Chapter 31: The Invitation(2)
At 0745, Naruto stood before the gate of the Hatake compound. He wore a simple, dark blue training yukata, his hair tied back neatly. He looked like a student going for a lesson.
Jiraiya stood before him, a mountain of worry. "Remember the exercises. Your mind is your own. Don't let them in. If you feel any pressure, any foreign chakra trying to probe, you shut it down and you walk out. Promise me."
"I will," Naruto said.
Jiraiya gripped his shoulders, his hands firm. "You come back. You hear me? You come back exactly as you are."
Naruto gave a single, firm nod. That was the plan.
He turned and walked through the village streets. The morning was bright, ordinary. People hurried to work. It felt surreal. He was walking to an appointment with a man who wanted to hollow him out, and the world was just going about its day.
Annex 7 was an unremarkable, square building on the edge of the administrative district. It looked bland, official. He pushed the heavy door open.
The inside was cold. The air smelled of antiseptic and stale paper. A lone Root operative, masked and silent, stood in the bare lobby. He merely pointed down a hallway to a heavy metal door.
Naruto walked to it. The door hissed open on its own as he approached, revealing a descending staircase lit by harsh, white lights. The air grew colder with each step down. When he reached the bottom, another door opened.
The room was a sterile, white cube. In the center sat a single, plain chair. Across from it was a metal desk. Behind the desk sat Danzō Shimura.
He was older than Naruto had pictured, but the presence was exactly as he'd imagined, a heavy, chilling pressure that filled the room. His right eye was sharp, calculating. The bandages covering his right arm and eye seemed to suck the light from the air. He didn't speak as Naruto entered. He just watched.
Naruto walked to the chair and sat down. He didn't fidget. He placed his hands on his knees and waited.
For a full minute, the silence stretched, broken only by the hum of the lights. Danzō was letting the environment press on him. The isolation, the cold, the implicit threat.
Finally, Danzō spoke. His voice was dry, precise, like pages turning in a old book. "Uzumaki Naruto. You have caused a considerable amount of... discussion."
Naruto said nothing. He just looked back, his face calm.
"Your recent display of chakra manipulation was... unorthodox," Danzō continued. "It demonstrated a concerning lack of control, and a dangerous volatility. The Hokage believes this is a sign of progress. I believe it is a sign of a deteriorating vessel."
Still, Naruto was silent. He was a pond, reflecting back only what was shown to him.
Danzō's eye narrowed slightly. "You do not speak. A tactic? Or are you simply incapable of understanding the gravity of your situation?"
"I understand that I was summoned for an evaluation," Naruto said, his voice even. "I am waiting to be evaluated."
A flicker of something, interest or annoyance, passed behind Danzō's eye. "Very well. We shall begin." He lifted a hand. A seal on the wall behind him glowed, and the room's hum deepened. A suppression field. It was a gentle pressure, meant to make chakra feel sluggish, heavy. To make a jinchūriki feel their cage.
Naruto felt it. It was like a weight on his chest. He simply acknowledged it, then breathed through it, as he had breathed through the pain of his scorched coils in the forest. He didn't fight it. He accepted it as a new condition of the room.
Danzō watched. "Your control is better than reported. But control is not the issue. The issue is purpose. You are a unique asset to this village. Your... instability... is a threat to its security. My purpose is to secure that asset. To ensure it functions for Konoha, and not against it."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping. "The Hokage's sentiment is a weakness. Jiraiya's indulgence is a danger. They see a child. I see a weapon that is not yet pointed in the right direction. I can correct that."
Naruto felt a new sensation then, a subtle, invasive tickle at the edges of his mind. Not an attack, but a probe. Seeking fear, seeking anger, seeking a crack.
He looked directly into Danzō's sharp eye. He let the man see nothing. Not fear. Not anger. Just a flat, unwavering calm. He thought of the deep, still water of the forest pool. He was the surface, unbroken.
"The village does not need another broken weapon," Naruto said, each word clear and deliberate. "It has enough of those."
Danzō went very still. The psychic probe sharpened, becoming a needle of pure will trying to pierce his mental walls. Naruto held them, the exercises Jiraiya taught him forming a smooth, seamless barrier. He didn't push back. He just... was. Solid. Impenetrable.
For the first time, something like surprise showed on Danzō's face. It was quickly buried. "Interesting," he murmured. "Not resistance. Absence." His gaze grew more intense, more hungry. "What are you?"
Naruto didn't answer. The pressure in the room increased. The suppression seal glowed brighter. The mental needle became a drill.
He knew he couldn't hold this forever. He had to make his statement. Now.
He slowly, deliberately, lifted his hand from his knee. He didn't form a seal. He just focused, drawing not on the volatile mix, but on the pure, refined silver-blue chakra he'd forged in the forest. In his palm, he began to construct something.
It wasn't a model of the village. It wasn't a fox. It was a perfect, complex, three-dimensional replica of the Eight Trigrams Seal that bound the Nine-Tails. It rotated slowly above his hand, every line, every whorl, every stress point illuminated in cool, steady light.
He was showing Danzō the masterpiece prison. Showing him that he understood its architecture down to the last symbol. That he lived inside it, and knew every corner.
Danzō's eye widened, just for an instant. The mental assault stopped. The room was silent except for the hum.
Then, from the seal model in Naruto's hand, a single, thin strand of that silver-blue chakra extended. It didn't lash out. It didn't attack. It gently, precisely, touched the glowing suppression seal on the wall.
The seal didn't break. It flickered. Its field stuttered for a fraction of a second, the pressure in the room wavering before it snapped back.
The message was delivered. I see your walls. I know how they are built. And I can make them blink.
Naruto let the model dissolve. He lowered his hand.
The silence now was electric, deadly.
Danzō stared at him. All pretense of evaluation was gone. What looked back at him was not a child, not a weapon. It was an intellect. A sovereign will housed in a dangerous power.
"You are not what was expected," Danzō said, his voice a low rasp.
Before Naruto could respond, a distant, muffled thump echoed through the ceiling. Then another. Voices, raised but indistinct. Jiraiya's voice, booming with theatrical outrage. "Where is my apprentice!"
Right on time.
Danzō's eye flicked upward, a flash of pure, icy fury crossing his face. He looked back at Naruto, and in that look was a promise. This was not over. It had only just begun.
"The evaluation is concluded," Danzō said coldly. "You may go."
Naruto stood. He gave a small, precise nod, as if ending a business meeting. Then he turned and walked to the door. It hissed open.
He didn't look back. He climbed the stairs, the sterile white light washing over him. As he reached the top, the door to the lobby burst open and Jiraiya stormed in, face red, two flustered Root operatives trying to block his path.
"There you are!" Jiraiya boomed, grabbing Naruto's arm. "Come on! We're late for your actual training! I told these paper-pushers you had a prior commitment!"
He hustled Naruto out into the blinding morning sun. The ordinary world rushed back in, loud and bright.
Naruto took a deep breath of the free air. He had walked in. He had walked out. He had shown Danzō a problem that couldn't be easily solved.
But as they hurried away from the bland, terrible building, he knew the truth. He had also seen the hunter's face. And the hunter was now very, very interested.
The game had changed. He was no longer just a piece on the board.
He had made himself the prize.