Chapter Text
Sasuke doesn’t know what Kakashi tells everyone, and he doesn’t want to. All he knows is that it results in Danzo’s execution, and no one important says a thing against it.
Ties to Orochimaru aren’t looked upon kindly in Konoha, after all.
Apparently Kakashi never mentioned the three day long panic attack Sasuke faced, because when he’s summoned to the Hokage’s office, he’s not told he’s getting discharged. “I fixed the paperwork,” Tsunade says instead. “You’ve been raised officially to the rank of Konoha jonin. In light of the situation, the violation of your probation is being overlooked.”
Well, that’s better than anything he expected. Actually, that’s probably the best news he’s heard in a while. “Thank you,” he says, deciding not to push his luck by asking why.
“You’ll still be serving under Kakashi, when the military divisions are finally made,” Tsunade continues, “but if you encounter Uchiha Madara, engage directly, even if it defies a planned attack formation.”
“What?”
Considering Madara has directly stated he wants to recruit him, Sasuke half expected himself to get carted away with Naruto, or at the very least told to make himself scarce if they came across each other. Last time resulted in him getting sucked into Kamui; he’s not the most useful person in the world.
There’s not a hint of amusement on Tsunade’s face, though. “You said you’ve hit him before, didn’t you? With your Chidori?” she says, and he nods. “Sasuke, we’ve been picking up strange images from aerial scouting cameras. It seems as though Kabuto’s joined forces with the Akatsuki, and he’s taken Orochimaru’s mantle. He’s using a jutsu to revive the dead - some of the greatest shinobi the world has ever seen are walking again, under Madara’s command. There are two people with the Sharingan left on our side, and Kakashi’s going to be occupied leading an assault against an undead army. Your Mangekyo might be the only real hope to at least discovering a way to kill him.”
When he originally asked to become a jonin, Tsunade had been resistant, so the sudden individual orders are a little unsettling. “And if he doesn’t show himself?”
“Then we’ll figure it out when the time comes,” she says. “Outside of the Kazekage, the rest of the Kages aren’t too thrilled with the idea of you taking the initiative, but there’s no denying you’re our best chance.”
Sasuke’s quiet for a moment, thinking it over, before coming to the only logical decision, no matter how much he hates the idea of it. “If I’m really going to do this,” he says, “then there’s a handicap I need to get rid of. How long are we going to have before we’ve fully mobilized?”
Raising an eyebrow, Tsunade says, “Ten to fourteen days, minimum. It’s not too easy to organize the world. What do you need?”
“Full access to Sakura’s healing abilities,” he answers, “and Itachi’s eyes.”
Her pencil hits the desk with a clatter.
The Sharingan doesn’t decay, even when the rest of the body does. Like all clans, the Uchiha took precautions to make sure the secrets to their kekkei genkai were never stolen in death. If an eye is transplanted into someone outside the family, then it’s naturally destroyed at the time of the person’s death. If not, the clan vaults can only be opened with a genjutsu cast by a Sharingan used by a blood Uchiha. Sasuke didn’t enter, not willing to see his brother’s body and entrusting Tsunade to do it, but he did take care of opening them, and really hopes he never has to do that again.
Even though she should be meeting with the rest of the Kages, Tsunade does the operation herself, informing the other four she was handling one of their best assets. “You’re sure this will get rid of the blindness?” she says with the scalpel already in hand.
“Yes. The Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan doesn’t have the same side effects.”
“Proceeding now. Try not to scream.”
In order to keep his eyes open, they can’t knock him out, or drug him. He’s going to have to struggle not to faint, and feel the entire operation.
When it starts, it’s the worst pain he’s ever felt, and he never makes a sound.
Getting stuck on some stupid island “for his protection” while everyone has the chance to fight isn’t what Naruto considers fair. Learning how to control the Kyuubi without Sasuke’s help is the least he can do, since he’ll hopefully be allowed out in the field eventually, but he can’t do it without Bee’s help.
Though Bee’s reluctant, at least Naruto succeeds in getting his attention. He’d disconnected enough TV systems in the Academy to prevent a day of having to watch embarrassingly old documentaries on the joys of shinobi living that he can undo his fellow Jinchuriki’s video game console easy enough. “Look, I’ve got this friend,” he says once he gets the older guy to stop freaking out on him for breaking his game, and this feels like explaining everything to Gaara all over again, “who’s got the power to control the chakra flow of people like us. If I go out on the field and lose control, he’s going to have to cut me off to avoid friendly fire since I can’t control it, and that leaves everyone else at risk, and my friend vulnerable.”
Bee narrows his eyes. “How can someone control our chakra flow?” he asks. “You can’t even suck us dry, and people’ve tried, boy.”
Considering that he’s eighteen, Naruto doesn’t really count as a “boy” anymore, but he’s already stolen this guy’s one entertainment in this boring place, so he probably shouldn’t push his luck by correcting him. “Uh,” he says, “it’s a long story. But anyway, I don’t want to risk hurting people, and there’s someone on the other side who I’m pretty sure can do the same thing, so you probably shouldn’t be the only Jinchuriki with control, you know?”
“Ask someone else.”
“I won’t reconnect the console.”
They stare each other down. Finally, Bee says, “Only if you lose that jacket. The orange is a giving off bad vibes.”
As offended as Naruto is because, excuse him but this was a birthday present from Jiraiya for off-duty days, it’s better than getting told no. “Awesome,” he says, standing and going back to the TV. “Give me five minutes, I’ll have this back up, and then you can show me how it’s done.”
Bee stands there, arms folded and glowering, while Naruto hooks everything back up. This is going to be the last time he ever underestimates the power of video games, he thinks, because that was way too easy.
Even with war coming to the whole world, and having to deal with healing Sasuke every six hours so the delicate optical nerves of his new eyes don’t disconnect, Sakura and her boyfriend take a day to themselves to celebrate her eighteenth birthday.
“Oh my god, I love it!”
She spins around in front of the mirror, watching the hem of the dress she’s not going to be able to wear for a long time sway around her thighs. It’s red, hemmed white, with her family’s circle on the back. “Your mom helped us,” Sasuke tells her. “She said we weren’t allowed to buy you anything practical, since eighteen’s important.”
Sometimes she actually appreciates how oblivious Sasuke is to normal relationships, because typically, when a guy buys his girlfriend a present for her birthday, he doesn’t pool together money with their best friend. But it works, because she’s like ninety percent sure none of them could afford something like this on their own. Regardless of how many times Tsunade says money is one of the deadly vices of any kunoichi, that hypocrite, Sakura’s not going to stop appreciating well made clothing.
Now if only Sasuke could see her, even just a little, because she looks pretty great. Unfortunately, unlike the last few times when his eyes were going and his vision was just a little blurry, they’ve had to completely block him off by wrapping a bandage around his head, and it’ll be another two days before he can take those off. This also means the present wasn’t wrapped; she actually had to get the box herself from the bottom of Naruto’s closet, which isn’t a place anyone should go rummaging around alone. When they meet back up, she’s having a talk with him about proper organization.
“Well, she was right,” Sakura says, coming back into the main area where Sasuke’s sitting on the couch, facing her direction. “It’s perfect, seriously.”
Having a birthday on the eve of war is awful, but it’s going to be even worse when his comes around, and she knows it. They’ll actually be in the middle of war. People they know will probably be dead. Likely Naruto won’t be there, either.
What a wonderful way to turn eighteen.
Even blind, Sasuke can still feel out where people are, if not necessarily objects or walls, so when he reaches out for her, he gets her wrist, pulling her down to him. By now, he’s gotten better at touching people, or at least her, Naruto, and Kakashi, which is good, considering they’re about to be surrounded by millions of other shinobi. “Happy birthday, Sakura,” he says, and one corner of his mouth tilts up into half a smile.
Whether this situation is happy or not is up to debate, but they’re about to march to war, so she’s going to have to learn how to take these small moments of calm where she can find them.
In the days before the start of mobilization, Kakashi doesn’t have a lot of downtime, and his team knows this, so he wouldn’t have thought his team would search him out for anything other than a friendly meal. Even so, Sasuke finds him the day the bandages come off, also known as two days before the start of the war, and says, “I’ve thought of something, but I need your help to test it.”
This is how, three hours later, Kakashi finds himself standing across from his former student at the training grounds they took their first bell test in, forehead protector pushed up with both eyes revealed. “As neither of us have the power to transport ourselves into Kamui,” he says, “this isn’t going to be easy.”
Sasuke’s normal Sharingan had always been a little disconcerting, the oddness of his Mangekyo even more so, and Kakashi hadn’t known it could get any weirder, but now it’s an exact split between the old one, and Itachi’s. “I know,” Sasuke says, pulling out a kunai, “but we have to try. If all versions of Kamui are connected, then I can use his own technique against him - and get myself out if he shifts me inside again.”
Even if this doesn’t work, it’s better if Sasuke gets in at least some practice now, Kakashi figures, so there’s no harm in trying. Neither of them have ever tried to pull anything out of Kamui, either, though, which will only make this harder. “Okay,” he says. “I’m ready.”
It’s only his own speed, and knowledge of Sasuke’s style that give Kakashi enough time to shift the kunai, but it happens too close to his face for comfort. After he moves, there’s a long, silent delay, and then the kunai pops back into existence seconds before it embeds itself into a tree.
“Well,” he says after a moment, ripping it out of the trunk and finding it solid and cold in his hand, “I guess that answers your question. How did you think of this?”
If Sasuke’s eyes are disconcerting, it’s nothing compared to his ability to figure something like this out on his first try. “Well, Kamui definitely means a singular place, not multiple variations, or I thought there had to be a reason behind that. Can we try again?” he asks. “I want to make sure it isn’t a fluke.”
This isn’t a fluke, Kakashi knows that without being told, because before Madara, the only person he’d ever seen with better control than Sasuke was his brother, and now that power is combined. It’s time to see if that’s enough to win a war, because if they take out Madara, then the other side will fall apart without its leader. Despite himself, Kakashi still can’t help but wish the role of Unranked assassin was given to anyone other than a seventeen-year-old boy.
The Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan means two things: no negative side effects, and a power boost from the original user. Having someone else’s, particularly his own brother’s, is disturbing, but if it means killing Madara before he can get to Naruto, Sasuke’s willing to deal with the knowledge that he’s looking through Itachi’s eyes rather than his own. That said, he’d feel a lot better if Naruto were here helping defend himself.
As Kakashi’s the leader of Third Division, and Sakura and Sasuke are his unofficial, collective second-in-command(s), they help in passing out the new forehead protectors to the two hundred or so people in their group. With his eyes a dark brown rather than a dark blue, or red and black, he was hoping no one would recognize him, but news travels fast, and Suna and Konoha-nin might smile at him, but everyone else looks at him like they’re wondering if they should start devising an attack strategy. More than once he catches someone he recognizes from his own village telling someone else to chill, his name’s Sasuke’s, and didn’t you hear he’s the one who killed Orochimaru.
After nearly four hours of dealing with this, he meets up with Kakashi, Sakura, and Lee, the key members of what Ino nicknamed the Sasuke Defense Squad after a few Kiri-nin said they’d slit his throat in his sleep if he did anything suspicious (really, it’s starting to get old). “Any more death threats?” Kakashi says as Sasuke takes a seat on a log next to his girlfriend, preparing himself for sunset, where they’ll receive instructions from the Kages.
“Nothing to my face,” he answers, and tightens the knot of his new forehead protector. “What about you?”
Just because he’s slightly more hated due to his actions being more recent doesn’t mean he’s the only one here with information on him in the bingo book. There’s a significantly higher price on Kakashi’s head dating back to the end of the Third Shinobi War sixteen years ago. “I’m commander,” he says. “No one’s dumb enough to risk faking friendly fire with me.”
Sasuke’s pretty sure no one’s dumb enough to risk it with him, either, but that doesn’t mean people can’t say it. “What do you think our first orders are going to be?” he says, glancing at the raised rock formation the Kages will appear on later.
“This is more direct than the last war, with different opponents,” Kakashi says, following his gaze. “For as many old war vets there are, we have rookies, too. Kirigakure, Iwagakure, and several small villages are all allowing genin to fight.”
The main five shinobi nations all have the age restriction of fifteen, but that can’t be said for some of the minor ones. As a jonin, Sasuke’s an officer, one of the youngest, but earlier he passed out a forehead protector to a couple of girls and boys who couldn’t have been much older than thirteen. When he was a genin, he had the skill level of a chuunin thanks to Itachi, but that can’t be said for most, and definitely not for anyone that young. Seriously, fuck whoever made that decision, because he’s not up to watching children die, and they’re going to be some of the first casualties.
From Sakura’s frown, he knows he’s not the only one thinking along these lines. “None of us are prepared for this,” she says, pulling her knees up. “Tsunade said Kabuto raised some of the best shinobi to ever live from the grave. How do we kill the dead?”
There’s a pause before Kakashi says, “Fire. A lot of of fire. That’s how you dispose of a shinobi’s corpse to hide its secrets. The principle can’t be too different.”
With his new eyes, Sasuke can use Amaterasu as much as he wants without going blind, even if his eyes bleeding isn’t something he can stop. He has more chakra now, too, and Itachi’s superior genjutsu techniques. Those might work on the living, but he doubts illusions will be effective against the dead.
“Taijutsu won’t do anything, will it?” Lee says, and Sasuke hasn’t heard him sound this dejected in all the time they’ve known each other. “There are some living guys in this army, right?”
Kakashi glances at Sasuke in a way that means nothing good before saying, “More recent intelligence seems to indicate Kabuto took charge of Oto, and contracted those loyal in the village to help.”
Though this makes perfect sense, Sasuke still manages to be surprised. Maybe it’s just how much he hated the man himself, but he really can’t imagine anyone following -
Oh. Right, when they infiltrated Oto, he had a panic attack right in that surveillance room. But it’s been months, by now Sasuke doesn’t get confused the way he used to. What happened with Danzo was the result of stress, and remembering something worse than Otogakure citizens. “Do we have any idea if he can recreate the cursed mark?” he says, pretending he doesn’t notice how the others all look like they’re waiting for his reaction.
“Our intelligence isn’t that good,” Kakashi says. “Most probably have it, though. We haven’t see all the dead, either, but scouting images have picked up the rest of the Akatsuki members, with the exception of the ones you sent you into Kamui.”
At least that means they won’t have to deal with Hidan again, because he was annoying, but it also means Deidara’s back. “Even Sasori?” Sakura asks, frown deepening, and Kakashi nods. “Damn. Who else?”
As of now, the list is short, but outside of the Akatsuki members scouting images picked up, according to Kakashi, a few Kages from across the nations, Neji’s father, Zabuza and Haku, and several names they wouldn’t recognize. “Since we don’t know much about the jutsu,” Kakashi says when he’s done, “there’s not much we can say for sure about the personalities they may or may have retained in their reawakening. If there’s any, and Kabuto’s trying to control that many, there might be a few who switch sides, but we aren’t counting on it.”
“So, we have that plant guy, the dead controlled by someone with no morals,” Sakura says, counting off on her fingers, “Oto-nin, Kabuto himself, and Madara, who’s bad enough on his own. Am I missing anything?”
Nodding in the direction of a group glaring at another group, Lee says, “Look around at the number of people hating on each other. It’s not just the other side we need to worry about.”
Fights have been breaking out all morning and afternoon, though most are broken up quickly enough. Sasuke’s starting to think Konoha-nin might be a little stranger than he realized, because for the most part, they’re the peacekeepers, especially between Iwa and Suna. “Just wait until the first battle, and all this will stop,” Kakashi says. “‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ That never applies to anything more readily than wartime.”
“If Naruto were here, he’d be friends with half of them already,” Sasuke says, which is the closest he’s coming to admitting out loud he really, really wants his friend. His ability to talk to anyone would distract from the fact that Ino even had the opportunity to think up a name like the Sasuke Defense Squad. “What’re the chances Madara’s going to show himself the first battle?”
“High. He’s the leader.”
Sakura sighs, and taps her fingers against her knee. “Are you really going to run off by yourself?”
Though he kept it a secret as long as he could to stop her from worry, he had to own up to the truth about Tsunade’s orders yesterday to make sure none of them would follow him. “I have a plan,” he says, which is half true. “Don’t worry, Sakura. Stronger eyes, remember?”
Even though that doesn’t seem to satisfy her, that’s enough to make her drop it. Instead, Lee asks, “How are you going to stop anyone else from following?”
“There’ll be orders for no one to pursue,” Kakashi says for him. “We just need to hope no one’s suicidal enough not to listen.”
That seems to be all for now, and Sasuke’s not complaining. He doesn’t want to talk about Madara, or think about Madara, and for however long this war lasts, that’s all he’s going to be stuck doing.
If he and Sakura ever get married, he’s taking her family name, because he’s so sick of the Uchiha clan and its bullshit that he wouldn’t mind burning the compound to the ground.
There’s some barrier jutsu around the amazing moving turtle island that stops the ability to track signals, which is good, because they can get updates even if they can’t give them. Unfortunately, this also means Naruto’s stuck getting all his news from cable and the internet, but whatever. It’s better than no news at all.
From their placement right now, the only signal they can pick up is the Land of Lightning’s stations. “Don’t expect to learn a whole lot from this, kid,” Bee tells him as they sit through the evening weather report, sharing a bowl of popcorn, and as it turns out, Naruto’s actually really glad he befriended the guy, because now that he’s gained control the Kyuubi, he’s bored as fuck most days. Though really, he could do without the rapping Bee does while training. “It not like they can report anything important.”
Yeah, Naruto gets that, because this is public, so the enemy can pick up on it, too, but it’s better than nothing. It’s so stupid that he isn’t allowed to help. “Jiraiya said you can tell whether your side’s winning or not by the news,” he says. “Like, crime and economic reports will get worse, and civilians will start protesting for negotiations.”
Jiraiya said he hoped Naruto would never be put in a position where that would matter, too. Well, look where both of them are now - gone, and stranded. There’s no way to actually communicate with anyone off the island, either, which means Team Kakashi could all die, and he wouldn’t know.
Except that they won’t happen, because they aren’t going to die, not when he’s too far away to help.
“Isn’t this pissing you off?” he says, biting on his thumb nail. “We could be out there right now, and instead we’re here.”
Bee claps him on the shoulder so hard Naruto rocks forward. “Be patient, they’ll come asking for us the moment they realize they’re out of their depth,” Bee says, and Naruto doesn’t bother pointing out that the Kazekage was a Jinchuriki, and is totally on board with this decision. “My brother won’t let us sit around here forever just ‘cause thinks it’s a good idea now.”
When Tsunade told him about this, she hadn’t sounded all that happy, and Sakura said she’d been even worse in the beginning, so the Raikage isn’t the only one who’ll come to his sense. But that isn’t exactly what Naruto would call a guarantee. “They’re letting my friend fight, and Madara’s after him too,” he says. “How unfair’s that?”
“Can your friend’s chakra release an all powerful being not seen for centuries past that could destroy the world as we know it?”
“Uh, no?”
“That’s why.”
For someone with so much energy, Bee’s taking this annoyingly calmly, while Naruto’s here about to go crazy from worry. Team Kakashi fights better when they’re all together; everyone knows that. “I’ve faced down the Akatsuki before, like a lot,” he says, crossing his arms. “Kakashi’s so good he’s probably a leader. He could add me to a fight pretty easy.”
As he eats another handful of popcorn, Bee asks, “Copy Cat Hatake Kakashi?”
Naruto nods. “He trained me. Well, he trained me until Jiraiya came and trained me, and then went back to training me. And yeah, I do mean that Jiraiya.”
“You lucky brat,” Bee says, and holds out the bowl for Naruto to take more. “Bet your teammates were jealous.”
“Nah, or at least not Sakura,” he says, and it sucks that the Land of Lightning is so big because they’re still on the weather which mostly, surprise surprise, is about thunderstorms. “She trained under Tsunade. Sasuke got training under his brother before we were even genin. Uchiha Itachi.”
“Wasn’t he killed a couple years back?”
Again, Naruto nods. “Akatsuki. Me and Sasuke went up against our first Akatsuki guys because of that - or in his case, he killed one. Didn’t know why they were there, but we knew who they were. I don’t think they really expected that, but, you know. You don’t find out a crazy terrorist organization murdered a guy who was practically your older brother without doing some kind of research on them.”
Really, they weren’t even all that hard to look up, and whoever decided they should have black jackets with red clouds was an idiot. Could it get more conspicuous? Hell, Naruto’s favorite color is orange, and he still gets that stealth’s a pretty important part of being a shinobi.
Bee gives him a corner eye look. “You went up against these guys as genin, lived, and we’re stuck here? Damn, my brother told me I was suppose to be keeping you under wraps. No one said shit about you being good.”
Before Naruto can point out that’s what he’s been trying to say, the scene on the TV changes to a newsroom, with an anchor woman and words on a screen reading Fourth Shinobi War on the Rise. Her hair is his color and curly, looks like it’s stuck together with too much hairspray, and he can’t believe that the best he can do is read between the lines of civilian media.
A Should Be Dead Deidara attacks along with a guy Naruto thought was Orochimaru but turned out to be Kabuto, and now Yamato’s kidnapped, and they’re heading to Kirigakure. He hadn’t known things could get worse after the Kisame attack, but he was wrong, and they had.
“I’m not just sitting here anymore,” Naruto says, starting to feel claustrophobic from being inside this turtle island. “We need to do something. I killed that guy, so the only way he can be back is if Kabuto can do that thing that Orochimaru did when he invaded Konoha during the chuunin exams, and raise the dead, and how the hell is everyone supposed to fight against that?”
Aoba rubs his fingers to his temple. “I knew we shouldn’t have told you the truth,” he says, which is so insulting Naruto doesn’t even know how to answer. He’s eighteen, not fifteen, and spent two years with Jiraiya; he would’ve been right through any lies they tried to pull on him. “We have orders to keep you under guard, Naruto. There’s a whole war going on to protect you right now. You can’t run out onto the battlefield and not expect there to be consequences.”
Just because he’s one of the two that the Akatsuki are after doesn’t mean Naruto needs protection. Or at least not this kind of protection, anyway. All they have to do is put him near his team, and he’ll get better watch than some obviously not invulnerable island. They’ve been going up against large numbers of enemies at a time together since they were genin. By now, fighting together, and protecting each other are sort of what they’re best at. Not to mention he and Sasuke have already killed Deidara once. It probably wouldn’t have been too hard to pull it off again, especially if they had a damn army with them.
No, confining him here with nowhere to run and a backup of a grand total of six people, one of which is gone, another of which is kidnapped, is a much better idea. Clearly Gaara and the others thought this through to such perfection.
Learning to control the Kyuubi, yeah, that was a necessity, but they should’ve been off this place the moment he did. “You heard what Kabuto said,” he says, scrambling to think of anything that could work as good enough reasoning. “Deidara’s not the only one he’s bringing back. There are Akatsuki members who are literally immortal, who Sasuke only killed because he threw into an alternate dimension, and who knows? Maybe those guys can be brought back, too.”
“So you can kill them with a Sharingan?” Aoba says. “Good, our Sharingan users know what to look out for.”
“But you can kill them with wind chakra, too.”
“A lot Suna-nin will get the opportunity to prove themselves, then.”
This is going nowhere. Turning to Bee, Naruto says, “Come on, help out. You don’t want to be here either, right?”
Bee doesn’t even look up, headphones in and his music loud enough to hear even without them. Great, so Naruto’s also completely on his own with this. Aoba, who still just seems so unimpressed by everything, says, “Look, I get that you’re worried, but the whole shinobi world is out there fighting. And if it’s your team in specific, one of them is a medical expert who, from what I hear, can break apart a wall with a punch, and the other can create a giant guardian chakra creature by blinking. Kakashi is known for being one of the best shinobi active right now. They can take care of themselves.”
Yeah, until Sasuke loses his eyesight and Sakura has to heal him, leaving them both exhausted and open for attack, and people said Jiraiya was one of the best, but he isn’t here. “I know that,” Naruto says. “But what about everyone else? Basically every Konoha-nin chuunin and up is there. I can help. By being here, I’m as good as abandoning them.”
“That’s their mission, their orders,” Aoba says, running his hand down his face. “Ours are to stay here, and wait to avoid the two of you getting captured. By the time he was fifteen, Sasuke was scaring people with how good he was, Naruto, and he got snatched out of a crowded apartment building. I would have thought that was enough proof that no one’s safe, regardless of skill level.”
While that’s true, Sasuke was injured, and unprepared, two things Naruto’s not. Oh, and he’d also be surrounded by an army. That’s a pretty big advantage. “Abandoning my team is worse than disobeying orders to do nothing,” he says, crossing his arms. “There’s nothing worse than a person who leaves their friends when they’re in danger.”
Throwing his hands up in the air, Aoba says, “I quit. Naruto, you’re staying, end of discussion. We’ll be to Kirigakure in two hours.”
With that, he walks away, leaving Naruto fuming in a corner. If Aoba won’t help him, Naruto decides, then he’ll just have to help himself, because he’s not risking anyone else dying.