Utakata blinked, his senses slow to stir. He wasn't reclining on a tree like he usually, but rather he was seated upright. His wrists and ankles were tied down to a heavy, unadorned metal chair. He could feel a sealing tag placed at the base of his neck, making him unable to mold his chakra.
He was trapped.
In the minuscule, featureless cell, three ANBU-clad warriors sat motionless, their empty masks—a Falcon, a Boar, a Fox—giving nothing away. They were simply waiting.
"This cage is better than the last one," Saiken's voice echoed in his mind, somehow resounding despite the Chakra seal. "These are no regular shinobi.".
Utakata said nothing. His honey-brown amber eyes scanned the room. No windows. One secured door. His bubble pipe was gone. He was absolutely helpless. The transitory joy that had filled him earlier now tasted like a cruel joke, a fantasy in another life.
The ANBU who had a Falcon-mask observed his waking with a subtle head movement. He stood, his movements economical. "The asset is awake. I will report to the Commander." He disappeared silently, leaving the other two as still as statues.
Minutes turned into an eternity. At last, the Falcon-masked ANBU came back, stepping aside for another to enter. This individual had a dragon shaped mask. He wore the standard ANBU outfit, but he had the kind of presence that demanded authority above rank. This was the Commander, simply known as Tatsu.
The Commander dismissed the two other ANBU with a sweep of his hand. They disappeared as suddenly as they came, and there were left only the two of them standing in the cold, white space.
"Utakata of Kirigakure," Tatsu declared, the deep, smooth baritone of his voice unshaken. "I am the one who commanded the Konoha shinobi who came to your rescue."
"You have my gratitude for the rescue," Utakata said, his own voice raspy. "And my condemnation for the imprisonment."
"A necessary precaution," Tatsu replied, unfazed. "You are an S-rank missing-nin and a Jinchūriki. We are not fools." He paused, his gaze sharp and analytical. "The organization that attacked you, Akatsuki, has accelerated its activities. The attack on you was not an isolated incident."
Utakata remained silent, a cold dread coiling in his stomach.
"Three days ago, a similar team ambushed the Two-Tails Jinchūriki, Yugito Nii of Kumogakure. Kumo's response was too slow. We have confirmed through our networks that she was captured."
Tatsu's words were like shards ice. "At roughly the same time, another team engaged the Four-Tails, Rōshi of Iwagakure. He fought them to a standstill and managed to escape, but he was grievously wounded. The pattern is undeniable. Akatsuki's primary objective is the capture of all Jinchūriki."
Utakata understood. He was not just a missing-nin with a bounty on his head, he was a strategic figure, a pawn in a terrifying global game. "And what of the others?"
"We have spoken to all the big villages," stated Tatsu. "Kumo and Iwa, prideful as they are, have refused to listen, preferring to handle the threat themselves. Your village, Kiri, is a nest of vipers that can't even be warned. Takigakure has been more sensible. Their leaders have proposed an alliance and have agreed to place their Jinchūriki, Seven-Tails Fū, in the temporary custody of a joint Konoha-Taki unit."
The sheer scale of it was staggering. This went far beyond the petty squabbles of villages. It was a coordinated, worldwide assault on the most powerful weapons in existence.
"Why?" Utakata asked, the question aimed more at the universe than the man before him.
"What could they possibly want with all nine of us?"
"That is the question we are all pondering," Tatsi admitted.
"For now, all we can do is react. Which brings us to you, Utakata. You are a loose end. A powerful piece on the board, currently without a player. Akatsuki knows where you are. They know who you are. They will come for you again."
Utakata stared at his bindings. The irony was suffocating. He had departed from his own village in order not to be an instrument, only to be hunted by a new organization that saw him as a prize, and now 'rescued' by another village that saw him as an asset to be managed.
"So I am to remain your prisoner."
The door creaked again. Tatsu turned. "No," he said, his voice softening almost imperceptibly. "You are to be offered a choice. By one who better understands your position than I."
Ryuu entered the room.
He had shed the ANBU uniform, wearing now a plain, dark tunic and trousers. As he drew off the porcelain mask from his face, Utakata's eyes widened slightly.
The boy was a spectral, disquieting presence. His snow white hair, once tied back from his ANBU hood, cascaded down to his shoulders. His eyes were a jarring, vivid crimson, etched out by the bright, red lines of his Kaguya heritage. Two well-placed crimson marks above his brows stood out against his pale skin.
His features were fine, almost delicate, with long eyelashes that would have made any woman envious.
It was a face of impossible, androgynous beauty, grounded only by the sharp line of his jaw, the visible bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed, and a lean, wiry musculature visible under the thin fabric of his shirt.
The now 13 year old Ryuu had completely overcome his sun-weakness and had matured considerably in appearance, his height increasing drastically over the past few months.
He now stood at 170 cm tall and was still growing.
"Utakata-san," Ryuu said, his voice now deeper, with a quiet, steady tenor. He gave a slight, respectful bow. "I requested this meeting."
Utakata stared. He didn't know this kid, nor had he seen him before. It made no sense as to why this person would want to talk to him.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Ryuu," he replied simply, walking closer. Tatsu gave a curt nod and exited the room, leaving them alone. The thud of the reinforced door sealing them in was a sound of absolute finality.
Ryuu pulled a simple wooden stool over and sat before Utakata, his crimson eyes meeting the jinchūriki's amber gaze without fear or arrogance.
"I am here to tell you the truth. Not Konoha's truth, or Akatsuki's truth. Yours."
Utakata scoffed. "What would a child, know of my truth? I don't even know you!"
"I know of Harusame," Ryuu stated quietly.
The name hit Utakata like a physical blow. His breath hitched. He stared at the boy, his carefully constructed composure cracking.
"You know nothing," Utakata snarled. He pulled against his bonds, the metal biting into his skin. "You're a child playing at being a shinobi, spouting names you don't understand."
Ryuu's expression did not change. His crimson eyes held no judgment, only a strange, unnerving clarity.
"You are half right. I am a child. But you have lived with a half-truth. Why speculate, Utakata-san? Why believe me? Ask the one who was truly there. Ask the one who felt his last breath."
Ryuu's gaze seemed to pierce through him, looking at something deeper.
"Ask Saiken."
The name of the Six-Tails, spoken aloud with such casual certainty, hit Utakata with the force of a physical strike. His breath hitched.
How?
How could this boy know the beast's true name? Even within Kirigakure, only a select few were privy to that knowledge.
"This child… is dangerous," Saiken's voice gurgled in his mind, the usual cynicism laced with a new, unfamiliar note of wary caution.
"He knows too much. Say nothing."
"Saiken is… a part of me," Utakata managed, his voice strained. "He does not speak of the past."
"The past is a festering wound best left untouched," the beast grumbled. "The man tried to kill us. We defended ourselves. That is the only truth that matters."
But even as the beast projected its blustering certainty, Utakata felt the subtle, coiling tremor of its chakra. It wasn't anger. It was… apprehension.
Ryuu watched him, seemingly reading the silent, internal exchange with his eyes.
He sighed, deciding it was time to step it up a notch.
"Saiken," Ryuu said, his voice dropping, speaking not to Utakata, but to the being sealed within him.
The directness was a violation, an impossible intrusion.
"I know you know. You don't have to make this situation more complicated. I understand self-preservation. But you are wrong about what happened that day. After all… you are the one that killed him."
Utakata flinched as Saiken roared in his mind. "LIES! HE TRIED TO UNMAKE ME!"
"He was trying to save the only thing in the world he held precious. That man, Harusame, wanted to remove you from inside Utakata, that is true. He believed you were a curse that would destroy his student's life. So he attempted the impossible, a fuinjutsu to extract a Bijuu without killing the Jinchūriki. He did so recklessly, without proper preparation, because he was desperate. He was trying to give Utakata the one thing he could never have with you inside him… a normal life."
"He speaks in half-truths, Utakata! What does he know of our pain, of the cage we endured?!" The Six-Tails thrashed within its spiritual prison, but its protestations felt hollow.
They were the desperate roars of an animal that knew it had been seen for what it was.
"Saiken lies to you because the truth condemns him," Ryuu stated.
"And he lies to himself because accepting what he did—what his fear made him do—is a burden even a Tailed Beast cannot bear."
And that was the final, devastating blow. Saiken fell silent. It was the silence of guilt, of shame, of a being stripped of all its justifications.
In that profound quiet, a memory Utakata had suppressed for years surfaced with agonizing clarity.
He saw his master, Harusame, standing over him, his face a mask of desperation and fierce, desperate love.
And he heard his master's last, choked words, a plea to the student he could no longer save from his curse.
"Live, Utakata… Live free…"
The world collapsed for Utakata at that moment.
He hadn't been betrayed. He had been protected. He hadn't been the victim of his master's ambition. He had been the tragic cause of his master's death.
The life he had lived since, the wandering, the bitterness, the pushing away of all bonds—it had all been built on a lie. A lie he had told himself to survive a truth he couldn't bear to face.
A low, keening sound, almost inhuman, escaped Utakata's throat.
It was the sound of grief, of guilt, of a boy's misplaced hatred finally finding its proper target.
Himself.
The tears that fell were not of self-pity, but of a profound, bottomless mourning for the man he had killed and the boy he could have been.
Ryuu waited. He did not offer comfort. This was a wound that words could not heal, a poison that had to be purged by the victim himself.
He let the silence stretch, allowing the full weight of the truth to settle.
When Utakata's ragged sobs finally subsided, replaced by a hollow, shuddering emptiness, Ryuu spoke again, his voice now devoid of its earlier edge, tinged instead with a shared, quiet understanding.
"The truth is a heavy burden, Utakata-san. But a lie is a cage."
Utakata finally looked up, his amber eyes red-rimmed and vacant.
"Why?" he whispered, his voice a raw rasp.
"Why tell me this now? What do you… what does Konoha want from me?"
Ryuu met his gaze, his crimson eyes holding a flicker of weariness.
"What Konoha wants," he began, "is to use you. You are a powerful weapon, a valuable asset in the coming war against Akatsuki. They will offer you sanctuary, protection, and in return, they will ask for your strength. They will ask you to become another tool for another village."
The words were brutally honest, devoid of the usual shinobi platitudes.
"They will ask you to fight. To risk your life for peace."
Utakata flinched, the familiar bitterness threatening to return.
"What I want," Ryuu continued, his voice dropping slightly, "is different. I came to you because your path and mine are… uncomfortably similar. We are both carriers of immense, dangerous power. We are both hunted. And we are both the last vestiges of a past Kirigakure tried to erase."
He leaned forward, a surprising intensity in his young face.
"My mother fled Kiri for the same reason you did. Because they see power not as a part of a person, but as a thing to be controlled or destroyed. The current… it is a cancer. It has poisoned a great village, turned it into a factory of suffering that now fuels Akatsuki."
He stood, his gaze moving from Utakata to the cold, metal door.
"Konoha's offer is a gilded cage, Utakata-san. A safe place to be warehoused until they need you. My offer is a chance at true vengeance. A chance to reclaim the future of the village that betrayed us both."
Ryuu's voice was now low, almost a whisper.
"The Fourth Hokage is a pragmatist. He is my commander and even teacher, but I am not blind to his methods. He uses us because we are useful, even if that's not the full picture. I intend to be useful. So useful, so powerful, that when this war with Akatsuki is over, Konoha will have no choice but to support me. I will not let Kiri rot under Yagura's madness or Akatsuki's puppetry. It is the birthplace of my clan, the home my mother was forced to flee. And I will see it restored."
He looked back at Utakata, his crimson eyes burning with a conviction that was terrifying in a boy of thirteen.
"To do that, I need allies. Strong allies. Allies who understand the stakes, who have their own reasons to fight. Allies like you."
The offer was audacious, insane. A Genin, a mere child, speaking of reshaping the geopolitical landscape, of restoring a fallen nation. But in his eyes, Utakata saw not the reckless bravado of youth, but the cold, calculating fire of a man who had already seen the end of the world and had decided he would not let it come to pass.
"Join me," Ryuu said, the words not a command, but an invitation. A shared purpose.
"Not as a tool for Konoha, but as a partner. Help me build the strength we need to defeat Akatsuki. And when it is done, we will not simply ask for our freedom. We will take it. And we will use it to cleanse the Mist, to build something new from its ashes. A true sanctuary. The kind Harusame died trying to give you."