Disclaimer: Still not mine. . . daggumit.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Discussions

The next morning as his friends went about the business of getting ready for the party the next day, Naruto continued with his practice. He thought about what Iruka claimed to have overheard and the significance of the remarks wasn't missed by him. His opponent was trying to get and easy victory by having his own people eliminate him before the battle could happen but that was against the rules. Neither of them were allowed to directly interfere with the other during this period of training and selecting. He decided to mention it to one of the Elementals. Maybe he was misreading the situation and Danzo was just taking too much on himself. It never entered his mind that it could be someone other than Danzo behind the scheme.

"No," said Kaze when he questioned him about it. "It sounds like he has been in touch with this man or with someone here. You didn't tell anyone outside your chosen about the battle or any of the particulars."

"And you instructed all of them to be silent about everything. I can not see any you would select this early as being unworthy of that trust," added Etai-sei. "Therefore the only way he would know anything about it is if he had contact with someone from the other side."

"What exactly did this chosen say?" rumbled Chi.

"He was drifting on pain meds but he said he heard them talking when they didn't think he could. He heard them say something about killing me for the Master and killing my holders. He said they said something about the Master wanting to avoid the fight," answered Naruto.

"It is possible they were just guessing and trying to plant information to get a reaction from you. See if you'd scurry around to protect your chosen. They are your weaknesses right now. Maybe it would be better to grab them up and keep them safe until the battle arrives?" suggested Mizu.

"I can only do that to a certain extent. Tsunade Baa-chan has to be at the Tower and the Hospital for at least part of every day. If she doesn't put in an appearance at the Tower the council tries to usurp her position and strip away some of her authority for themselves. If she doesn't show at the hospital people could die. She is not just my Trust. She is the Trust of the village also."

"The same is true with Iruka, though he will stay here until he is healed at least. The children of the village depend on him being at the head of their classroom. He would not like being told he has to turn his back on them. He is after all, Courage don't forget."

"True," rumbled Chi. "It took courage to get out here without being trailed to warn us of this move in the shape he was in. He is well chosen. And this is not the first time the other side has tried this type of move. You would think he would know it will not work though."

"Thank you. And don't forget I sent Sasuke back to the village with the chore of keeping his fellows safe when they must be there. After the dinner tomorrow I will expand this place and let as many of them stay here as wish to but I don't expect everyone to want to. Most will, I expect, wish to go back to their own homes to be with their families."

"So then you have found everyone then?" asked Erekiteru.

"I believe so but I will know for sure when I see them all here tomorrow night. To know for certain I have to actually see them. There is one I could swear I have never seen before in my life but Jiraiya-ero-sennin swears she is the right person."

"Well, then I think you need to get back to work then," said Chi. "Your clones are just standing around."

"You said he tried this before? What happened that time?"

"He captured several of the chosen and tortured them. He didn't succeed in preventing the battle. It still came down to his sword against the sword of Kami's Warrior. But it did make the battle much harder for her Warrior that time. He had all those titles to carry into the battle with him. Luckily he didn't succeed in finding and killing all the title holders or it would have gone much worse for us," said Erekiteru.

"Then I think I will recommend my chosen stay close after the announcement tomorrow night. I doubt it will make much difference to them but maybe the non-warriors will stay here where they are protected."

"You have some of them?" asked Mizu.

"Yeah three that I know of. I mean it's possible Sasuke can protect them in the village but it's hard for one person to protect three at the same time when they aren't in the same location."

Naruto looked up and saw several of the clone group leaders looking at him. In each case they were missing a partner so he created a new batch of clones and dispersed them throughout the gathering. Then he created a hundred more and set t work on his sword and shield skills. These would be his main form of attack and defense and he needed to be flawless at them.

Tsunade and the women went back to town and went about their daily tasks without a problem. All of them were aware that they too could find themselves being yanked off the street and subjected to questioning they didn't want to answer but they kept their guard up and acted as if they had nothing to worry about.

Hinata and Temari went to the people they were planning to have do the catering for the event and made arrangements to pick up and deliver them to the place the next morning. Hinata was having Moegi's kimono altered for her on the Hyuuga Estate, along with Hanabi's, so that she would have it for the dinner party tomorrow night. Hanabi was going to bring Moegi to their place to dress so that they didn't have to spread the word any earlier than necessary. They told the Chouji's family to keep the engagement quiet. No one was to know about it until after it was over. Then they went to locate the rest of the gang. They found everyone at the park reminiscing about the good old days when they were fresh faced genins who thought they wanted to set the world on fire. They joined in and sat until the sun was going down, laughing and talking.

Kakashi was finished with the wall. He was pretty proud of himself over the way he had conned Anko into helping him do it so that the job moved faster than ever. The two of them had done it as a contest. If he sanded more logs on a given day than she did they had to eat where he wanted and she paid but if she sanded more than he did he had to eat where she wanted and he paid. His wallet had held onto more money. She just didn't have as much chakra to call on as he did so he was usually able to get more done than she was. Unless he used too much and had to replace a log. If that happened it cost him five logs. One for the one he had blown up. One for the tree he had to fell to replace it. Another for having blown up a log in the first place. And the other two were the ones Anko was able to get done while he was replacing the log he'd trashed.

But now he was onto the graveyard and the engraved headstones. Anko was sitting watching while he traced out the faded letters to try and decipher at home this evening and he knew she'd help him figure them out so he was tracing as many of them as he could in the oldest corner of the place. Out of all the stones here, he knew these would be the ones no one actually visited anymore as no one alive even remembered these people had ever existed. Therefore it didn't really matter all that much if he got the names right or wrong. No one would actually know but still he wanted to get them right. It was disrespectful to rename a person after they died.

Sakura was visiting Mrs. Tsu again and this time she wasn't gardening. She was just sitting listening and looking at a photo book as Mrs. Tsu reminisced about her golden years. She turned a page and there staring up at her was the image of a young man with red eyes with black tomoes swimming around the black iris. He would have been quite handsome indeed if it hadn't been for the sneer on his finely chisled lips and the cruel glint in his red eyes. He wore a golden cloak of fine silk and sat next to a pretty girl with big green eyes and cherry red lips. Her black hair was pulled to one side and held in place with a sprig of Sakura blossoms. Both looked happy as they gazed at each other but the young man sent chills down her arms. Maybe because she did see the cruelty in his eyes as he looked at the cameraman.

"This is the young man you told me about, isn't he? The young man who killed his beautiful wife? You didn't mention that he was an Uchiha," Sakura said in a faint tone. "It seems they were always arrogant and a touch on the cruel side."

Mrs. Tsu looked at the picture and reached with one gnarled, bent old finger to lightly trace the young girl's image ignoring the handsome man at her side. "Yes, he is but he wasn't an Uchiha. At least we didn't know him as one. His name was Madar."

"But he has the Uchiha eyes."

"At the time we didn't know anything about the Uchiha clan. We just thought he'd been born with a strange anomaly. We weren't ninja and had no contact with any so we had no way of knowing those eyes were a weapon. Maybe it explains what happened with him. But even so I can not forgive and forget what he did to her."

"This is the girl he killed for his passions. But she did not die in vain. Her death has helped me to live a better life and allowed me to help so many others to not make her mistake. So it was meant to be but never does a day go by that I wish it was not."

"Who was she to you? I can tell by the way you spoke of her that first time that she was important to you and now by the way you're looking at her I can see it."

"She was my sister. My father's oldest daughter by a young noble woman. Maeri was born before I was by three years. There was some scandal concerning her but my Father, who was unmarried, at that time offered to marry her mother before Maeri was born. She wouldn't hear of it. She was from a wealthy family and my Father was a poor shopkeeper's son. He would inherit his father's shop but that was not good enough for her. She didn't want to give up her lifestyle to becomes a shopkeepers wife. But I can not complain because that left my father free to marry my mother instead. But the selfishness of Maeri's Mother is why my sister's only two options were reputable marriage or the temple. Father would have taken her into our home but her family would have had a fit over it and it would have caused no end of trouble so Maeri tried to make the best of it. Father helped her whenever he could and even my mother lent her aid when she could do so."

"She was like Naruto in a way. Huh? Blamed and despised for something she had absolutely no control over and given little choice over what to do with her life."

"In a way, yes. You could say that but like Naruto never thought of not becoming a ninja, my sister never thought of disappointing her mother and her family. She didn't have things as rough as Naruto did. No one tried to kill her just because she was born. No, her trails were because of who her Mother was. The type of person she was, made Maeri's life harder than it had to be. Her mother had lost a lot of station when Maeri was born. It would have been bad enough if Maeri had been a boy but she wasn't. And Maeri's mother loved her station above all else. She wanted her daughter to grow up and outshine her so that she would attract the highest eye in the land. Maeri did. That young man was the oldest son of our local Daimyo and there was no single young man of higher rank anywhere than he. Her mother was ecstatic and would hear no word against the union. She was determined to improve her own station by the marriage and truly my sister did wish the marriage to take place. Like me, she had no idea what kind of a man he was."

"Your sister sounds like she was a fine young lady but I still don't understand why he did that to her. What possible reason could he have had to hurt her like that?"

"No one knows. That's why she was given the choice when his father saw what he'd done. My sister protected me by having that child. If she had chosen her early death than I was to be given to the young man for the purposes of producing an heir. I would have had guards in the room to keep him from killing me or hurting me bad enough to lead to my death but it would have been me next. Maeri knew it and said she would live to have the child. She forced an agreement from the head of the household that whether the child was male or female would not matter. If it was born healthy and alive then I would be free of all obligations to that family. He agreed. I think he agreed because he had failed to recognize her danger and protect her until it was too late. He had his son restricted from going anywhere near her until the child was born or near me and my family either. And of course when my niece was born both alive and healthy he was beheaded."

"What happened to her Mother? She wanted that union so desperately to improve her station. Did she get what she wanted?"

"No. Since her daughter was so poorly treated and died in the childbed just eight months after the union took place she got nothing. One of the restrictions my sister had insisted on was that her Mother be kept from the child lest she treat the child as a stepping stone as she had herself. After the disaster the union had shown itself to be, my sister's Mother was cast off by her family and she was sent to the temple to stay for the rest of her days. I don't even know if they told her the child survived. Maeri's daughter was raised by her grandfather and kept away from her mother's family at Maeri's request. Maeri believed the whole family would do their best to use her daughter for their own gain and since she'd only had the child to give the Daimyo an heir and free me she saw no reason to saddle her daughter with her Mother's family's social climbing ways."

"So Tora the cat's owner is your niece?"

"Oh no Dear. I am not from this land. I moved here with my husband when we married. He was from this land but I was from a land near the sea that was destroyed long ago. My people are scattered now and I know not where they all are. My niece among them. I raised Mr. Tsu four fine sons and two fine daughters right here in Konoha and wouldn't trade my decisions for anything."

"Oh shew...For a minute there I was a little worried. That cat is the terror of the genins from the first time they are assigned the retrieval of it."

"Oh yes, I know but it is good exercise for the young ones. It teaches them to think things through and move slowly when all they want to do is rush in and bulldoze their way through things."

The two of them continued looking at Mrs. Tsu's photos and drinking lemonade until it was time for Sakura to go home for the evening.