The Protagonist System

After I changed into a ninja outfit, which was appropriate for what I was going to do, I set up my dummy in my bed for the night. None of the night workers ever had to check in on me, because I was such a model prisoner... ahem, orphan... that never caused a fuss.

I chuckled mentally and slipped out through the door that I silenced, after checking for movement with my X-Ray vision, and went to the window at the end of the hallway. It was the best point of exit and entrance, since it was out of the way, which was why I didn't use it.

I knew the Dog ANBU agent was perched on a branch in the closest tree, despite Cat's verbal warning that it was too close for someone inside the orphanage (*cough* me) to see them when on duty. I went down the stairs and went to the back door of the building. I didn't bother opening it, since it had breach seals on it and it was almost like a ward made of chakra energy.

I smiled at it as I made myself invisible and intangible and walked through the wall instead. It kept me out of sight from everywhere, even from the tree my guard was using, and I carefully made my way across the yard and out through the far gate.

Ah, freedom. I thought happily and walked down the street. I didn't run, even though I wanted to. Being stuck inside for nearly a year had given me a small case of cabin fever and I had to get out and explore a bit. I hadn't seen a lot of the sights of the village with my own eyes and only with clairvoyance and X-Ray vision. It just wasn't the same as being there in person to see it for myself.

I also didn't use my portals or stepping ability, because I had the feeling that it would be easily detectable if I crossed one of those chakra wards. Also, they were nearly everywhere that was important. The Hokage Tower in the center of the village was coated with them, as was the Hokage monument carved into the cliff face at the far side of the village.

I thought it was a little pretentious of the Third Hokage to have a giant stone face of himself carved into the rock face while he was still alive, especially because they were high enough that they overlooked the village and you could see them from anywhere inside the high walls that surrounded the large village.

Still, it was a huge monument and had four faces, the last one being my idiot father. He should have had a successor in the works to take over his job, just in case anything happened to him. Mind you, he was the most liked Hokage and everyone thought he had been the best one, which obviously pissed off the other candidates that had been up for the job at the time.

The older man named Danzo Shimura and the younger man named Orochimaru had been passed over for the younger and much stronger Minato Namikaze. Orochimaru used it as an excuse to leave the village, becoming a Missing Nin, and betraying his oaths to protect the village.

Danzo on the other hand, wallowed in his hatred and did many things in the background to ensure certain events were in his favor to gain more power inside the village, including producing his own ANBU operatives called ROOT.

They were almost simple-minded as they followed their orders religiously, meaning any deviations or changes in circumstances usually confused them and caused them to retreat to get new orders to cover for the changes. It meant they were rigid and not very adaptable, making them severely lacking in the ability to operate independently.

As I approached Danzo's office, I easy detected many chakra wards, even more than around the Hokage Tower. Apparently, he was very paranoid and didn't trust anyone, so I wasn't going to be poking around inside his office in person. When I tried to approach from a different direction, I discovered the roof was also warded and was covered in deadly traps.

Okay, he's very very paranoid. I thought and tried to look for tunnels around the building, knowing any ninja as old as him would have to have a physical means of leaving a secured location. Sure enough, there were three tunnels and they all led in different directions. They were also warded and covered in hidden traps.

I sighed at being stopped from having fun and followed the biggest one. It brought me halfway across the village to an abandoned warehouse, only beneath it was a large compound that was nearly filled with children, teenagers, and adults. My X-Ray vision let me see that they were all asleep and I looked around to find a training area, ninja outfits, armor, and weapons.

I mentally marked it on a map and went back to Danzo's office and followed the second tunnel to the Hokage Tower. That would explain why no one ever saw the old man entering and leaving, unless he wanted people to see him there. I went back and followed the third tunnel, and it led to a long abandoned underground lab.

It was a surprise that he hadn't blocked the tunnel off, since this was clearly one of Orochimaru's experimental laboratories. Then again, it was stripped of everything and was pretty much empty. Maybe Danzo was keeping it as extra room for something? There were no external exits that I could see besides the tunnel, so that migt be why Danzo kept it. No one else but him could access it.

However, it was still warded and trapped, so I wasn't sneaking in that way, either. Dammit, why couldn't things have been easy? As soon as I poked anything, I was sure the area would be swarmed with ROOT operatives looking for whoever breached their boss' property.

That gave me another idea. I would have to wait for one of them to leave their base before I could use compulsion charms to see if they could disable some or all of the wards from the inside. Or better yet, get Danzo himself to step out of his protected areas to give me access to him. That was assuming I didn't just jump in anyway to set off all the alarms.

I wasn't quite ready to handle that yet, not with the limited amount of time I had. Plus, he might alert the rest of the real ninja, including the Hokage, and I knew the first thing Hiruzen would do was have his ANBU check on me to make sure I was safe.

I sighed and walked back to the underground ROOT training area and tagged a few of them with tracking spells. It might take a few days or weeks to figure out the best time to grab one of them to break open one of the hidden passages to get Danzo without anyone else knowing about it.

Until then, I had to return to the orphanage to wait for the next time Dog was on shift. You would think pretending to be a baby would be taxing or boring, and it sometimes is; but, it was oddly relaxing to not have any responsibilities besides eating, playing, and sleeping. Plus, I had a few hot women to tease and make blush, which was always a laugh and let the time pass quickly.

*

Yugao Uzuki donned her Cat mask when she left ANBU Headquarters. She felt both trepidation and excitement about her task, which was odd for her. Her target to observe and report on was only a baby, not even a year old yet, and she wanted to both encourage and discourage him. He could do the chakra exercise of sticking a leaf to his forehead already and then copied her when she walked up the wall.

That was a once in a generation talent; no, it was a once in a lifetime talent. She had never heard of anyone that young doing anything like that. She also knew that if anyone but her knew he could do things like that, he would be drafted into ANBU and possibly ROOT, to make sure he worked for the betterment of Konoha, no matterwhat his own personal feelings were.

When she had called in a few favors and discreetly checked to see if the boy could be adopted, she found the red flag placed there by the Hokage himself to stop anyone from filing paperwork for the boy's adopton. Why did he do that? Did he know the boy would be that talented?

Yugao shook her head at that thought. There was no way for anyone to know, not when she herself couldn't detect a lick of chakra from the boy. It was why she had cautioned him about showing off. If anyone saw, his normal life would end.

That thought made her scoff. He was the Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tailed Beast, the Kyuubi. He was never going to have a normal life, not with how the S-Class secret had been spread over the entire village and all of the adults knew it. They would not be treating him with anything but contempt and hatred, which really made her feel sorry for him.

However, she wouldn't betray her own oaths to whisk him away and become a Missing Nin. Not only didn't she have the funds to do that, she also wasn't skilled enough in evasion and stealth to hide from the rest of the ANBU squad if she ran, let alone taking a baby with her.

Yugao arrived at the orphanage and slid through the trees to end on a different tree than the last time. It was a test to see if the boy would find her, even with her hidden behind two other trees. She just hoped he didn't take another swan dive out of the second floor window again.

She was a bit too far away to catch him before he was near the ground and their momentum would carry too much for her to deflect it like she had the last time. With a mental sigh of relief, she saw Yui had a firm hold on the boy as she sat on a chair outside and drank a cup of coffee. There were also several other children playing in the backyard.

“Kitty!” Naruto said and waved towards the trees.

“I still can't see any cats around.” Yui said with a chuckle. “Where is it?”

“Kitty hide!” Naruto said and clapped.

Yui laughed. “Of course it did. It knows you've seen it.”

Naruto giggled. “Down?”

Yugao mentally shook her head. No, don't! He'll come right over to me!

Yui didn't hear her mental plea and put the boy down on the ground. “I'm watching you, so don't go far.”

“Jus' fwees.” Naruto promised and started waddling around.

“Okay, just to the trees. No farther.” Yui responded.

“Kay!” Naruto said and his waddling firmed up and he walked almost in a straight line towards the trees.

Yugao held her breath and watched, only to smile under her mask as Naruto went to a tree that was three away from hers. He reached the trunk and pretty much kicked out with both legs at the same time and flopped down hard onto his butt, making his caretaker laugh.

“I'm not kissing that to make it better!” Yui warned him.

“No owies!” Naruto told her and then started playing with the leaves on the ground.

Yugao was a little worried he would stick them all over himself, and all he did was gather them up and then throw them around. Not surprisingly, Yui seemed to lose interest and sipped her coffee as her eyes drifted away from him and she looked at the other kids playing in the backyard.

Before the Cat ANBU wondered why Yui attention had left the boy, she felt her branch move. She turned her head and caught her breath, because Naruto was right there on the branch with her.

“How did you do that?” Yugao asked in a whisper.

“Pider.” Naruto said proudly, then the little bastard dropped from the branch, stuck his feet to the underside of the branch, and walked by her and up the trunk of the tree.

Yugao watched as he went right to the top, not moving a single leaf or shaking the quite thin treetop, then he walked back down to her and stood vertically on the trunk by her face. He gave her a hug around the neck, whispered thanks, and walked down the tree and out of the woods.

It wasn't until Naruto started waddling that the Cat ANBU realized he had no trouble tree-walking and struggled when on normal ground.

He's faking it. Yugao thought with amazement as Naruto reached Yui and the young woman scooped him up, kissed his cheek, and brought him back inside the orphanage. He took my advice and isn't showing off to anyone that doesn't already know.

The Cat ANBU spent the rest of her shift wondering what else she could show him and if he would get it right away like he had with tree-walking. Despite her not wanting the boy to have the same life that she and several others had as a child ANBU agent, she also didn't want him undefended or for his skills to go to waste.

*

I watched Cat leave when her shift was done and held in my laugh. I hadn't had to implant any thoughts into her head at all about training me. She came up with it all on her own after I proved I had listened to her and was hiding my abilities from everyone except her. I would need to duplicate what she showed me with other powers instead of using chakra, since I would become a beacon like a shining star as soon as I started combining my mental and physical energy.

I would probably knock her out if I became a gigantic chakra reactor right in front of her. Her sensor abilities would be overloaded and might even hurt her, so I would have to fake it. That shouldn't be too difficult, not with everything I could do.

I hadn't detected any of my tracking spells anywhere near the surface of the ground, so I still needed to wait and see if I could get a ROOT operative outside their protective chakra wards. I would be patient about it, until this tactic either succeeded or failed. Maybe I could keep a watch on the Hokage Tower and catch Danzo when he visits Hiruzen?

I mentally shrugged and closed my eyes. I still had things to use my clairvoyance power on that were more important, like those files Danzo had about the Uchiha Clan. I knew there was a significant event about that would happen in a few years, only I didn't know exactly when. I also had to watch the various clan heads to make sure nothing else was going to bite me on the ass when I was older.

It was a bit of a shock to know that every single clan had petitioned to adopt me, even the minor clans, and all of them for their own reasons. Some for revenge, some to murder me for being the Kyuubi, some for their respect for what my father did to save the village while also not knowing that he was my father, and a few clans had genuinely wanted me as a part of their clan.

That last one was to strengthen their family and to tie me closer to the village, because at the moment, I was an orphan and named Uzumaki, making me the last official member of my clan. I knew I wasn't, since there were a few kids out there that didn't know who they were, since they were orphans as well. As far as I knew, none of them had the Uzumaki name, in order to keep them safe from the clan's enemies.

Why weren't they coming after me? I wasn't known to them yet. That would change in the future, especially when people who wanted to control me would release that information and then claim they were going to protect me, when it was them that put me into the danger in the first place.

I wasn't going to stand for that, though. The first thing I was going to do when I left the orphanage was claim my inheritance, namely all that money my parents made as ninjas and my father made as the Hokage. If Hiruzen or anyone else tried to deny me my birthright, there was going to be a reckoning that no one was going to enjoy.