Disclaimer: Still don't own things.

A/N: This was a little later than usual due to a lot of things you probably don't care about. Because of that I decided to add a little length, over 50%.

NarutoxAnko lemon near the beginning here. Was annoying to write, and one of the aforementioned reasons.

Lots of talking, drama, and relationship stuff in here. Really just a prelude to delicious things next chapter.

Thanks for all the follows, favorites, and reviews.

Enjoy.

Naruto sat at a work table in the back of their temporary home. Their prisoner hadn't said anything and spent the night sealed under an impromptu lean-to. They'd rotated guard shifts with at least one clone at all times. Due to the apparent acute misanthropy of the kunoichi, and Kurama's continued silence, he had to design a diagnostic seal, because he was ninety percent certain that the prisoner was a jinchuriki. Hopefully, the seal would be able to give him some other information in addition to whether or not she contained a Biju.

Anko sat on the edge of his desk, cleaning under her fingernail with the sharp end of a dango skewer. He briefly wondered how much dango she'd sealed up before they left and what she'd had to pay the stand owner to have it ready.

"You ever think of leaving?" Anko asked in a deceptively casual manner.

Naruto's hands only stopped moving for a moment before he resumed his work and answered, "Less now than before."

"Why?"

"You, and to a lesser extent Tsunade, Guren, Kurenai, and Karin."

"You still think of it though?"

"Mhmm," he paused to collect his thoughts. "Before, it was resentment directed at pretty much everyone, the Third, the councils, the advisers, nearly all the civilians, and about half of the ninja population. Now that Sasori helped us drop the dime on the powers that be, I suppose it's become a relationship of convenience," Naruto sighed. "There aren't really any upsides to leaving at this point, because I could probably convince Tsunade to permanently assign me here. I don't know. I'd like to reestablish my village, but realistically, I'm probably not suited to lead."

"Don't you mean constantly dealing with people seems like too much work?" Anko chuckled. "Besides, aren't you putting the cart before the horse? It would take an enormous amount of work to get this village in working condition again."

"Anyway, I can't see a real future for me inside the village. There'll be problems for me there until the older generation is gone, and it just doesn't seem worth it, even if I'm pretty much avoiding them as of now." He paused in his work and looked up to her, "Why the curiosity, Love?"

"Our time here has been nice," a little smile played across her face, but disappeared as soon as she realized it was there. "We see the others and have things to do, but it's mostly just been us hanging around in the vault, training, fucking, or spending time together. Neither of us have to deal with our reputations, we can just be, and it's been nice."

A clone appeared to the side of her, picked her up, and tossed her toward Naruto as he pushed his chair back from the desk. Anko's elbow thudded into Naruto's shoulder as she landed side saddle in his lap. "It has been nice," he confirmed, snaking an arm around her waist.

"Don't treat me like a sack of rice, damn it," Anko's anger faded while Naruto's grin persisted. She sighed, "Whatever." To his amusement, despite her annoyance, she leaned into his chest. "I don't know if it's just 'cause of contrast though, or if I could really take it outside the system."

"Sounds like our reasons for leaving and staying are the same, Love. I honestly don't know what to do about it, so how about we just enjoy this as much as we can and go from there?"

"Tch, you act like we weren't already doing that." She leaned over and let her teeth nip at his earlobe, "So, what are you planning on doing with the prisoner?"

"Well, if she is a jinchuriki, she's either the Nibi or the Hachibi, If she's not, she's got a pretty fancy power."

Anko spun around in his lap, leaving her sitting on his knees and her legs to either side of him, "Are you going to make her into a puppet?" A few days after they'd arrived in Uzushio, Naruto told Anko the latest information he'd gotten from Sasori. She hadn't been against it; in fact, she wanted him to make Orochimaru's carcass into one, and then have him teach her how to use puppets. He figured it would probably be liberating being the literal puppeteer to a man who was a figurative one and ruined your life.

"Not if she's a jinchuriki." Her lips attached themselves to his neck and ear at random. "I'll probably try to turn her." His belt clinked as she unbuckled it and unzipped his pants. She fished him out of his boxer briefs and began to pump.

"What else?"

"It might take us out of our depth if she's a jinchuriki."

Naruto groaned as Anko increased her pace and asked, "Anything else we should consider?"

"She might not have been alone, she might have been trying to contact Kiri, it might be coincidence, and that's all I can think of," he listed quickly, between ragged breaths.

"Not a bad assessment, your concentration is getting better," she commended while her thumb massaged his head and smeared around the bubbling precum. "How about a reward?" One hand settled on his shoulder, and she stood up slightly. The hand left on his dick guided his tip to her entrance. A keening moan ripped from her throat as she slammed herself down. "God, every time. It's like your cock is built for my cunt." Naruto could only grunt while he temporarily lost himself in the hot, strangling pleasure inside of her.

Anko finally started to move after a few deep breaths. The clone that appeared behind Anko yanked her shirt up over her head and disappeared. He sent a small mental thanks toward the fact that they wore casual clothes in the morning, getting through that metal mesh armor was terrible. His tongue lashed repeatedly across a perky, hardened nipple; the other was sandwiched, being tweaked, between his fingertips.

Her hand palmed the back of his head and pulled his face against her breast. "Mmm, suck my fuckin' tits," she demanded breathlessly. His free hand found its way to where they were connected to gently rub circles into her engorged clit. Anko's strokes became shorter and more frantic, and all that could be heard inside the cabin for the next minutes was a chorus of grunts and moans.

A clone appeared next to his desk and hurriedly cleaned it off as Naruto stood. She locked her legs behind his back. Her insides roiled and clamped down on him, but he managed to break her grip and lay her on the desk, nearly stumbling as his pants bunched around his ankles.

"But I'm almost there," Anko whined after he pulled out of her.

"Don't worry Ko-chan," he pulled her legs over his shoulders and thrust back into her shallowly, "this'll be fun too." Naruto ground into her g-spot as slowly as he could, savoring each twitch and agonizing moan as she shifted her hips toward him in an attempt to increase his pace and depth. "All you have to do is say please." She shook her head, and he smirked, she was still being stubborn. Behind his smirk, he desperately held onto his self control. All he wanted to do was bury himself inside her, but having her will broken got the strong kunoichi off like almost nothing else.

Only a minute passed before she started begging for release, "Please give it to me," she whimpered. "Fuck me like a whore, obliterate my pussy with your dick. Please," Anko urged piteously.

"Ah, you know I can't resist when you beg so cutely." A loud smack sounded as Naruto immediately buried himself on the next thrust. He was transfixed, even as he pounded into her at a blistering speed, by the combined sight of her jiggling breasts and the rapturous expression on her face.

"I'm so close. Fill me up, push me over the edge." He didn't bother responding. After he stopped holding back, it was only a few minutes before he pushed in as deeply as he could. His dick pulsated, painting her constricting, undulating tunnel in his fluids. With a scream and body spasms, Anko covered his groin in her juices.

After enjoying the residual shockwaves of pleasure, Naruto extricated himself and dropped into his chair with a creak. "Well, that was fun," he commented as he was treated to a first row view of his cum leaking out of Anko's still twitching pussy. "I think we might have loosened up my chair though." Shifting his weight around experimentally, he found that the chair squeaked in quite a few directions. "I really should have brought some carpenter's glue and screws. Nails just don't do it." She giggled, dare he say, girlishly. "It's a shame you always wear a trench coat, your ass looks amazing even from here," he observed absently.

"I don't want to hear that from the guy who runs around with ninety-eight percent of his body covered on any normal day," she responded while sitting up and shifting the bunched up skirt around her waist down. "You gonna put that away, or would you like me to clean it up for you?" she asked, licking her lips.

"I'd love to," Naruto assured, as he stood to peel off his soaked underwear and partially saturated shirt, "but I believe we've got the sit down on what to do with the prisoner soon."

"Then go put some clothes on before I'm forced to jump you."

He raised an eyebrow, "I don't think I want to hear that from someone with their tits out and no underwear on under their skirt."

"Hah, hah, hah," she shot back sarcastically as he walked into the bedroom.

Ten minutes, and a quick water jutsu and soaping, later, Naruto walked back in the living area, clad in only his underwear, to grab his pants. Anko sat on the edge of his desk with her legs crossed and back in her casual clothes, but sitting in three other chairs, were Mei Terumi, Haku, and Yugao. He didn't pause in the trek to his pants, even though he could feel their eyes on him, and he tried not to scowl at the tongue sticking out of Anko's mouth. Only after his pants were successfully buckled, did he acknowledge the presence of the others in the room.

"Anko, Love, I don't suppose you'd know where the scroll with my clothes in it went?" he asked evenly. Did she really go to all the work of sneaking them in here, and arranging it beforehand to make me do this? After rinsing himself off, the only article of clothing he'd found in their bedroom was a pair of underwear.

"Hmm, I'm not sure. Let me go check." She bounded into the bedroom with a spring in her step and a grin on her face.

"Ladies, gentleman," he nodded toward them. His chair creaked as he sat down. "I wasn't expecting you today Mei-chan."

"I can see that," she quipped. "What could have held your interest enough for you lose track of time?" she wondered with a lascivious smirk.

"Well, as I'm sure Hana can smell," the Inuzuka blushed at that, "about fifteen minutes ago, Anko was begging me to 'obliterate her pussy' on my desk. In fact, I'd bet she's still got some of my cum dripping out of her." He took some pleasure in the fact that they all became some degree of embarrassed and uncomfortable. "Any other questions?"

"The scars," Mei responded.

Even though he was annoyed, a smile briefly occupied his face, "I did something stupid." A turtleneck and mask flew across the room and wrapped around his face. After taking the out and pulling the clothing on, he asked, "So, what did you need that you came unannounced?"

"I let Haku know early this morning. I assume the message was intercepted somewhere," she guessed, with a pointed look at Anko. "From everything we know, the first and definitive battle of our war will happen in about two weeks."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Yagura will meet us with his most trusted guards," she began. "We'll need help to take him down."

"Why are you fighting like samurai in the first place?"

"He's essentially untouchable otherwise. Additionally, if we destroy him in front of his supporters, we'll end this war that much more quickly," she explained.

"You know, people always say something similar to that, but there's a decent chance they'll try even harder to murder you. I mean you can't run a military force solely on terror. There's an upper echelon that are going to be pissed at the very least, yeah?"

"The majority just don't want to be killed by Yagura. I'm confident once we kill him, the battle will end in our favor," Mei argued.

"Yeah, but you can't really advance in the 'Bloody Mist' without at least partially agreeing with Yagura's stance right?" She nodded. "So, all the cannon fodder, that you're going to be murdering straight away, will be on your side once you mow through them to the ones who want to keep their position?"

"What do you have in mind then?" she asked a little too sweetly.

"I don't know," Naruto rubbed his chin. "We could wait until he's in a strategy meeting and then break the seal that holds the Sanbi. You'd lose infrastructure instead of people."

"And you could seal it?"

He shrugged, "I'd have to look into it, but it could be drawn away from the village I assume." His eyes widened slightly in realization, "Not to mention my way nets you more points with the population—saving them from a Biju and all—and discredits Yagura. The only downside is that it'll put jinchurikis in a poor light." After a pause, "Oh, and you'll obviously be founding your tenure on a lie, but plenty of people have done that."

"It will be better than continuing to live under Yagura."

"Give me two days, and remember that one doesn't become a cackling butcher overnight; everyone is constantly justifying their own actions as the correct ones."

"Two days," she confirmed as she stood and walked out the door. The other two followed her as he heard her call for Ao to follow.

"Anko, we need to talk."

"What? I can't show you off?" she began preemptively. "Is it the scars? I think they make you look even sexier."

"I'm proud of them and like them actually, but they're personal." He ran a hand through his shaggy hair, "You practically forced me to divulge a very personal, traumatic experience to people that are acquaintances at best."

"It didn't look like they minded."

"That's not the point, and I thought you would know better than to force me into a position of weakness in front of a probable, future Kage. It doesn't matter if she cared or not." Naruto sighed while she fidgeted. "You could have asked me to parade around in my underwear if you wanted me to. I would have probably said yes, but you took away my choice to decide whether or not to do it. It's not alright."

"I'm sorry," she blurted.

"I'm not mad, just a little annoyed and disappointed. I don't- I'm not sure how to express this exactly, but I imagine it's something similar to how you act when we're alone. These scars are a testament to us, and other people don't need to know about them. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?" Fuck, articulating emotions is too difficult. Now I sound like an overreaching tool.

"Yes." Her head was tilted toward the floor like a scolded child. He had to remind himself that she had nearly as little experience in long term relationships as he did thanks to a certain snake royally screwing her up.

"Come on, don't go acting like a schoolgirl on me now Anko-chan." He wrapped his arms around her to pull her into a hug. "This wasn't the first and it won't be the last mistake either of us makes, but we have to get things out in the open or they'll fester."

"I wasn't thinking, I'm sorry," Anko assured him with more confidence.

"I know, but we should probably get going and decide on what we're doing with that prisoner."

"Right." As she left to get battle ready, a shadow clone appeared and sat down to finish the diagnostic seal.

He sighed, What the hell am I doing out here. It seems like all I do anymore is manage people. Earlier he'd agreed it was nice, but it didn't feel like he was getting much done. The few clones that he could send to the Uzumaki vault and sealing structure were having a tough time of it, and he couldn't brute force it due to chakra concerns and jumbling up anything he could make heads or tails of. Sure, spending a lot of time with Anko was nice, but the lack of nonsexual action really wound her tight; probably one of the reasons she'd forced him around in front of the spectators earlier. It just felt like he should be doing something more, or that there was a shoe somewhere getting ready to drop.

Anko exited the bedroom dressed in her usual gear. Naruto pulled her into a quick kiss, and let his forehead lay against hers after they broke apart. "Sorry, I feel like shit all of a sudden and being close to you always makes me feel better," he admitted.

"Getting corny again already huh? You're too nice for your own good, but that's one of the things I love about you," she added the last part quietly with some uncertainty.

A grin stretched across his face, "Thanks, Love. I don't want to act like I'm on a teen drama, but it does the heart good to hear you be explicit about it."

"It's not just 'cause of before. I mean, I'm not trying to buy you back or anything."

"I know."

Naruto crouched in front of an unrolled scroll on the ground a few hours later. Their prisoner, Yugito, was still sealed under the lean-to with the addition of a paper tag over her sternum and forehead.

"And we've got ourselves a fire natured jinchuriki," Naruto announced as the lines on the paper rearranged themselves. "The Nibi by these chakra levels." He pinched the bridge of his nose, "Well, shit just got complicated." The seals on a stake in the ground lit up at Naruto's touch. "Alright, she can't hear us, though we should probably move this meeting elsewhere in case she can read lips." Clones appeared to keep an eye on the jinchuriki while the Konoha group deliberated out of view.

"This is an international incident waiting to happen," Yugao began. He couldn't see any indication that she was favoring her injured side, Hana must really excel at medical ninjutsu.

"I'd say this is already one. In retrospect, we should've kept Anko and Hana out of her sight. They're noticeable as Konoha-nin even if we aren't wearing forehead protectors," Naruto suggested ruefully. "Shikamaru, it seems like you should have caught that." The pineapple haired boy just shrugged. Nara laziness sure detracted from their value in the field. Sadly, it would probably take a death to make Shikamaru take things more seriously. "Anyway, she can substantiate a Konoha operation that's technically outside of our borders."

"And making her disappear is dangerous, because we have no idea what her mission is or was," Yugao continued.

"That isn't even close to the worst of it. We're looking at a country-level political destabilization from the loss of a jinchuriki. This could be the catalyst for war." Seemingly, everyone came to the same conclusion during the silence. "We have to send her back somehow." Naruto sighed, and lamented that he seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "Ideas?"
"Can you give her the old evil eye?" Anko wondered.

"Genjutsu worked on her once, so that would seem to indicate she can't break them with the aid of her Biju. So, maybe."

"A seal?" Hana suggested.

"Maybe, I'm kind of strapped figuring out seals at the moment."

"We could talk with her," Shikamaru put forward reasonably.

"That pretty much has to happen no matter what course we choose." Naruto rubbed at his face. "Yugao? How are you doing by the way?"

"Combat capable, if not completely healed, but I have nothing to add at the moment."

"Alright, be on the look out for any partners she may have had," Naruto ordered. "I'll be holed up with a project for our friends from Kiri and trying to figure out what we're going to be doing with our prisoner for the next few days."

He left the circle of ninja, and walked back in front of the lean-to to pull up the sealed stake. With a yank, he stood Yugito up and walked her back to his cabin. She dropped into a chair, and he pulled another up a few feet away from her.

"Can we just skip to the good bits?" he asked. Yugito maintained her silence. "If you really want to play hardball, I can make a seal that will tear Nibi out of you. That'll kill you, just so you know." Silence. Naruto stood back up and lifted his shirt. A quick chakra channeling made his seal light up, "Know what this is?"

"No."

"I've got the Kyuubi in me, and I'd rather not treat a fellow container unfairly."

"A jinchuriki with a Sharingan?"

"Not to mention a seal master," he added. "I don't suppose I can convince you to just forget that we're hanging around out here?"

"No."

"You could always join up with me. To be honest, I was treated incredibly poorly in my village until I had some measure of power and common sense. Like being constantly sabotaged, overcharged, and occasionally hunted for sport. Of course, I don't know what Kumo is like, but I would treat you like a person instead of a thing or a weapon." He sighed wistfully. "I'm not going to do anything to you. I'm going to knock you out and drop you inside the borders of lightning. Anything to say before your nap?"

Her answer was longer in coming and softer, but it was still, "No."

"As you wish." His shifted eye from blue to black and red, and he commanded, "Sleep." Yugito's chin smacked against her chest as his eye reverted to its normal color. He slapped a new sealing tag on her forehead and channeled chakra through it.

"We're not really doing that are we?" Anko asked from the doorway.

"No. Strip her and lay her out on my work table." Anko slipped an arm under the unconscious kunoichi's shoulder and hefted her up. "I have to run to the vault, but I need a look at her seal first." She laid the jinchuriki out on the table, but before she could get to the stripping, Naruto amended, "Forget the stripping, just think of a good place to put a seal somewhere it won't be seen on her body while I'm gone." He yanked off her shirt, and gloved his hand in chakra. First, he ran over her abdomen and, finding nothing, then each shoulder.

"What kind of seal?" Anko asked a little hesitantly.

"Memory." He paused in his inspection to look over at her, "What did you think I'd be giving her, a slave seal or something?"

"Well, I mean, you could. She'd be an amazing asset," she reasoned.

"Excluding any issues of morality, I'm not sure how good the Nibi is at breaking things with its chakra," he explained as he resumed his search for her seal. "There we are." He rolled her over so she was lying prone. The symbol for iron sat between her shoulder blades. His senses extended through his hand a bit more, poking at and testing aspects of the seal. "Huh. This seems to be relatively weak as far as containing seals go."

"I'll hold down the fort Ruto," Anko assured with a quick kiss. "Go find what you need to find."

Naruto walked back in three hours later with a look of determination across his face.

Anko discarded the skewer she was fiddling with to ask, "How we doin'? Did you find something useful?"

"Yep," he paused momentarily. "Throw her shirt on and pick her up, we should do this somewhere remote."

Twenty minutes later they stood in a clearing occupied by his clones and multiple unrolled scrolls. Memories filtered in, and he knew no one else would come no matter how crazy it started sounding.

"What are you really going to do with her?"

"I may be considering trying to extract the Nibi without killing her."

"And we're going to do what with a manifested Biju?" Anko seemed to be restraining herself from raising her voice.

"Talk to it, maybe seal it into something."

"What about all that crap about political destabilization?" she demanded, throwing up her arms.

"Well, when she'll still be alive to be dropped off, and maybe she'll even retain some of her Biju's power. Also, I can probably seal it back into her if things don't go our way." A clone working within the ring of sealing scrolls unsealed a puppet shaped like a person.

"Naruto, this is a terrible idea! You've never done this before!" she practically screamed, her face reddening quickly as she became more and more incensed.

Naruto stood up from checking the sealing array, "Just trust me, okay?" he asked with all the gravity he could muster. "I don't have to tell you to run if something happens do I?" Her protests were cut short by a gentle kiss to the forehead, "As a precaution, remember that I love you." Another kiss interrupted her response, but this time it was on her lips. "For luck," he explained with a grin. Score! I always wanted to be super dramatic like that, good job myself, Naruto thought as he turned back to the sealing grounds.

The unrolled scrolls made several concentric rings around a prone Yugito. Naruto stopped outside of the first ring where the puppet was laid out. Arrays already connected the lifeless husk to the sealing rings, and it appeared that the last working clone had finally finished. Only one clone was left inside the first ring, while others were stationed around the outside of the sealing area on the off chance something unforeseen happened.

He nodded to the interior clone, "Do it." It crouched down to touch the edge of a square of paper lying under the unconscious kunoichi. The ink quickly became incandescent, the glow spread through the rings in a ripple centered directly around the jinchuriki. A translucent white dome snapped into place over the innermost ring. Almost simultaneously, he could feel the outermost ring throw up its own energy dome. As soon as his clone had pumped in the chakra, it had begun to carefully move through two-hundred and seven hand seals.

The seal on Yugito's back blazed into luminescence as soon as the clone touched a fingertip to the edge of it. Slowly, a roiling, tumultuous, flaming ball of energy floated up from her back. As soon as the clone saw what was happening, it stomped on a seal at the edge of the paper square under their prisoner. Green chakra bubbled up from the sealing pad to surround Yugito, signaling the secondary function had begun without a hitch. Ripples moved through the concentrated energy of the ball, and it slowly became more amorphous and less dense.

Outside the inner dome, Naruto was confused. It wouldn't be obvious to Anko, but the dome had nothing to do with blocking energy signatures. The problem was that he could barely sense any of the chakra unique to the Biju coming off the odd sphere. He checked the small rectangle of paper in his hand; Yugito appeared to still be breathing, and her heart was still beating. This wasn't what I expected at all. Generally not good. Maybe I should have listened to Anko.

His decision was made for him, as the amorphous mass shifted and solidified, and, just as quickly, disappeared in a blur. Memories drifted into his head as his clone turned into nothing more than a little smoke. Something that blurred before his eyes slammed into the dome of of energy directly in front of Naruto. A yowling cat landed on the ground from the force of rebounding off the shield. The odd thing about the cat was that it had two tails and seemed to be made of blue flames and black markings that weren't dissimilar from what he'd seen on Shukaku.

A house cat sized Nibi? What the hell is going on? "Matatabi-san I presume?" Naruto asked as he dropped into a crouch.

"What have you done with my power, boy?" the apparent Biju hissed.

"Truthfully? No idea," he informed with a shrug. "Maybe if you explain the mechanisms of your power, I could tell you. It also would have helped if you didn't kill my clone." He made sure to rigorously keep track of the time, if he couldn't steal the Biju's chakra, he probably only had about an hour before the array exhausted his chakra tags.

The cat shaped mass hopped around for a few moments before settling down on its haunches. "We take in Nature chakra. It is that which becomes our power." That was interesting. No wonder the Biju never ran out of energy. Nature chakra existed everywhere, and if they could constantly take it in and purify it...

"If that's true, why does it matter? Shouldn't you be able to refill your reserves out here?" Nibi resorted to growling as a response. During the angry posturing, the medical chakra coating the form of Yugito fell away. The Biju hissed and Naruto made a circling motion in the air with his hand. A poof of smoke engulfed the Kumo kunoichi, and, as the smoke cleared, the center of the sealing array was empty.

"How did you do this, boy?!" the angry cat demanded after whipping back around from where it'd tried to pounce on the unconscious prisoner.

"Accidentally, apparently. Though now that I think back to the scroll, maybe this was what was supposed to happen." The vault was an amazing resource, but the language that the information was written in occasionally left something to be desired. Sometimes the syntax would be abnormal, the diction flowery, or the text would refer to something that was completely outside of his knowledge base. Well, it seemed this result suited him just fine. "So, am I to presume that I've somehow extracted the barest traces of your chakra combined with your consciousness?"

"Why have you done this?"

"I have an offer. Ten years of service. Reevaluation of our contract after two, five, and seven years. When it's over I release all of my control, and you can go on your own way," he explained.

"I am already out, why would I agree to that?"

"By your own admission you have no power. If you'd rather, I could just seal you up in a bedpan." Naruto sighed, threats were categorically ineffective against chakra monsters, but it needed to be said. "Kumo would keep you sealed into a long line of containers. This way, you get to have your own body and do your own thing, you just have to help me out." He thought it was a pretty good offer. His estimation of the age of Yugito was mid-twenties, which meant Nibi had, more than likely, already been sealed in her for at least double the length of the proposed contract.

"This does not seem like an accident, boy."

"Actually, you're doing far better than you should be. This dome was designed to extract your chakra and use it as reinforcement, but since you apparently have so little, I haven't gone to the trouble of activating that part."

"So, you planned on stealing all my chakra before 'taming' me. I do not see how you are any different than my previous jinchurikis."

"I thought treating you like a sentient being and offering you the chance to touch the world again, in a limited capacity, before setting you free was a pretty good start," Naruto shot back. Why did all the Biju he met have to be so intractable and arrogant? Even Kurama was, in his own way. "I don't know how this isn't a good idea for you. If I haven't done my homework, you could just break out of the seals binding you into this puppet. If I have, the special contracting seal will essentially make us partners."

"Surely you can understand my reticence. Whether or not you are being truthful with your intentions, you have essentially forced my hand. That makes you seem untrustworthy indeed."

"Look at it this way; if I'm doing this kind of thing all the time, how long do you think it'll be before I screw up fatally? So, even if I'm lying, it's not like you'll be stuck with me any longer than you would be trapped in Yugito," he argued. "Plus, you'll get your own body the entire time, and you'll get to make any decisions not regarding an order from me on your own."

"What must I do to complete the contract?" The Biju managed to accept his offer without losing any of the anger or annoyance in its voice. Finally, he really hadn't left Nibi many options, plus it really was a decent deal.

"Don't resist," Naruto responded as he sped through sixty-one hand seals. Finishing with Serpent, he held it and intoned, "Carsultyal Sealing: Dark Sun Binding." Tendrils of chakra snapped out from various tenketsu all over his body and dove down through the ground to strike up at the back of the human shaped puppet. A twisted cord of tendrils shot up through the chest of the puppet and altered its course wildly toward the barrier. The end of the cord untwisted, individual tendrils reaching out after it passed through the inner dome. Nibi yowled uselessly as the chakra cordage tightened around various points on its body.

Glittering, slowly dissolving shards filled the inner sealing area when the binding jutsu hauled the Biju bodily through the barrier dome. The cord flew over the puppet with a whip crack as if it was overcompensating for the resistance of breaking the barrier—unfortunately, the quick changes in momentum did nothing to reduce the howling of the Nibi. Rapidly, the chakra rope hauled back toward the puppet, only slowing down as the cat came into contact with the body. With a final yank, the Biju was deposited inside the chest of the puppet. A stylized black sun gradually materialized on the sternum of the container, and Naruto's chakra tendrils finally broke away as chakra shimmered over Nibi's temporary home.

Naruto staggered as his hands let go of the Serpent seal. He'd expended way more chakra than he'd wanted. Apparently it was a good thing that he'd only extracted the consciousness, he had no idea how much energy it would have taken to seal up an uncrippled Nibi. Though, he supposed, he would have been bolstered by its chakra in that event.

The chakra around the puppet coalesced, and the Nibi, in its new form, stood. Surprisingly, though Naruto didn't know what he'd expected, the body the Biju now inhabited was female. She stood a few inches over five feet, striking red hair flowed down her back to her waist, and pert, handful sized breasts were about the only traces of fat he could find on the toned kunoichi body. Her eyes opened, and he was struck by the mismatch; one was jade green and the other a clear crystal blue. Pale skin complimented her vibrant hair and eyes to an impressive degree.

"You look quite beautiful Matatabi-san," he complimented with a nod of his head. "If you wouldn't mind, please use the henge seals I've incorporated into your body's base to form clothes, as I do not want to have to fight off ravening packs of people ensorcelled by your charms."

"I felt that," she commented as she tilted her head quizzically, "Naruto-san." A typical ANBU uniform snapped into place around her. The lack of smoke was interesting.

"I hope it wasn't too unpleasant, but I'm afraid I must set down some ground rules. You must always abide by the spirit of the commands I give you, please do not try to avoid them via semantics. Do not harm anyone from Konoha or those who are unaggressive. The caveat to that rule is that you may harm them if they attempt or intend to harm those close to me, those I ask you to protect, or myself." Naruto ran through all the orders he could think of that would stop a Biju from stabbing him in the back. Multitudes of fail safes later he said, "I was being truthful. You may live your life as you wish, as long as you abide by those rules. Questions?"

"What will you do with my former container?"

"Drop her off in Lightning as I said I would. If she still contains your power, I doubt she'll come out of it too poorly." After he ran through six hand seals and stomped the ground, the sealing array deactivated.

"What if she cannot regenerate it?"

"She seems a capable kunoichi. She'll only suffer if she was too reliant on your power," Matatabi frowned at that, but didn't comment further. "What is it?"

"I fear she won't be as well received as you believe."

"What is your sugge-" Naruto's question was cut off by a tan blur slamming into him.

"Fucking idiot!" Anko chastised as she held onto him.

"Hey Anko-chan, everything went swimmingly," he promised. "Please meet Matatabi-san."

"Hello Anko-san. He mentioned offhandedly that several things did not go according to plan," Nibi informed, completely deadpan.

You bitch! "Everything was within my error allowance, Love," he tried to assure.

Matatabi cut in quickly with a smirk, "That was not my impression."

"Quiet. I don't care," Anko said. Naruto's narrowed eyes widened and the hard line of his lips turned into a smile.

"Anyway, what was your suggestion on what to do with Yugito?"

"Turn her."

"How? She didn't seem the type to roll over."

"I could talk to her," the Biju suggested somewhat lamely.

"If she accepts the same contract seal as you, then very well. Pull the paper tag off her forehead and she'll wake up." Matatabi bowed her head and walked over to the unconscious kunoichi laying at the edge of the clearing.

"Was that a good idea?" Anko wondered.

He shrugged. "I doubt very much she'll be able to turn her, unless they have an extremely close relationship."

"Why do this?"

"So Kurama doesn't make my life more difficult than it already is, Ko-chan." They watched as a dazed Yugito tried to move but was limited to only her head and neck. Their conversation quickly turned as animated as it could with one party unable to use their limbs.

Naruto only half focused on what was going on with the Biju and its former container, the other half of his attention was devoted to the feeling of being in contact with Anko. They cuddled quite often out of sight of others, but there was just something about the warmth, literal and figurative, from someone who cared about you that he couldn't get enough of.

Five minutes later, Matatabi replaced the chakra tag on Yugito's forehead and walked back to Anko and Naruto. "I am afraid I could not convince her," she said as she walked up to the pair.

"Very well. Please guard me, I'm not sure how long this is going to take." Naruto knelt over the unconscious prisoner, with the two women flanking him. He whispered, "Kotoamatsukami," as his Sharingan morphed into the Mangekyo. Immediately, he felt himself pulled down into the mind of Yugito. It was his most powerful genjutsu, even able to alter recent memories, perceptions, and feelings. The only problem was it was so taxing to his eye, that he could only use it every few weeks.

A hand clamping on his shoulder brought him out of the haze inside his target's head. His eye burned as he rubbed them vigorously and powered down his evil eye.

"We have problems," came Anko's voice.

Naruto's bones creaked and popped as he stood, "How long?"

"Couple hours."

"What are we looking at?" he asked while he stretched.

"Naruto-kun," Haku cut in. "Yagura's forces have begun to move, the battle will be joined in six hours, approximately dawn."

He sighed as a clone poofed into existence. It picked up Yugito and sprinted off to the northwest. "We leave in a half hour; Anko, Haku please inform everyone, Tabi-san, you're with me." At least he'd finished changing Yugito's memories before they'd pulled him back.

Slightly over five hours later their powered skiff ran up on the bank. Naruto had thought ahead, and included a chakra powered skiff in his sealed equipment; it'd let them traverse the swamps without everyone having to expend a ton of energy water walking. He moved out of the cross legged position he'd been occupying in the bottom of the skiff to leap ashore. Once everyone was on shore, the clone who'd been powering the motor and driving disappeared in a poof of smoke. A scroll on his harness unrolled to touch the edge of the skiff at the direction of his chakra. It wound back quickly as soon as the vessel was lost in smoke.

"How's everyone doing?" Naruto asked.

"Shouldn't we be asking you that?" Anko wondered worriedly.

"I'm fine." He was, mostly. Between the chakra his seal stole from Kurama, his Uzumaki heritage, and the few chakra seals he had left, he was currently around eighty percent. However, that didn't mean his coils liked him running so much chakra through them—chakra burns were definitely in his near future. "Haku, where are we going?"

"This way," uttered a gruff voice from the edge of the trees.

"Zabuza-sama," Haku muttered.

"We need to hurry," Zabuza growled.

Twenty minutes later, the group stopped on the crest of a hill overlooking a mist filled clearing. The Mizukage stood near the edge with her entourage. He recognized Ao, and there was a younger male wielding an odd looking sword hammer thing.

"Naruto-san, it's good that you've made it here so quickly," Mei greeted. "Yagura's forces should be arriving shortly, do you have anything that can help us?"

"A thing or two," he confirmed. The clone that appeared next to him hopped and ran down to stand on the rebel's side of the clearing. It stood perfectly still as it waited. "I'd suggest you wait for the army to mass and my clone to do its thing before you put any of your men in front of it."

"What about Yagura?"

"I'll need help to tie him and his up while I try to work my magic." He turned to his group, "Anko-chan, Tabi-chan, Yugao-san, you're with me. Hana-san, Shikamaru, you're with the medics."

"They are approaching, Mizukage-sama," Ao informed the group.

"Positions!" she yelled. "Do not move in front of our man on the field until he acts!" Mei ordered.

"Guard me," Naruto said as he sat cross legged on the ground. He channeled chakra into a seal on his chest, and reached out into the air, feeling the energy flowing around him. The only usable thing that had come out of the vault so far had been sealing. However, the breadth of that sealing knowledge was vast. In fact, he'd discovered something he was fairly certain no one left alive knew: the Uzumakis had created seals that could draw in, and alter, Nature chakra.

"They're here," Ao confirmed. Naruto stood, and was aghast at the thousands of ninja streaming into the open area.

"Damn." The rebel forces lined up behind his clone and waited for the milling mass of enemies to form up.

Yagura rose on the pillar of water behind his troops, and his voice rang out over the battlefield, "Surrender now and you shall live."

The rest of his speech was cut off as Naruto's clone screamed. Chakra exploded from his throat, super-compressing the air in front of him and forcing it forward. Naruto watched from the hill as the parabolic line extended, flattening grass. A thoom washed over them as the blast wave broke the sound barrier. His clone popped as the wave scythed the troops down like grain; the memories filtering in were of eyes liquifying and men falling to their knees clutching their bloodied ears. Some simply fell over as their brains rattled too violently in their skulls. Soon, the ones that survived would be coughing blood, or writhing in pain as acids from their ruptured stomachs and intestines began to leak into their insides.

Rebels surged forward as soon as they saw the enemy ninja fall. It was a fairly terrifying technique, one that required an enormous amount of chakra to properly execute. The key was the fact that it targeted things that were extremely hard to reinforce with chakra; waves conducted straight through hardened bone and muscle to disrupt fluid and air filled areas of the body. After passing each line, the wave weakened, but he'd better than leveled the playing field for the rebels.

The Mizukage sprinted off with Ao, Zabuza, and Haku, aiming to circumvent the majority of the battlefield to reach Yagura and his party. Naruto signaled to his team, and they tagged along behind. Suddenly, nearly halfway across the clearing, a streaking blue body impacted between the two groups. A tall, blue-skinned Kiri ninja stood in a small crater between them. An enormous, bandage wrapped sword was in his right hand, and his pointed teeth were exposed in a malicious grin.

"Oh, this is going to be fun," he cackled madly.

A/N: Tune in next chapter for the War in the Mist! Learn some more about Matatabi! Exclamation points!

So much talking in this chapter. I don't even know where to start honestly. I'm not super enthused with how this chapter turned out.

Relationship stuff - Neither of them has really had any experience in a reasonable relationship before. Naruto's are all tempered by the fact that he's a pariah in the village and Anko's by the fact that she finds it hard to trust people (read: one night stands, only same gender friends, and extremely short lived romantic relationships).

I don't like how the lemon turned out, so I'm probably only going to imply them from now on.

Matatabi isn't fully powered, she isn't going to be army killing people.