The Protagonist System

308 The Hard Truth

There was kind of a mad scramble that night as the Hokage gathered a few experts, medical and mental alike, and they went to the orphanage after Cat's surprising report about not detecting any chakra from the Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails. Since she was one of their best sensors, he didn't doubt her report.

Unfortunately, he was going to have to punish her after she said she had guided Naruto into how to push his energy into the seal to reveal it, essentially breaking the law. It didn't matter if Naruto was the subject of the S-Class secret, she wasn't supposed to reveal anything to a child. Hiruzen also suspected that the boy would be making that seal appear all the time, like it was a shiny new toy.

The group of experts reached the orphanage and none of the workers tried to stop them as they went right up to the boy's room. It was tiny when compared to all the other rooms and was barely larger than the old and broken crib and the small bench inside. The looks on everyone's faces let him know that they didn't approve of his living conditions.

“Wake up little one.” The head medic-nin said in a soft whisper and gently shook the boy's shoulder.

“AHH!” Naruto gasped and then saw he was surrounded by strangers, looked deathly afraid, then started bawling his eyes out. “WAHHHHHHH!”

Everyone put their hands over their ears at the nearly ear-piercing wail in the small room.

“Go get Cat or Yui!” Hiruzen ordered the ANBU guarding him. He immediately regretted not including them and kicked himself mentally for not thinking of doing that first. He was rushed to get things organized and didn't realize Naruto wouldn't know anyone here and would be afraid.

After a few minutes, Cat appeared with a squirrel on her shoulder, which no one questioned, and she scooped up the crying baby into her arms. Naruto calmed down right away as Cat hushed him and apologized for scaring him, wiped at his face, and stood him back in his crib. She had him hold on to the end of the crib and stepped back, well within reach, and nodded to the Hokage.

“This won't hurt at all.” The head medic-nin said and performed her chakra abilities to check the boy over. When she had her results ten minutes later, she stepped back and let the next person gather their information without saying what she had found. She didn't want to influence their findings.

The blond male, Inoichi Yamanaka was the head of the T&I branch of the Shinobi Corps, or Torture and Information. He was their main mental expert and he did several of his tricks to get the baby boy's attention, then performed his mental jutsu to plunge into the boy's limited mind... and bounced right back out.

“That's never happened before.” Inoichi said in surprise. He quickly changed tactics and did a different jutsu to skim the boy's surface thoughts. All he found were projected thoughts on Cat and the scary people doing magic on him, which made him chuckle under his breath.

After a few minutes of calmly talking to the boy, the thoughts reacted and changed to what he wanted them to, only to find out the boy knew nothing about the Kyuubi, chakra, or what they were all doing there. All he wanted was to sleep and hoped Cat played with him, because he liked cats.

He stepped back and didn't speak, keeping his results to himself, and the chakra flow expert stepped forward. The head of the Hyuga Clan performed his family's bloodline jutsu called the Byakugan, and tried to look at the boy's chakra flow, only to see there was none.

“Cat, guide him through the seal reveal.” Hiashi Hyuga ordered.

Cat stepped forward and pulled up his little t-shirt, then whispered into his ear.

Naruto giggled. “I do it!”

Everyone watched as the boy looked like he was going to poop himself for several seconds, then the modified Eight Trigrams Seal appeared on his little belly. Everyone gasped, even Hiruzen, because not one of them felt the Kyuubi's massive chakra energy that should have appeared with the revealed seal.

Hiashi Hyuga had kept his eyes on the boy the entire time, trying to see the chakra energy flow, and he detected nothing, not even whatever he did to make the seal glow. As far as he was concerned, the boy didn't have any chakra or even the proper paths to form chakra. He looked at the head medic-nin and the woman gave him a subtle nod. She hadn't detected anything, either.

Hiruzen was a very smart man and had seen the brief exchange. He also knew what it meant without them saying anything. “Thank you for letting us check you out to make sure you were healthy, Naruto.”

“Bad man funny!” Naruto said with a giggle.

Everyone seemed to freeze and no one moved. They didn't even breathe. None of them tried to look at the Hokage's face or indicated they were going to, because they really didn't want to know what expression he would have if they did.

“Why did you say that?” Hiruzen asked, his voice flat.

Naruto shrugged, which looked really odd on a baby. “Put me here.”

Almost everyone relaxed at the simple and easily explainable answer.

“Stop wants me?” Naruto asked, as if confused, and didn't look at Cat or the head of the Hyuga Clan, even if they were two of the people that wanted to adopt him. “Kept me here.”

That caused another silence in the room and Hiruzen let out a sigh. He made a motion with his hand and everyone followed the order to retreat from the room. They all stepped out, even Cat, after she gently patted Naruto's head. She shut the door and the group moved off down the hallway and stood by the second floor window.

Hiruzen hade anoter hand sign and dismissed his guard to have them retreat to give him privacy. “I don't have to ask what you found.”

“Nothing.” Both the head medic-nin and Hiashi said at the same time and no one noticed Cat relax slightly.

“His mind refused to allow me entry.” Inoichi said. “I had to resort to skimming his outward thoughts and he has no idea about anything to do with the Nine-Tailed Beast, chakra use, or why we were there to examine him.”

“You couldn't enter his mind?” The head medic-nin asked, surprised.

“It bounced me right out when I tried.” Inoichi said. “If I'd known a year ago that he had such a natural defense against mental intrusions, I would have fought harder to adopt the boy. He could have become a complete master with my clan's techniques, even if he doesn't share our bloodline's natural affinity for the mind arts.”

Cat sucked in a sharp breath and that gained their attention.

“You have something to add?” Hiruzen asked. He would come up with something later to discipline the woman for breaking the law. For now, he would let it slide.

“I just realized that if Yamanaka-san is correct, then the Uzumaki heir will be immune to Genjutsu.” Cat said. There was no way for her to lie to the top experts in their fields.

“Yes, I definitely regret not fighting for him.” Inoichi groused.

“You could try taking him now.” The head medic-nin suggested and no one missed the sad look on Hiruzen's face.

“There's no point now.” Inoichi scoffed. “He doesn't have any chakra, either his own or the Kyuubi's.”

“Well, we could perform that experimental surgery to give him artificial chakra points and possibly unlock the Eight Inner Gates within his body.” The head medic-nin suggested.

“He's too young to survive that with no training or strengthening his body first.” Hiashi said with a sigh. “He also can't use my clan's Gentle Fist technique if he doesn't have his own chakra and can't sense or see the chakra of others.”

“You can cover that with memorization and training.” The head medic-nin responded, since she had to do that herself. She wasn't a Hyuga, so she had to sense and detect chakra paths the hard way, through her own chakra use and experience with various techniques.

Hiruzen let them discuss things for several minutes as he thought about the problem. Naruto Uzumaki, the Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails, didn't have the Kyuubi inside of him. Where had it gone? The ritual had completed, and he had felt the massive amount of chakra being funnelled and transferred into Naruto. At least, he assumed it was.

Did Minato change the target at the end and took the Kyuubi with his soul into the belly of the Shinigami? Hiruzen asked himself. Would the Nine-Tails be reformed after a few years or a few decades? Would it come back if the aspect of death had claimed it for himself? Was that the price of the sacrifice? Naruto's chakra?

The Hokage didn't have any answers to those questions, except one that would answer all of them.

“No one must know that Naruto doesn't have the Kyuubi inside of him.” Hiruzen said and the others talking stopped.

“You can't be serious.” The head medic-nin said.

“We have to keep quiet about it to protect the village.” Hiruzen said. “If anyone knows we are the only shinobi village that doesn't have a Jinchuriki protecting it, the last war will look like a playground fight in comparison.”

Inoichi sighed. “The other villages will join together to wipe Konoha off of the map.”

None of them mentioned a similar thing had happened to the Uzumaki Clan's village, Uzuzhio, because everyone was afraid they were becoming too powerful. The countries of Lightning, Water, and Earth, or in other words Kumo village, Hidden Mist village, and Stone village, banded together and attacked without warning and massacred them. Only a few escaped, including Naruto's mother, and they scattered to stay safe.

The last thing the Land of Fire needed was to be attacked by all of its enemies at once, since they had enemies all over the place. None of them had worked together before, so the danger wasn't as dire as it could be if they joined forces, which meant they had to agree and keep another S-Class secret.

“I'm declaring this an S-Class secret.” Hiruzen said and looked right at Cat. “No one is to be told about this, and I mean no one.” He said, pointedly. “Do you understand?”

Cat stiffened and nodded once.

“I need to hear you verbally respond, Cat.” Hiruzen prompted her.

“I understand, Hokage.” Cat responded.

The old man nodded and looked at the other three people in the hallway. “No one else is around, so it's only us that know the truth. If anyone else finds out, we will know it was one of us that gave it away.”

None of them missed the fact that the Hokage just told them that one of them would be killed if anyone else discovered the truth. They nodded and promised themselves that they wouldn't reveal anything, not even to their partners.

The two heads of their clans knew their wives were going to be angry when they were informed that they couldn't be told what the emergency was about. Even hinting at the secret would be bad, because their wives were quite intelligent and would figure it out. Keeping their mouths shut was the only way to keep the secret safe.

Hiruzen dismissed the three experts and waited for them to leave before he looked at Cat. “Report to my office in the morning to receive your punishment for breaking the law.”

Cat let out a soft sigh and nodded. She knew she was going to be killed and she also knew she couldn't run. Her teammates were the best hunters, as was she, and there was no way to get away without causing a huge mess or revealing she was a criminal if she tried to become a missing-nin.

Hiruzen left and the ANBU agents guarding him formed around him and one glanced back to look at her. Cat accepted the silent warning to not run, not that she was going to, and she went back to Naruto's room. She sealed the door and took off her mask to look at him as he stood there looking back at her.

“I'm going to be punished tomorrow morning.” Cat said without hesitation.

Naruto held up his arms and she picked him up to hug him. “I'll save you.”

Cat held him and didn't respond. She knew that he couldn't, even if he was a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy. There was nothing he could do to protect her, not if she was sentenced to death by the Hokage.

“No worry.” Naruto said and patted her cheek. “Always safe.”

Cat let a tear come to her eye and held him as she silently cried. She had so much she wanted to do with her life and none of it was going to happen because she was an ANBU. She kissed his cheek and laid him down in his crib, tucked him in, and wished him a goodnight. She went to the door and put on her mask, whispered a final goodbye, and left.

She didn't sleep at all during the night and had been surprised that her man hadn't shown up to comfort her during her last night alive. It had broken her heart when she realized he wasn't going to be there for her, and she went to the Hokage Tower early. She arranged for her built-up pay and mission rewards were transferred into another account that only Naruto could access, to the disgust of the secretary.

Cat didn't bother berating the woman for being so stupid to hate a child for no reason and entered the Hokage's office when it was time. She was surprised when another ANBU agent was there in the open and stood next to the Hokage, because it was her man, Hayate Gekko.

She thought about yelling at him and calling him an asshole for not comforting her all night, like he should have, and instead sighed sadly. “Coward.” She whispered and Hayate stiffened as if slapped, then he sighed as well.

The Hokage handed him an envelope and Hayate stepped forward and handed it to her. Neither of them told her to open it, since that was implied, and she did so. As she read her dismissal from the ANBU special forces, she felt a sharp pain on the side of her neck from a needle poke and didn't flinch or react in any way. The last line of the letter was her death sentence and it was already carried out.

“It's a fast acting poison and is completely painless.” Her old sensei said.

“You asked to deliver it?” Cat asked him.

“Yes, I... I thought your last moments...” Hayate took a breath and let it out. “You should be with someone you love.”

“You should have done that last night, you asshole!” Cat shouted, giving in to her impulse to punish him for being so stupid.

“I'm sorry, Yugao. I couldn't face you until I came to accept that I was losing you and...”

“Shut up!” Cat spat and he closed his mouth with a snap. “I needed you to hold me before I died and you were too focused on yourself and your own feelings to bother?” She asked and her hand shot out and jabbed her steel-like fingers into his unprotected throat, crushing his windpipe. “I'll meet you in the Pure World.”

Hayate grapped at his throat and dropped to his knees as he choked and tried to breathe, his body bent over as he gasped for air.

“I need a medic-nin in here now!” Hiruzen shouted.

Cat chuckled and shoved her knee up into Hayate's face, broke his mask and crushed his nose, which shoved a small shard of bone into his brain. The ANBU convulsed and fell backwards onto the floor as his hands gripped his own throat much too hard to do any good.

“How could you betray the village like this?” Hiruzen asked her.

“Why would that matter?” Cat asked and felt woozy. “You've already killed me. Are you going to sentence me to death again?”

A medic-nin rished into the room and started to tend to the fallen ANBU, only to sigh and shake her head. Cat dropped to her own knees and her head felt really heavy. The medic-nin turned to her and the Hokage waved her off and pointed to the opened letter on the floor, which the woman read and realized she couldn't interfere with an official sentence.

Cat fell backwards onto the floor as the world seemed to fade away. It was a surprise to her that everything was black, because she was sure the stories about the Pure World mentioned it was supposed to be full of bright colors and the spirits of her ancestors.