Root doesn't wake you with kindness.
It wakes you with a door opening and the certainty that your body belongs to schedules now.
"Up," the handler says.
His face is plain enough that my mind slips off it. That's deliberate. Root doesn't want you forming attachments you can leverage. Even hatred can become a handle.
I sit up too fast and the world sways. My missing arm screams as a phantom reflex. The stump throbs under bandages, still too tight, still too warm.
My right wrist pulses.
Warm density. A distant heartbeat.
The tether never sleeps.
I stare at the faint ring of ink under my skin—Danzo's containment circle around the tag that rejected Naruto and embedded in me instead. The ring looks almost decorative if you don't know it's a fence built to keep an ocean from spilling through.
The handler tosses me a small bundle: civilian shirt, trousers, and a cheap cloak that smells like storage and old smoke. Underneath it—dark cloth, Root's uniform, folded like a second skin.
"You will not wear black aboveground," he says. "Only under."
I dress one-handed in silence. Every knot takes longer. Every sleeve is a negotiation. I pin the empty left sleeve tight so it doesn't swing, because swinging draws eyes, and eyes draw questions, and questions draw pain from the seal under my tongue.
When I'm done, he hands me a pouch.
Not a gift. A loadout.
Inside: bandage strips, a small tin of antiseptic salve, three soldier pills, and a sealed paper packet stamped with a simple mark I don't recognize.
"What's—"
The tongue seal bites immediately, sharp and intimate.
I swallow the rest of the question with a gasp and taste blood where my tongue scraped against teeth.
The handler's gaze doesn't change. "Do not ask."
He taps the stamped packet. "This is for Danzo-sama. After."
After what? After the mission? After I collapse again? After I die?
He doesn't explain. He never does.
A blindfold goes on.
Stone steps. Turns. The air warming. Morning smells leaking into the cloth—rice steam, damp wood, smoke from cooking fires, and the faint green scent of leaves outside the walls.
Then sunlight hits my closed eyelids like a slap.
The blindfold is removed at the edge of a rooftop.
Konoha spreads under a clean sky, bright enough to make yesterday's underground feel like a fever dream. People laugh. Children run. A vendor argues with a customer like the world is simple.
My wrist pulses again, warm and steady.
I can't tell if it's responding to the village, or to the direction we're heading, or to the fact that Naruto Uzumaki is somewhere in this sprawl like a living magnet.
We move toward the gate.
The closer we get, the denser the air feels.
Not humidity—meaning.
The tether's warmth thickens around my ribs, and with it comes the faint cold undercurrent, the memory of laughter behind bars.
**Little…**
I clamp my jaw shut hard enough to ache.
Not today.
Not near the gate.
Not near the Hokage's eyes, not near Kakashi's suspicion, not near Naruto's protection.
We drop down into the street stream and become normal. Just another adult escorting a wounded kid, nothing to see.
Except people still look.
They look at my pinned sleeve and then look away too fast. Like damage is contagious.
The gate appears ahead, massive wooden doors open wide to the road beyond. The air outside smells different—less smoke, more earth and sap. The border between village and world.
That border is supposed to mean freedom.
It doesn't.
It means the story starts moving again.
Team 7 is already there.
Kakashi leans against the gatepost with his orange book held up like it can block responsibility. His stance is lazy, but his awareness is not. It's in the angle of his shoulders. In how his feet are placed. In the way his visible eye lifts the moment my shadow crosses into the space.
Naruto is loud, of course.
He's bouncing on his toes, talking about how this mission is going to be amazing and dangerous and finally worthy of him. Sakura scolds him. Sasuke pretends they don't exist.
And there, standing beside Kakashi with his hands tucked into his sleeves, is a man I recognize without wanting to.
Tazuna.
Older. Sun-leathered. Smells faintly of alcohol even from here. The bridge builder.
Seeing him is like seeing a sign that says **LAND OF WAVES** without the comfort of a map.
My brain reaches for the next beat—puddle, chain, claws—and pain pricks behind my eyes as reality slaps my hand away from the future.
I slow my breathing.
The tether pulses harder as Naruto turns and notices me.
His eyes widen at my sleeve.
He stops talking mid-sentence.
For a heartbeat, he looks like a kid again. Not a noise machine. A kid who saw someone bleed for him and doesn't know where to put the guilt.
He starts toward me.
My ribs tighten in warning.
My nose tingles.
I feel the story's gravity grab at my lungs.
I lower my gaze immediately and keep walking like I don't see him. The best way to survive Naruto's orbit is to never become a point he acknowledges.
"Souta?" Sakura's voice slips out, uncertain.
She remembers me just barely—classroom background.
Sasuke's eyes flick to my sleeve and away, dismissive in that sharp Uchiha way that pretends indifference is superiority.
Naruto is the only one who looks like he wants to say something.
Kakashi's voice cuts in, calm and mildly amused. "You brought an extra?"
I stop a few steps away, careful not to close the distance too much.
My handler is gone. Melted into the crowd. Of course.
Kakashi's visible eye rests on me like a scalpel.
I can feel him assessing: missing limb, blood-loss pallor, stiff posture, the faint smear of dried blood at my nostril that never fully goes away now.
"I didn't," Kakashi continues, glancing toward the gate guards and the clerks nearby. "This wasn't in the briefing."
A gate guard shifts, uncomfortable.
Tazuna squints at me. "What's this? We takin' kids now?"
Kakashi's gaze stays on me. "Name?"
My tongue seal coils at the urge to speak too much.
"Souta," I manage.
The word comes out hoarse.
Kakashi hums once. A sound that means nothing and everything.
Then a different voice speaks from behind the gate desk—older, calm, authoritative.
"Hatake."
Hiruzen Sarutobi steps into view.
Not in full regalia. Still the Hokage. Still carrying the weight of the village like it has settled permanently in his bones.
His eyes find me.
They catch on my sleeve. On my wrist. On my face.
For a moment, I see something human flicker—regret, maybe, or a quiet apology he will never say out loud because apologies don't function as policy.
"Hokage-sama," Kakashi says, tone polite.
Naruto immediately lights up. "Gramps!"
Hiruzen lifts a hand to hush him without effort.
"This mission is still D-rank," he says, voice steady. "Bridge builder escort. However… there is an addendum."
Kakashi's eye narrows slightly. "Addendum."
Hiruzen nods once, slow. "Souta will accompany you as support and observation."
Observation.
The word lands like a weight on my chest.
Kakashi doesn't argue. Not yet. But his gaze sharpens, and I can practically see questions building behind his eye like storm clouds.
Naruto opens his mouth—probably to protest, or ask, or offer some loud sympathy.
The tether pulses hard and my ribs tighten sharply, warning me not to let him pull me into his gravity.
Hiruzen's eyes flick to Naruto and then back to Kakashi.
"Take care of your team," he says. Then, softer, almost private: "And take care of the village."
It's a sentence that means three things depending on who hears it.
To Naruto: be brave.
To Kakashi: be responsible.
To me: you are not the village. You are a tool inside it.
Hiruzen turns and leaves.
Kakashi watches him go, eye unreadable.
Then he sighs theatrically and closes his book with a snap. "Fine."
He points at me with two fingers. "Stay behind me. Do not get between my team and danger. Understood?"
It isn't kindness.
It's triage.
I nod once.
Tazuna grumbles. Naruto looks like he wants to explode with questions. Sakura looks torn between pity and discomfort. Sasuke looks away.
Kakashi turns and steps through the gate.
The mission begins.
The moment the village walls start falling behind us, the air changes.
The road outside Konoha smells like dirt and pine and sunlight on leaves. Birds call overhead. Insects hum. The world feels open.
But the tether keeps time with Naruto's footsteps, pulsing warm in my ribs, making the openness feel like a lie.
Because I'm not walking into the world.
I'm walking into canon.
---
We travel at a steady pace.
Kakashi doesn't push the kids too hard at first, but he sets a rhythm that forces their bodies to learn. Naruto complains loudly and then keeps up anyway. Sakura watches her footing carefully. Sasuke moves like he's trying to pretend effort is beneath him.
I stay behind Kakashi like ordered.
It helps.
Distance blunts the story's pressure. Not enough to make it vanish—never that—but enough that my lungs don't seize every time Naruto laughs.
Still, the tether pulses in response to Naruto's emotions like it's tuned to him.
When Naruto boasts, it warms.
When Naruto gets irritated, it tightens.
When Naruto focuses, it becomes dense—heavy enough that my breathing turns shallow without me choosing it.
It's like wearing a collar connected to a dog that doesn't know it's pulling.
Tazuna walks with his hands tucked into his sleeves, grumbling about time and money. He glances back at me more than once, eyes narrowing at the sleeve.
Finally, he asks Kakashi, "That kid a genin?"
Kakashi's tone is smooth. "Not yet."
Tazuna scoffs. "Then why's he here?"
Kakashi doesn't look back. "Orders."
Tazuna mutters something crude under his breath.
I keep walking, because stopping is how you become a scene.
Naruto drifts back toward me once, curiosity burning in him like a fever.
My ribs tighten, warning.
I keep my gaze on the road.
Naruto slows anyway. "Hey, Souta, right?"
My tongue seal coils.
I manage a small nod without speaking. Speaking invites pressure. Speaking invites questions. Questions invite pain.
Naruto frowns. "Why're you—"
The tether pulses hard.
My nose tingles.
I feel the story's grip brushing my lungs, reminding me I'm too close to the center.
Naruto's question dies as Kakashi's voice snaps lightly, "Naruto."
Naruto flinches. "What?"
"Eyes forward," Kakashi says, still mild. "If you can't walk and talk, walk."
Naruto grumbles and accelerates back to the front, irritability flaring.
The tether warms then tightens.
I swallow bile.
Even his irritation moves through my ribs now.
We pass a puddle on the road.
The sight hits me like a fist.
A simple puddle, innocuous, reflecting sky.
My mind screams: *Demon Brothers.*
Pain pricks behind my eyes as reality punishes the thought.
I force my gaze away.
I force my breathing steady.
I tell myself: if I interfere, the story will correct. If I do nothing, someone bleeds.
In canon, Kakashi takes a scratch and gets poisoned.
In canon, Sasuke saves Naruto.
In canon, Naruto freezes and hates himself for it.
Those beats matter. They shape them.
If I change them, the story pushes back.
If I don't… someone still gets cut.
My wrist pulses—warm, then cold beneath it, like deep water shifting.
**Little…**
The presence behind Naruto's seal feels closer when danger approaches. Not awake, exactly. Just… attentive.
Kakashi's steps don't change.
But his posture does.
A fraction straighter. A fraction more alert.
He noticed the puddle too.
Of course he did.
He doesn't warn the kids yet. He lets the trap spring because the lesson is better when it bites.
The chain whips out of the puddle like a living thing.
Two figures erupt—masked, fast, claws gleaming.
Demon Brothers.
The world slows.
Not in a cinematic way.
In the way your brain tries to process death and can't keep up.
They go for Kakashi first—just like canon.
Kakashi's body twists—
—and then the chain shifts mid-flight.
Not dramatically.
Subtly.
Like the world edits the target.
The claws *should* rake Kakashi's back.
Instead, the chain angles.
Toward Naruto.
I feel the story's pressure spike—warm, violent—like a hand snapping shut around Naruto's space.
And then the correction happens.
The chain's angle shifts again.
It doesn't hit Naruto.
It finds the nearest acceptable substitute.
Me.
The claws catch my right forearm—the only arm I have left—just below the elbow.
Metal bites flesh.
Pain is immediate and bright and clean.
Then, a half-second later, something worse follows.
A cold burn spreading under the skin.
Poison.
My blood turns to ice.
I stagger back with a strangled sound trapped behind clenched teeth. My right hand spasms. The world tilts.
Naruto's eyes go wide.
Sakura screams.
Sasuke moves.
Kakashi… disappears in a blur of motion and a substitution that leaves a log in his place like canon intended, as if the story refuses to let his role be stolen either.
But my arm—my only arm—is bleeding.
And the numbness crawling up toward my shoulder is not part of canon.
Not for me.
The Demon Brother yanks the chain, trying to pull me off balance.
I fall hard onto my side, dirt slamming into my ribs. The poison burn spreads like ink in water. My fingers start to tingle—then fade.
My grip on the world weakens.
Kakashi appears behind the attacker, hand poised to strike.
Sasuke is already throwing shuriken.
Naruto is frozen.
And in my wrist, beneath the sealing ring, the tether pulses—warm, heavy, approving—because Naruto is still untouched.
Because the story protected him again.
By spending me.
My vision blurs at the edges.
My breathing turns shallow.
My right hand—my only hand—goes clumsy, then numb.
I stare at it in horror as it stops obeying.
This is how I die, I think wildly.
Not dramatically.
Quietly, on a roadside puddle, because the plot needed Naruto safe and Root needed me close.
The Demon Brother's claw lifts again, aiming for my throat.
Kakashi's voice cuts through the chaos, suddenly sharp—real anger now.
"Enough."
He moves.
And as his strike comes down, my tether flares—warm and cold together—like something behind Naruto's seal leans forward to watch.
**Little… breaking.**
The words aren't sound.
They're intent pressing into my skull.
My numb arm twitches uselessly.
My vision darkens.
And the last thing I feel before the world threatens to slip away is the poison climbing—steady, unstoppable—while Naruto Uzumaki remains perfectly, fatefully unharmed.