Naruto : The System Files

Chapter no.105 Conspiracy

Iruka Umino sighed deeply as he sat at his dining table in front of a steaming cup of tea. The teacher rubbed his tired eyes and gathered his thoughts. It had been a week and on Monday, tomorrow, the chunin instructor would hand his first report to the Hokage. Infiltration and information gathering had never been up his alley and Iruka had taken the week to read up on old dusty manuals and other "how to" guides, to polish his skills. He had not slacked however and had gathered as much as he could from incriminating pieces of evidence.

The first surprise that was all but one, Naruto was not the dead last. That was not to say the blond boy was especially brilliant but he was not obtuse either. While the boy shone at his brightest during physical activities, he was not a dunce when it came to more traditional academic subjects. History and Geography were not his forte, neither were mathematics and chemistry was the blond's nightmare but anatomy, chakra and ninjutsu theory, battle planning, and astonishingly, classical literature, were strong points that had never been properly acknowledged.

Second surprise and this one had been real for Iruka, Sasuke was not perfect. Certainly, the Uchiha was talented and had a solid brain inside his skull but some of his tests over the years showed little mistakes -nothing much but enough to not get full mark- that had been ignored, never corrected. Iruka had grimaced at that. That had without a doubt inflated the already bloated head of the boy.

The third surprise was that Naruto and Sasuke were not the only victims of this subtle sabotage. Hinata Hyuuga was under-marked, Ino Yamanaka had gotten a boost, and the teacher could keep on going. Sometimes the approach was even subtler. Kiba Inuzuka for example had never been corrected when he had repeatedly handed ludicrous battle plans that would have gotten him killed in real life. The only clan heir that had not been subjected to anything had been the Aburame.

Iruka had been terribly angry for all about ten seconds when he had discovered that before reason and cold logic told him it was exactly what whoever was behind the sabotage was after. If the Aburame were behind it, they would have sabotaged Shino to cover their traces. They were too experimented to allow such a basic mistake to happen and were undoubtedly loyal anyways.

The overall result, whoever was the culprit, was that a large chunk of the education of clan heirs had been undermined. The implications were terrifying. First, it was a very long term kind of sabotage, with the idea that if the future leading figures of the village were incapable, the village itself would be incapable. That would be for those who would survive. One possible, logical step for the future was to engineer ambushes that would target specific genin squads, hoping to kill or cripple an underprepared member or two. Second, it was a subtle kind of sabotage. It was not about blowing something straight up, it was about manipulating ninjas when they were most vulnerable: young and in training. Making them overconfident or on the contrary destroying any self-confidence. Third, it was pretty much impossible to identify the puppeteer without catching the spies first, as any major enemy of Konoha would benefit from such an action. And Iruka was certain there were numerous spies, as it was simply too much work for Mizuki to falsify all the tests alone.

And Iruka was not certain it was limited to Naruto's class. In a mere week, he had not had the time to check any more papers then he had but it could quite possibly be the emerged tip of a much larger iceberg.

The teacher had tried to remember any suspicious pattern his colleagues could have shown over the past years but nothing had jumped to his mind. It was not unusual for an instructor to stay behind in the Academy to grade papers, prepare materials for the lessons of the coming day, or any teaching-related activity. Even Iruka would be suspicious if that was to be his primary criteria for suspicion.

It was not at all difficult to enter the Academy past its opening hours anyway. Naruto had proved it numerous times by pranking the Flames out of his various teachers' desk and cabinet. Iruka smiled at the thought. The small blond boy had been warning them all for years that their security was riddled with holes and all the people could see were lousy pranks with colorful and messy aftermath.

Without the means of T&I, the teacher was limited in what he could do. He had no way of checking the financial situation of any of his colleagues, nor order a complete background check, and least of all straight up torture them. Iruka did not think he had the necessary amount of guts anyways.

He could establish a pattern though. He had noted all the date of this year's tests and, thinking hard, the brown-haired chunin was convinced he could get something. It was only a matter of time.

...

When Naruto departed from the Sarutobi compound, the sky was already losing its orange and purple tint the evening had given it and getting dark. The blond had a wide smile eating his face and a spring in his steps as he circled around the Hokage Tower and took the stairs climbing up the Hokage Mountain.

Konohamaru was working hard on dreadfully boring Academy stuff to get going, was already planning his pranks for his first year of ninja school, and was trying to work around getting Udon and Moegi, the member of his "elite corps", involved. The little brown haired boy had also fished from inside his scarf his latest advancement in fuinjutsu and Naruto, who had more or less taught him, was proud.

Ichiro was good and healthy thank you very much, had a ridiculous goatee to emulate his uncle Asuma that Naruto totally had not mocked, and was on his way to Tokujo promotion in a year or so. He was also dating apparently, according to Konohamaru at least, but the blond could not get his older brother to spit out who the girl was.

To finish, there had been cookies and milk before their little group had moved inside to watch a movie. It had been an awesome afternoon all in all. It had been so peaceful, so gentle, so normal.

So precious, so full of love, of happiness.

Naruto shook his head and walked along the little trail leading to the small cabin backed against the cliff that dissimulated the entrance to the ANBU barracks. After donning his mask, His knuckles rasped thrice against the wall and the blond waited for five seconds before knocking again twice this time.

The secret door opened and Naruto stepped back into his violent ninja life without a shred of hesitation. He had things to protect and he needed to become strong to achieve that.

In a room carved like a bowl with a floor smoother than silk stood a cloaked figure. Up and down, the ANBU was walking, defying gravity by sticking to the curved, slippery walls of the room.

Dragon abruptly stopped pacing and propped up a foot against the opposite knee. Intently, the general stared at the sole of their foot from behind their mask, as if trying to decipher a message only they could see.

"How do I even do it?"

The general mused aloud, the normal monotone colored by two notes of both amusement and disbelief.

Dog's report had been quite interesting in many ways, more than even Dragon had anticipated.

Was there a different way to do vertical walking? If yes, was it more efficient? And above all, how did traditional walking even work in the first place?

Apparently coming to a decision, Dragon suddenly exited the room and walked down endless hallways, all identical, back to the cramped office of the ANBU commander.

Dragon's eyes weren't enough to solve the problem this time but the general had, among the ANBU soldiers, a number of operators who were perfect for further, keener observation. Hastily, the ANBU commander scrawled a message in black on a red post-it before slapping it on top of the secretary's desk.

The man would address the code red immediately and Dragon would be able to observe further.

Code B-lambda operator required ASAP in office.

If that did not work, Dragon could always ask his old friend afterward. Hiruzen Sarutobi was not nicknamed The Professor for twirling his thumbs all day during their shared youth.