late than never, and that’s admirable. Do punishment for your crimes, reform your ways, and move on with your life. I’ll fully support that decision and encourage it… But I hear that Aburame don’t treat traitors kindly. Tell me something: Is it true that they strip you of the clan’s hiden jutsu?”
Genji felt cold. In truth, he wasn’t that concerned about what the ANBU could do to him. Sure, he would be punished under village law, forced to pay reparations, and have his pay heavily reduced—and maybe even stripped of his rank—but none of that would compare to how he would be punished under his clan’s law.
At birth, members of the Aburame clan were offered to several special breeds of insects as a nest, which resided just under their host's skin. These insects would then live in symbiosis with their host from that point onwards. Their bodies were permanently changed from birth; they needed the insects just as much as the insects needed the host. Genji couldn’t imagine what life would be like without his insects; he didn’t want to imagine it. There hadn’t been such a case in a while, but he had heard stories that some who were stripped of the hiden jutsu had taken their lives, unable to take it.
“It seems you have chosen. What is your decision?”
There was no decision or choice.
By the end of the day, ANBU had inroads into three major clans.