I don't sleep.
I lie on my side in Root's cell and listen to the underground breathing of stone—distant footsteps, a door closing somewhere far enough away that sound arrives dull and stripped of meaning. The lantern in the wall doesn't flicker. It never flickers. Time doesn't move down here unless someone decides it should.
In my right hand, under the futon, I hold the paper tag Danzo gave me.
It feels harmless.
Thin paper. Dry ink. Light enough to crumple.
My body knows better.
My tongue aches where the seal sits coiled like a sleeping insect, and every time I imagine speaking to Naruto to get close—*Hey, wait—*—it tightens, warning me with a sting that turns my stomach.
The other warning is quieter, older, and worse.
The story's pressure.
The closer I get to Naruto Uzumaki, the more the air thickens, the more my ribs tighten, the more my body bleeds like it's being squeezed out of the world.
Danzo wants me to place the tag anyway.
"Touch and withdraw," he said. Like Naruto is an object and I'm a hand.
I close my eyes and replay the corridor test from yesterday until the images start to smear.
Not Naruto, but the shape of him.
Not his voice, but the density of space around where he should be.
When the pressure hit, it didn't feel like chakra.
It felt like **ownership**.
Like the world had already written his name on every inch of air around him, and my lungs were trespassing.
I flex my right hand slowly.
My stump throbs under bandages. Phantom fingers curl in reflex, reaching for the tag as if the missing hand can help.
I plan anyway because planning is the only thing that makes me feel less like prey.
Don't approach Naruto directly. Don't try to talk. Don't stand in his path long enough for the pressure to build.
A bump.
A brush.
A slap of paper onto cloth.
Then I'm gone.
In the village above, clumsy accidents happen every day. Children run into each other. People drop things. Bodies collide.
Root wants a tag placed on Naruto.
Fate wants Naruto untouched.
And I'm the thin strip of flesh between them.
The worst part is the math: if the tag threatens Naruto's protected path, the story will correct it.
Correction can mean a lot of things.
It could mean the tag peels off.
It could mean my lungs seize.
It could mean something "random" happens—someone else collides, a kunai falls, a roof tile slips—and I'm the one who breaks so Naruto stays clean.
I open my eyes.
I stare at the lantern's steady light and decide the only thing I can control is how quickly I fail.
---
They take me up before the surface light fully warms the stone.
A blindfold goes on. A hand steers me. Quiet stairs, then air that changes—warmer, wood-scented, smoke and rice and morning damp.
The blindfold comes off in an alley.
Konoha is waking.
A woman sweeps her doorway. A dog trots past with ears perked. Somewhere a vendor calls out breakfast.
The normalcy hits like nausea.
I adjust my civilian clothes with one hand, pinning the empty sleeve tighter against my chest so it doesn't flap. The pinned fabric makes me look tidy, almost composed, which feels like a lie so large it should be audible.
A man stands near the alley mouth reading a newspaper.
Plain face. Ordinary posture.
Root handler.
He doesn't glance at me. His voice reaches me anyway, barely more than a breath.
"Do it."
No "good morning." No "remember." Root doesn't wrap orders in comfort.
I tuck the tag into my palm, keeping it hidden against my fingers. My skin is dry. The paper clings slightly, like it wants to be used.
I start walking.
Every step toward the training grounds feels like walking toward a storm I can't see, only feel in my bones.
I keep my gaze low.
I keep my breathing measured.
I keep my thoughts away from Naruto's name, circling it like a hole in the floor.
The first hint of pressure comes two streets away.
Not crushing. Just a subtle density in the air, like humidity that only my body can sense.
My ribs tighten a fraction.
I swallow, and the tongue seal prickles as if it enjoys my discomfort.
I force myself to keep moving.
I hear him before I see him.
Loud voice. Complaining. Boasting. Every word thrown at the air like it's a wall he can punch through.
Naruto.
The pressure swells warm and heavy, and my lungs hesitate mid-breath.
I blink hard, keeping my steps steady. Don't speed up. Don't slow down. Don't look like you're hunting.
Team 7 is near the training ground fence.
Sakura stands with arms crossed, annoyed. Sasuke leans against a post like patience is beneath him. Naruto paces, kicking at dirt, grumbling loud enough for the birds to judge him.
Kakashi arrives late, like canon—hands in pockets, book in one hand, single visible eye curved with casual disinterest that feels too practiced to be real.
The sight of Kakashi in person triggers that same strange split in me: recognition without comfort. It's like seeing a symbol with skin.
He speaks to them. They react. Naruto shouts. Sakura scolds. Sasuke pretends he isn't listening.
Canon continues, indifferent.
Good, I think, and immediately my head throbs for thinking it too cleanly.
I stay behind the fence line, using the crowd as cover.
There isn't much of a crowd—mostly early walkers and a few Academy kids passing by.
I need a moment when Naruto is moving.
If I approach while he's standing still, the pressure will build and build until my body rebels.
Movement. Chaos. An instant.
Kakashi gestures, and Team 7 starts to follow him toward the deeper training area.
Now.
I step forward.
The pressure punches my ribs immediately, warm and suffocating. My breath catches. My nose tingles.
I keep walking anyway, counting steps like numbers can hold me together.
One.
Two.
My vision wavers at the edges.
Three.
A hot thread spills from my nose. I don't wipe it. Wiping is a tell. I let it run, warm and humiliating.
Naruto turns mid-stride, yelling something at Sakura.
His movement shifts him closer to my path without him noticing.
Perfect.
My right hand tightens around the tag.
My heart slams against my ribs like it wants out. My lungs feel too small. The air tastes metallic.
I force my legs to keep their pace.
Don't sprint. Don't hesitate.
I angle toward him just enough.
The pressure surges.
My throat tightens. My lungs refuse to fill fully. I hear my own breath rasp, too loud in my ears.
I'm close enough now that the story feels like a wall in front of my face.
Naruto brushes past—
—and I bump him, shoulder to shoulder, like an accident.
His body is warm through fabric. Solid. Real.
For a split second my brain screams **DON'T TOUCH HIM** and my ribs clamp down hard enough that stars burst in my vision.
I slap the tag onto the back of his jacket.
Paper meets cloth.
The ink catches.
For a heartbeat—one fragile, miraculous heartbeat—it sticks.
Then the world reacts.
Not with lightning.
Not with a voice.
With *correction.*
The tag peels away as if the fabric rejects it. Not gradually. Not naturally. It lifts like it's being pulled by invisible fingers.
It snaps back—
—onto me.
The paper hits my wrist and adheres with a cold bite of sealing ink, sinking into my skin like it has been waiting for the correct owner.
My ribs seize so hard I can't inhale at all.
A sharp, hot pain lances behind my eyes and down my throat. My nosebleed becomes a gush. Blood spills into my mouth. I choke.
Naruto whirls, startled. "Hey! What the—?"
His eyes are wide, but he isn't choking. He isn't bleeding. The pressure around him stays warm and dense and protective, like the story has wrapped him tighter.
It corrected the tag away from him.
It redirected it into me.
My knees buckle.
I grab the fence with my right hand, but my grip slips because my wrist is slick with blood and because the tag on that same wrist suddenly feels heavy—like an anchor made of paper and law.
My lungs burn. I try to suck air and get nothing.
Naruto's voice becomes muffled. Sakura's gasp comes from far away. Kakashi's presence shifts—sudden attention, like a blade turning.
Then the world tilts and drops out from under me.
---
I wake up on my side in dirt again.
Not the training ground dirt this time—finer, packed, shaded. Somewhere in an alley or behind a wall.
My face is sticky. My throat burns. My stomach twists.
I cough and something wet hits the ground.
Blood.
My vision swims. I blink hard until the world sharpens enough to see shapes.
A plain-faced man crouches beside me—Root handler. Newspaper man.
He holds my wrist up near my face.
The tag is still there.
Not taped.
Not stuck.
Embedded.
The ink has disappeared under my skin, leaving a faint pattern like veins drawn in charcoal.
My stomach drops.
The handler's voice is flat. "It rejected Uzumaki."
I try to speak and the tongue seal tightens. Pain stabs under my tongue.
I manage only a hoarse sound.
The handler doesn't ask questions.
He doesn't need answers.
He closes his hand around my tagged wrist and pulls me up with enough force that my shoulder screams.
"Stand," he says.
My legs wobble violently. I can barely hold myself up.
"Walk."
I stagger.
The handler keeps hold of my wrist the whole time, like he's afraid the tag will jump again if he lets go.
Every step feels wrong, and not only because of weakness.
Because even here, away from the training ground, away from Naruto's immediate presence, I can still feel something.
A faint tug.
A warm density in the air that isn't around me—it's *connected* to me, like the story's gravity has threaded a line through my wrist and tied it to the main character's orbit.
My ribs tighten in small pulses.
Not choking.
Not yet.
But constant.
A steady reminder that I am now too close even when I'm far.
The handler leads me down a side entrance, into cooler air, down stairs.
Back to Root.
---
Danzo looks at my wrist without blinking.
He doesn't ask if I succeeded.
The tag answers for him, buried under my skin like a parasite.
He reaches out and takes my arm—my only arm—in his bandaged hand. His grip is firm but careful, like he's handling fragile glass he intends to keep.
He studies the faint ink pattern.
Then he looks at my face.
"You placed it," he says.
The words are wrong, but he speaks them anyway.
I swallow blood and copper.
"I—" I start.
The tongue seal bites hard, warning me away from saying too much.
Danzo watches the flinch with interest.
"It corrected," he says, as if he's naming a predictable mechanism.
My ribs tighten faintly at the word, like reality reacts to being described.
Danzo's visible eye narrows.
"Fate protects him," he murmurs.
Hearing it from his mouth makes my skin crawl. He says it like a craftsman admiring a lock.
Then his gaze sharpens and becomes something else—something satisfied.
"And it has given me you," he continues.
My stomach drops.
Given.
As if the universe is cooperating.
As if my suffering is a gift exchange between forces that don't care whether I can endure being the wrapping.
Danzo releases my wrist and steps back.
"Report your sensations now," he says. "Here. In this room."
I hesitate, then inhale.
Air goes in, but it feels… thick. Not like before—no immediate choke—but like there's a hand resting lightly on my ribs, present even when it isn't squeezing.
"It's… still there," I rasp. "The pressure. Even away."
Danzo's fingers tap once on the table.
"A tether," he says, almost pleased.
The word makes my stomach turn.
Tethered to Naruto.
Tethered to the center of the story.
A permanent orbit I didn't choose, enforced by a paper tag that the world refused to let touch him.
Danzo turns his head slightly toward the shadows.
"Bring the medic."
The medic appears with the same dead eyes, as if he was always waiting just outside the door.
Danzo gestures at my wrist. "Remove it."
The medic examines the ink pattern. His fingers press along the skin.
The moment he tries to peel at the edge with chakra, pain spikes behind my eyes—sharp, immediate, punishing. My ribs tighten hard enough that I gasp.
The medic pauses.
He tries again, gentler.
The pain doubles.
Not localized. Not "wrist pain."
It feels like the world itself is slapping his hand away through my nervous system.
The medic withdraws and looks at Danzo. "It resists."
Danzo's eye glints.
"Of course," he says softly.
He looks back at me.
"You understand what this means," he says.
I don't. Not fully. But my body does.
It means I can't remove the tag.
It means I can't escape the orbit.
It means the story's pressure is now part of my baseline, a constant hiss in my ribs, a hand that never fully lets go.
Danzo's voice stays calm. "You will function with it."
My breathing turns shallow.
He continues, "You will not approach Uzumaki closely without permission. We now know what happens when you do."
I taste blood again.
"And you will learn to use this tether," Danzo adds, "to measure him."
Measure Naruto.
Like he's weather.
Like he's a resource.
Like he isn't twelve.
My right hand—my only hand—trembles.
Danzo watches it.
"You fear hurting him," he says, and there's mild amusement in it. "Do not misunderstand your place. You are not near him to protect him."
The words land like a coffin lid.
"You are near him," Danzo finishes, "to serve the village."
Serve.
The same word used to justify every quiet cruelty Konoha pretends it doesn't commit.
Danzo steps closer again. His voice lowers, intimate and terrible.
"If this tether reacts when Uzumaki deviates," he says, "you will tell me. If it reacts when he grows,"—his eye narrows—"you will tell me."
My ribs tighten in a slow pulse, like the story's hand squeezing just enough to remind me of the consequence of being bound to its center.
Danzo turns away, as if the conversation is concluded.
Then he pauses, just long enough to make the next sentence feel like a hook sinking into flesh.
"And if the tether kills you," he says softly, "then we will know exactly how strong his protection is."
My stomach drops into cold.
There it is.
The truth of my role, said plainly:
I'm not a scout.
I'm not an assistant.
I'm a test subject.
A disposable measuring instrument pressed against the edge of the main character's fate until something breaks—him, me, or reality itself.
Danzo gestures toward the door.
"Return him to his cell," he says. "And prepare the next observation."
The Root handler grips my wrist again.
As he drags me away, the tether's pressure pulses once, warm and heavy, as if Naruto laughed somewhere aboveground and the story flexed around him.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.
Because the next realization is quieter than fear, and worse:
If I'm bound to Naruto now…
…I might never be allowed far enough away to breathe freely again.