New Yellow Flash

Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto; Kishimoto does

The Land of Iron was not the most pleasant place Naruto had ever seen, that much could be assured. It was highly mountainous and even in this time of year, when it should be mid-Spring, there was a rather large amount of snow and ice blanketing the ground. He understood now why Tsunade made sure to leave with plenty of time to arrive at the meeting place; not only was it rough terrain but she was insistent that running when in view of others could be seen as panic so walked as casually as possible whenever appropriate. That was definitely not something he would have thought about.

Their quarters for staying were rather big, surprising considering they were with each village having their own section of rooms far away from any others so as to prevent any conflict. The meeting room that they were now in seemed to be located approximately in the middle, if he had to guess based off of where they were staying. They were given three rooms, though Tsunade suggested that he and the Anbu share one for safety reasons. Truth be told, he minded a little bit sharing a room with someone he barely knew and had hardly interacted with at all on the journey there, but Tsunade was in the type of mood that told him not to bother arguing it. Besides, she said that Swan was one of her most reliable agents and the guy had been perfectly accepting of letting him have the bed so that made him decent enough.

Standing at Tsunade's side in the meeting room, it would have been an understatement to say that he did not feel welcome. A short old-man sat in one seat, the hat of the Tsuchikage in front of him, and he had a look that refused to hide even a tiny bit of disdain for him. The guy's eyes had not even left him for the minute or two they had been in the room, and to try to entertain himself, Naruto set about deciding whether the look was a scowl or a leer. Beside the man, on his left, was the girl his clone had fought briefly at Kanabi Bridge back on the Iwa-Kusa border. She was looking at him with a look in her eyes that clearly conveyed she wanted both to fight and kill him, probably upset that she had allowed a shadow clone to delay her so long due to playing it safe. Meanwhile, the Raikage was very clearly sizing him up and seemed to be about one-step away from challenging him to some kind of duel. The Mizukage was also looking at him, though not at all like the other two; she was looking at him in a way that he could not determine any particular meaning from. Old man Tsuchikage looked like he wanted him to die, the extremely muscular Raikage looked like he wanted a fight, and he could not quite discern the Mizukage's look though he felt as if he was being thoroughly examined.

At least Gaara had just given him a head nod as a hello; that had been nice. Briefly, the thought crossed his mind that the Tsuchikage and Raikage were almost too willing to make their intentions understandable to the room. Wouldn't it have been better if they had hidden their expressions? They were the leaders of two of the most powerful shinobi villages; there was no way they weren't more capable of maintaining a neutral appearance. Another interesting thing he noticed was that the Mizukage only had one guard, a stern looking man with bandages covering his eye. Everyone else had two.

The door to the room opened and, as the samurai's leader Mifune walked in, everyone in the room had gone to looking straight forward with no interest visible in their eyes, as if they did not have a single care in the world and had been sitting as such for hours. While in some respect it was a great honor to have the eyes of nearly all the Kage on him, he had to admit that it felt rather nice when they were finally taken off. There was something about having to just stand there and endure it, rather than being able to talk it off, that made him much more uncomfortable.

"I apologize for the delay; there were security matters that needed my attending. Allow me to preface the beginning of this meeting by saying that having everyone here is, in and of itself, a major accomplishment. I am honored that my small home should be the meeting place of the Five Kage. I assure all of you that my purpose here is only as a neutral, third-party observer. I wish merely to facilitate discussion, rather than make it myself. Is this clear and agreed upon by all?" All the Kage nodded their heads. "Very well; seeing as Hokage-sama called for this meeting, I find it only reasonable that she be allowed to speak first. Hokage-sama, if you please."

"Thank you very much for so graciously hosting this meeting, Mifune-san," Tsunade began, speaking loudly, clearly, and quite diplomatically in Naruto's opinion. It was always a bit strange seeing her so serious in the role; usually she was much less formal. "Perhaps calling for such a gathering was a bit of an overreaction on my part but there has been quite a high amount of tension, strange occurrences, and border skirmishes between shinobi of Konoha and those of Iwa and Kumo. I thought it would be best if we could all meet formally to discuss matters and to perhaps put an end to these recent silly disputes."

Naruto was trying to get into the mindset of a Hokage for this meeting, thinking how he would deal with things and wanting to understand Tsunade's thoughts as well. It seemed that she wanted to slightly downplay how much things had escalated, citing strange occurrences instead of Iwa-nin venturing into Kusa and killing Kusa-nin. Or Kumo continuing to put more and more pressure on Hoshi in various ways. It'd be interesting to see if that was the right tone for the meeting; he knew he probably would have been direct. Then again, everyone always said he could be a bit too direct at times.

"With all due respect, Tsunade," it was not lost on him the rudeness of the Tsuchikage referring to Tsunade by her name rather than her title in this situation so that meant it would definitely not be lost on the more politically seasoned among them. "It is hard to believe the sincerity of your intentions when you would so willingly bring a shinobi who is in our very own bingo book for unjustifiable attacks on my shinobi."

"I assure you, I have no idea what you mean. Please explain why you should have a bounty on the heads of one of my most valued young shinobi."

"Rather recently, in Kusagakure, we have confirmed reports that this shinobi, Naruto Uzumaki," the man said the name in a way that made Naruto convinced he had a difficult time keeping a normal tone, "was seen by my own granddaughter to have, alongside a team of Kusa-nin, crossed over into the Land of Earth and killed several of my shinobi before destroying the Kanabi Bridge. I had a team sent out to take pictures, of both the fallen and the bridge." It was difficult to stay quiet whenever such a lie was being spoken. And it was obviously a deliberate lie because the Kusa team had not gone into the lands with him, staying behind on Grass Country's side of the bridge. Besides, Iwa had put him in the bingo book before that ever happened. Tsunade shot him a sideways glance, essentially telling him to keep his mouth shut, so he managed to resist.

"It is interesting you should say that, actually, because I have been informed that Naruto was first listed in the Bingo book before this mission that you decided to bring up. Additionally, Naruto himself has informed me that he first found dead Kusa-nin in the Land of Grass and was attacked by Iwa-nin within said country. Under these circumstances I have found his response and all actions taken to be reasonable and justified. Although, while we are on the subject, I definitely want to know exactly what Iwa-nin were doing in Grass Country?" He should have more faith in Tsunade to handle these types of things, he realized. She knew all the details just as he did, because he had told her everything either via report or personally, so he should be happy to learn from the way she used such information for her purposes in talking with the other Kage.

"You have no evidence that Iwa-nin were in Grass Country. Even if they were, they undoubtedly pursued your shinobi there in order to avenge their comrades. Obviously, while such actions are discouraged, they are within the realm of duty for any shinobi. Meanwhile, I can provide photo evidence of dead Iwa-nin, the destroyed Kanabi Bridge, and it is no secret that Kusa has recently turned its shoulder to Konoha, most likely due to this blatant act of aggression."

"Photographs are capable of being staged though I have no doubt Kanabi Bridge is destroyed. Upon seeing Iwa-nin in Grass Country, the reasonable assumption was made that a state of war existed. Given such belief, the destruction of the bridge was deemed necessary by both himself and the Kusa team with him. He would later learn that the leader of Kusagakure, Ayashi, arranged for Iwa-nin to take care of a few dissidents and wanted to offer a few Konoha-nin as leverage for a deal. Naruto rightfully responded to this revelation, which Ayashi himself spoke, by killing him. Kusa, perhaps, took it harshly." To some extent, he did regret his decision to kill that guy because it obviously was a huge negative to Konoha and Kusa's relations. So long as Ayashi was in power, however, the relationship was destined to sour anyway so he tried not to think about it too much.

"Preposterous! Kusa has long been no friend of Iwa, ever since the last war especially. Certain strategic decisions during the third war alienated us to them and they have been distant ever since. This story is entirely fabricated, unless you have some evidence?"

"The word of Naruto Uzumaki is all the evidence I could ever need. His actions have not been the point of conflict; only the motives. In such a case, I would absolutely believe my own shinobi with a proven track record as opposed to wild theories from secondhand accounts. I know anyone else in here would do the same."

"You should put so much faith in one shinobi, a shinobi who you just admitted killed the leader of a village that was your ally prior?" The older man scoffed, essentially mocking him.

"When it is Naruto, I would do so every time."

"Suna would also be willing to place its trust in Naruto's recounting of events above any other." Gaara spoke up, for the first time since the meeting started. He felt much more confident in everything after the way Tsunade and Gaara both said they would believe him because, in this particular instance, it was much more than that. It was telling the Tsuchikage that, regardless of any agenda the man may have had for this meeting, they were not going to give in.

"Perhaps, then, we should move on to discussing Hoshigakure and their recent hostile moves? They have raided our villages, engaged our shinobi, and begun claiming that certain civilian villages are within their sphere of influence that have always been understood to be ours. Now, while they would certainly never be willing to take such actions on their own, they could have been emboldened in some way."

Surprisingly, the Mizukage spoke for the first time and finally truly made it a summit of all Five Kage. "Raikage-sama, it seems rather difficult to believe that a minor village such as Hoshi would be willing to engage your shinobi."

"A village can do many things when their strongest ally begins pressuring them, Mizukage-sama. It would be unacceptable to write off such actions on account of their status as a minor village; even a minor hidden village is a village filled with warriors." It was like Tsunade said; the Raikage gave off the appearance of a man whom would only be concerned with his personal physical strength and fighting but he was more than capable of holding his own in a conversation and could be plenty clever when necessary. "There is also the fact that Hoshigakure is the only minor village which calls their leader a Kage, an affront to all the major villages."

"Their leader's status as a Kage has never been recognized, either by us or any of your villages as well. We have never considered it a substantial risk."

"I do not believe it is about the risk so much as it is about the principle that only the major villages may have a Kage," the Mizukage said which made him somewhat worried because, if the Tsuchikage and Raikage were going to continue to be so confrontational, then it would obviously be nice to have the Mizukage backing them a bit in the talks. At this point, she was the only Kage who seemed to be non-aligned. It seemed that Gaara was going to stick by their side but the Tsuchikage and Raikage were going to mostly be working together. After her two statements so far it did seem that she was somewhat neutral and in the middle but maybe things would change as things continued onward.

"In all official correspondence their leader does not use the name Kage; this is a non-issue in the grand scheme of things, and it is only being used to distract us from the topic at hand. It has been Kumo that has been escalating things in the area recently." He knew this was a pretty dangerous play from Tsunade; saying that what the Raikage and Mizukage said was not very important followed by accusing the Raikage of being the one making the situation worse. He would have mentioned his experiences visiting Hoshi and how they were not the types to start a situation like the Raikage described but obviously Tsunade could not really do that.

"I will not sit here and be accused of lying, Hokage-sama!" Something seemed wrong to him that, thus far, the elderly and extremely experienced Tsuchikage had been overly confrontational, accusatory, and rude whereas the younger Raikage was being more polite and more reasonable in his accusations. Hadn't he been told that Ohnoki was once known as the Fence-Sitter?

"Konoha called this meeting and thus far they have brought a wanted shinobi whom has confessed to killing the village leader of Kusa, have refused all evidence of their wrongdoing in favor of blind faith in said wanted shinobi, and have asserted that Raikage-sama has been less than honest. It is an embarrassment that they should call for this meeting to alleviate tension only to deny that they have been the main cause of said tensions."

"If we truly wish to avoid conflict, it is the job of all nations to admit to some fault in these matters; all blame cannot go to one source," Gaara said, cold and calculating as always. Maybe he was a bit biased, but it was hard for him to see exactly what Konoha had done wrong in this situation. He was attacked by Iwa in Kusa so reacted accordingly and, when he was betrayed by Ayashi, surely it was within reason to kill the guy before he could do any additional harm. Especially upon seeing him order Daisuke's death. No, the problem was not that Konoha had necessarily done anything wrong, and if they had it was nothing more than anyone else, but rather that the Tsuchikage and Raikage were both irrationally accusing them because they wanted a conflict. Yes, it was becoming clear to him now that the two of them had to actually want a fight to justify all their actions, and the thought occurred to him now that they likely had a plan coming into this summit.

"While I am not a major village leader like the five of you and try to worry little about matters not of my concern," Mifune began, sounding every bit like he was doing everything within reason to sound as neutral as possible, "it has reached even my ears that relations between villages have deteriorated recently. I have to wonder, is there anything in particular which caused this resurgence of tension? If it is as Konoha says, and Iwa sent troops into Kusa, then why should they have done it? Or, if it is as Iwa says and a Konoha shinobi unjustly attacked Iwa-nin, then what caused it? If Konoha ordered it, what caused them to recently take this step?"

"Mifune-san, in our history, there is no shortage of shinobi who have taken extreme actions to fulfill their own desires. Think back to the time when Kakazu, acting independently, attempted to kill the Shodaime Hokage. And then, of course, there was Itachi Uchiha." Was it a coincidence that both incidents mentioned involved Konoha? It seemed doubtful at this point. "I believe that what we are seeing here is easily enough explained as the actions of one shinobi, Naruto Uzumaki, who is abusing his personal relationship with Tsunade and Gaara to avoid blame." He promised that he would be as straight-faced as possible for this meeting though it was physically impossible for him to keep the scowl off of his face. He had to bite his lip to avoid reacting and he thought he tasted blood.

"That is an obscene accusation you have just made, Ohnoki. Accusing one of my shinobi, my most trusted shinobi at that, a shinobi which you have already placed a bounty on, of treason is not an offense that I shall treat lightly!" Tsunade slammed her fist onto the table, leaving an impression into the no-doubt high quality wood, as she finished her statement, clearly as offended as he was at the Tsuchikage's words if not moreso. It helped him regain his composure; of course Tsunade had his back. This entire meeting she had been nothing but supportive of him though it did make him feel strange that this summit has been so much about him so far.

"The escalation was only after the recent attack on Konoha by the Akatsuki. Much of the village was destroyed." If he had to guess, in his own way, Gaara was accusing Iwa and Kumo of trying to take advantage of Konoha's weakened state.

"I believe that, due to the resemblance of this Naruto Uzumaki to Minato Namikaze, and due to the similarity of their fighting techniques," the Raikage began, seeming perfectly calm when compared to Tsunade or Ohnoki, "that perhaps Tsuchikage-sama has exaggerated in his accusation. You have readily admitted, however, to the assassination of the leader of Kusagakure, and this is no small crime that can simply be looked over. The death of a village leader, Kage or not, is always a tragedy to their village and something must be done about this."

"And what should you propose, Raikage-sama?" Tsunade asked, obviously still irritated though clearly less than a moment ago. For his own part, he was really starting to realize that this summit was not going well and that it seemed incredibly unlikely that all the disputes would be solved. Or even that any of them would be solved.

"In order to assure total fairness in the prosecution of this crime, we place Naruto Uzumaki under arrest and have him held as a prisoner here, in the Land of Iron, wherein he should be treated as a high-value prisoner by Mifune-san. I think that a period of ten to fifteen years should be reasonable." On the one hand, he knew he should be accepting of having to sacrifice himself for peace for his village. On the other, even if they didn't treat him terribly, sitting in a cell for ten years was a torture all its own. That was really a long time; ten years ago, he'd been the no-good prankster orphan kid that everyone hated and now they called him the Hero of the Leaf. How much could things change, then, in the next ten years?

"I am not willing to imprison one of my shinobi for performing his duties! I'd go down in history as the most weak-willed of all the Kage!" Currently, he felt rather confused about the entire state of affairs. He understood perfectly that, in order to have peace, compromise would be needed on a lot of issues. What he couldn't decide, however, was if giving in to this particular deal would help anything at all given that the Tsuchikage and Raikage seemed to simply want a fight. That made him remember the way the Raikage looked at him earlier, and suddenly, he realized that the man did not expect Tsunade to take the offer but was likely just giving it so he could give the appearance of fairness when compared to the Tsuchikage. They'd probably met before the Summit and worked out how they wanted to behave.

"You'd be known as a peacemaker, Hokage-sama." Now, maybe he was looking into it too much, but the fact that the Raikage implied that imprisoning him would result in peace made it seem like the current status was practically being at war. He almost missed the days when an implication like that would have simply flown over his head and landed somewhere he didn't have to worry about.

"I'd be known as a coward. And you know what, I'd have earned it!" So far, this was the first time he could remember thinking that Tsunade was willing to lead the village in a war; hard to believe the woman was once afraid of blood.

"Given all that has been said and the inherent tension present in a meeting of such powerful leaders, I think it would be best to call for a brief recess in order to have a less pressure-filled setting to mull over further discussion. Can we all at least reach an agreement on that much?" It sounded like Mifune was also a little frustrated with the progress of the meeting and wanted to call for a break now that things seemed to have gotten a little out of hand.

There was a nod of heads from all the Kage, and he suspected Tsunade's was out of sheer frustration from speaking to Ohnoki and Ay.

"If I may make a request," the Mizukage said, "it seems this meeting has been rather heavily focused on one shinobi in particular, namely Naruto Uzumaki. And so, I must confess, I have felt a little excluded due to having not met him prior as Kazekage-sama seems to have or to be so familiar with his work as Tsuchikage-sama. For this reason, I wish to request a… personal… meeting with Uzumaki-san and that the recess last a total of, say, thirty minutes? So that I may properly get to know him and I may more properly participate in future discussion."

"Is that acceptable for you, Hokage-sama?" Mifune said.

"Sure? I mean, yes, yes it is" It sounded like Tsunade was as surprised as he was at the sudden request of the Mizukage. Additionally, there was something about the way she had worded it and the way she was looking at him that left him feeling a bit odd.

"Are there any objections from the other Kage?"

"If Mizukage-sama can feel safe around such an assassin then so be it" the older man said, to which Naruto found himself rolling his eyes. At this point, it was becoming hard to respect the man because he seemed so petty and hypocritical. Who could even say how many people Ohnoki had directly ordered to be killed, not to mention how many the man had killed on his own, on top of the fact that he had lead Iwa through massive wars where an entire generation of shinobi could be lost. To act morally righteous because he had killed the leader of a village, whom he had seen order the death of a loyal shinobi, was completely ridiculous. In fact, he started to assume that, based off of how the Tsuchikage and Raikage had treated him and spoken about him so far, they must have wanted to try to get him to make some kind of outburst that would make him look bad. Well, maybe before the Pein attack it would have worked, but he knew he could resist it now. He wasn't quite certain why he felt so sure about that though; he simply did.

"Now, if I didn't know better, I would think you're implying that I cannot defend myself Tsuchikage-sama. Surely that cannot be what you mean?" The Mizukage's voice was that dry, somewhat low tone that women like Tsunade and Sakura always seemed able to do, right before they made him regret whatever thing he had said or done just before.

"Ah, forgive me for misspeaking Mizukage-sama. I simply wished to advise caution, that is all. My apologies."

"If you would please follow me now, Uzumaki-san" she said, with a slanted smile and moving her pointer finger back and forth as if to indicate 'come here.' It was impossible not to feel every eye on him as he stepped next to her but she simply turned around and began walking down the hallway toward what he would now know as Kirigakure's rooms. "Ao, please stand guard outside the room." The man simply groaned, mumbling something under his breath that was silenced by, oddly enough, a calm smile from the woman.

They stepped inside the spacious room that was painted blue, which made sense as Konoha's had been painted a very light shade of red. Of course he was feeling extremely awkward at this point, not really knowing if he was supposed to say something, take a seat, or maybe do anything so instead he just stood by the door as he watched the woman simply move around.

"Welcome to my room, Naruto-kun. Oh, I hope you don't mind if I call you that."

"Of course not" he said immediately.

"My my, are you nervous? It's always so cute when the strong ones like you get flustered from a little harmless flirting.

"Fl-flirting?" He stumbled over the words and could feel his face turning red out of embarrassment. The Mizukage was flirting? He wished she would have made it more obvious but it definitely didn't make him feel any less awkward; if anything, it made it worse.

"I thought it might make talking to you seem less confrontational to the Raikage and Tsuchikage. But if it makes you blush like that I'm not sure I'll be able to stop, Naruto-kun." She was standing directly in front of him, looking him in the eyes with a smirk on her face and enjoyment obvious in her eyes. He did his best to keep the eye contact while regaining his composure; it would not do anyone any good if he kept looking like an idiot in front of probably the only neutral major village leader left.

"Hmm... you know something?" she asked, seemingly the moment he had actually managed to get himself back under control.

"What?"

Her eyes kinda drifted toward the ceiling and her voice took on a wistful, dreaming quality. "I bet you'd make a great husband."

And the control was gone.

A/N: Over two months without an update; apologies everyone. April was busy, then May was busy, then June was busy and I realized I simply needed to adapt to a busier lifestyle if I was ever going to get my stories to a point of completion. That's not to say that I was not doing anything in all the time since I last updated; I got caught up in writing a NarutoxMyHeroAcademia crossover (which is really an MHA story featuring Naruto characters) and that's already at 20k words. But, that's enough for excuses.

I hope you've enjoyed this chapter; it went through a lot of changes from what I imagined to what ended up being written but such is the way things go. I hope all of the Kage are behaving in a believable enough way and, yes, I know Ohnoki seems a bit off but that should be reasonably explained enough either in this chapter or the next. Summit will be a simple Part 1 and Part 2. Usually in stories like this someone will come into the Summit and absolutely dominate (i.e. Ay and Ohnoki walk all over Tsunade or Tsunade walks all over them) but I feel they're pretty evenly matched at the table here. As always, I'm happy with the final product and it should not be a long wait for Part 2.

Thank you for reading. As always, feel free to follow, favorite, review, or keep the story in the back of your mind to check back later.