I don't remember hitting the ground.
I remember deciding to take the third step.
I remember the air thickening until it felt like I was inhaling wet cloth. I remember warmth spilling from my nose, running over my lip. I remember sunlight turning white at the edges of my vision like paper burning.
Then nothing.
When I come back, the first thing I taste is dirt.
Grit between my teeth. Iron on my tongue. My mouth aches like I bit through it when I fell. The world is tilted sideways, a strip of sky between leaves above me, and for one stupid second I think I'm still in the forest clearing with Mizuki.
Then the empty sleeve tugs where it's pinned and my stomach drops.
I blink.
Shadows shift at the edge of my vision.
Someone is crouched beside me, close enough that I can smell him—dust, cloth, old smoke masked under something clean. His face is forgettable on purpose. Civilian clothes. Shinobi posture.
Root.
He doesn't ask if I'm alive.
He checks like I'm equipment.
Two fingers press my throat for a pulse. A thumb wipes under my nose. He looks at the blood on his glove with no expression.
"You collapsed," he says.
It isn't accusation or concern. It's documentation.
I try to speak and pain lances under my tongue. The seal coils tight, warning me before I even form the thought properly. My mouth fills with a metallic taste again—blood from the split inside my cheek.
"I—" I rasp.
My throat is dry. My lungs feel bruised.
The man's eyes narrow slightly. "Explain."
Explain what?
That Naruto has a gravitational field made of narrative inevitability?
That getting too close to the "main character" makes my body revolt like reality is rejecting me?
I can't say it. Even thinking it too clearly makes my ribs tighten faintly, like the world is listening.
"I'm… still hurt," I manage. "From… yesterday."
True. Pathetic. Safer than "fate tried to choke me."
The Root operative watches my face for signs of deception.
Then he stands and lifts me by the back of my collar like I weigh nothing.
Pain tears through my shoulder. I make a sound I hate.
He doesn't slow.
The world sways as he half-drags, half-carries me into the alley's shade. The village noise feels far away now, muffled by walls and my own pulse. My sandal scrapes. My head lolls.
I catch glimpses between blinks: rooftops, a laundry line snapping in the breeze, a woman carrying vegetables who doesn't look at us—doesn't *see* us—because her brain refuses to file what it can't safely understand.
We move fast.
Not rooftop fast this time. Backstreet fast. The kind of movement that looks ordinary if you don't stare too hard.
My blood trails into my mouth again. I swallow and nearly gag.
The Root operative doesn't speak until we're deeper into the quiet parts of the village.
"You were ordered closer," he says.
"I tried," I rasp.
The tongue seal tightens as if it dislikes excuses.
"I did," I insist, and my voice shakes. "I couldn't breathe. I—blackout."
He stops in the shadow of a wall, finally setting me on my feet.
For a moment, he just studies me. Not like Iruka—human and worried. Like Danzo—measuring the useful parts and discarding the rest.
Then his gaze flicks to my nose, where a fresh smear of blood has dried.
He exhales once through his nose.
"Come," he says.
No punishment. Not yet.
That lack of immediate violence scares me more than a slap would. Root doesn't delay correction unless it's choosing a better tool.
We slip through a side entrance I don't recognize. Down stairs that smell like damp stone. The sunlight dies behind us. The air cools. The world becomes lantern-lit and controlled again.
By the time we reach the familiar corridor, my legs are trembling.
The plaques flash by. **Sealing.** **Interrogation.**
My tongue aches in anticipation.
They take me into a small medical room—the same harsh, flat light. The same metal basin. The same medic with dead eyes.
He tilts my head up without asking.
His fingers probe my split lip, then the inside of my cheek. I flinch. He doesn't soften. He checks my pupils. Presses the bandaged stump, feeling for heat, swelling, infection.
When his fingers find a tender spot, pain spikes and my vision swims.
I gasp.
The medic's voice is quiet and bored. "He is anemic. Still bleeding internally from the laceration. He overexerted."
The Root operative replies without emotion. "Will he be functional?"
"Functional," the medic repeats, as if it's a funny word for a child. He wraps my face wound with a strip of cloth and tightens it just enough to hurt. "He will remain functional unless damaged again."
Unless.
Like damage is a weather event.
The operative's gaze doesn't leave me. "He failed to approach Uzumaki."
The medic shrugs minutely. "He fainted."
The operative's eyes narrow.
I feel something cold creep up my spine.
This isn't a medical discussion.
This is a decision about whether I'm lying or defective.
The medic wipes his hands and steps away as if he's done with an object.
"Danzo-sama will evaluate," the operative says.
My stomach drops.
---
Danzo's room is the same kind of clean as an interrogation room: nothing extra, nothing personal, nothing that can be used as a weapon against him.
He sits behind the low table as if he never moved from last night. His visible eye lifts to me. It takes in the fresh bandage on my face, the empty sleeve, the slight tremor in my legs.
He doesn't ask if I'm hurt.
He already knows.
"You approached Uzumaki," he says.
The statement is calm.
I nod once.
"And you collapsed," he continues.
I nod again, more carefully.
Danzo's fingers tap the tabletop once. The sound is small, but the room listens to it like an order.
"Describe the symptoms," he says.
I hesitate.
If I describe the *real* symptom—pressure, choking, the world's resistance—will it punish me? Will the tongue seal interpret it as forbidden? Will fate itself tighten around my ribs?
I choose the safest language I have: medicine.
"Dizziness," I rasp. "Breathing… hard. Nosebleed. Then blackout."
The tongue seal stays quiet. Good. I'm still inside the permitted box.
Danzo's visible eye narrows slightly.
"Only near Uzumaki?" he asks.
My ribs tighten at the name.
I swallow, and the act hurts my tongue seal.
"I… didn't test," I say.
Danzo leans forward a fraction. "You will."
The words land like a blade.
My mouth goes dry.
Danzo turns his head slightly. "Bring the list."
A Root operative steps forward and places a scroll on the table. Danzo opens it without looking down, like he memorized its contents already.
He looks at me again.
"You will walk a corridor," Danzo says. "Individuals will be placed at intervals. You will report your reactions."
My pulse stutters.
Test me like a faulty seal.
Map my weakness.
Turn my suffering into data.
I try to speak—try to refuse—and the tongue seal bites sharp, warning me before the thought becomes sound. Pain blooms under my tongue, intimate and humiliating.
Danzo watches my flinch with mild interest.
"You may not refuse," he says.
Of course.
The room tilts slightly. My legs feel weak, but the Root operatives behind me are steady enough to hold me upright if I collapse.
They don't drag me to the corridor immediately. Danzo stands and walks around the table, stopping close enough that I can smell ink and antiseptic on him.
"You are afraid of Uzumaki," he says softly.
My ribs tighten again, involuntary.
Danzo's eye flicks to my chest as if he can see the pressure itself.
"Interesting," he murmurs.
Then, with the calm certainty of a man who thinks everything can be controlled if you press hard enough: "The village's greatest weapon will be understood."
The phrase makes me cold.
Naruto isn't a weapon. Naruto is a child.
But Danzo doesn't see children. He sees future returns.
Danzo steps back. "Begin."
---
The corridor they take me to is narrower than the others, the lanterns farther apart. The air smells of old stone and ink. Every footstep echoes faintly, like the hallway itself wants to remember who walked here.
At one end, a line is painted on the floor.
"Walk," a Root operative says.
I take a step.
My stump throbs, my balance off. I steady myself against the wall with my right palm.
Another step.
Ahead, a figure stands in shadow—civilian clothes, face unremarkable. I can't tell who it is. The point isn't who.
The point is me.
I approach. Nothing happens. No pressure. No nausea.
"Report," the operative says.
"Nothing," I whisper.
The tongue seal coils but doesn't bite.
They move the first figure away and bring in another.
This time, as I get closer, I feel a faint prickling at my ribs—like static, like a memory of that warm density near Naruto but weaker, diluted.
I blink hard.
"Report," the operative repeats.
"Pressure," I admit. "A little."
The words leave my mouth and my ribs tighten slightly, as if the world notices me naming it.
Danzo's method is sickly clever. Make me speak it aloud until it becomes ordinary. Until I stop thinking of it as fate and start thinking of it as a tool.
The third figure is placed.
As I approach, the pressure increases again. My throat feels tighter. My stomach shifts. My nose tingles like it wants to bleed.
I stop walking on instinct.
"Continue," the operative says.
I take one more step.
My vision wavers. The pressure coils around my ribs like a hand closing. Not fully. Not yet. But I recognize the direction.
I swallow hard. "Strong," I manage.
The tongue seal stays quiet. It doesn't care what I report—only what I try to *hide*.
The figure steps forward into the lantern light just enough for me to catch something: yellow hair.
Not Naruto.
Not bright. Not loud.
A Root agent with dyed hair? Or someone chosen to mimic him?
My stomach drops.
Danzo is experimenting with proximity to *symbol*, not just person. Testing whether my reaction is to Naruto's chakra, Naruto's role, or my own mind.
They remove the figure.
My knees tremble as the pressure fades.
Then the fourth placement happens.
This time the pressure hits me immediately, even from several steps away.
Warm, dense, suffocating.
My ribs seize.
My lungs refuse to fill.
My nose starts bleeding before I even move, a thin hot thread down my lip.
I stand frozen, eyes wide.
The world is pressing down on me like an ocean.
Behind me, the operative's voice is calm. "Walk."
I try.
My legs wobble. The corridor tilts. The lanterns smear.
The moment I take two steps forward, pain lances behind my eyes and my throat tightens like invisible fingers have found the exact spot to squeeze.
I cough, choking on air that won't come.
I stagger.
My right hand scrapes the wall for balance, nails catching on stone.
I taste blood—more than a nosebleed now, metallic and warm.
"Report," the operative says, as if my strangling is a simple measurement.
I force sound out through a throat that wants to close. "Too much."
The pressure spikes, as if the world punishes me for trying to name it while within it.
My vision whites out at the edges.
I drop to one knee.
A hand grips my shoulder—not gentle, not cruel. Holding me upright so I don't crack my skull again.
The figure at the end of the corridor steps forward into light.
Not fully.
Just enough.
I see blue.
A flash of blue cloth. A hint of blond. A shape that makes my ribs clamp down even harder.
My stomach turns.
This isn't Naruto. It can't be.
But it doesn't matter. The story doesn't care about "truth" down here. It cares about what the world recognizes.
And my body recognizes the *center.*
I shake my head, panicked, trying to pull back.
The operative's grip tightens. "Hold."
Hold?
Hold what—my breath? My sanity? My life?
The pressure keeps crushing. My chest burns. My tongue seal coils tight but offers no help. It isn't a shield.
It's a gag.
My eyes water. A strangled sound crawls out of me.
The figure's outline shifts.
Then it's gone—stepping back into shadow, removed like a piece off a board.
The pressure eases in a sudden rush. Air floods into my lungs. I cough hard, hacking blood-spit onto stone.
I collapse forward, trembling.
The operative releases my shoulder. "Enough."
Enough.
Not because I suffered.
Because the measurement was obtained.
---
Back in Danzo's room, I can barely stand.
My face is sticky with dried blood. My shirt collar is damp from sweat and saliva. My stump throbs like it's trying to beat its way out of bandages.
Danzo looks at me with quiet satisfaction.
"So it is proximity," he says. "Not injury."
My ribs tighten faintly in response to his certainty, like reality resents being reduced to a report.
Danzo continues, voice low. "Uzumaki is… protected."
Hearing *him* say it makes my skin crawl.
Not because it's untrue.
Because it means Danzo sees it too.
And Danzo doesn't worship fate.
He tries to harness it.
Danzo's gaze sharpens. "This reaction can be used."
My stomach drops.
Used how?
As a sensor?
As a trigger?
As bait?
Danzo reaches into his sleeve and places a small paper tag on the table.
It's different from the restraint seals.
This one is thin, subtle. The ink is faint, designed not to be noticed. A tracking tag, maybe—or something worse.
"Tomorrow," Danzo says, "you will place this on Uzumaki Naruto."
The room goes cold around the words.
My ribs tighten violently, as if fate itself heard and snapped its head toward me.
I can't breathe for a second.
Not in the choking way—more like the air forgot how to enter my lungs.
I stare at the tag.
My right hand twitches and then stills.
The tongue seal coils tight, sensing my panic.
Danzo's visible eye is flat. "You will not speak to him. You will not warn him. You will touch and withdraw."
Touch and withdraw.
Like Naruto is a furnace and I'm being ordered to tap it with bare skin.
I manage to whisper, "I… can't get close."
The tongue seal bites, not for the words but for the *implication*—that I might refuse. Pain spikes under my tongue until my eyes water.
Danzo watches the reaction like a man watching a tool confirm it's still sharp.
"You will," he says.
Then, almost gently: "If you die, it will be in service. If you live, you will have proven your value."
My stomach twists.
There is no "safe."
Only outcomes Danzo has already filed under acceptable loss.
A Root operative pushes the tag closer to me.
"Take it," he says.
My right hand hovers over the paper.
I can almost feel it already—the warm density around Naruto, the crushing pressure, the nosebleed, the blackout.
I can almost feel the story's invisible hand closing again.
And this time, if it closes while my fingers are on Naruto's clothing, what happens?
Does it redirect the punishment into him?
Or does it tear me apart to keep him untouched?
I think of my severed hand in the dirt.
I think of Danzo's calm voice calling me evidence, asset, tool.
I pick up the tag.
The paper is cool and dry.
The ink feels like a promise.
My missing arm throbs like it's warning me.
Danzo's voice follows me out of the room, quiet and absolute:
"Do not fail again, Souta."
I clutch the tag in my only hand.
And for the first time since I woke up in this world, my plan collapses into a single, terrifying question:
How do you obey Root… without touching the main character's fate?
Because tomorrow, I'm being ordered to do exactly that.