The Night of the Nine-Tails' Attack

Candles had been lit in the old observation post in the Forest of Death.

Two scrolls lay on a battered wooden table.

Dense shadows of trees filled the view outside the window, and now and then came the low growl of a beast. The captured Root remnant knelt against the wall, his mouth stuffed with cloth and his hands bound behind him with wire by Uchiha Tekka.

Naruto sat at the table.

The Third Hokage stood in the doorway without coming in.

Candlelight stretched his shadow across the floor like a rift no one could cross.

The first scroll contained Minato Namikaze's final instructions for the sealing.

Naruto opened it.

The handwriting was not Minato's. It was a record compiled after the battle.

The record was clear.

On the night of the Nine-Tails' Attack, Minato Namikaze decided to seal the Nine-Tails' yin and yang halves separately, with the yang half sealed inside the newborn Naruto Uzumaki. After the sealing, Konoha would raise Naruto, with his living expenses paid from the Fourth Hokage's personal estate and the Hokage survivor's pension.

A note followed.

"Those informed of his identity: the Third Hokage, the Hokage Advisors, designated ANBU guardians, and Jiraiya."

Naruto's gaze stopped on the last name.

Jiraiya.

He had heard that name before.

The Fourth Hokage's teacher. One of the Sannin.

A man who, by all rights, should have looked after Naruto more than anyone, yet had never appeared.

Naruto did not comment.

He turned to the next page.

"Minato Namikaze's final words: I hope the village will accept Naruto as a hero's son. He must not be slandered as the Nine-Tails Demon Fox."

The air in the room seemed to freeze.

The Third Hokage's fingers trembled slightly.

Naruto looked up.

"Must not be slandered as the Nine-Tails Demon Fox."

He read the words aloud again.

"Did you hear him say that?"

The Third Hokage opened his mouth.

"That night was chaotic. Many accounts of what was said needed to be verified..."

Naruto turned the scroll toward him.

"Your seal of confirmation is right here."

The Third Hokage fell silent.

Beside them, Uchiha Tekka's Sharingan turned faintly. He had not been involved, but he understood what the record meant.

The Fourth Hokage had left instructions.

Naruto's identity could have been handled with care.

At the very least, the Fourth Hokage had explicitly said that his child must not be slandered as a Demon Fox.

So what had happened in Konoha afterward?

Everyone in the village knew Naruto as the Demon Fox.

Only Naruto did not know he was the Fourth Hokage's son.

Naruto closed the first scroll and opened the second.

ANBU deployment orders from the night of the Nine-Tails' Attack.

This one was thicker.

It recorded the movements of each unit.

The first group of ANBU protected civilians.

The second pursued the Masked Man.

The third sealed off the Uchiha Clan Compound.

Naruto looked at Tekka.

Tekka's expression darkened at once.

"Sealed off the Uchiha Clan Compound?"

He snatched up the scroll and scanned it line by line.

That night, the Konoha Military Police Force had indeed been ordered to remain in the compound and stay away from the Nine-Tails' battlefield. The stated reason was to prevent the Sharingan from provoking the Nine-Tails.

The Uchiha had accepted that reason at the time.

But there was another line at the bottom of the order.

"Any Uchiha clan member approaching the central battlefield may be treated as a suspected rebel."

Veins bulged on the back of Tekka's hand.

"Who gave this order?"

Naruto checked the authorization.

The Hokage Office.

Countersigned by the Advisors.

Root assigned to assist with enforcement.

There was no single name, yet every part of it led to someone.

Danzo was dead.

The Advisors were still alive.

So was the Third Hokage.

Tekka's voice turned cold. "The Nine-Tails was controlled by a Sharingan that night. The village suspected the Uchiha, and we accepted it. But our compound was sealed off, our people couldn't help, and afterward the whole village suspected us anyway. And now I find out that just approaching the battlefield would have made us rebels?"

The Third Hokage drew a deep breath.

"The enemy did use a Sharingan."

Tekka's head snapped toward him.

"So the entire Uchiha clan deserved to be locked up?"

The Third Hokage did not answer.

Naruto kept reading.

A small slip of paper fell from between the scroll's pages.

The paper had yellowed and looked as though someone had tucked it in later.

It held only one sentence:

"Jinchūriki Isolation Plan: proposed by Danzo, approved by the Advisors, tacitly permitted by the Third Hokage."

Tacitly permitted.

Such quiet words.

No signature, no stamp, no explicit order required.

Yet they had let an entire village despise a child for six years.

Naruto picked up the paper and looked at the Third Hokage.

"Tacitly permitted?"

The Third Hokage closed his eyes.

After a long silence, he spoke.

"I never thought it would become this."

Naruto stared at him.

"You had ANBU report on me every day."

"You watched me live in a house with a leaking roof."

"You knew people sold me expired milk."

"You knew they called me a Demon Fox."

"And you say you never thought?"

His voice never rose.

But the Third Hokage grew paler with every sentence.

He would have preferred Naruto to fly into a rage. He would have preferred the Nine-Tails to break loose, even to fight Naruto himself.

A fight could be won or lost.

But Naruto's reckoning, line by line, laid all six years of his evasions on the table.

The Nine-Tails sneered inside the Sealing Space.

"That's what the old man fears most. Die on a battlefield, and he can say it was for the village. Put him in front of the ledger, and he's got nothing."

Naruto rolled up both scrolls.

"Back to the village."

The Third Hokage opened his eyes. "Naruto, the Nine-Tails' Attack involved many people. You can't condemn them all on the strength of a few scrolls."

Naruto stood.

"I haven't condemned them all."

"I'm looking for the ones responsible."

He walked over to the captured Root remnant, crouched, and pulled the cloth from his mouth.

"Who ordered you to flee with the scrolls?"

Blood trickled from the Root remnant's mouth. His eyes were dull.

"The Advisors' Office."

"Who handed them over?"

"Mitokado Homura."

"Who else?"

The Root remnant stopped.

Naruto pressed a finger to his forehead, and a Sealing Jutsu formula lit up.

The man shuddered.

"Former subordinates of... Sarutobi Biwako."

The Third Hokage went rigid.

Biwako.

His wife.

Biwako Sarutobi had died in the attack on the delivery room the night of the Nine-Tails' Attack.

Hearing her name drawn into this shook the Third Hokage more than the mention of the Advisors' Office had.

Naruto looked at him.

"Looks like someone's been using your wife's former subordinates."

Every trace of color drained from the Third Hokage's face.

The Root remnant panted, then forced out another sentence.

"They said... there are old records about how the delivery room's location was leaked on the night of the Nine-Tails' Attack."

Outside, a crow burst from the forest.

Naruto stood and seized the Root remnant.

"Lead the way."

The Root remnant looked at the Third Hokage. For the first time, something like spite showed in his eyes.

"The records aren't in the village."

"They're in the Old Storehouse at the Sarutobi Clan Compound."

The Sarutobi Clan Compound—a place Naruto had never entered—held the earliest clues to the Nine-Tails' Attack.