Inheritance

And Now For the Hard Part

Naruto wiped his brow heavily with the sleeve of his shirt, cleaning it of the gritty combination of dirt and dust and sweat that had begun to gather there as he crawled his way through the filthy ventilation shaft. It was stupidly hot and humid, and the material of his clothes was started to take on rather more sweat than was entirely comfortable.

Truthfully, he was starting to wish he had just burst through the door and started kicking ass.

Still, the exit grill was just up ahead, and he was supposed to be a proper, mature shinobi now; regardless of how much the adrenaline was starting to wear on him, and make him want to start beating on thugs and possibly maybe blowing things up. Okay, that was a lie, he was definitely really eager to blow something up at this point. Either way, he buried the urge as deep as he could, took a deep breath, and started to push on once again towards the exit.

He peered through the inch-thick gaps in the grill in front of him, straining his eyes to their limits to try and be sure there would be nobody within earshot of him as he performed the unfortunately noisy task of popping the grill off of the wall.

Not a soul.

Naruto frowned. He was glad, for sure - I mean, it certainly made his job a lot easier - but this place was supposed to be well secured, manned by many mercenary guards. It was the headquarters of what was, despite Gatou's death, an international crime syndicate. Except that the place was dead. He hadn't even caught a whisper of the presence of the guards, besides the stragglers patrolling outside. It was peculiar - the de facto boss of this syndicate was sleeping in the tower room that was a few steps and a flight of stairs away, a man who was well aware that he had a price on his head, unlike Gatou who was on the surface at least, an ostensibly respectable businessmen (albeit a slimy one); and yet, the security here was weak, non-existent, pathetic.

It put Naruto on edge. It was a feeling he had gotten well acquainted with on his first C-rank mission, traveling through that valley that made his team easy targets for an ambush. His instincts screamed at him, demanded that he take action, because something was simply not right.

A sudden rush of memories focused his mind anew, snapping him out of his moment of almost frantic thinking, trying to figure out what was going on. It wouldn't have helped either way, hiding in a ventilation shaft would achieve nothing other than giving those conspicuously absent guards an opportunity to make an appearance and complicate his job. Regardless of anything else, the dispersal of all but one of his Kage Bunshin notified him that his C-rank mission was now accomplished, provided he made it out of here alive. He had the necessary information.

He gripped the grimy metal of the vent, and gave a single firm shove, detaching the metal from the wall with an uncomfortably loud clang. After a moments pause to ensure that nobody had heard the noise, he leapt to the ground in front of the stairwell leading to the tower his target resided in, and gently placed the grill on the floor, before cautiously moving up the spiraled staircase.

The blond moved utterly silently, hugging the inside wall to give himself that little bit of extra cover should anyone be coming down the relatively narrow stairway during his ascent, but once again, Naruto found himself more than slightly disturbed at the lack of protection. No guards, or defenses of any kind - not even the meagre traps that were lain to protect the secondary entrance to the building could be found defending the room of the man that now ran the entire organisation - and before long, Naruto was at the thick oak door to the man's room, unsure about which disturbed him more; the fact that he was about to kill, or the idea that his count for being ambushed whilst on a mission was about to reach two out of two.

The pause however, was only momentary, and a steadying breath was all Naruto needed to gather the courage to reach for the door nob, and silently enter the room. Konoha needed this to be done, and someone was going to have to do it. The only choice Naruto could make regarding this man's death was whether or not to take on the responsibility himself, so that others wouldn't have to. He knew that killing would almost definitely irreparably damage him, wound his soul in a way that nothing else could. But more damaging would be the effect of leaving it for someone else to do, allowing a comrade, or a friend bear that wound in his place. It was simply unacceptable to him.