Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Author's Note: Revised and corrected in preparation for actually finishing this story at last. Also, if you want to see what I've been doing in the last year check out Fimbulwinter, my original novel now available as a Kindle ebook on Amazon (just got to www_amazon_com/dp/B00KZ41LHM , or go to the main page and search books for "Fimbulwinter, by E. William Brown").


The identity of Tsunade's new personal assistant had generated some consternation among Konoha's more conservative inhabitants, but there was little they could do about it. Even in Konoha the Hokage had complete control over the selection of her personal staff, and criticizing her appointments could be taken as an insult to the Hokage herself. So those who were displeased by Naruto's appointment were forced to limit themselves to veiled hostility and relatively restrained complaints, at least in public. Compared to the open hatred and occasional violence of his childhood Naruto found their reactions almost friendly.

Any doubts Tsunade herself may have had about the young jinchuuriki's ability to fill in for Shizune were quickly laid to rest. While he might not have her assistant's deft hand at dealing with the bureaucracy, he made up for it with a combination of personal charm, dogged determination and frequent late nights at the office. By the end of his first week he was handling half of Shizune's previous duties easily, and his ability to be in a dozen places at once (with instant communication, no less) proved so useful she wondered how she'd ever gotten by without him.

The sight of Shizune surrounded by a dozen eager young students every afternoon brought a nostalgic smile to Tsunade's face, and she wished she had time to teach more classes herself. But a Hokage's work was never done, and she didn't have Naruto's freakish immunity to the psychic shock that trying to integrate too many shadow clone memories usually caused. Aside from the occasional emergency project her days had only twenty-four hours in them, and no matter how much she delegated there was always something else that required her personal attention.

Like Akatsuki.

She sighed as she accepted Jiraiya's latest report, skimming the terse paragraphs with a practiced eye. "This just keeps getting worse, doesn't it? First Itachi and Kisame, then that Deidara character, and now you're telling me Kakuza is real."

"I'm afraid so," Jiraiya replied. "I'm not sure how many of the stories about the 'immortal zombie ninja' are true, but he's definitely no pushover and I've got solid confirmation that he's working with Akatsuki."

"Great." She paused to retrieve a bottle of sake and a pair of saucers from one of the secret compartments in her desk, and offered one to Jiraiya. "How the hell are we going to stop these jokers without getting half our ninja killed in the process?"

"It isn't going to be easy," Jiraiya said seriously. "Especially considering that the members we don't know about are probably the most dangerous ones. Even jounin are going to have a high casualty rate against opponents like these, let alone chuunin. Although, we should keep in mind that their targets aren't exactly pushovers either."

"That's what I said," Naruto interjected from the doorway. "Their villages might not be willing to work together, but I think it's worth contacting the other jinchuuriki directly."

Tsunade frowned. "If the other villages decide we're trying to recruit them they could easily take it as an act of war. We can't afford that."

"Neither can they," Naruto pointed out. "Besides, I wasn't planning to announce it to the world or anything. I just want to meet with each of them, let them know what's going on, and offer to work together to stop these guys. If even a couple of them agree it could make a big difference."

"And if just one of them reports the meeting we've got an international incident on our hands," Tsunade retorted. "No, it's too risky. Not until Akatsuki actually makes their move, and maybe not then."

"By then we'll have lost the initiative, and probably some potential allies too," Jiraiya countered. "We should at least try to locate the other jinchuuriki, and figure out which ones might be open to an approach."

"Fine," Tsunade conceded. "Take a look at our intel on them, and come up with a plan. If you can find a good enough approach you might talk me into it. But no contacting anyone on your own, got it?"

-oOoOo-

In an innocuous-seeming workshop in northern Wind Country a blonde man in a black-and-red Akatsuki robe hummed cheerfully as he carved a life-sized statue of himself from explosive clay. Under combat conditions his Clay Clone technique produced a decidedly inferior copy, much like an Earth Clone aside from its ability to explode on command. But using it on a specially-prepared statue of real explosive clay? Ah, that was another story.

"Two can play the numbers game, yeah? You make all the clones you want, kid. I don't care how much chakra you've got, you'll never be able to compete with my art!"

Finally satisfied with his latest creation, Deidara primed it with a hefty dose of chakra and applied the activation seal to its forehead. Then he sealed it into a storage scroll, which joined a growing pile on one of the work tables by the window.

"Let's see now, how many self-planting C2 mines can I fit in one scroll? A few hundred? Yeah, that sounds about right."

-oOoOo-

Anko hated mornings. Oh, she had the old trick of waking instantly at the first sign of danger down pat, thanks to some especially brutal training at the hands of her former sensei. But given the chance she'd far prefer to sleep the morning away, and perhaps crawl out of bed around the crack of noon to seek caffeine and food.

Ten days of constantly pushing herself past her limits in training didn't exactly discourage her slothful tendencies, and Naruto actually had to shake her twice before one eye reluctantly opened.

"Five more minutes?" She mumbled plaintively.

Naruto chuckled. "Rest day today. The girls are about to crack, so I'm just going to do some briefings and organizational stuff."

"'mkay." The eye closed. "Seeya t'morrow."

"Oh, you might not want to sleep the whole day." He slipped under the blanket with her, and ran one chakra-charged finger slowly down her spine. Anko shivered, and her eyes opened.

"Oooh, that's nice," she breathed, suddenly more awake than she'd expected to feel for hours. "But after last night I thought you'd be done for awhile."

"This is for you, Anko-chan," he replied. "I didn't mention it at the time because we were a little busy, but you remember the first time I tried to make you pass out from pleasure? Guess what happened about halfway through."

"Um, orgasm number four hundred and twenty?" Anko guessed. "I give up. What?"

Naruto touched the seal that had faded into visibility on her shoulder. "This thing started to unfold."

Anko froze. "What?"

"The outer symbol ring unfolded. That's why I got distracted for a second. It was perfectly readable, so I made a clone to copy it."

"That's never happened before. Wait, does that mean…" She couldn't finish the sentence. After so many failed attempts, she'd long since given up any hope of removing the damned thing.

"Not yet, but it was a big step. I went over what I'd learned with Jiraiya, and we came up with a couple of ways to pry the outer ring loose. But he says the thing has at least eight layers, probably more, and we need to know what's in the rest of them to come up with a complete counter-technique. So I thought, if you're interested, that we could spend the day seeing if we can make the same thing happen again only more so."

Anko stared at him in shock for a long moment. Then she pinned him to the bedroll and planted a fierce kiss on his lips.

"Yes! Hell, yes!" She growled. "I'd do anything to get this damned seal off me. What do I have to do?"

He slipped his arms around her with a grin. "Just lie back and enjoy yourself, mostly. The seal taps into your most violent emotions, so I'm pretty sure being relaxed and blissed-out is what it was reacting to last time. Only I'm not sure if the key to unfolding the rest of it is making things more intense, or just making it last longer, or something more subtle. So we might have to experiment."

"I think I can stand being the subject for that kind of experiment," Anko declared dryly. "You know, if you keep spoiling me like this I'm gonna be a hopeless Naruto addict in no time."

"I can live with that," he replied.

-oOoOo-

Meanwhile, another clone was discussing plans with Sakura and Hinata over breakfast.

"…so we'll take it easy today to give you both a chance to recover. We've got a bunch of paperwork and procedural stuff we need to deal with this morning anyway. If you're up to it we'll do a little light practice this afternoon, but nothing too strenuous," he explained.

"Thank god!" Sakura exclaimed. "I'm so fried an academy student could beat me. I swear, I'm surprised I haven't passed out in the middle of a sparring match yet."

Naruto chuckled, and Hinata nodded her agreement. "Yes. These new jutsu will be very useful, but learning so many at once is trying. Will Anko be joining us?"

"Nah, I've got a side project I'm working on with her today. Which actually brings me to the first thing we need to cover." Naruto unsealed a storage scroll with brisk efficiency, revealing a stack of… personnel files? Hinata raised an eyebrow as she read the names on the folders, and a moment later Sakura caught it as well.

"Wait, those are our files!" She observed.

"Exactly. Like it or not we're a high-profile target now, so we've got to worry a lot more about enemy infiltration and manipulation than any regular squad. To me that means we can't afford to have a lot of secrets from each other, and we also need to have a good idea what the different factions in Konoha do and don't know about us. These are copies of the confidential files for everyone on the team, which is what anyone who wants to know more about us is going to look at first. So today we read our files, and we deal with any questions that come up as part of that."

"Isn't there a rule against reading our own files?" Sakura asked cautiously. "I'm sure I remember that from somewhere."

"Bah!" Naruto waved the objection away. "Anyone who lets that stop them has no business being in covert ops. Half of ANBU has done this, and some of them even tamper with their own records from what I've heard. Just don't go around telling people about it, and no one will care."

Naruto passed around the folders, handing each girl her own first. "Now, there are two big surprises in here I want to get out in the open right away. The first one has to do with Anko, and that cursed seal she has. You see, she was Orochimaru's apprentice back before he left the village. He took her with him when he left, and used her as an experimental subject when he was developing his Heaven Seal. Yeah, Sakura, it's the same one he put on Sasuke. But Anko's is an early prototype that doesn't work quite right, which is why it causes that, um, problem we talked about the other night."

Sakura worked through the dates in her head, and her eyes widened. "She's been resisting it for that long?'

"Yeah," Naruto nodded. "I know she's a little odd, but she's a pretty amazing person in her own way. Anyway, Jiraiya and Tsunade were never able to remove the seal, but we've recently come into some new information that may help. It looks like we've found a flaw we can use to decrypt her seal, which would be the first step in making a removal technique. But it could be weeks before we know anything for sure about that, so obviously it's going to be a touchy subject for her."

"Of course," Hinata commented sympathetically. "It would be horrible to get her hopes up again and then fail."

Sakura's mind was already headed in a different direction. "What are the odds that a cure would work for Sasuke?"

"I'm not sure," Naruto answered tightly. "It depends on how much the snake bastard has changed the design since he did hers. But believe me, I'll let you know as soon as we find out anything."

"Thank you," Sakura sighed gratefully. "It's good to have a reason to hope, at least. So, um, you said two things. What's the other?"

"Well, it's about me." Naruto paused, and looked back and forth between his companions uncertainly. "I, um… well… damn, this is hard. I've never actually told anyone before."

"If it helps, I already know," Hinata said suddenly. The other two stared at her, and she bowed her head. "I'm sorry, Naruto. I see a lot of things I technically shouldn't know about."

"How long?" He asked woodenly.

"Since I was eight? Yes, about that. When my eyes grew strong enough to see inside of sealed spaces. I was frightened at first, but then father rather artfully arranged for me to learn the details. To understand what I was seeing. He was displeased when I told him the villagers should be thanking you."

"Oh. Um, wow. I need a minute to process that," Naruto said shakily. "So all this time I've been wondering how you'd react, and you already knew."

"Well, I still don't," Sakura complained. "What are you two talking about?"

Naruto sighed, and kicked a clod of dirt. "The reason granny's so worried about Akatsuki. Why they're going to be coming after us sooner or later, and my team is bound to be in the thick of it. Because I'm a jinchuuriki."

Sakura gasped. "What? But… well, that would explain a few things. But which bijuu…" She stopped, and her eyes widened. "The Kyuubi?"

"Yeah," Naruto confirmed. "Most of the older villagers know, which is why they act like they do around me. They mostly don't tell their kids because it's an S-rank secret, so talking about it is a capital offense. But I'm authorized to tell people I think need to know, and that definitely includes my teammates."

"Does Sasuke know?" Sakura asked softly.

"I never told him, but I'm pretty sure he figured it out. I'm sorry, Sakura, I should have told both of you. But I was always too afraid to find out how you'd react." He hung his head.

She put her hand on his. "It's ok, Naruto. I know we didn't exactly make it easy for you to open up. To be honest, I'm not sure what I would have done if you'd told me before the chuunin exam." She paused thoughtfully for a moment. "So, Gaara had that sand thing, and the monster form. What about you? Wait, is that what that red chakra is?"

"Yeah," he said shakily. "I don't use it much, because the stuff's incredibly poisonous. The only reason I can survive it is that I've also got a bloodline ability that makes me regenerate. Really I try not to call on the Kyuubi for anything, because I don't want to risk letting him get loose."

He hesitated, and asked, "So, you're not going to freak out?"

She snorted. "Please. Give me a little credit, dummy. I think I've known you long enough to be sure you're not being possessed by a demon god."

-oOoOo-

Two hundred miles to the west, a pair of Naruto's clones surveyed the results of their most recent jutsu research with satisfaction. The setting sun shone down on a tract of wooded hill country dotted with tiny lakes, surrounded by miles of wilderness in every direction. Dozens of trails of destruction cut across the valley, some narrow and meandering, others wide and relatively straight.

"I think we've got the control problem fixed," one clone observed. "It's never going to be fast enough to hit an alert opponent, but it'll work great against an army or a guy who's hunkered down behind some 'ultimate defense'.

The other one chuckled. "I can't wait to see Kisame's face when we use it on one of his instant lakes. Or a bijuu, it would be good for that too."

"Yeah. Ok, that's another item down. Now, what can we do about that guy with the animated explosives?"

-oOoOo-

Shion examined the official message thoughtfully. Her dreams had been uneasy recently, plagued by a sense of foreboding that she could find no explanation for. At first she'd been concerned that Moryo, the demon lord her line was fated to oppose, was somehow threatening to break free again. But there was no word of a disturbance at either of the sealed prisons that kept the demon's body and soul in eternal separation.

Now this. A letter from the daimyo warning that the ninja of Konoha were planning to replace her with a clone, and spirit her away to Fire Country to use in some demented breeding project meant to unite her powers with the Hyuuga bloodline. Well, that was the sort of thing ninja did for power, which was one reason they were so distrusted by most nobles. But Konoha had a hard-won reputation for being more ethical than that, going back to their exile of Orochimaru nearly twenty years ago. Besides, the current Hokage was a woman. It just didn't add up.

Her serene expression was touched by the faintest hint of a frown.

Most likely the daimyo wanted her at court for some reason, though she had no idea why. Usually she avoided the capital and its population of scheming nobles like the snake pit it was, using her status as High Priestess to decline social invitations with bland excuses about holy days and purification rituals. But a proclamation ordering her into the protective custody of the daimyo's personal guard was a different matter entirely.

Besides, what if it turned out to be true after all? You can never be sure of anything where ninja are concerned…

"Very well," she said finally. "Captain, prepare a company of the Shrine Guard for travel. We leave for the capital tomorrow."

"Yes, Shion-sama!" Taruho replied.

Shion allowed a hint of a smile to reach her face. If she was forced to visit the capital, she could at least make sure she had loyal retainers around her at all times. Not only was she entitled to such an escort, but custom dictated that any lord who hosted one of her rare visits was obligated to feed and house them during her stay. Whatever the daimyo's scheme might be, the expense should at least persuade him not to keep her there any longer than necessary.

-oOoOo-

"Contact," the snake looped around Anko's neck whispered. "She'll be under us in less than a minute."

Anko chuckled quietly. "Age and treachery beats youth and talent, kids. Ok, we'll light'er up as she passes."

The snake was a henged Naruto clone, of course. A few days ago she'd hit on the idea of having her scout team henge into innocuous woodland animals, and relay their observations back via a clone hidden on her person. So far her opponents hadn't caught on, which gave her a devastating advantage in the three-way skirmishing exercises she'd been doing with Sakura and Hinata every afternoon.

A moment later one of Anko's shadow clones ran under the branch she was perched on, with Sakura in hot pursuit. Anko dropped her cloaking genjutsu as the pinkette passed under her, shifting her suit from stealth mode to combat mode as she formed the seals for a Fire Dragon. Snake-Naruto's Typhoon Dragon was perfectly synced with her attack, producing a massive fireball that engulfed not only their target but every point within sight where she could have tried to escape with a replacement technique. Anko's force field formed just in time to protect her from the blast.

She picked up a hint of what might have been a body flicker as the attack struck, and followed the trace instantly. Smoke and flames obscured the area, but the chakra signature of an active force field would be hard to miss at close range. She scanned the area intently, hoping to pick out her opponent before she was spotted in turn. There was definitely someone nearby, but it was hard to pin down where.

Damn, she thought. Did she get a cloaking genjutsu up? Fire's dying down, I'd better go stealth again or she'll spot me.

Dropping silently onto another branch, she pulled her cloak around her as her force field powered down. The cloaks were new, only a couple of days old, but already all three kunoichi on Team Orange swore by them. Normally they were black, with orange flames along the bottom, but in stealth mode they changed color to blend in perfectly with their surroundings.

Ok, Pinky's in stealth mode too, but she never stays still for long. She'll probably try to sneak away before this smoke clears, so I'll just hit her again when she gives away her position…

"Eight Trigrams Sixty-four Palms."

The whisper came from right behind her, but it was already too late to react. With its force field active her chakra armor made her practically immune to jyuuken attacks, but with that defense turned off the chakra-conductive material offered no protection at all. Anko gasped as a flurry of strikes sealed most of her tenketsu, and she lost control of both her chakra and her limbs.

"Gurk!" She pitched forward, and would have fallen right off the limb if Hinata hadn't caught her with one hand. The other flashed out to strike snake-Naruto, dispelling him and neatly removing Anko's last ally on the scene.

"I win," the Hyuuga girl announced with a hint of pride.

"Crap!" Anko complained. "I guess you got me. Was that really Sakura, or you under a henge?"

"Me. I got to Sakura first, and then set myself up for your scouts to find me."

"Well, damn. I guess I should have known better than to think I was fooling you, girl." Anko swayed awkwardly, and looped an arm around Hinata's shoulders for support. "Help me back to camp?"

Hinata blushed slightly. "I-if you can stop staring at my chest."

"Oh, come on. You're as hot as I am and you just kicked my ass. Do you have any idea how juiced up that gets me?"

The blush brightened. "Anko! I'm not… um…"

"I know, I know, you think you're straight." Anko sighed theatrically. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna try anything dumb. Now, once the boss gets that seal off you I might just have to try and change your mind…"

As Hinata stammered and tried to frame a reply a small bird landed on a nearby branch, and transformed into a Naruto clad in chakra armor. He eyed Anko and frowned.

"Anko, are you harassing Hinata again?"

"Hey, I'm just being friendly!" Anko protested. "Besides, I can't stand on my own right now."

Naruto sighed. "Yeah. Right. Anyway, if you two can make it over to the range I've got some new toys for you."

He led the two into the woods to a target range his clones had set up, in one of the new clearings left by their recent live-fire exercises. Sakura was already there, watching a crew of clones smooth out craters and pin up fresh targets.

"Hey, everyone." She called as they entered the clearing. "I see you managed to lose this one, Anko."

The special jounin pouted. "Hey, so did you! Maybe next time we should team up on sneaky girl here."

Sakura shrugged. "Nah, you're just trying to sucker me into turning my back on you. So, Naruto, what have you got for us today? Some kind of new ranged weapon, I take it?"

"More like a new twist on some old tricks," Naruto replied, pulling a handful of shuriken from his weapon pouch. "Take a look at these."

He handed one over to each of his teammates, and they examined them curiously. There were seals etched into both sides of the weapon, but their purpose wasn't immediately clear.

"Hmm. A storage seal on one side, and an explosive seal on the other?" Sakura frowned in thought. "Both with chakra primers, but there's another symbol I don't recognize."

"It's an impact trigger," Naruto explained. "A cute idea some seal masters up in Stone came up with. The way this works is you prime it just like an exploding tag, but after that it goes of instantly when it hits something instead of having to burn down for a few seconds. Since the seals are engraved on the metal the blast actually blows the shuriken apart, so you get flying bits of steel going everywhere. When the storage seal breaks that lets out the poison inside, so the fragments and smoke are all toxic too."

Anko eyed her shuriken speculatively. "Hmm. The fast trigger would make it a lot harder to get away from with a replacement technique, and it sounds like parrying it could set it off too. Yeah, even someone tough could get nailed by that."

"What kind of poison is it?" Sakura asked with interest. "Most toxins wouldn't survive the heat of the explosion."

Naruto grinned. "It's a secret recipe Mist uses called Formula Fifteen. Survives the explosion and knocks out a normal target in seconds, but it takes a few minutes to kill them and there's a reliable antidote we can carry. It also breaks down after about ten minutes of exposure to air, so we don't have to worry about civilians poking around a battlefield after we leave and getting poisoned."

Sakura eyed him speculatively. "I don't suppose you know how to make any of their other special formulas? Tsunade-sensei told me they have some amazing stuff, but they're so paranoid about the recipes that even she didn't have most of them."

"Well, if I can keep my op going for a few more months maybe I can help with that, but right now all I'm learning are their poisons. Anyway, these things take some work to make, so don't go too crazy with them. I've got a dozen here so you can get used to them, and then you can decide how many you want to actually carry on missions."

Sakura eyed the weapons dubiously. "I don't know, Naruto. It sounds effective, but using poisoned weapons is dangerous enough when they aren't designed to explode. I'm not so sure this is worth the risk."

Hinata flicked her shuriken downrange with a practiced motion, and it sailed across a hundred yards of broken terrain to slam dead-center into a paper target pinned to one of the broken tree trunks. It exploded instantly, blasting the wood into fragments and filling an area twenty yards across with ominous purple smoke. She left her Byakugan active until the last of the resulting fragments settled to earth, and smiled fiercely.

"I'll take Sakura's share if she doesn't want them," the shy girl stated. "Only, can you add smoke powder as well?"

Anko cackled gleefully. "Oh, hell yeah! Make mine white phosphorous and napalm, cause there's no such thing as too much firepower!"

-oOoOo-

The Prancing Kitten was one of Fire Country's more colorful entertainment establishments. At first glance it could easily be mistaken for another of the hot spring resorts that dotted the countryside, made prosperous by its location just off the main road between Konoha and the capital. The acres of immaculately kept gardens and semi-private guest houses marked it as the sort of upscale establishment that only the wealthy could afford to patronize, while the understated elegance of the décor proclaimed the good taste (and likely nobility) of the proprietor.

Less obvious was the fact that the startlingly attractive female staff was 'full service', providing everything from companionship for lonely travelers to exotic entertainments for private parties. Those in the know rated the Kitten one of the top ten establishments in the elemental countries, and one of the few whose security and discretion were dependable enough to attract foreign dignitaries and nobles of the court. The staff of the Kitten never gossiped, and in the seventy years since its founding no client had ever been assassinated on the premises.

The fact that most of the staff were members of a secret kunoichi clan was even less well known, but Jiraiya had uncovered their existence and negotiated an alliance with them decades ago. Needless to say, it was one of his favorite stops in Fire Country.

Naruto was escorted to the Sannin's room by a willowy raven-haired beauty of around his own age, who somehow managed to make it clear that she'd be happy to introduce him to the resort's more intimate pleasures without ever directly mentioning the topic. He scratched his head nervously as the girl slid the door of the meeting room closed, and discretely applied a privacy jutsu.

"Man, why does this place always make me feel like a side of beef in a cage full of tigers?" He asked nervously.

Jiraiya, who was already sitting at the low table in the center of the room, chuckled and offered him a drink. "It's your own fault, Naruto," he advised. "The girls aren't used to visitors who don't sample the goods, and they know you're my apprentice. Of course they're curious. You should spend a weekend here enjoying yourself sometime."

"What, so I can be just another client to them?" Naruto snorted. "No thanks, old man. Besides, I'm a little busy these days. I see you got the message."

A large scroll depicting Anko's Heaven Seal covered most of the table. Jiraiya nodded. "Yeah, good work. This has to be at least eighty percent of the seal, including most of the important parts. It'd be nice to find out for sure what's in those little knots near the center, but I don't suppose there's much chance of that?"

Naruto sat at the table and shook his head. "It was tricky as hell even getting this much. Maybe if we had a few months to do special training and experiment, but that's not going to happen."

Left unsaid was the fact that spending half the day as the subject of his best techniques had left Anko a babbling, semi-conscious mess, and he was a little afraid to push things any further than that. He'd never believed Jiraiya's wild stories about lost techniques that could turn hardened kunoichi into pleasure-addicted love-slaves, but maybe he'd been wrong. What else could possibly make a woman like Anko look at him the way Sakura used to look at Sasuke?

Fortunately she'd been back to normal the next day, but he wasn't going to take any chances.

He shook his head, and dragged his attention back to the matter at hand. "So, do you think we can remove it? I saw a couple of good places to start, but the way it's tangled up with her chakra system it's going to be tough to finish the job without doing so much damage even her regeneration can't save her."

The older ninja nodded. "Yeah, the way these inner loops are imprinted on her chakra coils is going to make them a bitch to remove. It'd actually be easier to just steal ownership of the damned thing, but then she's just trading one master for another. I haven't solved that problem yet, but I think I did figure out where the malfunction is."

"Oh?" Naruto asked, following along with interest as Jiraiya pointed out a seal array near the heart of the diagram.

"It's actually pretty simple, just a detail Orochimaru hadn't thought of yet when he developed this version of the seal. This emotional trigger here isn't filtered precisely enough, and neither are the feedback loops. I'm betting the newer version has more specific filters, and probably leaves off this extra loopback section…"

"Hmm." Naruto eyed the diagram speculatively. "So it was supposed to be triggered by bloodlust, and amplify it into an uncontrollable berserker state. But it isn't selective enough, so any kind of aggressive desire can set off the loop and the output is kind of a confused jumble of emotions. Yeah, I get it. So what would happen if we added a filter step and a governor, like this…"

He grabbed a brush and one of the thin sheets of tracing paper that were stacked at the corner of the table, and deftly sketched out a complex addition to the seal array.

Jiraiya's eyebrows rose as he placed the addition over its intended location. "You mean, modify the seal instead of removing it? Well, this would make it a lot more controllable."

In theory Naruto's scheme would tune the emotional feedback loop to be triggered by the desire to protect, rather than simple bloodlust, and the governor would allow the seal to be deactivated manually if it was triggered by accident. There was even a 'circuit breaker' array to prevent the feedback from burning out the user, which was almost enough to turn Orochimaru's invention into something a sane ninja might want. But mind-affecting seals were more art than science, and he'd learned not to rely on anything that complicated to work exactly as expected. The modification might work, but it was just as likely to bring out her mothering instinct and give her a craving for children. Or something even more unexpected…

The old pervert chuckled, and grabbed his own brush. "Sure you don't want the filter to look more like this?"

Naruto growled as Jiraiya sketched his proposal. The toad sage's version was tuned to lust, of course, and keyed so the seal's owner could activate it at will. "We're not trying to invent some kind of sexual mind control seal, pervy-sensei," he complained.

"Chicken," the self-proclaimed super-pervert pouted. "Fine, fine, I'll just hold that thought for later. You may be on to something, but it's more likely to work if you aren't so fancy with it. I also see a resonance problem with the amplifier loop…"

-oOoOo-

On a hilltop overlooking a small town in southern Lightning Country, a pair of ninja in Akatsuki robes stood under the trees and argued as night fell.

"I still don't see why we have to hide out up here," Hidan complained. "There's a decent-looking inn in this town, and these yokels couldn't see through a genin's illusions. We could be down there eating real food right now."

"The target won't be here for a week, and I'm not going to waste the money I paid to lure her out here," Kakuza growled. "A-rank missions aren't cheap, you know."

"Please, that chump change? Raid one noble estate and we could make it back ten times over. Come on, I'm bored already," Hidan whined.

Kakuza shook his head. "Exactly. If we stay in town you'll start killing people and blow our cover."

"Aw, you got me," Hidan conceded. "Ok, I guess we stay here. But how do we tell when she gets here?"

Kakuza knelt to place one palm on the ground, and a swarm of threads emerged from the seam at his wrist to begin burrowing into the ground. "I'll have the whole town wired by morning," he declared. "Just wait. The two-tails will come to us soon enough, and until then I can make sure we don't have any disguised meddlers hanging around."

Well up the slope behind them an owl blinked in consternation, and took flight. Careful not to spook its prey, it glided silently away among the trees until the humans were over a mile behind it, well out of range of even the most sensitive chakra detection techniques. Then it landed on a branch, and vanished in a wisp of smoke.

-oOoOo-

A few days later another messenger clone interrupted Team Orange's lunch, with a pair of packages that had Naruto grinning with anticipation. He immediately handed one of them to Sakura.

"Here, these are for you. Just a little something so if you end up fighting shark-face you can actually block that weird sword of his."

"Okay," Sakura said as she unwrapped the package. Inside she found two curved plates of light steel, about the right thickness to use as armor. They could almost be bracers, but there were no straps or buckles to hold them on. She frowned as she considered them. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea, though. Legendary weapons have a nasty tendency to go right through your armor instead of bouncing off."

"That won't be a problem with these babies. Those plates are chakra-hardened steel, and I sunk enough power into them to stand up to a bijuu's attacks," Naruto explained proudly. "I even worked in a seal array on the bottom of each plate to keep lightning chakra from conducting through it into your arm."

"Oh! That is useful," Sakura responded with interest. "Thank you. But, um, how do I wear them?"

Naruto grinned again. "I made it with chakra armor tech. Just drop your force field and hold each bracer in place while you mold chakra for a few minutes. Once it takes on your chakra nature the suit's self-repair array should take over and fuse it in place."

"That's pretty slick, Naruto." Sakura held one of the steel plates against her forearm, considering what would be the best placement. "So, does this mean you're a seal master on top of everything else?"

"Eh, depends on what you need done. I'm pretty good with quick-and-dirty seal mechanics, but I'm not one of those technical genius types. Designing stuff like chakra armor and flying machines takes way too much math for me. But I can power up more seals in a day than most guys could manage in a year, and when it comes to simple brute-force techniques I can dump in so much energy that nothing's going to beat them. Why, got something else you want?"

"I'll have to think about it," Sakura replied. "If this stuff's as tough as you say I'd love to add more, but I'm not sure I can afford the weight."

"What's in the other package?" Hinata asked.

"Oh, that. Heads up, Anko-chan." Naruto unwrapped the package with a deft motion, revealing a sheathed ninjato which he tossed to the special jounin.

She caught it, and half-drew it to examine the blade. It was forged in the style most ninja villages had adopted during the last great war, with a square guard and a straight, heavy blade only twenty inches long. Difficult to break and ideal for close-quarters combat, they were still the weapon most jounin preferred for serious battles. Anko often carried one, but Samehada had made short work of it.

"Nice," she commented as she eyed the forge marks along the blade. "I'm guessing this one isn't going to break on me if I parry a legendary weapon?"

"Oh, I did better than that," Naruto replied with a grin. "Channel some chakra into it."

Anko gave him a startled look, and drew the blade fully before channeling a trickle of energy into it. Normal steel tended to resist the intrusion of living chakra, but the weapon in her hand drank it in eagerly. Then there was a hiss like hot metal striking water, and the edge of the blade burst into flame. Anko was so startled she nearly dropped it, before she realized what she was seeing.

"It's a chakra blade!" She exclaimed. "Holy crap! You made me a real chakra blade, with an elemental nature and everything. Thank you thank you thank you! I love it!"

-oOoOo-

When Moryo was last sealed there was initially talk of creating elaborate fortifications atop the widely-separated prisons where its body and spirit were trapped. But the daimyos of the day proved unwilling to shoulder such an expensive burden, and in the end they decided to make do with more modest forts defended by teams of ninja. Originally three chuunin teams had been assigned to each prison, a sufficient force to deter any effort to revive the demon lord.

Then the third ninja war threw the world into chaos, and those troops were needed elsewhere. So the garrison had declined to two teams, then one, then to a team of genin. Finally the duty was assigned to ordinary soldiers, who came to regard it as a largely ceremonial post. After all, Moryo had lain dormant for more than a decade now, and who would be insane enough to try to free a demon that wanted to destroy the world?

They lasted less than a minute against Yomi's ninja. Ten minutes after that he was standing over the shattered entrance to the prison that had once held Moryo's soul. As a disembodied spirit the demon would have been unable to travel any distance, but using the fanatical medic-nin as a host solved that problem easily enough.

Now, let us revive my army and destroy this world! And send those ninja of yours to kill the High Priestess of Demon Country. The demon raged.

Yomi smiled thinly. "She's already secured, my lord. An associate of ours replaced Demon Country's daimyo some time ago, and I received word just this morning that he succeeded in capturing her. Her guards believe she's been kidnapped by Konoha ninja, so they'll waste their time chasing false trails while the girl languishes in her own daimyo's dungeon. I can send the order to finish her off at any moment."

I see. Yes, if her powers are not fully matured her precognition would only warn her of immediately lethal threats. So a diversion and capture first, and now we have her at our mercy. Excellent work, my servant. Without her warnings no one will be aware of my release, and if we move quickly we can complete my revival without interference. My army can wait. Gather your ninja, we leave for Swamp Country at once!

"No!" Shion started awake, and shot upright with a gasp. "Moryo is free! We have to stop… them…"

But no one heard. Her prison cell was buried in the deepest recesses of the daimyo's personal dungeon. Empty, silent, and utterly dark. Even the rats rarely visited this remote corner of hell. She'd woken from her first night's sleep in the Daimyo's palace to find herself imprisoned, with no idea when or how she had come to be here. That was at least a day ago, but she'd yet to have any visitors. For all she knew she wasn't even in Demon Country any more. This could be an ANBU prison in Konoha. It might have been days since she was captured, or weeks.

"No. Oh, I'm such an idiot," she groaned. "The demon's followers must be the ones responsible. They must have spread that rumor about Konoha, and then infiltrated the palace somehow."

"Not quite, girl, but not too far off the mark," came a voice like gravel. "You may be of more use that I'd thought."

Shion spun with a gasp as a dim light sprang up to illuminate the cramped cell, revealing a massive hunchbacked figure swathed in concealing robes. A mask covered most of his face, but his hairless head and gleaming eyes were bare.

She cringed back, uncomfortable aware of her lack of clothes or blankets, and shook her head to let a cascade of unruly blonde hair fall down before her. It wasn't much, but it was better than letting the pervert ogle her bare breasts. His eyes were so fixed and staring…wait, there was something wrong with them…

She stifled a scream as he pulled his mask down, revealing a terrifying confusion of blades where his mouth should have been. It wasn't a man at all, but some kind of monstrous puppet!

"Can you believe that idiot Yomi thinks I'm going to kill you? As if I'd let such a resource go to waste. Don't worry, girl, I'm going to take good care of you." He loomed over her and ran one finger appraisingly along her shoulder. "Yes, good skin. The scars will hardly show."

"Scars?! What are you doing?" She tried to pull away, but she was strapped securely in place. Bright lights shone in her eyes, glinting off trays of gleaming knives.

The thing chuckled dryly. "Doing? Why, I'm going to make you a puppet, girl. A flawless weapon preserved forever, the perfect instrument to deal with that demon when it turns on us. Now, hold still." It bent over her again, reaching for her eyes with a strangely curved blade.

"No! Help! Someone, anyone, please help me!" She screamed as the knife touched her face… and woke again, to find herself shaking and covered in sweat in the dark.

"Two visions in one night?" She whispered shakily to herself. "What's going on? Wait, I'm still dreaming."

"You wanted help, girl," growled a half-familiar voice, and a ruddy glow sprang up to reveal a vast cave around her. A gigantic pair of glowing eyes looked down on her from above. "Are you willing to bargain for it?"

She swallowed nervously. "Yes. I have to stop Moryo. But who are you?"

The flames flared brighter, illuminating a huge, furred shape and a sea of writhing tails. "Do you really need to ask?"

"Kyuubi!" She gasped. "But you're supposed to be sealed…" She trailed off as she noticed the bars between them, and heaved a sigh of relief.

"…and so you are," she finished. "What kind of aid can you give me from within your prison? And what price would you demand? I'm not foolish enough to free a greater threat to stop a lesser one."

"What can I do? I can tell my jinchuuriki that little Moryo is half free. Then he can warn the Leaf ninja and rescue you. And in return, you're going to help him send me home."

She blinked. "You want to be banished back to hell? Why would you want that?"

The great fox snorted. "Idiot girl. Do you know how long I've been stuck on this miserable little ball of mud? There's been no prey here worth hunting since your ancestors fled, and there are certainly no vixens worth bothering with. I'm done with this place. You are the last kami in this world whose chakra glows with the light of heaven, and you are going to help the brat send me home."

"Um, I'm not-" Shion began.

"Unless you'd rather let that little monkey turn you into a living puppet?" The Kyuubi interrupted maliciously. "You'd still be aware, you know. It could be a thousand years before you were destroyed."

She shuddered. "No, not that. Bad enough I have to die to stop Moryo…"

The fox gave a harsh bark of laughter. "Hild's frown, girl, how stupid are you? Do you think my jinchuuriki would have any trouble destroying a pathetic hate-shade like Moryo? Let him break your seal and you can live to see endless generations of your prissy little holy spawn walk this world. Now, do we have a bargain?"

"Break my seal?" Shion frowned in confusion. She wasn't under a seal, was she? Then her eyes widened, and a touch of pink tinged her cheeks. "Oh! You mean… oh, my. Um, I see. Very well, if that's the price I have to pay to protect the world. Rescue me, help me stop Moryo, and when the battle is done I shall do everything in my power to pay your price."