Suna's assassin flew across the distance between Konoha's delegation and Suna's assembled ninja when Tsunade flicked him in the back. He landed in a heap before the Yondaime Kazekage, the impact of her finger with his ribcage having winded and stunned him.

Itachi wore the same impassive face his companions did, practically vibrating with tension beneath his external calm. This had to work. He had to make this work. War was evil. He couldn't let Sasuke suffer the same horrors he had during the Third War.

He would force Suna to back off even if he had to rip the Kazekage apart with his bare hands.

In a quiet corner of his mind, he smirked slightly at just how right his mother was.

Yuji watched from beneath the cover of a sand-coloured and sand-coated blanket on a dune some distance away as the one Tsunade had launched scrambled to his feet and got behind the important people he had landed in front of.

I have no fucking clue what the hell is going on here.

Does it matter? The Itachi boy calls and we pummel Shukaku.

You mean you pummel Shukaku. I don't think my unfinished Rasengan's going to do much to him, and I can't summon toads anymore. Shuriken and kunai are going to do jack shit.

True; I'll pummel the tanuki bastard. Kurama's grin was so strong that it actually stretched across Yuji's face.

He put his frown back on when he regained control. This sucks.

That's just because you're too wimpy to enjoy ripping the stuffing out of a one-tailed weakling.

Yuji rolled his eyes.

Itachi spotted Gaara. The boy was on the second tier of the stepped wall surrounding Suna, his bare red hair allowing Itachi to locate him amongst his fellow Suna-nin, many of whom wore some variation of a burnoose. The black marks around his eyes had the same sinister look many claimed the Yondaime Kazekage wore when he crushed people to death with his gold clouds.

The boy had only recently been acknowledged as a proper jinchuuriki by Suna's highest circles according to the reports the Sandaime had given the delegation. Three years ago, he had been considered a target by all, an unkillable one. His sand defence was supposed to be very good.

Itachi idly wondered if Shisui would have trouble wiping the floor with this boy, but the Uchiha were careful with Shisui ever since Hatake Kakashi had gained notoriety with his stolen Sharingan, too careful to risk sending him to face the might of Suna with so few companions. Shisui, famed as the strongest of the Uchiha with his powerful eyes, had been a frequent target of Kumo-nin attempting to steal them. Quiet investigation had revealed that some Kumo-nin had not actually been from Kumo, and Shisui had never been allowed to be alone in Konoha since then whenever he had been back from the northeastern border.

Itachi had never desired Mangekyou: he had seen Shisui's grief and rage at losing his older sister to Iwa-nin. The trade was not worth it.

Besides, power was not the only way to beat an opponent.

Tsunade-sama was speaking the words Itachi had known to expect—not the script she had been given, but close enough with enough of her own personality mixed in that the essence was slightly shifted from sneering contempt to righteous fury.

Righteousness would hopefully provoke Suna less than the contempt. Itachi wondered if the speech had been written more to manipulate Tsunade than Suna.

The Kazekage was impassive. That man was of a utilitarian mindset according to what Itachi had read. Suna was being downsized because of pressures from a merchant block in Port Mure, which had redirected the funds towards upgrading the harbour, making Port Mure into the gateway it was today. The Wind Lord, uninterested in distracting his two biggest rival nations from their little war on the east coast while he cornered all trade with the western lands, sent missions to Iwa with the intention of placating the northern rival.

Now Suna was here, trying to provoke a war that its nation didn't want and might not be able to win even with Konoha fighting on two fronts.

What did this all mean?

One thing was certain: the Kazekage was not happy about the two men dressed in silk robes and their lowly entourage of scribes. They had been introduced as observers from the Wind Lord, probably here to report on how Suna handled the precarious situation. As far as Konoha was concerned, these men were allies in the cause to avert war, if a little too concerned with how their country looked backing down while doing it.

Tsunade was calling upon her reputation as one of the Sannin now, and the Kazekage did not appear nearly as impressed and cowed as Itachi had hoped.

Was it because Tsunade's fame had been gained mainly at Suna's detriment? Or because of her prolonged fall from grace? No, this was different. Familiarity bred contempt. Orochimaru. There had been hints in the briefing that someone shameful and important was involved with Suna. Itachi had suspected Danzou, but Orochimaru was an equally bad option.

Itachi longed for the day when he would have unlimited access to Intelligence's archives so he could finally understand all this scheming and backstabbing.

Oh shit. Yuji winced as arms started waving and fingers started pointing. Whatever was going on between Konoha and Suna, it was getting ugly. He kept an eye on Itachi, waiting for some sign. Can you tell which one is Shukaku's host? He's supposed to be a redhead. All I can see are blob figures.

Unless you hand over your body, you are stuck with the eyes genetics dealt you.

And let you ruin my jaw again? Heck no. Keep your godly eyes.

Wimp. What's a little muscle ache? Opening your mouth that wide is required to devour the chakra for final compression and adding an elemental nature to the ball.

I like my mouth the way it is, thanks.

Stick with your poor imitation then.

Imitation?

Rasengan. Your father copied our technique to create that jutsu, only he adapted it to compensate for how you humans are incapable of working with positive and negative chakra.

Huh. Yuji's interest in this revelation dissolved as Itachi stepped forward in sync with an older Konoha jounin and made calming hand motions even as his posture screamed aggression. He had never seen the Uchiha like this before, so emotional. Something very important must have been going down; no wonder he had called in his first favour.

"You send even one platoon across River towards our border, and we won't restrain ourselves like we are with Kumo."

The Kazekage eyed Tsunade-sama, just as expressionless as he had been when she had brought up the treaty the Sandaime Kazekage had signed before questioning whether Suna had so little respect for their former leader that they ignore its terms. "Why should I abide by this when one of my men made it through your entire village's defences to strike down your Hokage?"

Behind him, his councillors made a lot of noises of agreement. They were a demonstrative bunch, quick to shout accusations and slander or denials as the real conversation between the Kazekage and the Hokage-elect went on. It was probably a tactic to make the Kazekage look more regal in comparison in the eyes of his troops.

"Because you've revealed your intentions. No power you hold can stand against Konoha's combined might. After all, you hold the weakest of the bijuu."

The Kazekage kept his face blank, but his lack of response indicated that Suna had heard of Kyuubi and Nibi's fight. "And yet," he said after a long pause, "where is your jinchuuriki? He did not return to Konoha with Jiraiya."

Agents had identified Yuji then, possibly even the face beneath Yuji's henge if they had been watching the hotel room after the fight with Yugito.

"Right where he needs to be," Tsunade-sama said.

Here.

Itachi was certain the Kazekage and his councillors understood that. He couldn't sense the boy, but surely a sensor-type Suna-nin had reported to the Kazekage about a chakra presence not with the Konoha delegation but nearby.

"If Suna is so pressed for contracts that they would attempt the assassination of a rival village leader as advertising, obviously Suna has need of a marketing specialist. If you are selling your services, it helps to be more accessible. You abandoned your offices in Port Mure, which is where anyone who wanted to hire you went to request a mission, in protest when the block of merchants first moved against you. And you wonder why your contracts suddenly decreased." Tsunade-sama's bark of laughter was loud enough for the listening Suna ninja to hear. "You let your Wind Lord order your missions handed over to Iwa, and now you defy him. I am surprised he has not already ordered for you to disband and leave his territory."

"The Wind Lord is aware that matters of war are the Kazekage's jurisdiction."

The Wind Lord's representative did not seem pleased with that statement.

Tsunade-sama kept going. "Not when the merchants of Port Mure know what will happen with a war. We heard their complaints to the Wind Lord all the way in Konoha. They have him convinced that Wind will starve."

And they were right, Itachi knew. Wind did not produce enough food to feed its population. The nomad clans wandering the desert and the northern steppes would be fine, but Wind's two biggest cities, Port Mure and Silicon City, would starve when Konoha enforced a blockade on Tea, River, and Fire's exports. And the Wind Lord could not allow that, not when they were his primary sources of income.

"No, you can't afford to get into a war. You won't win, and you won't gain back the funding and prestige you've been steadily losing. You had your moment of glory. Abide by the treaty, accept this meeting as Konoha's revenge, and figure out how to get and keep your missions. You know Orochimaru is a snake. His promised help will only last until he has what he wants. And you should know how he treats his allies until he's milked them dry. And where will that leave Suna? At odds with your host nation. Hated by the people most equipped to hire you because you've ruined their profits. No, this war is the last thing you want."

"Since you rejected the Chuunin Exam, acts like these are the only way to show off our skills." The Kazekage smiled thinly. "It is a strange world we live in, where ninja, who are by nature supposed to hide their skills to keep the advantage, can only gain attention and missions by showing off like a common street performer."

Tsunade spoke loudly so the ninja listening on the wall could pick out her words. "Host your own tourney in Port Mure. River and the other smaller villages would probably join in if you proved it a success." This was Konoha's peace offering for this embarrassing conversation: a path towards the future. Perhaps Suna had already thought of this, but why they hadn't gone through with it was obvious: the Kazekage saw Suna as a military organization, not a service for sale. He was a general, not a salesman.

This was the path modern ninja had to take though. The countries were established and didn't want war for the most part.

Would the Kazekage let the blow to his pride go? Would he choose the best path for his village over the face he would lose by backing down? It was this risk that had made Itachi nervous about holding this exchange in front of Suna. This should have happened behind closed doors.

The Kazekage smirked. "So Konoha offers an alternate path to keep us from war. How very generous of you." The way he said it made it obvious that he saw this as a frantic offering to stave Suna's wrath off. He also spoke loudly.

Itachi breathed easier and watched Tsunade-sama out of the corner of his eye. Everything hinged on how she reacted to this.

She smirked back at the Kazekage. "We are generous by nature." She made to go on, and Itachi had a flash of premonition. No, he couldn't let her speak more. She would snark or go on about why Konoha could afford to be generous, and that would ruin the delicate balance her mostly inoffensive comment had achieved.

"Then we are finished?" he asked quietly, making Tsunade turn slightly to fix him with a look. "Tsunade-sama, if we are to make it back to River on schedule…"

Again, the Kazekage's eyes flicked to the Shodaime's necklace resting on top of Itachi's flak vest. "A tight schedule?"

"We have a war to end on our northeastern border and the traitor Orochimaru to hunt down, Kazekage-sama. The sooner we get to it, the better."

Yuji watched in confusion as after a great deal of stiff handshaking and bowing, the Konoha ninja headed back east. What the hell? Did they manage to settle things without fighting?

Dammit.

Yuji was just filled with relief. He burrowed out from under his blanket, shook it off, stuffed it in his sac, and ran off southwest, thinking of ways to get the two tails he had acquired off his back. He had a monastery to get to, and he didn't want any Suna or Konoha spies to know where he planned to stay and study. If I can't shake these guys, I'll let you scare them off.

Let them come then. Head a bit more south; reaching the mountains sooner will give you more places to break their line of sight and more places for me to ambush them.

One favour down.

Itachi sat before the Hokage, cross-legged on the tatami mats, and waited for the old man to finish mulling over his report.

"That was a bold claim at the end. The watchers from Kumo and Iwa will note that. If we do not deliver, our bluff will be moot. As it is, Kumo has marched more platoons through Hot Spring in the last week than in the last two years." The Sandaime did not look pleased, but there was resignation as well.

"For the bluff to hold, we had to commit to ending the war anyway. Stating it openly does not change that; it simply reinforces our commitment. Also, troops were marching in greater numbers the moment word that Suna embarrassed us got out."

Sarutobi-sama puffed on his pipe, wanly amused. "Border gossip always spreads so fast. There is nothing for Kumo to attack on the front anymore. We have been fighting there too long. Skirmishes with our forces are the best damage to Fire they can do as we keep them from lands behind our lines. A strip of broken stumps, traps, and ruined roads, bridges, and buildings, that is what we have been fighting back and forth over for ten years now. It is a fight for the sake of fighting, a pissing match we have to keep up with in order to keep Kumo from pressing any further. Now that press is here. I've doubled our forces, which will unfortunately only trigger further escalation."

"What do the advisors say?"

"Nothing good. Kumo has two jinchuuriki: Nibi and Hachibi. Both of the current jinchuuriki have good control over their beasts, though Hachibi's container, B, hasn't been seen outside of Kumo since the Yondaime Raikage took over. As you witnessed, they allow Nii Yugito more freedom of movement, placed as she was to take out the Daimyo or unleash Nibi on Konoha. We can't use Kyuubi as an effective threat the way we did with Suna."

"What about Hot Spring Country? What do they think of all this?"

"Their village isn't large enough to challenge either side, and they aren't interested in assisting a side. In return for letting Kumo forces pass through their land and make war on their border with us, they are left alone."

"And Konoha hasn't taken offence at this?"

"Hot Spring has essentially been a satellite state of Lightning Country for almost twelve years now. Kumo even takes a cut of their village's mission revenues in return for not recruiting them into their battle with us. The chances of turning them to our side are minimal."

Itachi mulled over that. Most jounin had figured that some sort of deal was in place with Hot Spring, but the particulars hadn't been bandied about by those who knew. "And ANBU? What do the specialists have to say?"

"They're still in discussions. They have been called up many times before and did not manage to offer a clear solution, but the situation has shifted slightly. Maybe they will find some opening to exploit that wasn't there before."

Yuji studied Wind Temple. It was an imposing building with many pillars. The strangest thing about it was its location though: it sat in the middle of an narrow, abnormally straight valley that ran exactly east to west. The wind howled through it, and a stream meandered along the valley floor. Still don't think it's creepy?

It's not creepy. I created this valley about six hundred years ago with a bijuudama aimed at Matatabi. He had forgotten how to pay me proper respect.

That's why it's creepy. What about the monastery? Something's off about it.

It is a holy place. They are always off. The real monasteries never interested me.

Because they were good places.

Kurama didn't reply.

I don't know if I should wear a henge or not. Monks and priests work with chakra too, so they'll be able to tell I'm using a jutsu.

What deities these holy men worship will decide me. Go in and see what shrines they have. Keep your hood up.

Okay. Yuji bounded down the cliff face and across the plain to the temple's door, which faced due east. High above the door was a large round hole, which Yuji had difficulty dubbing a window because it wasn't filled with glass. He studied the imposing iron-banded hardwood doors, which swung outwards to open. Defensible.

Then I guess they aren't as foolish as they could be.

Yuji knocked, but after three minutes without an answer, he grabbed the ring of one of the door's leaves and heaved it open a crack to peer inside. More pillars lined a huge chamber with a large golden mirror hung on the far wall.

Amaterasu-sama. This is a Shinto shrine.

Even I know that. "Hello?" He stepped into the room, noting the ablution basins between the first two pillars in each of the two rows framing the walkway to the mirror's position. After performing the cleansing ritual at the left basin, Yuji walked cautiously towards the mirror. A mural was painted on the chamber's south wall: a man stood with a sword in hand by the waves and a stormy sky. Susanoo. The north wall had a man silhouetted against the moon depicted. Horses ran on both walls towards the mirror. Near the west wall, the wall with the idol, the horses on each side leaped over doorways. They were empty and dark from this angle, so Yuji continued forward.

Lamps hung on the pillars, illuminating the room, since this close to noon, no light came in the circular window in the east wall above the door.

Another step. Another.

STOP!

Yuji froze. What?

A seal, hidden in the paintings and among the floor tile patterns. Look around, carefully. See that swirl hidden in the horse's tail? And the line joining the hooves? This entire room is a net. The focus is two steps ahead, the space framed by the second and third pillar pairs.

What's it a net for though?

Bijuu.

"So you spotted it."

Yuji almost jumped a foot in the air as he whipped out a kunai and dropped into a crouch reflexively. He had trusted Dad and Seiichi-nii, so he had often failed to react to their presence, but this voice was strange. Chakra suddenly appeared all around him, twelve bonfires in all, one from behind each pillar. Two slowly moved to stand between him and the door. He could fit through the circular window, so he didn't think he was trapped, but he definitely felt threatened. Still, he wanted to study. He would wait to see what these holy men had in mind. "I spotted what?"

A monk near the front of the room stepped forward. It was the one that had spoken before. "The binding seal. Long ago, there was a wandering priest who carried in him a power. He had obtained and chained it wrongly and with it avoided punishment for straying from the path. He came here, unwitting, and the monks then ensnared him. They removed the power from him and released it back into the world."

A jinchuuriki. A priest had been a jinchuuriki. "And the priest, what happened to him?"

"He passed away. Many thought it was his angry ghost that became the power, but it was older than that."

Yuji grimaced. "But did they intend for him to die? Could they have extracted the power safely?"

"A man of his crimes should not have been allowed that mercy. He broke one of the prime rules: cause no death or harm. He was a bloodthirsty man. Are you deserving of death, traveller?"

Yuji narrowed his eyes. "No. What would make you ask that?"

"You hold a similar power in you."

"Why do you think that?"

The monk walked closer, a bald man in robes the same colour as the pillars. "The chakra of a god is distinct and we are trained to detect it within the temple."

"So, what are you going to do about that?"

"You are trapping a god. I imagine you are a ninja—"

"I'm not. I will be a captain on a sailing ship."

The monk blinked and narrowed his eyes. "Not a ninja. Did you run from your village, jinchuuriki?"

Yuji raised his chin. "I've never been in a hidden village, or at least I haven't since I was a baby."

"Why are you here, jinchuuriki?"

"Kurama and I have agreed that we need to search for a way to get him out of me without harming either of us. I've come to learn about seals."

"You wish to release the bijuu?"

Yuji nodded. "My parents put him in me when I was a baby, so I could hardly say no. And Kurama, well, they didn't give the poor guy a choice."

"Kurama-sama… The Kyuubi. You bear Kyuubi-sama?" The monk looked pained even as his brothers traded glances.

Yuji nodded.

"The Purifying Flame," whispered one of the monks between Yuji and the door before dropping to his knees and pressing his forehead to the floor.

Dude, I thought Itachi was bad.

Hmph.

Brother Hikmat knocked on Yuji's cell door. "Naruto-kun, how goes that chain seal?"

Yuji had ended up having to give the monks that name when they had persisted in asking him for the name he had been born with, refusing to call him Yuji. He had also been asked—very politely but firmly—not to wear a henge. Deception of any kind was not allowed in the temple. These monks were devoted to preserving the truth of the world.

They had agreed to let him stay, but he had refused to be classified as a novice. He liked eating meat, even if he did have to run off and hunt it himself and cook it over a campfire to be polite to all the monks who couldn't eat animal flesh. So, instead he was kind of like a live-in historian/storyteller—that had been the monks' compromise. They wanted to be able to ask Kurama questions about history. Yuji had demanded that they not kowtow to him because that had gotten irritating after the first twenty minutes and had promised that Kurama-sama was of the same mind regarding their courtesy.

Kurama was actually kind of flattered to be the centre of the monks' attention. Every night after the evening meal, the monastery, nuns and monks alike, would gather in the shrine chamber with the mirror and meditate together. Brother Hikmat, who was one of the higher ranked monks, had taught Yuji how to work with the group meditation and bring Kurama with him to some other plane where all the monks and nuns would sit and listen as the abbot asked Kyuubi for stories about things that had happened ages ago.

Yuji was exhausted after these sessions. It seemed that his will was necessary to maintain the gathering on the plane so Kurama could speak to the monks and nuns. Yuji was also getting a very thorough crash course in ancient history he had never heard about before.

There were an awful fucking lot of wars.

Nations Yuji had never heard of rose and fell in rapid succession in Kurama's tales, though the fox didn't actually know a lot of the names and dates involved. Cultures were destroyed, technology advanced and was lost, and humanity's numbers shrank over the generations after an initial boom post-Juubi. The abbot would provide the context for Kyuubi's recollections.

But they, particularly Brother Hikmat, were teaching him and Kurama sealing while working on researching a safe way to separate Kurama from Yuji. The monks had been skeptical that Kurama was willing to wait if it meant Yuji would live, but Kurama had gracelessly grumbled that he would be patient so long as they were quick about figuring this out during the first meeting Yuji had hosted on the astral plane thing.

It had been the fox's equivalent to saying that Yuji was his best bro, apparently.

Yuji looked down at his sand tray, narrowing his eyes at lines that were too wide or not quite curved correctly. "Okay, I guess."

Brother Hikmat approached after Yuji nodded permission and inspected his work. "It will function, if not very efficiently. You see, the channels here, here, and here are misshapen. The chakra will have an added range factor that you negate at the very end with this condition mark here."

Yuji nodded slowly and pulled another sand tray over to sketch out a revised version. "Is that better?"

"I'd use this linker symbol instead, here." Hikmat smoothed out one squiggle and replaced it with something more angular. "See, when combining the result of this section with the main design, there's no need to add a linker that strong when the actual amount of chakra moving through is less than… hmm, I think ninja would say three rat seals."

Yuji stared blankly at the monk, who sighed.

"We are starting in the middle, I see. Each hand seal the ninja use is the equivalent of a seal pattern and a certain amount of chakra. Here"—with Yuji's nod, he wiped the sand tray and drew a design Yuji understood about sixty percent of—"is the rat seal with the intent for a basic genjutsu technique. Handseals combined with mental intent are just a shorthand equivalent." Hikmat went on for a time, explaining that each handseal performed a particular twisting of a certain amount of chakra and sometimes added a certain elemental nature, like how the snake seal was usually used in all of Seiichi's jutsu, since it was for earth nature, which was half of wood nature. The monks seemed to understand chakra in a much more scientific way than his dad and brother did.

By the end, Yuji managed to get his chain seal to capture a kunai he tossed through its trigger area, freezing it midair as misty yellow chakra chains sprouting from the sand tray coiled around it. Hikmat squeezed his shoulder in quiet congratulations and motioned that they take a break. As they walked through the narrow corridor that connected all the monks' cells on the south side of the monastery, Hikmat cleared his throat.

"You mentioned that you wished to return to Port Mure every few weeks, that you had a project there you had to oversee."

Yuji nodded.

"We have a supply caravan leaving this afternoon. Do you wish to join them? They will be gathering things we cannot get from the local farms."

"I'm going with them."

"They will not be able to travel as quickly as you, but they will offer what protection they can. You will go in disguise?"

"Yeah. Konoha's definitely looking for me, and Suna tried to tail me a while ago. I'm sure all of the villages would love to get a bead on me."

"We cannot let that happen, Naruto-kun. Kyuubi-sama has been imprisoned for far too long already. That you are willing to free him… No ninja would allow that."

And you'd free him with my death if Kurama hadn't said no.

Be grateful I said no.

Don't worry, I am, bro. These guys are crazy though. I can't believe they're keeping records of all this old tech in their catacombs and getting away with it. No wonder they're isolationist: they know how to make those guided bomb things.

The people of the time called them heat-seeking missiles.

"Naruto-kun, you said that your godfather, Jiraiya-sama, had a key?" said Hikmat.

"Yeah, though he never showed it to me. Do you think you'll need it?"

"We can only probe the seal. It is a twist on an Uzumaki Clan seal, which is a bastardization of a very old set of seals used by the monks of the monastery in the Silver Range, which stretches between Iron and Earth: an Uzumaki scion was raised there for his protection during one of the many clan wars and revolutionized his whole clan's sealing style with their teachings. The Uzumaki overrode many of the protections and failsafes in the seal to increase its power, but this version… we think some of them might have been added back in, just in a strange form. Your father… we're assuming you are the son of the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato, with your appearance."

"Yeah, so I've been told."

"He had some strange teachers apparently. The key would probably help us bypass the cage function. The problem is this: a jinchuuriki, when invested with a god, is changed. They gain a life force beyond what they are physically capable of holding, so the power of the god preserves them by altering them. If we remove Kurama-sama from you, you will be left empty, so empty that your self essentially collapses. Your Uzumaki blood gives you a much stronger 'soul' and chakra profile than most people, so you would be able to hold on for a while. You were also apparently carried in the womb alongside the Kyuubi, so your resistance is increased even more. I would give you forty-eight hours if we pulled Kurama-sama from you the same way we pulled Shukaku from the priest.

"The more you allow Kurama's chakra into your body, your soul's house, the more dependent upon its presence you will become, reducing the time we can expect you to live without it.

"Jinchuuriki inevitably die. They are descending back to mortality. Like the man who went to the dragon's palace in the sea, time caught up with him once he returned to the mortal lands."

Yuji shivered. That's a pretty nasty thing, Kurama.

Not intentional. I'm not meant to have flesh like yours.

"Okay. And you think the key will help you get a better handle on what the Yondaime did."

Hikmat nodded. "Possibly. At the very least, it will allow you to release the seal on Kyuubi-sama, which traps him in your soul. It will give him increased mobility."

"But it'll mean that my body will be tied even tighter to him." Yuji kept his mind as blank as his face, not letting Hikmat or Kurama detect his thoughts.

"Yes."

"Hmm. Okay, well, I'll see what I can do."

When Yuji got back to Port Mure, the whores had all sorts of interesting news for him but nothing on his mother. They were all in a tizzy over how Suna was setting up a tournament-style exam that anyone could go watch at the big arena usually used to host baseball matches. Ninja from all of the smaller nations were going to be participating, but Isla was particularly excited by how Konoha and Kumo were each sending a team.

"They've stopped fighting up north, so the sailors say. Everyone's sure the genin teams are going to rip each other apart though."

Ninja, Yuji and Kurama thought at the same time. Only Yuji got to shake his head in disgust.

Itachi pressed his face into his palms and breathed a sigh of relief after Sasuke left the living room to pout in the bath.

They weren't going to send Sasuke. The possibility had haunted him ever since he had been sent with the delegation in charge of talking Kumo's brass into agreeing to the chuunin exam idea.

Fortunately, the Hyuuga were not going to allow Konoha to send the girl Kumo's top jounin had "maimed" into this proxy war. Their debate over setting her aside as heir was already making them unpopular. To allow the poster child of how Konoha was in the right in battling Kumo more exposure would be to risk ruining Hyuuga Hiashi's reputation permanently. Sasuke had told him that allowing Tsunade-sama to "miraculously cure" Hinata's eyes had been bandied about, only to be rejected with the ceasefire so new, since it would raise questions in some quarters about Hinata's former "ruined eyes".

Itachi had never been so grateful to have Hinata on Sasuke's team before.