What He didn't know

Cole likened his predicament to walking the gallows. Foreboding, humorless and entirely unsettling.

It had been decided the six of them convene in Naruto's room for a private chat, while the general public was shooed out of the establishment. Cole didn't consent to the abrupt questioning, but when the most powerful person in the village, the blasted Hokage, demanded his presence, well, Cole would rather bend than break. At least the man gave him the honor to fetch him himself.

Apart from Naruto's upbeat pestering the walk was deathly quiet. Iruka made a show of clapping his hands shut over Naruto's mouth after the latter bombarded the Hokage with four consecutive Hey-Old-Man's.

Cole wanted to laugh, he really did, but even the boy's hokums didn't brighten his mood. The air was pregnant with tension and Cole wasn't fully recuperated. He looked at the young kunoichi and frowned, he really should have taken up her offer for a diagnosis.

Tenten was petrified, walking in the stilted manner only reverence or fear caused, probably both. Their eyes met and he offered her a small smile. Unexpectedly she hurried two steps ahead, shying away from his eyes. At least some of the edge was gone from her stride - he chalked it up to nerves.

Cole pitied her. She had nothing, absolutely nothing, to fear from the gravely Hokage nor the two taciturn teachers. But she was young and in the presence of what may very well be the ninja-equivalent of a monarch.

Hiruzen was driven purely by principle and considered everyone within the village as family. Orochimaru had to directly threaten his life and the life of everyone at the Chuunin Exams, before the overwrought ninja defended himself. Occasionally Naruto got some sense knocked into him by Hiruzen, but all in the scope of some good-natured, tough love. Tenten was an innocent, diligent kunoichi with a bright future ahead of her, she could probably get away with murdering someone. Having a prior rapport with the man meant you had a second life, Cole did not have any of that.

He was an unknown variable and improbable existence meshed in one, coincidentally getting buddy-buddy with the nascent jinchuriki. In Hiruzen's eyes he was worth less than some missing-nin, even if Cole wasn't necessarily glared at.

All too soon they entered Naruto's appartement. A spartan thing that combined bed-, living- and dining room in one with an adjacent bathroom.

Iruka was the first to pull his nose at the clutter and general messiness that had befallen Naruto's quarters. "You... You can't even clean for once in your life?!", he exploded and the silence shattered.

Cole focused himself as Iruka, hands positioned to throttle, stormed after a slippery Naruto. Nobody seemed to mind the fuss.

"Come, Mr. Marin, please sit." Hiruzen bid and took a seat. For a moment, as the elderly Hokage painstakingly sat down, Cole couldn't see him as more than an old, frail man. The moment passed when Kakashi, one hand on his back, pushed him into a chair and then moved back to stand guard at the door. There had been no force in the movements, but Cole sank unbidden like a puppet.

"This may also concern the two of you. Tenten, Naruto." Hiruzen spoke. Iruka used the distraction to get Naruto in a headlock and sat the boy down. Tenten followed suit.

"Now then, my name is Hiruzen Sarutobi, the acting Hokage of Konoha. Those two are Kakashi Hatake and Iruka Umino." Hiruzen began. "I came here to have some questions answered by you, Mr. Marin, but it looks as if something happened in the meantime. May I ask what happened to your eyes?" Cole was suprised by the innocuous question. He fumbled for words but thought better of just straight up saying the first thing that came to mind. A conversation with a man like Hiruzen was nuanced, every gesture a powerplay. He didn't know where to look. For one, locking eyes with somebody when Dōjutsus existed was a dangerous proposition. Then again, he had nothing to hide and nothing to lose, so he looked the Third Hokage straight in the eyes. Outmaneuvering the leader of master-interrogators was an excersise in futility anyway.

Maybe it was the suddenness, or maybe his eyes were just that badly messed up, but Kakashi held a kunai to the side of his neck without a second thought - with the speed of thought. Something ran down his nape and Cole hoped it was sweat.

"Kakashi! Put down the weapon!" Hiruzen barked, face full of authority, and the feeling of razors and visions of welling blood vanished. Kakashi stepped back with the lightness of feathers, not a sound to his footfalls. Cole traced a hand over his throat. "I apologize Mr. Marin, it's just... your eyes, they are... peculiar." The disarming tone threw Cole for a loop.

"I... don't quite understand. They look normal, no? Brown and... ordinary... Ah wait!" he realised the misunderstanding. "Because they are red, is that it? That was just... I don't know what that was, honestly. Probably a burst vein or something." Scrunched brows told him it wasn't a misunderstanding, he had a sinking feeling.

"Uhm... could I have a mirror?"

Again it was Kakashi, ever the swift, silent and incredibly sudden ninja, that held a mirror in front of him. "Fuck me..." Cole grumbled quietly to himself while he looked at his reflection. Kakashi seemed amused behind his mask.

Two dizzying kaleidoscopes of colour gazed back at Cole. Underneath a film of blood lay a fractured abyss: of verdant greens tracing indigo blues; of glistening amethyst making merry with aureate citrine. It looked as if someone had replaced his eyes with halved geodes, were it not for the jet-black irises radiating outwards in sharp cracks, drawing his sight into an endless dark. Funnily enough, Cole considered 'Orbs' an apt description for eyes this time.

All these pecularities aside, Cole was more worried about people assuming he was in possession of a rare Dōjutsu. The thought wasn't wrong as such, but he doubted his abilites were transferable through implants. People wouldn't know that and if he were to grow stronger, as Cole knew he would, they would attribute that strength to his rare bloodline, or whatever nonsense. Now infamous madmen like Danzo, Madara, Obito and whoever else Cole couldn't name off the top of his head, had one more reason to hunt him down. Cole had visions of masked men scooping his eyes out and popping them like grapes. 'Great. Just great.'

Hiruzen coughed for his attention. "From your reaction I take it that your Dōjutsu awakened quite recently?" There it was, the first misguided conjecture of many. But what could he tell the elderly Hokage to get the heat off of him? Coincidences didn't exist for a man as suspicious as Hiruzen.

"Hey, hey! What's a Dōjutsu?" Ever the buoyant person Naruto chimed in, past the hand Iruka clamped over his mouth. Cole left the question unanswered and used the convenient distraction to try and find a way out of this.

"Dōjutsu are abilities activated with the eyes and passed on in some powerful families, a form of Kekkei Genkai." Fortunately Tenten picked up his slack but flinched away when he looked at her. "Most notable are the Sharingan of the Uchiha clan and the Byakugan of the Hyūga clan. They can have many abilities..." Cole didn't like where this was going. "Some of which activated upon looking the user in the eyes." She finished and Cole felt hollow at how she looked anywhere but him.

"Is this what this is about, Sir Honorable Hokage? Are we - Are we under this guy's jutsu?"

'This guy'. Cole had many things to say about that, but he refrained from speaking altogether. Even Naruto had settled down now.

Accused of harming, or trying to harm, innocent genin; an unknown person with unknown motifs, affiliations and powers; and a chakra-less anomaly in his own right. He was in deep, deep shit. He had gotten one ability and fucked it up. He should have left instead of dicking around with his ability. Living off the forest and wilderness he would have had better chances of survival than bumming about as a stranger in a ninja village. He was feeling light-headed again. Every second the crowded room became smaller and smaller. Every moment Kakashi would ram him through with a kunai. Why did he think living in a medieval world with super-ninjas was ever a fun adventure?!

"Ahem. No, Tenten, I can assure you no harm has been done to you. Right, Mr. Marin?"

The way in which the Hokage smiled at him let Cole exhale a breath he didn't know he was holding. The man had thrown him a line and he hoped it wasn't a length of rope to hang himself with.

"I-I swear on everything I hold dear, I promise, that I did not - EVER! - use a Dōjutsu, or any jutsu for that matter, on anyone. I would never harm anyone in this village!" Cole said with as much conviction as he could fit in there. "My eyes... they never looked like that, believe me." He knew he could sway Naruto over for his cause if he tried. The boy was too kind-hearted for his own good. Doing so would also re-fuel the suspicions. He had no choice but to appeal to the Hokage.

Hiruzen nodded sagely. "We believe you, Mr. Marin." He waited for the other shoe to drop. " I will be frank. What we would like to know is: information you are comfortable in sharing about the Marin Clan and how exactly you, Mr. Marin, came here." Assumptions over assumptions. Suddenly he was part of a clan.

That wasn't too bad. He could work with that.

Again, what did he tell them? He had told them he was from Germany, Vienna. How much of the planet was explored? He had seen the canon map, but where did countries taken from filler and movies fit in? The land of demons, vegetables or the moon for one - he should have gotten a map!

'Shit!' In the Gelel and Moon film they had sea-farring vessels, saying he was from overseas could easily get seen through. But on the other hand, there were thousands of islands. He could just say Germany was one of those and Vienna a quaint and ordinary village within. Downplay was important. Placing it northeast would be a good bet as well, far away from the main continent. Throwing them a bone about his ability would make sense too, let them chew on a half truth. He just had to sell them the lie. But how?! Apart from the genin everyone else had intensive training in inquisitioning, they were all masters of reading the body-language and the spoken word. He was already taking too long to answer! Damn it all, he had every right to be nervous, no need to hide it.

"My family isn't... We come from Germany. It would translate to 'the Land of Diligence'. Vienna isn't anything grandiose, we aren't either. Simple islander folk. Nothing you would call a Clan" Cole wanted to pat himself on the back. Now came the hardest part, telling a truth so far-fetched they might not believe him. "I don't know - I don't know how I got here. It sounds... difficult to believe. But yeah, that's what happened. I would love to go back but... I don't even know where to start, never travelled." He was laying it on thick towards the end, but it was the truth, if distorted a bit.

"Mhmm..." Hiruzen grumbled. "That is troubling. Space-Time ninjutsus are... dangerous and complex techniques. To use it on a civilian is..." The Hokage leaned back in his seat and looked Cole in the eyes. "Have you felt different since the awakening of your Dōjutsu?"

Kakashi and Iruka shifted where they stood. 'Oh man... Half-truths Cole, remember. No outright lies.'

"I do. It... started when Tenten," She looked at him briefly. "Tried to - it was a diagnostic jutsu, right? - so, she did that. Suddenly, everything was so bright, way too bright. I could... - see? - I could see chakra. Even now..."

"That is a powerful tool." Hiruzen stroked his beard, thoughtful. "Even now you say. Are you... noticing anything special about anyone here?" he was testing Cole for the veracity of his claims.

"Yeah, I do." He looked at Naruto and dialed up the pondering. The boy was getting more and more agitated by his gaze. "Something is within him. Something evil, incredibly malicious."

Kakashi scoffed. "The Nine-Tails, everyone in the village knows." Naruto looked downcast at the reminder, just yesterday he learned of his condition. Cole hated seeing the perky ninja like this. He made a show of increasing his focus, putting deliberation into his stare.

"But there is also... other sources. Chakras. Plenty of chakra, full of light and so full of love. A man and a woman. Your... your parents Naruto... They...-"

"Not another word!" Hiruzen roared and slammed a fist on the table. The sagely 'Professor' looked defeated, emptied by the weight of his office and sins. Everyone looked shocked at the outburst. "Old man..." Naruto whispered under his breath.

Cole despised himself for using him like that, but now he had proven his abilities, and that might just make the next steps easier.

"Mr. Marin, we believe you." Hiruzen had conceded, for today, and Cole felt light as a feather. "Now then. It has become late. Naruto still needs to take his graduation photos and I believe Tenten was scheduled for training. Might Guy has already been informed."

They all began leaving. Iruka carried a gloomy Naruto under his arm, talking about manners and a ban on make-up of all kinds. Kakashi left with the excuse that a new volume of his favorite novel was about to get published. Tenten bowed, her expression conflicted as she looked at him.

Cole and Hiruzen stood outside, the sun had reached its zenith and the heat was sweltering. Cole hadn't noticed when they wrung him for answers. Now it was his turn.

"Sir Hokage..."

He really needed money.

(I will probably post a bleach FF soon. Shouldn't expect too many updates, it would be just for me to play around with the first person view.)

(Sixth chapter lads. Hope you like it. Next chapter our MC will experience the joys of having a job and progress with the help of his system. Told ya guys it will take a while.

I am hating third person more and more. Writing dialogue with multiple male characters is such a tedious balancing act of when to use articles and when to use the full names. I haven't mastered that yet, so I feel the dialogue will seem janky at times.)