Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Reality's Illusion ❯ Chapter 2: True to Life ( Chapter 2 )

Title: Reality's Illusion

Author: Shadow Rebirth

Beta Reader: Rukia23

Rating: T/PG-13

Warnings: Violence, death, language, and spoilers.

Chapter WC: 4,573

Story WC: 7,494

First Written: February 6, 2009

Last Edited: February 9, 2009

Posted: February 9, 2009

Summary: [The dead do not walk, but the broken do not die, so where does that leave him?] When a blue eyed man with whisker-like scars and no memory shows up four years after the Yondaime's death Sarutobi doesn't know what to think. [Time travel. No pairings.]

 

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Reality's Illusion

 

Chapter 2

True to Life

 

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Kakashi had to admit that he felt a wave of relief when the gates of Konoha came into view. Traveling with Shitsumei had been an...interesting...experience, to say the least.

 

The blond haired man had first proved to have shinobi training when he'd easily followed Kakashi from the window of the hospital in Arata. Ever since then he'd been instinctively augmenting his muscles with chakra to keep up with Kakashi, apparently without even noticing that he was doing so.

 

What was utterly bizarre was that Shitsumei hadn't been worn down at all by the trip, despite his constant use of chakra. He'd even seemed confused when Kakashi had begun to grow tired. Kakashi had never heard of anyone with stamina like that. It seemed so inhuman.

 

Konohagakure's giant gates were guarded at all times by a set of visible Chuunin who were responsible for supervising and recording everyone passing in and out, as well as a hidden ANBU, who was there in case trouble arose. The two Chuunin guards were relaxing at the gate entrance when Kakashi and Shitsumei landed before them. They smiled in greeting, but their laid-back moods quickly drained away to be replaced with shock.

 

The two young men gaped openly at Shitsumei. One even began to stutter "Y-yond—" before his companion cut him off with a jab to the ribs. Kakashi ignored them in favor of exchanging a few quick hand signs with the hidden ANBU, briefly explaining the situation. A second later the other ANBU joined their small gathering, startling the Chuunin.

 

Kakashi turned to Shitsumei. "Go with Tora-san," he said. "I have to talk to the Hokage."

 

At first, Kakashi wasn't sure if the blond had heard him. Shitsumei was staring off into the village as though the rest of them weren't there. His face was as expressionless as always. Then he silently stepped up to the second ANBU and waited without a word.

 

Once he was sure Shitsumei wouldn't cause any trouble—though for some reason the concept of the strange, glassy-eyed man causing trouble seemed foreign—Kakashi headed straight for the Hokage Tower. Tora would take Shitsumei to Konoha's Interrogation and Detention Base, where he'd be held until they figured out what was going on.

 

Kakashi vaulted from a rooftop onto an upper floor entrance to the Hokage Tower. His calloused fingers gripped the wooden ledge tightly and used it as leverage to get inside. From there he swiftly made his way into the depths of the tower. No one stopped him along the way, but he received a few odd looks and not for the first time wished that he'd been allowed to bring his ANBU mask with him on his last mission.

 

The Sandaime's secretary, a clerical shinobi and undercover ANBU, only briefly stopped Kakashi outside the Hokage's office. Normally, he would have been required to make an appointment, in case the Hokage was in a meeting, but she easily noticed the urgency in his body language and thus let him inside with only a nod.

 

The Hokage's office hadn't changed much over the years since Konohagakure's founding. That wasn't to say that each Hokage didn't bring a distinctive feel to the office though. Kakashi could fondly remember that the Yondaime had littered the office with empty ramen cups, going through new ones faster than he could pick them up. The Sandaime, on the other hand, had the office blanketed with shelf after shelf filled with scrolls. He wasn't known as "The Professor" for no reason; Sarutobi was arguably the most intelligent person in Konoha.

 

The first thing that Kakashi noticed upon stepping into the Hokage's office was these scrolls. Then his gaze gravitated beyond the shelves to Sarutobi's desk, which was buried beneath mounds of paperwork. The Hokage himself was diligently working away, pen in hand.

 

Sarutobi never once glanced up as Kakashi approached, let alone put down his pen. "Kakashi," he greeted distractedly. "Have you checked in with the mission center? Was there a problem?"

 

"No problem, Hokage-sama." At least not enough of one to mention; the minor altercation would be listed in his mission report. "...But there is something else."

 

There must have been something in Kakashi's voice because Sarutobi's pen suddenly stopped and he glanced up sharply. After another moment he put the pen down, folded his hands on his desk, and gave the young ANBU his full attention, wordlessly commanding him to speak.

 

And speak Kakashi did. As professionally as he could, he told Sarutobi about what had happened and how he'd found Shitsumei. Never once did the elder shinobi interrupt or ask a question, despite how utterly preposterous the story sounded.

 

When Kakashi had finished, the room fell back into silence. Sarutobi's face remained impassive and his gaze was fixed on the far wall of the office. Kakashi followed his line of sight and found himself staring at a framed photograph of the Yondaime Hokage. He was struck once again with just how much Shitsumei resembled him.

 

"Is there a chance that he's a spy sent to distract us?" Sarutobi finally asked. He sounded surprisingly weary.

 

"Of course," Kakashi answered instantly. "But I doubt it." At Sarutobi's questioning look, he continued, "He was found unconscious in the desert, in the Land of Wind. No one could have known that I'd be at the hospital in Arata, which means that it's nearly impossible for our meeting to be anything other than coincidence. Plus, I was the one to ask him to come to Konohagakure, not the other way around. And besides...It may be gut instinct, but I don't think that he is. You'll have to meet him to understand what I mean.

 

The Sandaime stayed silent again. Kakashi waited patiently for him to consider the situation. He didn't share his thoughts with the ANBU, but Kakashi had never expected him to.

 

Hokage was a lonely position, thrust on pedestal above the rest of the world.

 

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Shitsumei stared thoughtfully at the gray wall of the room he'd been put into. They weren't smooth like he would have expected, but rather riddled with small holes (It reminded him of the desert; grains within grains, all a part of a larger whole). He wondered briefly how the walls had been created.

 

The room consisted of a simple metal frame bed with pristine white sheets, a porcelain toilet, and a metal sink. The room itself was rather small—less than three meters by three meters—but the enclosed space didn't bother Shitsumei, even if the lack of sky was rather disconcerting. He stared at the walls for hours on end, fascinated by the complexities he could find in the stone.

 

Eventually the door opened and a short haired woman stepped inside. She gave him a brief apologetic smile, though Shitsumei couldn't guess what for.

 

"We're sorry for having to hold you here Shitsumei-san," she said. The man who'd first brought him here had said something similar, but Shitsumei didn't understand it. A room was a room, after all. "We just have to be cautious; we are a shinobi village, after all."

 

Shitsumei stared at her wordlessly, wondering why she was there. The woman shifted uncomfortably and diverted her gaze to floor. A frown stretch across the blond's face. A lot of people around here had been doing that, but he couldn't understand why. After a moment, he dismissed the thought as unimportant.

 

Suddenly, Shitsumei's gaze slid past the woman to the door behind her. He could feel someone else approaching (Small footsteps echoed through the sewers as he ran and ran. But no matter how fast he went, how hard he pushed himself, it was always chasing him. It was always lurking there, just out of view) and sure enough moments later the man named Tora entered. Like several others around here he wore a strange white and red (Splashed with blood that wouldn't wash away no matter how hard he scrubbed) mask that depicted an animal—a tiger, in this case.

 

"Shitsumei-san," Tora said politely. The woman quickly scurried back, out of his way. "If you don't mind, we'd like to have a medic-nin check you over and ask you some questions."

 

Shitsumei met the man's gaze for a moment before turning away to stare at the wall again. Tora faltered, but correctly assumed his silence to be either assent or apathy. With a nod, he turned and strode back out of the room. The woman hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at Shitsumei, before quickly following in his wake.

 

Unconcerned, Shitsumei continued to stare at the walls.

 

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Sarutobi Hiruzen had seen many things in his life, but he struggled to remember a stranger situation than the one he was in currently. A man who looked like Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Naruto, combined into one...Such a thing was not possible, but the proof was right before his eyes.

 

Sarutobi studied Shitsumei with sharp, cautious eyes. The blond haired man was sitting on his bed, staring unemotionally at a wall. He wasn't even blinking.

 

"He's been like this for the past two days, Hokage-sama," a kunoichi murmured. "He hasn't slept, hasn't eaten, hasn't even moved. It...It's unnatural."

 

Narrowing his eyes, Sarutobi hummed neutrally. It was indeed bizarre and impossible, as everything surrounding Shitsumei seemed to be. The man didn't seem to be dangerous and didn't seem to be insane—despite his odd actions—but Sarutobi knew perfectly well that appearances were only skin deep. Still...Kakashi had been right; the man just didn't feel like he was a danger to Konoha.

 

Though few civilians knew it, following gut instincts was actually a major part of their profession. Everything about shinobi and their missions were covered in lies and wrapped in layer after layer of deception. It was a rare day when a shinobi was capable of wading through the "underneath of the underneath" so instead they learned to trust their gut instincts about a situation. Experiences built up these instincts to the point that seasoned shinobi were able to make split second decisions that often turned out to be accurate.

 

At the moment, Sarutobi could most certainly see what Kakashi had meant about the feeling Shitsumei gave off. The man felt out of place, like he didn't belong in this world, among them. It seemed like such a fanciful thought at first, but the more time Sarutobi spent around him, the stronger the feeling became.

 

The door to Shitsumei's cell—albeit, one of the nicer cells, since Shitsumei hadn't done anything wrong—was a thick one-way window that allowed people on the outside to see in while those in the inside saw only a mirror. It allowed Sarutobi to observe the blond man without him being any the wiser, although the Sandaime wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Shitsumei knew that they were there anyway.

 

"What information have you gotten from him?" Sarutobi asked.

 

The kunoichi paused for a moment, considering the question. "Not much," she admitted. "We've confirmed that he does indeed have retrograde amnesia. He has no physical trauma that could have caused it, and is in fact the picture of perfect health, but it's entirely possible that it was caused by psychological trauma. Other than that though...Well, he doesn't talk much, no matter what we do. Often he doesn't even acknowledge our presence. We attempted to use Genjutsu on him once, to see how he would react, but..." She hesitated."...Sir, it had no affect on him. He was immune to it and all other Genjutsu we've tried since."

 

Sarutobi frowned deeply. A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; that's what Shitsumei was. And he doubted they'd find out more any time soon. Unless...

 

"Contact Yamanaka Ichirou. Tell him I've got a job for him that I think he'll find interesting."

 

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Most people spend all their time trying to get their lives to run smoothly. It's a worthy goal to be sure, but there's just one problem: What happens when everything in your life is going perfectly?

 

Boredom. Pure, unadulterated boredom.

 

Ichirou was well acquainted with such boredom.

 

He'd graduated from the Academy at age ten, made Chuunin by eleven, and was promoted to Jounin on his fifteenth birthday. He was hailed as the "genius of the Yamanaka clan", mainly because he'd long since mastered every Yamanaka jutsu and had developed dozens more. He'd led a very active shinobi career, particularly during the Third Great Shinobi War. He was honored as a war hero and one of the greatest shinobi of his generation.

 

But that was years ago, before he'd lost a leg in battle due to a careless mistake.

 

Now Ichirou was retired from his shinobi career and hadn't even been out of the village in what felt like forever. He'd considered settling down and getting married like his younger brother, Inoichi, but that just wasn't his style.

 

Unfortunately, all of this added up to him being completely and utterly bored. Sure, he occasionally helped out in the Intelligence Department—just because he wasn't on the active shinobi roster didn't mean that he wasn't still a shinobi at heart—but that was only occasionally. He worked on developing clan jutsu every now and then, but it didn't take long before that too grew boring.

 

As such, when Ichirou received a missive from the Hokage, telling him about a job, he practically jumped on the request. In a few minutes, he was down at the Intelligence Headquarters, cursing the prosthetic limb attached to his left knee all the while. He'd never been able to walk like he used to since the accident, let alone jump from rooftop to rooftop like all the other damn shinobi.

 

Ichirou was escorted to where the Hokage was waiting within the depths of the Interrogation and Detention Base. He was standing outside of one of the cells, staring through the one-way window rather intently.

 

"Yo, Sarutobi-sama!" Ichirou greeted with a broad smile. "You called?"

 

Sarutobi tore his gaze from the window and responded with a brief smile. "Ichirou," he murmured. "How have you been?"

 

"Good, good!" the retired shinobi said. "And you? Still drowning in paperwork and ink?"

 

"Of course," Sarutobi said with a chuckle.

 

The Sandaime's gaze drifted back over to the window almost automatically. Curious, Ichirou leaned over and glanced through the glass as well. He was surprised to see a blonde haired man in the cell, sitting on his bed and staring blankly at the wall.

 

"Is he alright?" Ichirou asked. "He looks a little cuckoo."

 

Sarutobi's face didn't crack into a smile at the comment, which was surprising because Ichirou could usually get the older man to laugh. The Yamanaka's face fell a little bit as he realized just how serious this situation was. He turned his attention back onto the detainee and really looked at him this time.

 

A second later he let out a low whistle. "Well I'll be damned. Is there any particular reason why you're keeping the supposedly dead Yondaime Hokage locked up?"

 

This time he did get a quiet snort out of Sarutobi. "Hardly," the Hokage said dryly. "No matter how much he looks like him..." He sighed. "This is Shitsumei."

 

Ichirou cocked an eyebrow. "Seriously?" he questioned. "Wow, his parents must have really hated him, to give him a name like that."

 

Sarutobi's lips only quirked upwards briefly this time. "He has amnesia," he explained. "No memory of who he is or where he comes from. But there are also some...odd...things about him. He's impervious to Genjutsu for example."

 

Ichirou couldn't help it: His jaw dropped. He struggled to find something to say in reply to that—impossible was a good start—but the words died in his mouth when he happened to glance back into the cell. The man, Shitsumei, was staring at him. Through the one-way glass that should have appeared to be only a mirror to him. Directly into Ichirou's eyes.

 

With an audible click, Ichirou's mouth snapped closed. He turned back to Sarutobi, all of his previous playfulness gone.

 

"What do you want me to do?"

 

Sarutobi smiled again, but this time he looked infinitely sad. "I want you to do exactly what it is that you do best.”

 

Wordlessly, Ichirou nodded. He turned back towards the cell door and let himself inside. Shitsumei was still staring at him the whole time with those eerie blue eyes of his. He had whisker-like scars on his cheeks, Ichirou noticed now. Curious.

 

"Shitsumei-san?" Ichirou enquired. The man tilted his head to the side, but didn't answer. "I'm Yamanaka Ichirou. Do ya mind if I take a look at your head? I'd like to see if I can retrieve your lost memories."

 

Was it just him or were Shitsumei's eyes glowing? Ichirou repressed the urge to flinch. How could one man be so unnerving?

 

"Memories?" Shitsumei repeated after a moment. His voice was hoarse, as though he was recovering from a bad cold. "You can...read my mind?"

 

"Eh, not quite," the retired shinobi replied. "Thoughts and memories aren't physical things, so they can't be 'read'. Instead, what my jutsu will do is increase the firing capacity of the neurons in your brain, allowing you to potentially retrieve the memories that you've lost. It should work since your mind hasn't taken any physical damage, but there's no guarantee that it will. But there's also no harm in trying, ne?"

 

Shitsumei continued to stare at him without blinking. Ichirou was usually pretty good at reading people's body language—it was practically a requirement of being a part of the Yamanaka clan—but Shitsumei was like a blank slate to him. The man didn't reveal anything about what he was thinking.

 

"...Is that a yes?" Ichirou ventured after several minutes of silence. "You've got to answer for me to know, ya know. I'm only technically a mind reader, not literally."

 

Finally Shitsumei blinked. Then he shrugged and averted his gaze back onto the cell wall. "Do what you like."

 

"...Right," the Yamanaka said slowly. He shot a glance over to the cell door, knowing that Sarutobi was watching, before sighing and sitting on the bed in front of Shitsumei. "Just relax, 'kay? This will only take a second."

 

Ichirou began to flash through seals at a faster rate than most people's eyes could follow. A few moments later he settled on the final seal and closed his eyes, waiting to feel the jutsu work—

 

—Only to gasp when a jolt of chakra ran through him. Ichirou's eyes instantly snapped open and what he saw was completely impossible.

 

Gone was the small detention cell with its gray walls and simple furnishings. Instead he was standing in the middle of a desert. The sand stretched for as far as far as he could see and there was a warm wind whipping through the air. Ichirou gaped openly, wondering what the hell had happened and where he was.

 

Shitsumei was there in the desert too, standing about five feet from Ichirou. The blue eyed man was staring off into the distance with unfocused eyes.

 

"Shitsumei?" Ichirou said. His voice wavered slightly, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "W-what— Where are we?"

 

Shifting slightly in the sand, Shitsumei glanced over at him and Ichirou saw that his gaze was intent for the first time since he'd met him. His blue eyes really did look like they were glowing this time, but that might have just been the reflection of the sun.

 

"My mind, I believe," Shitsumei murmured. He frowned—the first real expression he'd given that Ichirou had seen—and glanced around them. "But...Not."

 

"That's not possible," Ichirou protested.

 

Turning back to him, Shitsumei raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that made Ichirou cringe and feel like a child who'd asked a silly question. The Yamanaka wondered how someone with such a young face could have eyes that looked so ancient.

 

Ichirou looked away from the blond haired man in an attempt to break the suddenly tense atmosphere. Then his breath caught in his throat as he finally looked up at the sky above them: It was fractured, as though it wasn't a sky at all, but instead a glass mural that had been broken.

 

"You should go," Shitsumei said suddenly. "This isn't a place for someone like you."

 

Ichirou didn't even have a chance to wonder what those words meant before he suddenly felt another jolt of chakra. The world around him spun, melting, and then he opened his eyes to the detention cell once more.

 

With a gasp, Ichirou jerked backwards. He nearly tumbled off the bed and only his shinobi training stopped him from losing face. Warily, he looked over at Shitsumei, but the man was only watching him curiously. Ichirou decided it'd be best to leave and in only a few seconds was once again standing with the Hokage, outside of the cell.

 

"What happened?" Sarutobi demanded.

 

"I—I'm not sure," Ichirou said. He stared through the glass at the motionless Shitsumei. "The jutsu...It pulled me into his mind."

 

Sarutobi frowned. "Into his mind? That shouldn't be possible; the mind has no physical projection—"

 

"I know!" Ichirou cried. Then he flinched. "Forgive me, Hokage-sama. It's just...I don't know how it's possible, but it was his mind. It's a good thing that it happened, I suppose, because it did give him a glimpse of his mind. He definitely has amnesia—there's no faking what I saw. The thing is, I think his mind is...broken. Something happened to him, most likely the same thing that caused his amnesia, but I have no idea what it could be."

 

The Sandaime hummed thoughtfully. "I must admit that I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do with him," he commented. "I don't—"

 

"Hokage-sama!" a kunoichi called as she came running down the hallway. She skidded to a stop in front of front of Sarutobi and Ichirou. Her eyes were wide and her face was slightly flushed.

 

"Yes?" Sarutobi asked with concern clear in his voice.

 

The woman thrust a paper towards Sarutobi. Confused, he took it. "The results of the test you requested just came back," she explained quickly. "Sir, Shitsumei, he—His DNA is an identical match with Uzumaki Naruto!"

 

Sarutobi looked up sharply, disbelief written across his features. "Impossible," he muttered. He glanced back down at the paper in his hands to double-check the truth of the kunoichi's words.

 

Ichirou, meanwhile, snorted. "That word seems to pop up a lot recently," he said dryly. "I don't think it quite matters anymore, when it comes to Shitsumei."

 

The Sandaime Hokage didn't reply. He continued to stare at the paper, feeling numb.

 

Impossible...

 

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Shitsumei knew that someone was approaching his room long before they ever opened the door. It was always that way. Their energy called out to him so strongly that if he wanted to, he could even close his eyes and pinpoint where everyone in the building was. Sure enough, only a few moments later the door opened and a man wearing one of those ANBU masks walked in.

 

"Shitsumei-san, the Hokage would like to speak with you. Please follow me," he said.

 

The blond perked up almost instantly. He had to admit that he was curious to speak to this "Sandaime" that he'd heard so much about. He silently stood and walked over to the door. He paused in front of the ANBU and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, waiting. Normally he'd be able to find someone on his own by seeking out the unique feel of their chakra, but he'd never met the Hokage before, so he needed a guide.

 

(There were just some things he had to do for himself, no matter how many times they told him it was a suicide mission.)

 

The ANBU hesitated for a moment before leading Shitsumei out of the room. Though the masked man's body language gave nothing away, the blond could tell that he was a bit nervous, or perhaps just uncomfortable. He briefly wondered why before dismissing the thought. Everyone around here seemed to act like that, even that odd, pale haired man who'd visited earlier.

 

Shitsumei was led through twisting hallways, past numerous doors. They saw only one person along the way, who, oddly enough, had stopped to stare at them as they'd passed. Eventually the ANBU stopped before a solid metal door and took up a sentry position against the wall. Shitsumei didn't even glance at him as he proceeded inside.

 

The room was rather Spartan in design, even more so than the room that Shitsumei had been in since he'd arrived. It consisted of only a wooden table and three chairs, two of which were occupied by Ichirou, the pale haired man from earlier, and a wizened old man wearing a white and red robe and a square hat.

 

The elderly man stood as Shitsumei stepped inside, a small smile on his face. "Hello, Shitsumei-san," he greeted. "Please, have a seat. We have a long discussion ahead of us."

 

As he walked over to the empty chair across from the robed man and Ichirou, he let his hand run across the top of the wood. There were intricate carvings all along the backrest. As his fingers moved across each groove, he found him himself following a pattern that shouldn't have existed in mere decoration. (The seals spread out over the walls, painting them black. He stumbled back, horrified, but already everything was unraveling and he knew he wouldn't be able to reach her time—)

 

"Chakra suppression seals," the older man said upon seeing what Shitsumei was looking at. "Don't worry; they won't activate unless an outside source applies chakra to them."

 

Shitsumei nodded immediately. He never bothered to realize that he instantly trusted the man's words.

 

"I am Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure. You already know Ichirou," the older man said with a nod towards the pale haired shinobi. Ichirou grinned and waved, but didn't shift his slumped position. “I'll be straight with you: You're an enigma to us. As of yet, we don't know the cause of your amnesia, let alone how to restore your memories. So, for the time being we will just have to keep you under supervision in the village. If you have no objection to it, you'll room with Ichirou."

 

"I'm a good roommate," Ichirou put in cheerfully, "And I've got a big house all to myself. So long as you ignore my limping, we should get along just fine."

 

"...You just want me to...live here?" Shitsumei rasped.

 

Sarutobi nodded. "We have no reason to keep you locked up here, but if you leave the village you may find people questioning your...unique...appearance. So instead I simply suggest that you stay within the village for now. Your living expenses will be paid for if, in return, you allow us to...Well, to help you regain your memories.

 

"And what can you gain from my memories?"

 

"We don't know the answer to that quite yet," Sarutobi said evasively, "But we're hoping to find out soon enough. We believe that there are a few things that we can learn from your...mystery. Regardless, do we have an agreement?"

 

For the first time a smile flashed across Shitsumei's face. He bowed to Sarutobi as well as he could in his seat.

 

"It is agreed, Hokage-sama."

 

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Tora - tiger

Kunoichi - female ninja

 

A/N: Naruto/Shitsumei character is a lot of fun to write, mainly because he's so different. He's both apathetic and fascinated with everything around him. Ichirou too should prove to be interesting.

 

For those of you who are curious, I do already have most of the plot for this story planned out, including how/why Naruto got sent the past. Though that bit of information won't be revealed for a while yet, I will say that it's quite unique; it has nothing to do with a jutsu, seals, Kyuubi using its chakra to send him back, the intervention of a god, or even Naruto's death. Like I said, unique. On a similar note, in this story Naruto (young and old) is the only person with a "mindscape". This, too, won't be explained for a while yet.

 

About the "gut instinct" thing that's mention in this chapter: I truly believe that, realistically, this would be a major part of being a shinobi. The profession is all about lies, for the most part, so no matter how much information they have, shinobi will never know for sure whether something—be it a mission, person, piece of information, etc.—is correct. As such it would make sense that they would have rely on instinct, even if that instinct is based on experience.

 

Oh, and in case it wasn't clear, Naruto/Shitsumei does look like he's about the same age as the Yondaime was when he died—mid-twenties, that is. His exact age is, obviously, unknown.

 

--S.R.

 

"Memory isn't like reading a book; it's more like writing a book from fragmentary notes." - John F. Kihlstrom