Chapter 37: Looking Underneath

"This is going nowhere," Minato groaned, holding his head in his hands.

The table in front of him was a mess of loose papers and scrolls, books and folders. He had technique manuals ranging from jonin-level jutsu to kiddy how-to books for academy students just starting to learn the basics.

On his left—and a bit in front of him, with some having fallen off the table entirely—there was a pile of notes he and Akaiko had put together the previous evening, compiling any details they could recall of the missing children cases. In a stack on his right, Kushina had added her own packet of information: courtesy of pestering her friend Mikoto for any details she could.

There had to be something here.

He pulled over one of the smaller scrolls, marked as low-chunin rank, and rolled it out over the cluttered table. It was a jutsu he was actually quite familiar with, having taught it to Kakashi just a few months ago: a technique to keep the user from leaving behind a scent trail.

That didn't exactly line up with what he had felt at the store, were chakra had worked like soapy water to clean traces before draining away, but…

"Still," he muttered aloud to himself, hands absentmindedly flitting through the proper signs as he thought, "it could be related."

Minato had no doubt that it was a hidden technique: one either taught only to those with a specific role in the village—a tracking specialist, perhaps—or one developed by a lone shinobi for their own use.

He really hoped it was the latter.

Because if it wasn't, then now, and during the missing children investigation, somebody would have recognized that jutsu. And they didn't say anything.

And that would mean, at some level, the village leadership was complicit.

Which was ridiculous.

But as Minato had slowly (well, it was actually quite rapidly) combed through the materials he had borrowed from the library, doubt was creeping up his spine.

He was broken from those grim thoughts by a rattle of keys, and a pointed flare of familiar chakra: as much to tell him she was home as it was to disable their security seals. The door swung open, and shut behind her.

"No luck, I take it?" he asked, not looking up from the scroll.

"Basically, yeah," Kushina grumbled, looking over the mess he'd made. But rather than chew him out for covering their kitchen with paper and ink, she just walked over and put an arm around his shoulders. "Same here?"

Leaning into the hug, Minato sighed. "Nothing new. There are a few possibilities, but…" He shook his head.

With a quiet hum in agreement, she straightened. "But hey, I ran into your kids on my way back. They were looking for you."

He glanced up. "They were?"

"Said they found something important, so I brought 'em with." Kushina shrugged, and gestured back at the shut door. "They're outside. Figured I should make sure you weren't up to anything major before letting them in, ya know?"

"Thanks." Though he managed a tired smile, it dropped when he glanced back over his gathered papers. Minato sighed. "Well, this hasn't got me anywhere. I suppose a break would be good."

"I'll get 'em, then."

And with that, she left.

Knowing she'd be back in just a moment, he turned to tidy up some of the more scattered papers and set aside his own somewhat bleak thoughts. He tried to ignore his worries for the moment—he was their teacher, after all, and he had to act like it.

No matter how exhausted or frustrated he might be.

So when the front door opened again, he was able to give them a slight smile.

"Minato-sensei."

And the smile dropped.

"Kakashi?" He'd never seen his student with that sort of expression: worried, frustrated, on the edge of desperate. Obito and Rin behind him both looked exhausted. Standing, Minato pushed aside the scrolls he had been reading. "What is it, what's wrong?"

After hearing what the three of them had found, Minato sat back down.

"A persistent genjutsu?" he breathed. "Are you certain?"

It felt like a step forward.

Finally.

Rin nodded. "Definitely. It just… It kept coming back, and we had to keep breaking it."

"But it couldn't be active all the time," Minato murmured, thinking aloud, "somebody would have noticed. So for that to work, there needs to be some trigger, but what..."

"I haven't heard of a jutsu that can activate itself," Kushina remarked. "but you can do something like that with seals."

Rin glanced back in the general direction of the abandoned district, clearly picturing the shop. "Like, on the vase?"

Thoughtful, Minato nodded.

"Being close does seem to make it worse," Kakashi added.

Obito kicked at the ground, annoyed. "Ya just can't focus near that thing."

With a perfectly deadpan air, Kakashi raised a brow. But the snarky response written across his face—'you never focus anyway'—was left unsaid.

"I just want it to stop," the boy grumbled.

And that, Minato realized with a start, may be just what they needed. That genjutsu could be one of their only clues, after all: they didn't need to break it at all, they just needed to stop it. Even if only temporarily.

"If we could pause it…" he began, quietly thoughtful. His mind drifted to conversations with Axel, notes on the table and scribbling down new ideas for seals. And one idea in particular, so recent they had only just started seeing good results: "Kushina, could you—?"

"Way ahead of ya, pretty boy." She had already pulled out a blank tag, ink brush at the ready. "But the stasis seal's still just a prototype, ya know. It probably won't hold for very long." As she set to work drawing out the deceptively simple triangular design, Kushina smiled. "You'll need to be fast."

Minato just grinned back.

"Hey!" Obito protested, looking back and forth between them. "What about us, are we just gonna be stuck here waiting?"

Kushina snorted, and spared a hand to ruffle his hair, despite his protests. "Alright, fine. We'll need to be fast."

"What does this… 'stasis seal' do, anyway?" Kakashi asked, looking over the pattern of spiraling triangles she had inked out

"Well, it's supposed to stop chakra from moving about within a certain distance of it." She lifted away her brush with a flourish. "And it does. For a while, anyway."

Taking the tag she handed him, Minato nodded. "It still has a tendency to catch on fire if we leave it active for too long. Haven't quite figured out why."

Rin looked uneasy. "Is this safe?"

"Of course not!" Kushina replied, with an almost playful grin.

With a slight smile at his student's skeptical expression, Minato glanced at the clock. "I know the police weren't going to return to the shop until this afternoon, so we should have at least half an hour." He paused, considering that, then glanced to Kakashi with one brow raised. "Ah, but since you all snuck in earlier, I take it you already knew that."

He shrugged. "I… ran into Dach. He told me."

Minato slipped the stasis seal into one of his vest pockets, and pulled out one to store away all of his scattered research. It would be a mess to have to sort through later, but there wasn't enough time to tidy up right now.

Two steps ahead of him, as usual, Kushina had already gotten out a scroll of her own. And, with two poofs of chakra smoke, the table was cleared.

"No time to waste, ya know?" she said, tossing him the now-filled storage seal and heading for the door. "Let's get moving!"

It was a quick trip by way of the rooftops, and it only took a few minutes to arrive at the shop: still empty, so very empty.

"I don't get it." Obito tripped a little on his landing, caught himself, and continued, "I mean, Axel got grabbed, right?"

Her last jump left her a little bit ahead, having overshot slightly, so Rin had to trot back to join them. "I was wondering about that, too." She nodded. "I mean, he's just some guy. Who'd want to kidnap him?"

Minato shared a look with Kushina.

But before he could say anything…

"We don't know everything about Axel," Kakashi remarked. He turned toward Minato, with perhaps the slightest hint of sheepishness. "I… didn't mean to listen, when you were both talking."

Well, perhaps he should have expected that. "You know, then?"

Kakashi just nodded, and said nothing.

That's… interesting.

And, frankly, surprising: his student was many things—skilled, hardworking, intelligent—but he certainly wasn't very trusting, even with people he knows fairly well. Yet, he seems to have accepted the (understandably bizarre) truth of Axel's past.

Giving them all suspicious looks, Obito crossed his arms. "Knows what?" He scowled pointedly at his teammate. "What do you know?"

"It's Axel's business."

Would wonders never cease.

Seeing Obito's expression turn stubborn and determined—and even Rin was starting to get that serious glint in her eyes—Minato decided he had to head them off.

"I'll go in and set the seal," he said, pulling attention back to the matter at hand with a broad gesture to the shop across the street. "Wait for me to signal that it's been activated, then you can follow me inside. Ready?"

His three students nodded, and Kushina gave him a thumbs up. "Got it."

"This will only take a moment."

With a burst of shunshin, Minato landed inside the shop. Slapped the stasis seal beside the register, which should hopefully be close enough to the vase…

Which really wasn't all that important, he should just—

He sharply twisted his chakra, breaking the genjutsu and activating the seal in one swift burst. When the inked triangles all lit up, the area gained the strangest shade of stillness to his senses.

And then, after that quiet moment, the illusion snapped off.

He felt the still-nagging thought that there was nothing of interest fade entirely, since it became very clear that wasn't the case.

The undamaged vase was replaced by one that was almost more cracked than whole, with flowers that looked notably worse for wear. Several pieces were missing from the lip, and from a large gap on its side. But most notable was the long crack that ran all the way down one side and back up the other, splitting it vertically; the vase was only still standing thanks to a loop of wire around its neck… and the seal tapped over the split.

Minato whistled, one high-pitched note. A moment later, with a lonely chime from the bell over the front door, Kushina and his young team ducked under the yellow police tape to step inside.

Spotting the vase in all of its broken glory, Obito gasped. "Woah."

"That's…" Rin swallowed. "That's definitely not what it looked like before. Right?"

Examining the small tag stuck to the side of the vase—but being careful not to disturb it in any way—Kushina hummed. "Looks like the seal is set up to go off when attention turns its way. How did…" she tilted her head, thoughtful. "Oh, I see, that part there… hmm."

Minato, leaning over the register to get a better look, followed the swirls of ink and pictured how the full seal would come together when active. "Subtle." Nodding to himself, he looked to his trio of students. "You found a shard of the vase somewhere else, right?"

"Yes, Sensei."

"Without that, I'd imagine this genjutsu would be nearly impossible to notice."

Obito blinked. "For real?"

"Why?" Rin asked.

Shifting into teacher-mode, Minato gestured to the broken vase. "Tell me, what is the first thing you learn about when studying genjutsu in class?"

"Uhhh…"

"Come on, Obito. We went over this last week." When his expression remained a confused blank, Rin sighed. "The first step is learning how to notice genjutsu, and when you've been caught in one."

"Correct." Minato smiled, though it faded fast. "And this illusion was designed to redirect your attention from the object."

Eyes wide, Kakashi had clearly made the connection. "It doesn't let you notice it," he breathed.

It was easy to miss, because it was designed to be easy to miss.

"Seriously?" Obito rocked back on his heels. "They can do that?"

Pulling out the shard, Kakashi lined it up to one of the missing portions along the top of the vase. "Since I found this piece, I—" He stopped, then somewhat grudgingly corrected, "We were able to notice something was off."

"We noticed the vase," Rin said, "but it wasn't one of the pieces the seal was on. So it couldn't get at us as easily."

"But a genjutsu, no matter how impossible to detect, is still just a illusion," Minato remarked, feeling the beginnings of a plan pulling together. "This can't be a permanent solution. Whoever set this up, they had to have known police would be involved."

Sounding simultaneously proud and annoyed, Obito finished, "And that means Uchiha. Nobody can pull a genjutsu on them and have it stick."

"Not for long, anyway."

There had been an Uchiha officer on the scene already: whoever took Axel had to know they're running on borrowed time.

Unless…

Minato shook off the suspicions of treachery—conspiracies, that way lay madness—and turned to his first conclusion.

"This is just a patch," he said, quietly. "It's meant to keep people from looking too close for a day or two, not much longer. They need to come up with something better. Something more real."

Rin tilted her head to one side. "Like… a replica?"

"Or pretending to break it later," Obito suggested, "when it wouldn't look as fishy."

This was a chance.

From the moment his students had started explain just what they had found, he'd had that possibility floating in the back of his mind: that this detail—this genjutsu—might be enough to lead the way forward.

And had an plan for just how to use it.

By the glint in Kushina's eyes, she had the same idea. "And if they have to come back for it," she smirked, "then we have the perfect bait."

Obito blinked. "Huh?"

With a sigh, Kakashi explained, "Whoever kidnapped Axel with have to come back to deal with the vase, and we'll have a chance to catch them."

"Oh! Uhm… I totally knew that."

With a small smile—it was good to see his students getting along—Minato turned his attention to the trap.

It should be enough to detect changes in the vase: if something happens to drop the illusion or if it's relocated. With a seal in mind, he touched a finger against the vase, less than a kunai's width below the genjutsu tag.

Kushina would probably know of a different seal perfect for just this kind of situation: she was a real master, while he was just a fuinjutsu specialist. For something like this, though, a direct application would work best—and between the two of them, he was the one constantly applying seals without ink and paper. Putting the seal on the surface of the vase would make it difficult to notice the trap, and it would ensure better detection for any changes.

Chakra turned ink-black swirled onto the glaze, leaving behind a small design.

Kushina looked over his handiwork. "Looks good." She nodded to herself. "I'll pass it on, make sure the cops know to keep an eye out—"

"No!" Minato almost winced, as four pairs of curious eyes turned on him. But he couldn't let her, not with those insidious doubts weighing on his mind. "No, don't tell them. We don't know who could be involved."

Two of his students seems to take that as reason enough, without thinking through just what that implied about the village, but Kakashi looked disconcerted. Kushina, for one, had a dark look that promised burnt meals until he explained to her properly, and she wouldn't hesitate to escalate if he took too long.

And he would tell her.

Later.

"Or at least…" he paused, thinking, "only tell Fugaku-san."

The captain of the Konoha police was the head of the Uchiha clan, and approved directly by the Hokage. Minato wasn't willing to seriously consider a conspiracy of that extent. Plus, Fugaku-san had only been promoted within the past year. Children had been going missing for longer than he'd been in the position.

Not to mention that—according to Dach, at least—strays had been vanishing off the streets for even longer still. Advancing to targeting people after taking animals was a common pattern, so it was likely that the cases were related.

Uchiha Fugaku should be in the clear.

Hopefully.

Kushina scowled, but nodded, and Minato breathed a sigh of relief. She had something of a feud with the man; he hadn't been sure that she would agree.

Then he knelt by the register, reached underneath, and set a very familiar seal. As soon as he got the alert from the vase, he could be on-site in an instant.

"So…" Obito glanced around. "What do we do now?"

Minato stood and dusted himself off. "We clear out before the police get here," he said, "and then we wait."

It was the only thing they could do, now.

Just… wait.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Turns out, the vase was only held together by sinister machinations. And some wire.

Sorry for missing last month. I had intended to post this chapter earlier (though still late), but both it and the chapter for my other story really seem to be fighting me. It's been pretty frustrating and slow going, but we'll get there!

Updates monthly on the fifteenth, assuming all goes well.
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